"No more winding of the horn, no more following of the deer, my boy," said Dick. "We ought to see the last stag hunt in Hatfield. And there may be other sport besides the driving of the deer. So come along." "What manner of sport?" I asked. "You know how many of our fellows in Thorne and Crowle reckon the Chace as much their domain as the King's. They are not over well-pleased to lose their venison, or their pastime. Moonlight nights will be dull when there's no more stalking of the King's game, or chance to warm one's blood in a fight with his keepers." "You speak feelingly, Dick," said I, laughing. "Ay, that do I," he answered. "But the fowlers and fishers take it worse than I do. A fat buck once in a while is worth much to a poor man. There will be sullen faces looking on to-day." "But the foresters will be too strong for assault," I replied. "May be so. But hark you, boy, Vermuijden and some of his people are to meet a party from old Mulligrubs' to-day at the Crown, the more fools they." This news set my pulse going. What so likely as that Doctor Goel and his daughter would be present at a meeting between the earl (whom it was Dick's whim to misname Mulligrubs) and the Dutch leader? And if there should be trouble brewing, the more reason that a friend should be at hand. So I answered-- "Have with you, then!" But there was not a horse in the stable at the time, except the old white mare. Luke had ridden Trueboy to Haxey, and the rest were galloping on my father's errands. When I said so to Dick, he answered-- "Why wait for a horse? Get stilts for us both, and we'll cross the marsh to Messic Mere, and take one of Holmes's boats. With this wind we can fly up Idle as fast we could ride round." So we did. Walking to Belshaw, we mounted our stilts there, and were quickly across the fen. The long, dry weather had made it passable for those who knew the shallows and the lie of the ridges, if they had skill with the stilts, and few Islonians had more than Portington and I. We took boat at Holmes's, and then sped up the river merrily, Dick with the sheet in his hand, I steering. It was right pleasant going, with the wind rustling and whistling among the reeds on either bank, the water hissing and rippling from the prow, as we wound along narrow lanes of water, and out into wide spaces where the fowls, startled by our coming, made off, flapping and screaming, or scuttled in among the sedges and bulrushes. One never has the feeling of being away and apart from the rest of the world, I think, quite so much anywhere else as in lonely water-ways, and we two sat silently enjoying the quiet of the scene for a while. At length Dick spoke-- "D'ye know, Frank, that it is part of Vermuijden's scheme to stop the Idle?" "I don't take," I answered. "He plans to cut off the river at the Nottingham border--has begun cutting the drain which is to turn the water into Trent."