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Page 74
'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 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."
'She saw them liddle green lights dance an' cross till she was dizzy;
she heard them liddle feet patterin' by the thousand; she heard cruel
Canterbury Bells ringing to Bulverhithe, an' she heard the great
Tide-wave ranging along the Wall. That was while the Pharisees was
workin' a Dream to wake her two sons asleep: an' while she bit on her
fingers she saw them two she'd bore come out an' pass her with never a
word. She followed 'em, cryin' pitiful, to the old boat on the Wall, an'
that they took an' runned down to the sea.
'When they'd stepped mast an' sail the blind son speaks: "Mother, we're
waitin' your Leave an' Good-will to take Them over."'
Tom Shoesmith threw back his head and half shut his eyes.
'Eh, me!' he said. 'She was a fine, valiant woman, the Widow Whitgift.
She stood twistin' the eends of her long hair over her fingers, an' she
shook like a poplar, makin' up her mind. The Pharisees all about they
hushed their children from cryin' an' they waited dumb-still. She was
all their dependence. 'Thout her Leave an' Good-will they could not
pass; for she was the Mother. So she shook like a aps-tree makin' up her
mind. 'Last she drives the word past her teeth, an' "Go!" she says. "Go
with my Leave an' Goodwill."
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