'Three times she called, an' three times the Tide-wave
did her down. But she catched the quiet between, an' she
cries out, "What is the Trouble on the Marsh that's been
lying down with my heart an' arising with my body this
month gone?" She felt a liddle hand lay hold on her
gown-hem, an' she stooped to the pull o' that liddle hand.'
Tom Shoesmith spread his huge fist before the fire and
smiled at it as he went on.
"'Will the sea drown the Marsh?" she says. She was a
Marsh woman first an' foremost.
"'No," says the liddle voice. "Sleep sound for all o' that."
"'Is the Plague comin' to the Marsh?" she says. Them
was all the ills she knowed.
"'No. Sleep sound for all o' that," says Robin.
'She turned about, half mindful to go in, but the liddle
voices grieved that shrill an' sorrowful she turns back, an'
she cries: "If it is not a Trouble of Flesh an' Blood, what
can I do?"
'The Pharisees cried out upon her from all round to
fetch them a boat to sail to France, an' come back no more.
"'There's a boat on the Wall," she says, "but I can't
push it down to the sea, nor sail it when 'tis there.
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