ow serious his
father looked.

"No, my boy, no. You are getting old enough now to think seriously; and
this draining business will be more for you than for myself--better for
your children than for you. Mr Marston has some more ugly news about
the work."

"Ugly news, father?"

"Yes, Dick," said Mr Marston; "that was no accident this afternoon, but
a wilful attempt made by some miserably prejudiced person to destroy our
work."

"But it did no harm, Mr Marston."

"No, my boy; but the ignorant person who thrust open that gate hoped it
would. If it had been a high-tide and a storm, instead of stopping our
work for a few hours he might have stopped it for a few weeks."

"And who do you think it was?" asked Dick.

"Someone who hates the idea of the drain being made. I have seen the
constable, Mr Winthorpe," continued Marston.

"Well, and what does he say?"

"That he thinks he knows who is at the bottom of all these attacks."

"And whom does he suspect?" cried Dick excitedly.

"He will not say," replied the engineer. "He only wants time, and then
he is going to lay his hand upon the offender."

"Or offenders," said the squire drily.

"Yes, of course," said the engineer; "but the mischief is doubtless
started by one brain; those who carry it out are only the tools."

Mr Marston had come with the intention of staying for the night at the
Toft; and after a ramble round the old orchard and garden, and some talk
of a fishing expedition into the wilder parts of the fen "some day when
he was not so busy," supper was eaten, and in due time Dick went to bed,
to stand at his window listening to the sounds which floated off the
mere, and at last to throw himself upon his bed feeling hot and feverish
with his thoughts.

"I wish Tom was here to talk to," he said to himself. "But if I did
talk to him about it he'd only laugh. That constable thinks I'm at the
bottom of it all, and that I set the people to do these things, and he's
trying to make Mr Marston believe it, and it's too bad!"

He turned over upon one side, but it was no more comfortable than the
other; so he tried his back, but the bed, stuffed as it was with the
softest feathers from the geese grown at the farm, felt hard and thorny;
there was a singing and humming noise made by the gnats, and the animals
about the place were so uneasy that they suggested the idea of something
wrong once more.

Then at last a drowsy sensation full of restfulness began