He tended the strip of garden with scrupulous care, and it made a bright spot of colour against the brown cliff-side.

A rough path, steep and winding, led up from the beach below, and about half-way up a small gate, jealously padlocked in the owner's absence, guarded Rufus's privacy.

He never invited any one within that gate.

Occasionally his father would saunter up with his evening pipe and sit in the little porch of his old home looking through the purple clematis flowers out to sea while he exchanged a few commonplace remarks with his son, who never broke his own silence unless he had something to say.

But no other visitor ever intruded there.
Rufus had acquired the reputation of a hermit, and it kept all the rest at bay.