Fantasy fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Fiction; Space and time -- Fiction
'A boat, to be sure. Their liddle wings could no more cross Channel
than so many tired butterflies. A boat an' a crew they desired to sail
'em over to France, where yet awhile folks hadn't tore down the Images.
They couldn't abide cruel Canterbury Bells ringin' to Bulverhithe for
more pore men an' women to be burnded, nor the King's proud messenger
ridin' through the land givin' orders to tear down the Images. They
couldn't abide it no shape. Nor yet they couldn't get their boat an'
crew to flit by without Leave an' Good-will from Flesh an' Blood; an'
Flesh an' Blood came an' went about its own business the while the
Marsh was swarvin' up, an' swarvin' up with Pharisees from all England
over, strivin' all means to get through at Flesh an' Blood to tell 'em
their sore need... I don't know as you've ever heard say Pharisees are
like chickens?'
'My woman used to say that too,'said Hobden, folding his brown arms.
'They be. You run too many chickens together, an' the ground sickens,
like, an' you get a squat, an' your chickens die. Same way, you crowd
Pharisees all in one place--they don't die, but Flesh an' Blood walkin'
among 'em is apt to sick up an' pine off. They don't mean it, an'
Flesh an' Blood don't know it, but that's the truth--as I've heard.
The Pharisees through bein' all stenched up an' frighted, an' trying'
to come through with their supplications, they nature-ally changed the
thin airs an' humours in Flesh an' Blood. It lay on the Marsh like
thunder. Men saw their churches ablaze with the wildfire in the
windows after dark; they saw their cattle scatterin' an' no man
scarin'; their sheep flockin' an' no man drivin'; their horses
latherin' an' no man leadin'; they saw the liddle low green lights more
than ever in the dik-sides; they heard the liddle feet patterin' more
than ever round the houses; an' night an' day, day an' night, 'twas all
as though they were bein' creeped up on, an' hinted at by Some One or
other that couldn't rightly shape their trouble. Oh, I lay they
sweated! Man an' maid, woman an' child, their nature done 'em no
service all the weeks while the Marsh was swarvin' up with Pharisees.
But they was Flesh an' Blood, an' Marsh men before all. They reckoned
the signs sinnified trouble for the Marsh. Or that the sea 'ud rear up
against Dymchurch Wall an' they'd be drownded like Old Winchelsea; or
that the Plague was comin'. So they looked for the meanin' in the sea
or in the clouds--far an' high up. They never thought to look near an'
knee-high, where they could see naught.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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