man or property, she had the more time for feeling; and she come to feel
there was a Trouble outside her doorstep bigger an' heavier than aught
she'd ever carried over it. She had two sons--one born blind, an'
t'other struck dumb through fallin' off the Wall when he was liddle.
They was men grown, but not wage-earnin', an' she worked for 'em,
keepin' bees and answerin' Questions.'

'What sort of questions?' said Dan.

'Like where lost things might be found, an' what to put about a crooked
baby's neck, an' how to join parted sweethearts. She felt the Trouble on
the Marsh same as eels feel thunder. She was a wise woman.'

'My woman was won'erful weather-tender, too,' said Hobden. 'I've seen
her brish sparks like off an anvil out of her hair in thunderstorms. But
she never laid out to answer Questions.'

'This woman was a Seeker, like, an' Seekers they sometimes find. One
night, while she lay abed, hot an' achin', there come a Dream an' tapped
at her window, an' "Widow Whitgift," it said, "Widow Whitgift!"

'First, by the wings an' the whistlin', she thought it was peewits, but
last she arose an' dressed herself, an' opened her door to the Marsh,
an' she felt the Trouble an' the Groanin' all about her, strong as fever
an' ague, an' she calls: "What is it? Oh, what is it?"

'Then 'twas all like the frogs in the diks peepin'; then 'twas all like
the reeds in the diks clip-clappin'; an' then the great Tide-wave
rummelled along the Wall, an' she couldn't hear proper.

'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.

'"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 F