could, but she couldn't rightly stand against that. So she
says: "If you can draw my sons for your job, I'D not hinder 'em. You
can't ask no more of a Mother."

'She saw them liddle green lights dance an' cross till she was dizzy;
she heard them liddle feet patterin' by the thousand; she heard cruel
Canterbury Bells ringing to Bulverhithe, an' she heard the great
Tide-wave ranging along the Wall. That was while the Pharisees was
workin' a Dream to wake her two sons asleep: an' while she bit on her
fingers she saw them two she'd bore come out an' pass her with never a
word. She followed 'em, cryin' pitiful, to the old boat on the Wall,
an' that they took an' runned down to the sea.

'When they'd stepped mast an' sail the blind son speaks: "Mother,
we're waitin' your Leave an' Good-will to take Them over."'

Tom Shoesmith threw back his head and half shut his eyes.

'Eh, me!' he said. 'She was a fine, valiant woman, the Widow Whitgift.
She stood twistin' the eends of her long hair over her fingers, an' she
shook like a poplar, makin' up her mind. The Pharisees all about they
hushed their children from cryin' an' they waited dumb-still. She was
all their dependence. 'Thout her Leave an' Good-will they could not
pass; for she was the Mother. So she shook like a aps-tree makin' up
her mind. 'Last she drives the word past her teeth, an' "Go!" she
says. "Go with my Leave an' Goodwill."

'Then I saw--then, they say, she had to brace back same as if she was
wadin' in tide-water; for the Pharisees just about flowed past
her--down the beach to the boat, I dunnamany of 'em--with their wives
an' childern an' valooables, all escapin' out of cruel Old England.
Silver you could hear chinkin', an' liddle bundles hove down dunt on
the bottom-boards, an' passels o' liddle swords an' shields raklin',
an' liddle fingers an' toes scratchin' on the boatside to board her
when the two sons pushed her off. That boat she sunk lower an' lower,
but all the Widow could see in it was her boys movin' hampered-like to
get at the tackle. Up sail they did, an' away they went, deep as a Rye
barge, away into the off-shore mists, an' the Widow Whitgift she sat
down an' eased her grief till mornin' light.'

'I never heard she was all alone,' said Hobden.

'I remember now. The one called Robin, he stayed with her, they tell.
She was all too grieevious to listen to his promises.'

'Ah! She should ha' made her bargain beforehand. I a