"ye might as well keep a civil
tongue i' your 'ead. I don't want none o' your cockles, as it jest
falls out--my 'usband's gone to get me some."

"Your 'usband," repeated the girl, clapping her hands together in what
Jinny thought a very odd and uncalled-for way. "Your 'usband!"

Jinny felt very uncomfortable; the girl's demeanour was so strange
that she began to think she had been drinking. Hastily collecting
John's socks and boots she scrambled to her feet.

"He's gone cocklin', has he?" inquired Sally, fixing those queer blue
eyes of hers on the wife's face with an extraordinary expression; "an'
you're takkin' care o's shoon till he cooms back? Ha! ha!--happen
he'll ne'er coom back."

Jinny turned very red and walked indignantly away; most certainly the
girl was either mad or drunk. "Happen he'll ne'er coom back," indeed!
Such impudence! Jinny did not quite like being left alone with her in
that solitary place, and partly on this account, partly to disprove
her ridiculous assertion, bent her steps towards the shore, calling
loudly to her husband to return.

But a fresh breeze was blowing, and the waves were leaping shoreward
with unusual haste and energy; her voice did not reach him, and he
wandered still further away from her, stooping ever and anon to
examine the sand. He had crossed the river some time before, and was
now pacing the opposite shore. The muddy waters of this little tidal
river had been shallow enough for him to wade through not half-an-hour
previously, but were now rising rapidly. He would find his return
difficult if not dangerous, and the difficulty and danger were
increasing every moment. When Jinny realised this, which she did
suddenly, she forgot all about her silk dress and her new boots, and
ran frantically towards the water's edge, screaming with all her
might; and at last John heard, and began to walk placidly towards the
spot where he had originally crossed. The mud banks were out of sight
now, and a broad belt of water was spreading rapidly on the other
side. It was advancing rapidly also at his rear; soon the stretch of
shore, half sand, half mud, on which he stood, would be entirely
submerged.

"John! John! coom ower at once!" screamed Jinny, as he paused, looking
about him.

"I'm in a fix," he called out. The breeze, which had baffled her
endeavours to make herself heard, bore, nevertheless, his words to
her. She beckoned and gesticulated, continuing her useless entreaties
the