Thy friend put in thy bosom: wear his eyes,
Still in thy heart, that he may see what’s there.
HERBERT.
By the care of Juxon, who had written to an old college servant of
Christ-church, a lodging was provided for Sir Oliver Heywood and his
party in a retired street at Oxford; and, having accomplished their
journey without any accident, they took possession of their new abode
early in September. The house though small was clean, and by no means
incommodious; but a part of it was already in the occupation of
another lodger. However, he was a quiet man, and was employed all day
in his labours, as a painter of coloured glass, having been engaged to
execute the windows of a chapel then building at University College.
Moreover, he was a Fleming, and spoke English so imperfectly that he
could not understand what was said to him, except on the most common
and necessary matters. But Sir Oliver, who suffered great pain with
his gout, and was really mortified at not being able to join the army,
began to show a fretfulness and discontent at his position, very
trying to Katharine and all about him. He was perpetually finding
fault with every thing, and every person; and his anger at the
language of alarm and doubt, which he found prevalent at Oxford, knew
no bounds. The secret of all this peevishness lay deeper than his
gouty sufferings; for, upon the very day of his arrival, he read in
“The Perfect Diurnall” that two squadrons of horse under Sergeant
Major Francis Heywood had joined the head quarters of the Lord Say,
who was the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, and stoutly opposed to the
King. Nor was this the simple announcement; but the news went on to
say, that these horsemen were well accoutred, and disciplined very
exactly under the training of Sergeant Major Heywood, a soldier of
excellent promise, who had served under the great Gustavus, and was
nearly allied to Sir Oliver Heywood of Milverton House, Warwickshire.
The old gentleman cursed and swore heartily when he first read this
aloud to Katharine and the Lamberts, but he never afterwards named the
subject or Francis; however, the thought lay rankling under every
expression of anger which daily events drew forth.
The cloisters and the groves on the banks of the Isis were no longer
the solemn and silent haunts of peaceful, meditative scholars,--they
now echoed to the harsh beating of drums; and the young students,
instead of pacing slowly in their black academic habits, were dressed
in the garb of soldiers, with blue scarfs suspended across their
bodies from the shoulder, and with pikes in their hands. At a
convocation held in July the University had, with one consent, voted
his Majesty all the public money which they had in hand; and, besides
this, several of the colleges, as well as private persons, sent in
their plate and their ready money also. This act of the convocation,
however, was immediately pronounced null and void by Parliament; and
any such actions were forbidden for the future. This proclamation
pronounced those criminal who had been concerned in advising this
diversion of the treasures of their colleges, and commanded each
society to secure its own. It also ordered that the Dean of
Christ-church, the President of Magdalen, and the Provost of Queen’s,
who had been most active in this matter, should be seized and brought
to the bar of the House to answer for their conduct. But this could
not be accomplished, because the High Sheriff and the Mayor of Oxford,
acting upon the commission of array, had called out the train bands of
the city, and the scholars had taken arms. To support this show of
resistance, Sir John Biron marched to Oxford, and took possession of
it for the King. Sir John had with him about five hundred horse; and
thus he secured the contributions for the King’s service, and was
enabled, though compelled soon afterwards to retire from the city, to
carry a considerable portion of it safe to the royal quarters. It was
during the period that Oxford was thus held for the King that Sir
Oliver and his family came there to reside. They were visited by
several of the stanch Royalists and their ladies: these visitors
consisted for the most part of the troubled and alarmed clergy, who
were connected by office with the University. To some of their wives
it was a delight to have a new family into whose ears they might pour
all the bitter scandals against the Nonconformists, and others of the
Parliament party, which they eagerly collected and minutely detailed.
Nor was there any deficiency in spirit; for some of them went so far
as to declare that, happen what might, nothing should make them stir
from their own houses; that their husbands might run away if they
pleased; but no canting Roundheads should ever eject them from their
own arm chairs; and generally concluded by observing, that if their
husbands were not such a poor set of creatures, they would drive the
odious Lord Say out of the county; and that, as it was, there was no
chance whatever of his getting into the city. Then they reckoned upon
their fingers,--the five hundred men of Sir John Biron, and the four
hundred pikes of the train bands, and the two hundred scholars with
pikes, and the fifty doctors and masters of arts that had horses and
pistols, and spirit to use them. Mrs. Veal, the lady of a doctor of
Christ-church, was the most eloquent in these invectives, and the most
exact in these calculations; and, to her honour be it spoken, she kept
her word; and when the day of trial came, and Oxford was abandoned to
the Parliamentarians, she would not accompany her husband, but
remained obstinately fixed in her own arm-chair, and most successfully
defended her house with a scolding tongue.
Amid all these bitter and uncongenial elements Katharine Heywood was
perplexed and troubled, and found little rest for her spirit, save
that which passeth man’s understanding, and that which she found in
the affectionate friendship of Jane Lambert. Nothing more cruelly
jarred her feelings than the language in which, by common consent,
almost all around her seemed to talk of the Parliamentarians. Her own
loyalty was firm and pure, but it was of an exalted character; and
under no circumstances could it have stooped to so low a hatred of the
persons, or to so mean an opinion of the motives, of the King’s
enemies, as that generally entertained and daily expressed before her.
She did every thing which it was in the power of a daughter to do for
the comfort and tranquillity of her father, but her efforts were not
very successful.
As soon as it became known that the Lord Say was advancing upon Oxford
with superior forces, and that Sir John Biron was about to retire upon
Worcester, nothing would pacify Sir Oliver but an endeavour to
accompany that movement. However, the means of conveyance were not to
be obtained for money, and he was compelled to remain where he was.
On the morning of the 14th of September the greatest possible
consternation prevailed in the city; and early in the forenoon a
strong body of horse, headed by the Lord Say, marched into the
University. His first act was to cause all the colleges to be strictly
searched for plate and arms, and to secure whatever plate had not
been hidden, or despatched under escort of Sir John Biron. He also
broke into their treasuries, but found little in them, save in that of
Christ-church, where, after a day’s labour, and breaking through a
plastered wall to an iron chest, he discovered in the bottom thereof a
groat and a halter;--a pleasant surprize for a man of his morose
temper, and provided for him by the wit of the doctor’s lady who has
been mentioned above.
It was not till late in the evening of the 14th that Sir Oliver and
his daughter got any distinct information of what was passing. Their
street was retired; not a soldier entered it; nor a sound, save that
of trumpets from the market-place, reached their anxious ears. The
worthy knight forbade Katharine and Jane to leave the house, and old
Philip the butler was not at all inclined to volunteer any inquiries.
But the Flemish painter had been absent from a very early hour; on
which account Sir Oliver charitably pronounced him a Dutch
Presbyterian rascal, who had been acting as a spy for the Roundheads.
It was in vain that Katharine observed that he was an artist employed
by a college upon its chapel windows: the knight pronounced him a
foreign scoundrel, gone to join in the plunder. Towards evening the
painter returned, and came to their apartment, to tell them in his
broken stammering language, with tears in his eyes, that a fine young
officer, who spoke Dutch, had saved all his painted glass from being
broken, and had put a safeguard at all the chapels.
The officer of whom the painter related this was no other than Francis
Heywood. The throb of Katharine’s heart told her so at the instant,
but it was confirmed to her afterwards.
It was the habit of Katharine and Jane to walk daily in the afternoon
in the fair meadows on the banks of the river to which they had quick
and easy access, from the retired quarter in which they dwelt, without
passing through any of the more public streets of the town.
Their friendship had strengthened under all the adverse and anxious
circumstances of the times; and the piety of Jane had become so
deepened by her constant intercourse with Katharine that their
spirits held communion together in these walks, whether they conversed
or were silent.
The arrival of the Parliamentarians put a stop to these rambles for
the first few days after they took possession of the city; but, by the
strictness of their discipline and the quietness of their behaviour
towards the citizens of the place, confidence was soon restored, and
the people went about the streets and ventured into the neighbouring
fields as usual.
It was on a fine glowing afternoon, about a week after the entrance of
Lord Say’s horsemen, that Katharine and Jane went forth together to
their favourite meadow. The sun had such power, that, instead of
keeping the open and more public path, they confined themselves to a
short and shady promenade beneath a few stately trees on the margin of
the river. No one chanced to be in the meadow but themselves: the
glorious hues of autumn were already beginning to tinge the tops of
trees, and the hedge rows were blushing with bird fruit. In the
distance, too, on the low hills, the naked and yellow stubble of the
corn fields told that the harvest was ended, and the season of the
last fruits was come. The friends were carrying forward their hopes
and fears as to the future, and were comforting themselves with the
vain hope that, even yet, before the fall of the leaf, some change for
the better might come.
It was rumoured that, through the Lord Falkland, who was highly
considered by many of the Parliamentary leaders, and who was known to
be a Royalist far too generous and right minded to wish well to
despotic government, expectations of a reconciliation between the King
and his Commons were yet entertained. But Katharine, though she wished
not to depress her more sanguine friend, could not but fear that these
rumours of peace were begotten rather of the wishes of those who
uttered them than of their judgment: that too many resolute men were
on horseback and in arms; and that they would assuredly draw the sword
and try the issues of battle. As thus they walked together, softened
by the repose and beauty of the scene around, Jane ventured upon a
theme which seldom or ever passed her lips. She spoke of love, and of
its many crosses; but withal that better it was to love, though life
were passed separated from the object of it, than not to feel so sweet
an influence.
“It is true, Jane,” said Katharine mournfully, “it is most true; yet
misplaced affections do greatly wear the spirit.”
“You do not mean misplaced, dear cousin, surely; but fixed hopelessly
on one most worthy of our love. Such is your destiny, for Francis is a
noble being. You never told me of the first growth of your attachment:
how did it first spring? what moved you? did he woo you? Love, they
say, does ever beget love; but yet, methinks, nothing of outward show
or manliest beauty, no mere words of admiration, would have availed to
fix any man firmly in a heart like yours.”
“Albeit the subject pains me, I will tell thee, Jane. Yes, he is
worthy of a woman’s love. From his first youth he has been, as thou
knowest well, a soldier. It was his father’s pride to see him, when
but a stripling, not so tall as the boy Arthur, intrusted with a
standard in the day of battle. In his first field, a bullet struck him
down upon his knees; still, with uplifted arms, he waved his ensign,
and strove to keep his place in the close ranks, till faint with pain
he fell: but, even then, he grasped the colour staff so firmly, that a
stout lieutenant, who, for its safety, took it from him, was forced to
bruise his boyish hands ere they would let go their sacred charge. On
the morrow, as he lay upon his bloody straw in the field hospital, the
great Gustavus gave him the Iron Cross of Honour, and with it a
commission in his guard of horse,--rewards for this first proof of
constancy.
“This, at our table, his father did relate with such a pride as doth
become a parent. Francis the while coloured a little, and looked down
for modesty, but said nothing. I felt hot tears upon my cheek; and
when they drank his health, and I did pledge him, he saw those tears.
Such was the birth of our attachment; and kind words, and gentle
actions, and books, and music, and many things, did feed it, till it
grew to love; and then came trouble. Thou knowest well the bitter feud
that blazed forth suddenly between our fathers. The quarrel was of
public matters; for my father never knew nor even guessed our love.
’Tis long, long past that blissful season: let’s talk of it no more.”
“Thank you, dear Katharine,” said Jane, with swimming eyes and
faltering tongue; “I feel for you. I love you so, it was but right to
tell me this. You wish for silence; be it so: for the world I would
not pain you.” Their conversation dropped, and they gave themselves to
the grave thoughts it had called up.
It had been late in the afternoon before they came out: evening drew
on; and the sun was setting in a fine autumnal sky, when they were
surprised by the sound of approaching voices: as they became more
distinct, Jane observed that they must proceed from some persons on
the river or on the opposite bank. They went to a tree near the water,
and there, concealed by the overhanging branches, they saw a small
boat dropping down the stream, and gliding to the very bank on which
they stood. It came close, but neither of the persons in it stepped
ashore: they continued talking in a foreign language, and comparing a
distant outline of ground with papers which they held in their hands.
Their backs were towards Katharine and Jane; but these almost
immediately recognised one as the Flemish painter, who lodged in the
same house with them, the other was a tall stately man in a helmet and
a buff war coat, with an orange scarf depending from his right
shoulder. The heart of Katharine throbbed violently. Under the
disguise of a foreign tongue, she was not certain about the voice; but
she thought it was that of Francis. He lifted his helmet from his
head, and turned to catch the evening breeze. It was her cousin. Her
cheek became deadly pale: she trembled excessively, and caught at the
trunk of the tree for support. A sudden exclamation from Jane Lambert
gave alarm. Francis sprang instantly to the shore, eager to quiet any
fears which he might innocently have caused. Nor was the surprise
greater to them than to himself, when he saw Katharine Heywood and
Jane Lambert before him.