"Fight him," said lord Evesham, "better now, than later." "Fight him! That, I tell you, is my mind also," said Cromwell striking the table with his clinched hand. "Some may judge otherwise, but I think while we hold Charles Stuart safe, London is safe also." "Surely," said Lambert, "it may be more expedient to secure Charles Stuart, but——" "Expedient, expedient!" interrupted Cromwell. "Who can make a conscience out of expediency? Expediency says, _it may be_; Conscience says, _it is_. If Worcester were ten times as strong, I would not hesitate. God has chosen this battle-field for us, as He chose Dunbar; and because the place is strong, and because it is on both sides the river, we will draw closer and closer our crescent of steel round it. We will fight against it on both sides of the river, and we will expect that miracle of deliverance which will surely come, for we never yet found God failing, when we trusted in Him. In these parts we struck our first blows for Freedom, and here, at point and edge, we will strike our last, and then sheathe our swords. I give my word to you for this, and I will fully answer it. But there must be no slackness. The work is to be thorough, and not to do over again. The nation wishes it so, I know it. The plain truth is—we will march straight on Worcester; we will cut off Charles Stuart from all hope of London; we will fight him from both sides of the river, and bring this matter of the Stuarts to an end; for they are the great troublers of Israel." The man and the time and the place had met, and there was no doubting it. His words burned this assurance into the hearts of all who heard him, and when he struck his sword-hilt to emphasise them, they answered with the same movement, unconscious and simultaneous. In some remarkable way, this tremendous national crisis had become known in every corner of the land. If the great angel who guides and guards the destinies of England had sent out a legion of messengers to cry it from every church tower, there could not have been any more conscious intimation of the final struggle. And the very vagueness and mystery of the conviction intensified its importance, for generally the information came as the wind blows, no one knew whence—only that the billows of war, though low and far off, were heard, only that a sense of presence and movement not visible thrilled and informed men and women and brought them nearer to their inner selves than they had ever been before. Indeed, there were many whose spiritual senses were opened by intense longing and fearing, and they heard voices and saw portents and visions in the air above, yea, even on the streets around them.