After the Mate’s illness an unreasoning dread of the place where she had lain ill conquered me, and I put away all idea of returning there for the winter. Fortunately, a move was easy enough. If we had been living in a house it would have been otherwise, but a ‘house removal’ for us meant no more than weighing anchor and going to a new spot of our choice. Our choice was conditioned, first, by the necessity of my going to London daily; and, secondly, by the need of providing for our girl’s education, who was now of school-going age.

One anchorage—now known to us as the Happy Haven—attracted us beyond all others. We had found it under stress of weather during one of our Essex cruises, and had ever since thought of it with affection for the quiet peace of the tidal creek between its grassy banks and for the welcome we had received from the family which lives at the head of that creek and presides over its amenities.

As the autumn deepened it became urgently necessary to decide upon our winter quarters, but the Mate had received no answer to a letter in which she had asked the Lady at the Happy Haven whether means of education for Margaret could be found thereabouts. One day, when we had almost despaired of an answer, I met the father of the family at the Happy Haven unexpectedly in London. His wife, he said, had been travelling; we must write again. And soon an answer came that solved our difficulties. There was no school to give such an education as we wanted, but Margaret could be taught with the family in the house at the head of the Happy Haven. Within a few days we sailed to the Happy Haven, and there we have since lived and hope long to live.

To reach our port there are but two ways, one by water and one by land. Are you coming by water? Then you must come in from the sea and take the young flood up the river past the low-lying islands; if the wind be foul you will have to wait for water according to your draught. With a fair wind come straight on past the village and the wood off which the smacks lie, and past the church tower to the south. When abreast the creek leading to the red-tiled farmhouse on the starboard hand you will find the best water in the middle.

Keep close to the point on the north side, and from there steer straight for the three great poplars you will see ahead until you reach another church among the trees on the north side. Then keep the hut on the point just open of the old water-mill.

It is quite easy. But long before you come to the Happy Haven our mahogany-faced old pilot, with a walk like a penguin, a parson’s hat tied under his chin with a piece of tarred string, a red jumper, and yellow fearnought trousers, will ‘board you,’ if you want him, and berth you. Two shillings is his charge.

But suppose you come by land. For two shillings you can be driven from the railway station out through the old market town until you come to an avenue of trees and a rookery. There you must turn off the public road into a private road, and drive under the great trees which meet above, and down a lane of thorns until, suddenly turning a corner, you will drive alongside the river to the grassy quay where the Ark Royal is lying.

You can go no farther, for the road ends there.

After all, you may say, there is not much to see. Only an old water-mill and three barges alongside it; the mill-house, and above it the mill-head spreading wide; our friend’s house among the poplars; on the opposite shore a farmhouse where a barge is loading hay; under the sea-walls on both sides fields dotted with cattle and white gulls; an unbroken vault of sky; and the shining creek stretching away into the ultimate green of flat pasture lands. Perhaps a red-sailed barge is coming up the river; the ‘tuke,’ or redshanks, are giving warning of her approach; and a thousand dunlin keep settling on the brown mud, rising to show off all together in a flash that they are snow white underneath.

A cable’s length from the Ark Royal is a small head of water held up by a sea-wall and a sluice-gate, and from it, meandering down past the ship into the gut, is a narrow course worn by the water. If you happen to come at the right moment, two families of children in bathing costumes—ours and the children from the house among the poplars—will be taking turns at packing themselves into a large bath. Someone lifts the gate, and the bath in a torrent of foamy water ‘chutes’ down the channel into the gut or is capsized on the way.

Such is a brief description of how to arrive at the Happy Haven, and what there is to see there. But wild tugs with steel hawsers will not drag the name from me. Those who want to live in floating homes will search far to find a better berth.

We have only one very near neighbour, an ex-barge skipper. Like the bargee of whom Stevenson wrote, there seems to be no reason why he should not live for ever. He has seen the best part of eighty years, and is still hearty and quite as active as he need be. He has achieved an appearance barely suitable to old age, and has stopped there. He spends many hours each day in thought. Like us, he pays no rent, rates, or taxes, for he lives in a small and old yacht. And though his means of living are a mystery he lives well.

Twice to our knowledge he has taken a party for a short cruise in the yacht, but beyond this we have never known him earn a penny. And yet if a new mast be wanted, or new iron work, or paint, or varnish, or a rope for fitting out, or a new sail, he buys it. Rumour says he has been a notable smuggler, and there are some that say he has friends who are still free traders. Others believe that he has a share in a barge. But no one knows.

Always healthy, he observes none of the laws of health. It is true he sleeps nine hours every night, but that is in a cabin without ventilation. On a fine summer’s morning most people, when they get up, begin to do something, even though it be unimportant. Not so our friend. He starts the day—breaking, as usual, some rule of health—by lighting his pipe. Then, seating himself comfortably in the open, he airs himself for a long time. While the airing is going on he surveys the sky many times, rotating slowly till he has examined all points of the compass. If anyone be present, he will give his considered[Pg 179]
[Pg 180] verdict on the prospects of the weather for the day.

When that problem has been solved he will chop a few sticks and remark that he must ‘see about his kittle.’ Soon afterwards smoke will issue from the chimney of his boat, and for the next hour he will not be visible. After that some cleaning operations—not personal—will go on in the cockpit for possibly another hour. Then he may scrape a spar or varnish one, or do a bit of painting. If it be hot he will probably rig an awning, and sit beneath it stitching at an old sail; if it be cold he will rig up a windscreen, and sit behind that.

A couple of hours before high water the pilot, also an ex-barge skipper, arrives to see what barges are coming up, and then he and our friend will be seen side by side discussing things connected with the sea. The approaching barges have to be watched until recognized, and again watched until they are safely berthed. From this important but unpaid labour they know no remission during the proper hours.

Thus, with intervals for meals, our curious neighbour passes his days from one end of the year to the other.

Sometimes I have had the privilege of being present at the sessions of our neighbour and the pilot. One day the pilot described the sorrows of fishermen when the stinging jelly-fish are about, for he spends an odd day at sea in a smack.

‘The water’s full o’ they blessed ould stingin’ squalders, and every time us hauls aour net that’s full on ’em, and they do make me swear suthen. That ain’t a mite o’ use tryin’ to be religious, same as if you wants to be, with them stingin’ squalders abaout. They’re puffect devils.’

I remember the pilot’s comment on our neighbour’s account of a hailstorm. ‘That was a wonnerful heavy hailstorm, that was,’ said our neighbour, ‘and the stones was most as big as acorns. And one come and hit me on the laower part of the thumb. Lor’, that did hurt suthen!’

‘Well, that come a long way, yer see,’ said the pilot.

Another day the pilot, who is appreciably more mobile than our neighbour, described to me an errand of mercy he had undertaken.

‘I’ve just been daown to see pore ould George what bruk his arm last week. Yaou know him, sir, don’t ye? Him what’s skipper of the Nancy. I wonder who’ll sail she while ’is arm’s a mendin’. Wonnerful venturesome fellow is George, and that’s haow ’e come to do ut. He took and bought one o’ they bicycles. From what I can hear of it, ’e larnt to ride that well enough same as on the flat. They what taught he to ride tould he to shorten sail same as goin’ daown hills and that, and maybe ’e did. But accordin’ to what I can hear of it, that bicycle took charge daown the hill just past the railway, and George den’t fare to knaow what to do, so ’e reckoned that were best to thraow she up in the wind. And they picked the ould fellow out o’ the ditch with his arm bruk. ’E’s gettin’ on well, and is all right in ’is ’ealth. The doctor’s a givin’ of him some of that medicine aout o’ one o’ they raound bottles.’

Besides his boat our neighbour owns a shed. When he applied originally to the landowner for leave to put up the shed he was refused, because the landowner feared that it would be unsightly. The negotiations that followed are a model for diplomacy.

The old man next asked that he might be allowed to haul up an ancient sieve-like boat on to the bank. To this the landowner assented—if it could be done, which he doubted.

It was done.

But at very high tides the ground underneath the overturned boat was flooded, so that gear stored there could not be kept dry. The boat was then raised bodily a foot or so from the ground by planking. After a few weeks, to make more storage room still, the old man raised the sides of his boat some three feet more and put a roof over her.

This structure escaped objection from the landowner for a year, and so the following summer the roof was removed, the sides were raised another two feet, and the roof was put on again.

This also escaped criticism. Accordingly, the following year an annexe was built on at the bows, and eventually a cement floor was laid. Now there is a water-butt at the junction of the annexe and the main building.

We await further developments.

We made the mistake once—if, indeed, it was not an offence—of offering our neighbour some work. He explained that he had too much to do already, and referred to a particular job which he did not begin till six months later. ‘No sooner do I git one job done than I sees another starin’ me in the face,’ he often says.

Last summer he painted the inside of his yacht, and for ten days he slept in his boat-hut on shore. Sundown every evening was his time for ‘bunkin’ up,’ as he called it, and we used to make a point of asking him what time he would be up in the morning. To this he would answer: ‘Abaout five or six, I reckon. Last summer I used to get up at faour sometimes. Goo to bed with the ould hens and git up along of ’em—that’s the way.’

Then we would watch him retire. There is no door on hinges to his hut, but a flap which fits in the opening. He had to disappear stern first, fit the flap in the bottom of the opening, and pull the top into position with a string. He withdrew from our gaze each evening in the following order: legs, body clad in a blue jersey, white beard, red face, and straw hat.

The next morning we would always be up first, and while we were busy on deck we kept an eye open for the first trembling of the flap. Then out would come the hat, the red face, the white beard, blue body, and legs, and another day had begun for our neighbour. We thought he would have made excuses for not getting up earlier, but we soon discovered that on most days he had no idea what the time was.

At the Happy Haven our water is brought to us by cart in a canvas water-carrier, which holds two hundred gallons. One day we had a panic about one of the tanks. The water-cart had brought four loads, and still the tanks were not full. We heard a sound of running water, which we took to be the water siphoning from one tank to the other. When I returned from London the next evening, the sound of running water continued, but there was something worse—an audible splashing. And the water in the port tank had fallen. Friends were dining with us that night, but luckily they did not expect conventional amusements; they preferred tackling leaking water-tanks to bridge.

The first thing to be done was to break the siphon between the two tanks by letting air into the pipe. After trying in vain to unscrew a joint I decided to drill a small hole in the pipe; but, using more force than skill, I broke my only drill. This meant that all the water still in the tanks—six hundred gallons—might find its way into the bilge. We pulled up a floor-board aft, and discovered that the missing water was even then nearly level with the floor. I lifted the plug aft, but the water would not run out, as the barge was sitting on soft mud, which choked the hole. Pumping is back-breaking work, and I did not intend to do that if it could be avoided. I put on sea-boots and went over the side with a boat-hook and a kind of hoe to puggle about until there was a clear way for the water to run. The difficulty was to find the hole, but the ladies held lights and called out directions while the men shoved a stick through the plug-hole. The water began to run at last, and the Ark Royal was soon dry.

The next day we emptied the port tank into the bilge, and the plumber got inside through the manhole and found the hole, which by a great piece of luck was in such a position that he could mend it by removing enough of the bathroom bulkhead to allow his hand to get through. What we should have done if the hole had been out of reach we hardly dared to think.

Many of our friends have said that they would like to live in the Ark Royal in the summer, but most of them boggle at the thought of the winter. To me, somehow, the contrast between the comfortable interior of our home and the rigours of the winter scene pressing close in upon us is particularly satisfying. It is very agreeable at the end of a winter’s day in London to come back to the barge; to leave an office with its telephone bells, and the hubbub of the streets; to come in little more than an hour to where the lane of thorns ends at the sea-wall. The faint glow ahead comes from the Ark Royal. Those piping cries are the redshanks calling in the dark. As I come nearer the separate columns of light from the windows and skylights beam like searchlights. And above the blaze stands up the mast and rigging, free from all burden and strain, resting the winter through. The cheerful chimneys pour out their smoke, which, blowing darkly to leeward, turns into clouds of misty gold as it crosses the belt of yellow light.

Even in our retired creek it is a joy to know that we are on the magic road, which is all roads in the world because it leads everywhere. Of course, we shall never sail out to the back of beyond; but when on summer nights we sit on deck under the pole star, and the phosphorescent water streams past our side like molten metal, we feel that the same sea that bears us laps equatorial islands and continents.

When the Ark Royal lifts to the rising tide her timbers creak as though she were asking to be free; and her voice is high or low according to the wind. At night she speaks most clearly. In measure to the wind she reminds us of peaceful driftings under still skies, or of torn sails and dragging anchors. When a gale with all the weight of winter behind it bursts in squalls through the rigging, the tiny waves of our haven rip along our sides and the lamp in the saloon swings gently. Then we know, at a safe remove, what weather there must be ‘outside’ if we have such tumult in here. Heaven help us if we were out in the Swin with those clean-bowed fish-carriers that are racing in from the North Sea! Let us hope that the barges that have been ‘caught’ have reached such anchorages as Abraham’s Bosom, or the Blacktail Swatch, sheltered from clumsy steamers by the lighthouse and from the weather by the sand.

Even my insurance policy recognizes that our life is not as life on shore. I am ‘Master under God of and in the good ship or vessel called the Ark Royal.’ And the policy deals with life in a large way. For example: ‘Touching the perils whereof they, the assurers, are content to bear, they are of the Seas, Men of War, Fire, Pirates, Rovers, Thieves, Jettisons, Letters of Mart and Countermart, Surprisals, Takings at Sea, Arrests, Restraints and Detainments of all Kings, Princes and People of what Nation, Condition, or Quality soever, Barratry of the Master and Mariners and of all other Perils and Losses.’

Several years have we spent in the Ark Royal, and let it be admitted that we feel the need for more room. Once more perceive the advantage of living afloat. We can add to our establishment in units. No builders will tear down our creepers, or excavate our garden, or mix mortar on the lawn. Nor shall we suffer the horrid noise of carpenters. When our additional rooms are ready they will be floated alongside. No District Council will have a word to say about the material of the new building or the nature of the roof.

The Overdraft, as our first addition under the unitary system is called—a name which is nautical in sound, and suggests both the overflowing of the ship’s company and a certain financial operation at the bank—is an old lighter thirty-five feet long with a beam of twelve feet. We are raising her sides to a height of seven feet six inches and dividing her into three compartments. There will be a sleeping-cabin at each end, and the middle room will be a workshop and playroom, fitted with a carpenter’s bench and a range for both cooking and heating. If our friends in the house among the poplars give a dance we shall be able to float the Overdraft along to the foot of their garden to provide extra rooms for their guests. When she lies alongside the Ark Royal there will be a covered-in gangway to her entrance-door.

Some day, by the unitary system, we may add other rooms, but the only plan in the offing which seems reasonably likely to reach port soon is a scheme for electric lighting by using our head of water to drive the dynamo.

The reader may permit, however, a vision of our ultimate development. We have often desired to own a tug—having long been strong admirers of the indescribable fussiness and importance of tugs. We should keep steam up in our tug, and use her at moorings as a central heating plant. We should offer to tow the trading barges in and out of the creek, which would be one of the best pastimes imaginable, besides bringing us many devoted friends. And then when we wanted to shift our anchorage! You should just be there to see us start: first the tug, then the Ark Royal, then the Overdraft, then the other extra rooms, then the Perhaps, then the sailing dinghy, and lastly the duck punt. When the moment came to anchor again there would be no orders in the manner of ‘Let go the ’ook, Bill,’ but a dignified signal from the tug in the way described by the best of English sea songs: