So it was fitting that
the pearls should return to that family, and the fair value, as we
hoped, sufficed, in Harry Merrycourt's hands, to redeem, in my
husband's name, the inheritance my brother had always destined for
me.
This was the last worldly care that occupied our believed brother.
He said his work was done, and he was very peaceful and at rest. His
strength failed very fast after Harry Merrycourt came. Indeed, I
think he had for months lived almost more by force of strong will
than anything else, and now he said he had come to his rest. He
passed away one month after my wedding, on the 16th of October 1652,
very peacefully, and the last look he gave any one here was for
Millicent. There was a last eager, brighter look, but that was for
nothing here.
The physicians said he died of the old wound in the lungs received at
Naseby, so that he gave his life as much for the cause as my father
and Berenger had done, though he had had far, far more to suffer in
his nine years of banishment.
We left him in a green churchyard by the waterside, and Millicent
saying through her tears that he had taught her to find comfort in
her married life, and that he had calmed her and left her peace and
blessing now in the work before her. And then we sailed with sore
hearts for England, which was England still to me, though sadly
changed from what I had once known it. We had come to think that
there was no hope of the right cause ever prevailing, and that all
that could be done was to save our own conscience, and do our best to
serve God and man.
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