Let's run!" Dick was right, and five minutes after, he and his companions had joined a group gathered round Mr Marston, while Bargle, the big labourer, was talking.
"Ay, mester, we _all_ tumbled out, and went away down to the gaats as soon as we'd tumbled out, and they're all knocked down and the water in." "Knocked down!" cried the squire.
"Ay," cried another of the men, "far as we could see; one's smashed to bits, and brickwork's all ploughed up." "Come along!" said the engineer.

"Two of you run on first and get lanthorns." The big labourer and another went off back with a heavy trot, and the party were advancing again when a heavy step was heard behind.
"Who's that ?" said Tom.
"Me, lad, me," came back in the thick hearty voice of the wheelwright.
"What's amiss ?" They told him.
"I was straange and fast asleep," he said, "and didn't hear nowt; but my missus wakkened me, and I come on." "Ay, bud it wakkened me, neighbour," said Dave, who was busy administering to himself a pill.

"I've slep' badly since I had that last touch of ager, and I thowt some un was broosting in the wall, and as soon as I jumped up and looked out, the plaace seemed alive, for all the birds in the fen were flying round and round, and you could hear their wings whistling as they flew away.

I was scarred." Half an hour later they were picking their way along the embankment at the side of the great drain, now once more filled with salt water, while when they reached the mouth, where a peculiar dank saline odour was perceptible, the two men who had been flitting before them with lanthorns like a couple of will-o'-the-wisps, went cautiously down the crumbling bank, followed by the engineer, and the mischief done was at once plain to see.
Apparently a powerful blast of powder had been placed in the hollow of the stone-work, where the mechanism for opening and closing the great sluice-gates was fixed, and the result of the explosion was a huge chasm in the stone, and one of the gates blown right off, leaving the way for the water free.
A dead silence fell upon the group as the engineer took one of the lanthorns and carefully examined the damage, the squire holding the other light, and peering forward in the darkness till the engineer climbed back to his side.
"They've managed it well," he said bitterly.
"Well!" cried the squire angrily.

"I'm not a harsh man, but I'd give a hundred pounds down to see the wretch who did this lying dead in the ruins." "Ay, mester," said Hickathrift in a low hoarse voice; "it be a shaame.
Will it spoil the dreern, and stop all the work ?" "Ay," said Dave, as he stood leaning upon his pole, which he had brought over his shoulder; "will it stop dreern ?" The two lads leaned forward to hear the answer, and there was a peculiar solemnity in the scene out there in the wild place in the darkness, merely illumined by the two lanthorns.
"Stop the drain!" exclaimed the squire hoarsely, and in a voice full of rage.
"No, my men," said the engineer coolly.