returned with a rough basket full of fine tench, carp, and
eels. I had a notion that some night-lines had assisted him to take so
many. I did not, however, ask questions just then, and once more we set
off running. Wet as I was, I was very glad to move quickly, not that I
felt particularly cold, for the sun had now risen some way above the
trees, and as there was not a breath of air, his rays warmed me and
began to dry my outer garments. I must have had a very draggled look,
and I had no wish to be seen by any one at home in that condition. In
little more than a quarter of an hour we came in sight of a cottage
situated below a cliff on the side of a ravine, opening out towards the
sea. A stream which flowed from the Squire's ponds running through it.

"That is my home, and father will be right glad to see you," said Mark,
pointing to it.

A fine old sailor-like man with a straw hat and round jacket came out of
the door as we approached, and began to look about him in the fashion
seafaring men have the habit of doing when they first turn out in the
morning, to ascertain what sort of weather it is likely to be. His eyes
soon fell on Mark and me as we ran down the ravine.

"Who have you got with you, my son?" he asked.

"The young gentleman from the vicarage. He has had a ducking, and he
wants to dry his clothes before he goes home; or maybe he'd call it a
swanning, seeing it was one of those big white birds which pulled him
in, and towed him along from one end of the pond to the other, eh,
master? What's your name?"

"Richard," I replied, "though I'm generally called Dick," not at all
offended at my companion's familiarity.

"You are welcome, Master Dick, and if you like to turn into Mark's bed,
or put on a shirt and pair of trousers of his, we'll get your duds dried
before the kitchen fire in a jiffy," said the old sailor. "Come in,
come in; it doesn't do to stand out in the air when you are wet through
with fresh water."

I gladly entered the old sailor's cottage, where I found his wife and a
young daughter, a year or two older than Mark, busy in getting breakfast
ready. I thought Nancy Riddle a nice-looking pleasant-faced girl, and
her mother a good-natured buxom dame. As I had no fancy for going to
bed I gladly accepted a pair of duck trousers and a blue check shirt
belonging to Mark, and a pair of low shoes, which were certainly not
his. I suspected that they were Nancy's best.

I quickly took