ho was that?"

"Nay, lad, I'm not going to tell thee. Some un as thowt he desarved a
shot for setting fire to folks's houses and shooting honest men. Some
folk don't stop to think. If they've got goons in their hands, and sees
varmen running away, they oops wi' the goon and shutes, and that's what
some un did. Thou'lt know who it weer one day."

"And he told my father?"

"It weer our Jacob towd squire. He sin his faace quite plain, and that
it weer Dave."

"Now, Marston, where for next?" shouted the squire, after taking a long
look round over the open water, now illumined by the sun.

"Try that island yonder," was the reply. "There's a hut among the low
fir-trees, and I fancy it is his making."

The boats were turned in the suggested direction, and Dick felt a
curious sensation of nervous dread stealing over him as he thought of
seeing that hut not long before, and of how likely it was that Mr
Marston was right.

A strange sense of shock and horror came over Dick as he now seemed to
realise, for the first time, that he was one of a party engaged in
hunting down Dave Gittan, the man who had always been to him as a
friend, the companion of endless excursions over the mere; and his heart
sank within him as he glanced round in search of an opportunity to land
and get away from the horrible pursuit.

But there was no escape, for he knew that the pursuers would not turn
backward, and he glanced helplessly at where he could see Tom
Tallington's face in the farther of the other boats, and responded to
his wave of the hand.

There was a stern relentless look in every face he saw, and he thought
of how his father and Mr Marston had been shot, how first one and then
another had been nearly burned in his bed, while their property was
destroyed, and he felt the justice of the severe looks. But all the
same there was a lingering liking for Dave, and he felt disposed to
stand up in his defence and say it was impossible that he could have
done these things, though all the time, as he ran over the matters in
his mind, he began to recall various suspicious incidents, and to think
that, perhaps, they were right.

One thing buoyed him up though, and that was the thought that they were
not going straight to the decoy-man's hut, and perhaps through this
delay he might escape.

It was a vain hope, one which was swept away directly after, for
Hickathrift whispered:

"We went straight to his plaace to try and ketch him, b