Many a delightsome hour have I spent in Mr. Henry's house in the orchard, by the river, watching the boats, and gay barges, and the fishers, and the white fleets of swans, and the flow of the broad river sweeping by, always like a poem of human life, set to a stately organ music, plying my needle meanwhile beside the young daughters of the house, with cheerful converse. But most of all I loved to hearken to the father's discourse concerning the king and the court in the days gone by. How the young princes used to play with his Philip, and gave him gifts, and had wondrous courtesy for him; and how Archbishop Laud took a particular kindness for him when he was a child, because he would be very officious to attend to the water-gate (which was part of his father's charge), to let the archbishop through when he came late from council, to cross the water to Lambeth; and how afterwards the lad Philip had been taken to see the fallen archbishop in the Tower, and he had given him some "new money." It was strange to think how the great River of Time had borne all that stately company away, king, court, archbishop, council, like some fleeting pomp of gay barges beneath the windows, or like the masques and pageants they had delighted in, of which Mr. Henry told me. It was good, too, to have such touches of simple kindness, as remembering a child's taste for bright new money, thrown into the dark picture we Puritans had among us of the persecutor of our brethren. It is good for the persecuted to feel by some human touch that their persecutors are human; good while the persecuted suffer, good beyond price if ever they come to rule and judge. Sometimes, moreover, Mr. Philip the son came home from Christchurch, Oxford, where he was a student, and his discourse was wondrous sacred and pleasant for so young a gentleman. One thing I remember he said which was a special solace to me. He would blame those who laid so much stress on every one knowing the exact time of their conversion. "Who can so soon be aware of the daybreak," quoth he, "or of the springing up of the seed sown? The blind man in the Gospel is our example. This and that concerning the recovering of his sight he knew not: 'But this one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.'" Which words have often returned to my comfort. In that, instead of sending me back into my past life, and down into my heart to look for tokens of grace, they set me looking up to my Lord, to see his gracious countenance; and in looking I am enlightened, be it for the first time, or the thousand and first. Meantime the great tide of Time was flowing on, bearing on its breast to the sea royal fleets, and little row-boats such as mine. In July the sailors of the fleet suddenly declared for the king, landed the Parliament admiral, and crossing the Channel, took on board the Prince of Wales, acknowledging him as their commander.