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Updated: June 13, 2025
So he waited another five minutes, and then he did not get up, but lay, not looking at the cloud of gnats which were dancing now just over his face as if the tip of his nose were the point from which they streamed upward in the shape of a plume, for Dick Winthorpe was fast asleep.
"Then why don't you leave off, father?" said Tom stoutly. "Dick Winthorpe and I don't want the fen to be drained, and we don't want to be robbed. Do we, Dick?" The two elders laughed heartily, and the squire was silent for a few minutes before he began to speak. "The drain's right, neighbour," he said gravely.
Religion surely is given to us to help us to live, to show us how to live, to enable us to meet the difficulties, emergencies, responsibilities of life. But these people look upon their religion as a mandate to turn their backs on the responsibilities of life, and scuttle away. And as for love! Well, she no doubt did love, poor lady. But Winthorpe! No.
The wheelwright went off, and the squire busied himself binding up the wounds, padding and tightening, and proving beyond doubt that no artery had been touched, for the blood was soon nearly staunched, while, just as he was finishing, and Mrs Winthorpe was drawing the sleeve on one side so as to secure a bandage with some stitches, something rolled on to the floor, and Dick picked it up.
Some such feelings as these pervaded the breasts of Dick Winthorpe and Tom Tallington as they glided along homeward on that night. Every now and then there was a sharp report, and a hissing splitting sound. Then another and another, for the ice was really too thin to bear them properly, and it undulated beneath their weight like the soft swell of the Atlantic in a calm.
"Yes, mother," he flashed out, "and " "Ah!" exclaimed Mrs Winthorpe, flinging her arms about his neck. "That's my boy who spoke out then. Dick, if you had spoken out like that to your father and everyone they would not have suspected you for a moment. There, good-night! It will all come right at last."
"Good-bye, dear mother; father, good-bye!" he whispered softly; and the next moment one foot was over the window-sill, and he was about to drop, when a miserably absurd sound rose on the midnight air, a sound which made him dart back into his room like some guilty creature, as there rang out the strange cry: "He haw, he haw!" as dismal a bray as Solomon had ever uttered in his life; and for no reason whatever, as it seemed, Dick Winthorpe went back and sat upon his bed thinking of the wheelwright's words: That if he went away people would declare he fired the shot.
It was as if the whole gang had been turned to stone, their self-constituted leader being the most rigid of the crowd, and he stared at Dick Winthorpe as a giant might stare at the pigmy who tried to snatch his weapon away.
"Smugglers and a king's ship!" Just then a window was heard being opened, and the squire's voice speaking to Mrs Winthorpe. "I don't know," he said; "sounded like a gun. That you, Marston?" he cried aloud as another window was thrown open. "Yes. Did you hear a report?" "Yes. Like a gun out at sea."
"It may have been an accident, Mr Winthorpe," he said; "and if so, I should be sorry to get any poor fellow into trouble." "Yes, but it may not have been an accident," said the doctor. This was in the evening, the doctor having ridden over again to see how his patient was getting on. "Heaven forbid, sir," said Marston warmly, "that I should suspect any man of such a cowardly cruel deed!
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