llus told my
woman so!'Hobden cried.

'No. She loaned her sons for a pure love-loan, bein' as she sensed the
Trouble on the Marshes, an' was simple good-willin' to ease it.' Tom
laughed softly. 'She done that. Yes, she done that! From Hithe to
Bulverhithe, fretty man an' maid, ailin' woman an' wailin' child, they
took the advantage of the change in the thin airs just about as soon as
the Pharisees flitted. Folks come out fresh an' shinin' all over the
Marsh like snails after wet. An' that while the Widow Whitgift sat
grievin' on the Wall. She might have belieft us--she might have
trusted her sons would be sent back! She fussed, no bounds, when their
boat come in after three days.'

'And, of course, the sons were both quite cured?' said Una.

'No-o. That would have been out o' nature. She got 'em back as she
sent 'em. The blind man he hadn't seen naught of anythin', an' the
dumb man nature-ally he couldn't say aught of what he'd seen. I reckon
that was why the Pharisees pitched on 'em for the ferryin' job.' 'But
what did you--what did Robin promise the Widow?' said Dan.

'What did he promise, now?' Tom pretended to think. 'Wasn't your woman
a Whitgift, Ralph? Didn't she ever say?'

'She told me a passel o' no-sense stuff when he was born.' Hobden
pointed at his son. 'There was always to be one of 'em that could see
further into a millstone than most.'

'Me! That's me!'said the Bee Boy so suddenly that they all laughed.

'I've got it now!' cried Tom, slapping his knee. 'So long as Whitgift
blood lasted, Robin promised there would allers be one o' her stock
that--that no Trouble 'ud lie on, no Maid 'ud sigh on, no Night could
frighten, no Fright could harm, no Harm could make sin, an' no Woman
could make a fool of.'

'Well, ain't that just me?' said the Bee Boy, where he sat in the
silver square of the great September moon that was staring into the
oast-house door.

'They was the exact words she told me when we first found he wasn't
like others. But it beats me how you known 'em,' said Hobden.

'Aha! There's more under my hat besides hair?' Tom laughed and
stretched himself. 'When I've seen these two young folk home, we'll
make a night of old days, Ralph, with passin' old tales--eh? An' where
might you live?' he said, gravely, to Dan. 'An' do you think your Pa
'ud give me a drink for takin' you there, Missy?'

They giggled so at this that they had to run out. Tom picked them both
up,