side by the twisted weapons of the sea unicorn, and in the middle of
the room stood a large, solid-looking table, adorned with a brown
earthenware beau-pot, containing a stiff posy of roses, southernwood,
gillyflowers, pinks and pansies, of small dimensions. On hooks,
against the wall, hung a pair of spurs, a shield, a breastplate, and
other pieces of armour, with an open helmet bearing the dog, the
well-known crest of the Talbots of the Shrewsbury line.

On the polished floor, near the window, were a child's cart, a little
boat, some whelks and limpets. Their owner, a stout boy of three
years old, in a tight, borderless, round cap, and home-spun, madder-
dyed frock, lay fast asleep in a big wooden cradle, scarcely large
enough, however, to contain him, as he lay curled up, sucking his
thumb, and hugging to his breast the soft fragment of a sea-bird's
downy breast. If he stirred, his mother's foot was on the rocker, as
she sat spinning, but her spindle danced languidly on the floor, as
if "feeble was her hand, and silly her thread;" while she listened
anxiously, for every sound in the street below. She wore a dark blue
dress, with a small lace ruff opening in front, deep cuffs to match,
and a white apron likewise edged with lace, and a coif, bent down in
the centre, over a sweet countenance, matronly, though youthful, and
now full of wistful expectancy; not untinged with anxiety and sorrow.

Susan Hardwicke was a distant kinswoman of the famous Bess of
Hardwicke, and had formed one of the little court of gentlewomen with
whom great ladies were wont to surround themselves. There she met
Richard Talbot, the second son of a relative of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, a young man who, with the indifference of those days to
service by land or sea, had been at one time a gentleman pensioner of
Queen Mary; at another had sailed under some of the great mariners of