eely-grey fellow, with a pointed nose, which, with his lean flanks,
gave him the aspect of an animal of a vain disposition, who had tried to
look like a greyhound, and failed.

This dog trotted out of the wheelwright's workshop, with his coat full
of shavings and sawdust, and lay down a short distance from the fire,
while the little black-and-white fellow rushed at him, leaped up, and
laid hold of his ear.

"Ha, ha! look at old Grip!" cried Tom Tallington, kicking his heels
together as the big dog gave his ears a shake, and lay down with his
head between his paws, blinking at the fire, while his little assailant
uttered a snarl, which seemed to mean "Oh you coward!" and trotted away
to meet a tall rugged-looking man, who came slouching up, with long
strides, his head bent, his shoulders up, a long heavy gun over his
shoulder, and a bundle of wild-fowl in his left hand, the birds banging
against his leather legging as he walked, and covering it with feathers.

He was a curious, furtive-looking man, with quick, small eyes, a smooth
brown face, and crisp, grizzly hair, surmounted by a roughly-made cap of
fox-skin.

He came straight up to the fire on the windy side, nodded and scowled at
the wheelwright as the latter gave him a friendly smile, and then turned
slowly to the two boys, when his visage relaxed a little, and there was
the dawning of a smile for each.

"What have you got, Dave?" cried Dick, laying hold of the bunch of
birds, and turning them over, so as to examine their heads and feet;
and, without waiting for an answer, he went on--"Three curlews, two
pie-wipes, and a--and a--I say, Tom, what's this?"

Tom Tallington looked eagerly at the straight-billed, long-legged,
black-and-white bird, but shook his head, while Chip, the dog, who had
seated himself with his nose close to the bunch, uttered one short sharp
bark.

"I say, Dave, what's this bird?" said Dick.

The man did not turn his head, but stood staring at the fire, and said,
in a husky voice, what sounded like "Scatcher!"

"Oh!" said Dick; and there was a pause, during which the fire roared,
and the smoke flew over the wheelwright's long, low house at the edge of
the fen. "I say," cried Dick, "you don't set oyster-catchers in the
'coy."

"Yow don't know what you're talking about," growled the man addressed.

"Why, of course he didn't," cried Tom Tallington, a stoutly-built lad of
sixteen or seventeen, very much like his companion Dick, only a