t of Solomon, he stopped to stare at the
cunning animal, who seemed to be working about his ears like semaphores.

"I've a good mind to make him take me for a long ride!" said Dick to
himself. "No, I haven't. Somehow a lad doesn't care for riding a
donkey when he gets as old as I am."

He walked away, feeling stiff, chilly, and uncomfortable from the
effects of his previous night's work, while his eyes smarted and ached.

"I'll go over and see how old Tom's getting on," he said as he looked
across the cheerless fen in the direction of Grimsey, where a faint line
of smoke rose up toward the sky. "Wonder who did it!"

_Plash_! _plash_! _plash_! _plash_!

He turned sharply, to see, about a hundred yards away, the figure of
gaunt, grim-looking Dave standing up in his punt, and poling himself
along by the dry rustling reeds, a grey-drab looking object in a
grey-drab landscape.

Then, like a flash, came to the lad's memory the engagement made to go
liggering that day, and he wondered why it was that he did not feel more
eager to have a day's fishing for the pike.

_Pee-wit_! _pee-wit_! came from off the water in a low plaintive
whistle, which Dick answered, and in a minute or two the decoy-man poled
his boat ashore, smiling in his tight, dry way.

"Now, then, young mester," he said, "I've got a straange nice lot o'
bait and plenty o' hooks and band, and it's about as good a day for
fishing as yow could have. Wheer's young Tom o' Grimsey?"

"At home, of course!" said Dick in a snappish way, which he wondered at
himself.

"At home, o' course?" said Dave quietly as he stood up in the boat
resting upon the pole. "Why, he were to be here, ready."

"How could he be ready after last night?" said Dick sharply.

Dave took off his fox-skin cap after letting his pole fall into the
hollow of his arm, and scratched his head before uttering a low
cachinnatory laugh that was not pleasant to the ear.

"Yow seem straange and popped [put out of temper] this morning, young
mester. Young Tom o' Grimsey and you been hewing a bit of a fight?"

"Fight! no, Dave; the fire!"

"Eh?" said the man, staring.

"The fire! Don't you know that Grimsey was nearly all burned down last
night?"

Dave loosened his hold of his pole, which fell into the water with a
splash.

"Grimsey! bont down!" he exclaimed, and his lower jaw dropped and showed
his yellow teeth, but only to recover himself directly and pick up the
pole. "Yah!" he sn