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Dr Rowland worked day and night at his golden secrets. He was more used to the stars than to the earth, more at home in space than on solid ground.

He lived in an oasthouse that had been used for the drying of hops in the old days, but it was long since hops had been grown in this part of the country. The little furnace was kept alight by Dr Rowland for other purposes than that of making savouring for beer. There was a two-roomed cottage attached to the oasthouse, and there, when he was not deep in his experiments, he lived. There was a stable, too, and one sound horse in it, and a boy who came from a farm two miles off to look after the beast, and sometimes to draw water and chop wood for Dr Rowland.

But for the most the learned man was his own servant. He sometimes so far neglected himself that for days together he would go without any food beyond a dry crust he might find in the closet, or a handful of wild fruit that he might gather in his wanderings, or the offerings of pies and preserves that he sometimes found on his doorstep, left by the grateful farm people whose sicknesses he tended without fee or reward.

The oasthouse was situate about five miles from Holcot Grange and low down on the marsh only a pace or two away from where the ground was below the sea level and commonly flooded. After rare heavy rains the oasthouse would be flooded also, and Dr Rowland would have to move to the friendly shelter of some distant farm until the waters had subsided.

On these occasions he would bring with him, in great packs on the horse, all his precious instruments and retorts and limbecks, his cases of herbs, his packages of powders.

Dr Rowland and his occupations did not cause the wonder on the marsh that they would have caused in the city. Everyone accepted him as a character both natural and admirable. They were all a little afraid of him, but it was a pleasurable kind of fear, such as a man might feel for an archangel. They did not question his learning nor mock at his wisdom; they believed that it was as right as it was wonderful that he should strive after the secrets of nature and of the skies. They believed that he endeavoured to discover the secret of making gold; yet why should Dr Rowland devote so much labour and time to discovering how to manufacture yellow metal that would have been but dross to him? All his needs were satisfied and he had no hankering after any earthly ambition. Though he was not much more than middle-aged he had discovered greater wonders than he had ever hoped to achieve in a lifetime, and stumbled upon many a discovery that amazed himself.

His life, although he lived in such isolation, was very rich and varied and full of excitement. The only woman who had ever been inside his laboratory was Julia Roseingrave, and she came secretly after twilight.