“So I should guess.  My lady would fill her head with such thoughts, and of this poor youth being next of kin to the young Scottish king, and to our own Queen.”

“He is not next heir to Scotland even, barring a little one we wot of, Dame Sue.  The Hamiltons stand between, being descended from a daughter of King James I.”

“So methought I had heard.  Are they not Papists?”

“Yea!  Ah ha, sweetheart, there is another of the house of Hardwicke as fain to dreams of greatness for her child as ever was the Countess, though she may be more discreet in the telling of them.”

“Ah me, dear sir, I dreamt not of greatness for splendour’s sake—­ ’twere scarce for the dear child’s happiness.  I only thought of what you once said, that she may be the instrument of preserving the true religion.”

“And if so, it can only be at a mighty cost!” said her husband.

“Verily,” said Susan, “glad am I that you sent our Humfrey from her.  Would that nought had ever passed between the children!”

“They were but children,” said Richard; “and there was no contract between them.”

“I fear me there was what Humfrey will hold to, or know good reason why,” said his mother.

“And were the young King of Scots married and father to a goodly heir, there is no reason he should not hold to it,” rejoined Richard.

However Richard was still anxious to keep his son engaged at a distance from Sheffield.  There was great rejoicing and thankfulness when one of the many messengers constantly passing between London and Sheffield brought a packet from Humfrey, whose ship had put into the Thames instead of the Humber.

The packet contained one of the black stones which the science of the time expected to transmute into gold, also some Esquimaux trinkets made of bone, and a few shells.  These were for the mother and Cis, and there were also the tusks of a sea-elephant which Humfrey would lay up at my Lord’s London lodgings till his father sent tidings what should be done with them, and whether he should come home at once by sea to Hull, or if, as he much desired to do, he might join an expedition which was fitting out for the Spanish Main, where he was assured that much more both of gold and honour was to be acquired than in the cold northern seas, where nothing was to be seen for the fog at most times, and when it cleared only pigmies, with their dogs, white bears, and seals, also mountains of ice bigger than any church, blue as my lady’s best sapphires, green as her emeralds, sparkling as her diamonds, but ready to be the destruction of the ships.

“One there was,” wrote Humfrey, “that I could have thought was no other than the City that the blessed St. John saw descending from Heaven, so fair was it to look on, but they cried out that it was rather a City of Destruction, and when we had got out of the current where it was bearing down on us, our noble captain piped all hands up to prayers, and gave thanks for our happy deliverance therefrom.”