Hampden came up first, and Lord Brook, to the succour of Hollis' imperilled regiment; they tried to fight through the royal troops, which had surrounded Hollis and his men in the streets of Brentford. This they could not effect. But Hollis' little band themselves fought to their last bullet, and then threw themselves into the river, those who were not drowned swimming past Prince Rupert's troops to Hampden and his Greencoats. Lord Essex, hearing the sound of guns in the Parliament House, where he was at the time, took horse and galloped across the parks and through Knightsbridge to the scene of action. After this, all through the Saturday night, soldiers came pouring out from the roused city, until, on Sunday morning, four and twenty thousand men were gathered on Turnham Green. Then the tables were turned, and Hampden fell on the king's rear. "And then?" asked Aunt Dorothy. "And then," replied my Father, drily, "Lord Essex recalled him, and so nothing further came of it; but things have gone on simmering ever since; always getting ready, and discussing how things should be done, and never doing them." "How do Mr. Hampden and Mr. Pym brook these delays?" said Aunt Dorothy. "Mr. Hampden would have had my Lord Essex invest Oxford," said my Father, "but he is a subordinate, and Lord Essex a veteran; and Mr. Hampden, I trow, deems military obedience the best example he can give an army scarce six months recruited from the shop or the plough." "And meantime," said Aunt Dorothy, "I warrant Prince Rupert is active enough. There is no end to the tales of his devastations, seizing whole teams from the plough, setting fire to quiet villages at midnight, with I know not what iniquities besides, and carrying home the spoil from twenty miles around to the king's quarters at Oxford. If Lord Essex does not want to fight the king, why does not he submit to him? Keeping twenty-four thousand men armed and fed at the public expense, and doing nothing, is neither peace nor war to my mind!" "True, sister Dorothy," said my Father, "I know of no method by which war can be carried on in a friendly way. And when Lord Essex has come to the same conclusion, perhaps things will go a little faster." "Will they ever, under Lord Essex?" said she. "Time will show," said he. "We have scarcely found our Great Gustavus yet." "Colonel Cromwell has been doing something better than dreaming what to do, at Cambridge, since he saved the magazine there and £2,000 of plate for the Parliament last June," said Aunt Dorothy. "Troops are pouring up to him from Essex and Suffolk, and all around, they say; and Cambridge is being fortified; and they say it is owing to Colonel Cromwell we are so quiet in these seven counties." "Colonel Cromwell has a rare gift of sifting the chaff from the wheat; finding out who can do the work and setting them to do it," said my Father, thoughtfully.