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"Heard you ever such villainy?" cried Aylward, breathing fierce and hard. "Did you hear them, Simon? A woman for a keg of apples! And my heart's root is sad for the other one, the girl of Normandy. Surely we can land to-morrow and burn all these water-rats out of their nest." "Nay, Sir Robert will not waste time or strength ere he reach Brittany."
"Well, we have girls enough at Cape May this summer about six to every man," argued Mabel crossly. "I vote that we give these new persons the cold shoulder. Nobody knows who they are, nor where they come from. It is bad enough to have to associate with tiresome hotel visitors, but I shall draw the line at these water-rats, and I hope you will do the same." "She means us," gasped Eleanor.
That spot of shining white should be the canvas of some craft, hovering in the offing!" "Nothing more probable, in so light a breeze Your coasters are in and out, like water-rats on a wharf, at any hour of the twenty-four and yet to me it seems the comb of a breaking sea." "'Tis snow-white duck; such as your swift rover wears on his loftier spars!"
The sedges by the shore, the flags in the shallow, slowly swaying from side to side with the current, the sedge-reedlings calling, the moorhens and water-rats, all gave an air of habitation. Instead of proceeding with the current, it had hardly cleared the arch when it took a position parallel to the flowing water and brought up.
He knew that his two brothers and his cousin Neil could swim like water-rats; and as for himself, though he would have given a good deal to get rid of his boots, he did not fear being able to get ashore. But there was no time to think. 'Jump clear of the boat! he shouted to his companions. The next second came the dreadful crash.
Ants' ways, beetles' ways, bees' ways, frogs' ways, birds' ways, plants' ways, gave him a new world to explore and when Dickon revealed them all and added foxes' ways, otters' ways, ferrets' ways, squirrels' ways, and trout's and water-rats' and badgers' ways, there was no end to the things to talk about and think over. And this was not the half of the Magic.
By the shores of the islands the crows came down for mussels. Moorhens swam in and out among the rushes, water-rats nibbled at the flags, pikes basked at the edge of the weeds, summer-snipes ran along the sand, and doubtless an otter here and there was in concealment. Without the line of the shoals and islets, now that the mallards had flown, there was a solitude of water.
"A foreigner, some said; but his clothes were in tatters, and the water-rats had disfigured him." "Poor fellow!" said she, and quickly she added as if eager to change the subject: "my name is on the letters of credit. In case of any mishap, I will plainly say so to my husband and he will return me my own property." That was sensible.
There were beavers too: but that must not surprise you, for there were beavers in South Wales long after the Norman Conquest, and there are beavers still in the mountain glens of the south-east of France. There were honest little water-rats too, who I dare say sat up on their hind legs like monkeys, nibbling the water-lily pods, thousands of years ago, as they do in our ponds now.
My terrier was fond of investigating the garden, because among the thick undergrowth he invariably found either rabbits or water-rats, or a stoat. On this bright morning I was much surprised to find the whole of the enclosure cleared. Outside of the boundary was a great heap of ashes, from which clouds of dust drifted hither and thither.
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