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Sir Walter Raleigh and His Time by Charles Kingsley
page 71 of 107 (66%)
. . . The everlasting, powerful, infinite, and omnipotent God, who is
goodness itself, the true life and light, keep thee and thine, have
mercy upon me, and teach me to forgive my persecutors and accusers,
and send us to meet in His glorious kingdom.'

Is it come to this then? Is he fit to die at last? Then he is fit
to live; and live he shall. The tyrants have not the heart to carry
out their own crime, and Raleigh shall be respited.

But not pardoned. No more return for him into that sinful world,
where he flaunted on the edge of the precipice, and dropped heedless
over it. God will hide him in the secret place of His presence, and
keep him in His tabernacle from the strife of tongues; and a new life
shall begin for him; a wiser, perhaps a happier, than he has known
since he was a little lad in the farmhouse in pleasant Devon far
away. On the 15th of December he enters the Tower. Little dreams he
that for more than twelve years those doleful walls would be his
home. Lady Raleigh obtains leave to share his prison with him, and,
after having passed ten years without a child, brings him a boy to
comfort the weary heart. The child of sorrow is christened Carew.

Little think those around him what strange things that child will see
before his hairs be gray. She has her maid, and he his three
servants; some five or six friends are allowed 'to repair to him at
convenient times.' He has a chamber-door always open into the
lieutenant's garden, where he 'has converted a little hen-house into
a still-room, and spends his time all the day in distillation.' The
next spring a grant is made of his goods and chattels, forfeited by
attainder, to trustees named by himself, for the benefit of his
family. So far, so well; or, at least, not as ill as it might be:
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