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.

"I did not expect thee," said Mr. Cromwell, smiling.

His visitor passed him and, throwing himself into the great chair fitted with worn leather cushions near the yet unshuttered window, stared at his friend with such a visible disturbance in his usually composed and bold features that Mr. Cromwell was surprised into an exclamation—

"What news is there?"

A grim smile stirred John Pym's pale lips.

"Where hast thou been all this day that thou hast not heard?"

"Here, since midday, and never a breath of news could reach me if some friend did not bring it."

John Pym put his hand to his forehead; he looked old and ill and more utterly overmastered by emotion than his colleague had ever before seen him.

"Evil news, Mr. Pym?" and the energetic Puritan's mind flew to that centre of mischief, the King and Queen in Scotland.

"Evil news," repeated the older man sombrely, "news that hath set London in a frenzy. They are running mad in the streets now—news that will make some swift conclusion here inevitable."

A light that was perhaps as much of pleasurable anticipation and satisfaction as of regret or anger brightened Mr. Cromwell's eyes as he answered—

"Tell me—as quick as may be—tell me this grievous thing."

"The full news has not come to hand yet—only a couple of desperate messengers and this afternoon three more expresses confirming it."

He paused, for his voice was fast breaking under the strain of what he had to utter.

"The lamp is smoking," he said, to steady himself.

Mr. Cromwell slowly turned down the wick, then Mr. Pym resumed in a controlled and normal voice.

"There has been a most bloody rising in Ireland. The popish Irish have risen against the English in Ulster—one of them, O'Neil, hath declared he holdeth a commission from the King. Mr. Cromwell, the fearful stories are beyond belief—thousands have been massacred, and the whole Island is in a welter of barbarous confusion."

A groan of passionate horror and fury broke from Oliver Cromwell; all the hatred of the Englishman for the Irish, of the Puritan for the Papist, of the champion of freedom for the King and tyrant stirred in his heart.

"This is the Queen's doing!" he exclaimed as half London had exclaimed in the same rage and anguish.

"That is the popular cry," said Mr. Pym; "but we must be above the popular cries and reason out this thing ourselves. Maybe this Phelim O'Neil lieth, maybe the Queen hath no hand in this slaying of the Protestants."

"Canst thou deny," cried Mr. Cromwell, "that she and her priests of Baal have ever given pernicious advice to the King? Oh, wretched country that ever had this cursed Frenchwoman set over it!"

"Let the Queen go," said John Pym. "We are not concerned with her, we cannot strike at her; our business is with the King. Compose thyself—I am come to confer with thee."

"I cannot so easily be calm," answered Mr. Cromwell, "when I consider how God's English have been treated—are, at this moment, being tormented and slain!"

"This is the sowing," returned Mr. Pym grimly. "By and by will come the harvest."

"May I be there to help gather it!" cried the Member for Cambridge. "May God preserve me to a little aid in avenging His people."

"The time will come," said John Pym, "'for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayers; but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.'"

Oliver Cromwell dropped his chin on his breast, as his fashion was when deeply moved; but John Pym raised his authoritative face and spoke again.

"At this moment we must consider how this event is like to bear on the issues at Westminster. We must be ready. I do not dare to hold the King responsible for this most horrible work in Ireland, though I fear he will find it hard to clear his name before the popular eye; but this much is proven—he had a plot with the Irish gentry to gain Dublin for himself, and there to raise an army to send against us."

"Aye, the sword," muttered Cromwell, "the power of the sword!"

"Even of that have I come to speak," pursued John Pym. "Thou, sagacious as thou art, canst see the next move the King will take when he returneth without the help he hoped for from Scotland?"

The other lifted his fine head quickly.

"He will demand an army for the reconquest of Ireland," he said briefly. "And as I hope for mercy," he added solemnly, "he shall not have it!"

"The only army the Parliament will raise will be one under its own control and officered by its own men," replied John Pym; "but the struggle will be sharp. We have now such men as Hyde and Falkland against us, and the King's Episcopalian party gathereth strength in the House and in the country."

He was silent a while, then he gave a great sigh of mental distress and physical weariness.

"Is it too late to hope for peace?" he murmured, as if speaking to himself. "Is it too late?"

"It is too late," blazed out Cromwell, "to trust the King. Too late, indeed! Unless we wish to wait another Saint Bartholomew—another Valtelline. It is not so long since this Queen's house had those damnable murders done on poor Protestants—she who designed that devilry was a Medici. Was not this woman's mother of that family? And was not the King's grandmother from that same idolatrous court, and was she not a wanton Papist? Trust none of them, Mr. Pym, nor Stewart, nor Bourbon, but listen to the Lord's bidding, even as He commandeth, and care nothing for any other."

"Thou didst not use to be so hot against the King," said John Pym.

"I did not know his subtle tricks, his shifts, his deceptions, his lies, his faithlessness, his great unreason. Hath he not given us his challenge? What did he not write this very month from Scotland? Mindst thou his words? 'I am constant to the discipline and doctrine of the Church of England established by Queen Elizabeth and my father, and I resolve, by the grace of God, to die in the maintenance of it.' And then he proceedeth to fill up the vacant bishoprics, and with those very divines against whom we were bringing a charge of treason. Then what thou hast said, even this moment, of Ireland—tell me not that it was not his sceptre which was the staff that stirred up this flame! No more dealings with Charles, Mr. Pym; the time for that is past."

The extraordinary strength and grandeur that emanated from the speaker's personality, clothing it with that magnificence that is usually only bestowed by the knowledge of high power or a mighty station, was impressed on Mr. Pym as never, perhaps, before; and it flashed into the mind of the bold parliamentary leader that here might be indeed that champion of great fearlessness, indomitable purpose, spiritual enthusiasm, and broad views who would soon be necessary to second him and even to take his place, for he, John Pym, was not young, and was worn with years of infinite labour. Times, too, had immensely changed since first he had stepped forward to defend the English law and English liberties, and in the new, strange, perhaps terrific epoch coming it might well be that a man would be needed of qualities different from his own.

Hitherto John Pym had not looked upon Oliver Cromwell as other than an able and enthusiastic lieutenant; he had ranked him below men of the intellectual calibre and fine culture of Hampden and Falkland, and though he had never doubted his willingness in the cause of freedom, he had not given much thought to his capacity. But lately—when Cromwell had fired at the King's appointment of the obnoxious priests, when he had spoken by his side for the exclusion of the bishops from Parliament, when he had seconded the attack on the Prayer Book—Pym had noticed in him the gleam of rare and splendid qualities.

And as he looked at him now, a man of homely simplicity in appearance, yet conveying, by some magic of the spirit, a splendour and a force such as is found once among tens of thousands, his heart leapt with a deep inward joy.

"Thou art very fit to challenge the King," he said quietly.

The Calvinist was in no way moved by this.

"I may be an instrument," he said, "but the way is confused and troubled; we draw near the whirlpool, and unless God make Himself manifest, how are we to avoid being sucked into destruction?"

He began to pace the room with uneven and agitated steps.

"I would not be the first to draw the sword!" he cried; "but if the Lord make it law and putteth it into my hands, shall I not strike? Oh, Mr. Pym, war is an awful thought, and we hang on the edge of dreadful conclusions; but is this the moment to turn back or pause? 'Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statute, and I will keep it to the end! Give me understanding and I will keep Thy law; yea, I will keep it with my whole heart!'"

He paused by the farther wall, resting one hand against the wood panelling, and with the other wiping his brow and lips with a plain cambric handkerchief.

John Pym sat motionless in the great arm-chair, leaning forward a little and looking intently and with a kind of quiet eagerness at the younger man.

"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.

"Englishmen such as thee are greatly wanted now," added Mr. Pym after a little.

Mr. Cromwell suddenly flashed into a smile which had a certain steady happiness in it, as if he had gained contentment from his momentary absorption or reverie.

"There are many better than I!" he answered. "Poor reeds, Mr. Pym, but by binding us together thou mayst make a stout birch for thy purpose!"

He turned and took his hat and mantle from a peg on the wall.

"I will come out with thee," he said, "and see how things go in London."

As the two gentlemen went together down the narrow stairs, Pym, in a few words, gave his companion the outlines of the next momentous measure he intended to bring forward at this juncture, when the public frenzy at the Irish rebellion and the atrocious circumstances of it would be occupying Parliament as well as people.

"I shall ask that military appointments may be under parliamentary control, Mr. Cromwell, and that His Majesty take only such advisers as the nation can approve; also that my Lord of Essex be given the command of the train bands—under the authority of Parliament, not the King."

"Well dost thou seize the moment!" returned the other, in a tone of admiration. "Turning even these events of horror into profit for liberty, methinks thou hast the King so stript of all pretences that he will scarce be able to find any rag of Popery to cover his bareness."

"Take care," said John Pym, gently laying his hand on his friend's cuff, "that thou dost not underestimate those forces opposed to thee."

"And thou," replied Cromwell, "that thou dost not underestimate thine own strength and power."

They came out into the ill-lit street, down which the sleet was sweeping in icy spears; the close, stale odours of the city encompassed them, and the bitter damp struck through their mantles and made their flesh shiver.

"Methinks," said Cromwell, "this dark air is full of portents and heavy with forebodings. Thou knowest, Mr. Pym, that we stand in a little mean street, in the cold and darkness, in the midst of a distressed and oppressed city, yet I tell thee the Lord hath us by the hand and will lead us yet into the freedom and light of great spaces, there to work His will."