While Sir George awaited the Queen's commands at Windsor, she sent him
them. He was not to go on his knees, a usual part of the ceremony of
swearing in a Privy Councillor. She had remembered, with a woman's
feeling, that here was a patriarch, nimble no longer.

The meeting between Queen and servant was stately, in that they were the
two people who linked most intimately Great and Greater Britain. To them
Oceana was a living, sentient thing, not merely a glorious name and
expanse. It had squalled in their ears. They could go back to the
beginnings, could witness the whole panorama of the Colonies unroll
itself. They stood for the history of a high endeavour, which had been
nobly crowned. Oft, there had been weary clouds across the sky, not
seldom heavy darkness. But the sun was kept shining, and finally all had
become light. Oceana was grown up, and she gathered the four corners of
her robe into that Windsor audience chamber.

Of the Queen's order Sir George had the simple deliverance, 'It showed
how careful Her Majesty is to manifest a strong consideration for all
those who come in contact with her, a most taking quality in a
Sovereign.' Yet, for the first time in his life, he was to disobey that
Sovereign. Nothing, not even her protest of 'No, no,' could stop him from
getting down on his knees, as if he had been a younger subject. The
infirmities were conquered by his desire to pay to the Queen that
reverence and loyalty which had always been hers. The bonds of age were
burst, although his quaint complaint about himself that very evening was,
'You know I want a minute or two to get in motion.'

Despite bowed shoulders and rusty joints, he still had something of the
lithe, strenuous carriage of his youth. In his dignity of manner, there
almost seemed to you a glimpse of the gallant age when forbears had gone