confusion among the feathers that had been sorted. She invited him to
go with her, and peep over the hedge at the geese in the marsh; and the
little fellow took her fore-finger, and trotted away with his sister to
the hedge.

There were plenty of water-fowl in the marsh; and there was something
else which Mildred did not seem to like. While George was
quack-quacking, and making himself as like a little goose as he could,
Mildred softly called to Ailwin, and beckoned her to the hedge. Ailwin
came, swinging the great spade in her right hand, as easily as Mildred
could flourish George's whip.

"Look,--look there!--under that bank, by the dyke!" said Mildred, as
softly as if she had been afraid of being heard at a yard's distance.

"Eh! Look--if it be not the gipsies!" cried Ailwin, almost as loud as
if she had been talking across the marsh. "Eh dear! We have got the
gipsies upon us now; and what will become of my poultry? Yon is a gipsy
tent, sure; and we must tell the master and mistress, and keep an eye on
the poultry. Sure, yon is a gipsy tent."

Little George, thinking that everybody was very much frightened, began
to roar; and that made Ailwin talk louder still, to comfort him; so that
nothing that Mildred said was heard. At last, she pulled Ailwin's
apron, so that the tall woman stooped down, to ask what she wanted.

"I do not think it is the gipsies," said she. "I am afraid it is worse
than that. I am afraid it is the Redfurns. This is just the way they
settle themselves--in just that sort of tent--when they come to fowl,
all autumn."

"If I catch that Roger," said Ailwin, "I'll--." And she clenched her
hand, as if she meant to do terrible things, if she caught Roger.

"I will go and call father, shall I?" said Mildred, her teeth
chattering, as she stood in the hot sun.

She was turning to go up the garden, when a laugh from George made her
look back again. She saw a head covered with an otter-skin cap,--the
face looking very cross and threatening, peeping over the hedge,--which
was so high above the marsh, that the person must have climbed the bank
on purpose to look into the garden. There was no mistaking the face.
It was certainly Roger Redfurn--the plague of the settlers, who, with
his uncle, Stephen Redfurn, was always doing all the mischief he could
to everybody who had, as he said, trespassed on the marshes. Nobody
liked to see the Redfurns sitting down in the neighbourhood; and still