“For a good cause, ay,” said Humfrey in his stolid way.

“And what can be a better cause than that of the fairest of captive queens?” exclaimed Antony, hotly.

“I would not be a traitor,” returned Humfrey, as he lay on his back, looking up through the chequerwork of the branches of the trees towards the sky.

“Who dares link the word traitor with my name?” said Babington, feeling for the imaginary handle of a sword.

“Not I; but you’ll get it linked if you go on in this sort.”

“For shame, Humfrey,” again cried Cis, passionately.  “Why, delivering imprisoned princesses always was the work of a true knight.”

“Yea; but they first defied the giant openly,” said Humfrey.

“What of that?” said Antony.

“They did not do it under trust,” said Humfrey.

“I am not under trust,” said Antony.  “Your father may be a sworn servant of the Earl and, the Queen—­Queen Elizabeth, I mean; but I have taken no oaths—­nobody asked me if I would come here.”

“No,” said Humfrey, knitting his brows, “but you see we are all trusted to go in and out as we please, on the understanding that we do nought that can be unfaithful to the Earl; and I suppose it was thus with this same Willie Douglas.”

“She was his own true and lawful Queen,” cried Cis.  “His first duty was to her.”

Humfrey sat up and looked perplexed, but with a sudden thought exclaimed, “No Scots are we, thanks be to Heaven! and what might be loyalty in him would be rank treason in us.”

“How know you that?” said Antony.  “I have heard those who say that our lawful Queen is there,” and he pointed towards the walls that rose in the distance above the woods.

Humfrey rose wrathful.  “Then truly you are no better than a traitor, and a Spaniard, and a Papist,” and fists were clenched on both aides, while Cis flew between, pulling down Humfrey’s uplifted hand, and crying, “No, no; he did not say he thought so, only he had heard it.”

“Let him say it again!” growled Antony, his arm bared.

“No, don’t, Humfrey!” as if she saw it between his clenched teeth.  “You know you only meant if Tony thought so, and he didn’t.  Now how can you two be so foolish and unkind to me, to bring me out for a holiday to eat blackberries and make heather crowns, and then go and spoil it all with folly about Papists, and Spaniards, and grown-up people’s nonsense that nobody cares about!”

Cis had a rare power over both her comrades, and her piteous appeal actually disarmed them, since there was no one present to make them ashamed of their own placability.  Grown-up people’s follies were avoided by mutual consent through the rest of the walk, and the three children parted amicably when Antony had to return to fulfil his page’s duties at my lord’s supper, and Humfrey and Cis carried home their big basket of blackberries.

When they entered their own hall they found their mother engaged in conversation with a tall, stout, and weather-beaten man, whom she announced—­“See here, my children, here is a good friend of your father’s, Master Goatley, who was his chief mate in all his voyages, and hath now come over all the way from Hull to see him!  He will be here anon, sir, so soon as the guard is changed at the Queen’s lodge.  Meantime, here are the elder children.”