‘Same as bees,’ said the Bee Boy.  ’Bees won’t stay by a house where there’s hating.’

‘True,’ said Tom.  ’This Reformatories tarrified the Pharisees same as the reaper goin’ round a last stand o’ wheat tarrifies rabbits.  They packed into the Marsh from all parts, and they says, “Fair or foul, we must flit out o’ this, for Merry England’s done with, an’ we’re reckoned among the Images."’

‘Did they all see it that way?’ said Hobden.

’All but one that was called Robin—­if you’ve heard of him.  What are you laughin’ at?’ Tom turned to Dan.  ’The Pharisees’s trouble didn’t tech Robin, because he’d cleaved middlin’ close to people, like.  No more he never meant to go out of Old England—­not he; so he was sent messagin’ for help among Flesh an’ Blood.  But Flesh an’ Blood must always think of their own concerns, an’ Robin couldn’t get through at ’em, ye see.  They thought it was tide-echoes off the Marsh.’

‘What did you—­what did the fai—­Pharisees want?’ Una asked.

’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