"Have we not heard of your service in Ireland ?" "I have been so fortunate as to do some service there, madam," replied Raleigh; "scarce, however, of consequence sufficient to reach your Grace's ears." "They hear farther than you think of," said the Queen graciously, "and have heard of a youth who defended a ford in Shannon against a whole band of wild Irish rebels, until the stream ran purple with their blood and his own." "Some blood I may have lost," said the youth, looking down, "but it was where my best is due, and that is in your Majesty's service." The Queen paused, and then said hastily, "You are very young to have fought so well, and to speak so well.

But you must not escape your penance for turning back Masters.

The poor man hath caught cold on the river for our order reached him when he was just returned from certain visits in London, and he held it matter of loyalty and conscience instantly to set forth again.

So hark ye, Master Raleigh, see thou fail not to wear thy muddy cloak, in token of penitence, till our pleasure be further known.

And here," she added, giving him a jewel of gold, in the form of a chess-man, "I give thee this to wear at the collar." Raleigh, to whom nature had taught intuitively, as it were, those courtly arts which many scarce acquire from long experience, knelt, and, as he took from her hand the jewel, kissed the fingers which gave it.
He knew, perhaps, better than almost any of the courtiers who surrounded her, how to mingle the devotion claimed by the Queen with the gallantry due to her personal beauty; and in this, his first attempt to unite them, he succeeded so well as at once to gratify Elizabeth's personal vanity and her love of power.