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.
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.
The creeks hereabouts--“cricks” they are called locally--and the marshes, or “meshes” in the speech of Kent, are not scenically beautiful nor in any way spectacular, but the brick-barges, gliding by, do at least give, with their great rusty-red sails, a quaint touch. Scarce a duller spot could be found for the scene of an historic incident, but the incident of James the Second being brought here, a prisoner, was itself drab and unheroic. The fishermen who had seized the fugitive King on the long low spit of Shellness did not at first know how important was their capture, that cold December day. The humble hoy was a strange vessel for the conveyance of such gentlefolk as these appeared to be, and the fact, in itself, was suspicious in those troubled times; but the fisherfolk’s thoughts did not rise to the contemplation of a monarch leaving his kingdom in that evasive way. Probably, if the truth of it were known, their idea of a king was that of a personage splendid in appearance and wearing a crown; certainly it was not this tall, thin-faced man, of mingled careworn and severe expression of countenance, and habited in unrelieved black, who was masquerading as chaplain to Sir Edward Hales, the gentleman who appeared to be the chief among the party they had detained. The fishermen, indeed, took them for escaping Jesuits, and thought the King to be that most notorious of them all, Father Petre. “I know him by his lean jaws,” exclaimed one, and another advocated searching “the hatchet-faced old Jesuit,” a suggestion acted upon in earnest. They snatched his money and watch--those they could understand and appraise; but his Coronation Ring and a number of little trinkets he carried they left untouched, together with the diamond buckles of his shoes, which they took to be glass. What indignities to offer the Lord’s Anointed! Then some person recognised him. It was a great moment, and I wonder no painter has ever made that tableau the subject of a picture. Perhaps it would have been done had the King presented a better front. Monarchs are by courtesy “gracious,” and they are supposed, in addition, to be dignified and courageous; but this poor James became, under these circumstances, a distressingly mean figure. Why should he at this juncture have proved a coward: he who, when Duke of York and Lord High Admiral, had shown notable courage: he who, three years before, had been contemptuous of the pitiful appeals for mercy made by Monmouth?