d expanse of
bog and water. There had been storm and flood, but people had slept in
peace, and the troubles of the past were beginning to be forgotten.

There were plenty of fishing and fowling expeditions, visits to the
decoy with good results, and journeys to John Warren's home for the
hunting out of rabbits; but life was beginning seriously for the two
lads, who found occupation with Mr Marston and began to acquire the
rudiments of knowledge necessary for learning to be draining engineers.
Sometimes they were making drawings, sometimes overlooking, and at
others studying works under their teacher's guidance.

But it was a pleasant time, for Marston readily broke off work to join
them in some expedition.

One day, as they were poling along, Tom gave Dick a queer look, and
nodded in the direction of a fir-crowned gravelly island lying about a
mile away.

"When's the Robinson Crusoe business going to begin, Dick?" he said.

Dick laughed, but it was not a merry laugh, for the memory was a painful
one, and mingled with recollections of times when everyone was
suspicious of him, or seemed to be; and he was fast relapsing into an
unhappy morbid state.

"What was the Robinson Crusoe business?" said Marston; and on being
told, he laughingly proposed going on.

"Let's have a look at the place, boys," he said. "Why shouldn't we have
a summer-house out here to come and stay at sometimes, shooting,
fishing, or collecting. We cannot always work."

The pole was vigorously plied, and at the end of half an hour they had
landed, to find the place just as they remembered it to have been the
year before. There were the bushes, the heath, and heather in the
gravelly soil, and the fir-trees flourishing.

"A capital place!" said the engineer. "I tell you what, boys, we'll
bring Big Bargle over, and a couple of men; the wheelwright shall cut us
some posts, rafters, and a door, and we'll make a great hut, and--"

He stopped short at that point and stared, as they all stood in the
depths of the little fir-wood, with the water and reed-beds hidden from
sight. For there, just before them, as if raised by magic, was the very
building Mr Marston had described, and upon examination they found it
very dry and warm, with a bed of heath in one corner.

"Some sportsman has forestalled us," said the engineer. "One of the
farmers, I suppose, from the other side of the fen."

They came away, with the lads sharing the same feeling of