They sat talking for a time, but words soon grew few and far between. The two fen-men swinging in their boat behind had recourse to the brass box again, each partaking of a rolled-up quid of opium, and afterwards crouched there in a half drowsy state, careless of their peril, while the squire and his companions passed their time listening to the rush of the water and the creaking of the willow bough as it rubbed against the side of the boat, and wondered, as from time to time the wheelwright examined the rope and made it more secure, whether the branch would give way at its intersection with the trunk.
The darkness seemed as if it would never pass, whilst the cold now became painful; and as he heard Dick’s teeth begin to chatter, the wheelwright exclaimed:
“Look here, young mester, I ain’t hot, but there’s a lot o’ warmth comes out o’ me. You come and sit close up, and you come t’other side, squire. It’ll waärm him.”
This was done, and with good effect, for the lad’s teeth ceased their castanet-like action as he sat waiting for the daylight.
No word was spoken by the men in the little punt, and those uttered in the other grew fewer, as its occupants sat listening to the various sounds that came from a distance. For the flood had sent the non-swimming birds wheeling round in the darkness, and every now and then the whistling of wings was quite startling. The ducks of all kinds were in a high state of excitement, and passed over in nights or settled down in the water with a tremendous outcry, while ever and again a peculiar clanging from high overhead gave warning that the wild-geese were on the move, either fleeing or attracted by some strange instinct to the watery waste.
But morning seemed as if it would never come, and it was not until hours upon hours had passed that there was a cessation of the high wind, and a faint line of light just over the water, seaward, proclaimed that the dawn could not be far away.
“Can you see where we are?” said the squire, as it began to grow lighter.
“Ay, it’s plain enough now, mester,” was the reply; “and yonder’s Grimsey.”
“I can see Tom,” said Dick just then; “and there’s Farmer Tallington, and all the rest, right on the top of the roof.”
In a few minutes more all was plain enough, and the reason apparent why the people at Tallington had not shown a light in the course of the night or done anything else to indicate their position, for it was evident that they had been driven from below stairs to the floor above, and from thence to the roof, where they must have sat out the evening hours, perhaps doubtful of how long the place would last before it was swept away.