Juxon leaned his head against the wall where he stood, and kept his eyes fixed on them. He had before him one of those rarely endowed beings on whom gifts without measure had been poured:—for a quarter of an hour he listened, with a painful and solemn interest, to a flow of real eloquence. The petitions touched in succession every point at issue. They justified, as by divine command, the appeal to arms, and proclaimed the end thereof to be reformation and peace. They recognised the sacredness of the King’s anointed head; and they ended in a prophetic anticipation of the days of millennial glory, and the universal reign of a manifested God.
In the course of the prayer he had not forgotten to pray for all mankind, and especially for all those enemies who now stood opposed to them in the present contest, and again in a yet more especial manner for the near and dear relations, whose wishes and entreaties they were now called on to resist, and whose hearts they might now afflict. Painting this resistance most truly, as the highest order of self-denial, he urged it as a sacred duty, and a sacrifice well pleasing to the Lord.
Juxon saw by the expression of Cuthbert’s mouth the new and stronger resolutions he was making;—nor did it surprise him to see that, when they rose together at the conclusion of this fervent prayer, the chaplain took Cuthbert by the hand, that was passively yielded, and led him forth from the church without either of them addressing one word to himself. They looked at him, indeed, with seriousness, if not with compassion, and they moved their lips, but the whispered ejaculations of their hearts had no voice; and their departing footsteps were the only sounds that broke the silence of the place and of the hour.
CHAP. VII.
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.