Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/60

 be of a froward sort, by evident tokens; as, at our coming home, shall be at large related unto you.

‘At the writing hereof we have done nothing at Ramsey; saving that one night I communed with the Abbot; whom I found conformable to everything, as shall be at this time put in act. And then, as your Lordship’s will is, as soon as we have done at Ramsey, we go to Peterborough. And from thence to my House; and so home. The which, I trust, shall be at the farthest on this day come seven days.

‘That the Blessed Trinity preserve your Lordship’s health!

‘Your Lordship’s most bounden Nephew, 1em ‘From Ramsey, on Tuesday in the morning.’

The other Letter is still more express as to the consanguinity; it says, among other things, ‘And longer than I may have heart so, as my most bounden duty is, to serve the King’s Grace with body, goods, and all that ever I am able to make; and your Lordship, as Nature and also your manifold kindness bindeth,—I beseech God I no longer live. ‘As Nature bindeth.’ Richard Cromwell then thanks him, with a bow to the very ground, for ‘my poore wyef,’ who has had some kind remembrance from his Lordship; thinks all ‘his travail but a pastime’; and remains, ‘at Stamford this Saturday at eleven of the clock, your humble Nephew most bounden,’ as in the other case. A vehement, swift-riding man! Nephew, it has been suggested, did not mean in Henry the Eighth’s time so strictly as it now does, brother’s or sister’s son; it meant nepos rather, or kinsman of a younger