"Ah! irrigation. It needs a dry soil, to be sure; it'll grow well here—very well indeed."
Eves smothered a laugh, and let Templeton explain. The explanation, strangely enough, brought a shadow upon Mr. Noakes's face. It darkened as he watched the dumping of the earth upon the dam. He was silent; his mouth hardened; and after a few more minutes he shambled away.
"I'm afraid we've given him a wrong impression," said Templeton, anxiously.
"Well, he shouldn't be sly. Besides, if he's ass enough to think 'finology' will go down with the tribunal, that's his look-out."
They worked hard through the rest of the day, and by tea-time the water had begun to trickle over the ridge in many little rills. It seemed, indeed, that there would be no necessity to dig the channels of which Templeton had spoken, the slope of the ground and the natural fan-like spreading of the streams promising that in due time the whole field would be thoroughly watered. Tired, but well pleased with the success of their experiment, they returned to the farmhouse.
Mr. Trenchard had been absent all the afternoon. At tea they told him what they had done, and he cheerfully assented to their suggestion that he should go with them to the ridge and see for himself their irrigation works.
It was dusk when they started. The ridge was at an outlying part of the farm, and as they strolled across the intervening fields Eves suddenly exclaimed:
"What's that?"
Some hundreds of yards ahead, a whitish object, not distinguishable in the dusk, was moving apparently along the top of the ridge. In a few seconds it disappeared.
"That was one of they rabbits after my turmuts, I reckon," said the farmer. "Terrible mischeevious little mortals they be."