nder," said the squire. "River must be full
up. Hope she won't come over and wash us away."

"Wesh me away, you mean," said Farmer Tallington. "You're all right up
on the Toft. 'Member the big flood, squire?"

"Ay, fifteen years ago, Tallington, when I came down to you in
Hickathrift's duck-punt, and we fetched you and Tom's mother out of the
top window."

"Ay, but it weer a bad time, and it's a good job we don't hev such
floods o' watter now."

"Ay 'tis," said the squire. "My word, but the sea must bite to-night.
Dick here wanted to be a sailor. Better be a farmer a night like this,
eh, Tallington?"

"Deal better at home," was the reply, as the door was closed behind
them, shutting out the warmth and light; and the little party went down
a path leading through the clump of firs which formed a landmark for
miles in the great level fen, and then down the slope on the far side,
and on to the rough road which ran past Farmer Tallington's little
homestead.

The two elder friends went on first, and the lads, who had been together
at Lincoln Grammar-School, hung behind.

To some people a walk of two miles through the fen in the stormy
darkness of the wintry night would have seemed fraught with danger, the
more so that it was along no high-road, but merely a rugged track made
by the horses and tumbrils in use at the Toft and at Tallington's Fen
farm, Grimsey, a track often quite impassable after heavy rains. There
was neither hedge nor ditch to act as guide, no hard white or drab road;
nothing but old usage and instinctive habit kept those who traversed the
way from going off it to right or left into the oozy fen with its black
soft peat, amber-coloured bog water, and patches of bog-moss, green in
summer, creamy white and pink in winter; while here and there amongst
the harder portions, where heath and broom and furze, whose roots were
matted with green and grey coral moss, found congenial soil, were long
holes full of deep clear water--some a few yards across, others long
zigzag channels like water-filled cracks in the earth, and others
forming lanes and ponds and lakes that were of sizes varying from a
quarter of a mile to two or three in circumference.

Woe betide the stranger who attempted the journey in the dark, the track
once missed there was death threatening him on every hand; while his
cries for help would have been unheard as he struggled in the deep black
mire, or swam for life in the clear water t