30 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



did not want any trouble, nor indeed did he know 

 that some one was missing. Most likely a dead dog ; 

 so he turned his back and went to look again at the 

 cow he thought of buying. A barge came by, and 

 the steerswoman, with a pipe in her mouth, saw some- 

 thing roll over and come up under the rudder : the 

 length of the barge having passed over it. She knew 

 what it was, but she wanted to reach the wharf and 

 go ashore and have a quart of ale. No use picking 

 it up, only make a mess on deck, there was no reward 

 — " Gee-up ! Neddy." The barge went on, turning up 

 the mud in the shallow water, sending ripples washing 

 up to the grassy meadow shores, while the moorhens 

 hid in the flags till it was gone. In time a labourer 

 walking on the towing-path saw "it," and fished it out, 

 and with it a slender ash sapling, with twine and 

 hook, a worm still on it. This was why the dead boy 

 had gone so willingly, thinking to fish in the " river," 

 as he called the canal. When his feet slipped and he 

 fell in, his fishing-line somehow became twisted about 

 his arms and legs, else most likely he would have 

 scrambled out, as it was not very deep. This was 

 the end; nor was he even remembered. Does any 

 one sorrow for the rookj shot, and hung up as a scare- 

 crow ? The boy had been talked to, and held up as 

 a scarecrow all his life : he was dead, and that is all. 

 As for granny, she felt no twinge : she had done her 

 duty. 



II. The Legend of a Gateway. 



A great beech tree with a white mark some way 

 up the trunk stood in the mound by a gate which 



I 



