preddles

Updated: May 5, 2025

Mr Frewen and I were both too weak and faint from the terrible shock we had had, to do anything that day but lie back and rest, my place being chosen close to the hole I had bored, so that I could be ready to answer Mr Preddle's questions, which were constantly coming, and to listen to his lamentations about his fish about the trouble he had taken, the water which must be drying till, as I lay back there with my ear close to a second hole which I had bored lower down, every now and then from pain, heat, and the consequent faintness, I kept on dropping into a curious half-dreamy state, in which I seemed to be watching Mr Preddle's fish swimming about with their fat little mouths gasping at the surface of the water, and all looking as if they were so many hundreds of tiny Preddles asking me to get them out of prison.

George Manville Fenn - Sail Ho!: A Boy at Sea