As Quinbey explained to the questioning villagers, he would go to sea no more, but, having spent his life at sea, wanted a reminder—something to look at—a plaything.
Sammy was an interested spectator of the work, and Quinbey was kind to him, answering his questions, and even betraying some solicitude that he should understand the rig of a ship, the names of the ropes and sails, and the manner of handling them. He even went so far as to hire a couple of sailors to climb aloft, to loose and furl canvas, again and again, until Sammy understood.
Then the cold weather came on, and the base-burner was lit; and with the cold weather came the snow, and the icy sleet, and the hurricane gales from Greenland, striking the crest of that hill with a force that threatened to tear the dummy ship from the ground. And on particularly stormy nights, the villagers, snug in their warm beds, would waken for a moment at a sound louder than the gale—the sound of Quinbey's voice, which, in a calm, would carry a mile. And the voice would cry:
"All hands on deck to make sail. Out wi' you, you blasted lubber, and lay aloft. Up wi' you, and loose that mainsail, and, when you've got it loose, furl it. I'll show you how I earned that money. Up wi' you, 'fore I give you a rope's end."
And sometimes, in the lulls, they could hear Sammy's shrieks of pain, and the thwack of the rope's end.
THE ROCK
"I tell ye I saw it—wi' these eyes I saw it!"
"You think you seen it."
"Now I quit. Ye talk like every mate or skipper or Consul I've told this to. Just the same, I never git to the end o' the third day out, either way,—I'm in a six-day boat, ye know—but what the nervousness gits me, an' I'm no good for twelve hours, until I know we're past the spot."