A warm early April morning. The smell of fresh fish was delicious. Many of them had been landed down at the little wharf that dawn. There were eels and oysters from the estuary; hake, cod and other white fish from the sea; there were goldfish also, as they called the yellow gurnard then. Most of the women in the small borough went to the fish market: the merchants' wives in their big-sleeved gowns with wimples covering their heads, the poorer sorts and the servants, some in back-laced bodices, all with aprons and little hoods on their heads to make them look respectable.

The bailiff had just rung a bell to close the market as, from the direction of the wharf, two figures appeared.

Even a glance, as the lean figure made his way up the street that warm April morning, and you felt you knew him. It was just the way he walked. It was so obvious he didn't give a damn what anyone thought. The loose linen leggings he favoured flapped cheerfully on his calves, leaving his bare ankles exposed. On his feet he wore only sandals secured with leather thongs. His jerkin was made of ray - striped cloth - blue and yellow, none too clean. On his head was a leather cap he had stitched together himself.

Young Jonathan Totton could not remember ever seeing Alan Seagull without this item of headgear.

If Alan Seagull's cheerful face took a short cut from his mouth to his chest, if his sparse black beard went from his mouth down to his Adam's apple pretty much without pausing for such an ornament as a chin, you could be sure it was because he and his forebears had reckoned they could do perfectly well without one. And there was something about his cheerful, canny grin that told you they were right. 'We've cut a corner, there,' the Seagull smile seemed to say about their chin, 'and we could probably cut a few more too, that you don't need to know about.'

He smelled of tar and of fish, and of the salty sea. As he often did, he was humming a tune. Young Jonathan Totton was enchanted by him and, walking proudly beside the mariner, he had just reached the point on the sloping street where the squat little town hall stood when a voice, calm but authoritative, summoned him: 'Jonathan. Come here.'

Regretfully, he left Seagull's side and went over to the tall-gabled timbered house outside which his father was standing.

A moment later, with the older man's hand resting on his shoulder, he found himself inside and listening to his father's quiet voice. 'I should prefer, Jonathan, that you should not spend so much time with that man.'

'Why, Father?'

'Because there is better company to keep in Lymington.'

Now that, Jonathan thought, was going to be a problem.