said the
Archbishop, smiling. 'The first time I was wrecked was on that coast. As
our ship took ground and we tried to push her off, an old fat fellow of
a seal, I remember, reared breast-high out of the water, and scratched
his head with his flipper as if he were saying: "What does that excited
person with the pole think he is doing." I was very wet and miserable,
but I could not help laughing, till the natives came down and attacked
us.'

'What did you do?' Dan asked.

'One couldn't very well go back to France, so one tried to make them go
back to the shore. All the South Saxons are born wreckers, like my own
Northumbrian folk. I was bringing over a few things for my old church at
York, and some of the natives laid hands on them, and--and I'm afraid I
lost my temper.'

'It is said--' Puck's voice was wickedly meek--'that there was a great
fight.'

Eh, but I must ha' been a silly lad.' Wilfrid spoke with a sudden thick
burr in his voice. He coughed, and took up his silvery tones again.
'There was no fight really. My men thumped a few of them, but the tide
rose half an hour before its time, with a strong wind, and we backed
off. What I wanted to say, though, was, that the seas about us were full
of sleek seals watching the scuffle. My good Eddi--my chaplain--insisted
that they were demons. Yes--yess! That was my first acquaintance with
the South Saxons and their seals.'

'But not the only time you were wrecked, was it?' said Dan.

'Alas, no! On sea and land my life seems to have been one long
shipwreck.' He looked at the Jhone Coline slab as old Hobden sometimes
looks into the fire. 'Ah, well!'

'But did you ever have any more adventures among the seals?' said Una,
after a little.

'Oh, the seals! I beg your pardon. They are the important things.
Yes--yess! I went back to the South Saxons after twelve--fifteen--years.
No, I did not come by water, but overland from my own Northumbria, to
see what I could do. It's little one can do with that class of native
except make them stop killing each other and themselves--' 'Why did they
kill themselves?' Una asked, her chin in her hand.

'Because they were heathen. When they grew tired of life (as if they
were the only people!) they would jump into the sea. They called it
going to Wotan. It wasn't want of food always--by any means. A man would
tell you that he felt grey in the heart, or a woman would say that she
saw nothing but long days in front of her; and they'd