"Thou'rt a sight for sore eyes, Master Richard," he said; "it's many a long day since thou was here to pester me with thy questions. And all's strong again—no bones broken? And now I'll teach thee to make a galleon, like as I promised."
"Will you, indeed?" said Dickie, trembling with joy and pride.
"That will I," said the man, and threw up his pointed beard in a jolly laugh. "And see what I've made thee while thou'st been lazying in bed—a real English ship of war."
He laid down the auger he held and went into a low, rough shed, and next moment came out with a little ship in his hand—a perfect model of the strange high-built ships Dickie could see on the river.
"'Tis the picture," said he, proudly, "of my old ship, The Golden Venture, that I sailed in with Master Raleigh, and help to sink the accursed Armada, and clip the King of Spain his wings, and singe his beard."
"The Armada!" said Dickie, with a new and quite strange feeling, rather like going down unexpectedly in a lift. "The Spanish Armada?"
"What other?" asked the ship-builder. "Thou'st heard the story a thousand times."
"I want to hear it again," Dickie said. And heard the story of England's great danger and her great escapes. It was just the same story as the one you read in your history book—and yet how different, when it was told by
