face. There was scarcely a spot which
offered any promise of ground sufficiently hard to enable the travellers
to move out of the snail's pace at which they had hitherto been obliged
to proceed.

"Well, this is about the worst country I ever rode over!" Jack could
not help exclaiming.

"Now, don't be grumbling, Mr Deane; if it affords you shelter, you may
be grateful for it: and the country's not so bad after all. You should
just see the pike which are caught in the rivers! they are larger than
any you will see in the Trent, I have a notion. There are sheep too
here: larger and bigger animals, though somewhat awkward in their gait,
than you will see throughout England; but they yield very lusty wool,
let me tell you. And though, perhaps, you don't think much of the
willows, of which you have passed a goodly number, they're very useful
to the people who live here. There is an old proverb they have got--`A
willow will buy a horse before an oak will buy a saddle.'"

Burdale, indeed, seemed to have a good deal of information to give about
the fens; and Jack could not help thinking that he must belong to the
country, or, at all events, have lived a considerable time in it.
Indeed, no one but a person thoroughly acquainted with the nature of the
ground could have managed to find his way across it. The water was soon
over the horses' fetlocks, and here and there up to their knees. More
than once Jack could not help fearing that his guide had made a mistake,
and that he was leading him into dangerous country; but he did not wish
to show any suspicion of his judgment, and made no remark. Again the
horses rose up out of the slough across which they had been wading and
enjoyed for a short time some hard ground; but they soon had to leave
it, to wade on as before. On every side was heard the loud croaking of
frogs; their heads poked up in all the shallower marshes, with the
object, it seemed, of observing the travellers, and then their croaking
became louder than ever, as if they were amusing themselves by talking
about them.

"We call those animals `Holland-waits,'" observed Burdale. "Their king
must look upon himself as fortunate, for he has got a large number of
subjects; but they're not so bad as the midges. If you were to cross
where we are on a hot day, with the sun broiling down on your head, you
would wish you had a thick net over your face, for they do bite mortal
hard!"

Burdale's horse seemed better acc