'I'll not go to see her,' said Beamish. 'I could not bear it. I'm off to the Duck at Isleham. I shall meet there some fellows who love the working people, and who will combine to teach these men who hold the Fens in their fists to deal with their labourers justly and mercifully.' He leaped ashore, mounted the bank, and, standing there, extended his long arms and expanded his great hands, and cried, 'I see the day coming! I see the light about to break! The trumpet will sound, and the dead and crushed working men will rise and stand on their feet. That will be a day of vengeance!—a day of fire and consuming heat! Then will the fen-farmers call to the earth to swallow them, and to the isles to cover them, against the anger of the dead men risen up in judgment against them.' 'There comes Mark,' said Zita. 'I suppose I must get him to punt me home. But I shall not speak to him all the way.' CHAPTER XVI BURNT HATS At the time of our tale, the Duck at Isleham—a solitary inn on slightly rising ground—was notorious as a place of resort for poachers, a centre to which smuggled goods were brought from the Wash, and whence they were distributed, and a general rendezvous for the dissatisfied. Not a bad trade was done at the Duck. Thither came the poachers as to a mart for the disposal of their game, and the dealers to take the spoil of the poachers; thither came not only those who brought, up the dark path from the sea, spirits which had not paid duty, but also the farmers who desired to lay in supplies. As the fen-water was not potable unmixed, it was a matter of necessity for the fen-dwellers to temper it with something that would neutralise its unpleasant savour as well as kill its unwholesome elements. Moreover, such being the case, those who desired to lay in a stock of this counteracting agent went for it, by a law of nature, to the cheapest shop, and the cheapest shop was that where the traffic was in spirits that were contraband. Lastly, at the Duck assembled the great company of grumblers, large everywhere, but especially large in the Fens. As the Duck afforded space for a good many grumblers in bar and kitchen and parlour, and as grumblers like to grumble into the ears of men of their own kidney, the Duck drew to it the discontented of all classes—farmers dissatisfied with their rent, yeomen dissatisfied at their rates, artisans out of humour because trade was slack, gangers, clayers, bankers, gaulters, slodgers, millers, molers, gozzards—everyone whom the depressing atmosphere of the Fens made dispirited, and who thought the cause of his depression was due to the oppression of some one else.