"He is such a great, strong fellow that unless he was attacked by two or three together, I should say someone came upon him as he lay asleep and stunned him with a blow on the head."

"The result of some quarrel or offence given to one of the men under him, I'm afraid," said the engineer with a look of intense vexation in his eyes. "These men are very brutal sometimes to their fellows, especially when they are placed in authority. Will he be long before he is better?"

"No," replied the doctor. "The blows would have killed an ordinary man, but he has a skull like an ox. He'll be at work again in a fortnight if he'll behave sensibly, and carry out my instructions."

A couple of days later Bargle was sitting up smoking, when the engineer entered the reed-thatched hut, in company with d.i.c.k.

"Hallo, youngster!" growled the great fellow, with a smile slowly spreading over his rugged face, and growing into a grin, which accorded ill with his bandaged head; "shak' hands!"

d.i.c.k obeyed heartily enough, the great fellow retaining the lad's hand in his, and slowly pumping it up and down.

"We're mates, that's what we two are," he growled. "You ar'n't half a bad un, you ar'n't. Ah, mester, how are you? Arm better?"

"Mending fast, my lad; and how are you?"

"Tidy, mester, tidy! Going to handle a spade again to-morrow."

"Nonsense, man! you're too weak yet."

"Weak! Who says so? I don't, and the doctor had better not."

"Never mind that. I want you to tell me how all this happened."

"He ar'n't half a bad un, mester," said the injured man, ignoring the remark, as he held on to the boy's hand. "We're mates, that's what we are. See him stand up again me that day? It were fine."

"Yes; but you must tell me how this occurred. I want to take some steps about it."

"Hey! and you needn't take no steps again it, mester. I shall lay hold on him some day, and when I do--Hah!"

He stretched out a huge fist in a menacing way that promised ill to his a.s.sailant.

"But do you know who it was?" said the engineer.

"It warn't him," growled Bargle, smiling at d.i.c.k. "He wouldn't come and hit a man when he's asleep. Would you, mate?"

"I wouldn't be such a coward," cried d.i.c.k.

"Theer! Hear that, mester! I knowed he wouldn't. He'd hev come up to me and hit me a doubler right in the chest fair and square, and said, 'now, then, come on!'"

"Then someone did strike you when you were asleep, Bargle, eh?"

"Dunno, mester; I s'pose so. Looks like it, don't it?"

"Yes, my man, very much so. Then you were woke out of your sleep by a blow, eh?"

"Weer I? I don't know."

"Tell me who have you had a quarrel with lately?"

"Quarrel?"

"Well, row, then."

"Wi' him," said the big fellow, pointing at d.i.c.k.

"Oh, but he would not have come to you in the night!"

"Who said he would, mester?" growled Bargle menacingly. "Not he. He'd come up square and give a man a doubler in the chest and--"

"Yes, yes," said the engineer impatiently; "but I want to know who it was made this attack upon you--this cowardly attack. You say it was while you slept."

"Yes, I s'pose so; but don't you trouble about that, mester. I'm big enough to fight my bit. I shall drop on to him one of these days, and when I do--why, he'll find it okkard."

Mr Marston questioned and cross-questioned the man, but there was no more to be got from him. He s'posed some un come in at that theer door and give it him; but he was so much taken up with d.i.c.k's visit that he could hardly think of self, and when they came away Mr Marston had learned comparatively nothing, the big fellow shouting after d.i.c.k:

"I've got a tush for you, lad, when I get down to the dreern again--one I digged out, and you shall hev it."

d.i.c.k said, "Thank you," for the promised "tush," and walked away.

"I don't like it," said Mr Marston. "Someone shooting at me; someone striking down this man. I'm afraid it's due to ill-will towards me, d.i.c.k. But," he added, laughing, "I will not suspect you, as Bargle lets you off."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE SHAKES.

The time glided on. Bargle grew better; Mr Marston's wound healed; and these troubles were forgotten in the busy season which the fine weather brought. For the great drain progressed rapidly in the bright spring and early summer-time. There were stoppages when heavy rains fell; but on the whole nature seemed to be of opinion that the fen had lain uncultivated for long enough, and that it was time there was a change.

The old people scattered here and there about the edge shook their heads, especially when they came over to Hickathrift's, and said it would all be swept away one of these fine nights--_it_ being the new river stretching week by week farther into the mora.s.s; but the flood did not seem to have that effect when it did come. On the contrary, short as was the distance which the great drain had penetrated, its effect was wonderful, for it carried off water in a few days which would otherwise have stayed for weeks.

d.i.c.k said it was a good job that Mr Marston had been shot.

Asked why by his crony Tom, he replied that it had made them such good friends, and it was nice to have a chap who knew such a lot over at the Toft.

For the intimacy had grown; and whenever work was done, reports written out and sent off, and no duties raised their little reproving heads to say, "You are neglecting us!" the engineer made his way to the Toft, ready to join the two boys on some expedition--egg-collecting, fishing, fowling, or hunting for some of the botanical treasures of the bog.

"I wish he wouldn't be so fond of moss and weeds!" said Tom. "It seems so stupid to make a collection of things like that, and to dry them.

Why, you could go to one of our haystacks any day and pull out a better lot than he has got."

d.i.c.k said nothing, for he thought those summer evenings delightful. He and Tom, too, had been ready enough to laugh at their new friend whenever he displayed ignorance of some term common to the district; but now this laughter was lost in admiration as they found how he could point out objects in their various excursions which they had never seen before, book-lore having prepared him to find treasures in the neighbourhood of the Toft of whose existence its occupants knew naught.

"Don't you find it very dull out there, Mr Marston," said Mrs Winthorpe one day, "always watching your men cut--cut--cut--through that wet black bog?"

"Dull, madam!" he said, smiling; "why, it is one continual time of excitement. I watch every spadeful that is taken out, expecting to come upon some relic of the past, historical or natural. By the way, d.i.c.k, did that man Bargle ever give you the big tusk he said he had found?"

"No, he has never said any more about it, and I don't like to ask."

"Then I will. Perhaps it is the tooth of some strange beast which used to roam these parts hundreds of years ago."