[Illustration: LATE FOURTEENTH-CENTURY CHEST, OF GERMAN ORIGIN, CARVED WITH REPRESENTATION OF A TOURNAMENT, HARTY CHURCH.] We shall meet this party again, on the mainland, on the way to Faversham; ourselves tracking laboriously round the coastline, to Harty, which was once in the nature of an island, divided from Sheppey by Cable Fleet and Crog Dick; but these have long been dry. There are more imposing coastwise walks than this: there cannot well be many duller. Imagine the dun-coloured waters of the Swale, bordered all the way by a continuous grassy embankment, raised to protect the land from being drowned; and further imagine this protective bank carefully winding along the configuration of the shore, so that you progress with painful slowness: there you have the route from Shellness to Harty. Harty consists of a solitary farm, close by the little church. There is no village, and almost the only other house is the “Ferry Inn” by the waterside, half a mile away. In the church remains a curious and highly dilapidated old chest 4 feet 6 inches long, its front carved with a spirited scene representing two knights tilting. One of them is seen on the point of being unhorsed by his opponent’s lance. The tilting-saddles, with long shields for the riders’ legs, are noticeable. The chest is of German origin, and dates from the close of the fourteenth century. The reason of it being here is unknown, but one may venture the opinion that it is one of the spoils of shipwreck. From the “Ferry Inn” at Harty, across the unlovely Swale, it is a half-mile passage, a long and laborious business for an oarsman. CHAPTER VI THE CAPTURE OF JAMES THE SECOND--FAVERSHAM It is two miles from this side of Harty Ferry to Faversham, through Oare and Davington. Hard by the landing-place the sinuous and muddy Faversham Creek joins the Swale, and ugly sheds stand here and there on the ill-favoured banks, exhibiting minatory notices for the observance of would-be trespassers. I don’t think any ordinarily sane person fully informed of what those sheds contain would in the least desire to trespass, for they are, in fact, stored with dynamite, the making of which, together with brewing and the manufacture of paper and bricks, forms an industry actively followed in the neighbourhood of Faversham.