I called softly to Hugh to run. "Shan't!" I cried as we started off together, at our best speed.
"Won't you?" he called. "Then I'll make you." He was after us in a brace of shakes, and had us both by the collar in less than a dozen yards. "What little tempers we have got," he said grinning. "Regular little spitfires, both of you. Now back you come till we have had a talk."
I noticed then that he was much better dressed than formerly. His clothes were of the very finest sea-cloth, and well cut. The buttons on his scarlet waistcoat were new George guineas; and the buttons on his coat were of silver, very beautifully chased. His shoes had big silver buckles on them, and there was a silver buckle to the flap of his grey slouch hat. The tattoo marks on his left hand were covered over by broad silver rings, of the sort the Spanish onion-boys used to sell in Dartmouth, after the end of the war. He looked extremely handsome in his fine clothes. I wondered how I could ever have been afraid of him.
"Yes," he said with a grin, when he saw me eyeing him, "my ship came home all right. I was able to refit for a full due. So now we'll see what gifts the Queen sent."
We wondered what he meant by this sentence; but we were not kept long in doubt. He led us through the briars to the ruins of the shed where the quarry overseer had formerly had his office.
"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."