“She scarcely seemed to hear me, but stood looking about, her face working oddly as though she wished to weep but had well-nigh forgotten how. Thinking to cheer her, and wishing to show off the garden which I had begun to think of as my own, I touched her arm and pointed to the foremost yew-tree, lank and awkward after all the years. “‘That,’ I said, ‘is the Lady Abigail Peckham.’ “She looked at me in startled wonder. “‘How came you to know that, boy?’ she asked sharply. “‘My father told me,’ I answered, and, going from one to another of the maids-of-honour, I named them all, ‘Cecelia, Eleanor, Gertrude and Anne.’ “‘There is no one but my old play-fellow who ever heard those names,’ she said, the stiffness of her manner melting suddenly. ‘You must be the son of Robin Radpath.’ “‘And you,’ I answered boldly, for her smile had put me quite at ease, ‘must be the great Queen Elizabeth of England.’ “‘Ay,’ she returned, ‘a queen who has outworn her time and who has come back to look once more before she dies upon the place where, of all her life, she was the happiest.’ “She began to move to and fro across the grass, seeming to greet each flower and shrub as though it were an old friend. Suddenly, however, she turned to me again. “‘Are you of your father’s faith?’ she inquired. “‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘I am a Puritan.’ “‘You say it boldly, boy,’ she said. ‘Are you not afraid? No, you would scarce be your father’s son, did you show fear. Ah, when I was young, I also was not afraid. I made men do as I willed and I forced a measure of tolerance upon my people. Now I am an old woman, bullied by my Ministers of State, who will not believe that until you let men worship as they will there can be no peace.’ “Then she took my hand and spoke so gravely and earnestly that I can never forget her words. “‘Hark ye, lad,’ she said, ‘you shall bear a message from the age that is past to the age that is to come, a truth that an old woman has learned in tears and that the next generation, mayhap, must learn in blood. It is that the Gospel of Fear fills no churches, that no terror of imprisonment, pain or death will ever drive men from the religion they hold to be the true one. We of the Church of England have made our mistake and well-nigh learned our sorry lesson, but will you of the Puritan faith have eyes to see more clearly, or will you, too, sow the Gospel of Fear for a bitter reaping?’