Read "The Great Captain" by Katharine Tynan online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
We left my Lady Raleigh alone in the spring of the year. It was February the sixth, and the snowdrop and crocus were up in the garden-beds of the Manor-house, and the blackbirds and thrushes singing nigh as sweet as they sing in Ireland, when we put out from Plymouth with five ships and a motley company. It was a stolen expedition in a manner of speaking; for we hoisted our flag for Virginia, yet I think the meanest scullion aboard knew that Guiana was our port. For it was not politic to flout too openly Philip of Spain; though we might fly the Jolly Roger and overhaul his treasure-ships on the high seas. For the Queen of England, as she grew older grew craftier; and would have any cat's-paw to draw her chestnuts out of the fire, and bear the brunt of it as well, while she went free.
We two Wats sailed with Sir Walter. 'Twas time, he said, his son should see the world; and indeed it would have gone hard with us to be left behind.