“Nay,” said Sir Walter, pinching his ear gently, “’tis two years agone, and short years have short memories. Thou shall come with me to my chamber and I will show thee a chart and a map of Windargocoa, that Her Dear Glorious Majesty permitted me to rename Virginia, after her great and gracious self.”
So Edred, very glad and proud, went hand in hand with Sir Walter Raleigh to his apartments, and saw many strange things from overseas—dresses of feathers from Mexico, and strange images in gold from strange islands, and the tip of a narwhal’s horn from Greenland, and many other things. And Sir Walter told him of his voyages and his fights, and of how he and Humphrey Gilbert, and Adrian Gilbert, and little Jack Davis used to sail their toy boats in the Long Stream, and how they used to row in and out among the big ships down at the Port, and look at the great figure-heads, standing out high above the water, and wonder about them and about the strange lands they came from.
“And often,” said Sir Walter, “we found a sea-captain that would tell us lads travellers’ tales like these I have told thee. And we sailed our little ships, and then we sailed our big ships—and here I lie in dock, and shall never sail again. But it’s oh! to see the Devon moors, and the clear reaches of the Long Stream again! And that I never shall.” And with that he leaned his arm on the window-sill, and if he had not been the great Sir Walter Raleigh, who is in all the history books, Edred would have thought he was crying.
“Oh, do cheer up—do!” said Edred awkwardly. “I don’t know whether they’ll let you go to Devonshire—but I know they’ll let you go back to America some day. With twelve ships. I read about it only yesterday; and your ship will be called the Destiny, and you’ll sail from the Thames, and Lord Arden will see you off and kiss you for farewell, and give you a medal for a keepsake. Your son will go with you. I know it’s true. It’s all in the book?”
“The book?” Sir Walter asked. “A prophecy, belike?”
“You can call it that if you want to,” said Edred cautiously; “but, anyhow, it’s true.”
He had read it all in the History of Arden.
“If it should be true,” said Sir Walter, and the smile came back to his merry eyes, “and if I ever sail to the Golden West again, shrew me but I will sack a Spanish town, and bring thee a collar of gold and pieces of eight—a big bag-full.”
“Thank you, very much,” said Edred, “it is very kind of you: but I shall not be there.”
And all Sir Walter’s questions did not make him say how he knew this, or what he meant by it.