There were in all only eight houses on both sides of the lane. Four of
these were the rear parts of the corner houses facing respectively on
the Quay, at the foot of the lane and on East Long Street, at its head.
Beyond the latter there was nothing but another wall full of windows,
just like the walls flanking the lane itself. The traffic on the street
was more lively and varied, but there was not much about it to catch and
hold his interest.

Almost invariably Keith turned his head in the other direction the
moment he had poked it out of the window and been pulled back by his
mother to a position of greater safety. There, at the foot of the lane,
only a stone's throw distant, opened the stony expanse of the quay
across which surged a veritable multitude of men and animals and
vehicles at all hours of the day. At the end of the Quay, silhouetted
against blue or grey or green water, appeared commonly the blunt nose or
the flag-draped stern of a big steamer, but hardly ever the middle part
of a hull with bridge or masts. And Keith could never recall whether the
complete shape of a full-sized vessel was finally revealed to him by
reality or by that reflection of it which, at an uncannily premature
age, he began to find in books.

The main feature of the view, however--a sort of narrow Japanese panel
where childish eyes perceived everything as on a flat surface--was that
it continued upwards: first, a lot of water, ripped and curled by busily
scurrying steam launches and tugs, streaked by plodding rowboats, and,
at rare times, adorned by a white-sailed yacht; then, still higher up, a
shore with many trees that drew the soul magnetically by their summer
verdure; and, finally, a brightly red, toylike fort, crowned by a small
embattled tower flying the blue and yellow Swedish flag at the top. Here