evenings and then go sailing high up and round and round."

"Oh, I should like that!" said Dick.

"Nay, lad, yow wouldn't. It would scar yow. Then o' soft warm nights
sometimes the frogs begins, and they go on crying and piping all round
you for hours."

"Pooh!" said Tom; "who'd mind a few frogs?"

"And then o' still nights theer's the will o' the wipses going about and
dancing over the holes in the bog."

"I say, Dave, what is a will o' the wisp really like?"

"What! heven't you niver seen one, lad?" said Dave, as he seated himself
on the edge of the boat.

"No; you see we've always been away at school. I can remember one of
our men--Diggles it was--pointing out one on a dark night when I was
quite young, and I saw some kind of light, and I was such a little
fellow then that I ran in--frightened."

"Ay, they do frecken folk," said Dave, putting a piece of brown gum in
his mouth; "only you must be careful which way you run or you may go
right into the bog and be smothered, and that's what the wills like."

"Like! why, they're only lights," said Tom.

"They'm seem to you like lights, but they be kind o' spirits," said Dave
solemnly; "and they wants you to be spirits, too, and come and play with
'em, I s'pose."

"But, Dave, never mind the will o' the wisps. Come on to the 'coy."

"Nay, it's no use to go there; the nets that goes over the pipes has
been charmed [gnawed] by the rats."

"Yes, I know," cried Dick, laughing; "and you've put all new ones. I
heard you tell father so, and he paid you ever so much money. He's only
playing with us, Tom."

Dave laughed like a watchman's rattle, whose wooden spring had grown
very weak.

"Look here, Dave, now no nonsense! Want some more powder?"

"Nay, I don't want no poother," said Dave.

"Do you want some lead to melt down? I'll give you a big lump."

"Nay, I don't want no poother, and I don't want no lead," said Dave in
an ill-used tone. "I can buy what I want."

"He does want it, Dick."

"Nay, I don't, lad; and things a man do want nobody asks him to hev."

"Why, what do you want, Dave?"

"Oh, nowt! I don't want nowt. But there is times when a man's a bit
ill out there in the fen, and he gets thinking as a drop o' sperrits 'd
do him good. But I d'n know."

"All right, Dave! I won't forget," said Dick. "Jump in, Tom."

"Nay, what's the good?" said Dave.

"All right, Tom! He's going to take us to the 'coy."

Tom followed his companion