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 grievious to listen to his promises.'

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