Of course, as is always the way, at the last moment we kept remembering things we had forgotten; and when we finally closed the house up and went down the steps to the road, we were all burdened with armfuls of odd packages.

Halfway to the river, the Doctor suddenly remembered that he had left the stock-pot boiling on the kitchen-fire.  However, we saw a blackbird flying by who nested in our garden, and the Doctor asked her to go back for us and tell Dab-Dab about it.

Down at the river-wall we found a great crowd waiting to see us off.

Standing right near the gang-plank were my mother and father.  I hoped that they would not make a scene, or burst into tears or anything like that.  But as a matter of fact they behaved quite well—­for parents.  My mother said something about being sure not to get my feet wet; and my father just smiled a crooked sort of smile, patted me on the back and wished me luck.  Good-byes are awfully uncomfortable things and I was glad when it was over and we passed on to the ship.

We were a little surprised not to see Matthew Mugg among the crowd.  We had felt sure that he would be there; and the Doctor had intended to give him some extra instructions about the food for the animals we had left at the house.

At last, after much pulling and tugging, we got the anchor up and undid a lot of mooring-ropes.  Then the Curlew began to move gently down the river with the out-running tide, while the people on the wall cheered and waved their handkerchiefs.

We bumped into one or two other boats getting out into the stream; and at one sharp bend in the river we got stuck on a mud bank for a few minutes.  But though the people on the shore seemed to get very excited at these things, the Doctor did not appear to be disturbed by them in the least.

“These little accidents will happen in the most carefully regulated voyages,” he said as he leaned over the side and fished for his boots which had got stuck in the mud while we were pushing off.  “Sailing is much easier when you get out into the open sea.  There aren’t so many silly things to bump into.”

For me indeed it was a great and wonderful feeling, that getting out into the open sea, when at length we passed the little lighthouse at the mouth of the river and found ourselves free of the land.  It was all so new and different:  just the sky above you and sea below.  This ship, which was to be our house and our street, our home and our garden, for so many days to come, seemed so tiny in all this wide water—­ so tiny and yet so snug, sufficient, safe.