"I don’t know about that, Martha. I’m not sure in my own mind about letting the old traitor go. But his white hair, his bloody face, and his demented look stayed my hand. He had left his bridle fall, his horse was trembling in every limb; the old man did not know what he was doing, he had lost his senses. Yet David Leslie ought to have been shot—only, I could not shoot him; he fought at my side—once. God forgive him! Martha, I have had enough of war. I thank God it is over." "But is it over?" "Cromwell says so, and I believe him. When a man walks with God as closely as Cromwell does, he knows many things beyond ordinary knowledge. I saw him about ten o’clock. He had written then a few lines to his wife and family, and was writing to the Parliament. And what did he say in that letter? Did he praise himself? No! He was bold humbly to beg that all the glory might be given to God, who had wrought so great a salvation. When he had sealed and sent off these letters—by Lord Cluny Neville, Mistress Jane—he lifted his sword, red from the hilt to the point, and wiped it upon a Royalist flag lying near him. Then he dropped the blade into the sheathe with a clang, and said, ’Truly thou hast had thy last bloody supper. Rest now, thy work is done!’" [Illustration: "THEN HE DROPPED HIS BLADE INTO THE SHEATHE WITH A CLANG."] "Truly, I know not what work," said Mrs. Swaffham. "I see only death and destruction." "Martha, suppose Charles Stuart had conquered at Worcester, and that he had marched on London and been received there as the conqueror of a rebellious people, what would follow?" "I know not, nor does any man or woman know." "I can tell you. Our Protestant faith and our civil liberty would be taken from us; for the latter depends on the former, and all we have done since 1640 would be to do over again. Jericho has fallen, would you rebuild it?" "All I want is peace." "That we shall now have. Our steel bodies, that have galled us long with the wearing of them, may be cast off; our men will return to their homes and their daily work, and our worship shall never more be broken up, but our Sabbaths be full of good things." "If we love God, I wonder if it makes so much difference how we worship Him?" "I am astonished at you, Martha." "I am astonished likewise at all the sorrow and blood-shedding about surplices and chasubles and written prayers and such things." "My dear mother!" "Oh, my dear Jane, it is so; and I was astonished when I was a girl and saw my father go to poverty and prison for such trifles. Yes, I say trifles—and I am a Puritan minister’s child, and not ashamed of it—and my husband and sons have been taken from me, and my household left for the battle-field, and I know not what sorrows and trials——"