OR, THE SAXONS IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT
CHAPTER I.
STRANDED.
"How much longer, thinkest thou, must we be here, Biggun?"
To this question no answer was returned, and after a moment the same voice spoke again rather more feebly.
"Biggun, why answerest thou not? What ails thee? Oh, how she does bump!" And the child's voice became tremulous with pain.
"It won't be a long time now, Ædric, before she floats, I'm thinking; the tide is making up fast—only if she don't go to pieces first I'm a weala,"[1] added the speaker, under his breath.
[1] The general name for foreigners, but applied especially to the conquered, and therefore despised, British. The words Wales and Welsh are the modern equivalents.
"Art thou much in pain, Eddie?" said another younger and brighter voice.
"Oh! Wulf, it does hurt here so much. It wouldn't hurt like this, I think, if the weary old boat wouldn't bump so dreadfully—oh!—" exclaimed the boy, as a rolling wave came in and raised up the large, awkwardly-built boat; and then, as the white crest of the wave passed on to break in a long frothy cataract over the shallow sand-bank beyond, the boat fell back with a bump that made every timber in her strain and creak and work as though she would go to pieces.