used to flat swampy land in their own country, they took naturally to our marshlands.

In a monograph on the state of Holland, Sir William says further, "that the benefit of their situation and orders of their Government, the conduct of their ministers driving on steddy and publick interest the art industry and parsimony of their people,-all conspired to drive almost the trade of the whole world into their circle, while their neighbours were taken up either in civil or foreign wars."

All religions were tolerated in Holland at the time we allude to, and the Government offered a safe refuge to the persecuted. Owing to the consequent increase of population, as well as to their enterprise and industry, the Dutch were driven to seek employment beyond their own seas. Having to be on perpetual defence against the tyranny and encroachments of Spain, and obliged to combat her fleets, they became first-class sailors and energetic successful merchants, visiting every accessible port, and establishing houses of business wherever they could. Painstaking and industrious as they were, smaller profits satisfied the Dutch than were looked for by others.

A colony of French Huguenots had also settled round Marshton about the same time. Local traditions told how many of them arrived in sad plight, the fathers carrying their delicate wives and daughters in an exhausted condition through the mud and water, the young men bearing the little children in their arms, to find a resting-place on these sand links and barren flats. Although the Huguenot families settled down at first contentedly, satisfied to be quiet and at rest from the persecution of their religious tyrants, in spite of the barrenness of their surroundings and hard days of toil with small recompense, there were amongst them many men skilled in fine arts and industries, who, after leaving their mark on the district, moved on towards London to find a wider field for their skill and their energies. But when Denzil was a boy there were still some direct descendants of the old Huguenot families to be found amongst the populations of Marshton and in the neighbouring hamlets. They had intermarried, some of them, with the native fishing families. Many of the names, both Christian and surnames, bore witness to this foreign element in the population, and many of their expressions too. For instance, if a

boy were speaking of a bird's nest, he would say more often than not, "She nides there."

Philip Magnier, Denzil's father, was one of these direct descendants of the old Huguenot immigrants. Although he was, technically speaking, a workman of the more skilled sort, yet he was a genius in his own way. He had an inborn love of art, which had worried and harassed him, because it had never found the opportunity of full, or even partial, satisfaction in his daily life. His house stood outside the town; it was the last one on the marsh road. Like all the other houses on the flats, it was low and solidly built, so as to stand firm against the gales that roared over the marshes at times, clearing all before them. Poplars were the only trees that grew on these flats; there were great walnut-trees in the old parish churchyard, and near the church some elms, in which was a noted old rookery. But on the flats proper only poplars could exist: these certainly grew there to perfection, however. In front of Philip Magnier's house was a row of them, beside a stream that flowed into the marsh. Beyond the poplars only a lonely farm was to be seen in the way of building or human habitation. The house was not more lonely than most of the marshland homesteads,

and it could boast of a larger and more productive garden behind it than was common in that locality. This ran through a portion of reclaimed swamp, and was protected at its farther end by a thick old hedge separating it from the saltings.

There was nothing to be seen from the house all the day long, except the sea, the marsh, and the sky; nothing to be heard but the sound of the waves and the song of the birds, with the cries of the sea-fowl and other wild creatures that had their homes in or about the flats. No wonder the Magniers were a grave and silent family. Setting aside their father's inherited ways of thought and stern prejudice, they had never been one with the town's people, and they held slight intercourse with any of them, excepting those who were their relatives. Denzil had brothers and sisters, but as our object is to tell rather of his intercourse with nature and her children than of his family life, this narrative will not deal with them.

When the boy got to the house door his mother was busy outside in the garden, and when she came indoors she found him apparently occupied with one of his lessons for the next day, seated demurely at the great oak table.

"Ye're late in, Den, an' Larry's been here; his

father says he wants ye to go up town and spend the day there to-morrow."

Denzil experienced a great revulsion of feeling; instead of the dreaded "quiltin'" he was to have the dearest enjoyment of his life, a whole day at the house of his father's well-to-do kinsman, in the large old-fashioned dwelling, which was the paradise of his boyhood, the home of his great friend Laurence. Winder and Scoot were very well in their way, but Larry was more to him than they could ever be; for, apart from the fact of his real attachment to him, he was a relative-and this was a matter of pride and rejoicing to the boy.

His mother was well pleased that her husband's richer kinsfolk should appreciate her child, and the invitation to Den to spend the morrow at their house made her forget to interrogate him as to how he had spent the hours since she had seen him last. So he went to bed as happy as possible, and, tired with his long walk, he was soon soundly asleep.

Next morning he was up early; somehow he must manage to see Winder and Scoot. They had planned to boil their crabs before going out in the fishing-boats, at the back of Scoot's father's house, in the bit of rough garden-land.