When, later, the sea grew confused and full of swirls and boiling, I said to myself:  “This must be the tail of the Goodwins.”  But it was, not.  For, though I did not know it, the ebb of the great spring tide had carried me right away down Channel, and there was not twelve feet of water under the keel, for the seething of the sea that I noticed came from the Varne—­the Varne, that curious, long, steep hill, with its twin ridge close by, the Colbert; they stand right up in the Channel between France and England; they very nearly lift their heads above the waves.  I passed over the crest of them, unknowing, into the deep beyond, and still the ship raced on.  Then, somewhat suddenly, so suddenly that I gave a cry, I saw right up above me, through what was now a thick haze, the cliffs of England, perhaps two miles away, and showing very faintly indeed, a bare outline upon the white weather.  A thought ran into my mind with violence, how, one behind the other, beyond known things, beyond history, the men from whom I came had greeted this sight after winds like these and danger and the crossing of the narrow seas.  I looked at my watch; it was ten o’clock, so that this crossing had taken three hours, and to see the land again like that was better than any harbour, and I knew that all those hours my mind had been at strain.  I looked again at the vague cliffs narrowly, thinking them the South Foreland, but as they cleared I saw to my astonishment that I had blown all down the Straits, and that Folkestone and the last walls of the chalk were before me.’

The wind dropped; the sea went on uneasily, tumbling and rolling, but within a very little while—­before eleven, I think—­there was no breeze at all; and there I lay, with Folkestone harbour not a mile away, but never any chance of getting there; and I whistled, but no wind came.  I sat idle and admired the loneliness of the sea.  Till, towards one, a little draught of air blew slantwise from the land, and under it I crept to the smooth water within the stone arm of the breakwater, and here I let the anchor go, and settling everything, I slept.

It is pleasant to remember these things.

THE VALLEY OF THE ROTHER

There is in that part of England which is very properly called her Eden (that centre of all good things and home of happy men, the county of Sussex), there is, I say, in that exalted county a valley which I shall praise for your greater pleasure, because I know that it is too jealously guarded for any run of strangers to make it common, and because I am very sure that you may go and only make it the more delightful by your presence.  It is the valley of the River Rother; the sacred and fruitful river between the downs and the weald.