He was a small lad, but he was sensitive and proud-spirited; and he loved dearly this Cousin Judith who had made this appeal to him; so that for a second the blood seemed to forsake his face.
"I am too young as yet to do aught, Cousin Judith," said he, in rather a low voice, for his breath seemed to catch; "but--but when I am become a man I know that there will be one that will sooner die than see any Spaniard or Frenchman seize the country."
"Bravely said, sweetheart, by my life!" she exclaimed (and her approval was very sweet to his ears). "That is the spirit that women's hearts love to hear of, I can tell thee." And she stooped and kissed him in reward. "Hold to that faith. Be not ashamed of your loyalty to your mother England! Ashamed? Heaven's mercy! where is there such another country to be proud of? And where is there another mother that hath bred such a race of sons? Why, times without number have I heard my father say that neither Greece, nor Rome, nor Carthage, nor any of them, were such a race of men as these in this small island, nor had done such great things, nor earned so great a fame, in all parts of the world and beyond the seas. And mark you this, too: 'tis the men who are fiercest to fight with men that are the gentlest to women; they make no slaves of their women; they make companions of them; and in honoring them they honor themselves, as I reckon. Why, now, could I but remember what my father hath written about England, 'twould stir your heart, I know; that it would; for you are one of the true stuff, I'll be sworn; and you will grow up to do your duty by your gracious mother England--not to run away from her in peevish discontent!"
She cast about for some time, her memory, that she could not replenish by any book-reading, being a large and somewhat miscellaneous store-house.
"'Twas after this fashion," said she, "if I remember aright:
'This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This fortress, built by Nature for herself Against infestion and the hand of war; This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands-- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England!'