ace was surrounded the squire gave a sharp glance back
at his son, stepped forward, stooped down, and entered the low hut.

Hickathrift was close behind him, and the next moment he, too, had
disappeared.

"Is he there, Mr Winthorpe?" cried Marston excitedly; and he, too,
stepped forward and entered the hut.

"Why, what's it all mean?" said Farmer Tallington impatiently; and he,
too, stepped up to the low doorway and entered.

"They're tying his hands and feet, Tom," whispered Dick excitedly; and
unable to control himself he ran up to the door, followed by his
schoolmate, but as he did so it was to encounter the squire coming out
with a peculiarly solemn look upon his countenance.

"Isn't he there, father?" cried Dick wonderingly.

"Yes, boy--no," said the squire solemnly, as the others came slowly out.
"He managed to crawl here to die."

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

LAST WORDS.

It was a solemn party that returned to the Toft that day: three boats,
with the last propelled by Hickathrift, towing another behind. That
last punt was Dave Gittan's, and in it, later on, the man was taken to
his last resting-place.

At the inquiry it was found that Dave had been mortally wounded by a
bullet; and in this state he had managed to force his boat to his hut,
and when pursued, to his lurking-place in the farther part of the fen,
to lie down and die.

Who fired the shot which took his life? No one could say. Five bullets
were sent winging to stop his career on the night of his last insane
act, when pretty well everything which would burn upon the Toft was
destroyed; but whose was the hand which pulled the trigger, and whose
the eye which took the aim, was not divulged.

Dave had well kept his secret, and struggled hard to stay the advance of
progress, but fought in vain, and with his fall almost the last
opposition to the making of the great drain died out.

There were old fen-men who murmured and declared that the place was
being destroyed, but for the most part they lived to see that great
drain and others made, and the wild morass become dry land upon which
the plough turned up the black soil and the harrow smoothed, and great
waving crops of corn took the place of those of reed. Meadows, too,
spread out around the Toft, and Farmer Tallington's home at Grimsey--
meads upon which pastured fine cattle; while in that part of the wide
fen-land ague nearly died away.

It was one evening twenty years later that a cou