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 passage 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 pass 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 shore 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 shore 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 passer by. I was flattered by an accumulation 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 ashore were cast off, and the clank, clank, clank, of the windlass 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-glasses in their racks below; the good-byes were said; the smackies clambered over the side, sorted themselves into the cluster 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.

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 windlass; 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 anchored 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.