enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the lads
full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye
Royal--knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they
met her a mile down the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through
her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it.

'"You would not birch them when I gave you the chance," says she to
Chris. "Now you must get me half an hour's private speech with 'em in
Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may
repent!"'

'She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself,' said Una.

The lady shook her head. 'That was never her way. I've seen her walk to
her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight
_there_ is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What
else--what else in England's name could she have done?' She lifted her
hand to her throat for a moment. 'Faith,' she cried, 'I'd forgotten the
little green shoes! She left 'em at Brickwall--so she did. And I
remember she gave the Norgem parson--John Withers, was he?--a text for
his sermon--"Over Edom have I cast out my shoe." Neat, if he'd
understood!'

'I don't understand,' said Una. 'What about the two cousins?'

'You are as cruel as a woman,' the lady answered. '_I_ was not to blame.
I told you I gave 'em time to change their minds. On my honour (_ay de
mi!_), she asked no more of 'em at first than to wait a while off that
coast--the Gascons' Graveyard--to hover a little if their ships chanced
to pass that way--they had only one tall ship and a pinnace--only to
watch and bring me word of Philip's doings. One must watch Philip
always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a
hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from
England? By my dread father's soul, I tell you he had none--none!' She
stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a
second.

'Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before
the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told 'em that if Philip
sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less),
their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with
submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed 'em again
that there could be only one end to it--quick death on the sea, or slow
death in Philip's prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death for
m