"I know your patience and your goodness, Oliver."

"Yes, but patience works to anger. I shall stand no nonsense from any one much longer. When Opportunity comes, I shall make Importunity fit Opportunity—I will that."

He had been unbuttoning his doublet as he spoke these words, and he flung it from him with an extraordinary force and passion; then suddenly calming himself he sat down, and said with a sadness equal to his anger, "Let me have your prayers, dear wife, let me have them. For come what will, we must work God's good pleasure and serve our generation—our rest we expect elsewhere. I live in Meshec (prolonging) and in Kedar (blackness), yet as John Verity said to me last Sabbath—'Brother Oliver, you have daily bread, and you shall have it, despite your enemies. In your Father's house there is enough and to spare of every good thing; and He dispenseth it.' Those three words go to my heart like heavenly wine—He dispenseth it, Elizabeth;" and he took her hand, and she leaned her face full of light and trust against his shoulder, and as he stooped to it, his countenance grew sweet and tender as a little child's. For a few moments they sat silent, then the God-full man burst into rapturous thanksgiving, because all his hopes were grounded on the Truth of God, on the immutability of His Counsel, and on the faithfulness of His promises. "Promises," he cried out, "having this double guarantee, that they have not only been spoken, they have been sworn to."

An inward, instant sense of God's presence came to both of them. They had a joy past utterance. Troubles of all kinds grew lighter than a grasshopper. They partook of those spiritual favours which none know, save those who receive them; and urged by a spiritual pressure within, Cromwell sighed into the very ear of God, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee."

For the Eternal God was the firmament of this man's life; whether on the battle-field or in the Council Chamber, amid his family or alone in his closet, God was the Majestic Overhead and Background of all his thoughts, affections, purposes and desires.

CHAPTER VIII

UPON THE THRESHOLD

"Predestinated ills are never lost."

* * * * *

"The Power that ministers to God's decrees,

And executes on earth what He foresees,

Called Providence,—

Comes with resistless force; and finds, or makes a way."

If we believe that life is worth living, our belief helps to create that fact, for faith is in matters of the spirit all that courage is in practical affairs. To Jane and Cluny this belief was not difficult, for limitation always works for happiness, and during the ensuing year life kept within the bounds of their mutual probation and of Cluny's military duties, was full of happy meetings and partings; days in which Love waited on Duty, and again, days in which Love was lord of every hour; when they wandered together in the Park like two happy children, or, if the weather was unfit, sat dreaming in the stately rooms of Sandys about the little gray house in Fifeshire, which was to be their own sweet home.

These dreams and hopes were set to a national life full of unexpected events and rumours of events, and to interesting bits of gossip about the beloved Lord General and his family and friends. The news-letters were hardly necessary to the Swaffhams; they were in the heart of affairs, and life was so full of love and homely pleasures, that the days came and went to thanksgiving—literally so, for Jane could not but notice how at this time her father and mother selected for the household worship psalms, whose key-note was, "Bless the Lord," "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord," or, "I will love thee O Lord my strength." And she could so well remember when these prayers were implorations for help and comfort, or for victory over enemies. How different was now her father's tone of joyful confidence when he recited with the family his favourite portion from the eighteenth psalm, generally beginning about the thirtieth verse, and growing more and more vivid and earnest, until in a voice of triumph he closed the Book with a great emphasis, to the exulting words, "The Lord liveth, and blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted."