Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/158

 the Parliament had a zealous member, it sent him down to his shire in these critical months, to take what management he could or durst. The most confused months England ever saw. In every shire, in every parish; in courthouses, alehouses, churches, markets, wheresoever men were gathered together, England, with sorrowful confusion in every fibre, is tearing itself into hostile halves, to carry on the voting by pike and bullet henceforth.

Brevity is very urgent on us, nevertheless we must give this other extract. Bramston the Shipmoney Judge, in trouble with the Parliament and sequestered from his place, is now likely to get into trouble with the King, who in the last days of July has ordered him to come to York on business of importance. Judge Bramston sends his two sons, John and Frank, fresh young men, to negotiate some excuse. They ride to York in three days; stay a day at York with his Majesty; then return, ‘on the same horses,’ in three days,—to Skreens in Essex; which was good riding. John, one of them, has left a most watery incoherent Autobiography, now printed, but not edited,—nor worth editing, except by fire to ninety-nine hundredths of it; very distracting; in which, however, there is this notable sentence; date about the middle of August, not discoverable to a day. Having been at York, and riding back on the same horses in three days:

‘In our return on Sunday, near Huntingdon, between that and Cambridge, certain musketeers start out of the corn, and command us to stand; telling us we must be searched, and to that end must go before Mr. Cromwell, and give account from whence we came and whither we were going. I asked where Mr. Cromwell was? A soldier told us, He was four miles off. I said, it was unreasonable to carry us out of our way; if Mr. Cromwell had been there, I should have willingly given him all the satisfaction he could desire;—and putting my hand into my pocket, I gave one of them Twelvepence, who said, we might pass. By this I saw plainly it would not be possible for my Father to get to the King with his