Cromwell remembered Marston Moor, Naseby, Basing, Oxford, many warm acts of friendship, many mutual prayers—all the old laborious, hopeful, triumphant days which they had shared.
He said nothing; his hand went out as if yearningly and lovingly towards the weapon which he had so often seen red with the newly smitten blood of God's enemies.
He still did not speak, and his silence was stern.
Thomas Harrison took up his hat and cloak, and with a courteous but cold salute turned to take his leave.
His Highness turned to watch him and suddenly spoke, even as the other had his hand on the door.
"Thomas Harrison, it is very fitting that I make some defence to you. You have known me very well, and you believe hard, diabolic things of me. I would make some answer to this. I may bear the unkind thoughts of mine enemies, but I would be relieved of the ill-opinion of those who were once my friends."
Harrison paused, and then turned with his back to the door, still unmoved and hostile, but attentive, as if compelled to that amount of respect by the rough, impassioned voice and fervent tones of the man for whom he would have given his life a few years ago. As he listened to his one-time beloved General, something of the old affection touched him, though faintly; he waited.
"You accuse me of base ambition," said His Highness, lifting his head—his face had a look of a lion, mournful and infinitely strong—"but that failing I never had. You accuse me of grasping at the King's power, but that I never wanted. A man was needed—England, I say, had need of a man—but none came. Any of you could have come forward to take this place I hold—this place of no peace, little sleep, and endless labour—any of you! But you were not called, or you did not heed the call, you stepped aside—and England waited. I know not if you lacked courage, or if your conscience called you different ways—but none offered. And I, on in years and something broken by the wars, besought the Lord not to put this upon me—yet He did. And I did not shirk it. I obeyed Him as I did when I left London to form a troop in Cambridge that time the King did raise his standard against the people. Each time the Lord's breath was through me, as wind is through a hollow reed, and by Him I could do a little. That is my only merit. And England is something now—the home of His chosen. You were nice, you hesitated, you made punctilios—but I heard the call and saw the light, as oft in the battalion, and I obeyed. I have tried many ways of government, each as it comes to my hand. What my position truly is I know not—I am a parish constable set to keep the peace. Yet here I be, by God's will, and here I do my work. You may judge me with charity, Thomas Harrison, as one upon whom a very heavy burden hath been laid."
He paused, and his head drooped.
"There is no more to say," he added, and his rough voice had fallen lower. "Farewell—'God watch between me and thee when we are absent from one and another.'"