.'"

"I trust her most merciful spirit is not so changed already," said Mrs.
Leigh.

"Well, if she would not do it, I would, and ask pardon afterwards, as
Raleigh did about the rascals at Smerwick, whom Amyas knows of. Mrs.
Leigh, these are times in which mercy is cruelty. Not England alone,
but the world, the Bible, the Gospel itself, is at stake; and we must do
terrible things, lest we suffer more terrible ones."

"God will take care of world and Bible better than any cruelty of ours,
dear Sir Richard."

"Nay, but, Mrs. Leigh, we must help Him to take care of them! If those
Smerwick Spaniards had not been--"

"The Spaniard would not have been exasperated into invading us."

"And we should not have had this chance of crushing him once and for
all; but the quarrel is of older standing, madam, eh, Amyas? Amyas, has
Raleigh written to you of late?"

"Not a word, and I wonder why."

"Well; no wonder at that, if you knew how he has been laboring. The
wonder is, whence he got the knowledge wherewith to labor; for he never
saw sea-work to my remembrance."

"Never saw a shot fired by sea, except ours at Smerwick, and that
brush with the Spaniards in 1579, when he sailed for Virginia with Sir
Humphrey; and he was a mere crack then."

"So you consider him as your pupil, eh? But he learnt enough in the
Netherland wars, and in Ireland too, if not of the strength of ships,
yet still of the weakness of land forces; and would you believe it, the
man has twisted the whole council round his finger, and made them give
up the land defences to the naval ones."

"Quite right he, and wooden walls against stone ones for ever! But as
for twisting, he would persuade Satan, if he got him alone for half an
hour."

"I wish he would sail for Spain then, just now, and try the powers of
his tongue," said Mrs. Leigh.

"But are we to have the honor, really?"

"We are, lad. There were many in the council who were for disputing the
landing on shore, and said--which I do not deny--that the 'prentice
boys of London could face the bluest blood in Spain. But Raleigh argued
(following my Lord Burleigh in that) that we differed from the Low
Countries, and all other lands, in that we had not a castle or town
throughout, which would stand a ten days' siege, and that our ramparts,
as he well said, were, after all, only a body of men. So, he argued, as
long as the enemy has power to land where he will, prevention, rather
than cure, is our only