and at that moment
Susan entered, followed by the man and maid, each bearing a portion of
the meal, which was consumed by the captain and the clergyman as
thoroughly hungry men eat; and there was silence till the capon's bones
were bare and two large tankards had been filled with Xeres sack,
captured in a Spanish ship, "the only good thing that ever came from
Spain," quoth the sailor.

Then he began to tell how he had weathered the storm on the
Berwickshire coast; but he was interrupted by another knock, followed
by the entrance of a small, pale, spare man, with the lightest possible
hair, very short, and almost invisible eyebrows; he had a round ruff
round his neck, and a black, scholarly gown, belted round his waist
with a girdle, in which he carried writing tools.

"Ha, Cuthbert Langston, art thou there?" said the captain, rising.
"Thou art kindly welcome. Sit down and crush a cup of sack with Master
Heatherthwayte and me."

"Thanks, cousin," returned the visitor, "I heard that the Mastiff was
come in, and I came to see whether all was well."

"It was kindly done, lad," said Richard, while the others did their
part of the welcome, though scarcely so willingly. Cuthbert Langston
was a distant relation on the mother's side of Richard, a young
scholar, who, after his education at Oxford, had gone abroad with a
nobleman's son as his pupil, and on his return, instead of taking Holy
Orders, as was expected, had obtained employment in a merchant's
counting-house at Hull, for which his knowledge of languages eminently
fitted him. Though he possessed none of the noble blood of the
Talbots, the employment was thought by Mistress Susan somewhat
derogatory to the family dignity, and there was a strong suspicion both
in her mind and that of Master Heatherthwayte that his change of
purpose was due to the change of religion in England, although he was a
perfectly regular church-goer. Captain Talbot, however, laughed at all
this, and, though he had not much in common with his kinsman, always
treated him in a cousinly fashion. He too had heard a rumour of the
foundling, and made inquiry for it, upon which Richard told his story
in greater detail, and his wife asked what the poor mother was like.

"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, liftin