The token was a small gold cross, of peculiar workmanship, with a crystal in the middle, through which might be seen some mysterious object neither husband nor wife could make out, but which they agreed must be carefully preserved for the identification of their little waif.  Mrs. Talbot also produced a strip of writing which she had found sewn to the inmost band wrapped round the little body, but it had no superscription, and she believed it to be either French, Latin, or High Dutch, for she could make nothing of it.  Indeed, the good lady’s education had only included reading, writing, needlework and cookery, and she knew no language but her own.  Her husband had been taught Latin, but his acquaintance with modern tongues was of the nautical order, and entirely oral and vernacular.  However, it enabled him to aver that the letter—­if such it were—­was neither Scottish, French, Spanish, nor High or Low Dutch.  He looked at it in all directions, and shook his head over it.

“Who can read it, for us?” asked Mrs. Talbot.  “Shall we ask Master Heatherthwayte? he is a scholar, and he said he would look in to see how you fared.”

“At supper-time, I trow,” said Richard, rather grimly, “the smell of thy stew will bring him down in good time.”

“Nay, dear sir, I thought you would be fain to see the good man, and he lives but poorly in his garret.”

“Scarce while he hath good wives like thee to boil his pot for him,” said Richard, smiling.  “Tell me, hath he heard aught of this gear? thou hast not laid this scroll before him?”

“No, Colet brought it to me only now, having found it when washing the swaddling-bands, stitched into one of them.”

“Then hark thee, good wife, not one word to him of the writing.”

“Might he not interpret it?”

“Not he!  I must know more about it ere I let it pass forth from mine hands, or any strange eye fall upon it—­ Ha, in good time!  I hear his step on the stair.”

The captain hastily rolled up the scroll and put it into his pouch, while Mistress Susan felt as if she had made a mistake in her hospitality, yet almost as if her husband were unjust towards the good man who had been such a comfort to her in her sorrow; but there was no lack of cordiality or courtesy in Richard’s manner when, after a short, quick knock, there entered a figure in hat, cassock, gown, and bands, with a pleasant, though grave countenance, the complexion showing that it had been tanned and sunburnt in early youth, although it wore later traces of a sedentary student life, and, it might be, of less genial living than had nourished the up-growth of that sturdily-built frame.

Master Joseph Heatherthwayte was the greatly underpaid curate of a small parish on the outskirts of Hull.  He contrived to live on some (pounds)10 per annum in the attic of the house where the Talbots lodged,—­ and not only to live, but to be full of charitable deeds, mostly at the expense of his own appetite.  The square cut of his bands, and the uncompromising roundness of the hat which he doffed on his entrance, marked him as inclined to the Puritan party, which, being that of apparent progress, attracted most of the ardent spirits of the time.