The banderilla went home, and the next day Sir Walter felt that he must hunt out this girl with the yellow locks and make peace with her, for surely he of all men did not want to hurt the feeling of any living being, neither did he want his own feelings hurt.
So he sought her out, and that which began in a quarrel soon evolved into something else. There were meetings by moonlight, notes passed, glances given, hand-clasps in the dark, and all of those absurd, foolish, irrelevant and unnecessary things that lovers do.
The girl was not of noble birth. But neither was Sir Walter, for that matter. Love knows nothing of titles and position. But how could these two ever imagine that they could elude the gimlet eyes of Good Queen Bess, who wasn't so very good! Queen Elizabeth had ways of punishing that were exquisite, deep, delicate and far-reaching, which touched the very marrow of the soul.
Sir Walter had been presented by the Queen with a title to all the land in America, from Nova Scotia to Florida; and he, in pretty compliment, had officially named this tract of land Virginia.
The French had taken possession of the New World at the North, and the Spaniards at the South, and along the coast of what is now North Carolina the English had planted a colony.
It was the intention of Sir Walter to send expeditions over and take the whole land captive, so that Virginia would in fact be the land of the Virgin Queen.
At the center of this tract along the coast was to be the city of Raleigh. The Queen and Sir Walter had worked this out at length, and she had given him a special charter for the great city to be.
And now behold! She, with the mind of a man, had perfected her plans for the building of the city of Raleigh. She planned an expedition, and fitted out the ships with sixty men and women from a receiving-ship that lay in the Thames.
These people were being sent out of England for England's good. And these were the people who were to found the city of Raleigh; and the Governor of this colony was to be—John White! he was to be the first mayor, Lord Mayor, of the city of Raleigh.