Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven.The Fen-man’s Wages.Dave did not keep his promise the next day, nor the next; but Dick Winthorpe had his attention taken up by other matters, for a party of men arrived and stopped with their leaders at the Toft, where they were refreshed with ale and bread and cheese, previous to continuing their journey down to the seaside.The squire and Farmer Tallington accompanied them down to their quarters, which were to be at a disused farm-house close to the mouth of the little river; and incidentally Dick learned that this was the first party of labourers who were to cut the new lode or drain from near the river mouth right across the fen; that there was to be a lock with gates at the river end, to let the drain-water out at low tide, and that the banks of the drain were to be raised so as to protect the land at the sides from being flooded.Fen people from far and wide collected to see the gang, and to watch the surveyors, who, with measuring chain and staves and instruments, busied themselves marking out the direction in which the men were to cut; and these fen people shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, while more than once, when Squire Winthorpe addressed one or the other, Dick noticed that they were always surly, and that some turned away without making any answer.“Never mind, Dick,” said the squire laughing. “Some day when we’ve given them smiling pastures and corn-fields, instead of water and bog and ague, they will be ashamed of themselves.”“But—”“Well, but what, sir?” said the squire as the lad hesitated.“I was only going to say, father, isn’t it a pity to spoil the fen?”The squire did not answer for a few moments, but stood frowning. The severe look passed off directly though, and he smiled.“Dick,” he said gravely, “all those years at a good school, to come back as full of ignorance and prejudice as the fen-men! Shame!”He walked away, leaving Dick with his companion Tom Tallington.“I say,” said the latter, “you caught it.”“Well, I can’t help it,” said Dick, who felt irritated and ashamed. “It does seem a pity to spoil all the beautiful pools and fishing places, and instead of having beds of reeds full of birds, for there to be nothing but fields and a great ugly drain. Why, the flowers, and butterflies, and nesting places will all be swept away. What do we care for fields of corn!”“My father cares for them, and he says it will be the making of this part of the country.”“Unmaking, he means,” said Dick; and they went on to watch the proceedings of the strange men who had come—big, strong, good-tempered-looking fellows, armed with sharp cutting spades, and for whose use the lads found that a brig had come into the little river, and was landing barrows, planks, and baskets, with a variety of other articles to be used in the making of the drain.“I’m afraid we shall have some trouble over this business, Tallington,” said the squire as they went back.“Well, we sha’n’t be the only sufferers,” said the farmer good-humouredly. “I suppose all we who have adventured our few pounds will be in the people’s black books. But we must go on—we can’t stop now.”The next day Tom came over, and the lads went down towards the far-stretching fen, now once more losing a great deal of the water of the flood.They passed the Solemn one apparently none the worse for his bath, for he trotted away from the gate to thrust his head in the favourite corner by the old corbel in the wall, and look back at them, as if as ready to kick as ever.“Poor old Solomon!” said Dick laughing, “I should have been sorry if he had been lost.”“Oh, never mind him,” cried Tom; “is old Dave coming over to fetch us? Why, Dick, look!”“I can’t see anything,” said Dick.“Because you’re not looking the right way. There! Now he’s behind that bed of reeds a mile away.”“I see!” cried Dick. “Why, it is Dave, and he’s coming.”The lads ran down to the edge of the fen, and made their way to the end of a long, open, river-like stretch of water, which was now perfectly clear, so that everything could be clearly distinguished at the bottom; and before long, as they walked to and fro, they caught sight of a little shoal of small fish, and soon after of a young pike, with his protruding lower jaw, waiting for his opportunity to make a dash at some unfortunate rudd, whose orange fins and faintly-gilded sides made him a delectable-looking morsel for his olive-green and gold excellency the tyrant of the river.“He’s coming here, isn’t he?” said Tom, gazing out anxiously over the reedy waste.“Yes; I can see his old fox-skin cap. He’s coming safe enough.”“Oh, Dick!” cried his companion.“Well! What?”“The powder. You’ve never given him the powder, and he’ll be as gruff as can be. Has he had the horn?”“Had two,” said Dick, watching the approaching punt, which was still half a mile away, and being poled steadily in and out of the winding water-lane, now hidden by the dry rustling reeds which stood covered with strands of filmy conferva or fen scum.“But he hasn’t had the powder we promised him.”“No,” said Dick loftily; “not yet.”“Why, you haven’t brought it, Dick!”“Haven’t brought it, indeed! Why, what’s this, then?”He drew a bottle from his pocket, took out the cork, and poured a little of its contents into his hand—dry, black grains, like so much sable sand, and then poured it back and corked it tightly.“You are a good fellow, Dick; but I haven’t paid my share.”“I don’t want your share,” said Dick loftily. “Father gave me half-a-crown the other day.”“I wish my father gave me half-crowns sometimes,” sighed Tom; “but he isn’t so rich as yours.”“There, don’t bother about money!” cried Dick. “Let’s think about the birds. Hooray! here he comes! Hi, Dave!”Sound travels easily over water, and the decoy-man must have heard the hail, but he paid no heed, only kept on poling his punt along, thrusting down the long ash sapling, which the fen-men used as punt-pole, staff, and leaping-pole in turn; and then as the boat glided on, standing erect in her bows like some statue.“Now, what a dried-up old yellow mummy he is!” cried Dick. “He can see us, but he’s pretending he can’t, on purpose to tease us. Look at that! He needn’t have gone behind that great reed patch. It’s to make us think he is going down to your place.”“Let’s run down and meet him,” said Tom eagerly.“No, no; stop where you are. If he sees us go down there he’ll double back directly and come here. He’s just like an old fox. I know. Come along!”Dick started up and ran in the same direction as Dave had taken with the punt before he disappeared behind the reed-bed. Tom followed, and they raced on along the edge till a clump of alders was reached.“Pst! Tom, round here,” whispered Dick; and leading the way he doubled back, following the long low bed of swamp-loving wood, and keeping in its shelter till they were once more opposite to the spot where Dave should have landed.There, still hid among the trees, Dick stooped down in a thick bed of dry reeds, pretty close to the water, and in full view of the rough winding canal leading far and wide.“Let’s hide for a few minutes,” said Dick chuckling. “You’ll see he’ll come here after all.”The lad had a good idea of Dave’s ways, for before they had been watching many minutes there was the splashing of the pole heard in the water, and the rustling of the reeds, but nothing was visible, and Tom began to be of opinion that his companion had been wrong, when all at once the reeds began to sway and crackle right before them, and before Tom recovered from his surprise the punt shot right out of the middle of the long low wall of dried growth, and in answer to a vigorous thrust or two from the pole, glided across to within a dozen yards of where the lads crouched.“Come on, Tom!” said Dick, and they stepped out at once so suddenly that the decoy-man, in spite of his self-control, started. A curious smile puckered his face directly and he stood staring at them.“Why, you have been a long time, Dave,” cried Dick.“Long, boy?”“Yes, long. You asked us to come over and see the netting.”“Ay, so I did, boy; but there soon wean’t be no netting.”“Then come on and let’s see it while there is some,” cried Dick. “When we used to be home from school you always said we were too young. You can’t say that now.”“Ay, bud I can,” said the man with a dry chuckle.“Then don’t,” said Dick. “You’ve brought your gun there!” he cried joyfully.“Ay, I’ve brote my gun,” said Dave; “but I hevven’t any powder.”“Yes, you have, Dave,” cried Dick, tugging the wine-bottle from his pocket. “Here’s some.”“Eh? Is that powder or drink?” said the man, taking the bottle and giving it a shake. “It arn’t full, though.”“No, it isn’t full,” said Dick in a disappointed tone; “but there’s a whole pound, and it’s the best.”“Ah, well, I daresay it’ll do,” said Dave slowly.“Load the gun, then, and let’s have a shot at the snipes as we go,” said Tom.“Nay, she wean’t go off till she has had a new flint in. I’m going to knap one when I get back.”“Jump in, then,” cried Dick. “I’m going to pole her across.”“Nay, I don’t think it’s any use to-day.”“Why, Dave, this is just the sort of day you said was a good one for netting.”“Did I, lad?”“Yes; didn’t he, Tom? And what’s that wisp of birds going over the water, yonder?”“Quick, in wi’ ye, lads!” cried the decoy-man, with his whole manner changed. “The right sort. Look, lads, another wisp! See how low they fly. They mean feeding.”The boys leaped into the punt, and Dick was about to seize the pole, but Dave stopped him.“Nay, lad, let me send her across. Save time.”“Then may I have a shot at the first heron I see?”“Nay, nay; don’t let’s scar’ the birds, lad. It’s netting to-day. We’ll shute another time when they wean’t come near the net.”Dick gave way, and Dave took the pole, to send the light punt skimming over the water, and in and out among the reed-beds through which, puzzling as they would have been to a stranger, he thrust the vessel rapidly. They were full of devious channels, and Dave seemed to prefer these, for even when there was a broad open piece of water in front he avoided it, to take his way through some zigzag lane with the reeds brushing the boat on either side, and often opening for himself a way where there was none.The man worked hard, but it seemed to have no effect upon him; and when the lads were not watching him and his energetic action, there was always something to take up their attention. Now a heron would rise out of one of the watery lanes, gaunt, grey, and with his long legs stretched out behind to look like a tail as his great flap wings beat the air and carried him slowly away.Then with a loud splash and cackling, up would spring a knot of ducks, their wings whirring as they rapidly beat the air in a flight wonderful for such a heavy bird. Again a little farther and first one and then another snipe would dart away in zigzag flight, uttering their strangescape, scape. And all tempting to a lad who sat there within touch of a long heavy-looking gun, which had been cleaned and polished till every part was worn.But he had been told that it was not charged and that the flint-lock was in a failing condition; and besides, Dick felt that it would be dishonourable to touch the gun now that it was almost trusted to his care.In spite of Dave’s ability and knowledge of the short cuts to the part of the fen where he lived, it took him nearly three-quarters of an hour to punt across, where the lads landed upon what was really an island in the fen, though one side ran pretty close up to some fairly dry land full of narrow water-lanes and pools, all favourite breeding ground for the wild-fowl.The boys leaped out while Dave fastened the punt to an old willow trunk, and, quite at home in the place, went on first to a rough-looking house nearly hidden among alders and willows, all of which showed traces of the flood having been right up, submerging everything to a depth of three to four feet.“Hullo, Chip! Chip! Chip!” cried Tom, and the decoy-man’s little sharp-looking dog came bounding to them, to leap up, and fawn and whine, full of delight at seeing human faces again.There was the twittering and piping of birds, and the scuffling, scratching noise made by animals in a cage, as they reached the roughly-fenced yard, more than garden, about Dave’s cottage, the boys eager to inspect the birds, the ferrets, the eel-spear leaning against the reed thatch, and the brown nets hung over poles, stretching from post to post, as if to dry.“Why, it’s months sin’ you’ve been to see me,” said Dave.“Well, whose fault’s that?” said Dick sharply. “I say, Dave, these nets are new.”“Ay, every one of ’em. Made ’em all this summer.”“Didn’t you get lots of things spoiled when the flood came?” cried Tom.“N–no, lad, no. Nearly had my birds drownded, but I got ’em atop of the thack yonder.”“But hasn’t your cottage been dreadfully wet?” asked Dick, who was poking his finger in a cage full of ferrets. “I say, what are John Warren’s ferrets doing here?”“Doin’ nothing, and waiting to be took out, that’s all, lad.”“But wasn’t your place horribly wet?”“What care I for a drop o’ watter?” said Dave contemptuously.“Look here, Dick, at the decoys,” cried Tom running to a large wicker cage in which were four of the curious long-legged birds known as ruffs and reeves.“Was six,” said Dave. “I lost two.”“How?”“Fightin’, lad. I niver see such bonds to fight. Gamecocks is babies to ’em. I’m going to try a new improved way of ketching of ’em by challenging the wild ones to fight.”“Never mind about them,” said Dick eagerly; “are you going to start now?”“Ah! you’re so precious eager to begin, lad,” said Dave; “but when you’ve been sitting out there on the boat for about a couple of hours you’ll be glad to get back.”“Oh, no, we sha’n’t!” cried Dick. “Now, then, let’s start.”“Ay, but we’ve got to get ready first.”“Well, that’s soon done. Shall I carry the birds down to the boat?”“Nay; we wean’t take them to-day. I’ve sin more pie-wipes than ruffs, so let’s try for them.”He went round to the back of the hovel and took from the roof a cage which the lads had not yet seen, containing seven green plovers, and this was carried to the boat, where the frightened birds ran to and fro, thrusting their necks between the wicker bars in a vain attempt to escape.This done, a bundle of net, some long stout cord, and poles were carefully placed in the stern, after which Dave went into his cottage to bring out a mysterious-looking basket, which was also placed in the stern of the boat.“That’s about all,” said the man, after a moment’s thought; and unfastening the punt after the boys were in, he pushed off, but only to turn back directly and secure the boat again.“Why, what now, Dave?” cried Dick. “Aren’t you going?”“Going, lad! yes; but I thowt if we caught no bohds you might like me to shute one or two.”“Well, we’ve got the gun and plenty of powder.”“Ay, lad; but I’ve lost my last flint, and I’ve got to knap one.”The boys followed him ashore, leaving the plovers fluttering in the cage, and Dave went inside his cottage, and returned directly with a hammer and a piece of flint, which he turned over two or three times so as to get the stone in the right position, as, taught by long experience, he struck a sharp blow.Now Dave, the duck-decoy-man of the fens, knew nothing about lines of fracture or bulbs of percussion as taught by mineralogists, but he knew exactly where to hit that piece of flint so as to cause a nice sharp-edged flake to fly off, and he knew how and where to hit that flake so as to chip it into a neat oblong, ready for his gun, those present being ignorant of the fact that they were watching workmanship such as was in vogue among the men who lived and hunted in England in the far-distant ages of which we have no history but what they have left us in these works. Dave Gittan chipped away at the flint just as the ancient hunters toiled to make the arrow-heads with which they shot the animals which supplied them with food and clothing, the flint-knives with which they skinned and cut up the beasts, and the round sharp-edged scrapers with which they removed the fat and adhering flesh as they dressed and tanned the skins to make them fit to wear.Dave chipped one gun-flint very accurately, failed to make a second, but was triumphant with the third attempt, and fitting it exactly in the lock of his piece with a piece of leather at top and bottom, he loaded the gun with a great deal of ceremony, measuring the powder with a tiny cup which fitted over the top of his powder-horn, and his shot with the same vessel, so many times filled.These rammed down in place with some rough paper on the top, and the ramrod measured to see whether it stood out the right distance from the barrel, the pan was primed and closed, and the gun carefully laid ready for use.“There,” cried Dave in an ill-used tone, “I don’t know why I’m tekkin’ all this trouble for such a pair o’ young shacks as you; but come along.”“It’s because he likes us, Dick,” said Tom merrily.“Nay, that I don’t,” cried Dave. “I hate the lot of you. Not one of you’ll be satisfied till you’ve spoiled all my fen-land, and made it a place where nivver a bird will come.”“Why, I wouldn’t have it touched if I could help it—St! Dave, what bird’s that?” said Dick.“Curlew,” replied Dave in a low voice, whose tones were imitated by the lads as the boat was softly punted along. “See them, boys!”He nodded in the direction they were going, towards where a number of birds were flying about over some patches of land which stood just over the level of the water. Now they looked dark against the sky, now they displayed feathers of the purest white, for their flight with their blunted wings was a clumsy flapping very different to the quiver and skim of a couple of wild ducks which came by directly after and dropped into the water a quarter of a mile ahead.“You come and see me next spring, my lads, and I’ll show you where there’s more pie-wipes’ eggs than ever you found before in your lives.”“But you’ll take us one day to the ’coy, Dave?” said Dick.“Nay, I don’t think I can,” said Dave.“But it’s my father’s ’coy,” said Dick.“Ay, I know all about that,” said the man harshly; “but it wean’t be much good to him if he dree-erns the fen.”Dave’s voice was growing loud and excited, but he dropped it directly and thrust away without making the slightest splash with his iron-shod pole.As they came near one bed of reeds several coots began to paddle away, jerking their bald heads as they went, while a couple of moor-hens, which as likely as not were both cocks, swam as fast as their long thin unwebbed toes would allow them, twitching their black-barred white tails in unison with the jerking of their scarlet-fronted little heads, and then taking flight upon their rounded wings, dragging their long thin toes along the top of the water, and shrieking with fear, till they dropped into the sheltering cover ahead.Snipes flew up from time to time, and more curlews and green plovers were seen, offering plenty of opportunities for the use of the gun, as the punt progressed till a long low spit of heathery gravel, about forty feet in length and five wide, was reached, with a patch of reeds across the water about a couple of hundred yards away.“Is this the place?” cried Dick excitedly; and upon being answered in the affirmative—“Now, then, what shall we do first?”“Sit still, and I’ll tell you, lads,” was the stern reply, as Dave, now all eagerness, secured the boat and landed his net and poles.“Don’t tread on her, my lads,” he said. “Now help me spread her out.”He showed them how to proceed, and the net, about a dozen yards in length, was spread along the narrow spit of land, which was only about a foot wider than the net, at whose two ends was fixed a pole as spreader, to which lines were attached.The net spread, the side nearest to the water was fastened down with pegs, so adjusted as to act as hinges upon which the apparatus would turn, while as soon as this was done Dave called for the mysterious-looking basket.This being produced from the punt and opened was found to contain about a dozen stuffed peewits, which, though rough in their feathers, were very fair imitations of the real things.These were stuck along the edge of the net outside and at either end.“Now for the ’coys,” cried Dave, and Tom brought the cage of unfortunate peewits, who had a painful duty to perform, that of helping to lead their free brethren into the trap that was being laid for them.Each of these decoy-birds was quickly and cleverly tethered to a peg along the edge of the net upon the narrow strip of clear land, a string being attached to one leg so long as to give them enough freedom to flutter a little among the stuffed birds, which seemed to be feeding.“There!” cried Dave, when all was ready; and at a short distance nothing was visible but the group of birds fluttering or quiescent, for the net was wonderfully like the ground in colour. “There, she’s ready now, my lads, so come along.”He bade Dick thrust the punt along to the bed of reeds; and as the lad deftly handled the pole, Dave let out the line, which was so attached to the ends of the poles that a vigorous pull would drag the net right over.It was quite a couple of hundred yards to the reeds, through which the punt was pushed till it and its occupants were hidden, when, having thrust down the pole as an anchor to steady the little vessel, the line was drawn tight so as to try whether it would act, and then kept just so tense as to be invisible beneath the water, and secured to the edge of the punt.“That ought to bring them, lads,” said Dave, with his eyes twinkling beneath his fox-skin cap, after beating a few reeds aside so that they could have a good view of where the unfortunate peewits fluttered at the pegs.“But suppose they don’t come?” said Tom. “I know if I was a piewipe I wouldn’t be cheated by a few dummies and some pegged-down birds.”“But then you are not a piewipe, only a goose,” said Dick.“Hist!” whispered Dave, and placing his fingers to his mouth he sent out over the grey water so exact an imitation of the green plover’s cry that Dick looked at him in wonder, for this was something entirely new.Pee-eugh, pee-eugh, pee-eugh! And the querulous cry was answered from a distance by a solitary lapwing, which came flapping along in a great hurry, sailed round and round, and finally dropped upon the little narrow island and began to run about.“You won’t pull for him, will you, Dave?” whispered Dick.Dave shook his head, and the boys watched as from time to time the man uttered the low mournful cry.“Wonder what that chap thinks of the stuffed ones?” whispered Dick.“Why don’t the live ones tell him it isn’t safe?” said Tom.“Don’t know; perhaps they’re like old Tom Tallington,” said Dick: “whenever they get into a mess they like to get some one else in it too.”“You say that again and I’ll hit you,” whispered Tom, holding up his fist menacingly.“Hist!” came from Dave, who uttered the imitation of the peewit’s whistle again, and a couple more of the flap-winged birds came slowly over the grey-looking water, which to anyone else, with its patches of drab dry weeds and bared patches of black bog, would have seemed to be a terrible scene of desolation, whereas it was a place of enchantment to the boys.“They come precious slowly,” said Dick at last. “I thought that there would have been quite a crowd of birds, like you see them sometimes. Look at the old bald-heads, Tom.”He pointed to a party of about half a dozen coots which came slowly out of the reeds and then sailed on again as if suspicious of all being not quite right.Then there was another little flock of ducks streaming over the fen in the distance, and their cries came faintly as they dashed into the water, as if returning home after a long absence.“There goes a her’n,” whispered Tom, who was not very good at seeing birds and worse at telling what they were.“’Tisn’t,” cried Dick; “it’s only a grey crow.”“If you two go on chattering like that we shall get no birds,” said Dave sharply. “What a pair o’ ruck-a-toongues you are; just like two owd women!”“Well, but the birds are so long coming,” said Dick; “I’m getting the cramp. I say, Dave, are there any butterbumps (bitterns) close here?”“Plenty; only they wean’t show theirsens. Hah!”They had been waiting a couple of hours, and the peewit’s cry had been uttered from time to time, but only a straggler or two had landed upon the strip of land. Dick had been eager to capture these, but Dave shook his head. It wasn’t worth while to set the net and peg out decoys and stales, he said, to catch two pie-wipes that weren’t enough for a man’s dinner.So they crouched there in the punt, waiting and growing more cold and cramped, fidgeting and changing their positions, and making waves seem to rise from under the boat to go whispering among the reeds.Every now and then Tom uttered a sigh and Dick an impatient grunt, while at these movements Dave smiled but made no other sign, merely watching patiently. His eyes glittered, and their lids passed over them rapidly from time to time; otherwise he was as motionless as if carved out of old brown boxwood, an idea suggested by the colour of his skin.“I say,” said Dick at last, as there were tokens in the distance of the day coming to an end with mist and fine rain, “I am getting so hungry! Got anything to eat, Dave?”“When we’ve done, lads.”“But haven’t we done? No birds will come to-day.”Dave did not answer, only smiled very faintly; and it seemed as if the lad was right, for the sky and water grew more grey, and though the stuffed birds appeared to be diligently feeding, and those which were tethered hopped about and fluttered their wings, while the two free ones ran here and there, flew away and returned, as if exceedingly mystified at the state of affairs on that long, narrow strip of land, Dave’s calls seemed to be as vain as the snares he had made.“I wonder whether these birds break their shins in running over the meshes of the net!” said Dick after a long yawn. “Oh, I say, Dave, there’s no fun in this; let’s go!”“Hist! pee-eugh, pee-eugh!” whistled Dave loudly, and then in quite a low tone that sounded distant, and this he kept up incessantly and with a strange ventriloquial effect.The boys were all excitement now, for they grasped at once the cause of their companion’s rapid change of manner. For there in the distance, coming down with the wind in scattered flight and as if labouring heavily to keep themselves up, appeared a flock of lapwings pretty well a hundred strong.“Hooray! At last, Tom!” cried Dick. “Will they come and settle on the net, Dave?”“Not a bird of ’em if thou keeps up that ruck,” whispered the man excitedly.The next minute he was imitating the cry of the peewit, and it was answered from the distance by the birds coming along, while the two stragglers which had been hanging about so long now rose up, circled round, and settled again.“Look at them!” whispered Dick. “Lie low, Tom; they’re coming.”Both lads were on the tiptoe of expectation, but it seemed as if they were to be disappointed, for the flock came on slowly, uttering its querulous cries, and circled round as if to pass over, but they were evidently still attracted by the decoy-birds, and hesitated and flew to and fro.“Oh, if they don’t light now!” said Dick to himself. “They’re going,” he sighed half aloud, and then he seized Tom’s arm in his excitement, and gripped it so hard that the boy nearly cried out, and would have done so but for the state of eagerness he too was in.For after farther signs of hesitation and doubt, all of which were in favour of the flock going right away, one of them seemed to give a regular tumble over in the air, as if it were shot, and alighted. Another followed, and another, and another, till, to the intense excitement of the occupants of the boat among the reeds, the long, low spit of gravel, almost level with the water, became alive with birds running here and there.It was on Dick’s lips to cry, “Now, Dave, pull!” but he could not speak, only watch the thin, keen, yellow man, whose eye glittered beneath his rough hairy cap as he slowly tightened the line, drawing it up till it was above the surface of the water, which began to ripple and play about it in long waves running off in different directions. There was so great a length that it was impossible to draw it tight without moving the spreader poles; and as the lads both thought of what the consequences would be if the line broke, the movement at the ends of the long net spread the alarm.There was a curious effect caused by the spreading of the wings of the birds, and the whole island seemed to be slowly rising in the air; but at that moment the water hissed from the punt right away to where the flock was taking flight, and as the line tightened, a long filmy wave seemed to curve over towards them. By one rapid practice-learned drag, the net was snatched over and fell on to the water, while a great flock of green plovers took flight in alarm and went flapping over reed-bed and mere.“Oh, what a pity!” cried Dick, jumping up in the boat and stamping his foot with rage.“And so near, too!” cried Tom.“Sit down, lads,” roared Dave, who was dragging the pole out of the ground, and the next moment he was thrusting the light boat along over the intervening space, and the more readily that the bottom there was only three or four feet below the surface, and for the most part firm.“Why, have you caught some?” cried Dick.The answer was given in front, for it was evident that the net had entangled several of the unfortunate birds, which were flapping the water and struggling vainly to get through the meshes, but drowning themselves in the effort.The scene increased in excitement as the boat neared, for the birds renewed their struggles to escape, and the decoys tethered on the island to their pegs leaped and fluttered.In an incredibly short time the skilful puntsman had his boat alongside the net, and then began the final struggle.It was a vain one, for one by one the plovers were dragged from beneath and thrust into a large basket, till the net lay half-sunk beneath the surface, and the feeble flapping of a wing or two was all that could be heard.The boat was dripping with water and specked with wet feathers, and a solitary straggler of the plover flock flew to and fro screaming as if reproaching the murderers of its companions; otherwise all was still as Dave stood up and grinned, and showed his yellow teeth.“There!” he cried triumphantly; “yow didn’t expect such a treat as that!”“Treat!” said Dick, looking at his wet hands and picking some feathers from his vest, for he and Tom after the first minute had plunged excitedly into the bird slaughter and dragged many a luckless bird out of the net.“Ay, lad, treat!—why, there’s nigh upon fourscore, I know.”Dick’s features had a peculiar look of disgust upon them and his brow wrinkled up.“Seems so precious cruel,” he said.Dave, who was rapidly freeing his decoy-birds and transferring them to the cage, stood up with a fluttering plover in one hand.“Cruel!” he cried.“Yes, and treacherous,” replied Dick.“Deal more cruel for me to be found starved to death in my place some day,” said Dave. “Pie-wipes eats the beedles and wains, don’t they? Well, we eats the pie-wipes, or sells ’em, and buys flour and bacon. Get out wi’ ye! Cruel! Yow don’t like piewipe pie!”“I did, and roast piewipe too,” cried Dick; “but I don’t think I shall ever eat any again.”“Hark at him!” cried Dave, going on rapidly with his task and packing up his stuffed birds neatly in their basket, drawing out his pegs, and then rolling up and wringing the wet net before placing it in the punt, and winding in the dripping line which he drew through the water from the reed-bed. “Hark at him, young Tom Tallington!”—and he uttered now a peculiarly ugly harsh laugh—“young squire ar’n’t going to eat any more bacon, ’cause it’s cruel to kill the pigs; nor no eels, because they has to be caught; and he wean’t catch no more jacks, nor eel-pouts, nor yet eat any rabbud-pie! Ha—ha—ha—ha—ha!”“Look here, Dave!” cried Dick passionately, “if you laugh at me I’ll shy something at you! No, I won’t,” he shouted, seizing the cage; “I’ll drown all your decoys!”“Ay, do!” said Dave, beginning to use the pole. “You’re such a particular young gentleman! Only, wouldn’t it be cruel?”“Ha—ha—ha!” laughed Tom.“Do you want me to punch your head, Tom?” roared Dick, turning scarlet.“Nay, lads, don’t spyle a nice bit o’ sport by quarrelling,” said Dave, sending the boat rapidly homeward. “I wean’t laugh at you no more, Mester Dick. I like you for it, lad. It do seem cruel; and sometimes when I weer younger, and a bud looked up at me with its pretty eyes, as much as to say, ‘don’t kill me!’ I would let it go.”“Ah!” ejaculated Dick with a sigh of relief.“But what did that bud do, lad? If it was a piewipe, go and kill hundreds o’ worms, and snails, and young frogs; if it was a heron, spear fish and pick the wriggling young eels out of the mud. No, lad, it wean’t do; buds is the cruellest things there is, pretty as they are—all except them as only eats seeds. Everything ’most is cruel; but if they wasn’t the world would get so full that everything would starve. We’ve got say fourscore pie-wipes—not for fun, but for wittles—and what’s fourscore when there’s thousands upon thousands all about?”“Why, Dave, you’re a philosopher!” said Dick, who felt relieved.“Yes,” said Dave complacently, but with a very foggy idea of the meaning of the word; “it’s being out so much upon the water. Now, there’s a nice couple o’ ducks swimming just the other side o’ them reeds, as a lad might hit just as they rose from the water when we come round the corner; and I’d say hev a shot at ’em, Mester Dick—on’y, if I did, it would hurt your feelings.”Dick was silent for a moment or two as he tried to keep down his human nature. Then he spoke out:“I beg your pardon, Dave, after what you did for us. May I take up the gun?”“Ay. Steady, lad!—keep her head over the stem, and I’ll turn the boat round and send you along gently. Now you lie down on your chesty and rest the barr’l on the net, for she’s too heavy for you to handle. Then wait till the ducks rise, and let go at ’em.”There was another interval full of excitement; the punt was sent quietly toward the end of the reed-bed; and in obedience to his instructions Dick knelt ready to fire—Tom watching him enviously, and wishing it were his turn.Nearer, nearer, with the punt allowed to go on now by the force of the last thrust given to it, till the last patch of reed was cleared; and there, not twenty yards away, swam a fine shieldrake and four ducks.As the punt glided into sight there was a splashing and whirring of wings, a great outcry, and away went the birds.“Now, lad!” cried Dave; and the gun was fired with a deafening report. But no feathers flew—no unfortunate duck or drake dropped, broken-winged, into the water. The only living being injured was Dick, who sat up rubbing his shoulder softly.“I say,” he said, “how that gun kicks!”“Yes,” said Dave dryly, “I put a big charge in her, my lad; but it was a pity to waste it.”“I couldn’t help missing,” said Dick. “They were so quick.”“Nay, you wouldn’t try to hit ’em, lad, because you thought you’d hot ’em,” said Dave, chuckling; and Tom laughed, while Dick sat and nursed the gun in silence, till the punt was poled ashore and its contents landed.“Now,” said Dave, “I’ve got a rabbud-pie as I made mysen. Come and hev a bit, lads; and then you shall take home a dozen pie-wipes apiece. It’ll be moonlight, and I’ll soon punt you across.”That pie, in spite of the rough surroundings, was delicious; and Dick forgot to pity the poor rabbits, and he did not refuse to take his dozen lapwings home for a welcome addition to the next day’s dinner.“You see, Tom,” he whispered, “I think I was a little too particular. Good-night, Dave, and thank you!” he shouted.“Good-night, lads—good-night!” came off the water. Then there was a splash of the pole, and Dave disappeared in the moonlit mist which silvered the reeds, while the boys trudged the rest of their way home.

Dave did not keep his promise the next day, nor the next; but Dick Winthorpe had his attention taken up by other matters, for a party of men arrived and stopped with their leaders at the Toft, where they were refreshed with ale and bread and cheese, previous to continuing their journey down to the seaside.

The squire and Farmer Tallington accompanied them down to their quarters, which were to be at a disused farm-house close to the mouth of the little river; and incidentally Dick learned that this was the first party of labourers who were to cut the new lode or drain from near the river mouth right across the fen; that there was to be a lock with gates at the river end, to let the drain-water out at low tide, and that the banks of the drain were to be raised so as to protect the land at the sides from being flooded.

Fen people from far and wide collected to see the gang, and to watch the surveyors, who, with measuring chain and staves and instruments, busied themselves marking out the direction in which the men were to cut; and these fen people shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, while more than once, when Squire Winthorpe addressed one or the other, Dick noticed that they were always surly, and that some turned away without making any answer.

“Never mind, Dick,” said the squire laughing. “Some day when we’ve given them smiling pastures and corn-fields, instead of water and bog and ague, they will be ashamed of themselves.”

“But—”

“Well, but what, sir?” said the squire as the lad hesitated.

“I was only going to say, father, isn’t it a pity to spoil the fen?”

The squire did not answer for a few moments, but stood frowning. The severe look passed off directly though, and he smiled.

“Dick,” he said gravely, “all those years at a good school, to come back as full of ignorance and prejudice as the fen-men! Shame!”

He walked away, leaving Dick with his companion Tom Tallington.

“I say,” said the latter, “you caught it.”

“Well, I can’t help it,” said Dick, who felt irritated and ashamed. “It does seem a pity to spoil all the beautiful pools and fishing places, and instead of having beds of reeds full of birds, for there to be nothing but fields and a great ugly drain. Why, the flowers, and butterflies, and nesting places will all be swept away. What do we care for fields of corn!”

“My father cares for them, and he says it will be the making of this part of the country.”

“Unmaking, he means,” said Dick; and they went on to watch the proceedings of the strange men who had come—big, strong, good-tempered-looking fellows, armed with sharp cutting spades, and for whose use the lads found that a brig had come into the little river, and was landing barrows, planks, and baskets, with a variety of other articles to be used in the making of the drain.

“I’m afraid we shall have some trouble over this business, Tallington,” said the squire as they went back.

“Well, we sha’n’t be the only sufferers,” said the farmer good-humouredly. “I suppose all we who have adventured our few pounds will be in the people’s black books. But we must go on—we can’t stop now.”

The next day Tom came over, and the lads went down towards the far-stretching fen, now once more losing a great deal of the water of the flood.

They passed the Solemn one apparently none the worse for his bath, for he trotted away from the gate to thrust his head in the favourite corner by the old corbel in the wall, and look back at them, as if as ready to kick as ever.

“Poor old Solomon!” said Dick laughing, “I should have been sorry if he had been lost.”

“Oh, never mind him,” cried Tom; “is old Dave coming over to fetch us? Why, Dick, look!”

“I can’t see anything,” said Dick.

“Because you’re not looking the right way. There! Now he’s behind that bed of reeds a mile away.”

“I see!” cried Dick. “Why, it is Dave, and he’s coming.”

The lads ran down to the edge of the fen, and made their way to the end of a long, open, river-like stretch of water, which was now perfectly clear, so that everything could be clearly distinguished at the bottom; and before long, as they walked to and fro, they caught sight of a little shoal of small fish, and soon after of a young pike, with his protruding lower jaw, waiting for his opportunity to make a dash at some unfortunate rudd, whose orange fins and faintly-gilded sides made him a delectable-looking morsel for his olive-green and gold excellency the tyrant of the river.

“He’s coming here, isn’t he?” said Tom, gazing out anxiously over the reedy waste.

“Yes; I can see his old fox-skin cap. He’s coming safe enough.”

“Oh, Dick!” cried his companion.

“Well! What?”

“The powder. You’ve never given him the powder, and he’ll be as gruff as can be. Has he had the horn?”

“Had two,” said Dick, watching the approaching punt, which was still half a mile away, and being poled steadily in and out of the winding water-lane, now hidden by the dry rustling reeds which stood covered with strands of filmy conferva or fen scum.

“But he hasn’t had the powder we promised him.”

“No,” said Dick loftily; “not yet.”

“Why, you haven’t brought it, Dick!”

“Haven’t brought it, indeed! Why, what’s this, then?”

He drew a bottle from his pocket, took out the cork, and poured a little of its contents into his hand—dry, black grains, like so much sable sand, and then poured it back and corked it tightly.

“You are a good fellow, Dick; but I haven’t paid my share.”

“I don’t want your share,” said Dick loftily. “Father gave me half-a-crown the other day.”

“I wish my father gave me half-crowns sometimes,” sighed Tom; “but he isn’t so rich as yours.”

“There, don’t bother about money!” cried Dick. “Let’s think about the birds. Hooray! here he comes! Hi, Dave!”

Sound travels easily over water, and the decoy-man must have heard the hail, but he paid no heed, only kept on poling his punt along, thrusting down the long ash sapling, which the fen-men used as punt-pole, staff, and leaping-pole in turn; and then as the boat glided on, standing erect in her bows like some statue.

“Now, what a dried-up old yellow mummy he is!” cried Dick. “He can see us, but he’s pretending he can’t, on purpose to tease us. Look at that! He needn’t have gone behind that great reed patch. It’s to make us think he is going down to your place.”

“Let’s run down and meet him,” said Tom eagerly.

“No, no; stop where you are. If he sees us go down there he’ll double back directly and come here. He’s just like an old fox. I know. Come along!”

Dick started up and ran in the same direction as Dave had taken with the punt before he disappeared behind the reed-bed. Tom followed, and they raced on along the edge till a clump of alders was reached.

“Pst! Tom, round here,” whispered Dick; and leading the way he doubled back, following the long low bed of swamp-loving wood, and keeping in its shelter till they were once more opposite to the spot where Dave should have landed.

There, still hid among the trees, Dick stooped down in a thick bed of dry reeds, pretty close to the water, and in full view of the rough winding canal leading far and wide.

“Let’s hide for a few minutes,” said Dick chuckling. “You’ll see he’ll come here after all.”

The lad had a good idea of Dave’s ways, for before they had been watching many minutes there was the splashing of the pole heard in the water, and the rustling of the reeds, but nothing was visible, and Tom began to be of opinion that his companion had been wrong, when all at once the reeds began to sway and crackle right before them, and before Tom recovered from his surprise the punt shot right out of the middle of the long low wall of dried growth, and in answer to a vigorous thrust or two from the pole, glided across to within a dozen yards of where the lads crouched.

“Come on, Tom!” said Dick, and they stepped out at once so suddenly that the decoy-man, in spite of his self-control, started. A curious smile puckered his face directly and he stood staring at them.

“Why, you have been a long time, Dave,” cried Dick.

“Long, boy?”

“Yes, long. You asked us to come over and see the netting.”

“Ay, so I did, boy; but there soon wean’t be no netting.”

“Then come on and let’s see it while there is some,” cried Dick. “When we used to be home from school you always said we were too young. You can’t say that now.”

“Ay, bud I can,” said the man with a dry chuckle.

“Then don’t,” said Dick. “You’ve brought your gun there!” he cried joyfully.

“Ay, I’ve brote my gun,” said Dave; “but I hevven’t any powder.”

“Yes, you have, Dave,” cried Dick, tugging the wine-bottle from his pocket. “Here’s some.”

“Eh? Is that powder or drink?” said the man, taking the bottle and giving it a shake. “It arn’t full, though.”

“No, it isn’t full,” said Dick in a disappointed tone; “but there’s a whole pound, and it’s the best.”

“Ah, well, I daresay it’ll do,” said Dave slowly.

“Load the gun, then, and let’s have a shot at the snipes as we go,” said Tom.

“Nay, she wean’t go off till she has had a new flint in. I’m going to knap one when I get back.”

“Jump in, then,” cried Dick. “I’m going to pole her across.”

“Nay, I don’t think it’s any use to-day.”

“Why, Dave, this is just the sort of day you said was a good one for netting.”

“Did I, lad?”

“Yes; didn’t he, Tom? And what’s that wisp of birds going over the water, yonder?”

“Quick, in wi’ ye, lads!” cried the decoy-man, with his whole manner changed. “The right sort. Look, lads, another wisp! See how low they fly. They mean feeding.”

The boys leaped into the punt, and Dick was about to seize the pole, but Dave stopped him.

“Nay, lad, let me send her across. Save time.”

“Then may I have a shot at the first heron I see?”

“Nay, nay; don’t let’s scar’ the birds, lad. It’s netting to-day. We’ll shute another time when they wean’t come near the net.”

Dick gave way, and Dave took the pole, to send the light punt skimming over the water, and in and out among the reed-beds through which, puzzling as they would have been to a stranger, he thrust the vessel rapidly. They were full of devious channels, and Dave seemed to prefer these, for even when there was a broad open piece of water in front he avoided it, to take his way through some zigzag lane with the reeds brushing the boat on either side, and often opening for himself a way where there was none.

The man worked hard, but it seemed to have no effect upon him; and when the lads were not watching him and his energetic action, there was always something to take up their attention. Now a heron would rise out of one of the watery lanes, gaunt, grey, and with his long legs stretched out behind to look like a tail as his great flap wings beat the air and carried him slowly away.

Then with a loud splash and cackling, up would spring a knot of ducks, their wings whirring as they rapidly beat the air in a flight wonderful for such a heavy bird. Again a little farther and first one and then another snipe would dart away in zigzag flight, uttering their strangescape, scape. And all tempting to a lad who sat there within touch of a long heavy-looking gun, which had been cleaned and polished till every part was worn.

But he had been told that it was not charged and that the flint-lock was in a failing condition; and besides, Dick felt that it would be dishonourable to touch the gun now that it was almost trusted to his care.

In spite of Dave’s ability and knowledge of the short cuts to the part of the fen where he lived, it took him nearly three-quarters of an hour to punt across, where the lads landed upon what was really an island in the fen, though one side ran pretty close up to some fairly dry land full of narrow water-lanes and pools, all favourite breeding ground for the wild-fowl.

The boys leaped out while Dave fastened the punt to an old willow trunk, and, quite at home in the place, went on first to a rough-looking house nearly hidden among alders and willows, all of which showed traces of the flood having been right up, submerging everything to a depth of three to four feet.

“Hullo, Chip! Chip! Chip!” cried Tom, and the decoy-man’s little sharp-looking dog came bounding to them, to leap up, and fawn and whine, full of delight at seeing human faces again.

There was the twittering and piping of birds, and the scuffling, scratching noise made by animals in a cage, as they reached the roughly-fenced yard, more than garden, about Dave’s cottage, the boys eager to inspect the birds, the ferrets, the eel-spear leaning against the reed thatch, and the brown nets hung over poles, stretching from post to post, as if to dry.

“Why, it’s months sin’ you’ve been to see me,” said Dave.

“Well, whose fault’s that?” said Dick sharply. “I say, Dave, these nets are new.”

“Ay, every one of ’em. Made ’em all this summer.”

“Didn’t you get lots of things spoiled when the flood came?” cried Tom.

“N–no, lad, no. Nearly had my birds drownded, but I got ’em atop of the thack yonder.”

“But hasn’t your cottage been dreadfully wet?” asked Dick, who was poking his finger in a cage full of ferrets. “I say, what are John Warren’s ferrets doing here?”

“Doin’ nothing, and waiting to be took out, that’s all, lad.”

“But wasn’t your place horribly wet?”

“What care I for a drop o’ watter?” said Dave contemptuously.

“Look here, Dick, at the decoys,” cried Tom running to a large wicker cage in which were four of the curious long-legged birds known as ruffs and reeves.

“Was six,” said Dave. “I lost two.”

“How?”

“Fightin’, lad. I niver see such bonds to fight. Gamecocks is babies to ’em. I’m going to try a new improved way of ketching of ’em by challenging the wild ones to fight.”

“Never mind about them,” said Dick eagerly; “are you going to start now?”

“Ah! you’re so precious eager to begin, lad,” said Dave; “but when you’ve been sitting out there on the boat for about a couple of hours you’ll be glad to get back.”

“Oh, no, we sha’n’t!” cried Dick. “Now, then, let’s start.”

“Ay, but we’ve got to get ready first.”

“Well, that’s soon done. Shall I carry the birds down to the boat?”

“Nay; we wean’t take them to-day. I’ve sin more pie-wipes than ruffs, so let’s try for them.”

He went round to the back of the hovel and took from the roof a cage which the lads had not yet seen, containing seven green plovers, and this was carried to the boat, where the frightened birds ran to and fro, thrusting their necks between the wicker bars in a vain attempt to escape.

This done, a bundle of net, some long stout cord, and poles were carefully placed in the stern, after which Dave went into his cottage to bring out a mysterious-looking basket, which was also placed in the stern of the boat.

“That’s about all,” said the man, after a moment’s thought; and unfastening the punt after the boys were in, he pushed off, but only to turn back directly and secure the boat again.

“Why, what now, Dave?” cried Dick. “Aren’t you going?”

“Going, lad! yes; but I thowt if we caught no bohds you might like me to shute one or two.”

“Well, we’ve got the gun and plenty of powder.”

“Ay, lad; but I’ve lost my last flint, and I’ve got to knap one.”

The boys followed him ashore, leaving the plovers fluttering in the cage, and Dave went inside his cottage, and returned directly with a hammer and a piece of flint, which he turned over two or three times so as to get the stone in the right position, as, taught by long experience, he struck a sharp blow.

Now Dave, the duck-decoy-man of the fens, knew nothing about lines of fracture or bulbs of percussion as taught by mineralogists, but he knew exactly where to hit that piece of flint so as to cause a nice sharp-edged flake to fly off, and he knew how and where to hit that flake so as to chip it into a neat oblong, ready for his gun, those present being ignorant of the fact that they were watching workmanship such as was in vogue among the men who lived and hunted in England in the far-distant ages of which we have no history but what they have left us in these works. Dave Gittan chipped away at the flint just as the ancient hunters toiled to make the arrow-heads with which they shot the animals which supplied them with food and clothing, the flint-knives with which they skinned and cut up the beasts, and the round sharp-edged scrapers with which they removed the fat and adhering flesh as they dressed and tanned the skins to make them fit to wear.

Dave chipped one gun-flint very accurately, failed to make a second, but was triumphant with the third attempt, and fitting it exactly in the lock of his piece with a piece of leather at top and bottom, he loaded the gun with a great deal of ceremony, measuring the powder with a tiny cup which fitted over the top of his powder-horn, and his shot with the same vessel, so many times filled.

These rammed down in place with some rough paper on the top, and the ramrod measured to see whether it stood out the right distance from the barrel, the pan was primed and closed, and the gun carefully laid ready for use.

“There,” cried Dave in an ill-used tone, “I don’t know why I’m tekkin’ all this trouble for such a pair o’ young shacks as you; but come along.”

“It’s because he likes us, Dick,” said Tom merrily.

“Nay, that I don’t,” cried Dave. “I hate the lot of you. Not one of you’ll be satisfied till you’ve spoiled all my fen-land, and made it a place where nivver a bird will come.”

“Why, I wouldn’t have it touched if I could help it—St! Dave, what bird’s that?” said Dick.

“Curlew,” replied Dave in a low voice, whose tones were imitated by the lads as the boat was softly punted along. “See them, boys!”

He nodded in the direction they were going, towards where a number of birds were flying about over some patches of land which stood just over the level of the water. Now they looked dark against the sky, now they displayed feathers of the purest white, for their flight with their blunted wings was a clumsy flapping very different to the quiver and skim of a couple of wild ducks which came by directly after and dropped into the water a quarter of a mile ahead.

“You come and see me next spring, my lads, and I’ll show you where there’s more pie-wipes’ eggs than ever you found before in your lives.”

“But you’ll take us one day to the ’coy, Dave?” said Dick.

“Nay, I don’t think I can,” said Dave.

“But it’s my father’s ’coy,” said Dick.

“Ay, I know all about that,” said the man harshly; “but it wean’t be much good to him if he dree-erns the fen.”

Dave’s voice was growing loud and excited, but he dropped it directly and thrust away without making the slightest splash with his iron-shod pole.

As they came near one bed of reeds several coots began to paddle away, jerking their bald heads as they went, while a couple of moor-hens, which as likely as not were both cocks, swam as fast as their long thin unwebbed toes would allow them, twitching their black-barred white tails in unison with the jerking of their scarlet-fronted little heads, and then taking flight upon their rounded wings, dragging their long thin toes along the top of the water, and shrieking with fear, till they dropped into the sheltering cover ahead.

Snipes flew up from time to time, and more curlews and green plovers were seen, offering plenty of opportunities for the use of the gun, as the punt progressed till a long low spit of heathery gravel, about forty feet in length and five wide, was reached, with a patch of reeds across the water about a couple of hundred yards away.

“Is this the place?” cried Dick excitedly; and upon being answered in the affirmative—“Now, then, what shall we do first?”

“Sit still, and I’ll tell you, lads,” was the stern reply, as Dave, now all eagerness, secured the boat and landed his net and poles.

“Don’t tread on her, my lads,” he said. “Now help me spread her out.”

He showed them how to proceed, and the net, about a dozen yards in length, was spread along the narrow spit of land, which was only about a foot wider than the net, at whose two ends was fixed a pole as spreader, to which lines were attached.

The net spread, the side nearest to the water was fastened down with pegs, so adjusted as to act as hinges upon which the apparatus would turn, while as soon as this was done Dave called for the mysterious-looking basket.

This being produced from the punt and opened was found to contain about a dozen stuffed peewits, which, though rough in their feathers, were very fair imitations of the real things.

These were stuck along the edge of the net outside and at either end.

“Now for the ’coys,” cried Dave, and Tom brought the cage of unfortunate peewits, who had a painful duty to perform, that of helping to lead their free brethren into the trap that was being laid for them.

Each of these decoy-birds was quickly and cleverly tethered to a peg along the edge of the net upon the narrow strip of clear land, a string being attached to one leg so long as to give them enough freedom to flutter a little among the stuffed birds, which seemed to be feeding.

“There!” cried Dave, when all was ready; and at a short distance nothing was visible but the group of birds fluttering or quiescent, for the net was wonderfully like the ground in colour. “There, she’s ready now, my lads, so come along.”

He bade Dick thrust the punt along to the bed of reeds; and as the lad deftly handled the pole, Dave let out the line, which was so attached to the ends of the poles that a vigorous pull would drag the net right over.

It was quite a couple of hundred yards to the reeds, through which the punt was pushed till it and its occupants were hidden, when, having thrust down the pole as an anchor to steady the little vessel, the line was drawn tight so as to try whether it would act, and then kept just so tense as to be invisible beneath the water, and secured to the edge of the punt.

“That ought to bring them, lads,” said Dave, with his eyes twinkling beneath his fox-skin cap, after beating a few reeds aside so that they could have a good view of where the unfortunate peewits fluttered at the pegs.

“But suppose they don’t come?” said Tom. “I know if I was a piewipe I wouldn’t be cheated by a few dummies and some pegged-down birds.”

“But then you are not a piewipe, only a goose,” said Dick.

“Hist!” whispered Dave, and placing his fingers to his mouth he sent out over the grey water so exact an imitation of the green plover’s cry that Dick looked at him in wonder, for this was something entirely new.

Pee-eugh, pee-eugh, pee-eugh! And the querulous cry was answered from a distance by a solitary lapwing, which came flapping along in a great hurry, sailed round and round, and finally dropped upon the little narrow island and began to run about.

“You won’t pull for him, will you, Dave?” whispered Dick.

Dave shook his head, and the boys watched as from time to time the man uttered the low mournful cry.

“Wonder what that chap thinks of the stuffed ones?” whispered Dick.

“Why don’t the live ones tell him it isn’t safe?” said Tom.

“Don’t know; perhaps they’re like old Tom Tallington,” said Dick: “whenever they get into a mess they like to get some one else in it too.”

“You say that again and I’ll hit you,” whispered Tom, holding up his fist menacingly.

“Hist!” came from Dave, who uttered the imitation of the peewit’s whistle again, and a couple more of the flap-winged birds came slowly over the grey-looking water, which to anyone else, with its patches of drab dry weeds and bared patches of black bog, would have seemed to be a terrible scene of desolation, whereas it was a place of enchantment to the boys.

“They come precious slowly,” said Dick at last. “I thought that there would have been quite a crowd of birds, like you see them sometimes. Look at the old bald-heads, Tom.”

He pointed to a party of about half a dozen coots which came slowly out of the reeds and then sailed on again as if suspicious of all being not quite right.

Then there was another little flock of ducks streaming over the fen in the distance, and their cries came faintly as they dashed into the water, as if returning home after a long absence.

“There goes a her’n,” whispered Tom, who was not very good at seeing birds and worse at telling what they were.

“’Tisn’t,” cried Dick; “it’s only a grey crow.”

“If you two go on chattering like that we shall get no birds,” said Dave sharply. “What a pair o’ ruck-a-toongues you are; just like two owd women!”

“Well, but the birds are so long coming,” said Dick; “I’m getting the cramp. I say, Dave, are there any butterbumps (bitterns) close here?”

“Plenty; only they wean’t show theirsens. Hah!”

They had been waiting a couple of hours, and the peewit’s cry had been uttered from time to time, but only a straggler or two had landed upon the strip of land. Dick had been eager to capture these, but Dave shook his head. It wasn’t worth while to set the net and peg out decoys and stales, he said, to catch two pie-wipes that weren’t enough for a man’s dinner.

So they crouched there in the punt, waiting and growing more cold and cramped, fidgeting and changing their positions, and making waves seem to rise from under the boat to go whispering among the reeds.

Every now and then Tom uttered a sigh and Dick an impatient grunt, while at these movements Dave smiled but made no other sign, merely watching patiently. His eyes glittered, and their lids passed over them rapidly from time to time; otherwise he was as motionless as if carved out of old brown boxwood, an idea suggested by the colour of his skin.

“I say,” said Dick at last, as there were tokens in the distance of the day coming to an end with mist and fine rain, “I am getting so hungry! Got anything to eat, Dave?”

“When we’ve done, lads.”

“But haven’t we done? No birds will come to-day.”

Dave did not answer, only smiled very faintly; and it seemed as if the lad was right, for the sky and water grew more grey, and though the stuffed birds appeared to be diligently feeding, and those which were tethered hopped about and fluttered their wings, while the two free ones ran here and there, flew away and returned, as if exceedingly mystified at the state of affairs on that long, narrow strip of land, Dave’s calls seemed to be as vain as the snares he had made.

“I wonder whether these birds break their shins in running over the meshes of the net!” said Dick after a long yawn. “Oh, I say, Dave, there’s no fun in this; let’s go!”

“Hist! pee-eugh, pee-eugh!” whistled Dave loudly, and then in quite a low tone that sounded distant, and this he kept up incessantly and with a strange ventriloquial effect.

The boys were all excitement now, for they grasped at once the cause of their companion’s rapid change of manner. For there in the distance, coming down with the wind in scattered flight and as if labouring heavily to keep themselves up, appeared a flock of lapwings pretty well a hundred strong.

“Hooray! At last, Tom!” cried Dick. “Will they come and settle on the net, Dave?”

“Not a bird of ’em if thou keeps up that ruck,” whispered the man excitedly.

The next minute he was imitating the cry of the peewit, and it was answered from the distance by the birds coming along, while the two stragglers which had been hanging about so long now rose up, circled round, and settled again.

“Look at them!” whispered Dick. “Lie low, Tom; they’re coming.”

Both lads were on the tiptoe of expectation, but it seemed as if they were to be disappointed, for the flock came on slowly, uttering its querulous cries, and circled round as if to pass over, but they were evidently still attracted by the decoy-birds, and hesitated and flew to and fro.

“Oh, if they don’t light now!” said Dick to himself. “They’re going,” he sighed half aloud, and then he seized Tom’s arm in his excitement, and gripped it so hard that the boy nearly cried out, and would have done so but for the state of eagerness he too was in.

For after farther signs of hesitation and doubt, all of which were in favour of the flock going right away, one of them seemed to give a regular tumble over in the air, as if it were shot, and alighted. Another followed, and another, and another, till, to the intense excitement of the occupants of the boat among the reeds, the long, low spit of gravel, almost level with the water, became alive with birds running here and there.

It was on Dick’s lips to cry, “Now, Dave, pull!” but he could not speak, only watch the thin, keen, yellow man, whose eye glittered beneath his rough hairy cap as he slowly tightened the line, drawing it up till it was above the surface of the water, which began to ripple and play about it in long waves running off in different directions. There was so great a length that it was impossible to draw it tight without moving the spreader poles; and as the lads both thought of what the consequences would be if the line broke, the movement at the ends of the long net spread the alarm.

There was a curious effect caused by the spreading of the wings of the birds, and the whole island seemed to be slowly rising in the air; but at that moment the water hissed from the punt right away to where the flock was taking flight, and as the line tightened, a long filmy wave seemed to curve over towards them. By one rapid practice-learned drag, the net was snatched over and fell on to the water, while a great flock of green plovers took flight in alarm and went flapping over reed-bed and mere.

“Oh, what a pity!” cried Dick, jumping up in the boat and stamping his foot with rage.

“And so near, too!” cried Tom.

“Sit down, lads,” roared Dave, who was dragging the pole out of the ground, and the next moment he was thrusting the light boat along over the intervening space, and the more readily that the bottom there was only three or four feet below the surface, and for the most part firm.

“Why, have you caught some?” cried Dick.

The answer was given in front, for it was evident that the net had entangled several of the unfortunate birds, which were flapping the water and struggling vainly to get through the meshes, but drowning themselves in the effort.

The scene increased in excitement as the boat neared, for the birds renewed their struggles to escape, and the decoys tethered on the island to their pegs leaped and fluttered.

In an incredibly short time the skilful puntsman had his boat alongside the net, and then began the final struggle.

It was a vain one, for one by one the plovers were dragged from beneath and thrust into a large basket, till the net lay half-sunk beneath the surface, and the feeble flapping of a wing or two was all that could be heard.

The boat was dripping with water and specked with wet feathers, and a solitary straggler of the plover flock flew to and fro screaming as if reproaching the murderers of its companions; otherwise all was still as Dave stood up and grinned, and showed his yellow teeth.

“There!” he cried triumphantly; “yow didn’t expect such a treat as that!”

“Treat!” said Dick, looking at his wet hands and picking some feathers from his vest, for he and Tom after the first minute had plunged excitedly into the bird slaughter and dragged many a luckless bird out of the net.

“Ay, lad, treat!—why, there’s nigh upon fourscore, I know.”

Dick’s features had a peculiar look of disgust upon them and his brow wrinkled up.

“Seems so precious cruel,” he said.

Dave, who was rapidly freeing his decoy-birds and transferring them to the cage, stood up with a fluttering plover in one hand.

“Cruel!” he cried.

“Yes, and treacherous,” replied Dick.

“Deal more cruel for me to be found starved to death in my place some day,” said Dave. “Pie-wipes eats the beedles and wains, don’t they? Well, we eats the pie-wipes, or sells ’em, and buys flour and bacon. Get out wi’ ye! Cruel! Yow don’t like piewipe pie!”

“I did, and roast piewipe too,” cried Dick; “but I don’t think I shall ever eat any again.”

“Hark at him!” cried Dave, going on rapidly with his task and packing up his stuffed birds neatly in their basket, drawing out his pegs, and then rolling up and wringing the wet net before placing it in the punt, and winding in the dripping line which he drew through the water from the reed-bed. “Hark at him, young Tom Tallington!”—and he uttered now a peculiarly ugly harsh laugh—“young squire ar’n’t going to eat any more bacon, ’cause it’s cruel to kill the pigs; nor no eels, because they has to be caught; and he wean’t catch no more jacks, nor eel-pouts, nor yet eat any rabbud-pie! Ha—ha—ha—ha—ha!”

“Look here, Dave!” cried Dick passionately, “if you laugh at me I’ll shy something at you! No, I won’t,” he shouted, seizing the cage; “I’ll drown all your decoys!”

“Ay, do!” said Dave, beginning to use the pole. “You’re such a particular young gentleman! Only, wouldn’t it be cruel?”

“Ha—ha—ha!” laughed Tom.

“Do you want me to punch your head, Tom?” roared Dick, turning scarlet.

“Nay, lads, don’t spyle a nice bit o’ sport by quarrelling,” said Dave, sending the boat rapidly homeward. “I wean’t laugh at you no more, Mester Dick. I like you for it, lad. It do seem cruel; and sometimes when I weer younger, and a bud looked up at me with its pretty eyes, as much as to say, ‘don’t kill me!’ I would let it go.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Dick with a sigh of relief.

“But what did that bud do, lad? If it was a piewipe, go and kill hundreds o’ worms, and snails, and young frogs; if it was a heron, spear fish and pick the wriggling young eels out of the mud. No, lad, it wean’t do; buds is the cruellest things there is, pretty as they are—all except them as only eats seeds. Everything ’most is cruel; but if they wasn’t the world would get so full that everything would starve. We’ve got say fourscore pie-wipes—not for fun, but for wittles—and what’s fourscore when there’s thousands upon thousands all about?”

“Why, Dave, you’re a philosopher!” said Dick, who felt relieved.

“Yes,” said Dave complacently, but with a very foggy idea of the meaning of the word; “it’s being out so much upon the water. Now, there’s a nice couple o’ ducks swimming just the other side o’ them reeds, as a lad might hit just as they rose from the water when we come round the corner; and I’d say hev a shot at ’em, Mester Dick—on’y, if I did, it would hurt your feelings.”

Dick was silent for a moment or two as he tried to keep down his human nature. Then he spoke out:

“I beg your pardon, Dave, after what you did for us. May I take up the gun?”

“Ay. Steady, lad!—keep her head over the stem, and I’ll turn the boat round and send you along gently. Now you lie down on your chesty and rest the barr’l on the net, for she’s too heavy for you to handle. Then wait till the ducks rise, and let go at ’em.”

There was another interval full of excitement; the punt was sent quietly toward the end of the reed-bed; and in obedience to his instructions Dick knelt ready to fire—Tom watching him enviously, and wishing it were his turn.

Nearer, nearer, with the punt allowed to go on now by the force of the last thrust given to it, till the last patch of reed was cleared; and there, not twenty yards away, swam a fine shieldrake and four ducks.

As the punt glided into sight there was a splashing and whirring of wings, a great outcry, and away went the birds.

“Now, lad!” cried Dave; and the gun was fired with a deafening report. But no feathers flew—no unfortunate duck or drake dropped, broken-winged, into the water. The only living being injured was Dick, who sat up rubbing his shoulder softly.

“I say,” he said, “how that gun kicks!”

“Yes,” said Dave dryly, “I put a big charge in her, my lad; but it was a pity to waste it.”

“I couldn’t help missing,” said Dick. “They were so quick.”

“Nay, you wouldn’t try to hit ’em, lad, because you thought you’d hot ’em,” said Dave, chuckling; and Tom laughed, while Dick sat and nursed the gun in silence, till the punt was poled ashore and its contents landed.

“Now,” said Dave, “I’ve got a rabbud-pie as I made mysen. Come and hev a bit, lads; and then you shall take home a dozen pie-wipes apiece. It’ll be moonlight, and I’ll soon punt you across.”

That pie, in spite of the rough surroundings, was delicious; and Dick forgot to pity the poor rabbits, and he did not refuse to take his dozen lapwings home for a welcome addition to the next day’s dinner.

“You see, Tom,” he whispered, “I think I was a little too particular. Good-night, Dave, and thank you!” he shouted.

“Good-night, lads—good-night!” came off the water. Then there was a splash of the pole, and Dave disappeared in the moonlit mist which silvered the reeds, while the boys trudged the rest of their way home.

Chapter Eight.The Drain Progresses.The number of workers increased at the sea-bank, quite a colony growing up, and Dick paid several visits to the place with his father to see how busily the men were delving, while others built up what was termed agowt—a flood-gate arrangement for keeping out the sea at high water, and opening it at low, so as to give egress to the drain-water collected from the fen-land.Both lads were eager enough to be there to witness the progress of the works at first; but after going again and again, they voted the whole thing to be uninteresting, and no more worth seeing than the digging of one of the ditches on the farms at home.And certainly there was no more difference than in the fact that the ditches at home were five or six feet wide, while the one the adventurers were having cut through the fen-land would be forty feet, and proportionately deep.So the big drain progressed foot by foot, creeping on as it were from the sea-shore, an innocent-looking channel that seemed valueless, but which would, when finished, rid the land of its stagnant water, and turn the boggy, peaty soil of the fen into rich pasture and corn-land, whereas its finest produce now was wild-fowl and a harvest of reeds.“We’re getting on, neighbour,” said the squire to Farmer Tallington one evening.“Ay, but it’s slow work,” said Tom’s father. “It’ll be years before that lode is cooten.”“Yes, it will be years before it is finished,” said the squire, “certainly.”“Then, what’s the good of us putting our money in it, eh? It’ll do us no good, and be robbing our boys.”“Then why don’t you leave off, father?” said Tom stoutly. “Dick Winthorpe and I don’t want the fen to be drained, and we don’t want to be robbed. Do we, Dick?”The two elders laughed heartily, and the squire was silent for a few minutes before he began to speak.“The drain’s right, neighbour,” he said gravely. “Perhaps you and I will reap no great benefit from it; though, if we live, we shall; but instead of leaving to our boys, when they take up our work, neighbour, either because we are called away to our rest or because we have grown old, these farms with so much good land and so much watery bog, we shall leave them acre upon acre of good solid land, that has been useless to us, but which will bear them crops and feed their beasts.”“Yes,” said Farmer Tallington, “there’s something in that, but—”“Come, neighbour, look ahead. Every foot that drain comes into the fen it will lower the level, and we shall see—and before long—our farm land grow, and the water sink.”“Ye–es; but it’s so like working for other people!”“Well,” said the squire laughing, “what have you been doing in that half acre of close beside your house?”“That! Oh, only planted it with pear-trees so as to make a bit of an orchard!”“Are you going to pick a crop of pears next year, neighbour?”“Next year! Bah! They’ll be ten years before they come well into bearing.” (This was the case with the old-fashioned grafting.)“So will the acres laid bare by the draining,” said the squire smiling, “and I hope we shall live to see our boys eating the bread made from corn grown on that patch of water and reeds, along with the pears from your trees.”“That’s a clincher,” said the farmer. “You’ve coot the ground from under me, neighbour, and I wean’t grudge the money any more.”“I wish father wouldn’t saycootandwean’t!” whispered Tom, whose school teaching made some of the homely expressions and bits of dialect of the fen-land jar.“Why not? What does it matter?” said Dick, who was busy twisting the long hairs from a sorrel nag’s tail into a fishing-line.“Sounds so broad. Remember how the doctor switched Bob Robinson for saying he’d beenagateearly.”“Yes, I recollect,” said Dick, tying a knot to keep the hairs from untwisting; “and father said he ought to have been ashamed of himself, foragatewas good old Saxon, and so were all the words our people use down here in the fen. I say, what are they talking about now?”“Well, for my part,” said the squire rather hotly, in reply to some communication his visitor had made, “so long as I feel that I’m doing what is right, no threats shall ever stop me from going forward.”“But they seem to think it arn’t right,” said the farmer. “Those in the fen say it will ruin them.”“Ruin! Nonsense!” cried the squire. “They’ll have plenty of good land to grow potatoes, and oats, instead of water, which produces them a precarious living from wild-fowl and fish, and ruins no end of them with rheumatism and fever.”“Yes, but—”“But what, man? The fen-men who don’t cultivate the soil are very few compared to those who do, and the case is this. The fen-land is growing about here, and good land being swallowed up by the water. Five acres of my farm, which used to be firm and dry, have in my time become water-logged and useless. Now, are the few to give way to the many, or the many to give way to the few?”“Well, squire, the few think we ought to give way to them.”“Then we will not,” said the squire hotly; “and if they don’t know what’s for their good, they must be taught. You know how they will stick to old things and refuse to see how they can be improved.”“Ay, it’s their nature, I suppose. All I want is peace and quietness.”“And you’ll have it. Let them threaten. The law is on our side. They will not dare.”“I don’t know,” said Farmer Tallington, scratching his head as they walked out into the home close. “You see, squire, it wean’t be open enemies we shall have to fear—”“The Winthorpes never feared their enemies since they settled in these parts in the days of King Alfred,” said Dick grandly.“Hear, hear, Dick!” cried his father, laughing.“No more did the Tallingtons,” said Tom, plucking up, so as not to be behindhand.“Nay, Tom, my lad,” said the farmer, “Tallingtons was never fighting men. Well, squire, I thought I’d warn you.”“Of course, of course, neighbour. But look here, whoever sent you that cowardly bit of scribble thought that because you lived out here in this lonely place you would be easily frightened. Look here,” he continued, taking a scrap of dirty paper out of his old pocket-book; “that bit of rubbish was stuck on one of the tines of a hay-fork, and the shaft driven into the ground in front of my door. I said nothing about it to you, but you see I’ve been threatened too.”He handed the paper to Farmer Tallington, who read it slowly and passed it back.“Same man writ both, I should say.”“So should I—a rascal!” said the squire. “Here, Dick, don’t say a word to your mother; it may alarm her.”“No, father, I sha’n’t say anything; but—”“But what? Speak out.”“May I read it—and Tom?” he added, for he saw his companion’s eager looks.“Well, yes, you’ve heard what we’ve been talking about—what neighbour Tallington came over for.”“Yes, father,” said Dick, taking the piece of paper, and feeling very serious, since he knew that it contained a threat. But as soon as he grasped its contents—looking at them as a well-educated lad for his days, fresh from the big town grammar-school—he slapped his thigh with one hand, and burst into a roar of laughter, while his father looked on with a grim smile.“What is it, Dick?” cried Tom eagerly.“Here’s a game!” cried Dick. “Just look!”There was not much on the paper, and that was written in a clumsy printing-letter fashion, beneath a rough sketch, and with another to finish.“Why, here’s a hollow turnip and two sticks!” cried Dick aloud; “and—and what is it, Tom?”‘stope the dykeor yow hev 2dighe’“Stop the dyke or you’ll have to dig,” said Tom eagerly. “You’ll have to dig! Does he mean dig the ditch?”“No!” roared Dick; “that’s the way he spells die, and that long square thing’s meant for a coffin.”“Yes, Dick, and that’s the spirit in which to take such a cowardly threat—laugh at it,” said the squire, replacing the letter in his pocket-book. “I only wish I knew who sent it. Who’s this coming?”“Why, it’s Dave!” cried Tom eagerly, as the man came slowly along one of the winding lanes of water in his punt.“Oh, yes, I remember!” said the squire; “he was here yesterday and said he would come and fetch you, Dick, if you liked to go, over to the decoy.”“And you never said a word about it, father! Here, come along, Tom.”The latter glanced at his father, but read consent in his eyes, and the two lads dashed off together.“Seems to be letting him idle a deal,” said Farmer Tallington thoughtfully.“Not it,” said the squire. “They’re both very young and growing. Let them enjoy themselves and grow strong and hearty. They’ve had a long turn at school, and all this will do them good.”“Ay, it’ll mak ’em grow strong and lusty if it does nowt else,” said the farmer.“And as to the big drain,” said the squire; “we’re farmers, neighbour, even if I do work my land as much for pleasure as for profit.”“Ay, but what’s that to do with it?”“This,” said the squire, smiling; “a man who puts his hand to the plough should not look back.”“That’s true,” said Farmer Tallington; “but when he gets a letter to say some one’s going to kill him, and draws coffins on the paper, it’s enough to mak’ him look back.”“It’s all stuff, neighbour! Treat it as I do—with contempt.”“Ah! you see you’re a gentleman, squire, and a bit of a scholar, and I’m only a plain man.”“A good neighbour and a true Englishman, Tallington; and I’m glad my son has so good and frank a companion as your boy. There, take my advice: treat all this opposition with contempt.”“Theer’s my hand, squire,” said Farmer Tallington. “You nivver gave me a bad bit of advice yet, and I’ll stick to what you say—but on one condition.”“What’s that?” said the squire, smiling.“You’ll let me grumble now and then.”Long before Farmer Tallington had parted from the squire at the beginning of the rough track which led from the Priory to Grimsey, Dick and Tom were down by the water’s edge waiting for Dave, who came up with a dry-looking smile upon his face—a smile which looked as if it were the withered remains of a last year’s laugh.“How are you, Dave?” cried Dick. “We only just knew you were coming. Are there plenty of ducks?”“Mebbe. Few like,” said Dave in the slow way of a man who seldom speaks.“Wuph!wuph!” came from the boat.“What! Chip, boy! how are you?” cried Dick, patting the dog, which seemed to go half mad with delight at having someone to make a fuss over him, and then rushed to Tom to collect a few more friendly pats and words.“Shall we get in, Dave?” cried Tom.“Get in, lad! Why, what for?”“Now, Dave, don’t go on like that,” cried Dick impatiently. “Let’s get on, there’s a good fellow. I do want to see you work the decoy.”“Oh, you don’t care for that! ’Sides, I want to go to Hickathrift’s to see his dunky pigs.”“Nonsense! What do you want to see the dunks for?”“Thinking o’ keeping a pig o’ my own out thar, lads. It’s rayther lonesome at times; and,” he added quite seriously, “a pig would be company.”The boys looked at one another and smothered a laugh for fear of giving offence.“What, with a place like a jolly island all to yourself, where you live like a Robinson Crusoe and can keep tame magpies and anything you like, and your boat, and your dog, and eel-spear?”“And nets,” put in Tom.“And fishing-lines,” said Dick.“And gun,” said Tom.“Ay, lads,” said Dave gravely; “seems aw reight to you, but it be lonesome sometimes when the bootherboomps get running out o’ the reeds in the dark evenings and then go sailing high up and round and round.”“Oh, I should like that!” said Dick.“Nay, lad, yow wouldn’t. It would scar yow. Then o’ soft warm nights sometimes the frogs begins, and they go on crying and piping all round you for hours.”“Pooh!” said Tom; “who’d mind a few frogs?”“And then o’ still nights theer’s the will o’ the wipses going about and dancing over the holes in the bog.”“I say, Dave, what is a will o’ the wisp really like?”“What! heven’t you niver seen one, lad?” said Dave, as he seated himself on the edge of the boat.“No; you see we’ve always been away at school. I can remember one of our men—Diggles it was—pointing out one on a dark night when I was quite young, and I saw some kind of light, and I was such a little fellow then that I ran in—frightened.”“Ay, they do frecken folk,” said Dave, putting a piece of brown gum in his mouth; “only you must be careful which way you run or you may go right into the bog and be smothered, and that’s what the wills like.”“Like! why, they’re only lights,” said Tom.“They’m seem to you like lights, but they be kind o’ spirits,” said Dave solemnly; “and they wants you to be spirits, too, and come and play with ’em, I s’pose.”“But, Dave, never mind the will o’ the wisps. Come on to the ’coy.”“Nay, it’s no use to go there; the nets that goes over the pipes has been charmed (gnawed) by the rats.”“Yes, I know,” cried Dick, laughing; “and you’ve put all new ones. I heard you tell father so, and he paid you ever so much money. He’s only playing with us, Tom.”Dave laughed like a watchman’s rattle, whose wooden spring had grown very weak.“Look here, Dave, now no nonsense! Want some more powder?”“Nay, I don’t want no poother,” said Dave.“Do you want some lead to melt down? I’ll give you a big lump.”“Nay, I don’t want no poother, and I don’t want no lead,” said Dave in an ill-used tone. “I can buy what I want.”“He does want it, Dick.”“Nay, I don’t, lad; and things a man do want nobody asks him to hev.”“Why, what do you want, Dave?”“Oh, nowt! I don’t want nowt. But there is times when a man’s a bit ill out there in the fen, and he gets thinking as a drop o’ sperrits ’d do him good. But I d’n know.”“All right, Dave! I won’t forget,” said Dick. “Jump in, Tom.”“Nay, what’s the good?” said Dave.“All right, Tom! He’s going to take us to the ’coy.”Tom followed his companion into the boat, the dog leaped in after them, whining with pleasure; and shaking his head and talking to himself, Dave followed, seized the pole, giving a grunt at Dick, who wanted to preside over the locomotion, and then, with a tremendous thrust, he sent the punt surging through the water.“Nay, I’ll pole,” he said. “Get us over sooner, and we can begin work.”Dick exchanged glances with his companion, and they sat playing with the dog and watching the birds that rose from the reeds or swept by in little flocks in the distance, till, after about half an hour’s poling, Dave ran the boat into a narrow lane among the uncut reeds, after a warning to be quite still, which the lads observed and the dog understood, going forward and crouching down in front of his master, with his eyes glittering and ears quivering with the intense way in which he was listening.The way through the reeds was long, and in spite of the stealthy way in which the boat was propelled, several birds were startled, and flew up quacking loudly, and went away.At last, though, they emerged from the dry growth into a little open pool, and crossing this, landed by a low house thatched with reeds and hidden in a thick grove of alders.“Now, lads,” said Dave in a whisper, “not a word. Stay here while I go and look. I wean’t be long.”He secured the boat to a stump of wood, and landed, leaving the lads seated in the punt, and gazing about them. But there was very little to see, for, save in the direction of the patch of reeds through which they had passed, there was a low dense growth of alders and willows running up to the height of twelve or fifteen feet; and it was beyond this that the sport was to be had.They had not very long to wait before Dave returned, with Chip the piper at his heels—not that the dog had any musical gifts, but that he was clever in doing certain duties in connection with a pipe, as will be seen, and to perform these adequately utter silence was required.Dave seemed quite transformed. His yellow face, instead of being dull and heavy, was full of anxious lines, his eyes twinkled, his mouth twitched and worked, and his brown wiry hands were fidgeting about his chin.As he came up he held a finger in the air to command silence, and with stooping body and quick alert way he paused till he was close to the boys, and then whispered:“You couldn’t hev come better, lads; there’s a boat load of ’em in the pond.”“What sort?” whispered Dick excitedly.“All sorts, lad: widgeons, teal, mallards, and some pochards. Only mind, if you say a word aloud, or let that theer dog bark, we sha’n’t get a duck.”Dick clapped his hand over his mouth, as if to ensure silence, and Tom compressed his lips.“Come along, then, boys, and I’ll set yow wheer yow can look through a hole in one o’ the screens and see all the fun.”“But can’t we help, Dave?” asked Tom.“Help, lad! no, not till the ducks are in the net. Then you may. Now, not a word, and come on.”Dave led the way to the little house, where he filled his pockets with barley and oats mixed, out of a rough box, and as he did so he pointed to one corner which had been gnawed.“Been charming of it,” he whispered. “Eats! Now come, quiet-like;” and he stepped out and into a narrow path leading through the dense alder wood, and in and out over patches of soft earth which quivered and felt like sponges beneath their feet.Dave glanced back at them sharply two or three times when a rustling sound was made, and signed to them to be careful. Then once he stopped in a wider opening and tossed up a feather or two, as if to make sure of the way the wind blew. Apparently satisfied, he bent towards the two lads and whispered:“I’m going to the second pipe. Come quiet. Not a word, and when I mak’ room for you, peep through the screen for a minute, and then come away.”The boys nodded, and followed in silence through a part of the alder wood which was not quite so dense, for here and there patches of tall reeds had grown out of a watery bed, and now stood up seven or eight feet high and dry and brown.Then all at once Dave stopped and looked back at them with a sly kind of grin upon his face, as he pointed down to a strong net stretched loosely over some half hoops of ash, whose ends were stuck down tightly in the soft ground so as to form a tunnel about two feet wide.This was over the soft earth, upon which lay the end of the net, tied round with a piece of cord. A few yards farther on, however, this first net was joined to another, and the tunnel of network was arched over a narrow ditch full of water, and this ditch gradually increased in width as the man led on, and ran in a curve, along whose outer or convex side they were proceeding.Before long, as the bent-over willows spanned the ditch or “pipe,” as it was called, the net ceased to come down quite to the ground, its place being occupied by screens made of reeds and stakes, and all so placed that there was room to go round them.The boys now noted that the dog was following close behind in a way as furtive as his master, and apparently quite as much interested as he in what was to take place.The water ditch increased in width rapidly now till the net tunnel became six feet, twelve feet, twenty feet, and, close to the mouth, twenty-four feet wide, while the light ash-poles, bent over and tied in the middle, were quite twelve feet above the water.They were now near the mouth of the curved ditch, whose narrow portion bent round quite out of sight among the trees, while at a signal from Dave they went to a broad reed screen in front, and gazed through an opening, to see stretching out before them, calm and smooth beneath the soft grey wintry sky, a large pool of about a couple of acres in extent, surrounded by closely growing trees similar to those through which they had passed, while at stated intervals were openings similar to that by which they stood, in all five in number, making a rough star whose arms or points were ditches or pipes some five-and-twenty feet wide, and curving off, to end, as above told, sixty or seventy yards from the mouth, only two feet wide, and covered right along with net.All this was well-known to them before, and they hardly gave it a second glance. What took their attention were some half dozen flocks of water-fowl seated calmly on the smooth surface of the pool and a couple of herons standing in the shallow water on the other side, one so hitched up that he seemed to have no neck, the other at his full height, and with bill poised ready to dart down at some unfortunate fish.Here and there a moor-hen or two swam quietly about flicking its black-barred white tail. There were some coots by a bed of reeds, and a couple of divers, one of which disappeared from time to time in the most business-like manner, and came up at the end of a long line of bubbles many yards away.Nearest to them was a large flock of quite a hundred ordinary wild ducks, for the most part asleep, while the others sat motionless upon the water or swam idly about, all waiting patiently in the secluded pool, which seemed to them a sanctuary, for nightfall, when slugs and snails would be out and other things in motion, ready to supply them with a banquet on some of their far-off feeding grounds. The drakes were already distinct enough from the sober-feathered ducks, but the former were not in their spring plumage, when they would put on their brightest colours and their heads glisten in green and gold.Away to the left were a number of flat-looking squatty-shaped pochards with their brown heads and soft grey backs, while to the right were plenty of widgeons and another little flock of teal, those pretty miniature ducks, with here and there a rarer specimen, among which were pintails, drakes with the centre feathers of the tail produced like those of a parroquet.The lads could have stopped for an hour gazing at the manners and customs of the wild-fowl dotting the lake in happy unconsciousness of the enemies so near; but, just as Dick had fixed his eyes upon a solitary group of about a couple of dozen ducks nearly across the pond, he felt a tug behind him, and turning, there was Dave signing to him to come away.Dave made the lads follow him till he could place them in among the trees with a tuft of reeds before them, which proved sufficient screen and yet gave them a view of part of the pool, and the entrance to the pipe upon whose bank they had been standing.“Now, look here, bairns,” he whispered; “if you move or says a word, there’ll be no ducks.”The lads nodded and crouched in their places, while Dave disappeared behind them, but appeared again close to the screen of reed which hid him from the birds in the pool.Matters were so exciting now as the watchers looked on that Dick relieved his feelings by pinching Tom’s leg, and then holding up his fist, as if in promise of what was to follow if he made a sound.Meanwhile, with Chip close at his heels, Dave went to the farthest screen and peered through the opening, and after satisfying himself they saw him thrust one hand into his pocket and make a sign to Chip, while almost simultaneously he scattered a handful of the oats and barley right over the water, the grain falling through the meshes of the outspread net.Just then Chip, in the most quiet matter-of-fact way, made his appearance on the fore-shore of the pool, and, without barking or taking notice of the ducks, trotted slowly along toward the entrance to the pipe, leaped over a low piece of wood, and disappeared from sight to join his master behind the screen, when the dog was rewarded for what he had done with a piece of cheese.The coming of the dog, however, had created quite a commotion upon the lake, for the knot of two dozen ducks on the other side no sooner caught sight of him than, uttering a prodigious quacking, they came swimming and half flying as rapidly as they could toward the mouth of the pipe, to begin feeding upon the oats scattered upon the water.“Look at the decoy-ducks,” whispered Dick, and then he watched in silence, for these two dozen were regularly fed wild-fowl which had become so far half tame that, knowing the appearance of the dog to be associated with corn and other seeds at the mouth of the pipe, they came at once.This was too much for the strangers, which followed them, mingled with them, and began to feed as well.Dave was at this time behind the second screen waiting for Chip, who showed himself for a moment or two at the edge of the long water ditch, trotted on towards the second screen, leaped over a low wood bar at the end, and joined his master, to receive a second piece of cheese.That white dog was a wonder to the wild ducks, which left off eating directly and began to swim slowly and cautiously up the netted tunnel to try and find out what he was doing.Had Chip stopped and looked at them, and barked, they would all have taken flight, but the dog was too well taught. He was a piper of the highest quality, and knew his business, which was to show himself for a short time and then trot on to the next screen and leap over and disappear just as if he were engaged in some mysterious business of his own.This was too much for the ducks, which cackled and bobbed their heads up and down and swam on, moved by an intense curiosity to find out what was Chip’s particular game.But Chip’s proceedings were stale to the decoy-ducks, who had seen him so often that they cared nothing, but stopped behind to partake of the food, while quite a hundred followed their leaders up the pipe in happy ignorance of the meaning of a net. What was more, the decoy-ducks often found food at the mouths of the pipes when their wild relatives were off feeding, and hence they troubled themselves no more. All that was impressed upon their small brains was that the appearance of Chip meant food, and they stayed behind to feed.Chip was invisible eating a piece of cheese. Then he appeared again higher up, trotted on, leaped over the low wood bar, and joined his master for more cheese.And so it went on, Dave going higher and higher from screen to screen, and the dog slowly following and alternately appearing to and disappearing from the sight of the ducks, which never of course caught sight of Dave, who was too well hidden behind the screens.At last they were lured on and on so far by the dog that they were where the ditch began to bend round more sharply and the pipe was narrowing. This was the time for a fresh proceeding.Dave had gone on right up to the farthest screen, and suddenly dived into a narrow path through the trees which led him, quite concealed from view, round and back to the first screen. He passed the boys, making them a sign to be silent, and then went right round that first screen just as Chip was appearing far up by the side of the pipe—and the flock of ducks were following—and quickly now showed himself at the mouth of the trap.The ducks saw him instantly, and there was a slight commotion as he took off and held up his hat; but there was no attempt at flight, the birds merely swam on rapidly farther toward the end and disappeared round the curve.Dave went quickly on past a screen or two and showed himself again, the curve of the pipe bringing him once more into view. He held up his hat and the ducks swam on, out of sight once more.This was continued again and again, till the ducks were driven by degrees from where the ditch and its arching of net decreased from eight feet wide to six feet, to four feet, to two feet, and the flock was huddled together, and safe in the trap that had been prepared for them.All at once, while the two lads were watching all these proceedings, Dave came into sight for a moment and waved his hand for them to come, but signed to them at the same time to be quiet.It was as well that he did, for otherwise they would have uttered a shout of triumph.“We’ve got ’em, lads,” he said, with his yellow face puckered up with satisfaction; “but don’t make a noise. I like to keep the ’coy quiet. Come along!”“Is there any fear of their getting away now, Dave?” whispered Dick as he followed.“Yes, to market,” said Dave grimly.As they neared the end of the pipe there was a loud cackling and fluttering heard, and the ducks were disposed to make a rush back, but the sight of the man sent them all onward once more to the end of the pipe, where they were driven to leave the water for the dry land, over which the net was spread for the last few yards, forming a gigantic purse or stocking.And now a tremendous fluttering and excitement ensued, for as, in obedience to their leader’s sign, the lads stopped once more, Dave stepped forward rapidly, detached the final portion of the net which formed the bag or purse from the bent-over ash stick, and twisted it together and tied it round, with the result that the birds were all shut up in the long purse and at his mercy.Just then Chip performed a kind of triumphal dance, and leaped up at Dick and again at Tom before becoming quiescent, and looking up at all in turn, giving his little stumpy tail a few wags, while his whole aspect seemed to say:“Didn’t we do that well?”“That’s a fine take, my lads,” said Dave in congratulatory tones.“Yes,” said Dick, looking down at the frightened birds scuffling over each other; “but—”“Nay! don’t, man, say that!” cried Dave. “I know, my lad. But wild duck’s good to yeat; and they’ve got to be killed and go to market. Yow wanted to see me ketch the duck, and theer they are. Going to help me kill ’em?”“No!” cried Dick in a voice full of disgust. But he helped carry the capture to the boat after the slaying was at an end and the empty short net replaced, ready distended at the end of the tunnel or pipe.“There we are!” said Dave. “Ready for another flock?”“And are you going to try for another in one of the pipes over the other side?”“Nay, not to-day, my lad,” was the reply. “The ’coy-ducks wean’t be hungry and come for their food, so we’ll wait for another time.”“Don’t the ’coy-ducks ever go right away, Dave?” asked Tom, as the boat was being quietly poled back.“Sometimes; but not often, and if they do some others taks their places, and stops. They get fed reg’lar, and that’s what a duck likes. Good uns to eat, ducks. They mak’ nests and bring off broods of young ones, and keep to the pool year after year, and seem to know me a bit; but if Chip here went barking among ’em, or I was to go shooting, they’d soon be driven away.”“But do they know that they are leading the wild ducks into the pipe?” said Dick eagerly.“Notthey. Ducks can’t think like you and me. They come to be fed, and the others follow ’em, and then get thinking about Chip and follow him.”“Does Chip know?” said Tom.“Ask him,” said Dave, laughing in his grim, silent way. “I think he doos, but he never said so. Hello!”They were passing the edge of a great bed of reeds, and rounding a corner, when they came in sight of three or four teal, and no sooner did the birds catch sight of them than they began to scurry along the water preparatory to taking flight, but all at once there was a rush and a splash, and the party in the boat saw a huge fish half throw itself out of the water, fall back, and disappear.“He caught him,” said Dave grimly. “You see, lad, other things ’sides me ketches the ducks.”“A great pike!” cried Dick, standing up to try and catch sight of the tyrant of the waters.“Ay! One as likes duck for dinner. He’ll eat him without picking his feathers off.”“Wasn’t it a very big one, Dave?” cried Tom.“Ay, lad, a thirty-pounder like enew,” said Dave, working his pole.“Dave, shall you know this place again?” cried Dick.“Should I know my own hand!”“Then let’s come over and try for that fellow to-morrow or next day.”“Right, lad! I’ll come. We’ll set some liggers, and I dessay we can get hold of him. If we can’t theer’s plenty more.”“To-morrow, Dave?”“Nay, I shall be getting off my ducks. Two hundred wants some seeing to.”“Next day, then?”“Say Saturday, my lads. That’ll give me time to get a few baits.”So Saturday was appointed for the day with the pike, and the ducks and the boys were duly landed, the latter to go homeward with four couples each, and Dick with strict orders to ask the squire whether he wanted any more, before they were sent off in Hickathrift’s car to the town.

The number of workers increased at the sea-bank, quite a colony growing up, and Dick paid several visits to the place with his father to see how busily the men were delving, while others built up what was termed agowt—a flood-gate arrangement for keeping out the sea at high water, and opening it at low, so as to give egress to the drain-water collected from the fen-land.

Both lads were eager enough to be there to witness the progress of the works at first; but after going again and again, they voted the whole thing to be uninteresting, and no more worth seeing than the digging of one of the ditches on the farms at home.

And certainly there was no more difference than in the fact that the ditches at home were five or six feet wide, while the one the adventurers were having cut through the fen-land would be forty feet, and proportionately deep.

So the big drain progressed foot by foot, creeping on as it were from the sea-shore, an innocent-looking channel that seemed valueless, but which would, when finished, rid the land of its stagnant water, and turn the boggy, peaty soil of the fen into rich pasture and corn-land, whereas its finest produce now was wild-fowl and a harvest of reeds.

“We’re getting on, neighbour,” said the squire to Farmer Tallington one evening.

“Ay, but it’s slow work,” said Tom’s father. “It’ll be years before that lode is cooten.”

“Yes, it will be years before it is finished,” said the squire, “certainly.”

“Then, what’s the good of us putting our money in it, eh? It’ll do us no good, and be robbing our boys.”

“Then why don’t you leave off, father?” said Tom stoutly. “Dick Winthorpe and I don’t want the fen to be drained, and we don’t want to be robbed. Do we, Dick?”

The two elders laughed heartily, and the squire was silent for a few minutes before he began to speak.

“The drain’s right, neighbour,” he said gravely. “Perhaps you and I will reap no great benefit from it; though, if we live, we shall; but instead of leaving to our boys, when they take up our work, neighbour, either because we are called away to our rest or because we have grown old, these farms with so much good land and so much watery bog, we shall leave them acre upon acre of good solid land, that has been useless to us, but which will bear them crops and feed their beasts.”

“Yes,” said Farmer Tallington, “there’s something in that, but—”

“Come, neighbour, look ahead. Every foot that drain comes into the fen it will lower the level, and we shall see—and before long—our farm land grow, and the water sink.”

“Ye–es; but it’s so like working for other people!”

“Well,” said the squire laughing, “what have you been doing in that half acre of close beside your house?”

“That! Oh, only planted it with pear-trees so as to make a bit of an orchard!”

“Are you going to pick a crop of pears next year, neighbour?”

“Next year! Bah! They’ll be ten years before they come well into bearing.” (This was the case with the old-fashioned grafting.)

“So will the acres laid bare by the draining,” said the squire smiling, “and I hope we shall live to see our boys eating the bread made from corn grown on that patch of water and reeds, along with the pears from your trees.”

“That’s a clincher,” said the farmer. “You’ve coot the ground from under me, neighbour, and I wean’t grudge the money any more.”

“I wish father wouldn’t saycootandwean’t!” whispered Tom, whose school teaching made some of the homely expressions and bits of dialect of the fen-land jar.

“Why not? What does it matter?” said Dick, who was busy twisting the long hairs from a sorrel nag’s tail into a fishing-line.

“Sounds so broad. Remember how the doctor switched Bob Robinson for saying he’d beenagateearly.”

“Yes, I recollect,” said Dick, tying a knot to keep the hairs from untwisting; “and father said he ought to have been ashamed of himself, foragatewas good old Saxon, and so were all the words our people use down here in the fen. I say, what are they talking about now?”

“Well, for my part,” said the squire rather hotly, in reply to some communication his visitor had made, “so long as I feel that I’m doing what is right, no threats shall ever stop me from going forward.”

“But they seem to think it arn’t right,” said the farmer. “Those in the fen say it will ruin them.”

“Ruin! Nonsense!” cried the squire. “They’ll have plenty of good land to grow potatoes, and oats, instead of water, which produces them a precarious living from wild-fowl and fish, and ruins no end of them with rheumatism and fever.”

“Yes, but—”

“But what, man? The fen-men who don’t cultivate the soil are very few compared to those who do, and the case is this. The fen-land is growing about here, and good land being swallowed up by the water. Five acres of my farm, which used to be firm and dry, have in my time become water-logged and useless. Now, are the few to give way to the many, or the many to give way to the few?”

“Well, squire, the few think we ought to give way to them.”

“Then we will not,” said the squire hotly; “and if they don’t know what’s for their good, they must be taught. You know how they will stick to old things and refuse to see how they can be improved.”

“Ay, it’s their nature, I suppose. All I want is peace and quietness.”

“And you’ll have it. Let them threaten. The law is on our side. They will not dare.”

“I don’t know,” said Farmer Tallington, scratching his head as they walked out into the home close. “You see, squire, it wean’t be open enemies we shall have to fear—”

“The Winthorpes never feared their enemies since they settled in these parts in the days of King Alfred,” said Dick grandly.

“Hear, hear, Dick!” cried his father, laughing.

“No more did the Tallingtons,” said Tom, plucking up, so as not to be behindhand.

“Nay, Tom, my lad,” said the farmer, “Tallingtons was never fighting men. Well, squire, I thought I’d warn you.”

“Of course, of course, neighbour. But look here, whoever sent you that cowardly bit of scribble thought that because you lived out here in this lonely place you would be easily frightened. Look here,” he continued, taking a scrap of dirty paper out of his old pocket-book; “that bit of rubbish was stuck on one of the tines of a hay-fork, and the shaft driven into the ground in front of my door. I said nothing about it to you, but you see I’ve been threatened too.”

He handed the paper to Farmer Tallington, who read it slowly and passed it back.

“Same man writ both, I should say.”

“So should I—a rascal!” said the squire. “Here, Dick, don’t say a word to your mother; it may alarm her.”

“No, father, I sha’n’t say anything; but—”

“But what? Speak out.”

“May I read it—and Tom?” he added, for he saw his companion’s eager looks.

“Well, yes, you’ve heard what we’ve been talking about—what neighbour Tallington came over for.”

“Yes, father,” said Dick, taking the piece of paper, and feeling very serious, since he knew that it contained a threat. But as soon as he grasped its contents—looking at them as a well-educated lad for his days, fresh from the big town grammar-school—he slapped his thigh with one hand, and burst into a roar of laughter, while his father looked on with a grim smile.

“What is it, Dick?” cried Tom eagerly.

“Here’s a game!” cried Dick. “Just look!”

There was not much on the paper, and that was written in a clumsy printing-letter fashion, beneath a rough sketch, and with another to finish.

“Why, here’s a hollow turnip and two sticks!” cried Dick aloud; “and—and what is it, Tom?”

‘stope the dykeor yow hev 2dighe’

‘stope the dykeor yow hev 2dighe’

“Stop the dyke or you’ll have to dig,” said Tom eagerly. “You’ll have to dig! Does he mean dig the ditch?”

“No!” roared Dick; “that’s the way he spells die, and that long square thing’s meant for a coffin.”

“Yes, Dick, and that’s the spirit in which to take such a cowardly threat—laugh at it,” said the squire, replacing the letter in his pocket-book. “I only wish I knew who sent it. Who’s this coming?”

“Why, it’s Dave!” cried Tom eagerly, as the man came slowly along one of the winding lanes of water in his punt.

“Oh, yes, I remember!” said the squire; “he was here yesterday and said he would come and fetch you, Dick, if you liked to go, over to the decoy.”

“And you never said a word about it, father! Here, come along, Tom.”

The latter glanced at his father, but read consent in his eyes, and the two lads dashed off together.

“Seems to be letting him idle a deal,” said Farmer Tallington thoughtfully.

“Not it,” said the squire. “They’re both very young and growing. Let them enjoy themselves and grow strong and hearty. They’ve had a long turn at school, and all this will do them good.”

“Ay, it’ll mak ’em grow strong and lusty if it does nowt else,” said the farmer.

“And as to the big drain,” said the squire; “we’re farmers, neighbour, even if I do work my land as much for pleasure as for profit.”

“Ay, but what’s that to do with it?”

“This,” said the squire, smiling; “a man who puts his hand to the plough should not look back.”

“That’s true,” said Farmer Tallington; “but when he gets a letter to say some one’s going to kill him, and draws coffins on the paper, it’s enough to mak’ him look back.”

“It’s all stuff, neighbour! Treat it as I do—with contempt.”

“Ah! you see you’re a gentleman, squire, and a bit of a scholar, and I’m only a plain man.”

“A good neighbour and a true Englishman, Tallington; and I’m glad my son has so good and frank a companion as your boy. There, take my advice: treat all this opposition with contempt.”

“Theer’s my hand, squire,” said Farmer Tallington. “You nivver gave me a bad bit of advice yet, and I’ll stick to what you say—but on one condition.”

“What’s that?” said the squire, smiling.

“You’ll let me grumble now and then.”

Long before Farmer Tallington had parted from the squire at the beginning of the rough track which led from the Priory to Grimsey, Dick and Tom were down by the water’s edge waiting for Dave, who came up with a dry-looking smile upon his face—a smile which looked as if it were the withered remains of a last year’s laugh.

“How are you, Dave?” cried Dick. “We only just knew you were coming. Are there plenty of ducks?”

“Mebbe. Few like,” said Dave in the slow way of a man who seldom speaks.

“Wuph!wuph!” came from the boat.

“What! Chip, boy! how are you?” cried Dick, patting the dog, which seemed to go half mad with delight at having someone to make a fuss over him, and then rushed to Tom to collect a few more friendly pats and words.

“Shall we get in, Dave?” cried Tom.

“Get in, lad! Why, what for?”

“Now, Dave, don’t go on like that,” cried Dick impatiently. “Let’s get on, there’s a good fellow. I do want to see you work the decoy.”

“Oh, you don’t care for that! ’Sides, I want to go to Hickathrift’s to see his dunky pigs.”

“Nonsense! What do you want to see the dunks for?”

“Thinking o’ keeping a pig o’ my own out thar, lads. It’s rayther lonesome at times; and,” he added quite seriously, “a pig would be company.”

The boys looked at one another and smothered a laugh for fear of giving offence.

“What, with a place like a jolly island all to yourself, where you live like a Robinson Crusoe and can keep tame magpies and anything you like, and your boat, and your dog, and eel-spear?”

“And nets,” put in Tom.

“And fishing-lines,” said Dick.

“And gun,” said Tom.

“Ay, lads,” said Dave gravely; “seems aw reight to you, but it be lonesome sometimes when the bootherboomps get running out o’ the reeds in the dark evenings and then go sailing high up and round and round.”

“Oh, I should like that!” said Dick.

“Nay, lad, yow wouldn’t. It would scar yow. Then o’ soft warm nights sometimes the frogs begins, and they go on crying and piping all round you for hours.”

“Pooh!” said Tom; “who’d mind a few frogs?”

“And then o’ still nights theer’s the will o’ the wipses going about and dancing over the holes in the bog.”

“I say, Dave, what is a will o’ the wisp really like?”

“What! heven’t you niver seen one, lad?” said Dave, as he seated himself on the edge of the boat.

“No; you see we’ve always been away at school. I can remember one of our men—Diggles it was—pointing out one on a dark night when I was quite young, and I saw some kind of light, and I was such a little fellow then that I ran in—frightened.”

“Ay, they do frecken folk,” said Dave, putting a piece of brown gum in his mouth; “only you must be careful which way you run or you may go right into the bog and be smothered, and that’s what the wills like.”

“Like! why, they’re only lights,” said Tom.

“They’m seem to you like lights, but they be kind o’ spirits,” said Dave solemnly; “and they wants you to be spirits, too, and come and play with ’em, I s’pose.”

“But, Dave, never mind the will o’ the wisps. Come on to the ’coy.”

“Nay, it’s no use to go there; the nets that goes over the pipes has been charmed (gnawed) by the rats.”

“Yes, I know,” cried Dick, laughing; “and you’ve put all new ones. I heard you tell father so, and he paid you ever so much money. He’s only playing with us, Tom.”

Dave laughed like a watchman’s rattle, whose wooden spring had grown very weak.

“Look here, Dave, now no nonsense! Want some more powder?”

“Nay, I don’t want no poother,” said Dave.

“Do you want some lead to melt down? I’ll give you a big lump.”

“Nay, I don’t want no poother, and I don’t want no lead,” said Dave in an ill-used tone. “I can buy what I want.”

“He does want it, Dick.”

“Nay, I don’t, lad; and things a man do want nobody asks him to hev.”

“Why, what do you want, Dave?”

“Oh, nowt! I don’t want nowt. But there is times when a man’s a bit ill out there in the fen, and he gets thinking as a drop o’ sperrits ’d do him good. But I d’n know.”

“All right, Dave! I won’t forget,” said Dick. “Jump in, Tom.”

“Nay, what’s the good?” said Dave.

“All right, Tom! He’s going to take us to the ’coy.”

Tom followed his companion into the boat, the dog leaped in after them, whining with pleasure; and shaking his head and talking to himself, Dave followed, seized the pole, giving a grunt at Dick, who wanted to preside over the locomotion, and then, with a tremendous thrust, he sent the punt surging through the water.

“Nay, I’ll pole,” he said. “Get us over sooner, and we can begin work.”

Dick exchanged glances with his companion, and they sat playing with the dog and watching the birds that rose from the reeds or swept by in little flocks in the distance, till, after about half an hour’s poling, Dave ran the boat into a narrow lane among the uncut reeds, after a warning to be quite still, which the lads observed and the dog understood, going forward and crouching down in front of his master, with his eyes glittering and ears quivering with the intense way in which he was listening.

The way through the reeds was long, and in spite of the stealthy way in which the boat was propelled, several birds were startled, and flew up quacking loudly, and went away.

At last, though, they emerged from the dry growth into a little open pool, and crossing this, landed by a low house thatched with reeds and hidden in a thick grove of alders.

“Now, lads,” said Dave in a whisper, “not a word. Stay here while I go and look. I wean’t be long.”

He secured the boat to a stump of wood, and landed, leaving the lads seated in the punt, and gazing about them. But there was very little to see, for, save in the direction of the patch of reeds through which they had passed, there was a low dense growth of alders and willows running up to the height of twelve or fifteen feet; and it was beyond this that the sport was to be had.

They had not very long to wait before Dave returned, with Chip the piper at his heels—not that the dog had any musical gifts, but that he was clever in doing certain duties in connection with a pipe, as will be seen, and to perform these adequately utter silence was required.

Dave seemed quite transformed. His yellow face, instead of being dull and heavy, was full of anxious lines, his eyes twinkled, his mouth twitched and worked, and his brown wiry hands were fidgeting about his chin.

As he came up he held a finger in the air to command silence, and with stooping body and quick alert way he paused till he was close to the boys, and then whispered:

“You couldn’t hev come better, lads; there’s a boat load of ’em in the pond.”

“What sort?” whispered Dick excitedly.

“All sorts, lad: widgeons, teal, mallards, and some pochards. Only mind, if you say a word aloud, or let that theer dog bark, we sha’n’t get a duck.”

Dick clapped his hand over his mouth, as if to ensure silence, and Tom compressed his lips.

“Come along, then, boys, and I’ll set yow wheer yow can look through a hole in one o’ the screens and see all the fun.”

“But can’t we help, Dave?” asked Tom.

“Help, lad! no, not till the ducks are in the net. Then you may. Now, not a word, and come on.”

Dave led the way to the little house, where he filled his pockets with barley and oats mixed, out of a rough box, and as he did so he pointed to one corner which had been gnawed.

“Been charming of it,” he whispered. “Eats! Now come, quiet-like;” and he stepped out and into a narrow path leading through the dense alder wood, and in and out over patches of soft earth which quivered and felt like sponges beneath their feet.

Dave glanced back at them sharply two or three times when a rustling sound was made, and signed to them to be careful. Then once he stopped in a wider opening and tossed up a feather or two, as if to make sure of the way the wind blew. Apparently satisfied, he bent towards the two lads and whispered:

“I’m going to the second pipe. Come quiet. Not a word, and when I mak’ room for you, peep through the screen for a minute, and then come away.”

The boys nodded, and followed in silence through a part of the alder wood which was not quite so dense, for here and there patches of tall reeds had grown out of a watery bed, and now stood up seven or eight feet high and dry and brown.

Then all at once Dave stopped and looked back at them with a sly kind of grin upon his face, as he pointed down to a strong net stretched loosely over some half hoops of ash, whose ends were stuck down tightly in the soft ground so as to form a tunnel about two feet wide.

This was over the soft earth, upon which lay the end of the net, tied round with a piece of cord. A few yards farther on, however, this first net was joined to another, and the tunnel of network was arched over a narrow ditch full of water, and this ditch gradually increased in width as the man led on, and ran in a curve, along whose outer or convex side they were proceeding.

Before long, as the bent-over willows spanned the ditch or “pipe,” as it was called, the net ceased to come down quite to the ground, its place being occupied by screens made of reeds and stakes, and all so placed that there was room to go round them.

The boys now noted that the dog was following close behind in a way as furtive as his master, and apparently quite as much interested as he in what was to take place.

The water ditch increased in width rapidly now till the net tunnel became six feet, twelve feet, twenty feet, and, close to the mouth, twenty-four feet wide, while the light ash-poles, bent over and tied in the middle, were quite twelve feet above the water.

They were now near the mouth of the curved ditch, whose narrow portion bent round quite out of sight among the trees, while at a signal from Dave they went to a broad reed screen in front, and gazed through an opening, to see stretching out before them, calm and smooth beneath the soft grey wintry sky, a large pool of about a couple of acres in extent, surrounded by closely growing trees similar to those through which they had passed, while at stated intervals were openings similar to that by which they stood, in all five in number, making a rough star whose arms or points were ditches or pipes some five-and-twenty feet wide, and curving off, to end, as above told, sixty or seventy yards from the mouth, only two feet wide, and covered right along with net.

All this was well-known to them before, and they hardly gave it a second glance. What took their attention were some half dozen flocks of water-fowl seated calmly on the smooth surface of the pool and a couple of herons standing in the shallow water on the other side, one so hitched up that he seemed to have no neck, the other at his full height, and with bill poised ready to dart down at some unfortunate fish.

Here and there a moor-hen or two swam quietly about flicking its black-barred white tail. There were some coots by a bed of reeds, and a couple of divers, one of which disappeared from time to time in the most business-like manner, and came up at the end of a long line of bubbles many yards away.

Nearest to them was a large flock of quite a hundred ordinary wild ducks, for the most part asleep, while the others sat motionless upon the water or swam idly about, all waiting patiently in the secluded pool, which seemed to them a sanctuary, for nightfall, when slugs and snails would be out and other things in motion, ready to supply them with a banquet on some of their far-off feeding grounds. The drakes were already distinct enough from the sober-feathered ducks, but the former were not in their spring plumage, when they would put on their brightest colours and their heads glisten in green and gold.

Away to the left were a number of flat-looking squatty-shaped pochards with their brown heads and soft grey backs, while to the right were plenty of widgeons and another little flock of teal, those pretty miniature ducks, with here and there a rarer specimen, among which were pintails, drakes with the centre feathers of the tail produced like those of a parroquet.

The lads could have stopped for an hour gazing at the manners and customs of the wild-fowl dotting the lake in happy unconsciousness of the enemies so near; but, just as Dick had fixed his eyes upon a solitary group of about a couple of dozen ducks nearly across the pond, he felt a tug behind him, and turning, there was Dave signing to him to come away.

Dave made the lads follow him till he could place them in among the trees with a tuft of reeds before them, which proved sufficient screen and yet gave them a view of part of the pool, and the entrance to the pipe upon whose bank they had been standing.

“Now, look here, bairns,” he whispered; “if you move or says a word, there’ll be no ducks.”

The lads nodded and crouched in their places, while Dave disappeared behind them, but appeared again close to the screen of reed which hid him from the birds in the pool.

Matters were so exciting now as the watchers looked on that Dick relieved his feelings by pinching Tom’s leg, and then holding up his fist, as if in promise of what was to follow if he made a sound.

Meanwhile, with Chip close at his heels, Dave went to the farthest screen and peered through the opening, and after satisfying himself they saw him thrust one hand into his pocket and make a sign to Chip, while almost simultaneously he scattered a handful of the oats and barley right over the water, the grain falling through the meshes of the outspread net.

Just then Chip, in the most quiet matter-of-fact way, made his appearance on the fore-shore of the pool, and, without barking or taking notice of the ducks, trotted slowly along toward the entrance to the pipe, leaped over a low piece of wood, and disappeared from sight to join his master behind the screen, when the dog was rewarded for what he had done with a piece of cheese.

The coming of the dog, however, had created quite a commotion upon the lake, for the knot of two dozen ducks on the other side no sooner caught sight of him than, uttering a prodigious quacking, they came swimming and half flying as rapidly as they could toward the mouth of the pipe, to begin feeding upon the oats scattered upon the water.

“Look at the decoy-ducks,” whispered Dick, and then he watched in silence, for these two dozen were regularly fed wild-fowl which had become so far half tame that, knowing the appearance of the dog to be associated with corn and other seeds at the mouth of the pipe, they came at once.

This was too much for the strangers, which followed them, mingled with them, and began to feed as well.

Dave was at this time behind the second screen waiting for Chip, who showed himself for a moment or two at the edge of the long water ditch, trotted on towards the second screen, leaped over a low wood bar at the end, and joined his master, to receive a second piece of cheese.

That white dog was a wonder to the wild ducks, which left off eating directly and began to swim slowly and cautiously up the netted tunnel to try and find out what he was doing.

Had Chip stopped and looked at them, and barked, they would all have taken flight, but the dog was too well taught. He was a piper of the highest quality, and knew his business, which was to show himself for a short time and then trot on to the next screen and leap over and disappear just as if he were engaged in some mysterious business of his own.

This was too much for the ducks, which cackled and bobbed their heads up and down and swam on, moved by an intense curiosity to find out what was Chip’s particular game.

But Chip’s proceedings were stale to the decoy-ducks, who had seen him so often that they cared nothing, but stopped behind to partake of the food, while quite a hundred followed their leaders up the pipe in happy ignorance of the meaning of a net. What was more, the decoy-ducks often found food at the mouths of the pipes when their wild relatives were off feeding, and hence they troubled themselves no more. All that was impressed upon their small brains was that the appearance of Chip meant food, and they stayed behind to feed.

Chip was invisible eating a piece of cheese. Then he appeared again higher up, trotted on, leaped over the low wood bar, and joined his master for more cheese.

And so it went on, Dave going higher and higher from screen to screen, and the dog slowly following and alternately appearing to and disappearing from the sight of the ducks, which never of course caught sight of Dave, who was too well hidden behind the screens.

At last they were lured on and on so far by the dog that they were where the ditch began to bend round more sharply and the pipe was narrowing. This was the time for a fresh proceeding.

Dave had gone on right up to the farthest screen, and suddenly dived into a narrow path through the trees which led him, quite concealed from view, round and back to the first screen. He passed the boys, making them a sign to be silent, and then went right round that first screen just as Chip was appearing far up by the side of the pipe—and the flock of ducks were following—and quickly now showed himself at the mouth of the trap.

The ducks saw him instantly, and there was a slight commotion as he took off and held up his hat; but there was no attempt at flight, the birds merely swam on rapidly farther toward the end and disappeared round the curve.

Dave went quickly on past a screen or two and showed himself again, the curve of the pipe bringing him once more into view. He held up his hat and the ducks swam on, out of sight once more.

This was continued again and again, till the ducks were driven by degrees from where the ditch and its arching of net decreased from eight feet wide to six feet, to four feet, to two feet, and the flock was huddled together, and safe in the trap that had been prepared for them.

All at once, while the two lads were watching all these proceedings, Dave came into sight for a moment and waved his hand for them to come, but signed to them at the same time to be quiet.

It was as well that he did, for otherwise they would have uttered a shout of triumph.

“We’ve got ’em, lads,” he said, with his yellow face puckered up with satisfaction; “but don’t make a noise. I like to keep the ’coy quiet. Come along!”

“Is there any fear of their getting away now, Dave?” whispered Dick as he followed.

“Yes, to market,” said Dave grimly.

As they neared the end of the pipe there was a loud cackling and fluttering heard, and the ducks were disposed to make a rush back, but the sight of the man sent them all onward once more to the end of the pipe, where they were driven to leave the water for the dry land, over which the net was spread for the last few yards, forming a gigantic purse or stocking.

And now a tremendous fluttering and excitement ensued, for as, in obedience to their leader’s sign, the lads stopped once more, Dave stepped forward rapidly, detached the final portion of the net which formed the bag or purse from the bent-over ash stick, and twisted it together and tied it round, with the result that the birds were all shut up in the long purse and at his mercy.

Just then Chip performed a kind of triumphal dance, and leaped up at Dick and again at Tom before becoming quiescent, and looking up at all in turn, giving his little stumpy tail a few wags, while his whole aspect seemed to say:

“Didn’t we do that well?”

“That’s a fine take, my lads,” said Dave in congratulatory tones.

“Yes,” said Dick, looking down at the frightened birds scuffling over each other; “but—”

“Nay! don’t, man, say that!” cried Dave. “I know, my lad. But wild duck’s good to yeat; and they’ve got to be killed and go to market. Yow wanted to see me ketch the duck, and theer they are. Going to help me kill ’em?”

“No!” cried Dick in a voice full of disgust. But he helped carry the capture to the boat after the slaying was at an end and the empty short net replaced, ready distended at the end of the tunnel or pipe.

“There we are!” said Dave. “Ready for another flock?”

“And are you going to try for another in one of the pipes over the other side?”

“Nay, not to-day, my lad,” was the reply. “The ’coy-ducks wean’t be hungry and come for their food, so we’ll wait for another time.”

“Don’t the ’coy-ducks ever go right away, Dave?” asked Tom, as the boat was being quietly poled back.

“Sometimes; but not often, and if they do some others taks their places, and stops. They get fed reg’lar, and that’s what a duck likes. Good uns to eat, ducks. They mak’ nests and bring off broods of young ones, and keep to the pool year after year, and seem to know me a bit; but if Chip here went barking among ’em, or I was to go shooting, they’d soon be driven away.”

“But do they know that they are leading the wild ducks into the pipe?” said Dick eagerly.

“Notthey. Ducks can’t think like you and me. They come to be fed, and the others follow ’em, and then get thinking about Chip and follow him.”

“Does Chip know?” said Tom.

“Ask him,” said Dave, laughing in his grim, silent way. “I think he doos, but he never said so. Hello!”

They were passing the edge of a great bed of reeds, and rounding a corner, when they came in sight of three or four teal, and no sooner did the birds catch sight of them than they began to scurry along the water preparatory to taking flight, but all at once there was a rush and a splash, and the party in the boat saw a huge fish half throw itself out of the water, fall back, and disappear.

“He caught him,” said Dave grimly. “You see, lad, other things ’sides me ketches the ducks.”

“A great pike!” cried Dick, standing up to try and catch sight of the tyrant of the waters.

“Ay! One as likes duck for dinner. He’ll eat him without picking his feathers off.”

“Wasn’t it a very big one, Dave?” cried Tom.

“Ay, lad, a thirty-pounder like enew,” said Dave, working his pole.

“Dave, shall you know this place again?” cried Dick.

“Should I know my own hand!”

“Then let’s come over and try for that fellow to-morrow or next day.”

“Right, lad! I’ll come. We’ll set some liggers, and I dessay we can get hold of him. If we can’t theer’s plenty more.”

“To-morrow, Dave?”

“Nay, I shall be getting off my ducks. Two hundred wants some seeing to.”

“Next day, then?”

“Say Saturday, my lads. That’ll give me time to get a few baits.”

So Saturday was appointed for the day with the pike, and the ducks and the boys were duly landed, the latter to go homeward with four couples each, and Dick with strict orders to ask the squire whether he wanted any more, before they were sent off in Hickathrift’s car to the town.

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