"Go your ways as you see them set clear before you," returned the Viscount; "but as for me, all is confusion and I have begun to ponder many things."
"'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways,'" said the Puritan firmly, "and such can be of no use to us. Go serve the King and take ten thousand with you, and still we stand the stronger."
Mr. Hyde's personal dislike of the speaker, as well as his loyalty and conservative principles, spurred him into a hot answer.
"Do you then admit you do not serve the King?" he asked. "Are we to hear open rebellion?"
"God knoweth what we shall hear and what we shall see," said Mr. Cromwell grimly. "There will be more wonders abroad than thy wits will be able to cope with, methinks, Mr. Hyde."
"My wits stand firm," smiled that gentleman, "and my faith is uncorrupt and my sword is practised."
"The sword!" repeated Oliver Cromwell, putting his hand slowly on the plain little weapon by his side. "Speak not of the sword! Englishmen have not, sir, come to that, and will not, unless they be forced."
"Yet," said Lord Falkland quietly, "do you not perceive that by your actions you provoke the possibilities of bloodshed? Already the Lords have fallen away from you—the King hath many friends even among the Commons, and they are not less resolute, less courageous, less convinced of the justice of their desires than you yourself—how then are these divided parties to be brought together unless a temperate action and a mild counsel be employed? The King hath held his hand—sir, hold yours."
With these words, which he uttered in a stately fashion and almost in the tone of a warning, the young lord, taking Mr. Hyde by the arm, was turning away, but Oliver Cromwell, with an earnest gesture, caught his hand.