The boys leaped out while Dave fastened the punt to an old willow trunk, and, quite at home in the place, went on first to a rough-looking house nearly hidden among alders and willows, all of which showed traces of the flood having been right up, submerging everything to a depth of three to four feet.
“Hullo, Chip! Chip! Chip!” cried Tom, and the decoy-man’s little sharp-looking dog came bounding to them, to leap up, and fawn and whine, full of delight at seeing human faces again.
There was the twittering and piping of birds, and the scuffling, scratching noise made by animals in a cage, as they reached the roughly-fenced yard, more than garden, about Dave’s cottage, the boys eager to inspect the birds, the ferrets, the eel-spear leaning against the reed thatch, and the brown nets hung over poles, stretching from post to post, as if to dry.
“Why, it’s months sin’ you’ve been to see me,” said Dave.
“Well, whose fault’s that?” said Dick sharply. “I say, Dave, these nets are new.”
“Ay, every one of ’em. Made ’em all this summer.”
“Didn’t you get lots of things spoiled when the flood came?” cried Tom.
“N–no, lad, no. Nearly had my birds drownded, but I got ’em atop of the thack yonder.”
“But hasn’t your cottage been dreadfully wet?” asked Dick, who was poking his finger in a cage full of ferrets. “I say, what are John Warren’s ferrets doing here?”
“Doin’ nothing, and waiting to be took out, that’s all, lad.”