For a moment Mr. Cromwell was silent, then he spoke slowly—
"So we have no hope in those who administer the laws?"
"They have put the laws beneath His Majesty," said the farmer eagerly. "All is to be as he wills, with no talk of a Parliament at all—so the lawyers in London say, sir—and Mr. Hampton is to pay the twenty shillings which goeth with many another honest man's money into the coffers of the bishops and the Papist Queen."
"Ay, so the lawyers say," returned Mr. Cromwell, "but this is a matter which England"—he slightly stressed the word—"must decide."
The young farmer, flushed and important with his great news, saluted again, and rode on to report all over the countryside how the protest of Mr. John Hampton to the laws of England against the tyranny of the King had failed.
Mr. Cromwell remained standing by the church a moment, then he wandered off into one of his own fields near by and entered a great barn which stood there, and remained silent in the dimness of the interior, which was fragrant from the scent of last summer's hay stored in the lofts.
So the Law had decided in favour of the King, who might now levy ship-money and whatever tax else he chose—and there would be the Tower and the pillory, the branding and the fine, for those who dared resist, as there had been for Prynne and Bastwick who had dared to criticise the ritual of Archbishop Laud.
Mr. Cromwell felt a strange sparkle in his blood; he paced to and fro on the rough floor, strewn with the dried husks of the last harvest, and clasped his hands on his rough coat-breast and then dropped the left to his sword. As he clasped the plain hilt, a sudden exaltation shot into his heart, his spirit leapt suddenly to a greater height than any it had touched before. And then it happened.
A dazzle of unbelievable light opened before his inner vision, he fell on his knees and, from a sword of fire, received the accolade of God....
"Lord, I am saved!" he cried. "I am in Grace! And I am chosen to be Thy servant in this work which is to be done in England...."