Oh, come up here! You never
saw anything so fine," etc., etc.
When, therefore, Scootsy Mulligan, aged nine, son
of a ship-caulker who worked in Martin Farguson's
ship-yard, and Sandy Plummer, eldest of three, and
their mother a widow--plain washing and ironing,
two doors from the cake-shop--heard that that
French "spad," Arch Cobden what lived up to Yardley,
and that red-headed Irish cub, Tod Fogarty--
Tod's hair had turned very red--had pre-empted the
Black Tub, as the wreck was irreverently called,
claiming it as their very own, "and-a-sayin' they
wuz pirates and bloody Turks and sich," these two
quarrelsome town rats organized a posse in lower
Barnegat for its recapture.
Archie was sweeping the horizon from his perch
on the "poop-deck" when his eagle eye detected a
strange group of what appeared to be human beings
advancing toward the wreck from the direction of
Barnegat village. One, evidently a chief, was in
the lead, the others following bunched together. All
were gesticulating wildly. The trusty henchman
immediately gave warning to Tod, who was at work
in the lower hold arranging a bundle of bean-poles
which had drifted inshore the night before--part of
the deck-load, doubtless, of some passing vessel.
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