When Mrs Linacre was told in the evening of the arrival of the disagreeable neighbours who were in the marsh, she was sorry; but when she had gone round the premises with her husband at night, and found all safe, and no tokens of any intrusion, she was disposed to hope that the Redfurns would, this time, keep to their fishing and fowling, and make no disturbance. Oliver and Mildred crept down to the garden hedge at sunrise, and peeped through it, so as to see all that was doing in the carr, as the marsh was called. (In that part of the country, a carr means a morass.) After watching some time, they saw Stephen and Roger creep out from under the low brown tent. As the almost level sun shone full in their faces, they rubbed their eyes; then they stretched and yawned, and seemed to be trying hard to wake themselves thoroughly.
“They have been sound asleep, however,” observed Oliver to his sister; “and it is still so early, that I do not believe they have been abroad about mischief in the night. They would not have been awake yet if they had.”
“Look! There is a woman!” exclaimed Mildred. “Is that Nan?”
“Yes; that is Nan Redfurn,—Stephen’s wife. That is their great net that she has over her arm. They are going to draw the oval pond, I think. We can watch their sport nicely here. They cannot see an inch of us.”
“But we do not like that they should watch us,” said Mildred, drawing back. “We should not like to know that they were peeping at us from behind a hedge.”
“We should not mind it if we were not afraid of them,” replied Oliver. “It is because they plot mischief that we cannot bear their prying. We are not going to do them any mischief, you know; and they cannot mean to make any secret of what they are doing in the middle of the carr, with high ground all about it.” Satisfied by this, Mildred crouched down, with her arm about her brother’s neck, and saw the great net cast, and the pond almost emptied of its fish,—some few being kept for food, and the small fry—especially of the stickleback—being thrown into heaps, to be sold for manure.
“Will they come this way when they have done drawing the pond?” asked Mildred, in some fear, as she saw them moving about.
“I think they will sweep the shallow waters, there to the left, for more stickleback,” replied Oliver. “They will make up a load, to sell before the heat of the day, before they set about anything else.”
Oliver was right. All the three repaired to the shallow water, and stood among the reeds, so as to be half hidden. The children could see, however, that when little George came down the garden, shouting to them to come to breakfast, the strangers took heed to the child. They turned their heads for a moment towards the garden, and then spoke together and laughed.
“There, now!” cried Oliver, vexed: “that is all because we forgot to go to breakfast. So much for my not having a watch! Mother need not have sent George to make such a noise; but, if I had had a watch, he would not have come at all; and these people would not have been put in mind of us.”