Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III A RETROSPECT 1DRIS slept in a room the window of which, being a dormer one, overlooked the roofs of the other houses, and gave him an interrupted view of the sea. One morning, as soon as he had drawn the curtain, he came running to his mother's room with the news: — " Oh, mother, come and look. There's a pretty little ship in the bay." So, to please him, Mrs. Breakspear stepped from her lit clos, or cupboard bed, and stole, even as she was, in her night-robe, to take a view of the vessel. " See, there it is," cried Idris, excitedly pointing it out. " Is it a Viking ship, mother ? " " There are no Vikings nowadays," was the reply, a reply which Idris took as a proof of the degeneracy of the times. " It is a yacht." As this term conveyed no more enlightenment to Idris' mind than if she had said that it was aquinquereme.he naturally asked, " What is a yacht ? " The explanation was deferred till breakfast-time, when his mother entered into the meaning of the term. Idris made a somewhat hasty meal, being eager to run off to the quay for the purpose of taking a nearer view of the newly-arrived vessel. Dancing down the stairs of the old house into the street he made for the end of the stone pier, and sitting down at the head of the steps he took a long survey of the yacht, wondering whether it equalled in pointof swiftness and beauty the famous Long Serpent of Olaf, built by that master-shipwright, Thorberg. A boat was rapidly making its way from the vessel to the harbour. Idris recognized it as the revenue-cutter, at the tiller of which sat Old Pol himself. " Ha! Master Idris," he said, as soon as he had mounted the stairs, " what a pity you were not out an hour earlier! You could then have gone with us to yon vessel." And then, turning to...