To this time belongs probably a story which Aubrey tells, and which, like other stories of that inimitable gossip, bears the stamp of truth. Its telling lightens the gloom that these first months of freedom, with their terrible realization of time gone, inevitably raise. Aubrey had it from his old friend, James Harrington, who was well acquainted with Sir Benjamin Ruddyer, a friend of Ralegh's. In Aubrey's own delightful words the story runs as follows: "Sir Walter Ralegh, being invited to dinner to some great person where his son was to go with him, he sayd to his son 'Thou art expected to-day at dinner to goe along with me, but thou art such a quarrelsome affronting ... (Aubrey has forgotten the exact word) that I am ashamed to have such a beare in my company.' Mr. Walter humbled himself to his father and promised he would behave himself mighty mannerly. So away they went, and Sir Benjamin I think with them. He sate next to his father and was very demure at least halfe dinner time. Then sayd he 'I this morning not having the feare of God before my eyes but by the instigation of the devil went....' Sir Walter being strangely surprised and put out of countenance at so great a table gives his son a damned blow over the face. His son, as rude as he was, would not strike his father, but strikes over the face the gentleman that sate next him, and sayd 'Box about; it will come to my father anon.' Tis now a common proverb." The story is far too good to be false. Gossip needs no verification. It stands or falls unsupported by the props which the stern matter of history demands, like an authentic relic which has survived to please. Meanwhile the business of the expedition went on apace. Ralegh had from King James a commission which empowered him to voyage "to places in South America, or elsewhere, inhabited by heathen and savage people, etc." The commission was very similarly worded to others which he had had from Queen Elizabeth, and Ralegh set no greater store by the clause which forbade him to attack the subjects of any European king, especially of the King of Spain, than he had done before. Ralegh did not realize how much things had changed since his Queen ruled. He knew as well as every one else that the Spaniards in Guiana would not allow him to land and proceed quietly to the mine without a determined effort to stop his progress. But he did not know what a hold Sarmiento, the Spanish ambassador, had acquired over James, and how well-disposed James had become towards Spain. He did not understand that he was the last man in England who upheld the Elizabethan tradition, and that therefore he was the man whom Spain best hated.