g 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.

"None at all. The vessel I knew of old as the brig Bride of Dunbar,
one of the craft that ply between Dunbar and the French ports."

"And how think you? Were none like to be saved?"

"I mean to ride along the coast to-morrow, to see whether aught can be
heard of them, but even if their boats could live in such a sea, they
would have evil hap among the wreckers if they came ashore. I would
not desire to be a shipwrecked man in these parts, and if I had a
Scottish or a French tongue in my head so much the worse for me."

"Ah, Master Heatherthwayte," said Susan, "should not a man give up the
sea when he is a husband and father?"

"Tush, dame! With God's blessing the good ship Mastiff will ride out
many another such gale. Tell thy mother, little Numpy, that an English
sailor is worth a dozen French or Scottish lubbers."

"Sir," said Master Heatherthwayte, "the pious trust of the former part
of your discourse is contradicted by the boast of the latter end."

"Nay, Sir Minister, what doth a sailor put his trust in but his God
foremost, and then his good ship and his brave men?"

It should be observed that all the three men wore their hats, and each
made a reverent gesture of touching them. The clergyman seemed
satisfied by the answer, and presently added that it would be well, if
Master and Mistress Talbot meant to adopt the child, that she should be
baptized.

"How now?" said Richard, "we are not so near any coast of Turks or
Infidels that we should deem her sprung of heathen folk."

"Assuredly not," said Cuthbert Langston, whose quick, light-coloured
eyes had spied the reliquary in Mistress Susan's work-basket, "if this
belongs to her. By your leave, kinswoman," and he lifted it in his
hand with evident veneration, and began examining it.

"It is Babylonish gold, an accursed thing!" exclaimed Master
Heatherthwayte. "Beware, Master Talbot, and cast it from thee."

"Nay," said Richard, "that shall I not do. It may lead to the
discovery of the child's kindred. Why, my master, what harm think you
it will do to us in my dame's casket? Or what right have we to make
away with the little one's property?"

His common sense was equally far removed from the horror of the one
visitor as from the reverence of the other, and so it pleased neither.