The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Volume 1 (of 2)Paltock, Robert
Science
The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Volume 1 (of 2)
Paltock, Robert
Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction
Being one day upon shore, watching to see if anything more was come
through the cavern, I spied at a distance somewhat looking very black
and very long, and by the colour and shape thereof I took it for a young
whale. Having observed it some time making very little way, I took my
old boat and followed it, but was afraid to go near it, lest a stroke
with its tail--which I then fancied I saw move--might endanger my boat
and myself too; but creeping nearer and nearer, and seeing it did not
stir, I believed it to be dead; whereupon, taking courage, I drew so
close that at length I plainly perceived it was the ship's second boat
turned upside down. It is not easy to express the joy I felt on this
discovery. It was the very thing I was now, as I have said, in the
greatest want of. I presently laid hold of it and brought it ashore; and
it was no small pleasure to find, on examining, that though it had lain
so long dry, it was yet quite sound, and all its chinks filled up in
its passage; and it proved to me afterwards the most beneficial thing I
could have had from the ship.
I got all my goods home from the lake to my grotto, by means of the
cart, as usual. My wife and daughters waited with impatience for me
to unpack, that they might take possession of such things as would be
needful for rigging out the family against the supposed reception of
the old glumm, and had set all the chests in the order they desired they
might be opened in. But Tommy running to me, with a "Pray, daddy, open
my chest first! pray, give me my playthings first!" it was, to satisfy
him, concluded in favour of his demand. So, he pointing to the chest
which he regarded as his property, I opened it, whilst his eyes were
ready to pierce through it, till I came to his treasure. "There, there
they are, daddy!" says he, as soon as I had uncovered them. And indeed,
when I saw them, I could not but much commend the child for his fancy;
for the first things that appeared were a silver punch or wine can and
a ladle, then a gold watch, a pair of scissors, a small silver
chafing-dish and lamp, a large case of mathematical instruments, a
flageolet, a terrella or globular loadstone, a small globe, a dozen of
large silver spoons, and a small case of knives and forks and spoons;
in short, there was, I believe, the greatest part of the Portuguese
captain's valuable effects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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