, as the men sauntered away to their lodgings, Mr
Marston joined them.

"What did you fill the dike for, Mr Marston?" said Dick.

"Yes: wasn't it to try how it would go?"

"No," said the young engineer. "I did not want it filled. The gates
were left open."

"And what are you going to do now?"

"Wait till the tide's down, so that we can open them and let the water
run off."

"You can't do anything till then?"

"We could begin digging farther on," said Mr Marston; "but as the tide
will soon be going down I shall wait. It is a great nuisance, but I
suppose I must have some accidents."

The lads stayed with him all the afternoon, waiting till the tide had
turned, and getting a good insight at last into how the drain would act.

It was very simple, for as soon as the tide was low enough the water ran
rapidly from the drain; and that evening the gates were closed tightly
to keep out the next rise, the great dike being quite empty.

The engineer walked back with the boys, for there was no riding. They
had left Solomon tethered where he could get a good feed of grass and
tender shoots; but upon reaching the spot when they were ready to return
there was the tethering line gnawed completely through, and the donkey
was out of sight.

"Not taken away?" said Mr Marston.

"No: he has gone home," said Dick. "That rope wasn't thick enough to
hold him. I thought he would get away."

"Then why not have asked me for a thicker rope, Dick?"

"What's the good! If I had tied him there with a thicker rope, he'd
have bitten through the bridle. He wanted to go back home, and when he
does, he will go somehow."

"He seems a wonderful beast," said Mr Marston, smiling.

"I don't know about being wonderful. He's a rum one, and as cunning as
a fox. Why, he'll unfasten any gate to get into a field, and he'll get
out too. He unhooks the doors and lifts the gates off the hinges, and
one day he was shut up in the big barn, and what do you think he did?"

"I know," said Tom; "jumped out of the window."

"Yes, that he did," said Dick. "He climbed up the straw till he got to
the window, and then squeezed himself through."

That evening, after tea, the squire was seated in the orchard where the
stone table had been built up under the big gnarled apple-tree, and the
engineer was talking to him earnestly as Dick came up from going part of
the way home with his companion.

"Shall I go away, father?" asked the lad, as he saw h