"My Lord," answered Mr. Hyde firmly, "reformers are ever apt to run a headlong course, and some excesses must be excused those who have so laboured at the general good——"
"Excesses?" answered my lord, flushing a little. "I am still an Anglican, by the grace of God, and when I see altars dragged from their places, rood screens smashed, all pictures, images, and carvings destroyed in our churches until God's houses look as if they were the poor remnants of a besieged city—when I know that this is by order of Parliament, then methinks it seemeth as if violence had taken the place of zeal."
"Neither do these things please me," answered Mr. Hyde, "but the dams are broken and there are swift tides running in all directions. And who is to stem them?"
"Or who," asked my lord sadly, "to guide them into proper channels? Not your 'root and branch men,' who would sweep every bishop and every prayer book out of the land. Not by such intolerance or bigotry, Mr. Hyde, are we to gain peace and liberty."
"Moderate counsels," returned the other, "own but a weak voice in these bitter savoured times. It is such as this Oliver Cromwell, with their loud rude speech, who are hearkened to."
"I only half like this noisy Mr. Cromwell," said my lord. "He hath sprung very suddenly into notice, and seemeth to have, on an instant, gained much authority with Mr. Pym and Mr. Hampden."
At this moment the object of their speech turned his head and looked at them as if he had heard his own name. Lord Falkland smiled at him and made a little gesture of beckoning.
Mr. Cromwell instantly left his friends and came over to the window, where he stood in the gold flush of sunshine and looked keenly at the two young aristocrats.
"More plots, eh," he asked pleasantly.
"More talk only, sir," smiled the Viscount.
Mr. Cromwell laid his heavy muscular hand on my lord's arm.
"Thou art worthy," he remarked; "but what shall I say of thee?" his narrowed grey eyes rested on Mr. Hyde's florid face. "Thou art he who bloweth neither hot nor cold."
"I am like to blow hot enough, I think," returned Mr. Hyde, "unless thou blow more cold."
"Wherein have I vexed thee?" asked Oliver Cromwell, with a pleasantness that might have covered contempt.
"Your party is too extreme, sir," said the Viscount earnestly. "You press too hard upon the weakness of His Majesty. What we set out to gain hath been gained and safeguarded by law. You should now go moderately, and, from what I know of your councils, you do not propose moderation."
Mr. Cromwell's face hardened into heavy, almost lowering, lines.
"So you, too, slacken!" he exclaimed. "You would join those who rise up against us! Fie, my lord, I had better hopes."
"Mr. Cromwell," returned the Viscount, "we have been long together on the same road; but if your mind is what I do think it to be, then here we come to a parting, and many Christian gentlemen will follow my way."
Oliver Cromwell regarded him with intense keenness.
"What do you think my mind to be?" he demanded.
"I think you rush forward to utterly destroy the Anglican Church and to so limit the King's authority that he is no more than a show piece in the realm."
"Maybe that and maybe more than that," returned Mr. Cromwell. "Even as the Lord directeth: 'He shall send down from on high to fetch me and shall take me out of many waters.' I stand here, a poor instrument, waiting His will."
This answer bore the fervent and ambiguous character that Lord Falkland had noticed in this gentleman's speeches, and which might be due either to enthusiasm or guile, and which was, at least, difficult to answer.
"You run too much against the King," said Mr. Hyde, "and against the Church of England. Our aim was to clear her of abuses, not to destroy her."
"Our aim, Mr. Hyde?" interrupted the Member for Cambridge keenly. "Were our aims ever the same, from the very first? I saw one thing, you another; but trouble me not now with this vain discourse," he added, with a note of great strength in his hoarse voice, "when I know you are in communication with His Majesty and but seek an opportunity to leave us."
Edward Hyde flushed, but answered at once and with pride.
"I make no secret of it that, if the Parliament forget all duty to the King, I shall not."
"Are you afraid?" asked Mr. Cromwell, with more sadness than contempt. "Or do you look for promotion and honours from His Majesty? There is no satisfaction in such glory, 'but hope thou in the Lord and He shall promote thee, that thou shall possess the land; when the ungodly shall perish, thou shalt see it.'"
"You do us wrong!" exclaimed Lord Falkland. "We hold to loyalty; we think of that and not of base rewards."
"Loyalty!" exclaimed Mr. Cromwell vehemently. "We own loyalty to One higher than the King, yet what saith St. Paul: 'See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is.' Therefore we go not definitely against His Majesty, but rather wait, hoping still for peaceable issues and fair days, yet abating nothing of our just demands nor of our high hopes."
"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.
"Lucius Carey, stay thou with us," he said.
Lord Falkland let his slight hand remain in the Puritan's powerful grasp, and turned his serene, mournful eyes on to the older man's stern, eloquent face.
"Mr. Cromwell," he replied, "believe me honest as yourself. You left plenty and comfort for this toilsome business of Parliament, and I also put some ease by that I might do a little service here. My cause is your cause, the cause of liberty. I despise the courtier and hate the tyrant, but I believe in the old creeds, too, Mr. Cromwell, and that the King is as like to save us as any other gentleman. Therefore, if henceforth you see little of me, believe that I obey my conscience as you do follow yours."
Mr. Cromwell released his hand and said no other word.
"A good night," smiled Lord Falkland, and, raising his beaver, left Westminster Hall with Edward