"
"'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.
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