, 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'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 up: "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 ends 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' Goodwill they could not pass; for she was
the Mother. So she shook like a asp-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 justabout flowed past her--down the
beach to the boat, _I_ dunnamany of 'em--with their wives an' children an'
valooables, all escapin' out of cruel Old England. Silver you could hear
clinkin', an' liddle bundles hove down dunt on the bottom-boards, an'
passels o' liddle swords an' shield's raklin', an' liddle fingers an' toes
scratchin' on the boatside to bo