'There,' she said, 'there is Scripture for you. I cannot shake off the dust o' my feet as testimony against you, but I can the mud and the oozing of the water from the sodden leather. May that cling there till the Day of Judgment, and bring the blight to your wheat, the rot to your sheep, to your cattle, the worm and canker to your store, and fester into your blood. It is the curse of the widow and the fatherless that will lie on you.' The farmer slammed his door in her face, and retreated to the kitchen. He was a phlegmatic and amiable man, but the fury of the woman, and her denunciation of woes had shaken him; his ruddy face was mottled, and his hand shook as he let himself down into the settle. 'By my soul, she's a vixen!' he gasped. 'Moses,' said his wife, 'you've done right. If I hadn't been minding ironing of your shirt-front for Sunday, I'd have gone out and given that same vixen a bit of my mind.' 'I wish you had, Mary――I'm no match for the likes o' she.' 'If I had heard the smallest mite o' wavering in your voice, I would have done so for certain,' said Mrs. Nethersole; 'and so you call her "dear Jane," do you? Things come out unexpected at times, and "Mistress Marley" is she? You know as well as I do that she is no honest woman, howsomever she may brag of her honesty. She is just a wild lostrel as has got no belongings, save that girl as never ought to have come into this world of wickedness.' 'Mary, perhaps it's all along of it being a world of a wickedness that she did come. Jane Marley's case is a sad one. She has been driven from her cottage.' 'Turned out?' 'The cliff has given way. You know where it stood.' 'Not I――it is on the other side of the water.' 'It was on the edge of the cliff, and the rock has been breaking away for some time――that is how she had it cheap. Now it is part down, and they say there be a great crack right along the ground――and the whole cliff will go over, and be munched by the waves.' 'That's no concern of ours, Moses; she does not belong to the parish.' 'True, but she has worked for us when we were short and in difficulties.' 'And was paid for it――and we wiped our hands of her.' 'Mary, you are over hard.' 'And you like butter on dog-days. I know you men. Dear Jane, indeed!' Mrs. Marley, with labouring bosom, heaving after the storm, drew her daughter with her into the village street, to the village inn, the Red Lion, kept by Mrs. Warne. She walked in, with a manner almost defiant, and encountered the landlady issuing from the cosy parlour behind the bar, in which a good fire burnt, and where sat a couple of commercial travellers. 'I have come,' said Jane Marley, 'and have brought my Winefred. Our house is going to pieces under our feet, over our heads, and we are homeless. I desire that you take my child and me. I do not ask it as a favour. Look at my arms. I can work, and will be an ostler for you, and she shall serve in the inn.'