she have done?' She lifted her hand to her throat for a moment.
'Faith,' she cried, 'I'd forgotten the little green shoes! She left 'em
at Brickwall - so she did. And I remember she gave the Norgem
parson - John Withers, was he? - a text for his sermon - "Over
Edom have I cast out my shoe." Neat, if he'd understood!'

'I don't understand,' said Una. 'What about the two cousins?'

'You are as cruel as a woman,' the lady answered. 'I was not to
blame. I told you I gave 'em time to change their minds. On my
honour (ay de mi!), she asked no more of 'em at first than to wait a
while off that coast - the Gascons' Graveyard - to hover a little if
their ships chanced to pass that way - they had only one tall ship
and a pinnace - only to watch and bring me word of Philip's
doings. One must watch Philip always. What a murrain right had
he to make any plantation there, a hundred leagues north of his
Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my dread
father's soul, I tell you he had none - none!' She stamped her red
foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second.

'Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly
before the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told 'em
that if Philip sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not
well send less), their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They
answered that, with submission, the fight would be their own
concern. She showed 'em again that there could be only one end
to it - quick death on the sea, or slow death in Philip's prisons.
They asked no more than to embrace death for my sake. Many
men have prayed to me for life. I've refused 'em, and slept none
the worse after; but when my men, my tall, fantastical young