'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 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."
'"Lend us your sons," says all the Pharisees. "Give 'em Leave an' Good-will to sail it for us, Mother--O Mother!"
'"One's dumb, an' t'other's blind," she says. "But all the dearer me for that; and you'll lose them in the big sea." The voices justabout pierced through her; an' there was children's voices too. She stood out all she could, but she couldn't rightly stand against _that_. So she says: "If you can draw my sons for your job, I'll not hinder 'em. You can't ask no more of a Mother."