ney-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?' [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 was the one chosen to see
farthest through millstones. Do you understand?'

'That was what I was gettin' at,' said Simon, 'but you're so desperate
quick. My Aunt she knew what was comin' to people. My Uncle being a
burgess of Rye, he counted all such things odious, and my Aunt she
couldn't be got to practise her gifts hardly at all, because it hurted
her head for a week after-wards; but when Frankie heard she had 'em,
he was all for nothin' till she foretold on him--till she looked in
his hand to tell his fortune, d'ye see? One time we was at Rye she come
aboard with my other shirt and some apples, and he fair beazled the life
out of her about it.

'"Oh, you'll be twice wed, and die childless," she says, and pushes his
hand away.

'"That's the woman's part," he says. "What'll come to me-to me?" an' he
thrusts it back under her nose.

'"Gold--gold, past belief or counting," she says. "Let go o' me, lad."

'"Sink the gold!" he says. "What'll I do, mother?" He coaxed her like no
woman could well withstand. I've seen him with 'em--even when they were
sea-sick.

'"If you will have it," she says at last, "you shall have it. You'll do a
many things, and eating and drinking with a dead man beyond the world's
end will be the least of them. For you'll open a road from the East
unto the West, and back again, and you'll bury your heart with your best
friend by that road-side, and the road you open none shall shut so long
as you're let lie quiet in your grave."