But some slight notices of what passed during this interval among our various characters—a faint outline of their doings, and of the positions which they occupied—may not be without some interest. From the period when we last mentioned him, the health of Sir Oliver declined: he grew infirm; and besides gout he had other complaints, which produced a morbid action in his system, and made him alternately gloomy and lethargic, or sensitive and irritable to excess. Any bad news, a disagreeable incident, a chance crossing of his will, made him angry and out of temper with every person and thing around him. All this Katharine bore with a prayerful composure of the spirit, and was often rewarded by subduing her unreasonable father into sincere and affectionate confessions of that divine mercy, which did in so many things comfort and succour them in this season of common adversity and universal suffering. But there were trials to which she was occasionally exposed that drove her away in agony of spirit, and with a silent step, to her closet, where she might weep alone.
Sir Oliver had been informed, through the officious and mischievous agency of one of those busy old ladies who had forced their acquaintance on the family, first, that Francis Heywood had been in Oxford with Lord Say’s horsemen, and, next, that he had had an interview on the bank of the river with Mistress Katharine. She contrived, moreover, in her relation of the story, under a pretence of feeling for the young people, and of its being so natural and so romantic, to insinuate that it was a prettily concerted meeting. It is not to be denied that she had some materials on which to build up the fabric of her falsehood: for she had seen Jane and Katharine walking in the meadow; she had seen Francis Heywood leap from the boat; and when he came forth from the avenue which concealed both the ladies as well as himself, and walked swiftly into the city, he had passed close under the window of her summer house.
There is a dignity and there is an earnestness in a genuine spirit of truth which command belief and compel admiration. No sooner, therefore, did Sir Oliver first mention to Katharine what he had heard than she told him, with all plainness, in how sudden and unexpected a manner Francis and herself met. She told him in part what had passed between them, and excused herself for not telling him of the interview, by reminding him how very much the sight of her cousin’s name in the newspaper had discomposed and excited him; and how, in his own judgment, it had exasperated the symptoms of his disease. By these explanations the old knight was at once satisfied and quieted. Her remonstrance with Francis put aside at the moment all suspicion. At her particular request, he promised that Francis and his politics should be an interdicted name and a forbidden subject. But this resolution was soon broken; for when he heard that Milverton House was burnt down, for a fortnight the name was constantly on his lips, and was always coupled with the most angry and contemptuous language, if not by maledictions of a more fearful nature.
At such moments, a sense of his own impotent condition, which forbade him to join the camp, would press upon his mind, till it produced paroxysms of frantic rage. By these temptations a temper less heavenly than that of Katharine’s would have been fretted into resistance and contention,—a faith less firm and exalted would have failed. But ever as the tempests of his mind subsided, Sir Oliver felt shame in her angelic presence. He could not indeed apprehend the high order of her mental force; but he could appreciate those solid principles of filial affection that enabled her to endure all things, to hope all things, and that replied to bitter words only by the kindest services, and by the most studious desires to content and cherish him. Through sickness, through pain, through greater reverses of fortune than they at first experienced,—under circumstances which compelled a great abridgement of all their ordinary comforts,—the daughter shone as if she had been some ministering spirit of love and patience, to whom a charge of peculiar difficulty had been assigned. Nor was this trial of her patience brief. It was not till the winter of 1647 that her chastised parent was removed from his scene of suffering and taken to his rest. The last two months of his existence were, however, marked by a change of temper and conduct very affecting to all who witnessed it; and this proved a reward and consolation to Katharine herself beyond all expectation. Hope, indeed, had never forsaken her; for her hope was ever anchored beneath the mercy seat of that Redeemer who is mighty to save. The old knight became gentle, penitent, tearful:—listened with earnestness to the word of life—was much in meditation—became tender as a little child—was full of thanksgiving and gratitude to his Christian daughter, and expired in her arms in peace. His end was only marked by one painful circumstance,—a last weakness and prejudice, that clung to him even when the approach of death was manifest, and eternity in view. He declared that he died in true and perfect charity with all men, and with Francis and his father more especially; but he made a request to Katharine, that she would solemnly promise, under no change of circumstances whatever, to give her hand in marriage to her cousin Francis. He confessed to her that, two years before, he had intercepted a letter from him to her address; in which, though he did not suppose them to be responded to by her, his sentiments of love were set forth in plain and melancholy words. Katharine gave the promise required with a low firm voice, and received upon a pale and trembling cheek the cold kiss that thanked her.
The Heywoods had remained in Oxford through both the sieges, and in that city Sir Oliver died. Arthur Heywood, feeling himself by the loss of his limb disabled for all future service in the field, had again entered at his college, and prepared himself by diligent and cheerful study for embracing the profession of the law, whenever the distracted kingdom should be once more in a state of repose. George Juxon had been for the most part in the field, having accompanied the army of the King as the volunteer chaplain of a regiment of horse; but in the winter of 1645 he made Jane Lambert his own by those sweet and sacred ties which the church sanctifies and records. Katharine stood by her at the altar with that pure and perfect joy which hath its only outward expression in grave and loving looks. For her comfort, Jane was still spared to her as a companion,—a consolation greatly needed, and most thankfully enjoyed; for her domestic trials were of that petty and painful nature, that do especially wear and weary the most generous spirits.
The name of Francis did never reach her ear save through some public channel, and that being commonly a newspaper, printed for the Royalists, she did only gather that he had been present on some fields where there had been obstinate fighting and great loss of lives. The thought of his being slain was one painfully familiar to her in the still night when she lay awake and prayed for him. Then again came other news in the morning, and his name mentioned as one still riding at the head of squadrons, and present, it would seem, and among the foremost wherever swords were drawn, and service to be done. Afterwards, for months she might not hear his name:—if he was dead, she did not know it; if he was living, she did not know it; and all these silent anxieties most deeply wrought upon her suffering spirit.
At the death of Sir Oliver, the King being now a captive, and the royal cause (which had never looked up since the fatal battle of Naseby) on all sides declining, Katharine consented, at the earnest entreaty of Jane, to accompany the Juxons to Cottesmore, in the county of Gloucester; near which place the venerable uncle of George had an estate and a private dwelling. It was her intention to wait patiently the full end of all troubles or commotions before she attempted to fix her future residence; and then, upon the settlement of her family affairs, to summon back to her that little orphan girl, just shown at the commencement of this story. That sweet child had been securely placed with the widow of a clergyman in one of the most secluded valleys of Derbyshire, where, safe even from the sounds of war, she had been reared in peace, and educated with religious care. This arrangement had been made by Mistress Alice before her death, from an apprehension that unquiet days were coming; and ample provision for the support of the child had been lodged in the hands of a secure agent in that county.
It was the plan of Katharine, whenever she might again take possession of the Warwickshire estates, to build and endow a college for the widows of clergymen on the site of the ruined mansion of Milverton, and to pass the rest of her days in some quiet and suitable retreat near Kenilworth. But it is premature to speak of the time and manner of a retirement which was not to be realised till yet greater trials than those she had hitherto experienced should come.