passed away with its storms and continuous rains and
floods, which hindered the progress of the great lode or drain, and then
came the spring sunshine, with the lads waking up to the fact that here
and there the arums were thrusting up their glossy-green spathes, that
the celandines were out like yellow stars, and that the rustling reeds
left uncut had been snapped off and beaten down, and had rotted in the
water, and that from among them the young shoots of the fresh crop were
beginning to peep.

Bold brisk winds swept over the fen and raised foamy waves in the meres,
and the nights were clear and cold, though there had been little frost
that year, never enough to well coat the lakes and pools with ice, so
that the pattens could be cleaned from their rust and sharpened at
Hickathrift's grindstone ready for the lads at the old Priory and
Grimsey to skate in and out for miles. But, in spite of the cold, there
was a feeling of spring in the air. The great grey-backed crows were
getting scarce, and the short-eared owls, which, a couple of months
before, could be flushed from the tufts in the fen, to fly off looking
like chubby hawks, were gone, and the flights of ducks and peewits had
broken up. The golden plovers were gone; but the green peewits were
busy nesting, or rather laying eggs without nests--pear-shaped eggs,
small at one end, large at the other, thickly blotched and splashed with
dark green, and over which the birds watched, ready to fall as if with
broken wing before the intruder, and try to lure him away.

Many a tramp over the sodden ground did the lads have with Dave, who
generally waited for their coming, leaping-pole in hand, and then took
them to the peewits' haunts to gather a basketful of their eggs.

"I don't know how you do it, Dave," said Dick. "We go and hunt for
hours, and only get a few pie-wipes' eggs; you always get a basketful."

"It's a man's natur," said Dave.

"Well, show us how you know," said Dick, shouldering his leaping-pole,
and pretending to hit his companion's head.

"Nay, lad, theer's no showing a thing like that," said Dave
mysteriously. "It comes to a man."

"Gammon!" cried Dick. "It's a dodge you've learned."

Dave chuckled and tramped on beside the lads, having enough to do to
avoid sinking in.

"She's reyther juicy this spring, eh? They heven't dree-ernt her yet,"
said Dave with a malicious grin. "See there, now, young Tom
Tallington," he cried, stepping past t