"Come in here," he said, shoving us in front of him, "and see what the
Queen'll give you. Shut your eyes. That's the style. Now open."
When we opened our eyes we could hardly keep from shouting with
pleasure. There, on the ground, kept upright by a couple of bricks was
a three-foot model of a revenue cutter, under all her sail except the
big square foresail, which was neatly folded upon her yard. She was
perfect aloft, even to her pennant; and on deck she was perfect too,
with beautiful little model guns, all brass, on their carriages,
pointing through the port-holes.
"Oh!" we exclaimed. "Oh! Is she really for us, for our very own?"
"Why, yes," he said. "At least she's for you, Mr
What's-your-name. Jim, I think you call yourself. Yes, Jim. Well,
she's for you, Jim. I got something else the Queen sent for Mr
Preacher-feller." He bent in one corner of the ruin, and pulled out
what seemed to be a stout but broken box. "This is for you, Mr
Preacher-feller," he said to Hugh.
We saw that it was a model of a port of a ship's deck and side. The
side was cut for a gun-port, which opened and shut by means of
laniards; and, pointing through the opened port was a model brass
nine-pounder on its carriage, with all its roping correctly rigged,
and its sponges and rammers hooked up above it ready for use. It was a
beautiful piece of work (indeed, both models were), for the gun was
quite eighteen inches long. "There you are," said Marah Gorsuch. "That
lot's for you, Mr Preacher-feller. Them things is what the Queen
sent."
We were so much delighted by these beautiful presents that it was some
minutes before we could find words with which to thank him. We could
not believe that such things were really for us. He was much pleased
to find that his gifts gave so much pleasure; he kept up a continual
grin while we examined the toys inch by inch.
"Like 'em, hey?" he said.
"Yes; I should just think we do," we answered. We shook him by the
hand, almost unable to speak from pleasure.
"And now let's come down and sail her," I said.
"Hold on there," said Marah Gorsuch. "Don't be too quick. You ain't
going to sail that cutter till you know how. You've got a lot to learn
first, so that must wait. It's to be Master Preacher-feller's turn
this morning. Yours'll come by-and-by. What you got to do, first go
off, is to sink that old hulk you were playing with. We'll sink her at
anchor with Preacher-feller's cannon."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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