“Nay, Humfrey, ’tis no matter of liking,” said his father, not wishing to prolong his wife’s suspense.  “Look you here, boy, my Lord Earl is captain of all of his name by right of birth, and so long as he needs my services, I have no right to take them from him.  Dost see, my boy?”

Humfrey reluctantly did see.  It was a great favour to be thus argued with, and admitted of no reply.

Mrs. Talbot’s heart rejoiced, but she was not sorry that it was time for her to carry off Diccon and Ned to their beds, away from the fascinating narrative, and she would give no respite, though Diccon pleaded hard.  In fact, the danger might be the greatest to him, since Humfrey, though born within the smell of the sea, might be retained by the call of duty like his father.  To Cis, at least, she thought the sailor’s conversation could do no harm, little foreboding the words that presently ensued.  “And, sir, what befell the babe we found in our last voyage off the Spurn?  It would methinks be about the age of this pretty mistress.”

Richard Talbot endeavoured to telegraph a look both of assent and warning, but though Master Goatley would have been sharp to detect the least token of a Spanish galleon on the most distant horizon, the signal fell utterly short.  “Ay, sir.  What, is it so?  Bless me!  The very maiden!  And you have bred her up for your own.”

“Sir!  Father!” cried Cis, looking from one to the other, with eyes and mouth wide open.

“Soh!” cried the sailor, “what have I done?  I beg your pardon, sir, if I have overhauled what should have been let alone.  But,” continued the honest, but tactless man, “who could have thought of the like of that, and that the pretty maid never knew it?  Ay, ay, dear heart.  Never fear but that the captain will be good father to you all the same.”

For Richard Talbot had held out his arm, and, as Cis ran up to him, he had seated her on his knee, and held her close to him.  Humfrey likewise started up with an impulse to contradict, which was suddenly cut short by a strange flash of memory, so all he did was to come up to his father, and grasp one of the girl’s hands as fast as he could.  She trembled and shivered, but there was something in the presence of this strange man which choked back all inquiry, and the silence, the vehement grasp, and the shuddering, alarmed the captain, lest she might suddenly go off into a fit upon his hands.

“This is gear for mother,” said he, and taking her up like a baby, carried her off, followed closely by Humfrey.  He met Susan coming down, asking anxiously, “Is she sick?”

“I hope not, mother,” he said, “but honest Goatley, thinking no harm, hath blurted out that which we had never meant her to know, at least not yet awhile, and it hath wrought strangely with her.”

“Then it is true, father?” said Humfrey, in rather an awe-stricken voice, while Cis still buried her face on the captain’s breast.