Dick o' the Fens Part 90

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

LAST WORDS.

It was a solemn party that returned to the Toft that day: three boats, with the last propelled by Hickathrift, towing another behind. That last punt was Dave Gittan's, and in it, later on, the man was taken to his last resting-place.

At the inquiry it was found that Dave had been mortally wounded by a bullet; and in this state he had managed to force his boat to his hut, and when pursued, to his lurking-place in the farther part of the fen, to lie down and die.

Who fired the shot which took his life? No one could say. Five bullets were sent winging to stop his career on the night of his last insane act, when pretty well everything which would burn upon the Toft was destroyed; but whose was the hand which pulled the trigger, and whose the eye which took the aim, was not divulged.

Dave had well kept his secret, and struggled hard to stay the advance of progress, but fought in vain, and with his fall almost the last opposition to the making of the great drain died out.

There were old fen-men who murmured and declared that the place was being destroyed, but for the most part they lived to see that great drain and others made, and the wild mora.s.s become dry land upon which the plough turned up the black soil and the harrow smoothed, and great waving crops of corn took the place of those of reed. Meadows, too, spread out around the Toft, and Farmer Tallington's home at Grimsey-- meads upon which pastured fine cattle; while in that part of the wide fen-land ague nearly died away.

It was one evening twenty years later that a couple of stalwart well-dressed men, engineers engaged upon the cutting of another lode or drain many miles to the north, strolled down from the Toft farm to have a chat with the great grey-haired wheelwright, who carried on a large business now that a village had sprung up in the fen.

His delight was extreme to see the visitors, and they had hard work to extricate their ringers from his grip.

"Think of you two coming to see me now! It caps owt."

"Why, of course we've come to see you, Hicky," said the taller of the two. "How well you look!"

"Well! Hearty, Mester d.i.c.k, bless you! and the missus too. Hearty as the squire and his lady, bless 'em. But your father looks sadly, Mester Tom, sir. He don't wear as I should like to see un. He's w.a.n.kle."

[Sickly.]

"Rheumatism, Hicky; that's all. He'll be better soon. I say, what's that--a summer-house?" said Tom, pointing.

"That, Mester Tom! Why, you know?"

"Why, it's the old punt!" cried d.i.c.k.

"Ay, it's the owd poont, Mester d.i.c.k. What games yow did hev in her too, eh?"

"Yes, Hicky," said d.i.c.k with a sigh. "Ah! those were happy days."

"They weer, lad; they weer. Owd poont got dry and cracked, and of no use bud to go on the dreern, and who wanted to go on a dreern as had been used to the mere?"

"No one, of course," said d.i.c.k, gazing across the fields and meadows where he had once propelled the punt.

"Ay, no one, o' course, so Jacob sawed her i' two one day, and we set her oop theer i' the garden for a summer-hoose, and Jacob painted her green. I say, Mester d.i.c.k, ony think," added Hickathrift, laughing violently.

"Think what? Don't laugh like that, Hicky, or you'll shake your head off."

"Nay, not I, my lad; but it do mak' me laugh."

"What does?"

"Jacob's married!"

"No!"

"He is, Mester d.i.c.k, and theer's a babby."

"Never!" said d.i.c.k, laughing, to humour the great fellow, who wiped his eyes and became quite solemn now.

"Yes, that he hes, Mester d.i.c.k, and you'd nivver guess what he's ca'd him."

"Jacob, of course."

"Nay, Mester d.i.c.k; he's ca'd him Dave."

d.i.c.k and Tom went down to the wheelwright's again next day to chat over old times--fishing, shooting, the netting at the decoy, and the like; and heard how John Warren had lately died, a venerable old man, who confessed at last how he had helped Dave Gittan in some of the outrages when the drain was made, because he hated it, and said it would ruin honest men.

But it was not to see John Warren's nor Dave Gittan's grave that Hickathrift led the young men to the one bit of waste land left, and there pointed to a wooden tablet nailed against a willow tree.

"The squire give me leave, Mester d.i.c.k, and Jacob and me buried him theer when he died. Jacob painted his name on it, rather rough, but the best he could, and we'd hev put his age on it, as well as the date, if we'd ha' known."

"How old was he, do you think, Hicky?" said d.i.c.k.

"Don't know, sir, but straange and old."

"But why did you take so much interest in him? You never liked the donkey."

"Nay, bud you did, lad, and that was enough for me."

"Poor old Solomon!" said d.i.c.k, smiling at the recollections the rough tablet evoked; "how he could kick!"

"And so you and young Tom--I beg pardon, sir," said Hicky, "Mester Tallington--are going to help Mester Marston wi the big dreerning out in Cambridgeshire, eh?"

"Yes, Hicky, ours is a busy life now; but we're beginning to find people more sensible about such matters. Mr Marston was laughing over it the other day, and saying that all the romance had gone out of our profession now there was no chance of getting shot."

"Weer he, now?" said Hickathrift wonderingly. "Think of a man liking to be shot at!"

"Oh, he does not like to be shot at, Hicky! By the way, though, who was it shot Dave Gittan? Come, now, you know."

"Owd Dave Gittan's been buried twenty year, Mester d.i.c.k, so let him rest."

"Rest! Of course; but come--you do know?"

"Yes, Mester d.i.c.k," said the wheelwright stolidly. "I do know, but I sweered as I'd nivver tell, and I'll keep my word."

"Ah, well, I will not press you, Hicky! It was a sad time."

"Ay, my lads, a sad time when a man maks war like that again his brothers wi' fire and sword, leastwise wi' goon. That theer fen was like a battlefield in them days, while now it's as pleasant a place to look upon as a man need wish to see."

"A lovely landscape, Hicky," said d.i.c.k, gazing across the verdant plain.

"Ay, lad, and once all bog and watter, and hardly a tree from end to end."