Wat, he called me from himself, because he loved me, and after his little son. Indeed, he seemed in time to love me as fondly as any father; and while I was yet a little one and learning from him swordplay and fence, horsemanship, and other manly arts, I began to understand that amid all his splendor he carried sadness beneath it, and was a banished man. He had lost the Queen’s favor—not because he had enemies at court, for Eliza was not one to be misled by rumors or cunning, but because he had clasped around the white neck of Mistress Throckmorton, a dame of honor, the milky carcanet of pearls the Queen’s vanity desired to adorn her leanness, which in time the Queen might have forgiven, if he had not privily married the same Mistress Throckmorton; for she would have but one moon in the sky, and she liked not the gallantest man of her kingdom to be her dame’s satellite. So he was become a soldier of fortune, and since he might not have his lady or his little son with him in these wild times, they abode in his quiet English Manor-house, while his sword slashed a way to fortune for them through the inheritance of the great, unhappy Desmonds. In later years, when I had become well acquainted with the character of my lord, it hath seemed to me that he was not one for marriage; for danger was his love, and he was homesick away from her smile. And yet no more tender lord than he to the Lady Elizabeth might be found, and he loved his little Walter greatly. But presently, the war being ended and the last Desmond Earl slain by a traitor in a cabin in the mountains, my lord sailed away from the harbor of Youghall to London, to the end that he might win permission for another expedition in search of treasure, and so regain the Queen’s favor. By this time I was a tall lad, and was fain to go with my lord, but this he would by no manner of means permit. I hated so to live my life without him, even for a time, that I had thought of hiding myself aboard his ship, the Bon Aventure, but the fear which I had of him besides my love held me back. I had never seen him angry with me, and I prayed that I never should, so I heard him in silence when he bade me stay. Taking me aside then, he said to me, lovingly: “I wrong you not, Wat, because I go without you, for Queen’s favor is vain, and it may be I go to Traitor’s Gate. You are no meat for the Tower, lad.” Then I cried out that if he went to the Tower I should go with him; at which he seemed pleased, patting my shoulder with great gentleness. “It may be,” he said, “that I return again to this Irish exile I weary of. Or, in the greatest event of all, I shall fit out a fleet for the Spanish Main, and make the Dons stand and deliver. That would be happiest for us, boy, for indeed I make but a bad port-sailor.” “You sail in the Bon Aventure,” I said; “it is of good omen.” “It is indeed,” he replied, “and I thank you for reminding me of it.”