The plain narrative just quoted has been embroidered by many long-subsequent writers in the interests of those who love presentiments and ghostly intimations of impending events, and in one of these versions it is recorded, that though the morning was clear, the breeze fair, and the company gay, yet when stepping into the boat "the reverend man exclaimed, 'Ho for Heaven,' and threw his staff ashore and left it to Providence to fulfil its awful warning." So melancholy an occurrence naturally excited great attention, and long lingered in local memories.

Everybody in Hull knew who was their member's father.
There is an obstinate tradition quite unverifiable that Mrs.Skinner, the mother of the beautiful young lady who was drowned with the elder Marvell, adopted the young Marvell as a son, sending to Cambridge for him after his father's death, and providing him with the means of travel, and that afterwards she bequeathed him her estate.

Whether there is any truth in this story cannot now be ascertained.

The Skinners were a well-known Hull family, one of them, a brother of that Cyriac Skinner who was urged by Milton in immortal verse to enjoy himself whilst the mood was on him, having been Mayor of Hull.

The lady, doubtless, had money, and Andrew Marvell was in need of money, and appears to have been supplied with it.