第58章

"'No," says the liddle voice. "Sleep sound for all o' that."

"'Is the Plague comin' to the Marsh?" she says. Them was all the ills she knowed.

"'No. Sleep sound for all o' that," says Robin.

'She turned about, half mindful to go in, but the liddle voices grieved that shrill an' sorrowful she turns back, an' she cries: "If it is not a Trouble of Flesh an' Blood, what can I do?"

'The Pharisees cried out upon her from all round to fetch them a boat to sail to France, 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'D 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 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 grieevious to listen to his promises.'