So ye get
all turned round in broad daylight.'
'That's because they've dreened the waters into the
diks,' said Hobden. 'When I courted my woman the
rushes was green - Eh me! the rushes was green - an' the
Bailiff o' the Marshes he rode up and down as free as the fog.'
'Who was he?' said Dan.
'Why, the Marsh fever an' ague. He've clapped me on
the shoulder once or twice till I shook proper. But now
the dreenin' off of the waters have done away with the
fevers; so they make a joke, like, that the Bailiff o' the
Marshes broke his neck in a dik. A won'erful place for
bees an' ducks 'tis too.'
'An' old,' Tom went on. 'Flesh an' Blood have been
there since Time Everlastin' Beyond. Well, now, speakin'
among themselves, the Marsh men say that from Time
Everlastin' Beyond, the Pharisees favoured the Marsh
above the rest of Old England. I lay the Marsh men ought
to know. They've been out after dark, father an' son,
smugglin' some one thing or t'other, since ever wool
grew to sheep's backs. They say there was always a
middlin' few Pharisees to be seen on the Marsh.
Impident as rabbits, they was.
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