A Floating Home Part 8

We had now reached the stage of bringing the furniture on board. I hired a tumbril, and with Harry's help began the 'move.' The Mate and the children went away for a few days to stay with friends. I had to drive down seventeen tumbril loads from the cottage, although we did not want all our furniture for the barge. As there was generally no room for me even to perch on the tumbril when it was loaded, I walked a good many miles in the course of moving.

A tumbril is a poor cart for such a job. The jolting was excessive, and trotting meant ruin to the cargo. When the back was up the cart held little, and when it was down things were shed along the road.

If I walked at the pony's head I could not keep an eye on things at the back, and if I walked behind the pony would slow down to a crawl.

I partly solved the last difficulty by walking behind and throwing pebbles off the road at the pony.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SALOON]

At the end of the first day of this ign.o.ble process of transportation I had enough things on board to be able to sleep there in comparative comfort. And at the end of the few days during which the Mate stayed away with the children I was able to tell myself that the barge at last looked like a home. The cabins were all furnished and habitable; the pictures were hung; even the china and books were arranged provisionally.

When for the first time I lit the fifty-candle-power lamp which hung from the ceiling of the saloon and looked down the long radiant room I said that I never wanted to live in a better place.

I cannot forget the pride of those first few evenings on board. Here was a dream come true. Wherever I cared to go my home would go with me and carry everything I owned; and the barge was not only my home, but my yacht and my motorcar. Every evening I held a kind of _levee_ in the saloon. Tom had more sailor friends, and Harry more landsmen relations, than I had suspected. As for Sam Prawle, as critic-in-chief and privy councillor, he was licensed to bring on board as many people as he pleased. I learned that the race of bargees had all along known the best use to which a barge could be put, and I myself figured as a tardy pract.i.tioner in ideas which had been immemorially in their possession. Yet it gratified me to notice that they gaped a good deal at the transformed _Will Arding_, particularly at night, when candles as well as the lamp showered a thousand points of light on silver and gla.s.s and china.

Sam Prawle at one of my _levees_ explained to the a.s.sembled guests that the simplest way of going to London was by barge. It was evident to him that I had done well to make myself independent of trains, which in his view were the confusion of all confusions. One of the most baffling experiences of his life, apparently, had been a journey by train from Fleetwick to Whitstable.

'That may be right enough for same as them what fare to understand these things,' he said, 'but I don't hould with them. Well, naow look at here, sir. When yaou get to Wickford ye've got to shift aout o' one train into t'other, ain't ye, sir? And there's two docks where them trains baound up to Lunnon berth. Five years ago we was in one dock, and year afore last it was t'other. Well, ye daon't knaow where ye are, sir, do ye? I niver knaow one of they blessed trains from another; that's the truth, that is; they all fare to me the spit o'

one another. Then there's everyone a bustlin' abaout, and them railway chaps a shaoutin' aout afore the train come, and when she do come most everyone's in such a hurry to git aboard that there ain't no time to ask, and ye don't knaow where ye are, sir.

'Then, happen yaou'll have to shift again halfway up to Lunnon, and happen not; that fare to be all accordin'. And same as when ye git to Lunnon, yaou've got to git acrost it, ain't ye, and when ye asks haow to do it, some on 'em says, "Yaou go under-ground," and some on 'em sez, "Yaou take a green bus with Wictoria writ on it." I ain't over and above quick at readin', and I daon't never fare to git as far as where she's a goin' to afore she gits under way. Last time I got someone from here to put me aboard and speak the conductor for me. But then agin, when ye git to t'other station and git your ticket, ye ain't found the blessed ould train, for that's a masterous great station full o' trains. No, sir, ye don't knaow where ye are, and that's the truth, that is. Then mebbe yaou've got to shift agin on the Whitstable line, same as I did time I went arter them oysters.

'But same as goin' in a little ould barge or a smack with the wind the way it is naow. If ye muster an hour afore low water ye can take the last o' the ebb daown raound the Whitaker spit. Then ye just hauls yer wind and takes the flood up Swin till ye come to the West Burrows Gas Buoy. Accordin' to haow the tide is ye may have to make a short hitch to wind'ard to make sure o' clearin' that ould wreck on the upper part o' the sand. Arter that ye can keep she a good full till ye find the tail o' the Mouse Sand with yer lead; then, soon as ye git more water agin, bear away abaout south an' by west and keep her head straight on Whitstable. Ye knaow where ye are, sir, the whole time, don't ye? A course, if ye're a bit early on the tide ye may have to keep away a bit to clear the east end o' the Red Sand, but yaou must have come wonnerful quick if there ain't water over the Oaze, and Spaniard, and Gilman, and Columbine. That's easy same as night-time, too, for when ye're clear o' the Mouse Sand ye can go from the Gas Buoy on the lower end of the Oaze across the Shiverin' Sand to the Girdler Lightship that is, if yaou can't go overland. Yes, yes; that's much better; ye knaow where ye are the whole time, don't ye?

'I ain't on'y took a barge above Lunnon once't, and I remember that well, as I larned suthen I den't know afore and that 'ad to do with trains, too. We 'ad just berthed at Twickenham with coals, and as I 'ad to goo to Lunnon to see the guvnor I goos off to the railway station and buys a ticket, and says to the fust porter I sees, "Whin's the next daown train, mate?"

'"In abaout twenty minutes," 'e says.

'So I slips acrost the road and was just in the middle of my 'alf-pint when I 'ears a train comin', so I peaks out o' the window and sees it come in from the westward. "That fare to be my train," I says to myself, and drinks my beer as quick as I can and goos acrost to the station again. But they shet the door just as I come in.

'"Where's that train a goin', mate?" I says to the porter what I seed afore.

'"Lunnon," says 'e.

'"Yaou tould me there warn't no daown train for twenty minutes," I says.

'"No more there ain't," 'e says; "that's an up train."

'Well, that warn't no use a argyin' with he, and from what I could make of it that don't fare to matter whether folks lives above Lunnon or below ut. No one don't take no notice o' that, but allus says they is a goin' up to Lunnon.

'They Lunnoners allus reckon to knaow more'n we country folk, but us knaow better an that. Yes, yes; up on the flood, daown on the ebb; and that ain't a mite o' use tryin' to tell me different.'

CHAPTER XI

'O, to sail to sea in a ship!

To leave this steady, unendurable land!

To leave the tiresome sameness of the streets, the sidewalks and the houses; To leave you, O you solid, motionless land, and, entering a ship, To sail, and sail, and sail!'

One day only was left to me, before the return of the Mate, to examine the gear and make sure that everything was ready for sea, as we proposed to cruise for a few days before going to our new quarters.

The place we had chosen to live at was Newcliff on the Thames, where there was a school at which the boys' names had already been entered.

All the standing and running rigging and the canvas were in good order; nevertheless the waterside pundits had plenty of sagacious criticisms to offer. Public attention was now diverted from the interior to life above decks. In particular there was not a new piece of rope or a new spar on board that was not discussed till all its merits or defects had been discovered or insinuated.

To a keen amateur seaman this reiteration is never wearisome. He knows how to learn, because he knows that the most casual comment from a bargee or a smacksman is charged with experience. Many of these men have astonishing powers of memory and observation, powers as wonderful in their way as the sight and hearing of American Indians. Recognition of a vessel by the cut of her jib is easy enough, and has supplied our language with an idiom; but bargees and smacksmen will recognize one another's vessels at great distances, though even at close range the vessels may seem to other people to be indistinguishable. A few men can recognize any craft they have ever seen if they catch sight of only the peak of her sail. Barge skippers who have been in the trade a lifetime will recall the details of almost every voyage they have made--the time of starting, the shifts of wind, the margin of time by which they saved their tide, what they saw on the way, and a dozen other things--never confusing one pa.s.sage with another.

When you sail by bargees or smacksmen at anchor you behold them apparently staring aimlessly on to the sea or into the sky; but they are watching. Perhaps they seem to be looking the other way, but they have marked you pa.s.s and noticed, it may be, that your topping lift is too taut. This or any other detail is duly entered in the unwritten log of their memories. On sh.o.r.e they take their leisure on the quay, walking up and down, never more than a few steps each way, with eyes always on the anchorage. The arrival of a stranger, the way he anchors, the coming and going of dinghies, the manner in which they are brought alongside--everything is noted.

Now, the chief object of interest in the gear of the _Will Arding_ was a new kedge anchor. To men accustomed to anchor near the sh.o.r.e and in very narrow swatchways nothing is more important than their ground tackle. They spend more anxious thought on that than on anything else.

My new anchor was lying on the quay, and I could hear the comments of every pa.s.ser by. I was flattered by an acc.u.mulation of approval.

Sometimes I was below, and did not know who was speaking; nor did it much matter, since the language of all was interchangeable. I would simply hear a voice; and soon another voice would be saying the same thing over again. Imagine a succession of observations like this:

_First Voice_: 'Yes, yes; that's a good anchor, that is. As I was a sayin' to Jim this mornin', "That's got good flues, that has, and a good stock. I lay she 'on't never drag that," I says, "if that git aholt in good houldin' graound. No more she 'on't faoul that. That'll hould she in worse weather than what they'll ever want to be aout in,"

I says. "Then agin, that's a good anchor for layin' aout, for that ain't a heavy anchor to handle in a bo't," I says. "None the more for that, she 'on't never drag that. The chap what made that anchor knaowd what he was abaout."'

_Second Voice_: 'That's a wonnerful good anchor, that is. That 'on't never drag that if they let that goo in good houldin' graound. I allus did like an anchor long in the stock, same as that. Yes, yes; that'll hould she. That ain't a heavy anchor for same as layin' off in a bo't, whereas them heavy anchors is wonnerful ill convenient. Yes, yes; they've got a good anchor there; that was made at Leigh, that was, and wonnerful good anchors that smith allus did make.'

_Third Voice_: 'What do I think in it? I don't want to think nawthen abaout that. I _knaow_ that's a good anchor. She 'on't never drag that, _do_, that'll hev to be wonnerful poor houldin' graound. That anchor's got good flues, that has, and she 'on't never drag that nit faoul it. They'll want to be in harbour time that anchor 'on't hould she. That's long in the stock, that is, but none the more for that that ain't a heavy anchor, and yaou can lay that aout in a bit of a sea when maybe a heavier un 'ould be too much for yer.'

The next day the Mate and the elder boy returned, and the barge was christened with a new name. _Will Arding_, no doubt, had had some sufficient meaning for the late owner, but for us it meant nothing, and we had decided to call the barge _Ark Royal_.

Before the christening we moved from the quay into midstream. The warps ash.o.r.e were cast off, and the clank, clank, clank, of the windla.s.s sounded like the music of other worlds calling. We slowly hove off the barge until her stern swung round and she rode free to the flood-tide and the east wind. Sam Prawle was on board, as I had engaged him to come for our first cruise in order that I might learn the handling of a barge under a good instructor. We could not start till high water, because the wind was up river.

Meanwhile, the christening was performed. Several smacksmen came off in their boats for the ceremony. A bottle of champagne, made fast to the jib topsail halyards, was flung well outboard, and came back on to the barge's bluff bows with a crash and an explosion of foam as the Mate said: 'In the name of all good luck I christen you _Ark Royal_!'

Everyone cheered; other champagne (not the christening brand) was handed round, and we all drank success and long life and happiness to one another and the ship. The Royal Cruising Club burgee was hoisted to the truck and the Blue Ensign at the mizzen peak.

Sam stowed the wine-gla.s.ses in their racks below; the good-byes were said; the smackies clambered over the side, sorted themselves into the cl.u.s.ter of dinghies astern, and lay on their oars to watch the start.

The tide was on the turn, the great topsail flacked in the wind, the brails were let go, and Sam and I sweated the mainsheet home and set the mizzen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE _ARK ROYAL_]

She was feeling the ebb now, and she sheered first one way and then the other, gently tugging at her anchor as we hoisted the foresail and made the bowline fast to port. Once more the clank, clank, of the windla.s.s; the short scope of the bower anchor came home sweetly, and the _Ark Royal_ was free. I left Sam to get the anchor right up and flew aft to the wheel as she slowly gathered way.

We were off! Good-bye to the land and houses and rates and by-laws! We believed that we were entering on a better way of life. We have since made sure of it.

I think of that first sail still. The newness to us of the _Ark Royal's_ great size; her height above the water; the grand sweep she took as she came about; the march from the wheel to the leeside to peer forward in bargee's style to see whether there was anything in our way to leeward; the size of the wheel itself, and the many turns wanted to put the helm down or up, filled us with importance and pride as we tacked down the river. If you would know what my feelings were then you must think of your first boundary to square leg, your first salmon, your first gun, your first stone wall with hounds running fast.

That night we anch.o.r.ed at the mouth of the river, and when the sails were stowed and the riding light had been hoisted, we ate our first dinner on board and tucked our elder boy into his bunk for the first time. Then beneath the stars, rocking gently on a scarcely perceptible easterly swell, we walked our decks in the flood-tide of happiness.

'None of our relations know where we are or where we are going to,'

said the Mate. 'Here we are now, and to-morrow, perhaps, we shall get to Mersea Island and pick up Margaret and Inky, and then we shall be complete. Is it real? Is it true?'

We sat on deck very late, too much occupied with the pleasure of existing to yield to sleep. The sky was continually changing as snowy clouds drifted across it. In the distance the Swin Middle light flared up like a bonfire every fifteen seconds. Here and there the lights of barges drooped tremulous threads of gold on the water.

Sam Prawle was invited aft; and regarding us now as freemen of the barge profession, he enlarged upon the advantages of barging (comparing it with the sport of yachting, which he seemed to think we had abandoned) with a confidential note in his voice that we had not precisely detected before. But his opinions on these weighty matters deserve a chapter to themselves.