“A most vile hand,” said Oliver, as he looked at a sheet or two of our friend Wildrake’s poetical miscellanies—“The very handwriting seems to be drunk, and the very poetry not sober—What have we here?
‘When I was a young lad,
My fortune was bad—
If e’er I do well, ’tis a wonder’—
Why, what trash is this?—and then again—
‘Now a plague on the poll
Of old politic Noll!
We will drink till we bring
In triumph back the King.’
In truth, if it could be done that way, this poet would be a stout champion. Give the poor knave five pieces, Pearson, and bid him go sell his ballads. If he come within twenty miles of our person, though, we will have him flogged till the blood runs down to his heels.”
“There remains only one sentenced person,” said Pearson, “a noble wolf-hound, finer than any your Excellency saw in Ireland. He belongs to the old knight Sir Henry Lee. Should your Excellency not desire to keep the fine creature yourself, might I presume to beg that I might have leave?”
“No, Pearson,” said Cromwell; “the old man, so faithful himself, shall not be deprived of his faithful dog—I would I had any creature, were it but a dog, that followed me because it loved me, not for what it could make of me.”
“Your Excellency is unjust to your faithful soldiers,” said Zerubbabel, bluntly, “who follow you like dogs, fight for you like dogs, and have the grave of a dog on the spot where they happen to fall.”
“How now, old grumbler,” said the General, “what means this change of note?”
“Corporal Humgudgeon’s remains are left to moulder under the ruins of yonder tower, and Tomkins is thrust into a hole in a thicket like a beast.”