CHAPTER XXV.
RICHARD HEYWOOD.
So things looked ill for the puritans in general, and Richard Heywood had his full portion in the distribution of the evils allotted them.
Following lord Fairfax, he had shared his defeat by the marquis of Newcastle on Atherton moor, where of his score of men he lost five, and was, along with his mare, pretty severely wounded.

Hence it had become absolutely necessary for both of them, if they were to render good service at any near future, that they should have rest and tending.
Towards the middle of July, therefore, Richard, followed by Stopchase, and several others of his men who had also been wounded and were in need of nursing, rode up to his father's door.

Lady was taken off to her own stall, and Richard was led into the house by his father--without a word of tenderness, but with eyes and hands that waited and tended like those of a mother.
Roger Heywood was troubled in heart at the aspect of affairs.

There was now a strong peace-party in the parliament, and to him peace and ruin seemed the same thing.

If the parliament should now listen to overtures of accommodation, all for which he and those with whom he chiefly sympathised had striven, was in the greatest peril, and might be, if not irrecoverably lost, at least lost sight of, perhaps for a century.