"When I heard this afternoon of the confirmation of this dismal and lamentable news from Ireland, when I foresaw that the King had now an excuse to demand an army—then I too thought—God hath spoken, and it must be the sword."
Oliver Cromwell's whole stout frame trembled, as if responding to some intense and suppressed emotion.
"England! England!" he muttered, "are we come to have to heal thy hurts with the bloody steel and the devouring flame? I had hoped differently."
"If the King armeth so must we," said John Pym. "But there is yet some hope. Hyde and Falkland are now something in the councils of the King, and he may listen to them."
"My Lord Falkland will do a true man's uttermost," replied Cromwell, with that sudden tenderness that was as natural to him as his sudden fierceness. "But will he avail? I have but a mean opinion of Mr. Hyde."
"Neither he nor my Lord Viscount have a grasp bold enough nor an outlook sure enough for these difficult times. But their advice will better that of the Queen and the priests, and in them resteth our last hopes of a peaceable settlement."
As Pym spoke he rose and, going over to Cromwell, grasped him by the shoulders and looked earnestly into his face. In age there was nearly twenty years difference between the two men, and the appearance of the lawyer who had led a studious life in cities was very different from that of the robust country gentleman; but their look of ardour, of resolution, of steadfastness was the same, and John Pym's face, marked with years and faded by ill-health, held the same brightness of a high purpose as the blunt, fresh features of the younger man, still in the height and prime of his vigorous strength.
"Thou wilt be a man much needed in the times to come," said Mr. Pym, "for I think thou hast the gift of fortitude."
Oliver Cromwell did not answer; in his mind's eye he saw that misty day outside St. Ives, the black river, the black houses, the gnarled and bent willows, the church spire pointing to an obscure heaven, the flat bog leading to Erith's Bulwark, beyond—the rude paling—all the common details of that familiar scene where he had first entered into covenant with God.
The glory of the vision had faded, and melancholies had taken the place of that unspeakable joy and wonder; but a faith that never weakened was always there and sometimes flashed up, as now, into a dazzling remembrance of that other November day and the promise of the Lord.