"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."
Diccon, who had been kept at home by some temporary damage to his foot, and little Edward were devouring the sailor with their eyes; and Humfrey and Cis were equally delighted with the introduction, especially as Master Goatley was just returned from the Western Main, and from a curious grass-woven basket which he carried slung to his side, produced sundry curiosities in the way of beads, shell-work, feather-work, and a hatchet of stone, and even a curious armlet of soft, dull gold, with pearls set in it. This he had, with great difficulty, obtained on purpose for Mistress Talbot, who had once cured him of a bad festering hurt received on board ship.
The children clustered round in ecstasies of admiration and wonder as they heard of the dark brown atives, the curious expedients by which barter was carried on; also of cruel Spaniards, and of savage fishes, with all the marvels of flying-fish, corals, palm-trees, humming birds—all that is lesson work to our modern youth, but was the most brilliant of living fairy tales at this Elizabethan period. Humfrey and Diccon were ready to rush off to voyage that instant, and even little Ned cried imitatively in his imperfect language that he would be "a tailor."