“He is of good birth, Burleigh, I hear?”
“Your Majesty,” says Cecil, bowing, “on his mother’s side he has the blood of Lord Stanhope of Harrington. His father is cousin to the Stanleys and High Sheriff of Cheshire. His grandfather was belted knight.”
“Then,” says the Queen of England, “he shall be knight also!” And administers with dainty hand the accolade, saying: “Rise up, Sir Guy Chester!”
But Sir Guy does not rise before he does homage to [[116]]the fair hand that has knighted him so gallantly that Her Majesty gets red in the face, and cries out: “What new science in hand kissing has this Spanish girl taught him?”
Next the young man standing before her she tenders him his sword, holding it by the naked blade, the handle toward his hand, saying: “May you as belted knight use this as you have before to the terror of the enemies of England; especially he of Alva—do not spare him for his daughter’s sake.”
“No,” returns Guy, “for every blow I strike against the father brings me nearer to the daughter.”
“Odd stale fish!” jeers Her Majesty, “what does this new made popinjay of Chester think to do with the daughter of a prince?”
“To marry her, by God’s will and Your Majesty’s most gracious permission,” cries Guy, and retires with Lord Burleigh, leaving the Queen of England in very good humor with her new knight.
But notwithstanding Chester’s information has, perchance, saved the life of his Queen, Elizabeth, great sovereign as she is, has a strange parsimony in affairs of State, and though Guy petitions for money to refit his vessel and pay his crew, it does not come. So, being desperately anxious to get to the Netherlands again, he uses the hundred doubloons, the present from his sweetheart, to fit up his vessel against her father, devoting half of them to the embellishment and ornament of the cabins of the Dover Lass, making her staterooms so fine in woodwork and appointments that Harry Dalton, his first lieutenant, ejaculates: “By saucy Poll of Plymouth, one would think he meant this for a wedding cruise!”
But despite the hundred doubloons Chester soon finds himself without money sufficient to provision and make his vessel thoroughly effective, and goes up to London from Sandwich to make a final appeal to his parsimonious sovereign.