"No, you try!" said d.i.c.k hurriedly, as he thrust his hands in his pockets to be out of temptation.

"Nay, let Mester d.i.c.k hev one more try!" cried Dave; and the lad took the staff, went through all his former manoeuvres, struck more deeply with the staff, and this time, as he felt a check, he twisted the hook round and round in the string, and felt as if it would be jerked out of his hand.

"Twist un again, mun! Get well twissen!" cried Dave; and as the lad obeyed, the punt, already in motion, was for a short distance literally drawn by the strong fish in its desperate efforts to escape.

"Let me come this time, young Tom Tallington!" cried Dave.

"No, no; I'll help!" cried Tom.

"But I shouldn't like you to lose this un, lads. Theer, go on and charnsh it. You get well howd o' the band while young squire untwisses the hook. He's 'bout bet out now and wean't mak' much of a fight!"

Tom obeyed, and d.i.c.k, who was trembling with excitement, set the hook at liberty.

Meanwhile the fish was struggling furiously at the end of some fifteen feet of stout line; but the fight had been going on some time now, and at the end of a few minutes, as Dave manoeuvred the punt so as to ease the strain on the line, Tom found that he could draw the captive slowly to the surface.

"Tak' care, Mester d.i.c.k, throost hook reight in his gills, and in wi' un at onced."

d.i.c.k did not reply, but stood ready, and it was well that he did so, for as Tom drew the fish right up, such a savage, great, teeth-armed pair of jaws came gaping at him out of the water, that he started and stumbled back, dragging the hook from its hold.

But before he could utter a cry of dismay there was a tremendous sputter and splash, for d.i.c.k had been in time, and, as the fish-hook was breaking out, had securely caught the pike with the gaff.

The next moment, all ablaze in the evening light with green, and gold, and silver, and cream, the monster was flopping on the floor of the punt, trying frantically to leap out, and snapping with its jaws in a way that would have been decidedly unpleasant for any hand that was near.

The monster's career was at an end, though. A heavy blow on the head stunned it, and a couple more put it beyond feeling, while the occupants of the boat stood gazing down at their prize, as grand a pike as is often seen, for it was nearly four feet long, and well-fed and thick.

"Look at his teeth!" cried Tom excitedly; "why, there's great fangs full half an inch long."

"Yes, and sharp as knives!" cried d.i.c.k.

"Ay, he've hed nice games in his time here, lads!" said Dave, grinning with pleasure. "I'm straange and glad you've caught him. Many's the time I've sin him chase the fish and tak' down the water-rats. One day he hed howd of a big duck. He got it by its legs as I was going along, and the poor thing quacked and tried to fly, but down it went d'reckly.

Big pike like this un'll yeat owt."

"And if he got hold of them with these hooked teeth, Dave, they wouldn't get away."

"Nay, lad, that they wouldn't. He'd take a pike half as big as hissen, if he got the charnsh."

"Well, he won't kill any more," cried d.i.c.k triumphantly. "Oh, Tom, if we had lost him after all!"

"I'd reyther hev lost a whole tak' o' duck, lads," said Dave, shaking each of his companions' hands warmly. "There'll be straange games among all the fishes and birds here, because he's ketched. Look at him!

Theer's a pike, and they're a trying to dree-ern all the watter off from the fens and turn 'em into fields. Hey, lads, it'll be a straange bad time for us when it's done."

"But do you think it will take off all the water, and spoil the fen, Dave?" said Tom.

"Nay, lad, I don't," said Dave with sudden emphasis. "It's agen nature, and it wean't be done. Hey and we must be getting back."

He plunged the pole into the water as he spoke, and it seemed to grow blacker and blacker, as they talked pike over their capture, till the sh.o.r.e was reached, and the prize borne to Hickathrift's workshop, where a pair of big rough scales showed that within a few ounces the pike weighed just what Dave guessed, to wit two stone and a half old Lincolnshire weight of fourteen pounds to the stone, or thirty-five pounds.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

MR. MARSTON'S NARROW ESCAPE.

The wintry weather pa.s.sed away with its storms and continuous rains and floods, which hindered the progress of the great lode or drain, and then came the spring sunshine, with the lads waking up to the fact that here and there the arums were thrusting up their glossy-green spathes, that the celandines were out like yellow stars, and that the rustling reeds left uncut had been snapped off and beaten down, and had rotted in the water, and that from among them the young shoots of the fresh crop were beginning to peep.

Bold brisk winds swept over the fen and raised foamy waves in the meres, and the nights were clear and cold, though there had been little frost that year, never enough to well coat the lakes and pools with ice, so that the pattens could be cleaned from their rust and sharpened at Hickathrift's grindstone ready for the lads at the old Priory and Grimsey to skate in and out for miles. But, in spite of the cold, there was a feeling of spring in the air. The great grey-backed crows were getting scarce, and the short-eared owls, which, a couple of months before, could be flushed from the tufts in the fen, to fly off looking like chubby hawks, were gone, and the flights of ducks and peewits had broken up. The golden plovers were gone; but the green peewits were busy nesting, or rather laying eggs without nests--pear-shaped eggs, small at one end, large at the other, thickly blotched and splashed with dark green, and over which the birds watched, ready to fall as if with broken wing before the intruder, and try to lure him away.

Many a tramp over the sodden ground did the lads have with Dave, who generally waited for their coming, leaping-pole in hand, and then took them to the peewits' haunts to gather a basketful of their eggs.

"I don't know how you do it, Dave," said d.i.c.k. "We go and hunt for hours, and only get a few pie-wipes' eggs; you always get a basketful."

"It's a man's natur," said Dave.

"Well, show us how you know," said d.i.c.k, shouldering his leaping-pole, and pretending to hit his companion's head.

"Nay, lad, theer's no showing a thing like that," said Dave mysteriously. "It comes to a man."

"Gammon!" cried d.i.c.k. "It's a dodge you've learned."

Dave chuckled and tramped on beside the lads, having enough to do to avoid sinking in.

"She's reyther juicy this spring, eh? They heven't dree-ernt her yet,"

said Dave with a malicious grin. "See there, now, young Tom Tallington," he cried, stepping past the lad, and, picking up a couple of eggs in spite of the wailing of their owners, as they came napping close by, the c.o.c.k bird in his glossy-green spring feathers, and a long pendent tuft hanging down from the back of his head.

"How stupid!" cried Tom. "I didn't see them."

"Nay, you wouldn't," said Dave, stepping across d.i.c.k, who was on his left; "and yow, young squire d.i.c.k, didn't see they two."

"Yes, I did, Dave, I did," cried d.i.c.k. "I was just going to pick them up."

"Pick' em up then," cried Dave quietly; "where are they then?" d.i.c.k looked sharply round him; but there was not an egg to be seen, and he realised that Dave had cheated him, and drawn him into a declaration that was not true.

He was very silent under the laughter of his companions, and felt it all the more.

They went on, the lads sometimes finding an egg or two, but nearly all falling to Dave, who, as if by unerring instinct, went straight to the spots where the nests lay, and secured the spoil.

Now and then a heron flew up, one with a small eel twining about its bill; and more than once a hare went bounding off from its form among the dry last year's gra.s.s.

"We want Hickathrift's dog here," cried d.i.c.k.

"What for, lad? what for?" said Dave, laughing.

"To catch the hares."

"Nay, yow want no dog," said Dave. "Easy enough to catch hares."

"Easy! How?" cried Tom.

"Go up to 'em and catch 'em," said Dave coolly.