the pudden at me
on the bowsprit gub by gub, something cruel hard!' Simon rubbed his
hairy cheek.

'"Nex' time you bring me anything," says Frankie, "you bring me
cannon-shot an' I'll know what I'm getting." But as for poisoning----' He
stopped, the children laughed so.

'Of course you didn't,' said Una. 'Oh, Simon, we _do_ like you!'

'I was always likeable with children.' His smile crinkled up through the
hair round his eyes. 'Simple Simon they used to call me through our
yard gates.'

'Did Sir Francis mock you?' Dan asked.

'Ah, no. He was gentle-born. Laugh he did--he was always laughing--but
not so as to hurt a feather. An' I loved 'en. I loved 'en before England
knew 'en, or Queen Bess she broke his heart.'

'But he hadn't really done anything when you knew him, had he?' Una
insisted. 'Armadas and those things, I mean.'

Simon pointed to the scars and scrapes left by Cattiwow's great log.
'You tell me that that good ship's timber never done nothing against
winds and weathers since her upspringing, and I'll confess ye that young
Frankie never done nothing neither. Nothing? He adventured and suffered
and made shift on they Dutch sands _as_ much in any one month as ever he
had occasion for to do in a half-year on the high seas afterwards. An'
what was his tools? A coaster boat--a liddle box o' walty plankin' an'
some few fathom feeble rope held together an' made able by _him_ sole.
He drawed our spirits up in our bodies same as a chimney-towel draws a
fire. 'Twas in him, and it comed out all times and shapes.'

'I wonder did he ever 'magine what he was going to be? Tell himself
stories about it?' said Dan with a flush.

'I expect so. We mostly do--even when we're grown. But bein' Frankie, he
took good care to find out beforehand what his fortune might be. Had I
rightly ought to tell 'em this piece?' Simon turned to Puck, who
nodded.

'My mother, she was just a fair woman, but my Aunt, her sister, she had
gifts by inheritance laid up in her,' Simon began.

'Oh, that'll never do,' cried Puck, for the children stared blankly. 'Do
you remember what Robin promised to the Widow Whitgift so long as her
blood and get lasted?'[5]

[5] See 'Dymchurch Flit' in _Puck of Pook's Hill_.

'Yes. There was always to be one of them that could see farther through
a millstone than most,' Dan answered promptly.

'Well, Simon's Aunt's mother,' said Puck slowly, 'married the Widow's
blind son on the Marsh, and Simon's Aunt