In the vale of Belvoir, about seven miles from Belvoir Castle, is the little village of Owthorpe. When Colonel Hutchinson returned to the house of his fathers, after the war was ended, he found it plundered of all its movables--a mere ruin. In a few years it is a fit dwelling for Lucy to enjoy a lifelong rest, after the terrible storms of her early married days. There is no accusing spirit to disturb their repose. John looks back upon that solemn moment when he signed the warrant for the great tragedy enacted before Whitehall without remorse. He had prayed for "an enlightened conscience," and he had carried out his most serious convictions. He took no part in the despotic acts that followed the destruction of the monarchy. He had no affection for the fanatics who held religion to be incompatible with innocent pleasures and tasteful pursuits. At Owthorpe, then, he lived the true life of an English gentleman. He built--he planted--he adorned his house with works of art--he was the first magistrate--the benefactor of the poor. The earnest man who daily expounded the Scriptures to his household was no ascetic. There was hospitality within those walls--with music and revelry. The Puritans looked gloomily and suspiciously upon the dwellers at Owthorpe. The Cavaliers could not forgive the soldier who had held Nottingham Castle against all assaults. The Restoration comes. The royalist connexions of Lucy Hutchinson have a long struggle to save her husband's life; but he is finally included in the Act of Oblivion. He is once more at Owthorpe, without the compromise of his principles. He has done with political strife for ever. On the 31st of October 1663, there is a coach waiting before the hall of Owthorpe. That hall is filled with tenants and laborers. Their benefactor cheerfully bids them farewell; but his wife and children are weeping bitterly. That coach is soon on its way to London with the husband and wife, and their eldest son and daughter. At the end of the fourth day's journey, at the gates of that fortress within which she had been born, Lucy Hutchinson is parted from him whose good and evil fortunes she had shared for a quarter of a century. About a mile from Deal stands Sandown Castle. In 1664, Colonel Hutchinson is a prisoner within its walls. It was a ruinous place, not weatherproof. The tide washed the dilapidated fortress; the windows were unglazed; cold, and damp, and dreary was the room where the proud heart bore up against physical evils. For even here there was happiness. Lucy is not permitted to share his prison; but she may visit him daily. In the town of Deal abides that faithful wife. She is with him at the first hour of the morning; she remains till the latest of night. In sunshine or in storm, she is pacing along that rugged beach, to console and be consoled. Eleven months have thus passed, when Lucy is persuaded by her husband to go to Owthorpe to see her children.