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.