as they ran, and tried to get ahead; but the more they
shouted the more Solomon kicked up his heels and ran, performing a
series of capers that suggested youth instead of extreme old age.

"We shall never get him," cried Tom as he panted along.

"We must catch him," cried Dick, making a furious rush to head off the
frolicsome animal, which seemed as if he thoroughly enjoyed teasing his
pursuers.

Dick was successful in turning the donkey, but not homeward, and he
stopped short unwillingly as he saw the course taken.

"I say, Dick, isn't it soft out there?"

"Soft! Yes. Mind how you go!"

This advice would have been thrown away upon Solomon, though, had he
comprehended it, the effect might have been beneficial. For, whatever
knowledge the donkey might have possessed about the flood, he did not
realise the fact that since he last tickled his palate with the spinous
thistle--an herb which probably assumed to his throat the flavour that
pepper does to ours--there had been a considerable depth of water over
the fen, and that it was very soft. The result was, that while the lads
stopped short, and then began to pick their way from tussock to tussock,
and heather patch to patch, Solomon blundered on, made a splash here, a
bit of a wallow there, and then a bound, which took him in half-way up
his back; and as he plunged and struck out with fore-legs and heels, he
churned up the soft bog and made it softer, so that he sank in and in,
till only his spine was visible with, at the end, his long neck and
great grey head, upon which the ears were cocked out forward, while an
expression of the most intense astonishment shone out of his eyes.

"Oh, Tom, what shall we do?"

_He-haw_--_he-yaw_--_he-yaw_!

Solomon burst out into the most dismal bray ever heard--a long-drawn
misery-haunted appeal for help, which was prolonged in the most
astounding way till it seemed to be a shrill cry.

"I don't know," responded Tom, wiping the tears out of his eyes.

"Oh, come, I say," said Dick, "it isn't anything to laugh at!"

"I know it isn't," cried Tom; "but I can't help it. I feel as if I must
laugh, and--Ha! ha! ha!"

He burst into a tremendous peal, in which his companion joined, for
anything more comic than the aspect of the "Solemn-un" up to his neck in
the bog it would be hard to conceive.

"Here, this won't do," cried Dick at last, as he too stood wiping his
eyes. "Poor old Sol, we mustn't let you drown. Come on, Tom,