"Come and look here, you owl. That's no rabbit. It's bobbing up and down, just where the dam is. I'll be shot if I don't believe some one's interfering with it."
This suggestion brought Templeton to the window at once. Side by side they gazed out towards the ridge.
"This is serious," said Templeton. "If it really is any one interfering with our work——"
"We'll nip him in the bud. Come on; don't wait to dress; it's quite warm. Get into your slippers. We'll go out of the back door without waking the Trenchards and investigate."
Two minutes later they were stealing along under cover of the hedge that skirted the field to be irrigated. Arriving at the ridge some distance above the dam they turned to the left, and bending double crept towards the scene of their toil. There, rising erect, they saw Mr. Noakes up to his thighs in the stream, hard at work pulling away stones and earth from the dam.
The water was already gurgling through.
"Hi there! What the dickens are you up to?" Templeton cried.
The man turned with a start, and faced them. He appeared to be undecided what to do.
"What are you about?" repeated Templeton, indignantly. "What right have you to destroy our dam?"
"What right!" said the man, indignant in his turn. He was still in the water, and, leaning back against the dam, he faced the lads in the misty moonlight. "What right hev you two young fellers, strangers in the parish, to play yer mischeevious pranks here? 'Tis against the law to interfere wi' the waterways o' the nation, and the Polstead folk hev their rights, and they'll stick to 'em. Ay, and I hev my rights, too, and I'm a known man in the parish. This here stream purvides me wi' washing water, and to-morrow's washing day. You dam up my water; I can't wash; that's where the right do come in."