the other, there was nobody who would not have trusted Roger Heywood to
the uttermost. Even now, foes as well as friends acknowledged that he
was to be depended upon; while his own son looked up to him with a
reverence that in some measure overshadowed his affection. Such a
character as this had necessarily been slow in formation, and the
opinions which had been modified by it and had reacted upon it, had been
as unalterably as deliberately adopted. But affairs had approached a
crisis between king and parliament before one of his friends knew that
there were in his mind any opinions upon them in process of
formation--so reserved and monosyllabic had been his share in any
conversation upon topics which had for a long time been growing every
hour of more and more absorbing interest to all men either of
consequence, intelligence, property, or adventure. At last, however, it
had become clear, to the great annoyance of not a few amongst his
neighbours, that Heywood's leanings were to the parliament. But he had
never yet sought to influence his son in regard to the great questions
at issue.

His house was one of those ancient dwellings which have grown under
the hands to fit the wants of successive generations, and look as if
they had never been other than old; two-storied at most, and
many-gabled, with marvellous accretions and projections, the haunts
of yet more wonderful shadows. There, in a room he called his study,
shabby and small, containing a library more notable for quality and
selection than size, Richard the next morning sought and found him.

'Father!' he said, entering with some haste after the usual request
for admission.

'I am here, my son,' answered Roger, without lifting his eyes from