Great Britain -- History -- Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1660 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
hunts his metaphor at a very cold scent, through a pamphlet of six
mortal quarto pages.)
Here the military part of the congregation raised a hum of approbation,
which, being a sound like the “hear, hear,” of the British House of
Commons, was calculated to heighten the enthusiasm of the orator, by
intimating the sympathy of the audience. “And then,” resumed the
preacher, rising in energy as he found that his audience partook in
these feelings, “what saith the text?—Ride on prosperously—do not
stop—do not call a halt—do not quit the saddle—pursue the scattered
fliers—sound the trumpet—not a levant or a flourish, but a point of
war—sound, boot and saddle—to horse and away—a charge!—follow after the
young Man!—what part have we in him?—Slay, take, destroy, divide the
spoil! Blessed art thou, Oliver, on account of thine honour—thy cause
is clear, thy call is undoubted—never has defeat come near thy
leading-staff, nor disaster attended thy banner. Ride on, flower of
England’s soldiers! ride on, chosen leader of God’s champions! gird up
the loins of thy resolution, and be steadfast to the mark of thy high
calling.”
Another deep and stern hum, echoed by the ancient embow’d arches of the
old chantry, gave him an opportunity of an instant’s repose; when the
people of Woodstock heard him, and not without anxiety, turn the stream
of his oratory into another channel.
“But wherefore, ye people of Woodstock, do I say these things to you,
who claim no portion in our David, no interest in England’s son of
Jesse?—You, who were fighting as well as your might could (and it was
not very formidable) for the late Man, under that old blood-thirsty
papist Sir Jacob Aston—are you not now plotting, or ready to plot, for
the restoring, as ye call it, of the young Man, the unclean son of the
slaughtered tyrant—the fugitive after whom the true hearts of England
are now following, that they may take and slay him?—‘Why should your
rider turn his bridle our way?’ say you in your hearts; ‘we will none
of him; if we may help ourselves, we will rather turn us to wallow in
the mire of monarchy, with the sow that was washed but newly.’ Come,
men of Woodstock, I will ask, and do you answer me. Hunger ye still
after the flesh-pots of the monks of Godstow? and ye will say, Nay;—but
wherefore, except that the pots are cracked and broken, and the fire is
extinguished wherewith thy oven used to boil? And again, I ask, drink
ye still of the well of fornications of the fair Rosamond?—ye will say,
Nay;—but wherefore?”—
Here the orator, ere he could answer the question in his own way, was
surprised by the following reply, very pithily pronounced by one of the
congregation:—“Because you, and the like of you, have left us no brandy
to mix with it.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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