When Denzil was with his father's relatives he had to be very careful not to use the dialect of the marshes, nor might he use it at all in his parents' presence. He made up, however, for any strain he might feel this to be, by speaking it very freely among the fisher folk.

There was a picturesque little group at the lower end of Scoot's father's garden, close to the fence. A good iron cooking-pot was hung, gipsy fashion, from a tripod of stout sticks, and under it a fire was blazing merrily. The fire was fed with some broken-up tarred palings, not old ones; where they had come from, it would have been unwise to ask.

"The bilin' is jest done," remarked Winder, as Denzil arrived on the scene. "We couldn't get the pot as wus promised us, an' so we jest borrered this 'ere 'un from old Nance, without askin' of her. We shel tek an' put it back when we've done with it."

"But how did you borrer it, Winder, ef Nance didn't lend it to yer?" asked the more scrupulous Denzil.

"Why, ye see Scoot knows where she keeps her cookin' gear-jist over the fence it is, in her gardin; so we borrers old Bob Shrimp's boat-hook, an' hooks this 'ere pot out, an' off with it. We took Bill's hook back afore we started bilin', so were free of him like."

"Tis her bakin' - pot," added Scoot with a

chuckle, "what she uses fur a ovin; we must giv' it a good swab out afore we chucks it over the fence agin."

But this effort they were spared; for just as the crabs had been taken out of the pot, placed in a piece of old netting, and plunged into cold water to set and cool, Nance herself appeared, showing her head and shoulders over the fence. She had worked herself up to a perfect fury, and in her right hand she brandished a formidable mophandle. One glance she bestowed on her favourite baking-vessel and the use it had been put to, and then she gave free vent to her feelings.

"Oh, ye rips o' sea-cats! ye wreckin' combin’ varmints, as 'ull live to be hung fur pirits afore ye die; a born nateral disgrace to the mothers as bore ye. What 'ull be the end o' ye?"

At the same time she was making violent efforts, as Winder said afterwards, "tu bust through the fence and board" the lads.

Without waiting to answer Nance's questions as to what would become of them, the three boys bolted with their precious net full of crabs, through a reed-bed which was close at hand; and they got away to a safe hiding-place, where, as they ate their fish in peace, they speculated as to how long it would take old Nance to "git the smell of 'em out of that there bakin'-pot of hers."

Poor old Nance! "Scolding Nance" she was nicknamed, because of her habit of giving her opinion to her neighbours before they asked for it. She was not bad at heart; in fact, she often showed great sympathy with the lads and lasses, especially with such as she thought hardly treated by their own folks. But she had a most wonderful flow of strong language at command, and her temper was the worst in that fishing quarter, as long as it lasted. It was generally very patiently borne with, and folks showed her as much sociability and kindness as she would accept, for she had known terrible troubles, having lost her husband and several sons, all at sea.

Many a hard-pressed wife and mother keeps her heart soft and tender by an occasional visit to the spot where the bodies of her loved ones lie under the green turf, beside the old church where they had worshipped together; but Nance had no such mournful consolation. Only when the winds howled and raged over the sea, near her lonely cot, she would hug her grief, rocking herself to and fro in anguish as she thought of those who had been made the sport of the restless waters.

It was strange how few of the fishermen and their sons could swim. They used to say, "What's the use on't? fur ef yer goes overboard in a gale

with this 'ere heavy top an' bottom fishin' gear on, why down yer goes to Davy's Locker, onless they gets holt on yer with the boat-hook, or chucks yer a spar o' some sort to grip, or lays ye a rope tu lay holt on."

They were right there; the best of swimmers must have sunk, hampered with those heavy tarpaulin suits and the weight of their great sea-boots.

CHAPTER VI.

THE GOLDEN EAGLES AT STANDBECK.

DENZIL, or Den, as he was more commonly called, had done his best to learn to read well from the time his father first began to teach him. A true naturalist, like the poet, is born, not made; and from the first his sole object was to be able to read all about the birds of other countries as well as his own, as he saw them in the beautiful books at his kinsman's house.

Besides reading about these, he was constantly to be found in one or other of the fishermen's cottages, if not wandering on the marshes, when his father was away at his work, examining the curious collections made by some members of their families who had gone as sailors into distant lands. From the old crones, too, he gathered many of the local histories and traditions of the past, and also much about his own kith and kin,