ALDERS AND REEDS. 85 



said the young man. The trees had shot up and 

 covered one end of the house-roof. Many a gen- 

 eration had passed in and out of that doorway, 

 between their pillar-like trunks ; but they were still 

 in full vigour, with no sign of decay about them. 



" Come in and have a drop of mother's old mead," 

 spake our host " it won't hurt ye ; mother makes 

 it out o' honey, jest as it comes from the hive, and 

 that's reckoned wholesome by our folks. Then you 

 an' me '11 go up the pond. I wants to talk to ye 

 about summat. Waggle, here, can talk to mother, 

 an' taste that there old mead again." 



We walked quietly to the sluice; then my com- 

 panion said, " Marksman thought I'd better see 

 if ye was to be got at. There be summat kills the 

 old gal's ducks, not the old but the young uns; 

 they gits pulled under the water, an' no one sees 

 no more on 'em. It worrits her, the loss o' them 

 ducks, an' she will hev it there's summat wrong 

 with this 'ere pond." 



" Show me where the ducks get pulled under." 



" Why, when they Grasses this 'ere broadest bit 

 o' open water, in front o' the slush, to git on that 

 'ere bit o' boord what slopes down fur 'em to land 



