And, what do you think the present was, eh?
You would never guess.
Well, a nice little loaf of bread and an ounce packet of the best black
tea, both packed up in a very pretty box that also contained a
remarkably smart cap, with ribbons of a colour such as the soul of Sarah
loved.
Nor was this all,
On the lid of the box was an elaborate device in hieroglyphic
characters, which could be readily understood when properly explained by
the young designers, detailing the leading incidents of a celebrated
picnic in the woods which once occurred; although, possibly the
uninitiated might experience some little difficulty at first in
discriminating between what were meant for the figures of the principal
personages of the story and the objects of still life depicted in the
drawing, though otherwise it was an admirable work of art.
Regarding the copy of verses also pinned on to the box, which the device
in question was intended to illustrate, there could be no mistake; the
verses, indeed, being a replica of an original poem, preserved in the
Bobo-Nellonian archives and entitled, "Sarah's forget-me-nots,"
wherewith the reader has been already made acquainted.
The parcel was duly dispatched down to Southsea; but, though Nellie
subsequently wrote a nice little letter to the Captain in her own nice
handwriting, large and legible, such as the old sailor could read
comfortably without spectacles, wherein she mentioned all the latest
news of her aquarium tenants, telling how the hermit crab had distrained
for his rent on a young lobster who had cast-off his shell, and that a
small skate objected to the ice, she could learn nothing of how "the
good Sarah" received her present.
Nor could Bob gain any information on the subject from aunt Polly, to
whom he sent a long epistle bearing on the same momentous theme.
Both had to wait to have their curiosity satisfied until their aunt
Polly and Captain Dresser came up to London at Christmastide; when at
length the two of them managed to worm the secret out of the Captain.
The old sailor had been giving them all the news about those they had
known down at Southsea; how Dick had at last been accepted for the navy
and entered as a second-class boy on board the _Saint Vincent_, being
bound to make a full able-bodied sailor in time; and how Hellyer had got
a little pension in addition to his pay, as he was now "chief officer"
of the coastguard; after which, the Captain at last referred to Sarah,
"the good Sarah!"
"By Jove!" said he, "I shall never forget that night your box came! I
was playing cribbage with your aunt Polly--and she cheated me, too, by
the same token, in the fuss that occurred on opening the parcel, by
scoring `two for his heels,' when it only should have been `one for his
nob.' You never saw such a disgraceful thing done in your life, really
a most barefaced piece of cheating!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs Gilmour. "Sure, I'm listening to all those stories
you are telling! Won't I pay you out, too, by and by, when you come
round to `the Moorings' again. You just wait and see!"
"I assure you, ma'am, it's a fact," persisted the Captain unblushingly,
his little eyes blinking with fun under his bushy eyebrows, which were
going up and down at a fine rate, I can tell you. "I saw you move the
pegs, ma'am, when you thought I wasn't looking!"
"But, what did Sarah say?" asked Nellie, clinging to the old sailor and
trying to attract his attention to the point at issue, from which he
seemed sadly inclined to stray. "What did the good Sarah say?"
"Eh?" said he, cocking his head on one side in his most bird-like
fashion and pretending not to understand his questioner. "Eh?"
"Oh, do tell us!" cried Bob, catching hold of him by the other arm.
"How did `the good Sarah' look?"
"Why," chuckled the Captain, bringing down his old malacca cane with a
thump on the floor. "Jolly, my boy, jolly!"