But he could not well feast in comfort while the Rob Roy was left alone and all sails up, and especially as one of the numerous vessels then drifting past (we had counted more than forty in sight at one time) seemed to be borne dangerously near to the little craft.
On this lightship there are seven men, and four more on land to relieve them regularly. [275] In the course of a lively conversation with their visitor, they said, “How lonely you must be!” Surely when the men exiled to a lightship pronounce the Rob Roy “lonely” there must be something in the charge; but my obtuse perception has not yet enabled me to find it out.
Meantime the tide had turned strongly, and my row back from the lightship in the hot sun was one of the hardest pulls I ever had, so that the lesson will not be forgotten “stick by your ship in a tideway.”
In passing along the fine gravel beach near Walmer, a curious sound was heard through the quiet haze; it was distant and continuous, but like the gabble of 10,000 ducks, and, though staring hard through the binocular glass, one could only make out a confused jumble of lightish-coloured forms all in a row afar off. Soon, however, a bugle sounded the “Retire,” and then it was plain that a whole regiment of soldiers was in the water bathing; their merry shouts and play had resounded along the level sea, and at the bugle order they all marched ashore in naked array, forming altogether one of the oddest of martial sights.
The vessels now constantly crossing my course were of all sizes, and in the quiet air we could hear their various sounds that seemed to tell in each of a self-contained world, where every item of life was summarized on board. Men chatting, women laughing, dogs barking, cocks crowing, and pigs squealing, a floating farmyard, such is life on the sea. For the Rob Roy I had tried to get a monkey as a funny friend, if not as a tractable midshipman, but an end was put to the idea by the solemn warning of an experienced comrade, who stated, that after the first two days, a monkey pursues steadily one line of conduct afloat—he throws everything into the sea.
Rounding the Foreland in a lovely afternoon, we observed how the corn-fields had become ripe and yellow, that were only growing and green when our yawl passed the cape before. Here is the “Long Nose” buoy again, and all the familiar landmarks, and once more Margate, where the people very warmly welcomed the little Rob Roy, which they had sped on its way outward bound with a parting cheer.
The next dawn from its grey curtain rising, saw her sailing from Margate up the Thames, but so light was the baffling wind, that we could not reach Sheerness that night, and so had to anchor in five fathoms not far from Cheney Rock, with dense fog closing round, and the Nore gong ringing, while my bright little cabin glowed with comfort, and the newspapers were studied in peace. Thence sailing into Sheerness and up to Queenborough, we anchored close by the Coastguard hulk, in safe and quiet waters. Sunday was a delicious rest, and the dingey took me aboard the hulk, where a number of sailors and their large families with them, gave a very remarkable appearance to the vessel ’tween decks. The children were delighted to receive books and pictures, and until late in the dark the infantile menagerie squalled with all its might.
An expedition of river discovery up the Medway seemed to be worth trying now, for no bonds of time or engagements fettered that glorious freedom of action which is one of the prize features of sailing thus. The yawl went bowling along on this new errand amid huge old hulks, tall-masted frigates, black warrior-like ironclads, gay yachts, odoriferous fishing-smacks, and a fleet of steady, brown-sailed, business-like barges. This is a pleasant and a cheerful river for some days’ excursion, with a mild excitement in sailing over banks and shoals, and yet not striking once, although we had no chart.
The tide helps much, until the high ground near Chatham adds rock and sylvan scenes to the flat banks of the winding estuary.
Now we come on a busy industry of peculiar type, thousands of convicts working on the new seawall, closely guarded by armed keepers. These poor criminals are paid or privileged according to their good behaviour, and it has been found that their labour thus stimulated is very productive.