Another fruit from the Indies which he planted at Affane was called the tomato—a great, smooth-skinned, scarlet fruit, over-heavy for its branches, and of a strange half-sour flavor, which yet grew on one in the eating. Another seed brought him by his captains was that of the clove-gilly-flower, or wall-flower, a most sweet-smelling plant; and the cedar also he planted.
He was as much set upon gardens as upon adventure and the search for new countries. Those of his captains who had returned had brought with them charts of the lands in which they had sailed, together with long reports concerning the inhabitants, their manner of living, their food and pursuits, the beasts and birds, the plants and ore, and all such matters; over which my lord would sit and pore in the long winter evenings, by the fire of driftwood, and smoking his long pipe. And sometimes he would talk with Master Spenser concerning them; but more often their talk ran on poetry and the arts. Master Spenser was working at the later books of The Faëry Queen, and had written also a very pretty pastoral entitled Colin Clout’s Come Home Again. Nor was my lord’s admirable pen silent. I went to and fro almost as a son; and I can see my lord now in some gallant apparel, for he knew not what it was to be slovenly, leaning back in his great chair, and reading from the manuscript in his hand that lament he made for the death of the stainless knight, Sir Philip Sidney, slain then at the battle of Zutphen:
England does hold thy limbs that bred the same;
Flanders thy valour where it last was tried;
The camp thy sorrow where thy body died;
Thy friends thy want; the world thy virtue’s fame.
Alas, if but Sir Walter had been content to be poet and gardener; but whereas the one part of him was content the other tugged at his heart-strings so that he was not happy. In gardening he had no rivals except the Dutch, that great little republic of the water, since as famous as England herself for great battles and adventures by sea.
Now, quiet as the time was, and I was often alone with my lord, it was long before I found courage to speak to him of my birth. I know not why I was so wary in approaching it, but somewhere in my heart I had a warning that it would be unwelcome matter to him; so that often the words rose to my lips and fell silent before I could say them. It was indeed close upon a year from the time I had seen the monk that at last I dared to touch upon the subject. It was one evening when we had been gardening together, and tired after that pleasant toil we sat beneath the myrtle trees. My lord’s brow for a little while was unfurrowed with care, and his eagle eyes looked at me softened through the mists of his smoke.
“My lord—” I began, and then could go no further.
“What is it, Wat?” he asked kindly.
“My lord, I am troubled about the question of my birth. To be nameless where every one hath a name is no light matter to bear.”
“Hath any one reproached you?” he asked, and his eyes flashed.
“If any hath I should not have come even to you for redress,” I said, fingering my sword.