'Holy Father,' said Puck with a demure face, 'is a little seal also "one who moves in the water"?' 'Eh? Oh yes--yess!' he laughed. 'A seal moves wonderfully in the waters. Do the seal come to my island still?' Puck shook his head. 'All those little islands have been swept away.' 'Very possible. The tides ran fiercely down there. Do you know the land of the Sea-calf, maiden?' 'No--but we've seen seals--at Brighton.' 'The Archbishop is thinking of a little farther down the coast. He means Seal's Eye--Selsea--down Chichester way--where he converted the South Saxons,' Puck explained. 'Yes--yess; if the South Saxons did not convert me,' 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, I remember, reared breast high out of the water, and scratched his head with his flipper as if he were saying: "What _does_ that respectable 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 pause. '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.