Blow, blow!” I cry; “my love is home again!”’
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.