coming to woo!"
Jimminy! I must not do that! I've taken a crown to be mum. Now I'm a young person of respectability—I've money in my pocket. Now I must look about me and see what to buy. I'll go to the Cheap Jack. How do you do, uncle?'
She addressed the dark-haired man Drownlands, who had just turned the corner, with his flail over his shoulder. He scowled at the girl, and would have passed her without a word, but to this she would not consent.
'See! see!' said she, holding up the crown she had received. 'I was just going along sighing and weeping because I had no money, not a farthing in my pocket, not a lover at my side to buy me anything. Then came some one and gave me this—look, Uncle Drownlands! Five shillings!'
'So—going in bad ways?'
'What is the harm? I was ballad-singing. Then he came and gave me a crown.'
'You ballad-singing!'
'Yes; how else can I get money? I'm a poor girl, owned by nobody, for whom nobody cares.'
'You will bring disgrace—deeper disgrace on the family—on the name.'
'Not I; I'm honest. If I am given five shillings, may I not receive it? Master Runham gave me the money to make me shut my mouth. I was singing
"My father's a hedger and ditcher,
My mother"'—
'For heaven's sake, silence!' said Drownlands angrily. 'If you will hold your tongue, I will give you a couple of shillings.'
'A couple of shillings! And I'm your own niece, and have your name.'
'More shame to you—to your mother!' exclaimed the farmer bitterly.
The girl suddenly dropped her head, and her brow became crimson.
'Not a word about my dear mother—not a stone thrown at her,' she said in a low tone.
'Well, no ballad-singing. Take heed to yourself. You are wild and careless.'
'Much you think of me! much you care for me!'
'Begone! You are a disgrace to me—your existence is a disgrace. Take a crown and spend it properly. You shall have nothing more from me. As Runham gave you five shillings, it shall not be said that I gave you less.'
He handed her the coin, and with a scowl passed on.
Kainie remained for a moment musing, with lowered eyes. Then she raised her head, shook it, as though to shake off the sadness, the humiliation that had come on her with the words of Drownlands, and hummed—
'Nobody coming to marry me,
Nobody coming to woo.'
'What! Kainie!'
The words were those of a young man, heavy-browed, pale, somewhat gaunt, with long arms.
'Oh, Pip!—Pip!—Pip!'
'What is the matter, Kainie?'
'Pip, I'm the only girl here without her young man. It is terrible—terrible; and see, Pip, I've got two crowns to spend, and I don't know what to spend them on. There is too much money here for sweetie stuff; and as for smart ribbons and bonnets and such like, it is only just about once in the year I can get away from the mill and come into town and show myself. It does seem a waste to spend a couple of crowns on dress, when no one can see me rigged out in it. What shall I do, Pip?—you wise, you sensible, you dear Pip.'
The young man, Ephraim Beamish, considered; then he said—
'Kainie, I don't like your being alone in Red Wings. Times are queer. Times will be worse. There is trouble before us in the Fens. Things cannot go on as they are—the labouring men ground down under the heels of the farmers, who are thriving and waxing fat. I don't like you to be alone in the windmill; you should have some protector. Now, look here. I've been to that Cheap Jack van, and there's a big dog there the Cheap Jackies want to sell, but there has been no bid. Take my advice, offer the two crowns for that great dog, and take him home with you. Then I shall be easy; and now I am not that. You are too lonely—and a good-looking girl like you'—
'Pip, I'll have the dog.' She tossed the coins into the air. 'Here, crownies, you go for a bow-wow.'
CHAPTER IV
ON THE DROVE
THERE is not in all England—there is hardly in the world—any tract of country more depressing to the spirits, more void of elements of loveliness, than the Cambridgeshire Fens as they now are.
In former days, when they were under water—a haunt of wildfowl, a wilderness of lagoons, a paradise of wild-flowers—when they teemed with fish and swarmed with insect life of every kind—when the eys or islets, Stuntney, Shipey, Southconey, Welney, were the sole objects that broke the horizon, rising out of the marshes, rich with forest-trees—then the Fens were full of charm, because given over to Nature. But the industry of man has changed the character and aspect of the Fens. The meres have been pumped dry, the bogland has been drained. Where the fowler used to boat after wild duck, now turnips are hoed; where the net was drawn by the fisherman, there wave cornfields.
In former times, for five-and-twenty miles north of Ely, one rippling lake extended, and men went by boat over it to the sand-dune that divided it from the sea at King's Lynn. To the west a mighty mere stretched from Ely to Peterborough. To the east lay a tangle of lake and channel, of marsh and islet.
Until about a hundred years ago, men lived in houses erected on platforms sustained upon piles above the level of the water. Walls and roofs of these habitations were thatched and wattled with reeds. From the door a ladder conducted to a boat. In these houses there were hearths, but no chimneys. The smoke escaped as best it might through the thatch, or under the gables. During the winter the fen-men picked up a livelihood fishing and fowling. In summer they cultivated such patches of peat soil as appeared above the surface of the water. There were no roads; men went from place to place by water, in boats or on skates.
In the reign of James I. Ben Jonson wrote his play 'The Devil is an Ass.' Into this play he introduced a speculator—a starter of bogus companies, by name Meercraft, and one of this man's schemes was the draining of the Fens.
The thing is for recovery of drown'd land,
Whereof the Crown's to have a moiety,
If it be owner; else the Crown and owners
To share that moiety, and the recoverers
To enjoy the t'other moiety for their charge,
* * * * * * which will arise
To eighteen millions, seven the first year.
I have computed all, and made my survey
Unto an acre; I'll begin at the pan,
Not at the skirts, as some have done, and lost
