soon pass off."

They sat talking for a time, but words soon grew few and far between.
The two fen-men swinging in their boat behind had recourse to the brass
box again, each partaking of a rolled-up quid of opium, and afterwards
crouched there in a half drowsy state, careless of their peril, while
the squire and his companions passed their time listening to the rush of
the water and the creaking of the willow bough as it rubbed against the
side of the boat, and wondered, as from time to time the wheelwright
examined the rope and made it more secure, whether the branch would give
way at its intersection with the trunk.

The darkness seemed as if it would never pass, whilst the cold now
became painful; and as he heard Dick's teeth begin to chatter, the
wheelwright exclaimed:

"Look here, young mester, I ain't hot, but there's a lot o' warmth comes
out o' me. You come and sit close up, and you come t'other side,
squire. It'll waarm him."

This was done, and with good effect, for the lad's teeth ceased their
castanet-like action as he sat waiting for the daylight.

No word was spoken by the men in the little punt, and those uttered in
the other grew fewer, as its occupants sat listening to the various
sounds that came from a distance. For the flood had sent the
non-swimming birds wheeling round in the darkness, and every now and
then the whistling of wings was quite startling. The ducks of all kinds
were in a high state of excitement, and passed over in nights or settled
down in the water with a tremendous outcry, while ever and again a
peculiar clanging from high overhead gave warning that the wild-geese
were on the move, either fleeing or attracted by some strange instinct
to the watery waste.

But morning seemed as if it would never come, and it was not until hours
upon hours had passed that there was a cessation of the high wind, and a
faint line of light just over the water, seaward, proclaimed that the
dawn could not be far away.

"Can you see where we are?" said the squire, as it began to grow
lighter.

"Ay, it's plain enough now, mester," was the reply; "and yonder's
Grimsey."

"I can see Tom," said Dick just then; "and there's Farmer Tallington,
and all the rest, right on the top of the roof."

In a few minutes more all was plain enough, and the reason apparent why
the people at Tallington had not shown a light in the course of the
night or done anything else to indicate their position, for it was