There were ships of many different varieties.  There were old men-of-war, whose sides bristled with cannon, and which had high structures fore and aft, and their masts weighed down with a network of sails and ropes.  There were small island-boats with rowing-benches along the sides; there were undecked cannon sloops and richly gilded frigates, which were models of the ones the kings had used on their travels.  Finally, there were also the heavy, broad armour-plated ships with towers and cannon on deck—­such as are in use nowadays; and narrow, shining torpedo boats which resembled long, slender fishes.

When the boy was carried around among all this, he was awed.  “Fancy that such big, splendid ships have been built here in Sweden!” he thought to himself.

He had plenty of time to see all that was to be seen in there; for when the bronze man saw the models, he forgot everything else.  He examined them all, from the first to the last, and asked about them.  And Rosenbom, the boatswain on the Dristigheten, told as much as he knew of the ships’ builders, and of those who had manned them; and of the fates they had met.  He told them about Chapman and Puke and Trolle; of Hoagland and Svensksund—­all the way along until 1809—­after that he had not been there.

Both he and the bronze man had the most to say about the fine old wooden ships.  The new battleships they didn’t exactly appear to understand.

“I can hear that Rosenbom doesn’t know anything about these new-fangled things,” said the bronze man.  “Therefore, let us go and look at something else; for this amuses me, Rosenbom.”

By this time he had entirely given up his search for the boy, who felt calm and secure where he sat in the wooden hat.

Thereupon both men wandered through the big establishment:  sail-making shops, anchor smithy, machine and carpenter shops.  They saw the mast sheers and the docks; the large magazines, the arsenal, the rope-bridge and the big discarded dock, which had been blasted in the rock.  They went out upon the pile-bridges, where the naval vessels lay moored, stepped on board and examined them like two old sea-dogs; wondered; disapproved; approved; and became indignant.

The boy sat in safety under the wooden hat, and heard all about how they had laboured and struggled in this place, to equip the navies which had gone out from here.  He heard how life and blood had been risked; how the last penny had been sacrificed to build the warships; how skilled men had strained all their powers, in order to perfect these ships which had been their fatherland’s safeguard.  A couple of times the tears came to the boy’s eyes, as he heard all this.

And the very last, they went into an open court, where the galley models of old men-of-war were grouped; and a more remarkable sight the boy had never beheld; for these models had inconceivably powerful and terror-striking faces.  They were big, fearless and savage:  filled with the same proud spirit that had fitted out the great ships.  They were from another time than his.  He thought that he shrivelled up before them.