'He there!' exclaimed Pip Beamish, leaning on the punting-pole and looking down into the water. 'Property meets one everywhere. Property blights everything. I am a poor chap. I am cast out of employ; but I did think I had my ewe lamb. And now Property comes between me and her. Property says to me, "Go—what I cannot consume I will destroy, lest you have it." Do you think, you Cheap Jack girl, that Mark Runham will marry Kainie? He is a man of property, and property hungers for property. She is like me. She has nothing. She is a miller grinding nought save water.'
He thrust the boat towards the shore.
'I'll not go to see her,' said Beamish. 'I could not bear it. I'm off to the Duck at Isleham. I shall meet there some fellows who love the working people, and who will combine to teach these men who hold the Fens in their fists to deal with their labourers justly and mercifully.'
He leaped ashore, mounted the bank, and, standing there, extended his long arms and expanded his great hands, and cried, 'I see the day coming! I see the light about to break! The trumpet will sound, and the dead and crushed working men will rise and stand on their feet. That will be a day of vengeance!—a day of fire and consuming heat! Then will the fen-farmers call to the earth to swallow them, and to the isles to cover them, against the anger of the dead men risen up in judgment against them.'
'There comes Mark,' said Zita. 'I suppose I must get him to punt me home. But I shall not speak to him all the way.'
CHAPTER XVI
BURNT HATS
AT the time of our tale, the Duck at Isleham—a solitary inn on slightly rising ground—was notorious as a place of resort for poachers, a centre to which smuggled goods were brought from the Wash, and whence they were distributed, and a general rendezvous for the dissatisfied. Not a bad trade was done at the Duck. Thither came the poachers as to a mart for the disposal of their game, and the dealers to take the spoil of the poachers; thither came not only those who brought, up the dark path from the sea, spirits which had not paid duty, but also the farmers who desired to lay in supplies. As the fen-water was not potable unmixed, it was a matter of necessity for the fen-dwellers to temper it with something that would neutralise its unpleasant savour as well as kill its unwholesome elements. Moreover, such being the case, those who desired to lay in a stock of this counteracting agent went for it, by a law of nature, to the cheapest shop, and the cheapest shop was that where the traffic was in spirits that were contraband. Lastly, at the Duck assembled the great company of grumblers, large everywhere, but especially large in the Fens.