'Oh, I love it!' she said rapturously. 'I can't be quite happy
without wind, can _you_? I like to run up the hills in the wind and
sing to it. That's when I am happiest. I couldn't live long without
the wind.'

Now it had been a deep-rooted conviction of mine that none but the
gulls and I really and truly liked the wind. 'Fishermen are muffs,' I
used to say; 'they talk about the wind as though it were an enemy,
just because it drowns one or two of 'em now and then. Anybody can
like sunshine; muffs can like sunshine; it takes a gull or a man to
like the wind!'

Such had been my egotism. But here was a girl who liked it! We
reached the gate of the garden in front of Tom's cottage, and then
we both stopped, looking over the neatly-kept flower-garden and the
white thatched cottage behind it, up the walls of which the
grape-vine leaves were absorbing the brilliance of the sunlight and
softening it. Wynne was a gardener as well as an organist, and had
gardens both in the front and at the back of his cottage, which was
surrounded by fruit-trees. Drunkard as he was, his two passions,
music and gardening, saved him from absolute degradation and ruin.
His garden was beautifully kept, and I have seen him deftly pruning
his vines when in such a state of drink that it was wonderful how he
managed to hold a priming-knife. Winifred opened the gate, and we
passed in. Wynne's little terrier, Snap, came barking to meet us.

There was an air of delicious peacefulness about the garden. This
also tended to soften that hardness of temper which only cripples who
have once rejoiced in their strength can possibly know, I hope.