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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!
He saw nothing he liked, and determined on consulting his old mate, Goatley, who generally acted as skipper, but he had first to return so as not to delay the morning meal. He found, on coming in, Cicely helping Oil-of-Gladness in making griddle cakes, and buttering them, so as to make Mr. Heatherthwayte declare that he had not tasted the like since Mistress Susan quitted Hull.
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.
The rest of the mails could be fetched by the Mastiff's crew, and brought to Hull under charge of Goatley.
"It may be that I should have taken more heed to their babble at first; but I have questioned Cis while you were at the lodge, and I find that even before Mate Goatley spake here, this Tibbott had told the child of her being of lofty race in the north, alien to the Talbots' kennel, holding out to her presages of some princely destiny." "That bodeth ill!" said Richard, thoughtfully.
"When the sailor Goatley disclosed that I was no child of my father's, of Master Richard I mean, and was a nameless creature belonging to no one, Humfrey Talbot stood forth and pledged himself to wed me so soon as we were old enough." "And what said the squire and dame?" "That I should then be indeed their daughter." "And hath the contract gone no farther?" "No, madam.
I trust they met their deserts and were swamped. We saw the fluttering of her coats as we made for the Humber, and I sent Goatley and Jaques in the boat to see if anything lived. The poor wench was gone before they could lift her up, but the little one cried lustily, though it has waxen weaker since.
"I saw her not," he answered, "but Goatley thought the poor woman to whom she was bound more like to be nurse than mother, judging by her years and her garments." "The mother may have been washed off before," said Susan, lifting the little one from the cradle, and hushing it. "Weep not, poor babe, thou hast found a mother here." "Saw you no sign of the crew?" asked Master Heatherthwayte.
She could hear his longing in the very sound of the "Ays?" and brief inquiries by which he encouraged Goatley to proceed in the story of voyages and adventures, and she could not wonder when Goatley said, "Your heart is in it still, sir. Not one of us all but says it is a pity such a noble captain should be lost as a landsman, with nothing to do but to lock the door on a lady."
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.
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