rance, an' come back no more.

'"There's a boat on the Wall," she says, "but I can't push it down to
the sea, nor sail it when 'tis there."

'"Lend us your sons," says all the Pharisees. "Give 'em Leave an'
Good-will to sail it for us, Mother--O Mother!"

'"One's dumb, an' t'other's blind," she says. "But all the dearer me for
that; and you'll lose them in the big sea." The voices justabout
pierced through her; an' there was children's voices too. She stood out
all she could, but she couldn't rightly stand against _that_. So she
says: "If you can draw my sons for your job, I'll 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