"As for Drogheda, _I say it was in the heat of action_, and were they not Papists, blasphemous idolaters whose hands were red with the blood of God's poor people? _It was in the heat of action!_ What was that little moment compared to the torments of hell they have earned? When they were shut up in the church and the flames were getting hold on them, I heard one say--'God damn me, God confound me, I burn!' That is God's judgment. God _hath_ damned him--to the flame that is never quenched and the worm that never dieth! Poor clay am I, but a reed He breatheth through--shall I be blamed for His vengeance against Drogheda? Nay, no more than I shall be praised for His victories at Dunbar and Worcester--when He was pleased to make use of a certain poor thing of mine, nay, a little invention, the army." The ancient gentlewoman leant forward and stroked his sleeve with her pallid hand thickened with heavy veins. She had an instinct that he required comforting in this the highest moment of his glory. He still wore his buff riding coat, his dusty boots, his plain sword-thread and sword; surely no victorious general had ever returned to take his triumph in such attire. No order, no ornament distinguished him from the meanest of his fellow-citizens; his features, always heavy, were slightly swollen and slightly suffused, his eyes most deeply lined and shadowed; there was as much grey as brown now in the locks that fell to his shoulders, and a general sadness was in his expression, his pose, the tone of his rough voice. His little mother continued to anxiously stroke his cloth sleeve and to gaze up at him with those failing eyes which saw neither marks of age nor fatigue, saw neither plainness nor ill-health, but only _her_ son in the glory of his matchless achievement. He looked down at her at last. "My mother," he said, "how long ago is it since I knelt to say my prayers at your knee? I feel the years grow marvellously heavy and my body full of the evils of old age. So little done, so much to do! For all of us, such a little while." "Many more years for thee, son Oliver," she replied. "Many more and much to do in them! If there be something to be done in England, wilt thou not do it?" "Surely," he said, straightening himself, "for I am English--it is the English who now testify most for the Lord, and He out of His mercy hath given us great gifts." The last sunlight had faded from the narrow street, and the precise chamber was growing dark. "God keep thee always," said Mrs. Cromwell quietly. "I would not hold thee even from manifest danger if He bade thee go!" "I believe I never shall go back to Ely," he answered evenly. "My hand is on the plough----" The door was gently opened and Elisabeth Claypole, holding a candle which illumined her wistful, frail beauty, half entered and told them the supper waited for them below. CHAPTER II THE TALK IN ST. JAMES'S PARK