Cassio. That thrust had been my enemy indeed,

But that my coat is better than thou know’st.

OTHELLO.

On the dark October night succeeding the evening on which Tomkins was slain, Colonel Everard, besides his constant attendant Roger Wildrake, had Master Nehemiah Holdenough with him as a guest at supper. The devotions of the evening having been performed according to the Presbyterian fashion, a light entertainment, and a double quart of burnt claret, were placed before his friends at nine o’clock, an hour unusually late. Master Holdenough soon engaged himself in a polemical discourse against Sectaries and Independents, without being aware that his eloquence was not very interesting to his principal hearer, whose ideas in the meanwhile wandered to Woodstock and all which it contained — the Prince, who lay concealed there — his uncle — above all, Alice Lee. As for Wildrake, after bestowing a mental curse both on Sectaries and Presbyterians, as being, in his opinion, never a barrel the better herring, he stretched out his limbs, and would probably have composed himself to rest, but that he as well as his patron had thoughts which murdered sleep.

The party were waited upon by a little gipsy-looking boy, in an orange-tawny doublet, much decayed, and garnished with blue worsted lace. The rogue looked somewhat stinted in size, but active both in intelligence and in limb, as his black eyes seemed to promise by their vivacity. He was an attendant of Wildrake’s choice, who had conferred on him the nom de guerre of Spitfire, and had promised him promotion so soon as his young protegé, Breakfast, was fit to succeed him in his present office. It need scarce be said that the manege was maintained entirely at the expense of Colonel Everard, who allowed Wildrake to arrange the household very much according to his pleasure. The page did not omit, in offering the company wine from time to time, to accommodate Wildrake with about twice the number of opportunities of refreshing himself which he considered it necessary to afford to the Colonel or his reverend guest.

While they were thus engaged, the good divine lost in his own argument, and the hearers in their private thoughts, their attention was about half-past ten arrested by a knocking at the door of the house. To those who have anxious hearts, trifles give cause of alarm.

Even a thing so simple as a knock at the door may have a character which excites apprehension. This was no quiet gentle tap, intimating a modest intruder; no redoubled rattle, as the pompous annunciation of some vain person; neither did it resemble the formal summons to formal business, nor the cheerful visit of some welcome friend. It was a single blow, solemn and stern, if not actually menacing in the sound. The door was opened by some of the persons of the house; a heavy foot ascended the stair, a stout man entered the room, and drawing the cloak from his face, said, “Markham Everard, I greet thee in God’s name.”

It was General Cromwell.

Everard, surprised and taken at unawares, endeavoured in vain to find words to express his astonishment. A bustle occurred in receiving the General, assisting him to uncloak himself, and offering in dumb show the civilities of reception. The General cast his keen eye around the apartment, and fixing it first on the divine, addressed Everard as follows: “A reverend man I see is with thee. Thou art not one of those, good Markham, who let the time unnoted and unimproved pass away. Casting aside the things of this world — pressing forward to those of the next — it is by thus using our time in this poor seat of terrestrial sin and care, that we may, as it were — But how is this?” he continued, suddenly changing his tone, and speaking briefly, sharply, and anxiously; “one hath left the room since I entered?”

Wildrake had, indeed, been absent for a minute or two, but had now returned, and stepped forward from a bay window, as if he had been out of sight only, not out of the apartment. “Not so, sir; I stood but in the background out of respect. Noble General, I hope all is well with the Estate, that your Excellency makes us so late a visit? Would not your Excellency choose some”—

“Ah!” said Oliver, looking sternly and fixedly at him —“Our trusty Go-between — our faithful confidant. — No, sir; at present I desire nothing more than a kind reception, which, methinks, my friend Markham Everard is in no hurry to give me.”

“You bring your own welcome, my lord,” said Everard, compelling himself to speak. “I can only trust it was no bad news that made your Excellency a late traveller, and ask, like my follower, what refreshment I shall command for your accommodation.”

“The state is sound and healthy, Colonel Everard,” said the General; “and yet the less so, that many of its members, who have been hitherto workers together, and propounders of good counsel, and advancers of the public weal, have now waxed cold in their love and in their affection for the Good Cause, for which we should be ready, in our various degrees, to act and do so soon as we are called to act that whereunto we are appointed, neither rashly nor over-slothfully, neither lukewarmly nor over-violently, but with such a frame and disposition, in which zeal and charity may, as it were, meet and kiss each other in our streets. Howbeit, because we look back after we have put our hand to the plough, therefore is our force waxed dim.”

“Pardon me, sir,” said Nehemiah Holdenough, who, listening with some impatience, began to guess in whose company he stood —“Pardon me, for unto this I have a warrant to speak.”

“Ah! ah!” said Cromwell. “Surely, most worthy sir, we grieve the Spirit when we restrain those pourings forth, which, like water from a rock”—

“Nay, therein I differ from you, sir,” said Holdenough; “for as there is the mouth to transmit the food, and the profit to digest what Heaven hath sent; so is the preacher ordained to teach and the people to hear; the shepherd to gather the flock into the sheepfold, the sheep to profit by the care of the shepherd.”

“Ah! my worthy sir,” said Cromwell, with much unction, “methinks you verge upon the great mistake, which supposes that churches are tall large houses built by masons, and hearers are men — wealthy men, who pay tithes, the larger as well as the less; and that the priests, men in black gowns or grey cloaks, who receive the same, are in guerdon the only distributors of Christian blessings; whereas, in my apprehension, there is more of Christian liberty in leaving it to the discretion of the hungry soul to seek his edification where it can be found, whether from the mouth of a lay teacher, who claimeth his warrant from Heaven alone, or at the dispensation of those who take ordinations and degrees from synods and universities, at best but associations of poor sinful creatures like themselves.”

“You speak you know not what, sir,” replied Holdenough, impatiently. “Can light come out of darkness, sense out of ignorance, or knowledge of the mysteries of religion from such ignorant mediciners as give poisons instead of wholesome medicaments, and cram with filth the stomachs of such as seek to them for food?” This, which the Presbyterian divine uttered rather warmly, the General answered with the utmost mildness.

“Lack-a-day, lack-a-day! a learned man, but intemperate; over-zeal hath eaten him up. — A well-a-day, sir, you may talk of your regular gospel-meals, but a word spoken in season by one whose heart is with your heart, just perhaps when you are riding on to encounter an enemy, or are about to mount a breach, is to the poor spirit like a rasher on the coals, which the hungry shall find preferable to a great banquet, at such times when the full soul loatheth the honey-comb. Nevertheless, although I speak thus in my poor judgment, I would not put force on the conscience of any man, leaving to the learned to follow the learned, and the wise to be instructed by the wise, while poor simple wretched souls are not to be denied a drink from the stream which runneth by the way. — Ay, verily, it will be a comely sight in England when men shall go on as in a better world, bearing with each other’s infirmities, joining in each other’s comforts. — Ay, truly, the rich drink out of silver flagons, and goblets of silver, the poor out of paltry bowls of wood — and even so let it be, since they both drink the same element.”

Here an officer opened the door and looked in, to whom Cromwell, exchanging the canting drawl, in which it seemed he might have gone on interminably, for the short brief tone of action, called out, “Pearson, is he come?”

“No, sir,” replied Pearson; “we have enquired for him at the place you noted, and also at other haunts of his about the town.”

“The knave!” said Cromwell, with bitter emphasis; “can he have proved false? — No, no, his interest is too deeply engaged. We shall find him by and by. Hark thee hither.”

While this conversation was going forward, the reader must imagine the alarm of Everard. He was certain that the personal attendance of Cromwell must be on some most important account, and he could not but strongly suspect that the General had some information respecting Charles’s lurking place. If taken, a renewal of the tragedy of the 30th of January was instantly to be apprehended, and the ruin of the whole family of Lee, with himself probably included, must be the necessary consequence.

He looked eagerly for consolation at Wildrake, whose countenance expressed much alarm, which he endeavoured to bear out with his usual look of confidence. But the weight within was too great; he shuffled with his feet, rolled his eyes, and twisted his hands, like an unassured witness before an acute and not to be deceived judge.

Oliver, meanwhile, left his company not a minute’s leisure to take counsel together. Even while his perplexed eloquence flowed on in a stream so mazy that no one could discover which way its course was tending, his sharp watchful eye rendered all attempts of Everard to hold communication with Wildrake, even by signs, altogether vain. Everard, indeed, looked for an instant at the window, then glanced at Wildrake, as if to hint there might be a possibility to escape that way. But the cavalier had replied with a disconsolate shake of the head, so slight as to be almost imperceptible. Everard, therefore, lost all hope, and the melancholy feeling of approaching and inevitable evil, was only varied by anxiety concerning the shape and manner in which it was about to make its approach.

But Wildrake had a spark of hope left. The very instant Cromwell entered he had got out of the room, and down to the door of the house. “Back — back!” repeated by two armed sentinels, convinced him that, as his fears had anticipated, the General had come neither unattended nor unprepared. He turned on his heel, ran up stairs, and meeting on the landing-place the boy whom he called Spitfire, hurried him into the small apartment which he occupied as his own. Wildrake had been shooting that morning, and game lay on the table. He pulled a feather from a woodcock’s wing, and saying hastily, “For thy life, Spitfire, mind my orders — I will put thee safe out at the window into the court — the yard wall is not high — and there will be no sentry there — Fly to the Lodge, as thou wouldst win Heaven, and give this feather to Mistress Alice Lee, if possible — if not, to Joceline Joliffe — say I have won the wages of the young lady. Dost mark me, boy?”

The sharp-witted youth clapped his hand in his master’s, and only replied, “Done, and done.”

Wildrake opened the window, and, though the height was considerable, he contrived to let the boy down safely by holding his cloak. A heap of straw on which Spitfire lighted rendered the descent perfectly safe, and Wildrake saw him scramble over the wall of the court-yard, at the angle which bore on a back lane; and so rapidly was this accomplished, that the cavalier had just re-entered the room, when, the bustle attending Cromwell’s arrival subsiding, his own absence began to be noticed.

He remained during Cromwell’s lecture on the vanity of creeds, anxious in mind whether he might not have done better to send an explicit verbal message, since there was no time to write. But the chance of the boy being stopped, or becoming confused with feeling himself the messenger of a hurried and important communication, made him, on the whole, glad that he had preferred a more enigmatical way of conveying the intelligence. He had, therefore, the advantage of his patron, for he was conscious still of a spark of hope.

Pearson had scarce shut the door, when Holdenough, as ready in arms against the future Dictator as he had been prompt to encounter the supposed phantoms and fiends of Woodstock, resumed his attack upon the schismatics, whom he undertook to prove to be at once soul-slayers, false brethren, and false messengers; and was proceeding to allege texts in behalf of his proposition, when Cromwell, apparently tired of the discussion, and desirous to introduce a discourse more accordant with his real feelings, interrupted him, though very civilly, and took the discourse into his own hands.

“Lack-a-day,” he said, “the good man speaks truth, according to his knowledge and to his lights — ay, bitter truths, and hard to be digested, while we see as men see, and not with the eyes of angels. — False messengers, said the reverend man? — ay, truly, the world is full of such. You shall see them who will carry your secret message to the house of your mortal foe, and will say to him, ‘Lo! my master is going forth with a small train, by such and such desolate places; be you speedy, therefore, that you may arise and slay him.’ And another, who knoweth where the foe of your house, and enemy of your person, lies hidden, shall, instead of telling his master thereof, carry tidings to the enemy even where he lurketh, saying, ‘Lo! my master knoweth of your secret abode — up now, and fly, lest he come on thee like a lion on his prey.’— But shall this go without punishment?” looking at Wildrake with a withering glance. “Now, as my soul liveth, and as He liveth who hath made me a ruler in Israel, such false messengers shall be knitted to gibbets on the wayside, and their right hands shall be nailed above their heads, in an extended position, as if pointing out to others the road from which they themselves have strayed!”

“Surely,” said Master Holdenough, “it is right to cut off such offenders.”

“Thank ye, Mass-John,” muttered Wildrake; “when did the Presbyterian fail to lend the devil a shove?”

“But, I say,” continued Holdenough, “that the matter is estranged from our present purpose, for the false brethren of whom I spoke are”—

“Right, excellent sir, they be those of our own house,” answered Cromwell; “the good man is right once more. Ay, of whom can we now say that he is a true brother, although he has lain in the same womb with us? Although we have struggled in the same cause, eat at the same table, fought in the same battle, worshipped at the same throne, there shall be no truth in him. — Ah, Markham Everard, Markham Everard!”

He paused at this ejaculation; and Everard, desirous at once of knowing how far he stood committed, replied, “Your Excellency seems to have something in your mind in which I am concerned. May I request you will speak it out, that I may know what I am accused of?”

“Ah, Mark, Mark,” replied the General, “there needeth no accuser speak when the still small voice spe............