Valour and Innocence Have latterly gone hence To certain death by certain shame attended.
Envy - ah! even to tears! -
The fortune of their years Which, though so few, yet so divinely ended.
Scarce had they lifted up Life's full and fiery cup, Than they had set it down untouched before them.
Before their day arose They beckoned it to close -
Close in destruction and confusion o'er them.
They did not stay to ask What prize should crown their task, Well sure that prize was such as no man strives for;
But passed into eclipse, Her kiss upon their lips -
Even Belphoebe's, whom they gave their lives for!
Gloriana Willow Shaw, the little fenced wood where the hop-poles are stacked like Indian wigwams, had been given to Dan and Una for their very own kingdom when they were quite small. As they grew older, they contrived to keep it most particularly private.
Even Phillips, the gardener, told them every time that he came in to take a hop-pole for his beans, and old Hobden would no more have thought of setting his rabbit-wires there without leave, given fresh each spring, than he would have torn down the calico and marking ink notice on the big willow which said: 'Grown-ups not allowed in the Kingdom unless brought.'
Now you can understand their indignation when, one blowy July afternoon, as they were going up for a potato-roast, they saw somebody moving among the trees. They hurled themselves over the gate, dropping half the potatoes, and while they were picking them up Puck came out of a wigwam.
:Oh, it's you, is it?' said Una. 'We thought it was people.'
'I saw you were angry - from your legs,' he answered with a grin.
'Well, it's our own Kingdom - not counting you, of course.'
'That's rather why I came. A lady here wants to see you.'
'What about?' said Dan cautiously.
'Oh, just Kingdoms and things. She knows about Kingdoms.'
There was a lady near the fence dressed in a long dark cloak that hid everything except her high red-heeled shoes. Her face was half covered by a black silk fringed mask, without goggles. And yet she did not look in the least as if she motored.
Puck led them up to her and bowed solemnly. Una made the best dancing-lesson curtsy she could remember. The lady answered with a long, deep, slow, billowy one.
'Since it seems that you are a Queen of this Kingdom,'she said, 'I can do no less than acknowledge your sovereignty.' She turned sharply on staring Dan. 'What's in your head, lad? Manners?'
'I was thinking how wonderfully you did that curtsy,' he answered.
She laughed a rather shrill laugh. 'You're a courtier already. Do you know anything of dances, wench - or Queen, must I say?'
'I've had some lessons, but I can't really dance a bit,' said Una.
'You should learn, then.' The lady moved forward as though she would teach her at once. 'It gives a woman alone among men or her enemies time to think how she shall win or - lose. A woman can only work in man's play-time. Heigho!'She sat down on the bank.
Old Middenboro, the lawn-mower pony, stumped across the paddock and hung his sorrowful head over the fence.
'A pleasant Kingdom,' said the lady, looking round. 'Well enclosed. And how does your Majesty govern it? Who is your Minister?'
Una did not quite understand. 'We don't play that,' she said.
'Play?' The lady threw up her hands and laughed.
'We have it for our own, together,' Dan explained.
'And d'you never quarrel, young Burleigh?'
'Sometimes, but then we don't tell.'
The lady nodded. 'I've no brats of my own, but I understand keeping a secret between Queens and their Ministers. Ay de mi!
But with no disrespect to present majesty, methinks your realm' small, and therefore likely to be coveted by man and beast. For Is example' - she pointed to Middenboro -'yonder old horse, with the face of a Spanish friar - does he never break in?'
'He can't. Old Hobden stops all our gaps for us,' said Una, 'and we let Hobden catch rabbits in the Shaw.'
The lady laughed like a man. 'I see! Hobden catches conies - rabbits - for himself, and guards your defences for you. Does he make a profit out of his coney-catching?'
'We never ask,' said Una. 'Hobden's a particular friend of ours.'
'Hoity-toity!' the lady began angrily. Then she laughed. 'But I forget. It is your Kingdom. I knew a maid once that had a larger one than this to defend, and so long as her men kept the fences stopped, she asked 'em no questions either.'
'Was she trying to grow flowers?'said Una.
'No, trees - perdurable trees. Her flowers all withered.' The lady leaned her head on her hand.
'They do if you don't look after them. We've got a few. Would you like to see? I'll fetch you some.' Una ran off to the rank grass in the shade behind the wigwam, and came back with a handful of red flowers. 'Aren't they pretty?' she said. 'They're Virginia stock.'
'Virginia?' said the lady, and lifted them to the fringe of her mask.
'Yes. They come from Virginia. Did your maid ever plant any?'
'Not herself - but her men adventured all over the earth to pluck or to plant flowers for her crown. They judged her worthy of them.'
'And was she?' said Dan cheerfully.
'Quien sabe? [who knows?] But at least, while her men toiled abroad she toiled in England, that they might find a safe home to come back to.'
'And what was she called?'
'Gloriana - Belphoebe - Elizabeth of England.' Her voice changed at each word.
'You mean Queen Bess?'
The lady bowed her head a little towards Dan. 'You name her lightly enough, young Burleigh. What might you know of her?' said she.
, Well, I - I've seen the little green shoes she left at Brickwall House - down the road, you know. They're in a glass case - awfully tiny things.'
'Oh, Burleigh, Burleigh!' she laughed. 'You are a courtier too soon.'
'But they are,' Dan insisted. 'As little as dolls' shoes. Did you really know her well?'
'Well. She was a - woman. I've been at her Court all my life.
Yes, I remember when she danced after the banquet at Brickwall.
They say she danced Philip of Spain out of a brand-new kingdom that day. Worth the price of a pair of old shoes - hey?'
