Every wave
with a little running white crest on its ridge; though not quite such a
curling frill as this one has which is engulfing poor Robinson Crusoe.
But his is a surf-wave, of course. Those I am speaking of are waves in
mid-ocean."
"Not as tall as a man, Cousin Peregrine?"
"As tall as many men piled one upon another, Maggie."
"It certainly is very funny that the children should choose this subject
to tease you about tonight, Peregrine," said Mamma.
We are all apt to speak inaccurately. Mamma did not mean that the
subject was a comical one, but that it was remarkable that the children
should have started it at dessert, when the grown-up people had been
discussing it at dinner.
They had not been talking about Robinson Crusoe's wave, but about the
loss of an Australian vessel, in sad circumstances which were in every
one's mouth. A few people only had been saved. They had spent many days
in an open boat in great suffering, and the particular question
discussed at dinner was, whether the captain of a certain vessel which
had passed without rescuing them had been so inhuman as to see and yet
to leave them.
"How could he help seeing them?" Mamma had indignantly asked. "It was
daylight, and of course somebody was on the deck, even if the captain
was still in bed.
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