The man turned away his eyes from her miserable, eager face and looked at his comrade.
“Oh, don’t ye worrit, Mrs. Wood,” said the latter after a minute, during which the two looked blankly at one another. “Jerry be all right. We did see ’im down yonder, but ’e be wi’ a lot of ’em, and they’ll bring ’im ’ome, you can make sure.”
Bring him home! The words had an ominous sound, and she did not dare ask more.
She looked wistfully down the hill—or down as much of it as one could see in the damp, creeping atmosphere; the long, weary road across the lonely plain, with the sad swish of the waves coming nearer the further one went, till one reached the place where only white stones by the dyke’s side marked the way across the marsh to the harbour—it was all vividly present to her mind’s eye, and she knew it was no safe spot for a drunken man to cross in a thick fog.
“’E might want to leave and come ’ome afore the others was ready,” she said in the same thin, high voice. “I’ve ’alf a mind to go ’long the road to meet ’im.”
“Lord love ye, Mrs. Wood, ye mustn’t do no such thing,” said the man whom she had called Wilson, authoritatively. “The mist be as thick as mush on the marsh, and it wouldn’t be safe. Your man be all right. The boys wouldn’t never leave ’im—I know.”
She sighed; the assertion made it plainer than ever to her in what condition they had last seen him. She drew the old shawl that she had caught up in her haste tightly round her elbows and shivered.
“You go ’ome to the childer,” said the man kindly. “They be little uns; they needs ye most, ye know.”
“Thank ye,” retorted she sharply, “I knows best for myself where’s I be most needed. The childer’s in bed and asleep these hours gone.”
And she turned back to her old place by the wall, leaning on it and gazing down into the marsh.