The wind was from the south-east, and spat cold rain in their faces. She passed her shawl round Winefred, regardless of herself. Presently up came the ferryman. 'Good e'en, Mistress Marley. Do you want to cross again?' 'Yes――when possible.' 'In ten minutes. Will you come under shelter into my cabin?' The woman shook her head impatiently. 'You will get wet.' 'I am wet already.' 'And cold.' 'We shall be colder presently.' 'Poor comfort I call that,' said the boatman. 'But you was always a headstrong, difficult woman, hard to please. Where be you going to, now?' 'Where I shall be better off than I am here.' Presently Jane raised her face, streaming with rain, and said, 'There are springs hereabouts that turn the moss into stone, and the blades of grass are hardened to needles. I reckon that the spray of these springs has watered the hearts of the people; they are all stone, and the stone is flint. I shall go elsewhere.' 'It is a long way to Lyme――if you be bound thither. And over the cliffs it is exposed as well, and not safe with the falling darkness. I do not say this on your account. You, Jane, are not one who cares for length of way and badness of weather. But I speak for pretty Winefred's sake.' 'I am her mother, and I am the person to consider her, not you, Olver Dench.' 'No offence meant. But my cat had kittens, and when all were drowned but one, she carried that remaining one about in her mouth everywhere, and never let it go till she had nipped the life out of the kitten; and, I swear, you remind me of that cat.' Then ensued a silence that lasted for some minutes. The ferryman reopened the conversation. 'I suppose you knew it was coming.' 'Knew what?' asked she. 'That the cottage would go to pieces.' 'Yes. I got it cheap because of the risk.' 'And now, I make bold to ask, what have you done with your furniture?' 'There is not much. What I have is there. I have no house into which to move it. In the parish I am refused――in Seaton they cast me back on the parish, and the parish casts me off altogether.' 'You do not belong to it by birth.' 'No. I belong nowhere. I have no home.' 'But are you not afraid your bits of furniture will be stolen?' 'What if they be? If there be no shelter for Winefred and me, what care I for housing a poor bedstead and a rotten chair? The great grey sea has torn away the rock on which I stood. The wall has fallen, and my house is thrown open to all. Whither shall I go? Where shall I shelter my child? We have no place.' The man shrugged his shoulders. He was a red-faced man with white hair; in the failing light of winter the red looked dull purple and the white a soiled grey. 'Come now!' said the woman, starting up, 'my affairs are none of yours. They touch you in no way. The tide flows.' She did not notice a peculiar expression that came up into his face and creamed it as she said the words, but Winefred, who was looking wistfully at him, was struck by it.