"What," asked Cromwell, with that half-moody, half-tender melancholy that so often marked his speech, "avail these doubts and surmises? It is but lost labour that ye haste to rise up so early and so late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness—'it is in the Lord's hands—the Lord's will be done.'"
Major Harrison rose also; he wore part of his armour; vambrace and cuirass clattered as he moved.
"Ay," he said, "worthy Mr. Hugh Peters did wrestle in prayer with the Lord for three hours on that point, and afterwards held forth in lovely words—yet were we still in darkness as to God's will with us——"
"Doubt not," answered Cromwell fervently, "that He will make it manifest as He hath done aforetime."
He paused in his pacing and turned to face the huge soldier, who now stood with one hand on the tent flap, holding it back.
The moon was sinking, a white wafer behind the gates and towers of Oxford, but the first flush of the dawn replaced her misty light.
"I look for the Lord!" cried Cromwell. "My soul doth wait for Him, in His word is my trust—'My soul fleeth unto the Lord, before the morning watch, I say before the morning watch!'"
"Ay," added Harrison, with a coarser enthusiasm and a blunter speech; "and when the Lord cometh what shall He say—but slay Dagon and his adherents, put to the sword the Amalekite and Edomite and all the brood of the Red Dragon. And who is the foremost of these but Charles Stewart?"
"The Lord," replied Cromwell, "hath not yet put it into my soul to put the King down, nor to utterly slight his authority. Yet on all these matters I would rather be silent—this is scarce the time for speech on this subject."
Major Harrison picked up his morion, which bore in front the single feather that denoted his rank, and with a few words of farewell left the tent.