“I remember, my good housewife.  Thou needst not fear for me.  But there is little time to spare.  If I am to see mine old friend, I must get speech of my Lord to-night, so as to be on horseback to-morrow.  Saddle me Brown Dumpling, boys.”

And as the boys went off, persuading Cis, who went coyly protesting that the paddock was damp, yet still following after them, he added, “Yea, Sue, considering all, it is better those two were apart for a year or so, till we see better what is this strange nestling that we have reared.  Ay, thou art like the mother sparrow that hath bred up a cuckoo and doteth on it, yet it mateth not with her brood.”

“It casteth them out,” said Susan, “as thou art doing now, by your leave, husband.”

“Only for a flight, gentle mother,” he answered, “only for a flight, to prove meanwhile whether there be the making of a simple household bird, or of a hawk that might tear her mate to pieces, in yonder nestling.”

Susan was too dutiful a wife to say more, though her motherly heart was wrung almost as much at the implied distrust of her adopted daughter as by the sudden parting with her first-born to the dangers of the northern seas.  She could better enter into her husband’s fears of the temptations of page life at Sheffield, and being altogether a wife, “bonner and boughsome,” as her marriage vow held it, she applied herself and Cis to the choosing of the shirts and the crimping of the ruffs that were to appear in Hull, if, for there was this hope at the bottom of her heart, my Lord might refuse leave of absence to his “gentleman porter.”

The hope was fallacious; Richard reported that my Lord was so much relieved to find that he had detected no fresh conspiracy, as to be willing to grant him a fortnight’s leave, and even had said with a sigh that he was in the right on’t about his son, for Sheffield was more of a school for plotting than for chivalry.

It was a point of honour with every good housewife to have a store of linen equal to any emergency, and, indeed, as there were no washing days in the winter, the stock of personal body-linen was at all times nearly a sufficient outfit; so the main of Humfrey’s shirts were to be despatched by a carrier, in the trust that they would reach him before the expedition should sail.

There was then little to delay the father and son, after the mother, with fast-gathering tears resolutely forced back, had packed and strapped their mails, with Cis’s help, Humfrey standing by, booted and spurred, and talking fast of the wonders he should see, and the gold and ivory he should bring home, to hide the qualms of home-sickness, and mother-sickness, he was already beginning to feel; and maybe to get Cis to pronounce that then she should think more of him than of Antony Babington with his airs and graces.  Wistfully did the lad watch for some such tender assurance, but Cis seemed all provoking brilliancy and teasing.  “She knew he would be back over soon.  Oh no, he would never go to sea!  She feared not.  Mr. Frobisher would have none of such awkward lubbers.  More’s the pity.  There would be some peace to get to do her broidery, and leave to play on the virginals when he was gone.”