"Roger Drayton has a strange way of his own in discourse, of putting aside all your light skirmishing forces, and closing with the very kernel and core of the people he has to do with. The way of the Ironsides, I suppose. I have been used to little but skirmishing in discourse among the younger Cavaliers; light jesting talk whether the heart or the subject be grave or gay. Even serious feelings being hidden for the most part under a mask of levity. But Roger seldom, perhaps never, exactly jests. His mirth, like a child's laughter, is from the heart, as much as his gravity. He will know and have you know what you really honour, or love, or want, or dread. "So it happened that to-day on the terrace we came on the very subject I had intended always to avoid; General Cromwell. "I chanced to allude in passing to some of the reports I had heard against the General, some careless words about his praying and preaching with his men. "I had no notion until then how Roger reveres this man, like a son his father, or a loyal subject his sovereign. "He said, quietly, but with that repressed passion which often makes his words so strong, that no man who had ever knelt at General Cromwell's prayers would jest at his praying, any more than any man who had ever encountered him in battle would jest at his fighting. That his word could inspire his men to charge like a word from heaven, and could rally them like a re-inforcement. That after the battle his strong utterance of Christian hope and faith could hearten men to die, as it had heartened them to fight; that after such a battle as Marston Moor, while directing the siege-works outside York, he could find time to go down into the depths of his own past sorrows to draw thence living waters of comfort for a friend (Mr. Walton) whose son had been slain, writing him a letter of consolation (which Roger had seen) containing words deep enough 'to drink up the father's sorrow.' "Then Roger spoke of the unflinching justice, which was only the other side of this same sympathy and care; how General Cromwell had two of his men hanged for plundering prisoners at Winchester, and sent others accused of the same offence to be judged by the royal garrison at Oxford, whence the governor sent them back with a generous acknowledgment. "'It is _loyalty_ you feel towards General Cromwell,' I said, 'such a disinterested, ennobling, self-sacrificing passion as our Harry felt for the king.' "He paused a moment,-- "'If God sends us a judge and a deliverer what else can we feel for him?' he said, at length; 'I believe General Cromwell is the defender of the law, and will be the deliverer of the nation, and if he will suffer it,' he added, in a lower voice, 'of the king.'