orry; but when
she had gone round the premises with her husband at night, and found all
safe, and no tokens of any intrusion, she was disposed to hope that the
Redfurns would, this time, keep to their fishing and fowling, and make
no disturbance. Oliver and Mildred crept down to the garden hedge at
sunrise, and peeped through it, so as to see all that was doing in the
carr, as the marsh was called. [In that part of the country, a carr
means a morass.] After watching some time, they saw Stephen and Roger
creep out from under the low brown tent. As the almost level sun shone
full in their faces, they rubbed their eyes; then they stretched and
yawned, and seemed to be trying hard to wake themselves thoroughly.

"They have been sound asleep, however," observed Oliver to his sister;
"and it is still so early, that I do not believe they have been abroad
about mischief in the night. They would not have been awake yet if they
had."

"Look! There is a woman!" exclaimed Mildred. "Is that Nan?"

"Yes; that is Nan Redfurn,--Stephen's wife. That is their great net
that she has over her arm. They are going to draw the oval pond, I
think. We can watch their sport nicely here. They cannot see an inch
of us."

"But we do not like that they should watch us," said Mildred, drawing
back. "We should not like to know that they were peeping at us from
behind a hedge."

"We should not mind it if we were not afraid of them," replied Oliver.
"It is because they plot mischief that we cannot bear their prying. We
are not going to do them any mischief, you know; and they cannot mean to
make any secret of what they are doing in the middle of the carr, with
high ground all about it." Satisfied by this, Mildred crouched down,
with her arm about her brother's neck, and saw the great net cast, and
the pond almost emptied of its fish,--some few being kept for food, and
the small fry--especially of the stickleback--being thrown into heaps,
to be sold for manure.

"Will they come this way when they have done drawing the pond?" asked
Mildred, in some fear, as she saw them moving about.

"I think they will sweep the shallow waters, there to the left, for more
stickleback," replied Oliver. "They will make up a load, to sell before
the heat of the day, before they set about anything else."

Oliver was right. All the three repaired to the shallow water, and
stood among the reeds, so as to be half hidden. The children could see,
however