It is just, and because it
is so I wish to set out the matter of my life's history that others may
learn from it. For many years this has been in my mind, as I have said,
though to speak truth it was her Majesty the Queen who first set the
seed. But only on this day, when I have heard for certain of the fate of
the Armada, does it begin to grow, and who can say if ever it will come
to flower? For this tidings has stirred me strangely, bringing back my
youth and the deeds of love and war and wild adventure which I have been
mingled in, fighting for my own hand and for Guatemoc and the people of
the Otomie against these same Spaniards, as they have not been brought
back for many years. Indeed, it seems to me, and this is no rare thing
with the aged, as though there in the far past my true life lay, and all
the rest were nothing but a dream.
From the window of the room wherein I write I can see the peaceful
valley of the Waveney. Beyond its stream are the common lands golden
with gorse, the ruined castle, and the red roofs of Bungay town gathered
about the tower of St. Mary's Church. Yonder far away are the king's
forests of Stowe and the fields of Flixton Abbey; to the right the steep
bank is green with the Earsham oaks, to the left the fast marsh lands
spotted with cattle stretch on to Beccles and Lowestoft, while behind me
my gardens and orchards rise in terraces up the turfy hill that in old
days was known as the Earl's Vineyard.
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