The girl was shivering.
"Are you cold!"
"George! those are the Seven Whistlers."
"They are the long-beaked curlew going south."
"They are the Seven Whistlers, and they mean death or deathlike woe. For God's sake, George"—she threw her arms round him—"swear, swear to me, never to lay aside the medal I have given you, but to wear it night and day."
"There! Glory, I swear it."
CHAPTER IV
RED HALL
The rent-paying day was bright and breezy. The tide was up in the morning, and Mehalah and her mother in a boat with sail and jib and spritsail flew before a northeast wind down the Mersea Channel, and doubling Sunken Island, entered the creek which leads to Salcot and Virley, two villages divided only by a tidal stream, and connected by a bridge.
The water danced and sparkled, multitudes of birds were on the wing, now dipping in the wavelets, now rising and shaking off the glittering drops. A high sea-wall hid the reclaimed land on their left. Behind it rose the gaunt black structure of a windmill used for pumping the water out of the dykes in the marsh. It was working now, the great black arms revolving in the breeze, and the pump creaking as if the engine groaned remonstrances at being called to toil on such a bright day. A little further appeared a tiled roof above the wall.
"There is Red Hall," said Mehalah, as she ran the boat ashore and threw out the anchor. "I have brought the stool, mother," she added, and helped the old woman to land dry-footed. The sails were furled, and then Mehalah and her mother climbed the wall and descended into the pastures. These were of considerable extent, reclaimed saltings, but of so old a date that the brine was gone from the soil, and they furnished the best feed for cattle anywhere round. Several stagnant canals or
