He took some dried plums and a sixpence from his pocket (he usually had sweetmeats about him, having many children of his acquaintance) and gave them to the boy. Then he took a small brown volume of Virgil from his pocket, but perceiving it to be too dark to read, he called a pair of oars and was rowed to Chelsea Reaches to gain the sweeter air of the country and to have leisure on the bosom of the river and under the flaming sky to deal with the perplexing thoughts that vexed his noble mind.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NEWS FROM IRELAND
Mr. Cromwell was in his chamber writing letters; it was a few weeks before the expected return of the King and the opening of Parliament, and the Member for Cambridge had come up to London early to confer with Mr. Pym and other leaders of the popular party on the so-called Remonstrance, otherwise the exposition of the case against Charles, and of the hopes and fears and perils of the Parliament, already divided within its own walls by the standing back or falling aside of men like Falkland and Hyde.
It was a challenge to the King and to those who supported him, and if passed would prove a shrewder blow to royalty than even the death of Strafford.
For the rest, events were, for such a time of unrest, going with surprising smoothness and quietness for the Parliament; it was now generally known that the King had failed in his endeavours to bring down a northern army to overawe Westminster, and though his plots, the intrigues of the Queen and her Romanist advisers were incessant and served to keep the Commons in a continual state of watchfulness and alarm, they had hitherto been fruitless, and Mr. Pym and Mr. Cromwell, though they might be accounted the strongest opponents of the King, yet now hoped to bring or force Charles to reason and put the kingdom in good order without recourse to more rioting or ferment.
Oliver Cromwell, thinking of these things with satisfaction, and having sealed his letter, rose to light the lamp, for the gloomy October day, foggy and brown at the brightest, was drawing to a close.
When he had trimmed and lit the lamp, he heard a familiar footstep on the stairs, and, going swiftly to the door, opened it on John Pym.