"His head is clear enow, I'll warrant, when he hears 'John Darby.'" "'Tis only on Sundays, when 'John' rings slow, 'tis misty," answered a sharp-voiced woman, with a laugh.

For half of Farlingford was already at the quay, and three or four boats were bumping and splashing against the steps.

The tide was racing out, and the wind, whizzing slantwise across it, pushed it against the wooden piles of the quay, making them throb and tremble.
"Not less'n four to the oars!" shouted a gruff voice, at the foot of the steps, where the salt water, splashing on the snow, had laid bare the green and slimy moss.

Two or three volunteers stumbled down the steps, and the first boat got away, swinging down-stream at once, only to be brought slowly back, head to wind.

She hung motionless a few yards from the quay, each dip of the oars stirring the water into a whirl of phosphorescence, and then forged slowly ahead.
Septimus Marvin was not alone, but was accompanied by a bulky man, not unknown in Farlingford--John Turner, of Ipswich, understood to live "foreign," but to return, after the manner of East Anglians, when occasion offered.