I sojourned six weeks with Master Ellgood and then departed, though, as need scarce be said, very loath to go, but I heard that his son John, the war being now well nigh at an end, was like to return home, and I could not reconcile it to myself to see him, when he had lately borne arms against the King. I spake no word to Mistress Cicely before I went, for who was I--a poor scholar that had followed the losing side--to entangle her with promises? But there are vows that pass without words. Such an one I made in my own heart. As for her, I knew nothing certain, and lovers will find their hopes in slight tokens; yet such a hope I found; and it sent me away with a lighter heart than I had ever looked to have again. CHAPTER XIII. OF MY COMING BACK TO OXFORD. Coming back to Oxford about the beginning of the month September, I found all things in a very disheartened condition. For, indeed, little now remained to the King. The strong city of Bristol the Prince Rupert had surrendered to the Lord General, having but a few days before affirmed in a letter to the King that he could hold the place for four months unless he should be constrained otherwise by mutiny in the garrison. The King, indeed, was ill-served by this same Prince, of whom it may be said that he was over bold where he needed to be cautious, and that where boldness was most required he showed no small lack of constancy. About the same time also there came news of the defeat of my Lord Montrose, at Philiphaugh. From him the King had hoped great things; and, indeed he had had for a time singular great success; but his army was such that success was no less fatal to it than defeat, the savage people from the Highlands, who were its mainstay, retiring, after their custom, to the mountains, where they dwelt, when they had gathered a sufficiency of plunder. As for the King himself, he was then at Newark, to which place he had fled, with but a small following, from Chester, where, seeking to relieve the city from siege, he had been defeated with great loss. But about the beginning of November (for it was, I remember about the day of our _Gaudeamus_--that is to say, the first day of November) he came back to Oxford, and there tarried for the rest of the winter.