The most keenly interested, as well as the most regular and most welcome of our visitors, was Sam Prawle, the ex-barge skipper already mentioned, who lived in a smack moored in the saltings. He made his living by looking after a few small yachts. He came most days during the dinner-hour, studied what we were doing, and gave us his views.

'If more people knaowed what could be done with a little ould barge, less housen would be built,' he would say, with a shake of his head.

He was always ready to discuss the advantages of living in a vessel.

As a matter of fact, since the death of his wife, who used to take in lodgers, he had been unable to afford a house, but to hear him talk one would have thought that he had been taxed off the face of the land. And after his prolonged visit to the inn on Sat.u.r.day, where he learned all his news--for he could not read--and had discussed the political situation and the infamy of the local rates, and had got everything in his head well mixed up, he would be decidedly 'agin the Government.' 'What I says is this,' he remarked once, in summarizing the appalling situation. 'We shall 'ave to 'ave suthen different to what we 'ave got, or else we shall 'ave to 'ave suthen else'--as illuminating a judgment as one commonly meets with in political discussions.

We worked up forward to begin with, because the main hold had in it about four thousand square feet of match-lining, two thousand square feet of three-ply wood, one thousand square feet of flooring, and half a mile of headings of different sorts, besides the bath, kitchen range, and a hundred other things which took up room. We gradually got rid of stuff from the hold as we worked our way aft. Within a few days the appearance of the _Will Arding_ wonderfully changed. While we were still at Bridgend, the hold, the sides, coamings and bulkheads, had shown nothing but one great expanse of tarred surface, whereas now we had clean match-lining round the sides and on the forward bulkhead.

The total length of the barge is about seventy-four feet, and her beam is seventeen feet at the level of the deck and fifteen on the floor.

At each end there is a bulkhead shutting off what used to be the forecastle forward and what used to be the skipper's cabin aft. The length between the bulkheads is fifty feet. The headroom under the decks varies from four feet three to five feet eight, and under the cabin tops, which measure respectively thirty feet by ten and ten by ten, the headroom is between seven feet three and nine feet. We made the cabin tops out of the hatches by nailing match-lining on them lengthwise and covering them with tarpaulin dressed with red ochre and oil. Thus we had two fine roofs, and these were raised on strong frames supported by stanchions bolted on to the coamings. Between the stanchions we fitted the windows. As the windows are high up and there are plenty of them, the interior of the vessel is very light and airy.

The saloon is sixteen feet long by fourteen feet nine inches wide, and is, of course, the most important room.

As has been said, we began our work forward, and the first job was to divide the forecastle into a triangular sleeping cabin and a scullery of the same shape. Then we divided the s.p.a.ce under the fore-cabin top and put up a part.i.tion, forming on one side a large cabin (the owner's cabin), and on the other a kitchen, a narrow pa.s.sage, and a bathroom.

The bath had to be put in position first, and the bathroom built round it, as there would have been no room to turn a bath in the narrow pa.s.sage.

We have often wondered since what we should do if anything happened to the bath, for a considerable part of the ship would have to be pulled to pieces to get it out. Perhaps we could have a rubber lining made for it; but still it is a good solid porcelain enamel bath, and ought to last as long as the ship.

The one s.p.a.ce without light and with little headroom was abreast of the mast, and this naturally offered itself as the best place for the water-tanks. We could not afford to buy new water-tanks, so we went to a shipbreaker's, and were lucky enough to find two four-hundred gallon tanks measuring four feet by four feet each, which just fitted in under the decks. At the same place we bought six mahogany ship's doors for 4, and these we sc.r.a.ped and varnished, so that they looked very handsome. The tanks had to be put in their places at a very early stage, as they were to be built in like the bath. Empty they weighed about five hundredweight each, and were bulky things to handle. However, with tackles and guys and Sam Prawle's help, we got them through our furniture hatch and safely down into the hold, where we levered them into position, and wedged them in safely. The great size of our water-tanks was the only fault Sam ever found with the barge's internal arrangements, and his eye brightened sympathetically when I pointed out that if we found that they held more water than we wanted, one of them could always be filled with beer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DINING CABIN]

At the after end of the narrow pa.s.sage already mentioned we made the dining-room, which opened aft into the saloon. Forward of the saloon on the starboard side came the spare cabin. Aft of the saloon on the same side was our daughter's cabin. On the port after side was a lobby with steps descending from the deck; and aft of the lobby was the boys' cabin, which had been the skipper's cabin in the barge's trading days.

The rapid progress we seemed to make during the first few days at Fleetwick was in a way deceptive. It does not take long to put up part.i.tions and hang doors. The result looks like cabins. Yet only the fringe of the work has then been touched. The finishing is the true labour. The underneath part of the rough tarred decks, for instance, had to be covered with three-ply wood, well sand-papered, before it could be painted and enamelled. The deck beams, worn and knocked about, had to be cased in; nail holes had to be stopped with putty, and the joins all covered with headings. Then there was the making of the cupboards and shelves and bunks. There was never a right angle; we were always working to odd shapes. Indeed, there was so much to do that at times I was bewildered where to begin, and only by tackling the first job I saw, whether it strictly should have been the next or not, and putting Tom and Harry on to it too, could I regain a sense of performing effectual labour.

The wood bought in London was not much more than half what we ultimately used. Before we had finished we used over a mile of beading. Oppressed with the continual sense of working against time, my brain became so active that I slept badly. My life seemed to consist of sawing up miles of wood, and driving in millions of nails.

I was pursued by dreams, after the manner of ill.u.s.trated statistics in magazines, in which I saw black columns denoting the various amounts of material used, or tables showing how the material would reach from London to Birmingham, or pictures demonstrating that the nails in one scale would balance a motor omnibus in the other.

When the dining-cabin was nearly finished we gave a tea-party to celebrate the occasion, and while we were sitting round the table we saw through the windows the legs of a party of strangers. The fame of the WILL ARDING had spread so far that people came on board who had not the most indirect of excuses for taking up my time. Being proud of the ship, however, and sympathetic towards all inquiring minds, particularly in nautical matters, I was glad to explain things to everybody. At least, I did so to all whose manners were pa.s.sable. I developed a high power of curtness to the quite considerable cla.s.s of people who seemed to think that it was my duty to provide a sort of free exhibition for which it was not even necessary to say 'Thank you.' Tom, for some not very good reason, regarded the arrival of strangers during our tea-party as a particular offence, and we heard him begin to parley with them on deck with: 'The guvnor says this is a 'alf-guinea day, and yaou can get the tickets at the Ship Inn.'

CHAPTER IX

'I reckon there's nawthen like sailormen's wit To straighten a rop' what 'as got turns in it; Ould Live Ash.o.r.e Johnny 'ud pucker all day, An' yit niver light on the sailorman's way!'

Memories of those laborious days at Fleetwick Quay are not only of carpentering, painting, and plumbing. Sam Prawle provided an intermittent accompaniment of anecdote and observation which it is impossible to separate from the record of work done. During the dinner-hour he would sometimes begin and finish a considerable narrative. On the day when we lowered our tanks into position he ill.u.s.trated his theme that people may put themselves to a great deal of unnecessary trouble by telling us an episode in the life of 'Ould Gladstone,' the white mare at Wick House. Here is the yarn:

'I dare say yaou don't fare to remember ould Gladstone at the Ferry Boat Inn down at Wick House twenty year ago. Wonnerful little mare, she were and lived to be thirty year ould, she did. When ould Amos Staines sould the inn a young feller from Lunnon bought it--a reg'lar c.o.c.kney, he were, and den't knaow nawthen about b'ots nor farmin' nor nawthen, and a course 'e 'ad to keep a man to work the ferry. What 'e come for I can't rightly say, 'cept he said 'e allus fancied keepin' a pub.

'The lies that young feller used to tell us chaps, same as fishermen, bargemen, and drudgermen what used the inn, abaout Lunnon was a fair masterpiece. Mighty clever he thought he were, and wonnerful fond o'

thraowin' 'is weight abaout, which 'e den't knaow 'is own weight.

'Well, twenty year ago come next March, in the forepart o' the month, me and Jim and Lishe Appleby, the two brothers what 'ad the little ould _Viper_, 'ad a stroke of luck over a little salvage job with a yacht, and a course we spent a bit extry at the Ferry. c.o.c.kney Smith--leastways, that was what we allus called 'im--'eard all abaout our salvage job, and nearly got 'imself put in the river by the things what 'e said abaout it. Jim and Lishe 'ould 'ave done it, for they was wonnerful fond of a gla.s.s and a joke, as the sayin' is, but I 'ouldn't let 'em, cos I reckoned c.o.c.kney Smith might 'ave the law of 'em. A wonnerful disagreeable chap was c.o.c.kney Smith; 'e used to read bits aout of newspapers abaout robberies and that, and then 'e'd say 'e supposed they was salvage jobs.

'Well, not long arterwards 'e 'ad a salvage job 'imself. Jim and Lishe hired ould Gladstone and c.o.c.kney Smith's tumbril to go to a niece's weddin' at Northend. They come back abaout seven o'clock o' the evening, wonnerful and lively, and just where the road bends afore you come to the Ferry that was bangy and dark they some'ow got ould Gladstone and the tumbril in the crick. Yaou knaow the place I mean, sir--jist where the road runs alongside the crick on the top of the sea-wall. A course the place is as bare as my 'and, as the sayin' is, for there ain't no tree, nor hedge, nor fence, nor nawthen; but none the more for that, ould Gladstone 'ad bin that road for twenty year, and there ain't a mite a doubt but what she'd a brought they chaps back safe enough if they'd left she alone.

'But there yaou are, yaou knaow what them weddin's are, don't yer, sir? Well, there was ould Gladstone nearly up to her belly in mud, and she den't struggle, for the artful ould thing knaowed that, _do_, she'd sink deeper. The tumbril was nearly a top o' she, and Jim and Lishe was mud from head to foot--in their sh.o.r.e-goin' togs, too. They come along to the Ferry, and afore c.o.c.kney Smith opened 'is mouth ould Lishe says, "Look at here, landlord, what your d.a.m.ned ould mare's done to we. Spoilt our best clothes, she 'as!"

"Where's my mare and cart?" says c.o.c.kney Smith.

"Ould Gladstone's stuck in the crick and the tumbril's atop o' she,"

says Jim.

'"Do yaou mean to say you've left that pore animal there?" says c.o.c.kney Smith.

'"Ould Gladstone's all right," says Lishe. "Nawthen can't hurt she where she is; it's only just after low water."

'c.o.c.kney Smith he were wonnerful angry. "What I want to know is ow did it 'appen, and whose fault is it?" 'e says.

'"Well, it was this a-way," says Lishe. "Yaou see, we laowed we was at the corner, and Jim pulled 'is line, and ould Gladstone was a bit quick on the h.e.l.lum, and afore we knaowed where we was we an' all was in the crick."

'"I've druv' ould Gladstone many a time this last eighteen year, and she ain't never answered 'er h.e.l.lum that way afore," says Jim.

'"P'raps you 'adn't been to a niece's weddin'," says c.o.c.kney Smith, kind o' nasty like.

'"Ould Gladstone den't never git slewed in them days when she 'ad a proper owner, niece's weddin' or no niece's weddin'," says Lishe.

'"I suppose yaou keep pore ould Gladstone so short of wittles and drink that when she do git a chance she goes too far on the other tack," says Jim.

"I've a good mind to 'ave the law of ye for spoiling my best togs,"

says Lishe.

'c.o.c.kney Smith seed it warn't no use a arguin', so 'e says, "Well, who's goin' to get Gladstone and the cart out?"

'"We are," says Jim and Lishe--"that is, with some other chaps to 'elp, but this 'ere's a salvage job, this is," and with that they winks at Jacob Trent and Bill Morgan, two chaps off another smack, just to let them knaow they was in the job.

'"Salvage job be d.a.m.ned--robbery yaou mean," says c.o.c.kney Smith, and with that 'e goes off to look at pore ould Gladstone.

'We an' all went with 'im, but it was that dark us couldn't see ould Gladstone, but on'y the tumbril, but us heard she a breathin', so us knaowed she were alive.

"'Pore ould Gladstone! that's a strain on 'er," sez ould Jacob Trent.

'E were wonnerful fond of ould Gladstone, was ould Jacob.

'When c.o.c.kney Smith got back, he were that angry 'e fared to be a goin' to bust, but Jim 'e says,

"Naow look at here, ef ould Gladstone ain't got out o' that crick by half-past eleven she'll draown, for that's high water at midnight."

'"Yes, yes," says Lishe; "and ef she don't draown she'll most likely get run daown, as the _Juliet Ann's_ a comin' in this tide or next to load straw, and she's baound to stand in where ould Gladstone be with the wind this way."

'"Pore ould Gladstone! that's a strain on 'er, that is, and she be wonnerful an' ould," says Jacob.

'Well, landlord he seed he'd lose ould Gladstone ef he den't do suthen, so 'e says: "What do you chaps want for gettin' of she aout?"

"I reckon ould Gladstone and the tumbril's worth the best part of ten paounds, and one-third of that is four paounds or thereabaouts," says Lishe.

"Well, I ain't a goin' to pay it," says c.o.c.kney Smith.

"Then yaou can git she aout yerself," says Jim.