The Viking's Skull

by John R. Carling

CHAPTER III A RETROSPECT

Idris 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 a quinquereme, 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.