‘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 coming 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 afterwards; but when Frankie heard she had ’em, he was all for nothing 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."[6]
‘“And if I’m not?” he says.
‘“Why then,” she says, “Sim’s iron ships will be sailing on dry land. Now ha’ done with this foolishness. Where’s Sim’s shirt?”