I'm going to find him out yet, and when I do--Theer, go and wesh thy faace."

d.i.c.k was going sadly away when a word from Hickathrift arrested him; and turning, it was to see that the big fellow was looking at him reproachfully, and holding out a hand for him to grasp.

"Ay, that's better, lad," said the wheelwright smiling. "Good-bye, lad, and don't feight again!"

The result of this encounter was that d.i.c.k found himself without a companion, and he went day by day bitterly about thinking how hard it was that he should be suspected and ill-treated for trying to spare Tom the agony of having his father denounced and dragged off to jail.

Constables came and made investigations in the loose way of the time; but they discovered nothing, and after a while they departed to do duty elsewhere; but only to come back at the end of a week to re-investigate the state of affairs, for a large low building occupied by about twenty of the drainers was, one windy night, set on fire, and its drowsy occupants had a narrow escape from death.

But there was no discovery made, the constables setting it down to accident, saying that the men must have been smoking; and once more the fen was left to its own resources.

Mr Winthorpe grew rapidly better after the first fortnight, and d.i.c.k watched his convalescence with no little anxiety, for he expected to hear him accuse Farmer Tallington of being his attempted murderer. But d.i.c.k had no cause for fear. The squire told Mr Marston that he had seen a light on the mere, and dreading that it might mean an attempt to burn down some barn, he had gone out to watch, and he had just made out the shape of a punt on the water when he saw a flash, felt the shock, and fell helpless and insensible among the reeds.

This was as near an account as he could give of the affair, for the injury seemed to have confused him, and he knew little of what had taken place before, nothing of what had since occurred.

"But your life has been spared, Mr Winthorpe," said Marston; "and some day I hope we shall know that your a.s.sailant and mine has received his due."

"Ay," said the squire; "we must find him out, for fear he should spoil our plans, for we are not beaten yet."

"Beaten! no, squire," said the engineer; "we are getting on faster than ever, and the success of the project is a.s.sured."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

AFTER A s.p.a.cE.

The time rolled on. The drain-making progressed, and for a while there was no further trouble. Mr Winthorpe improved in health, but always seemed to avoid any allusion to the outrage; and after the constables had been a few times and found out nothing, and the magistrates of the neighbourhood had held consultation, the trouble once more dropped.

d.i.c.k Winthorpe always lived in apprehension of being examined, and pressed to tell all he knew, but his father never said a word, to his great relief, and the matter died out.

"I can't take any steps about it," d.i.c.k said to himself, "if my father doesn't;" and there were times when he longed to speak, others when he wished that he could forget everything about the past.

"Yow two med it up yet?" Hickathrift used to ask every time he saw d.i.c.k; but the answer was always the same--"No."

"Ah, well, you will some day, my lad. It arn't good for boys to make quarrels last."

There was no more warm friendship with Mr Marston, who, whenever he came over to the Toft, was studiously polite to d.i.c.k, treating him as if he were not one whose friendship was worth cultivating, to the lad's great disgust, though he was too proud to show it; and the result was that d.i.c.k's life at the Toft grew very lonely, and he was driven to seek the companionship of John Warren and his rabbits, and of Dave with his boat, gun, and fishing-tackle.

Then all at once there was a change. The outrages, which had ceased for a time, broke out again furiously; and all through the winter there were fires here and there, the very fact of a person, whether farmer or labourer, seeming to favour the making of the drain, being enough to make him receive an unwelcome visit from the party or parties who opposed the scheme.

So bad did matters grow that at last people armed and prepared themselves for the struggle which was daily growing more desperate; and at the same time a feeling of suspicion increased so strongly that throughout the fen every man looked upon his neighbour as an enemy.

But still the drain grew steadily in spite of the fact that Mr Marston had been shot at twice again, and never went anywhere now without a brace of pistols in his pocket.

One bright wintry morning John Warren came in with a long tale of woe, and his arm in a sling.

It was the old story. He had been out with his gun to try and get a wild-goose which he had marked down, when, just in the dusk, about half-past four, he was suddenly startled by a shot, and received the contents of a gun in his arm.

"But you'd got a gun," said Hickathrift, who was listening with d.i.c.k, while Tom Tallington, who had business at the wheelwright's that morning, stood hearing all. "Why didst na let him hev it again?"

"What's the use o' shuting at a sperrit?" grumbled John Warren.

"'Sides, I couldn't see him."

"Tchah! it warn't a sperrit," said Hickathrift contemptuously.

"Well, I don't know so much about that," grumbled John Warren. "If it weern't a sperrit what was to mak my little dog, Snig, creep down in the bottom of the boat and howl? Yow mark my words: it's sperrits, that's what it is; and it's because o' that theer dreern; but they needn't shute at me, for I don't want dreern made."

"Going over to town to see the doctor, John?" said d.i.c.k.

"Nay, lad, not I. It's only a hole in my arm. There arn't nowt the matter wi' me. I've tied it oop wi' some wet 'bacco, and it'll all grow oop again, same as a cooten finger do."

"But someone ought to see it."

"Well, someun has sin it. I showed it to owd Dave, and he said it weer all right. Tchah! what's the good o' doctors? Did they cure my ager?"

"Well, go up and ask mother to give you some clean linen rag for it."

"Ay," said the rabbit-trapper with a grim smile, "I'll do that."

So John Warren went to the Toft, obtained the clean linen rag, but refused to have his wound dressed, and went off again; while the squire knit his brow when he returned soon after, and, taking d.i.c.k with him, poled across in the punt to see Dave and make him promise to keep a sharp look-out.

A week pa.s.sed away, and the frost had come in so keenly that the ice promised to bear, and consequent upon this d.i.c.k was at the wheelwright's one evening superintending the finishing up of his pattens, as they called their skates. Hickathrift had ground the blades until they were perfectly sharp at the edges, and had made a new pair of ashen soles for them, into which he had just finished fitting the steel.

"There, Mester d.i.c.k," said the bluff fellow with a grin; "that's a pair o' pattens as you ought 'most to fly in. Going out in the morning?"

"Yes, Hicky, I shall go directly after breakfast."

"Ay, she'll bear splendid to-morrow, and the ice is as hard and black as it can be. h.e.l.lo, who's this? Haw-haw! I thowt you'd want yours done," he added, as he heard steps coming over the frozen ground, and the jingle of skates knocking together. "It's young Tom Tallington, Mester d.i.c.k. Come, you two ought to mak friends now, and go and hev a good skate to-morrow."

"I'm never going to be friends with Tom Tallington again," said d.i.c.k sternly; but he sighed as he said it.

Just then Tom rushed into the workshop. "Here," he cried, "d.i.c.k Winthorpe, come along. I've been to the house."

"What do you want?" said d.i.c.k coldly.

"What do I want! Why, they don't know!" cried Tom. "Look here!"

He caught d.i.c.k by the collar, dragged him to the door, and pointed.

"Fire!" he cried.

"Hey!" cried the wheelwright. "Fire! So it is. But there's no house or stack out theer."

"Only old Dave's. Father said he thought it must be his place. Come on, d.i.c.k."

"But how are we to get there?" cried d.i.c.k, forgetting the feud in the excitement.

"How are we to get there! Why, skate."