Again he looked at her with that uncomfortable air, though he took no notice of her bitter speech. He knew only too well that haunted corner of her mind. That sour, irreclaimable pasture had been trodden in every inch. "Ay, well, we’re through on t’far side on’t now," he said morosely. "Sandholes can grind the soul out o’ some other poor body for the next forty year! I never hear tell o’ such a spot!" he went on crossly, with that puzzled exasperation which he always showed when discussing the marsh-farm. "It’d be summat to laugh at if only it didn’t make you dancin’ mad! What, it’s like as if even slates had gitten a spite agen sticking to t’roof! We’ve had t’tide in t’house more nor once, and sure an’ certain it’d be when we’d summat new in the way o’ gear. We’d a fire an’ all, you’ll think on, and it took us a couple o’ year getting to rights agen. Burned out and drownded out,--why, it’s right silly, that’s what it is! As for t’land, what it fair swallers up lime an’ slag and any mak’ o’ manure, and does as lile or nowt as it can for it in return. Nigh every crop we’ve had yet was some sort of a let-down,--that’s if we’d happen luck to get it at all! Kitchen garden’s near as bad; lile or nowt’ll come up in’t, nobbut you set by it and hod its hand! Ay, and the stock, now,--if there was sickness about, sure an’ certain it’d fix on us. You’d nobbut just to hear o’ tell o’ foot and mouth, or anthrax, or summat o’ the sort, an’ it’d be showing at Sandholes inside a week! Same wi’ t’folk in t’house as wi’ folk in t’shuppon,--fever, fluenzy, diphthery,--the whole doctor’s bag o’ tricks. Nay, there’s summat queer about spot, and that’s Bible truth! We should ha’ made up our minds to get shot of it long since, and tried our luck somewheres else." "We’d likely just ha’ taken our luck along wi’ us," Sarah said, "and there was yon brass we’d sunk in the spot,--ay, and other folks’ brass an’ all." (Simon growled "Ay, ay," to this, but in a reproachful tone, as if he thought it might well have been left unsaid.) "We were set enough on Sandholes when we was wed, think on; and when Geordie was running about as a bit of a lad." "Ay, and Jim." "Nay, then, I want nowt about Jim!" "Ay, well, it’s a bit since now," Simon said hastily, thinking that it seemed as long ago as when there was firm land stretching from Ireland to the marsh. "Over forty year." "It’s a bit since," he said again, just as he said equally of the Creation of the world, or his own boyhood, or the last time he was at Witham Show. "Surely to goodness we were right enough then? We shouldn’t ha’ said thank you for any other spot. Nay, and we wouldn’t ha’ gone later on, neither, if we’d gitten chanst. It would never ha’ done for Geordie to come back and find the old folks quit." "Nay, nor for Jim----" he began again thoughtlessly, and bit it off. "Ay, well, I doubt he’ll never come back now!"