Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/172

 in dim conflict, suffering manifold distress. And from his Majesty’s head-quarters ever and anon there darts out, now hither now thither, across the dim smoke-element, a swift fierce Prince Rupert, plundering and blazing; and then suddenly darts in again;—too like a streak of sudden fire, for he plunders, and even burns, a good deal! Which state of things Colonel Hampden and others witness with much impatience; but cannot get the Lord General to undertake anything, till he see.

An obscure entangled scene of things; all manner of War-movements and swift-shooting electric influences crossing one another, with complex action and reaction;—as happens in a scene of War; much more of Civil War, where a whole People and its affairs have become electric.—Here are Three poor Letters, reunited at last from their long exile, resuscitated after long interment: not in a very luminous condition! Vestiges of Oliver in the Eastern Association; which, however faint, are welcome to us.

Essex people, at least the Town of Colchester and Langley their Captain have, in some measure, sent their contingent to Cambridge; but money is short. Cromwell, home rapidly again from Norfolk, must take charge of it; has an order from the Lord General;—nay it seems a Great Design is in view; and Cromwell too, like Richard Baxter and the rest of us, imagines one grand effort might perhaps end these bleeding miseries.

“Cambridge,” 23d March 1642. Gentlemen,—Upon the coming down of your Townsmen to Cambridge, Captain Langley not knowing how to dispose of them, desired me to nominate a fit Captain: which I did,—an