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 morass 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 Dick, 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 wankle.” (Sickly.)
“Rheumatism, Hicky; that’s all. He’ll be better soon. I say, what’s that—a summer-house?” said Tom, pointing.