The Wrath of the Zuyder Zee by Thomas A. Janvier

Within a week the story of what had happened between them was all over Marken. Geert Thysen herself must have told what she had done. Certainly Krelis did not tell; and Marretje, having no one else to turn to, told only her grandfather. But various versions of the story went about the island, and the comment upon all of them by the Marken folk was the same: that Krelis had played the part of a coward in suffering such words to be spoken to his wife with never a word on his side of reply. Old Jaap, they say, blazed out into one of his mad rages against his son-in-law. Some say that he then laid the curse upon him -- but that never will be known certainly, for the bout between the two men took place when they were alone.

What is known to be true is that Krelis for a while was as a man stunned; and that when he came to himself again -- this was after the little Krelis was laid away in the graveyard -- what love he had for Marretje was turned to an angry hatred because she had let his boy die. He said this not only to his neighbours but to Marretje herself -- telling her that their child had died because she had borne it weakly into the world and had given it no strength with which to live.