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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 2511 ***
+THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ.
+
+A COLONEL IN THE SERVICE OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ANNE
+
+WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
+
+
+By William Makepeace Thackeray
+
+
+
+Boston, Estes and Lauriat, Publishers
+
+
+
+TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE
+
+WILLIAM BINGHAM, LORD ASHBURTON.
+
+
+MY DEAR LORD,
+
+The writer of a book which copies the manners and language of Queen
+Anne's time, must not omit the Dedication to the Patron; and I ask leave
+to inscribe this volume to your Lordship, for the sake of the great
+kindness and friendship which I owe to you and yours.
+
+My volume will reach you when the Author is on his voyage to a country
+where your name is as well known as here. Wherever I am, I shall
+gratefully regard you; and shall not be the less welcomed in America
+because I am,
+
+Your obliged friend and servant,
+
+W. M. THACKERAY.
+
+LONDON, October 18, 1852.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+THE ESMONDS OF VIRGINIA.
+
+
+The estate of Castlewood, in Virginia, which was given to our ancestors
+by King Charles the First, as some return for the sacrifices made in
+his Majesty's cause by the Esmond family, lies in Westmoreland county,
+between the rivers Potomac and Rappahannock, and was once as great as
+an English Principality, though in the early times its revenues were
+but small. Indeed, for near eighty years after our forefathers possessed
+them, our plantations were in the hands of factors, who enriched
+themselves one after another, though a few scores of hogsheads of
+tobacco were all the produce that, for long after the Restoration, our
+family received from their Virginian estates.
+
+My dear and honored father, Colonel Henry Esmond, whose history, written
+by himself, is contained in the accompanying volume, came to Virginia
+in the year 1718, built his house of Castlewood, and here permanently
+settled. After a long stormy life in England, he passed the remainder
+of his many years in peace and honor in this country; how beloved and
+respected by all his fellow-citizens, how inexpressibly dear to his
+family, I need not say. His whole life was a benefit to all who were
+connected with him. He gave the best example, the best advice, the
+most bounteous hospitality to his friends; the tenderest care to
+his dependants; and bestowed on those of his immediate family such a
+blessing of fatherly love and protection as can never be thought of,
+by us, at least, without veneration and thankfulness; and my sons'
+children, whether established here in our Republic, or at home in
+the always beloved mother country, from which our late quarrel hath
+separated us, may surely be proud to be descended from one who in all
+ways was so truly noble.
+
+My dear mother died in 1736, soon after our return from England, whither
+my parents took me for my education; and where I made the acquaintance
+of Mr. Warrington, whom my children never saw. When it pleased heaven,
+in the bloom of his youth, and after but a few months of a most happy
+union, to remove him from me, I owed my recovery from the grief which
+that calamity caused me, mainly to my dearest father's tenderness, and
+then to the blessing vouchsafed to me in the birth of my two beloved
+boys. I know the fatal differences which separated them in politics
+never disunited their hearts; and as I can love them both, whether
+wearing the King's colors or the Republic's, I am sure that they love
+me and one another, and him above all, my father and theirs, the dearest
+friend of their childhood, the noble gentleman who bred them from their
+infancy in the practice and knowledge of Truth, and Love and Honor.
+
+My children will never forget the appearance and figure of their revered
+grandfather; and I wish I possessed the art of drawing (which my papa
+had in perfection), so that I could leave to our descendants a portrait
+of one who was so good and so respected. My father was of a dark
+complexion, with a very great forehead and dark hazel eyes, overhung by
+eyebrows which remained black long after his hair was white. His nose
+was aquiline, his smile extraordinary sweet. How well I remember it, and
+how little any description I can write can recall his image! He was of
+rather low stature, not being above five feet seven inches in height; he
+used to laugh at my sons, whom he called his crutches, and say they
+were grown too tall for him to lean upon. But small as he was, he had
+a perfect grace and majesty of deportment, such as I have never seen in
+this country, except perhaps in our friend Mr. Washington, and commanded
+respect wherever he appeared.
+
+In all bodily exercises he excelled, and showed an extraordinary
+quickness and agility. Of fencing he was especially fond, and made my
+two boys proficient in that art; so much so, that when the French came
+to this country with Monsieur Rochambeau, not one of his officers was
+superior to my Henry, and he was not the equal of my poor George,
+who had taken the King's side in our lamentable but glorious war of
+independence.
+
+Neither my father nor my mother ever wore powder in their hair; both
+their heads were as white as silver, as I can remember them. My dear
+mother possessed to the last an extraordinary brightness and freshness
+of complexion; nor would people believe that she did not wear rouge. At
+sixty years of age she still looked young, and was quite agile. It was
+not until after that dreadful siege of our house by the Indians, which
+left me a widow ere I was a mother, that my dear mother's health broke.
+She never recovered her terror and anxiety of those days which ended so
+fatally for me, then a bride scarce six months married, and died in my
+father's arms ere my own year of widowhood was over.
+
+From that day, until the last of his dear and honored life, it was
+my delight and consolation to remain with him as his comforter and
+companion; and from those little notes which my mother hath made here
+and there in the volume in which my father describes his adventures
+in Europe, I can well understand the extreme devotion with which she
+regarded him--a devotion so passionate and exclusive as to prevent her,
+I think, from loving any other person except with an inferior regard;
+her whole thoughts being centred on this one object of affection and
+worship. I know that, before her, my dear father did not show the love
+which he had for his daughter; and in her last and most sacred moments,
+this dear and tender parent owned to me her repentance that she had
+not loved me enough: her jealousy even that my father should give his
+affection to any but herself: and in the most fond and beautiful words
+of affection and admonition, she bade me never to leave him, and to
+supply the place which she was quitting. With a clear conscience, and a
+heart inexpressibly thankful, I think I can say that I fulfilled those
+dying commands, and that until his last hour my dearest father never had
+to complain that his daughter's love and fidelity failed him.
+
+And it is since I knew him entirely--for during my mother's life he
+never quite opened himself to me--since I knew the value and splendor of
+that affection which he bestowed upon me, that I have come to understand
+and pardon what, I own, used to anger me in my mother's lifetime, her
+jealousy respecting her husband's love. 'Twas a gift so precious, that
+no wonder she who had it was for keeping it all, and could part with
+none of it, even to her daughter.
+
+Though I never heard my father use a rough word, 'twas extraordinary
+with how much awe his people regarded him; and the servants on our
+plantation, both those assigned from England and the purchased negroes,
+obeyed him with an eagerness such as the most severe taskmasters round
+about us could never get from their people. He was never familiar,
+though perfectly simple and natural; he was the same with the meanest
+man as with the greatest, and as courteous to a black slave-girl as to
+the Governor's wife. No one ever thought of taking a liberty with him
+(except once a tipsy gentleman from York, and I am bound to own that
+my papa never forgave him): he set the humblest people at once on their
+ease with him, and brought down the most arrogant by a grave satiric
+way, which made persons exceedingly afraid of him. His courtesy was not
+put on like a Sunday suit, and laid by when the company went away; it
+was always the same; as he was always dressed the same, whether for a
+dinner by ourselves or for a great entertainment. They say he liked
+to be the first in his company; but what company was there in which
+he would not be first? When I went to Europe for my education, and we
+passed a winter at London with my half-brother, my Lord Castlewood and
+his second lady, I saw at her Majesty's Court some of the most famous
+gentlemen of those days; and I thought to myself none of these are
+better than my papa; and the famous Lord Bolingbroke, who came to us
+from Dawley, said as much, and that the men of that time were not like
+those of his youth:--“Were your father, Madam,” he said, “to go into the
+woods, the Indians would elect him Sachem;” and his lordship was pleased
+to call me Pocahontas.
+
+I did not see our other relative, Bishop Tusher's lady, of whom so much
+is said in my papa's memoirs--although my mamma went to visit her in
+the country. I have no pride (as I showed by complying with my mother's
+request, and marrying a gentleman who was but the younger son of a
+Suffolk Baronet), yet I own to A DECENT RESPECT for my name, and wonder
+how one who ever bore it, should change it for that of Mrs. THOMAS
+TUSHER. I pass over as odious and unworthy of credit those reports
+(which I heard in Europe and was then too young to understand), how this
+person, having LEFT HER FAMILY and fled to Paris, out of jealousy of
+the Pretender betrayed his secrets to my Lord Stair, King George's
+Ambassador, and nearly caused the Prince's death there; how she came to
+England and married this Mr. Tusher, and became a great favorite of
+King George the Second, by whom Mr. Tusher was made a Dean, and then a
+Bishop. I did not see the lady, who chose to remain AT HER PALACE all
+the time we were in London; but after visiting her, my poor mamma said
+she had lost all her good looks, and warned me not to set too much
+store by any such gifts which nature had bestowed upon me. She grew
+exceedingly stout; and I remember my brother's wife, Lady Castlewood,
+saying--“No wonder she became a favorite, for the King likes them old
+and ugly, as his father did before him.” On which papa said--“All women
+were alike; that there was never one so beautiful as that one; and that
+we could forgive her everything but her beauty.” And hereupon my mamma
+looked vexed, and my Lord Castlewood began to laugh; and I, of course,
+being a young creature, could not understand what was the subject of
+their conversation.
+
+After the circumstances narrated in the third book of these Memoirs, my
+father and mother both went abroad, being advised by their friends to
+leave the country in consequence of the transactions which are recounted
+at the close of the volume of the Memoirs. But my brother, hearing how
+the FUTURE BISHOP'S LADY had quitted Castlewood and joined the Pretender
+at Paris, pursued him, and would have killed him, Prince as he was, had
+not the Prince managed to make his escape. On his expedition to Scotland
+directly after, Castlewood was so enraged against him that he asked
+leave to serve as a volunteer, and join the Duke of Argyle's army
+in Scotland, which the Pretender never had the courage to face; and
+thenceforth my Lord was quite reconciled to the present reigning family,
+from whom he hath even received promotion.
+
+Mrs. Tusher was by this time as angry against the Pretender as any of
+her relations could be, and used to boast, as I have heard, that she
+not only brought back my Lord to the Church of England, but procured
+the English peerage for him, which the JUNIOR BRANCH of our family at
+present enjoys. She was a great friend of Sir Robert Walpole, and would
+not rest until her husband slept at Lambeth, my papa used laughing to
+say. However, the Bishop died of apoplexy suddenly, and his wife erected
+a great monument over him; and the pair sleep under that stone, with
+a canopy of marble clouds and angels above them--the first Mrs. Tusher
+lying sixty miles off at Castlewood.
+
+But my papa's genius and education are both greater than any a woman can
+be expected to have, and his adventures in Europe far more exciting than
+his life in this country, which was passed in the tranquil offices of
+love and duty; and I shall say no more by way of introduction to his
+Memoirs, nor keep my children from the perusal of a story which is much
+more interesting than that of their affectionate old mother,
+
+RACHEL ESMOND WARRINGTON.
+
+CASTLEWOOD, VIRGINIA,
+
+November 3, 1778.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+THE EARLY YOUTH OF HENRY ESMOND, UP TO THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING TRINITY
+COLLEGE, IN CAMBRIDGE.
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.    An Account of the Family of Esmond of Castlewood Hall
+
+II.   Relates how Francis, Fourth Viscount, arrives at Castlewood
+
+III.  Whither, in the time of Thomas, Third Viscount, I had preceded him
+        as Page to Isabella
+
+IV.   I am placed under a Popish Priest and bred to that Religion.--
+        Viscountess Castlewood
+
+V.    My Superiors are engaged in Plots for the Restoration of King James
+        II
+
+VI.   The Issue of the Plots.--The Death of Thomas, Third Viscount of
+        Castlewood; and the Imprisonment of his Viscountess
+
+VII.  I am left at Castlewood an Orphan, and find most kind Protectors
+        there
+
+VIII. After Good Fortune comes Evil
+
+IX.   I have the Small-pox, and prepare to leave Castlewood
+
+X.    I go to Cambridge, and do but little Good there
+
+XI.   I come home for a Holiday to Castlewood, and find a Skeleton in the
+         House
+
+XII.  My Lord Mohun comes among us for no Good
+
+XIII. My Lord leaves us and his Evil behind him
+
+XIV.  We ride after him to London
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+CONTAINS MR. ESMOND'S MILITARY LIFE, AND OTHER MATTERS APPERTAINING TO
+THE ESMOND FAMILY.
+
+
+I.    I am in Prison, and Visited, but not Consoled there
+
+II.   I come to the End of my Captivity, but not of my Trouble
+
+III.  I take the Queen's Pay in Quin's Regiment
+
+IV.   Recapitulations
+
+V.    I go on the Vigo Bay Expedition, taste Salt Water and smell Powder
+
+VI.   The 29th December
+
+VII.  I am made Welcome at Walcote
+
+VIII. Family Talk
+
+IX.   I make the Campaign of 1704
+
+X.    An Old Story about a Fool and a Woman
+
+XI.   The famous Mr. Joseph Addison
+
+XII.  I get a Company in the Campaign of 1706
+
+XIII. I meet an Old Acquaintance in Flanders, and find my Mother's Grave
+        and my own Cradle there
+
+XIV.  The Campaign of 1707, 1708
+
+XV.   General Webb wins the Battle of Wynendael
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+CONTAINING THE END OF MR. ESMOND'S ADVENTURES IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+I.    I come to an End of my Battles and Bruises
+
+II.   I go Home, and harp on the Old String
+
+III.  A Paper out of the “Spectator”
+
+IV.   Beatrix's New Suitor
+
+V.    Mohun appears for the Last Time in this History
+
+VI.   Poor Beatrix
+
+VII.  I visit Castlewood once more
+
+VIII. I travel to France and bring Home a Portrait of Rigaud
+
+IX.   The Original of the Portrait comes to England
+
+X.    We entertain a very Distinguished Guest at Kensington
+
+XI.   Our Guest quits us as not being Hospitable enough
+
+XII.  A great Scheme, and who Balked it
+
+XIII. August 1st, 1714
+
+
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE EARLY YOUTH OF HENRY ESMOND, UP TO THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING TRINITY
+COLLEGE, IN CAMBRIDGE.
+
+
+The actors in the old tragedies, as we read, piped their iambics to
+a tune, speaking from under a mask, and wearing stilts and a great
+head-dress. 'Twas thought the dignity of the Tragic Muse required these
+appurtenances, and that she was not to move except to a measure and
+cadence. So Queen Medea slew her children to a slow music: and King
+Agamemnon perished in a dying fall (to use Mr. Dryden's words): the
+Chorus standing by in a set attitude, and rhythmically and decorously
+bewailing the fates of those great crowned persons. The Muse of History
+hath encumbered herself with ceremony as well as her Sister of the
+Theatre. She too wears the mask and the cothurnus, and speaks to
+measure. She too, in our age, busies herself with the affairs only of
+kings; waiting on them obsequiously and stately, as if she were but a
+mistress of court ceremonies, and had nothing to do with the registering
+of the affairs of the common people. I have seen in his very old age and
+decrepitude the old French King Lewis the Fourteenth, the type and
+model of kinghood--who never moved but to measure, who lived and died
+according to the laws of his Court-marshal, persisting in enacting
+through life the part of Hero; and, divested of poetry, this was but a
+little wrinkled old man, pock-marked, and with a great periwig and red
+heels to make him look tall--a hero for a book if you like, or for a
+brass statue or a painted ceiling, a god in a Roman shape, but what
+more than a man for Madame Maintenon, or the barber who shaved him, or
+Monsieur Fagon, his surgeon? I wonder shall History ever pull off her
+periwig and cease to be court-ridden? Shall we see something of France
+and England besides Versailles and Windsor? I saw Queen Anne at the
+latter place tearing down the Park slopes, after her stag-hounds, and
+driving her one-horse chaise--a hot, red-faced woman, not in the least
+resembling that statue of her which turns its stone back upon St.
+Paul's, and faces the coaches struggling up Ludgate Hill. She was
+neither better bred nor wiser than you and me, though we knelt to hand
+her a letter or a wash-hand basin. Why shall History go on kneeling to
+the end of time? I am for having her rise up off her knees, and take a
+natural posture: not to be for ever performing cringes and congees
+like a court-chamberlain, and shuffling backwards out of doors in the
+presence of the sovereign. In a word, I would have History familiar
+rather than heroic: and think that Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding will
+give our children a much better idea of the manners of the present
+age in England, than the Court Gazette and the newspapers which we get
+thence.
+
+There was a German officer of Webb's, with whom we used to joke, and of
+whom a story (whereof I myself was the author) was got to be believed in
+the army, that he was eldest son of the hereditary Grand Bootjack of the
+Empire, and the heir to that honor of which his ancestors had been very
+proud, having been kicked for twenty generations by one imperial foot,
+as they drew the boot from the other. I have heard that the old
+Lord Castlewood, of part of whose family these present volumes are a
+chronicle, though he came of quite as good blood as the Stuarts whom
+he served (and who as regards mere lineage are no better than a dozen
+English and Scottish houses I could name), was prouder of his post about
+the Court than of his ancestral honors, and valued his dignity (as Lord
+of the Butteries and Groom of the King's Posset) so highly, that he
+cheerfully ruined himself for the thankless and thriftless race who
+bestowed it. He pawned his plate for King Charles the First, mortgaged
+his property for the same cause, and lost the greater part of it by
+fines and sequestration: stood a siege of his castle by Ireton,
+where his brother Thomas capitulated (afterward making terms with the
+Commonwealth, for which the elder brother never forgave him), and
+where his second brother Edward, who had embraced the ecclesiastical
+profession, was slain on Castlewood Tower, being engaged there both as
+preacher and artilleryman. This resolute old loyalist, who was with the
+King whilst his house was thus being battered down, escaped abroad with
+his only son, then a boy, to return and take a part in Worcester fight.
+On that fatal field Eustace Esmond was killed, and Castlewood fled from
+it once more into exile, and henceforward, and after the Restoration,
+never was away from the Court of the monarch (for whose return we offer
+thanks in the Prayer-Book) who sold his country and who took bribes of
+the French king.
+
+What spectacle is more august than that of a great king in exile? Who is
+more worthy of respect than a brave man in misfortune? Mr. Addison has
+painted such a figure in his noble piece of Cato. But suppose fugitive
+Cato fuddling himself at a tavern with a wench on each knee, a dozen
+faithful and tipsy companions of defeat, and a landlord calling out
+for his bill; and the dignity of misfortune is straightway lost. The
+Historical Muse turns away shamefaced from the vulgar scene, and closes
+the door--on which the exile's unpaid drink is scored up--upon him and
+his pots and his pipes, and the tavern-chorus which he and his friends
+are singing. Such a man as Charles should have had an Ostade or Mieris
+to paint him. Your Knellers and Le Bruns only deal in clumsy and
+impossible allegories: and it hath always seemed to me blasphemy to
+claim Olympus for such a wine-drabbled divinity as that.
+
+About the King's follower, the Viscount Castlewood--orphan of his son,
+ruined by his fidelity, bearing many wounds and marks of bravery,
+old and in exile--his kinsmen I suppose should be silent; nor if this
+patriarch fell down in his cups, call fie upon him, and fetch passers-by
+to laugh at his red face and white hairs. What! does a stream rush out
+of a mountain free and pure, to roll through fair pastures, to feed and
+throw out bright tributaries, and to end in a village gutter? Lives that
+have noble commencements have often no better endings; it is not without
+a kind of awe and reverence that an observer should speculate upon such
+careers as he traces the course of them. I have seen too much of success
+in life to take off my hat and huzzah to it as it passes in its gilt
+coach: and would do my little part with my neighbors on foot, that they
+should not gape with too much wonder, nor applaud too loudly. Is it the
+Lord Mayor going in state to mince-pies and the Mansion House? Is it
+poor Jack of Newgate's procession, with the sheriff and javelin-men,
+conducting him on his last journey to Tyburn? I look into my heart
+and think that I sin as good as my Lord Mayor, and know I am as bad as
+Tyburn Jack. Give me a chain and red gown and a pudding before me, and
+I could play the part of Alderman very well, and sentence Jack after
+dinner. Starve me, keep me from books and honest people, educate me to
+love dice, gin, and pleasure, and put me on Hounslow Heath, with a purse
+before me, and I will take it. “And I shall be deservedly hanged,” say
+you, wishing to put an end to this prosing. I don't say No. I can't but
+accept the world as I find it, including a rope's end, as long as it is
+in fashion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF ESMOND OF CASTLEWOOD HALL.
+
+
+When Francis, fourth Viscount Castlewood, came to his title, and
+presently after to take possession of his house of Castlewood, county
+Hants, in the year 1691, almost the only tenant of the place besides
+the domestics was a lad of twelve years of age, of whom no one seemed to
+take any note until my Lady Viscountess lighted upon him, going over the
+house with the housekeeper on the day of her arrival. The boy was in the
+room known as the Book-room, or Yellow Gallery, where the portraits of
+the family used to hang, that fine piece among others of Sir Antonio Van
+Dyck of George, second Viscount, and that by Mr. Dobson of my lord the
+third Viscount, just deceased, which it seems his lady and widow did not
+think fit to carry away, when she sent for and carried off to her house
+at Chelsey, near to London, the picture of herself by Sir Peter Lely, in
+which her ladyship was represented as a huntress of Diana's court.
+
+The new and fair lady of Castlewood found the sad, lonely, little
+occupant of this gallery busy over his great book, which he laid down
+when he was aware that a stranger was at hand. And, knowing who that
+person must be, the lad stood up and bowed before her, performing a shy
+obeisance to the mistress of his house.
+
+She stretched out her hand--indeed when was it that that hand would
+not stretch out to do an act of kindness, or to protect grief and
+ill-fortune? “And this is our kinsman,” she said “and what is your name,
+kinsman?”
+
+“My name is Henry Esmond,” said the lad, looking up at her in a sort
+of delight and wonder, for she had come upon him as a Dea certe, and
+appeared the most charming object he had ever looked on. Her golden hair
+was shining in the gold of the sun; her complexion was of a dazzling
+bloom; her lips smiling, and her eyes beaming with a kindness which made
+Harry Esmond's heart to beat with surprise.
+
+“His name is Henry Esmond, sure enough, my lady,” says Mrs. Worksop,
+the housekeeper (an old tyrant whom Henry Esmond plagued more than he
+hated), and the old gentlewoman looked significantly towards the late
+lord's picture, as it now is in the family, noble and severe-looking,
+with his hand on his sword, and his order on his cloak, which he had
+from the Emperor during the war on the Danube against the Turk.
+
+Seeing the great and undeniable likeness between this portrait and the
+lad, the new Viscountess, who had still hold of the boy's hand as she
+looked at the picture, blushed and dropped the hand quickly, and walked
+down the gallery, followed by Mrs. Worksop.
+
+When the lady came back, Harry Esmond stood exactly in the same spot,
+and with his hand as it had fallen when he dropped it on his black coat.
+
+Her heart melted, I suppose (indeed she hath since owned as much), at
+the notion that she should do anything unkind to any mortal, great or
+small; for, when she returned, she had sent away the housekeeper upon an
+errand by the door at the farther end of the gallery; and, coming back
+to the lad, with a look of infinite pity and tenderness in her eyes, she
+took his hand again, placing her other fair hand on his head, and saying
+some words to him, which were so kind, and said in a voice so sweet,
+that the boy, who had never looked upon so much beauty before, felt as
+if the touch of a superior being or angel smote him down to the ground,
+and kissed the fair protecting hand as he knelt on one knee. To the very
+last hour of his life, Esmond remembered the lady as she then spoke and
+looked, the rings on her fair hands, the very scent of her robe, the
+beam of her eyes lighting up with surprise and kindness, her lips
+blooming in a smile, the sun making a golden halo round her hair.
+
+As the boy was yet in this attitude of humility, enters behind him a
+portly gentleman, with a little girl of four years old in his hand. The
+gentleman burst into a great laugh at the lady and her adorer, with
+his little queer figure, his sallow face, and long black hair. The lady
+blushed, and seemed to deprecate his ridicule by a look of appeal to her
+husband, for it was my Lord Viscount who now arrived, and whom the lad
+knew, having once before seen him in the late lord's lifetime.
+
+“So this is the little priest” says my lord, looking down at the lad;
+“welcome, kinsman.”
+
+“He is saying his prayers to mamma,” says the little girl, who came up
+to her papa's knees; and my lord burst out into another great laugh at
+this, and kinsman Henry looked very silly. He invented a half-dozen of
+speeches in reply, but 'twas months afterwards when he thought of this
+adventure: as it was, he had never a word in answer.
+
+“Le pauvre enfant, il n'a que nous,” says the lady, looking to her lord;
+and the boy, who understood her, though doubtless she thought otherwise,
+thanked her with all his heart for her kind speech.
+
+“And he shan't want for friends here,” says my lord in a kind voice,
+“shall he, little Trix?”
+
+The little girl, whose name was Beatrix, and whom her papa called by
+this diminutive, looked at Henry Esmond solemnly, with a pair of large
+eyes, and then a smile shone over her face, which was as beautiful as
+that of a cherub, and she came up and put out a little hand to him. A
+keen and delightful pang of gratitude, happiness, affection, filled the
+orphan child's heart, as he received from the protectors, whom heaven
+had sent to him, these touching words and tokens of friendliness and
+kindness. But an hour since, he had felt quite alone in the world: when
+he heard the great peal of bells from Castlewood church ringing that
+morning to welcome the arrival of the new lord and lady, it had rung
+only terror and anxiety to him, for he knew not how the new owner would
+deal with him; and those to whom he formerly looked for protection were
+forgotten or dead. Pride and doubt too had kept him within-doors, when
+the Vicar and the people of the village, and the servants of the house,
+had gone out to welcome my Lord Castlewood--for Henry Esmond was no
+servant, though a dependant; no relative, though he bore the name and
+inherited the blood of the house; and in the midst of the noise and
+acclamations attending the arrival of the new lord (for whom, you may
+be sure, a feast was got ready, and guns were fired, and tenants and
+domestics huzzahed when his carriage approached and rolled into the
+court-yard of the hall), no one ever took any notice of young Henry
+Esmond, who sat unobserved and alone in the Book-room, until the
+afternoon of that day, when his new friends found him.
+
+When my lord and lady were going away thence, the little girl, still
+holding her kinsman by the hand, bade him to come too. “Thou wilt always
+forsake an old friend for a new one, Trix,” says her father to her
+good-naturedly; and went into the gallery, giving an arm to his lady.
+They passed thence through the music-gallery, long since dismantled, and
+Queen Elizabeth's Rooms, in the clock-tower, and out into the terrace,
+where was a fine prospect of sunset and the great darkling woods with
+a cloud of rooks returning; and the plain and river with Castlewood
+village beyond, and purple hills beautiful to look at--and the little
+heir of Castlewood, a child of two years old, was already here on the
+terrace in his nurse's arms, from whom he ran across the grass instantly
+he perceived his mother, and came to her.
+
+“If thou canst not be happy here,” says my lord, looking round at the
+scene, “thou art hard to please, Rachel.”
+
+“I am happy where you are,” she said, “but we were happiest of all at
+Walcote Forest.” Then my lord began to describe what was before them to
+his wife, and what indeed little Harry knew better than he--viz., the
+history of the house: how by yonder gate the page ran away with the
+heiress of Castlewood, by which the estate came into the present family;
+how the Roundheads attacked the clock-tower, which my lord's father was
+slain in defending. “I was but two years old then,” says he, “but take
+forty-six from ninety, and how old shall I be, kinsman Harry?”
+
+“Thirty,” says his wife, with a laugh.
+
+“A great deal too old for you, Rachel,” answers my lord, looking fondly
+down at her. Indeed she seemed to be a girl, and was at that time scarce
+twenty years old.
+
+“You know, Frank, I will do anything to please you,” says she, “and I
+promise you I will grow older every day.”
+
+“You mustn't call papa, Frank; you must call papa my lord now,” says
+Miss Beatrix, with a toss of her little head; at which the mother
+smiled, and the good-natured father laughed, and the little trotting boy
+laughed, not knowing why--but because he was happy, no doubt--as every
+one seemed to be there. How those trivial incidents and words, the
+landscape and sunshine, and the group of people smiling and talking,
+remain fixed on the memory!
+
+As the sun was setting, the little heir was sent in the arms of his
+nurse to bed, whither he went howling; but little Trix was promised to
+sit to supper that night--“and you will come too, kinsman, won't you?”
+ she said.
+
+Harry Esmond blushed: “I--I have supper with Mrs. Worksop,” says he.
+
+“D--n it,” says my lord, “thou shalt sup with us, Harry, to-night!
+Shan't refuse a lady, shall he, Trix?”--and they all wondered at Harry's
+performance as a trencher-man, in which character the poor boy acquitted
+himself very remarkably; for the truth is he had had no dinner, nobody
+thinking of him in the bustle which the house was in, during the
+preparations antecedent to the new lord's arrival.
+
+“No dinner! poor dear child!” says my lady, heaping up his plate with
+meat, and my lord, filling a bumper for him, bade him call a health; on
+which Master Harry, crying “The King,” tossed off the wine. My lord was
+ready to drink that, and most other toasts: indeed only too ready. He
+would not hear of Doctor Tusher (the Vicar of Castlewood, who came to
+supper) going away when the sweetmeats were brought: he had not had a
+chaplain long enough, he said, to be tired of him: so his reverence kept
+my lord company for some hours over a pipe and a punch-bowl; and went
+away home with rather a reeling gait, and declaring a dozen of times,
+that his lordship's affability surpassed every kindness he had ever had
+from his lordship's gracious family.
+
+As for young Esmond, when he got to his little chamber, it was with a
+heart full of surprise and gratitude towards the new friends whom this
+happy day had brought him. He was up and watching long before the house
+was astir, longing to see that fair lady and her children--that kind
+protector and patron: and only fearful lest their welcome of the past
+night should in any way be withdrawn or altered. But presently little
+Beatrix came out into the garden, and her mother followed, who greeted
+Harry as kindly as before. He told her at greater length the histories
+of the house (which he had been taught in the old lord's time), and
+to which she listened with great interest; and then he told her, with
+respect to the night before, that he understood French, and thanked her
+for her protection.
+
+“Do you?” says she, with a blush; “then, sir, you shall teach me and
+Beatrix.” And she asked him many more questions regarding himself, which
+had best be told more fully and explicitly than in those brief replies
+which the lad made to his mistress's questions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+RELATES HOW FRANCIS, FOURTH VISCOUNT, ARRIVES AT CASTLEWOOD.
+
+
+'Tis known that the name of Esmond and the estate of Castlewood, com.
+Hants, came into possession of the present family through Dorothea,
+daughter and heiress of Edward, Earl and Marquis Esmond, and Lord of
+Castlewood, which lady married, 23 Eliz., Henry Poyns, gent.; the said
+Henry being then a page in the household of her father. Francis, son and
+heir of the above Henry and Dorothea, who took the maternal name which
+the family hath borne subsequently, was made Knight and Baronet by King
+James the First; and being of a military disposition, remained long in
+Germany with the Elector-Palatine, in whose service Sir Francis incurred
+both expense and danger, lending large sums of money to that
+unfortunate Prince; and receiving many wounds in the battles against the
+Imperialists, in which Sir Francis engaged.
+
+On his return home Sir Francis was rewarded for his services and
+many sacrifices, by his late Majesty James the First, who graciously
+conferred upon this tried servant the post of Warden of the Butteries
+and Groom of the King's Posset, which high and confidential office he
+filled in that king's and his unhappy successor's reign.
+
+His age, and many wounds and infirmities, obliged Sir Francis to perform
+much of his duty by deputy: and his son, Sir George Esmond, knight and
+banneret, first as his father's lieutenant, and afterwards as inheritor
+of his father's title and dignity, performed this office during almost
+the whole of the reign of King Charles the First, and his two sons who
+succeeded him.
+
+Sir George Esmond married, rather beneath the rank that a person of his
+name and honor might aspire to, the daughter of Thos. Topham, of the
+city of London, alderman and goldsmith, who, taking the Parliamentary
+side in the troubles then commencing, disappointed Sir George of the
+property which he expected at the demise of his father-in-law, who
+devised his money to his second daughter, Barbara, a spinster.
+
+Sir George Esmond, on his part, was conspicuous for his attachment and
+loyalty to the Royal cause and person: and the King being at Oxford in
+1642, Sir George, with the consent of his father, then very aged and
+infirm, and residing at his house of Castlewood, melted the whole of the
+family plate for his Majesty's service.
+
+For this, and other sacrifices and merits, his Majesty, by patent under
+the Privy Seal, dated Oxford, Jan., 1643, was pleased to advance Sir
+Francis Esmond to the dignity of Viscount Castlewood, of Shandon, in
+Ireland: and the Viscount's estate being much impoverished by loans to
+the King, which in those troublesome times his Majesty could not repay,
+a grant of land in the plantations of Virginia was given to the Lord
+Viscount.; part of which land is in possession of descendants of his
+family to the present day.
+
+The first Viscount Castlewood died full of years, and within a few
+months after he had been advanced to his honors. He was succeeded by his
+eldest son, the before-named George; and left issue besides, Thomas,
+a colonel in the King's army, who afterwards joined the Usurper's
+Government; and Francis, in holy orders, who was slain whilst defending
+the House of Castlewood against the Parliament, anno 1647.
+
+George Lord Castlewood (the second Viscount), of King Charles the
+First's time, had no male issue save his one son, Eustace Esmond, who
+was killed, with half of the Castlewood men beside him, at Worcester
+fight. The lands about Castlewood were sold and apportioned to the
+Commonwealth men; Castlewood being concerned in almost all of the plots
+against the Protector, after the death of the King, and up to King
+Charles the Second's restoration. My lord followed that king's Court
+about in its exile, having ruined himself in its service. He had but one
+daughter, who was of no great comfort to her father; for misfortune had
+not taught those exiles sobriety of life; and it is said that the Duke
+of York and his brother the King both quarrelled about Isabel Esmond.
+She was maid of honor to the Queen Henrietta Maria; she early joined the
+Roman Church; her father, a weak man, following her not long after at
+Breda.
+
+On the death of Eustace Esmond at Worcester, Thomas Esmond, nephew to
+my Lord Castlewood, and then a stripling, became heir to the title. His
+father had taken the Parliament side in the quarrels, and so had been
+estranged from the chief of his house; and my Lord Castlewood was at
+first so much enraged to think that his title (albeit little more than
+an empty one now) should pass to a rascally Roundhead, that he would
+have married again, and indeed proposed to do so to a vintner's daughter
+at Bruges, to whom his lordship owed a score for lodging when the King
+was there, but for fear of the laughter of the Court, and the anger
+of his daughter, of whom he stood in awe; for she was in temper as
+imperious and violent as my lord, who was much enfeebled by wounds and
+drinking, was weak.
+
+Lord Castlewood would have had a match between his daughter Isabel and
+her cousin, the son of that Francis Esmond who was killed at Castlewood
+siege. And the lady, it was said, took a fancy to the young man, who was
+her junior by several years (which circumstance she did not consider to
+be a fault in him); but having paid his court, and being admitted to the
+intimacy of the house, he suddenly flung up his suit, when it seemed
+to be pretty prosperous, without giving a pretext for his behavior.
+His friends rallied him at what they laughingly chose to call his
+infidelity; Jack Churchill, Frank Esmond's lieutenant in the Royal
+Regiment of Foot-guards, getting the company which Esmond vacated, when
+he left the Court and went to Tangier in a rage at discovering that his
+promotion depended on the complaisance of his elderly affianced bride.
+He and Churchill, who had been condiscipuli at St. Paul's School, had
+words about this matter; and Frank Esmond said to him with an oath,
+“Jack, your sister may be so-and-so, but by Jove my wife shan't!” and
+swords were drawn, and blood drawn too, until friends separated them on
+this quarrel. Few men were so jealous about the point of honor in those
+days; and gentlemen of good birth and lineage thought a royal blot was
+an ornament to their family coat. Frank Esmond retired in the sulks,
+first to Tangier, whence he returned after two years' service, settling
+on a small property he had of his mother, near to Winchester, and became
+a country gentleman, and kept a pack of beagles, and never came to
+Court again in King Charles's time. But his uncle Castlewood was never
+reconciled to him; nor, for some time afterwards, his cousin whom he had
+refused.
+
+By places, pensions, bounties from France, and gifts from the King,
+whilst his daughter was in favor, Lord Castlewood, who had spent in the
+Royal service his youth and fortune, did not retrieve the latter quite,
+and never cared to visit Castlewood, or repair it, since the death of
+his son, but managed to keep a good house, and figure at Court, and to
+save a considerable sum of ready money.
+
+And now, his heir and nephew, Thomas Esmond, began to bid for his
+uncle's favor. Thomas had served with the Emperor, and with the Dutch,
+when King Charles was compelled to lend troops to the States; and
+against them, when his Majesty made an alliance with the French King. In
+these campaigns Thomas Esmond was more remarked for duelling, brawling,
+vice, and play, than for any conspicuous gallantry in the field, and
+came back to England, like many another English gentleman who has
+travelled, with a character by no means improved by his foreign
+experience. He had dissipated his small paternal inheritance of a
+younger brother's portion, and, as truth must be told, was no better
+than a hanger-on of ordinaries, and a brawler about Alsatia and the
+Friars, when he bethought him of a means of mending his fortune.
+
+His cousin was now of more than middle age, and had nobody's word but
+her own for the beauty which she said she once possessed. She was lean,
+and yellow, and long in the tooth; all the red and white in all the
+toy-shops in London could not make a beauty of her--Mr. Killigrew called
+her the Sybil, the death's-head put up at the King's feast as a memento
+mori, &c.--in fine, a woman who might be easy of conquest, but whom
+only a very bold man would think of conquering. This bold man was Thomas
+Esmond. He had a fancy to my Lord Castlewood's savings, the amount of
+which rumor had very much exaggerated. Madame Isabel was said to have
+Royal jewels of great value; whereas poor Tom Esmond's last coat but one
+was in pawn.
+
+My lord had at this time a fine house in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, nigh to
+the Duke's Theatre and the Portugal ambassador's chapel. Tom Esmond,
+who had frequented the one as long as he had money to spend among the
+actresses, now came to the church as assiduously. He looked so lean and
+shabby, that he passed without difficulty for a repentant sinner; and
+so, becoming converted, you may be sure took his uncle's priest for a
+director.
+
+This charitable father reconciled him with the old lord, his uncle,
+who a short time before would not speak to him, as Tom passed under my
+lord's coach window, his lordship going in state to his place at Court,
+while his nephew slunk by with his battered hat and feather, and the
+point of his rapier sticking out of the scabbard--to his twopenny
+ordinary in Bell Yard.
+
+Thomas Esmond, after this reconciliation with his uncle, very soon began
+to grow sleek, and to show signs of the benefits of good living and
+clean linen. He fasted rigorously twice a week, to be sure; but he made
+amends on the other days: and, to show how great his appetite was, Mr.
+Wycherley said, he ended by swallowing that fly-blown rank old morsel
+his cousin. There were endless jokes and lampoons about this marriage at
+Court: but Tom rode thither in his uncle's coach now, called him father,
+and having won could afford to laugh. This marriage took place very
+shortly before King Charles died: whom the Viscount of Castlewood
+speedily followed.
+
+The issue of this marriage was one son, whom the parents watched with an
+intense eagerness and care; but who, in spite of nurses and physicians,
+had only a brief existence. His tainted blood did not run very long in
+his poor feeble little body. Symptoms of evil broke out early on him;
+and, part from flattery, part superstition, nothing would satisfy my
+lord and lady, especially the latter, but having the poor little cripple
+touched by his Majesty at his church. They were ready to cry out miracle
+at first (the doctors and quack-salvers being constantly in attendance
+on the child, and experimenting on his poor little body with every
+conceivable nostrum) but though there seemed, from some reason, a
+notable amelioration in the infant's health after his Majesty touched
+him, in a few weeks afterward the poor thing died--causing the
+lampooners of the Court to say, that the King, in expelling evil out of
+the infant of Tom Esmond and Isabella his wife, expelled the life out of
+it, which was nothing but corruption.
+
+The mother's natural pang at losing this poor little child must have
+been increased when she thought of her rival Frank Esmond's wife, who
+was a favorite of the whole Court, where my poor Lady Castlewood was
+neglected, and who had one child, a daughter, flourishing and beautiful,
+and was about to become a mother once more.
+
+The Court, as I have heard, only laughed the more because the poor lady,
+who had pretty well passed the age when ladies are accustomed to have
+children, nevertheless determined not to give hope up, and even when she
+came to live at Castlewood, was constantly sending over to Hexton for
+the doctor, and announcing to her friends the arrival of an heir. This
+absurdity of hers was one amongst many others which the wags used to
+play upon. Indeed, to the last days of her life, my Lady Viscountess had
+the comfort of fancying herself beautiful, and persisted in blooming
+up to the very midst of winter, painting roses on her cheeks long after
+their natural season, and attiring herself like summer though her head
+was covered with snow.
+
+Gentlemen who were about the Court of King Charles, and King James, have
+told the present writer a number of stories about this queer old lady,
+with which it's not necessary that posterity should be entertained. She
+is said to have had great powers of invective and, if she fought with
+all her rivals in King James's favor, 'tis certain she must have had
+a vast number of quarrels on her hands. She was a woman of an intrepid
+spirit, and, it appears, pursued and rather fatigued his Majesty with
+her rights and her wrongs. Some say that the cause of her leaving Court
+was jealousy of Frank Esmond's wife: others, that she was forced to
+retreat after a great battle which took place at Whitehall, between her
+ladyship and Lady Dorchester, Tom Killigrew's daughter, whom the King
+delighted to honor, and in which that ill-favored Esther got the better
+of our elderly Vashti. But her ladyship, for her part, always averred
+that it was her husband's quarrel, and not her own, which occasioned the
+banishment of the two into the country; and the cruel ingratitude of the
+Sovereign in giving away, out of the family, that place of Warden of
+the Butteries and Groom of the King's Posset, which the two last Lords
+Castlewood had held so honorably, and which was now conferred upon a
+fellow of yesterday, and a hanger-on of that odious Dorchester creature,
+my Lord Bergamot;* “I never,” said my lady, “could have come to see his
+Majesty's posset carried by any other hand than an Esmond. I should have
+dashed the salver out of Lord Bergamot's hand, had I met him.” And those
+who knew her ladyship are aware that she was a person quite capable of
+performing this feat, had she not wisely kept out of the way.
+
+     * Lionel Tipton, created Baron Bergamot, ann. 1686,
+     Gentleman Usher of the Back Stairs, and afterwards appointed
+     Warden of the Butteries and Groom of the King's Posset (on
+     the decease of George, second Viscount Castlewood),
+     accompanied his Majesty to St. Germain's, where he died
+     without issue.  No Groom of the Posset was appointed by the
+     Prince of Orange, nor hath there been such an officer in any
+     succeeding reign.
+
+Holding the purse-strings in her own control, to which, indeed, she
+liked to bring most persons who came near her, Lady Castlewood could
+command her husband's obedience, and so broke up her establishment
+at London; she had removed from Lincoln's-Inn-Fields to Chelsey, to a
+pretty new house she bought there; and brought her establishment, her
+maids, lap-dogs, and gentlewomen, her priest, and his lordship her
+husband, to Castlewood Hall, that she had never seen since she quitted
+it as a child with her father during the troubles of King Charles the
+First's reign. The walls were still open in the old house as they had
+been left by the shot of the Commonwealthmen. A part of the mansion
+was restored and furbished up with the plate, hangings, and furniture
+brought from the house in London. My lady meant to have a triumphal
+entry into Castlewood village, and expected the people to cheer as
+she drove over the Green in her great coach, my lord beside her, her
+gentlewomen, lap-dogs, and cockatoos on the opposite seat, six horses to
+her carriage, and servants armed and mounted following it and preceding
+it. But 'twas in the height of the No-Popery cry; the folks in the
+village and the neighboring town were scared by the sight of her
+ladyship's painted face and eyelids, as she bobbed her head out of the
+coach window, meaning, no doubt, to be very gracious; and one old woman
+said, “Lady Isabel! lord-a-mercy, it's Lady Jezebel!” a name by which
+the enemies of the right honorable Viscountess were afterwards in the
+habit of designating her. The country was then in a great No-Popery
+fervor; her ladyship's known conversion, and her husband's, the priest
+in her train, and the service performed at the chapel of Castlewood
+(though the chapel had been built for that worship before any other was
+heard of in the country, and though the service was performed in the
+most quiet manner), got her no favor at first in the county or
+village. By far the greater part of the estate of Castlewood had been
+confiscated, and been parcelled out to Commonwealthmen. One or two of
+these old Cromwellian soldiers were still alive in the village, and
+looked grimly at first upon my Lady Viscountess, when she came to dwell
+there.
+
+She appeared at the Hexton Assembly, bringing her lord after her,
+scaring the country folks with the splendor of her diamonds, which she
+always wore in public. They said she wore them in private, too, and
+slept with them round her neck; though the writer can pledge his word
+that this was a calumny. “If she were to take them off,” my Lady Sark
+said, “Tom Esmond, her husband, would run away with them and pawn them.”
+ 'Twas another calumny. My Lady Sark was also an exile from Court, and
+there had been war between the two ladies before.
+
+The village people began to be reconciled presently to their lady, who
+was generous and kind, though fantastic and haughty, in her ways; and
+whose praises Dr. Tusher, the Vicar, sounded loudly amongst his flock.
+As for my lord, he gave no great trouble, being considered scarce more
+than an appendage to my lady, who, as daughter of the old lords of
+Castlewood, and possessor of vast wealth, as the country folks said
+(though indeed nine-tenths of it existed but in rumor), was looked upon
+as the real queen of the Castle, and mistress of all it contained.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WHITHER IN THE TIME OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT, I HAD PRECEDED HIM AS
+PAGE TO ISABELLA.
+
+
+Coming up to London again some short time after this retreat, the Lord
+Castlewood despatched a retainer of his to a little Cottage in the
+village of Ealing, near to London, where for some time had dwelt an
+old French refugee, by name Mr. Pastoureau, one of those whom the
+persecution of the Huguenots by the French king had brought over to this
+country. With this old man lived a little lad, who went by the name of
+Henry Thomas. He remembered to have lived in another place a short time
+before, near to London too, amongst looms and spinning-wheels, and a
+great deal of psalm-singing and church-going, and a whole colony of
+Frenchmen.
+
+There he had a dear, dear friend, who died, and whom he called Aunt. She
+used to visit him in his dreams sometimes; and her face, though it was
+homely, was a thousand times dearer to him than that of Mrs. Pastoureau,
+Bon Papa Pastoureau's new wife, who came to live with him after aunt
+went away. And there, at Spittlefields, as it used to be called, lived
+Uncle George, who was a weaver too, but used to tell Harry that he was
+a little gentleman, and that his father was a captain, and his mother an
+angel.
+
+When he said so, Bon Papa used to look up from the loom, where he was
+embroidering beautiful silk flowers, and say, “Angel! she belongs to the
+Babylonish scarlet woman.” Bon Papa was always talking of the scarlet
+woman. He had a little room where he always used to preach and
+sing hymns out of his great old nose. Little Harry did not like the
+preaching; he liked better the fine stories which aunt used to tell him.
+Bon Papa's wife never told him pretty stories; she quarrelled with Uncle
+George, and he went away.
+
+After this, Harry's Bon Papa and his wife and two children of her own
+that she brought with her, came to live at Ealing. The new wife gave her
+children the best of everything, and Harry many a whipping, he knew not
+why. Besides blows, he got ill names from her, which need not be set
+down here, for the sake of old Mr. Pastoureau, who was still kind
+sometimes. The unhappiness of those days is long forgiven, though they
+cast a shade of melancholy over the child's youth, which will accompany
+him, no doubt, to the end of his days: as those tender twigs are bent
+the trees grow afterward; and he, at least, who has suffered as a child,
+and is not quite perverted in that early school of unhappiness, learns
+to be gentle and long-suffering with little children.
+
+Harry was very glad when a gentleman dressed in black, on horseback,
+with a mounted servant behind him, came to fetch him away from Ealing.
+The noverca, or unjust stepmother, who had neglected him for her own
+two children, gave him supper enough the night before he went away, and
+plenty in the morning. She did not beat him once, and told the children
+to keep their hands off him. One was a girl, and Harry never could bear
+to strike a girl; and the other was a boy, whom he could easily have
+beat, but he always cried out, when Mrs. Pastoureau came sailing to the
+rescue with arms like a flail. She only washed Harry's face the day he
+went away; nor ever so much as once boxed his ears. She whimpered rather
+when the gentleman in black came for the boy; and old Mr. Pastoureau, as
+he gave the child his blessing, scowled over his shoulder at the strange
+gentleman, and grumbled out something about Babylon and the scarlet
+lady. He was grown quite old, like a child almost. Mrs. Pastoureau
+used to wipe his nose as she did to the children. She was a great, big,
+handsome young woman; but, though she pretended to cry, Harry thought
+'twas only a sham, and sprung quite delighted upon the horse upon which
+the lackey helped him.
+
+He was a Frenchman; his name was Blaise. The child could talk to him in
+his own language perfectly well: he knew it better than English indeed,
+having lived hitherto chiefly among French people: and being called the
+Little Frenchman by other boys on Ealing Green. He soon learnt to speak
+English perfectly, and to forget some of his French: children forget
+easily. Some earlier and fainter recollections the child had of a
+different country; and a town with tall white houses: and a ship. But
+these were quite indistinct in the boy's mind, as indeed the memory of
+Ealing soon became, at least of much that he suffered there.
+
+The lackey before whom he rode was very lively and voluble, and informed
+the boy that the gentleman riding before him was my lord's chaplain,
+Father Holt--that he was now to be called Master Harry Esmond--that my
+Lord Viscount Castlewood was his parrain--that he was to live at the
+great house of Castlewood, in the province of ----shire, where he would
+see Madame the Viscountess, who was a grand lady. And so, seated on a
+cloth before Blaise's saddle, Harry Esmond was brought to London, and to
+a fine square called Covent Garden, near to which his patron lodged.
+
+Mr. Holt, the priest, took the child by the hand, and brought him to
+this nobleman, a grand languid nobleman in a great cap and flowered
+morning-gown, sucking oranges. He patted Harry on the head and gave him
+an orange.
+
+“C'est bien ca,” he said to the priest after eying the child, and the
+gentleman in black shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Let Blaise take him out for a holiday,” and out for a holiday the boy
+and the valet went. Harry went jumping along; he was glad enough to go.
+
+He will remember to his life's end the delights of those days. He was
+taken to see a play by Monsieur Blaise, in a house a thousand times
+greater and finer than the booth at Ealing Fair--and on the next happy
+day they took water on the river, and Harry saw London Bridge, with the
+houses and booksellers' shops thereon, looking like a street, and the
+Tower of London, with the Armor, and the great lions and bears in the
+moat--all under company of Monsieur Blaise.
+
+Presently, of an early morning, all the party set forth for the country,
+namely, my Lord Viscount and the other gentleman; Monsieur Blaise
+and Harry on a pillion behind them, and two or three men with pistols
+leading the baggage-horses. And all along the road the Frenchman told
+little Harry stories of brigands, which made the child's hair stand
+on end, and terrified him; so that at the great gloomy inn on the road
+where they lay, he besought to be allowed to sleep in a room with one
+of the servants, and was compassionated by Mr. Holt, the gentleman
+who travelled with my lord, and who gave the child a little bed in his
+chamber.
+
+His artless talk and answers very likely inclined this gentleman in the
+boy's favor, for next day Mr. Holt said Harry should ride behind him,
+and not with the French lacky; and all along the journey put a thousand
+questions to the child--as to his foster-brother and relations at
+Ealing; what his old grandfather had taught him; what languages he knew;
+whether he could read and write, and sing, and so forth. And Mr. Holt
+found that Harry could read and write, and possessed the two languages
+of French and English very well; and when he asked Harry about singing,
+the lad broke out with a hymn to the tune of Dr. Martin Luther, which
+set Mr. Holt a-laughing; and even caused his grand parrain in the laced
+hat and periwig to laugh too when Holt told him what the child was
+singing. For it appeared that Dr. Martin Luther's hymns were not sung in
+the churches Mr. Holt preached at.
+
+“You must never sing that song any more: do you hear, little mannikin?”
+ says my Lord Viscount, holding up a finger.
+
+“But we will try and teach you a better, Harry,” Mr. Holt said; and
+the child answered, for he was a docile child, and of an affectionate
+nature, “That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything
+the gentleman would tell him.” That day he so pleased the gentlemen by
+his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged
+him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the
+day before, waited upon him now.
+
+“'Tis well, 'tis well!” said Blaise, that night (in his own language)
+when they lay again at an inn. “We are a little lord here; we are a
+little lord now: we shall see what we are when we come to Castlewood,
+where my lady is.”
+
+“When shall we come to Castlewood, Monsieur Blaise?” says Harry.
+
+“Parbleu! my lord does not press himself,” Blaise says, with a grin;
+and, indeed, it seemed as if his lordship was not in a great hurry, for
+he spent three days on that journey which Harry Esmond hath often since
+ridden in a dozen hours. For the last two of the days Harry rode with
+the priest, who was so kind to him, that the child had grown to be
+quite fond and familiar with him by the journey's end, and had scarce
+a thought in his little heart which by that time he had not confided to
+his new friend.
+
+At length, on the third day, at evening, they came to a village standing
+on a green with elms round it, very pretty to look at; and the people
+there all took off their hats, and made curtsies to my Lord Viscount,
+who bowed to them all languidly; and there was one portly person that
+wore a cassock and a broad-leafed hat, who bowed lower than any one--and
+with this one both my lord and Mr. Holt had a few words. “This, Harry,
+is Castlewood church,” says Mr. Holt, “and this is the pillar thereof,
+learned Doctor Tusher. Take off your hat, sirrah, and salute Dr.
+Tusher!”
+
+“Come up to supper, Doctor,” says my lord; at which the Doctor made
+another low bow, and the party moved on towards a grand house that
+was before them, with many gray towers and vanes on them, and windows
+flaming in the sunshine; and a great army of rooks, wheeling over their
+heads, made for the woods behind the house, as Harry saw; and Mr. Holt
+told him that they lived at Castlewood too.
+
+They came to the house, and passed under an arch into a court-yard, with
+a fountain in the centre, where many men came and held my lord's stirrup
+as he descended, and paid great respect to Mr. Holt likewise. And the
+child thought that the servants looked at him curiously, and smiled to
+one another--and he recalled what Blaise had said to him when they were
+in London, and Harry had spoken about his godpapa, when the Frenchman
+said, “Parbleu, one sees well that my lord is your godfather;”
+ words whereof the poor lad did not know the meaning then, though he
+apprehended the truth in a very short time afterwards, and learned it,
+and thought of it with no small feeling of shame.
+
+Taking Harry by the hand as soon as they were both descended from their
+horses, Mr. Holt led him across the court, and under a low door to rooms
+on a level with the ground; one of which Father Holt said was to be
+the boy's chamber, the other on the other side of the passage being the
+Father's own; and as soon as the little man's face was washed, and the
+Father's own dress arranged, Harry's guide took him once more to the
+door by which my lord had entered the hall, and up a stair, and through
+an ante-room to my lady's drawing-room--an apartment than which Harry
+thought he had never seen anything more grand--no, not in the Tower
+of London which he had just visited. Indeed, the chamber was richly
+ornamented in the manner of Queen Elizabeth's time, with great stained
+windows at either end, and hangings of tapestry, which the sun shining
+through the colored glass painted of a thousand lines; and here in
+state, by the fire, sat a lady to whom the priest took up Harry, who was
+indeed amazed by her appearance.
+
+My Lady Viscountess's face was daubed with white and red up to the eyes,
+to which the paint gave an unearthly glare: she had a tower of lace on
+her head, under which was a bush of black curls--borrowed curls--so that
+no wonder little Harry Esmond was scared when he was first presented to
+her--the kind priest acting as master of the ceremonies at that solemn
+introduction--and he stared at her with eyes almost as great as her own,
+as he had stared at the player woman who acted the wicked tragedy-queen,
+when the players came down to Ealing Fair. She sat in a great chair by
+the fire-corner; in her lap was a spaniel-dog that barked furiously; on
+a little table by her was her ladyship's snuff-box and her sugar-plum
+box. She wore a dress of black velvet, and a petticoat of flame-colored
+brocade. She had as many rings on her fingers as the old woman of
+Banbury Cross; and pretty small feet which she was fond of showing, with
+great gold clocks to her stockings, and white pantofles with red heels;
+and an odor of musk was shook out of her garments whenever she moved
+or quitted the room, leaning on her tortoise-shell stick, little Fury
+barking at her heels.
+
+Mrs. Tusher, the parson's wife, was with my lady. She had been
+waiting-woman to her ladyship in the late lord's time, and, having her
+soul in that business, took naturally to it when the Viscountess of
+Castlewood returned to inhabit her father's house.
+
+“I present to your ladyship your kinsman and little page of honor,
+Master Henry Esmond,” Mr. Holt said, bowing lowly, with a sort of
+comical humility. “Make a pretty bow to my lady, Monsieur; and then
+another little bow, not so low, to Madame Tusher--the fair priestess of
+Castlewood.”
+
+“Where I have lived and hope to die, sir,” says Madame Tusher, giving a
+hard glance at the brat, and then at my lady.
+
+Upon her the boy's whole attention was for a time directed. He could not
+keep his great eyes off from her. Since the Empress of Ealing, he had
+seen nothing so awful.
+
+“Does my appearance please you, little page?” asked the lady.
+
+“He would be very hard to please if it didn't,” cried Madame Tusher.
+
+“Have done, you silly Maria,” said Lady Castlewood.
+
+“Where I'm attached, I'm attached, Madame--and I'd die rather than not
+say so.”
+
+“Je meurs ou je m'attache,” Mr. Holt said with a polite grin. “The ivy
+says so in the picture, and clings to the oak like a fond parasite as it
+is.”
+
+“Parricide, sir!” cries Mrs. Tusher.
+
+“Hush, Tusher--you are always bickering with Father Holt,” cried my
+lady. “Come and kiss my hand, child;” and the oak held out a BRANCH to
+little Harry Esmond, who took and dutifully kissed the lean old hand,
+upon the gnarled knuckles of which there glittered a hundred rings.
+
+“To kiss that hand would make many a pretty fellow happy!” cried Mrs.
+Tusher: on which my lady crying out, “Go, you foolish Tusher!” and
+tapping her with her great fan, Tusher ran forward to seize her hand
+and kiss it. Fury arose and barked furiously at Tusher; and Father Holt
+looked on at this queer scene, with arch, grave glances.
+
+The awe exhibited by the little boy perhaps pleased the lady to whom
+this artless flattery was bestowed: for having gone down on his knee (as
+Father Holt had directed him, and the mode then was) and performed his
+obeisance, she said, “Page Esmond, my groom of the chamber will inform
+you what your duties are, when you wait upon my lord and me; and good
+Father Holt will instruct you as becomes a gentleman of our name. You
+will pay him obedience in everything, and I pray you may grow to be as
+learned and as good as your tutor.”
+
+The lady seemed to have the greatest reverence for Mr. Holt, and to be
+more afraid of him than of anything else in the world. If she was ever
+so angry, a word or look from Father Holt made her calm: indeed he had
+a vast power of subjecting those who came near him; and, among the rest,
+his new pupil gave himself up with an entire confidence and attachment
+to the good Father, and became his willing slave almost from the first
+moment he saw him.
+
+He put his small hand into the Father's as he walked away from his first
+presentation to his mistress, and asked many questions in his artless
+childish way. “Who is that other woman?” he asked. “She is fat and
+round; she is more pretty than my Lady Castlewood.”
+
+“She is Madame Tusher, the parson's wife of Castlewood. She has a son of
+your age, but bigger than you.”
+
+“Why does she like so to kiss my lady's hand. It is not good to kiss.”
+
+“Tastes are different, little man. Madame Tusher is attached to my lady,
+having been her waiting-woman before she was married, in the old lord's
+time. She married Doctor Tusher the chaplain. The English household
+divines often marry the waiting-women.”
+
+“You will not marry the French woman, will you? I saw her laughing with
+Blaise in the buttery.”
+
+“I belong to a church that is older and better than the English church,”
+ Mr. Holt said (making a sign whereof Esmond did not then understand the
+meaning, across his breast and forehead); “in our church the clergy do
+not marry. You will understand these things better soon.”
+
+“Was not Saint Peter the head of your church?--Dr. Rabbits of Ealing
+told us so.”
+
+The Father said, “Yes, he was.”
+
+“But Saint Peter was married, for we heard only last Sunday that his
+wife's mother lay sick of a fever.” On which the Father again laughed,
+and said he would understand this too better soon, and talked of other
+things, and took away Harry Esmond, and showed him the great old house
+which he had come to inhabit.
+
+It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which were
+rooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at evening
+made a great cawing. At the foot of the hill was a river, with a steep
+ancient bridge crossing it; and beyond that a large pleasant green flat,
+where the village of Castlewood stood, and stands, with the church in
+the midst, the parsonage hard by it, the inn with the blacksmith's forge
+beside it, and the sign of the “Three Castles” on the elm. The London
+road stretched away towards the rising sun, and to the west were
+swelling hills and peaks, behind which many a time Harry Esmond saw the
+same sun setting, that he now looks on thousands of miles away across
+the great ocean--in a new Castlewood, by another stream, that bears,
+like the new country of wandering AEneas, the fond names of the land of
+his youth.
+
+The Hall of Castlewood was built with two courts, whereof one only, the
+fountain-court, was now inhabited, the other having been battered down
+in the Cromwellian wars. In the fountain-court, still in good repair,
+was the great hall, near to the kitchen and butteries. A dozen of
+living-rooms looking to the north, and communicating with the little
+chapel that faced eastwards and the buildings stretching from that to
+the main gate, and with the hall (which looked to the west) into the
+court now dismantled. This court had been the most magnificent of the
+two, until the Protector's cannon tore down one side of it before the
+place was taken and stormed. The besiegers entered at the terrace under
+the clock-tower, slaying every man of the garrison, and at their head my
+lord's brother, Francis Esmond.
+
+The Restoration did not bring enough money to the Lord Castlewood to
+restore this ruined part of his house; where were the morning parlors,
+above them the long music-gallery, and before which stretched the
+garden-terrace, where, however, the flowers grew again which the boots
+of the Roundheads had trodden in their assault, and which was restored
+without much cost, and only a little care, by both ladies who succeeded
+the second viscount in the government of this mansion. Round the
+terrace-garden was a low wall with a wicket leading to the wooded height
+beyond, that is called Cromwell's Battery to this day.
+
+Young Harry Esmond learned the domestic part of his duty, which was easy
+enough, from the groom of her ladyship's chamber: serving the Countess,
+as the custom commonly was in his boyhood, as page, waiting at
+her chair, bringing her scented water and the silver basin after
+dinner--sitting on her carriage-step on state occasions, or on public
+days introducing her company to her. This was chiefly of the Catholic
+gentry, of whom there were a pretty many in the country and neighboring
+city; and who rode not seldom to Castlewood to partake of the
+hospitalities there. In the second year of their residence, the company
+seemed especially to increase. My lord and my lady were seldom without
+visitors, in whose society it was curious to contrast the difference
+of behavior between Father Holt, the director of the family, and Doctor
+Tusher, the rector of the parish--Mr. Holt moving amongst the very
+highest as quite their equal, and as commanding them all; while poor
+Doctor Tusher, whose position was indeed a difficult one, having been
+chaplain once to the Hall, and still to the Protestant servants there,
+seemed more like an usher than an equal, and always rose to go away
+after the first course.
+
+Also there came in these times to Father Holt many private visitors,
+whom, after a little, Henry Esmond had little difficulty in recognizing
+as ecclesiastics of the Father's persuasion, whatever their dresses
+(and they adopted all) might be. These were closeted with the Father
+constantly, and often came and rode away without paying their devoirs to
+my lord and lady--to the lady and lord rather--his lordship being little
+more than a cipher in the house, and entirely under his domineering
+partner. A little fowling, a little hunting, a great deal of sleep, and
+a long dine at cards and table, carried through one day after another
+with his lordship. When meetings took place in this second year, which
+often would happen with closed doors, the page found my lord's sheet of
+paper scribbled over with dogs and horses, and 'twas said he had much
+ado to keep himself awake at these councils: the Countess ruling over
+them, and he acting as little more than her secretary.
+
+Father Holt began speedily to be so much occupied with these meetings
+as rather to neglect the education of the little lad who so gladly put
+himself under the kind priest's orders. At first they read much and
+regularly, both in Latin and French; the Father not neglecting in
+anything to impress his faith upon his pupil, but not forcing him
+violently, and treating him with a delicacy and kindness which surprised
+and attached the child, always more easily won by these methods than by
+any severe exercise of authority. And his delight in their walks was to
+tell Harry of the glories of his order, of its martyrs and heroes, of
+its Brethren converting the heathen by myriads, traversing the desert,
+facing the stake, ruling the courts and councils, or braving the
+tortures of kings; so that Harry Esmond thought that to belong to the
+Jesuits was the greatest prize of life and bravest end of ambition; the
+greatest career here, and in heaven the surest reward; and began to
+long for the day, not only when he should enter into the one church
+and receive his first communion, but when he might join that wonderful
+brotherhood, which was present throughout all the world, and which
+numbered the wisest, the bravest, the highest born, the most eloquent of
+men among its members. Father Holt bade him keep his views secret,
+and to hide them as a great treasure which would escape him if it was
+revealed; and, proud of this confidence and secret vested in him,
+the lad became fondly attached to the master who initiated him into
+a mystery so wonderful and awful. And when little Tom Tusher, his
+neighbor, came from school for his holiday, and said how he, too, was
+to be bred up for an English priest, and would get what he called
+an exhibition from his school, and then a college scholarship and
+fellowship, and then a good living--it tasked young Harry Esmond's
+powers of reticence not to say to his young companion, “Church!
+priesthood! fat living! My dear Tommy, do you call yours a church and
+a priesthood? What is a fat living compared to converting a hundred
+thousand heathens by a single sermon? What is a scholarship at Trinity
+by the side of a crown of martyrdom, with angels awaiting you as your
+head is taken off? Could your master at school sail over the Thames on
+his gown? Have you statues in your church that can bleed, speak, walk,
+and cry? My good Tommy, in dear Father Holt's church these things take
+place every day. You know Saint Philip of the Willows appeared to Lord
+Castlewood, and caused him to turn to the one true church. No saints
+ever come to you.” And Harry Esmond, because of his promise to Father
+Holt, hiding away these treasures of faith from T. Tusher, delivered
+himself of them nevertheless simply to Father Holt; who stroked his
+head, smiled at him with his inscrutable look, and told him that he did
+well to meditate on these great things, and not to talk of them except
+under direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+I AM PLACED UNDER A POPISH PRIEST AND BRED TO THAT
+RELIGION.--VISCOUNTESS CASTLEWOOD.
+
+
+Had time enough been given, and his childish inclinations been properly
+nurtured, Harry Esmond had been a Jesuit priest ere he was a dozen years
+older, and might have finished his days a martyr in China or a victim
+on Tower Hill: for, in the few months they spent together at Castlewood,
+Mr. Holt obtained an entire mastery over the boy's intellect and
+affections; and had brought him to think, as indeed Father Holt
+thought with all his heart too, that no life was so noble, no death so
+desirable, as that which many brethren of his famous order were ready
+to undergo. By love, by a brightness of wit and good-humor that charmed
+all, by an authority which he knew how to assume, by a mystery and
+silence about him which increased the child's reverence for him, he won
+Harry's absolute fealty, and would have kept it, doubtless, if schemes
+greater and more important than a poor little boy's admission into
+orders had not called him away.
+
+After being at home for a few months in tranquillity (if theirs might be
+called tranquillity, which was, in truth, a constant bickering), my lord
+and lady left the country for London, taking their director with them:
+and his little pupil scarce ever shed more bitter tears in his life than
+he did for nights after the first parting with his dear friend, as he
+lay in the lonely chamber next to that which the Father used to occupy.
+He and a few domestics were left as the only tenants of the great house:
+and, though Harry sedulously did all the tasks which the Father set him,
+he had many hours unoccupied, and read in the library, and bewildered
+his little brains with the great books he found there.
+
+After a while, the little lad grew accustomed to the loneliness of the
+place; and in after days remembered this part of his life as a
+period not unhappy. When the family was at London the whole of the
+establishment travelled thither with the exception of the porter--who
+was, moreover, brewer, gardener, and woodman--and his wife and children.
+These had their lodging in the gate-house hard by, with a door into the
+court; and a window looking out on the green was the Chaplain's room;
+and next to this a small chamber where Father Holt had his books, and
+Harry Esmond his sleeping closet. The side of the house facing the
+east had escaped the guns of the Cromwellians, whose battery was on the
+height facing the western court; so that this eastern end bore few marks
+of demolition, save in the chapel, where the painted windows surviving
+Edward the Sixth had been broke by the Commonwealthmen. In Father Holt's
+time little Harry Esmond acted as his familiar and faithful little
+servitor; beating his clothes, folding his vestments, fetching his
+water from the well long before daylight, ready to run anywhere for the
+service of his beloved priest. When the Father was away, he locked his
+private chamber; but the room where the books were was left to little
+Harry, who, but for the society of this gentleman, was little less
+solitary when Lord Castlewood was at home.
+
+The French wit saith that a hero is none to his valet-de-chambre, and
+it required less quick eyes than my lady's little page was naturally
+endowed with, to see that she had many qualities by no means heroic,
+however much Mrs. Tusher might flatter and coax her. When Father Holt
+was not by, who exercised an entire authority over the pair, my lord
+and my lady quarrelled and abused each other so as to make the servants
+laugh, and to frighten the little page on duty. The poor boy trembled
+before his mistress, who called him by a hundred ugly names, who made
+nothing of boxing his ears, and tilting the silver basin in his face
+which it was his business to present to her after dinner. She hath
+repaired, by subsequent kindness to him, these severities, which it must
+be owned made his childhood very unhappy. She was but unhappy herself at
+this time, poor soul! and I suppose made her dependants lead her own sad
+life. I think my lord was as much afraid of her as her page was, and the
+only person of the household who mastered her was Mr. Holt. Harry was
+only too glad when the Father dined at table, and to slink away and
+prattle with him afterwards, or read with him, or walk with him.
+Luckily my Lady Viscountess did not rise till noon. Heaven help the poor
+waiting-woman who had charge of her toilet! I have often seen the poor
+wretch come out with red eyes from the closet where those long and
+mysterious rites of her ladyship's dress were performed, and the
+backgammon-box locked up with a rap on Mrs. Tusher's fingers when she
+played ill, or the game was going the wrong way.
+
+Blessed be the king who introduced cards, and the kind inventors
+of piquet and cribbage, for they employed six hours at least of her
+ladyship's day, during which her family was pretty easy. Without this
+occupation my lady frequently declared she should die. Her dependants
+one after another relieved guard--'twas rather a dangerous post to play
+with her ladyship--and took the cards turn about. Mr. Holt would sit
+with her at piquet during hours together, at which time she behaved
+herself properly; and as for Dr. Tusher, I believe he would have left a
+parishioner's dying bed, if summoned to play a rubber with his patroness
+at Castlewood. Sometimes, when they were pretty comfortable together,
+my lord took a hand. Besides these my lady had her faithful poor Tusher,
+and one, two, three gentlewomen whom Harry Esmond could recollect in
+his time. They could not bear that genteel service very long; one after
+another tried and failed at it. These and the housekeeper, and little
+Harry Esmond, had a table of their own. Poor ladies their life was far
+harder than the page's. He was sound asleep, tucked up in his little
+bed, whilst they were sitting by her ladyship reading her to sleep, with
+the “News Letter” or the “Grand Cyrus.” My lady used to have boxes of
+new plays from London, and Harry was forbidden, under the pain of a
+whipping, to look into them. I am afraid he deserved the penalty pretty
+often, and got it sometimes. Father Holt applied it twice or thrice,
+when he caught the young scapegrace with a delightful wicked comedy of
+Mr. Shadwell's or Mr. Wycherley's under his pillow.
+
+These, when he took any, were my lord's favorite reading. But he
+was averse to much study, and, as his little page fancied, to much
+occupation of any sort.
+
+It always seemed to young Harry Esmond that my lord treated him with
+more kindness when his lady was not present, and Lord Castlewood would
+take the lad sometimes on his little journeys a-hunting or a-birding;
+he loved to play at cards and tric-trac with him, which games the boy
+learned to pleasure his lord: and was growing to like him better daily,
+showing a special pleasure if Father Holt gave a good report of him,
+patting him on the head, and promising that he would provide for the
+boy. However, in my lady's presence, my lord showed no such marks of
+kindness, and affected to treat the lad roughly, and rebuked him sharply
+for little faults, for which he in a manner asked pardon of young Esmond
+when they were private, saying if he did not speak roughly, she would,
+and his tongue was not such a bad one as his lady's--a point whereof the
+boy, young as he was, was very well assured.
+
+Great public events were happening all this while, of which the simple
+young page took little count. But one day, riding into the neighboring
+town on the step of my lady's coach, his lordship and she and Father
+Holt being inside, a great mob of people came hooting and jeering round
+the coach, bawling out “The Bishops for ever!” “Down with the Pope!” “No
+Popery! no Popery! Jezebel, Jezebel!” so that my lord began to laugh,
+my lady's eyes to roll with anger, for she was as bold as a lioness,
+and feared nobody; whilst Mr. Holt, as Esmond saw from his place on the
+step, sank back with rather an alarmed face, crying out to her ladyship,
+“For God's sake, madam, do not speak or look out of window; sit still.”
+ But she did not obey this prudent injunction of the Father; she thrust
+her head out of the coach window, and screamed out to the coachman,
+“Flog your way through them, the brutes, James, and use your whip!”
+
+The mob answered with a roaring jeer of laughter, and fresh cries of
+“Jezebel! Jezebel!” My lord only laughed the more: he was a languid
+gentleman: nothing seemed to excite him commonly, though I have seen
+him cheer and halloo the hounds very briskly, and his face (which was
+generally very yellow and calm) grow quite red and cheerful during a
+burst over the Downs after a hare, and laugh, and swear, and huzzah at a
+cockfight, of which sport he was very fond. And now, when the mob began
+to hoot his lady, he laughed with something of a mischievous look, as
+though he expected sport, and thought that she and they were a match.
+
+James the coachman was more afraid of his mistress than the mob,
+probably, for he whipped on his horses as he was bidden, and the
+post-boy that rode with the first pair (my lady always rode with her
+coach-and-six,) gave a cut of his thong over the shoulders of one fellow
+who put his hand out towards the leading horse's rein.
+
+It was a market-day, and the country-people were all assembled with
+their baskets of poultry, eggs, and such things; the postilion had no
+sooner lashed the man who would have taken hold of his horse, but a
+great cabbage came whirling like a bombshell into the carriage, at which
+my lord laughed more, for it knocked my lady's fan out of her hand, and
+plumped into Father Holt's stomach. Then came a shower of carrots and
+potatoes.
+
+“For Heaven's sake be still!” says Mr. Holt; “we are not ten paces from
+the 'Bell' archway, where they can shut the gates on us, and keep out
+this canaille.”
+
+The little page was outside the coach on the step, and a fellow in the
+crowd aimed a potato at him, and hit him in the eye, at which the poor
+little wretch set up a shout; the man laughed, a great big saddler's
+apprentice of the town. “Ah! you d--- little yelling Popish bastard,”
+ he said, and stooped to pick up another; the crowd had gathered quite
+between the horses and the inn door by this time, and the coach was
+brought to a dead stand-still. My lord jumped as briskly as a boy out of
+the door on his side of the coach, squeezing little Harry behind it; had
+hold of the potato-thrower's collar in an instant, and the next moment
+the brute's heels were in the air, and he fell on the stones with a
+thump.
+
+“You hulking coward!” says he; “you pack of screaming blackguards! how
+dare you attack children, and insult women? Fling another shot at that
+carriage, you sneaking pigskin cobbler, and by the Lord I'll send my
+rapier through you!”
+
+Some of the mob cried, “Huzzah, my lord!” for they knew him, and
+the saddler's man was a known bruiser, near twice as big as my lord
+Viscount.
+
+“Make way there,” says he (he spoke in a high shrill voice, but with
+a great air of authority). “Make way, and let her ladyship's carriage
+pass.” The men that were between the coach and the gate of the “Bell”
+ actually did make way, and the horses went in, my lord walking after
+them with his hat on his head.
+
+As he was going in at the gate, through which the coach had just rolled,
+another cry begins, of “No Popery--no Papists!” My lord turns round and
+faces them once more.
+
+“God save the King!” says he at the highest pitch of his voice. “Who
+dares abuse the King's religion? You, you d--d psalm-singing cobbler,
+as sure as I'm a magistrate of this county I'll commit you!” The fellow
+shrank back, and my lord retreated with all the honors of the day.
+But when the little flurry caused by the scene was over, and the flush
+passed off his face, he relapsed into his usual languor, trifled with
+his little dog, and yawned when my lady spoke to him.
+
+This mob was one of many thousands that were going about the country at
+that time, huzzahing for the acquittal of the seven bishops who had been
+tried just then, and about whom little Harry Esmond at that time knew
+scarce anything. It was Assizes at Hexton, and there was a great meeting
+of the gentry at the “Bell;” and my lord's people had their new liveries
+on, and Harry a little suit of blue and silver, which he wore upon
+occasions of state; and the gentlefolks came round and talked to my
+lord: and a judge in a red gown, who seemed a very great personage,
+especially complimented him and my lady, who was mighty grand. Harry
+remembers her train borne up by her gentlewoman. There was an assembly
+and ball at the great room at the “Bell,” and other young gentlemen of
+the county families looked on as he did. One of them jeered him for his
+black eye, which was swelled by the potato, and another called him a
+bastard, on which he and Harry fell to fisticuffs. My lord's cousin,
+Colonel Esmond of Walcote, was there, and separated the two lads--a
+great tall gentleman, with a handsome good-natured face. The boy did not
+know how nearly in after-life he should be allied to Colonel Esmond, and
+how much kindness he should have to owe him.
+
+There was little love between the two families. My lady used not to
+spare Colonel Esmond in talking of him, for reasons which have been
+hinted already; but about which, at his tender age, Henry Esmond could
+be expected to know nothing.
+
+Very soon afterwards, my lord and lady went to London with Mr. Holt,
+leaving, however, the page behind them. The little man had the great
+house of Castlewood to himself; or between him and the housekeeper, Mrs.
+Worksop, an old lady who was a kinswoman of the family in some distant
+way, and a Protestant, but a staunch Tory and king's-man, as all the
+Esmonds were. He used to go to school to Dr. Tusher when he was at home,
+though the Doctor was much occupied too. There was a great stir and
+commotion everywhere, even in the little quiet village of Castlewood,
+whither a party of people came from the town, who would have broken
+Castlewood Chapel windows, but the village people turned out, and even
+old Sieveright, the republican blacksmith, along with them: for my
+lady, though she was a Papist, and had many odd ways, was kind to the
+tenantry, and there was always a plenty of beef, and blankets, and
+medicine for the poor at Castlewood Hall.
+
+A kingdom was changing hands whilst my lord and lady were away. King
+James was flying, the Dutchmen were coming; awful stories about them and
+the Prince of Orange used old Mrs. Worksop to tell to the idle little
+page.
+
+He liked the solitude of the great house very well; he had all the
+play-books to read, and no Father Holt to whip him, and a hundred
+childish pursuits and pastimes, without doors and within, which made
+this time very pleasant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF KING JAMES II.
+
+
+Not having been able to sleep, for thinking of some lines for eels which
+he had placed the night before, the lad was lying in his little bed,
+waiting for the hour when the gate would be open, and he and his
+comrade, John Lockwood, the porter's son, might go to the pond and see
+what fortune had brought them. At daybreak John was to awaken him, but
+his own eagerness for the sport had served as a reveillez long since--so
+long, that it seemed to him as if the day never would come.
+
+It might have been four o'clock when he heard the door of the opposite
+chamber, the Chaplain's room, open, and the voice of a man coughing in
+the passage. Harry jumped up, thinking for certain it was a robber, or
+hoping perhaps for a ghost, and, flinging open his own door, saw before
+him the Chaplain's door open, and a light inside, and a figure standing
+in the doorway, in the midst of a great smoke which issued from the
+room.
+
+“Who's there?” cried out the boy, who was of a good spirit.
+
+“Silentium!” whispered the other; “'tis I, my boy!” and, holding his
+hand out, Harry had no difficulty in recognizing his master and friend,
+Father Holt. A curtain was over the window of the Chaplain's room that
+looked to the court, and Harry saw that the smoke came from a great
+flame of papers which were burning in a brazier when he entered the
+Chaplain's room. After giving a hasty greeting and blessing to the lad,
+who was charmed to see his tutor, the Father continued the burning of
+his papers, drawing them from a cupboard over the mantel-piece wall,
+which Harry had never seen before.
+
+Father Holt laughed, seeing the lad's attention fixed at once on this
+hole. “That is right, Harry,” he said; “faithful little famuli, see all
+and say nothing. You are faithful, I know.”
+
+“I know I would go to the stake for you,” said Harry.
+
+“I don't want your head,” said the Father, patting it kindly; “all you
+have to do is to hold your tongue. Let us burn these papers, and say
+nothing to anybody. Should you like to read them?”
+
+Harry Esmond blushed, and held down his head; he HAD looked as the fact
+was, and without thinking, at the paper before him; and though he had
+seen it, could not understand a word of it, the letters being quite
+clear enough, but quite without meaning. They burned the papers, beating
+down the ashes in a brazier, so that scarce any traces of them remained.
+
+Harry had been accustomed to see Father Holt in more dresses than one;
+it not being safe, or worth the danger, for Popish ecclesiastics to wear
+their proper dress; and he was, in consequence, in no wise astonished
+that the priest should now appear before him in a riding-dress, with
+large buff leather boots, and a feather to his hat, plain, but such as
+gentlemen wore.
+
+“You know the secret of the cupboard,” said he, laughing, “and must be
+prepared for other mysteries;” and he opened--but not a secret cupboard
+this time--only a wardrobe, which he usually kept locked, and from which
+he now took out two or three dresses and perruques of different colors,
+and a couple of swords of a pretty make (Father Holt was an expert
+practitioner with the small-sword, and every day, whilst he was at home,
+he and his pupil practised this exercise, in which the lad became a very
+great proficient), a military coat and cloak, and a farmer's smock,
+and placed them in the large hole over the mantel-piece from which the
+papers had been taken.
+
+“If they miss the cupboard,” he said, “they will not find these; if
+they find them, they'll tell no tales, except that Father Holt wore more
+suits of clothes than one. All Jesuits do. You know what deceivers we
+are, Harry.”
+
+Harry was alarmed at the notion that his friend was about to leave him;
+but “No,” the priest said, “I may very likely come back with my lord
+in a few days. We are to be tolerated; we are not to be persecuted. But
+they may take a fancy to pay a visit at Castlewood ere our return; and,
+as gentlemen of my cloth are suspected, they might choose to examine
+my papers, which concern nobody--at least not them.” And to this day,
+whether the papers in cipher related to politics, or to the affairs of
+that mysterious society whereof Father Holt was a member, his pupil,
+Harry Esmond, remains in entire ignorance.
+
+The rest of his goods, his small wardrobe, &c. Holt left untouched on
+his shelves and in his cupboard, taking down--with a laugh, however--and
+flinging into the brazier, where he only half burned them, some
+theological treatises which he had been writing against the English
+divines. “And now,” said he, “Henry, my son, you may testify, with a
+safe conscience, that you saw me burning Latin sermons the last time I
+was here before I went away to London; and it will be daybreak directly,
+and I must be away before Lockwood is stirring.”
+
+“Will not Lockwood let you out, sir?” Esmond asked. Holt laughed; he
+was never more gay or good-humored than when in the midst of action or
+danger.
+
+“Lockwood knows nothing of my being here, mind you,” he said; “nor would
+you, you little wretch! had you slept better. You must forget that I
+have been here; and now farewell. Close the door, and go to your own
+room, and don't come out till--stay, why should you not know one secret
+more? I know you will never betray me.”
+
+In the Chaplain's room were two windows; the one looking into the court
+facing westwards to the fountain; the other, a small casement strongly
+barred, and looking on to the green in front of the Hall. This window
+was too high to reach from the ground; but, mounting on a buffet which
+stood beneath it, Father Holt showed me how, by pressing on the base
+of the window, the whole framework of lead, glass, and iron stanchions
+descended into a cavity worked below, from which it could be drawn and
+restored to its usual place from without; a broken pane being purposely
+open to admit the hand which was to work upon the spring of the machine.
+
+“When I am gone,” Father Holt said, “you may push away the buffet, so
+that no one may fancy that an exit has been made that way; lock the
+door; place the key--where shall we put the key?--under 'Chrysostom' on
+the book-shelf; and if any ask for it, say I keep it there, and told you
+where to find it, if you had need to go to my room. The descent is easy
+down the wall into the ditch; and so, once more farewell, until I see
+thee again, my dear son.” And with this the intrepid Father mounted
+the buffet with great agility and briskness, stepped across the window,
+lifting up the bars and framework again from the other side, and only
+leaving room for Harry Esmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his hand
+before the casement closed, the bars fixing as firmly as ever,
+seemingly, in the stone arch overhead. When Father Holt next arrived at
+Castlewood, it was by the public gate on horseback; and he never so much
+as alluded to the existence of the private issue to Harry, except when
+he had need of a private messenger from within, for which end, no doubt,
+he had instructed his young pupil in the means of quitting the Hall.
+
+Esmond, young as he was, would have died sooner than betray his friend
+and master, as Mr. Holt well knew; for he had tried the boy more than
+once, putting temptations in his way, to see whether he would yield to
+them and confess afterwards, or whether he would resist them, as he did
+sometimes, or whether he would lie, which he never did. Holt instructing
+the boy on this point, however, that if to keep silence is not to lie,
+as it certainly is not, yet silence is, after all, equivalent to a
+negation--and therefore a downright No, in the interest of justice
+or your friend, and in reply to a question that may be prejudicial to
+either, is not criminal, but, on the contrary, praiseworthy; and as
+lawful a way as the other of eluding a wrongful demand. For instance
+(says he), suppose a good citizen, who had seen his Majesty take refuge
+there, had been asked, “Is King Charles up that oak-tree?” his duty
+would have been not to say, Yes--so that the Cromwellians should seize
+the king and murder him like his father--but No; his Majesty being
+private in the tree, and therefore not to be seen there by loyal
+eyes: all which instruction, in religion and morals, as well as in the
+rudiments of the tongues and sciences, the boy took eagerly and with
+gratitude from his tutor. When, then, Holt was gone, and told Harry not
+to see him, it was as if he had never been. And he had this answer pat
+when he came to be questioned a few days after.
+
+The Prince of Orange was then at Salisbury, as young Esmond learned from
+seeing Doctor Tusher in his best cassock (though the roads were
+muddy, and he never was known to wear his silk, only his stuff one,
+a-horseback), with a great orange cockade in his broad-leafed hat, and
+Nahum, his clerk, ornamented with a like decoration. The Doctor was
+walking up and down in front of his parsonage, when little Esmond saw
+him, and heard him say he was going to pay his duty to his Highness
+the Prince, as he mounted his pad and rode away with Nahum behind. The
+village people had orange cockades too, and his friend the blacksmith's
+laughing daughter pinned one into Harry's old hat, which he tore out
+indignantly when they bade him to cry “God save the Prince of Orange and
+the Protestant religion!” but the people only laughed, for they liked
+the boy in the village, where his solitary condition moved the general
+pity, and where he found friendly welcomes and faces in many houses.
+Father Holt had many friends there too, for he not only would fight the
+blacksmith at theology, never losing his temper, but laughing the whole
+time in his pleasant way; but he cured him of an ague with quinquina,
+and was always ready with a kind word for any man that asked it, so that
+they said in the village 'twas a pity the two were Papists.
+
+The Director and the Vicar of Castlewood agreed very well; indeed, the
+former was a perfectly-bred gentleman, and it was the latter's business
+to agree with everybody. Doctor Tusher and the lady's-maid, his spouse,
+had a boy who was about the age of little Esmond; and there was such a
+friendship between the lads, as propinquity and tolerable kindness and
+good-humor on either side would be pretty sure to occasion. Tom Tusher
+was sent off early, however, to a school in London, whither his father
+took him and a volume of sermons, in the first year of the reign of King
+James; and Tom returned but once, a year afterwards, to Castlewood for
+many years of his scholastic and collegiate life. Thus there was less
+danger to Tom of a perversion of his faith by the Director, who scarce
+ever saw him, than there was to Harry, who constantly was in the Vicar's
+company; but as long as Harry's religion was his Majesty's, and my
+lord's, and my lady's, the Doctor said gravely, it should not be for
+him to disturb or disquiet him: it was far from him to say that his
+Majesty's Church was not a branch of the Catholic Church; upon which
+Father Holt used, according to his custom, to laugh, and say that the
+Holy Church throughout all the world, and the noble Army of Martyrs,
+were very much obliged to the Doctor.
+
+It was while Dr. Tusher was away at Salisbury that there came a troop
+of dragoons with orange scarfs, and quartered in Castlewood, and some
+of them came up to the Hall, where they took possession, robbing nothing
+however beyond the hen-house and the beer-cellar: and only insisting
+upon going through the house and looking for papers. The first room they
+asked to look at was Father Holt's room, of which Harry Esmond brought
+the key, and they opened the drawers and the cupboards, and tossed over
+the papers and clothes--but found nothing except his books and clothes,
+and the vestments in a box by themselves, with which the dragoons
+made merry, to Harry Esmond's horror. And to the questions which the
+gentleman put to Harry, he replied that Father Holt was a very kind man
+to him, and a very learned man, and Harry supposed would tell him none
+of his secrets if he had any. He was about eleven years old at this
+time, and looked as innocent as boys of his age.
+
+The family were away more than six months, and when they returned
+they were in the deepest state of dejection, for King James had been
+banished, the Prince of Orange was on the throne, and the direst
+persecutions of those of the Catholic faith were apprehended by my
+lady, who said she did not believe that there was a word of truth in the
+promises of toleration that Dutch monster made, or in a single word the
+perjured wretch said. My lord and lady were in a manner prisoners in
+their own house; so her ladyship gave the little page to know, who was
+by this time growing of an age to understand what was passing about him,
+and something of the characters of the people he lived with.
+
+“We are prisoners,” says she; “in everything but chains, we are
+prisoners. Let them come, let them consign me to dungeons, or strike off
+my head from this poor little throat” (and she clasped it in her long
+fingers). “The blood of the Esmonds will always flow freely for their
+kings. We are not like the Churchills--the Judases, who kiss their
+master and betray him. We know how to suffer, how even to forgive in the
+royal cause” (no doubt it was to that fatal business of losing the place
+of Groom of the Posset to which her ladyship alluded, as she did half
+a dozen times in the day). “Let the tyrant of Orange bring his rack and
+his odious Dutch tortures--the beast! the wretch! I spit upon him and
+defy him. Cheerfully will I lay this head upon the block; cheerfully
+will I accompany my lord to the scaffold: we will cry 'God save
+King James!' with our dying breath, and smile in the face of the
+executioner.” And she told her page, a hundred times at least, of the
+particulars of the last interview which she had with his Majesty.
+
+“I flung myself before my liege's feet,” she said, “at Salisbury.
+I devoted myself--my husband--my house, to his cause. Perhaps he
+remembered old times, when Isabella Esmond was young and fair; perhaps
+he recalled the day when 'twas not I that knelt--at least he spoke to me
+with a voice that reminded ME of days gone by. 'Egad!' said his Majesty,
+'you should go to the Prince of Orange; if you want anything.' 'No,
+sire,' I replied, 'I would not kneel to a Usurper; the Esmond that would
+have served your Majesty will never be groom to a traitor's posset.' The
+royal exile smiled, even in the midst of his misfortune; he deigned to
+raise me with words of consolation. The Viscount, my husband, himself,
+could not be angry at the august salute with which he honored me!”
+
+The public misfortune had the effect of making my lord and his lady
+better friends than they ever had been since their courtship. My
+lord Viscount had shown both loyalty and spirit, when these were rare
+qualities in the dispirited party about the King; and the praise he got
+elevated him not a little in his wife's good opinion, and perhaps in his
+own. He wakened up from the listless and supine life which he had been
+leading; was always riding to and fro in consultation with this friend
+or that of the King's; the page of course knowing little of his doings,
+but remarking only his greater cheerfulness and altered demeanor.
+
+Father Holt came to the Hall constantly, but officiated no longer openly
+as chaplain; he was always fetching and carrying: strangers, military
+and ecclesiastic (Harry knew the latter, though they came in all sorts
+of disguises), were continually arriving and departing. My lord made
+long absences and sudden reappearances, using sometimes the means of
+exit which Father Holt had employed, though how often the little window
+in the Chaplain's room let in or let out my lord and his friends, Harry
+could not tell. He stoutly kept his promise to the Father of not prying,
+and if at midnight from his little room he heard noises of persons
+stirring in the next chamber, he turned round to the wall, and hid his
+curiosity under his pillow until it fell asleep. Of course he could
+not help remarking that the priest's journeys were constant, and
+understanding by a hundred signs that some active though secret business
+employed him: what this was may pretty well be guessed by what soon
+happened to my lord.
+
+No garrison or watch was put into Castlewood when my lord came back, but
+a Guard was in the village; and one or other of them was always on the
+Green keeping a look-out on our great gate, and those who went out and
+in. Lockwood said that at night especially every person who came in or
+went out was watched by the outlying sentries. 'Twas lucky that we had
+a gate which their Worships knew nothing about. My lord and Father Holt
+must have made constant journeys at night: once or twice little Harry
+acted as their messenger and discreet little aide-de-camp. He remembers
+he was bidden to go into the village with his fishing-rod, enter certain
+houses, ask for a drink of water, and tell the good man, “There would be
+a horse-market at Newbury next Thursday,” and so carry the same message
+on to the next house on his list.
+
+He did not know what the message meant at the time, nor what was
+happening: which may as well, however, for clearness' sake, be explained
+here. The Prince of Orange being gone to Ireland, where the King was
+ready to meet him with a great army, it was determined that a great
+rising of his Majesty's party should take place in this country; and my
+lord was to head the force in our county. Of late he had taken a greater
+lead in affairs than before, having the indefatigable Mr. Holt at his
+elbow, and my Lady Viscountess strongly urging him on; and my Lord
+Sark being in the Tower a prisoner, and Sir Wilmot Crawley, of Queen's
+Crawley, having gone over to the Prince of Orange's side--my lord became
+the most considerable person in our part of the county for the affairs
+of the King.
+
+It was arranged that the regiment of Scots Grays and Dragoons, then
+quartered at Newbury, should declare for the King on a certain day, when
+likewise the gentry affected to his Majesty's cause were to come in with
+their tenants and adherents to Newbury, march upon the Dutch troops
+at Reading under Ginckel; and, these overthrown, and their indomitable
+little master away in Ireland, 'twas thought that our side might move on
+London itself, and a confident victory was predicted for the King.
+
+As these great matters were in agitation, my lord lost his listless
+manner and seemed to gain health; my lady did not scold him, Mr. Holt
+came to and fro, busy always; and little Harry longed to have been a few
+inches taller, that he might draw a sword in this good cause.
+
+One day, it must have been about the month of July, 1690, my lord, in
+a great horseman's coat, under which Harry could see the shining of a
+steel breastplate he had on, called little Harry to him, put the hair
+off the child's forehead, and kissed him, and bade God bless him in such
+an affectionate way as he never had used before. Father Holt blessed him
+too, and then they took leave of my Lady Viscountess, who came from her
+apartment with a pocket-handkerchief to her eyes, and her gentlewoman
+and Mrs. Tusher supporting her. “You are going to--to ride,” says she.
+“Oh, that I might come too--but in my situation I am forbidden horse
+exercise.”
+
+“We kiss my Lady Marchioness's hand,” says Mr. Holt.
+
+“My lord, God speed you!” she said, stepping up and embracing my lord in
+a grand manner. “Mr. Holt, I ask your blessing:” and she knelt down for
+that, whilst Mrs. Tusher tossed her head up.
+
+Mr. Holt gave the same benediction to the little page, who went down
+and held my lord's stirrups for him to mount; there were two servants
+waiting there too--and they rode out of Castlewood gate.
+
+As they crossed the bridge, Harry could see an officer in scarlet ride
+up touching his hat, and address my lord.
+
+The party stopped, and came to some parley or discussion, which
+presently ended, my lord putting his horse into a canter after taking
+off his hat and making a bow to the officer, who rode alongside him step
+for step: the trooper accompanying him falling back, and riding with my
+lord's two men. They cantered over the Green, and behind the elms (my
+lord waving his hand, Harry thought), and so they disappeared. That
+evening we had a great panic, the cow-boy coming at milking-time riding
+one of our horses, which he had found grazing at the outer park-wall.
+
+All night my Lady Viscountess was in a very quiet and subdued mood.
+She scarce found fault with anybody; she played at cards for six hours;
+little page Esmond went to sleep. He prayed for my lord and the good
+cause before closing his eyes.
+
+It was quite in the gray of the morning when the porter's bell rang, and
+old Lockwood, waking up, let in one of my lord's servants, who had gone
+with him in the morning, and who returned with a melancholy story. The
+officer who rode up to my lord had, it appeared, said to him, that it
+was his duty to inform his lordship that he was not under arrest, but
+under surveillance, and to request him not to ride abroad that day.
+
+My lord replied that riding was good for his health, that if the Captain
+chose to accompany him he was welcome; and it was then that he made a
+bow, and they cantered away together.
+
+When he came on to Wansey Down, my lord all of a sudden pulled up, and
+the party came to a halt at the cross-way.
+
+“Sir,” says he to the officer, “we are four to two; will you be so kind
+as to take that road, and leave me go mine?”
+
+“Your road is mine, my lord,” says the officer.
+
+“Then--” says my lord; but he had no time to say more, for the officer,
+drawing a pistol, snapped it at his lordship; as at the same moment
+Father Holt, drawing a pistol, shot the officer through the head. It was
+done, and the man dead in an instant of time. The orderly, gazing at the
+officer, looked seared for a moment, and galloped away for his life.
+
+“Fire! fire!” cries out Father Holt, sending another shot after the
+trooper, but the two servants were too much surprised to use their
+pieces, and my lord calling to them to hold their hands, the fellow got
+away.
+
+“Mr. Holt, qui pensait a tout,” says Blaise, “gets off his horse,
+examines the pockets of the dead officer for papers, gives his money to
+us two, and says, 'The wine is drawn, M. le Marquis,'--why did he say
+Marquis to M. le Vicomte?--'we must drink it.'
+
+“The poor gentleman's horse was a better one than that I rode,”
+ Blaise continues; “Mr. Holt bids me get on him, and so I gave a cut to
+Whitefoot, and she trotted home. We rode on towards Newbury; we heard
+firing towards midday: at two o'clock a horseman comes up to us as we
+were giving our cattle water at an inn--and says, 'All is done! The
+Ecossais declared an hour too soon--General Ginckel was down upon them.'
+The whole thing was at an end.
+
+“'And we've shot an officer on duty, and let his orderly escape,' says
+my lord.
+
+“'Blaise,' says Mr. Holt, writing two lines on his table-book, one for
+my lady and one for you, Master Harry; 'you must go back to Castlewood,
+and deliver these,' and behold me.”
+
+And he gave Harry the two papers. He read that to himself, which only
+said, “Burn the papers in the cupboard, burn this. You know nothing
+about anything.” Harry read this, ran up stairs to his mistress's
+apartment, where her gentlewoman slept near to the door, made her bring
+a light and wake my lady, into whose hands he gave the paper. She was a
+wonderful object to look at in her night attire, nor had Harry ever seen
+the like.
+
+As soon as she had the paper in her hand, Harry stepped back to the
+Chaplain's room, opened the secret cupboard over the fireplace, burned
+all the papers in it, and, as he had seen the priest do before, took
+down one of his reverence's manuscript sermons, and half burnt that
+in the brazier. By the time the papers were quite destroyed it was
+daylight. Harry ran back to his mistress again. Her gentlewoman ushered
+him again into her ladyship's chamber; she told him (from behind her
+nuptial curtains) to bid the coach be got ready, and that she would ride
+away anon.
+
+But the mysteries of her ladyship's toilet were as awfully long on this
+day as on any other, and, long after the coach was ready, my lady was
+still attiring herself. And just as the Viscountess stepped forth from
+her room, ready for departure, young John Lockwood comes running up
+from the village with news that a lawyer, three officers, and twenty or
+four-and-twenty soldiers, were marching thence upon the house. John had
+but two minutes the start of them, and, ere he had well told his story,
+the troop rode into our court-yard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE ISSUE OF THE PLOTS.--THE DEATH OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT OF
+CASTLEWOOD; AND THE IMPRISONMENT OF HIS VISCOUNTESS.
+
+
+At first my lady was for dying like Mary, Queen of Scots (to whom she
+fancied she bore a resemblance in beauty), and, stroking her scraggy
+neck, said, “They will find Isabel of Castlewood is equal to her fate.”
+ Her gentlewoman, Victoire, persuaded her that her prudent course was,
+as she could not fly, to receive the troops as though she suspected
+nothing, and that her chamber was the best place wherein to await them.
+So her black Japan casket, which Harry was to carry to the coach, was
+taken back to her ladyship's chamber, whither the maid and mistress
+retired. Victoire came out presently, bidding the page to say her
+ladyship was ill, confined to her bed with the rheumatism.
+
+By this time the soldiers had reached Castlewood. Harry Esmond saw
+them from the window of the tapestry parlor; a couple of sentinels were
+posted at the gate--a half-dozen more walked towards the stable; and
+some others, preceded by their commander, and a man in black, a lawyer
+probably, were conducted by one of the servants to the stair leading up
+to the part of the house which my lord and lady inhabited.
+
+So the Captain, a handsome kind man, and the lawyer, came through the
+ante-room to the tapestry parlor, and where now was nobody but young
+Harry Esmond, the page.
+
+“Tell your mistress, little man,” says the Captain, kindly, “that we
+must speak to her.”
+
+“My mistress is ill a-bed,” said the page.
+
+“What complaint has she?” asked the Captain.
+
+The boy said, “The rheumatism!”
+
+“Rheumatism! that's a sad complaint,” continues the good-natured
+Captain; “and the coach is in the yard to fetch the Doctor, I suppose?”
+
+“I don't know,” says the boy.
+
+“And how long has her ladyship been ill?”
+
+“I don't know,” says the boy.
+
+“When did my lord go away?”
+
+“Yesterday night.”
+
+“With Father Holt?”
+
+“With Mr. Holt.”
+
+“And which way did they travel?” asks the lawyer.
+
+“They travelled without me,” says the page.
+
+“We must see Lady Castlewood.”
+
+“I have orders that nobody goes in to her ladyship--she is sick,” says
+the page; but at this moment Victoire came out. “Hush!” says she; and,
+as if not knowing that any one was near, “What's this noise?” says she.
+“Is this gentleman the Doctor?”
+
+“Stuff! we must see Lady Castlewood,” says the lawyer, pushing by.
+
+The curtains of her ladyship's room were down, and the chamber dark,
+and she was in bed with a nightcap on her head, and propped up by her
+pillows, looking none the less ghastly because of the red which was
+still on her cheeks, and which she could not afford to forego.
+
+“Is that the Doctor?” she said.
+
+“There is no use with this deception, madam,” Captain Westbury said (for
+so he was named). “My duty is to arrest the person of Thomas, Viscount
+Castlewood, a nonjuring peer--of Robert Tusher, Vicar of Castlewood--and
+Henry Holt, known under various other names and designations, a Jesuit
+priest, who officiated as chaplain here in the late king's time, and is
+now at the head of the conspiracy which was about to break out in this
+country against the authority of their Majesties King William and Queen
+Mary--and my orders are to search the house for such papers or traces of
+the conspiracy as may be found here. Your ladyship will please give me
+your keys, and it will be as well for yourself that you should help us,
+in every way, in our search.”
+
+“You see, sir, that I have the rheumatism, and cannot move,” said
+the lady, looking uncommonly ghastly as she sat up in her bed, where,
+however, she had had her cheeks painted, and a new cap put on, so that
+she might at least look her best when the officers came.
+
+“I shall take leave to place a sentinel in the chamber, so that your
+ladyship, in case you should wish to rise, may have an arm to lean on,”
+ Captain Westbury said. “Your woman will show me where I am to look;” and
+Madame Victoire, chattering in her half French and half English jargon,
+opened while the Captain examined one drawer after another; but, as
+Harry Esmond thought, rather carelessly, with a smile on his face, as if
+he was only conducting the examination for form's sake.
+
+Before one of the cupboards Victoire flung herself down, stretching out
+her arms, and, with a piercing shriek, cried, “Non, jamais, monsieur
+l'officier! Jamais! I will rather die than let you see this wardrobe.”
+
+But Captain Westbury would open it, still with a smile on his face,
+which, when the box was opened, turned into a fair burst of laughter.
+It contained--not papers regarding the conspiracy--but my lady's wigs,
+washes, and rouge-pots, and Victoire said men were monsters, as the
+Captain went on with his perquisition. He tapped the back to see whether
+or no it was hollow, and as he thrust his hands into the cupboard, my
+lady from her bed called out, with a voice that did not sound like that
+of a very sick woman, “Is it your commission to insult ladies as well as
+to arrest gentlemen, Captain?”
+
+“These articles are only dangerous when worn by your ladyship,” the
+Captain said, with a low bow, and a mock grin of politeness. “I have
+found nothing which concerns the Government as yet--only the weapons
+with which beauty is authorized to kill,” says he, pointing to a wig
+with his sword-tip. “We must now proceed to search the rest of the
+house.”
+
+“You are not going to leave that wretch in the room with me,” cried my
+lady, pointing to the soldier.
+
+“What can I do, madam? Somebody you must have to smooth your pillow and
+bring your medicine--permit me--”
+
+“Sir!” screamed out my lady.
+
+“Madam, if you are too ill to leave the bed,” the Captain then said,
+rather sternly, “I must have in four of my men to lift you off in the
+sheet. I must examine this bed, in a word; papers may be hidden in a bed
+as elsewhere; we know that very well and * * *.”
+
+Here it was her ladyship's turn to shriek, for the Captain, with his
+fist shaking the pillows and bolsters, at last came to “burn” as they
+say in the play of forfeits, and wrenching away one of the pillows,
+said, “Look! did not I tell you so? Here is a pillow stuffed with
+paper.”
+
+“Some villain has betrayed us,” cried out my lady, sitting up in the
+bed, showing herself full dressed under her night-rail.
+
+“And now your ladyship can move, I am sure; permit me to give you my
+hand to rise. You will have to travel for some distance, as far as
+Hexton Castle to-night. Will you have your coach? Your woman shall
+attend you if you like--and the japan-box?”
+
+“Sir! you don't strike a MAN when he is down,” said my lady, with some
+dignity: “can you not spare a woman?”
+
+“Your ladyship must please to rise, and let me search the bed,” said the
+Captain; “there is no more time to lose in bandying talk.”
+
+And, without more ado, the gaunt old woman got up. Harry Esmond
+recollected to the end of his life that figure, with the brocade dress
+and the white night-rail, and the gold-clocked red stockings, and white
+red-heeled shoes, sitting up in the bed, and stepping down from it. The
+trunks were ready packed for departure in her ante-room, and the horses
+ready harnessed in the stable: about all which the Captain seemed to
+know, by information got from some quarter or other; and whence Esmond
+could make a pretty shrewd guess in after-times, when Dr. Tusher
+complained that King William's government had basely treated him for
+services done in that cause.
+
+And here he may relate, though he was then too young to know all that
+was happening, what the papers contained, of which Captain Westbury had
+made a seizure, and which papers had been transferred from the japan-box
+to the bed when the officers arrived.
+
+There was a list of gentlemen of the county in Father Holt's hand
+writing--Mr. Freeman's (King James's) friends--a similar paper being
+found among those of Sir John Fenwick and Mr. Coplestone, who suffered
+death for this conspiracy.
+
+There was a patent conferring the title of Marquis of Esmond on my
+Lord Castlewood and the heirs-male of his body; his appointment as
+Lord-Lieutenant of the County, and Major-General.*
+
+     * To have this rank of Marquis restored in the family had
+     always been my Lady Viscountess's ambition; and her old
+     maiden aunt, Barbara Topham, the goldsmith's daughter, dying
+     about this time, and leaving all her property to Lady
+     Castlewood, I have heard that her ladyship sent almost the
+     whole of the money to King James, a proceeding which so
+     irritated my Lord Castlewood that he actually went to the
+     parish church, and was only appeased by the Marquis's title
+     which his exiled Majesty sent to him in return for the
+     15,000L. his faithful subject lent him.
+
+There were various letters from the nobility and gentry, some ardent
+and some doubtful, in the King's service; and (very luckily for him) two
+letters concerning Colonel Francis Esmond: one from Father Holt, which
+said, “I have been to see this Colonel at his house at Walcote, near to
+Wells, where he resides since the King's departure, and pressed him very
+eagerly in Mr. Freeman's cause, showing him the great advantage he would
+have by trading with that merchant, offering him large premiums there as
+agreed between us. But he says no: he considers Mr. Freeman the head of
+the firm, will never trade against him or embark with any other trading
+company, but considers his duty was done when Mr. Freeman left England.
+This Colonel seems to care more for his wife and his beagles than for
+affairs. He asked me much about young H. E., 'that bastard,' as he
+called him; doubting my lord's intentions respecting him. I reassured
+him on this head, stating what I knew of the lad, and our intentions
+respecting him, but with regard to Freeman he was inflexible.”
+
+And another letter was from Colonel Esmond to his kinsman, to say that
+one Captain Holton had been with him offering him large bribes to join,
+YOU KNOW WHO, and saying that the head of the house of Castlewood was
+deeply engaged in that quarter. But for his part he had broke his
+sword when the K. left the country, and would never again fight in that
+quarrel. The P. of O. was a man, at least, of a noble courage, and his
+duty, and, as he thought, every Englishman's, was to keep the country
+quiet, and the French out of it: and, in fine, that he would have
+nothing to do with the scheme.
+
+Of the existence of these two letters and the contents of the pillow,
+Colonel Frank Esmond, who became Viscount Castlewood, told Henry
+Esmond afterwards, when the letters were shown to his lordship, who
+congratulated himself, as he had good reason, that he had not joined
+in the scheme which proved so fatal to many concerned in it. But,
+naturally, the lad knew little about these circumstances when they
+happened under his eyes: only being aware that his patron and his
+mistress were in some trouble, which had caused the flight of the one
+and the apprehension of the other by the officers of King William.
+
+The seizure of the papers effected, the gentlemen did not pursue their
+further search through Castlewood House very rigorously. They examined
+Mr. Holt's room, being led thither by his pupil, who showed, as the
+Father had bidden him, the place where the key of his chamber lay,
+opened the door for the gentlemen, and conducted them into the room.
+
+When the gentlemen came to the half-burned papers in the brazier, they
+examined them eagerly enough, and their young guide was a little amused
+at their perplexity.
+
+“What are these?” says one.
+
+“They're written in a foreign language,” says the lawyer. “What are you
+laughing at, little whelp?” adds he, turning round as he saw the boy
+smile.
+
+“Mr. Holt said they were sermons,” Harry said, “and bade me to burn
+them;” which indeed was true of those papers.
+
+“Sermons indeed--it's treason, I would lay a wager,” cries the lawyer.
+
+“Egad! it's Greek to me,” says Captain Westbury. “Can you read it,
+little boy?”
+
+“Yes, sir, a little,” Harry said.
+
+“Then read, and read in English, sir, on your peril,” said the lawyer.
+And Harry began to translate:--
+
+“Hath not one of your own writers said, 'The children of Adam are now
+laboring as much as he himself ever did, about the tree of the knowledge
+of good and evil, shaking the boughs thereof, and seeking the fruit,
+being for the most part unmindful of the tree of life.' Oh blind
+generation! 'tis this tree of knowledge to which the serpent has led
+you”--and here the boy was obliged to stop, the rest of the page being
+charred by the fire: and asked of the lawyer--“Shall I go on, sir?”
+
+The lawyer said--“This boy is deeper than he seems: who knows that he is
+not laughing at us?”
+
+“Let's have in Dick the Scholar,” cried Captain Westbury, laughing: and
+he called to a trooper out of the window--“Ho, Dick, come in here and
+construe.”
+
+A thick-set soldier, with a square good-humored face, came in at the
+summons, saluting his officer.
+
+“Tell us what is this, Dick,” says the lawyer.
+
+“My name is Steele, sir,” says the soldier. “I may be Dick for my
+friends, but I don't name gentlemen of your cloth amongst them.”
+
+“Well then, Steele.”
+
+“Mr. Steele, sir, if you please. When you address a gentleman of his
+Majesty's Horse Guards, be pleased not to be so familiar.”
+
+“I didn't know, sir,” said the lawyer.
+
+“How should you? I take it you are not accustomed to meet with
+gentlemen,” says the trooper.
+
+“Hold thy prate, and read that bit of paper,” says Westbury.
+
+“'Tis Latin,” says Dick, glancing at it, and again saluting his officer,
+“and from a sermon of Mr. Cudworth's,” and he translated the words
+pretty much as Henry Esmond had rendered them.
+
+“What a young scholar you are,” says the Captain to the boy.
+
+“Depend on't, he knows more than he tells,” says the lawyer. “I think we
+will pack him off in the coach with old Jezebel.”
+
+“For construing a bit of Latin?” said the Captain, very good-naturedly.
+
+“I would as lief go there as anywhere,” Harry Esmond said, simply, “for
+there is nobody to care for me.”
+
+There must have been something touching in the child's voice, or in
+this description of his solitude--for the Captain looked at him very
+good-naturedly, and the trooper, called Steele, put his hand kindly on
+the lad's head, and said some words in the Latin tongue.
+
+“What does he say?” says the lawyer.
+
+“Faith, ask Dick himself,” cried Captain Westbury.
+
+“I said I was not ignorant of misfortune myself, and had learned to
+succor the miserable, and that's not YOUR trade, Mr. Sheepskin,” said
+the trooper.
+
+“You had better leave Dick the Scholar alone, Mr. Corbet,” the Captain
+said. And Harry Esmond, always touched by a kind face and kind word,
+felt very grateful to this good-natured champion.
+
+The horses were by this time harnessed to the coach; and the Countess
+and Victoire came down and were put into the vehicle. This woman, who
+quarrelled with Harry Esmond all day, was melted at parting with him,
+and called him “dear angel,” and “poor infant,” and a hundred other
+names.
+
+The Viscountess, giving him her lean hand to kiss, bade him always be
+faithful to the house of Esmond. “If evil should happen to my lord,”
+ says she, “his SUCCESSOR, I trust, will be found, and give you
+protection. Situated as I am, they will not dare wreak their vengeance
+on me NOW.” And she kissed a medal she wore with great fervor, and
+Henry Esmond knew not in the least what her meaning was; but hath since
+learned that, old as she was, she was for ever expecting, by the good
+offices of saints and relics, to have an heir to the title of Esmond.
+
+Harry Esmond was too young to have been introduced into the secrets
+of politics in which his patrons were implicated; for they put but few
+questions to the boy (who was little of stature, and looked much younger
+than his age), and such questions as they put he answered cautiously
+enough, and professing even more ignorance than he had, for which his
+examiners willingly enough gave him credit. He did not say a word about
+the window or the cupboard over the fireplace; and these secrets quite
+escaped the eyes of the searchers.
+
+So then my lady was consigned to her coach, and sent off to Hexton, with
+her woman and the man of law to bear her company, a couple of troopers
+riding on either side of the coach. And Harry was left behind at the
+Hall, belonging as it were to nobody, and quite alone in the world.
+The captain and a guard of men remained in possession there; and the
+soldiers, who were very good-natured and kind, ate my lord's mutton and
+drank his wine, and made themselves comfortable, as they well might do
+in such pleasant quarters.
+
+The captains had their dinner served in my lord's tapestry parlor, and
+poor little Harry thought his duty was to wait upon Captain Westbury's
+chair, as his custom had been to serve his lord when he sat there.
+
+After the departure of the Countess, Dick the Scholar took Harry Esmond
+under his special protection, and would examine him in his humanities
+and talk to him both of French and Latin, in which tongues the lad
+found, and his new friend was willing enough to acknowledge, that he was
+even more proficient than Scholar Dick. Hearing that he had learned them
+from a Jesuit, in the praise of whom and whose goodness Harry was never
+tired of speaking, Dick, rather to the boy's surprise, who began to have
+an early shrewdness, like many children bred up alone, showed a great
+deal of theological science, and knowledge of the points at issue
+between the two churches; so that he and Harry would have hours of
+controversy together, in which the boy was certainly worsted by the
+arguments of this singular trooper. “I am no common soldier,” Dick would
+say, and indeed it was easy to see by his learning, breeding, and
+many accomplishments, that he was not. “I am of one of the most ancient
+families in the empire; I have had my education at a famous school,
+and a famous university; I learned my first rudiments of Latin near to
+Smithfield, in London, where the martyrs were roasted.”
+
+“You hanged as many of ours,” interposed Harry; “and, for the matter of
+persecution, Father Holt told me that a young gentleman of Edinburgh,
+eighteen years of age, student at the college there, was hanged for
+heresy only last year, though he recanted, and solemnly asked pardon for
+his errors.”
+
+“Faith! there has been too much persecution on both sides: but 'twas you
+taught us.”
+
+“Nay, 'twas the Pagans began it,” cried the lad, and began to instance
+a number of saints of the Church, from the proto-martyr downwards--“this
+one's fire went out under him: that one's oil cooled in the caldron: at
+a third holy head the executioner chopped three times and it would not
+come off. Show us martyrs in YOUR church for whom such miracles have
+been done.”
+
+“Nay,” says the trooper gravely, “the miracles of the first three
+centuries belong to my Church as well as yours, Master Papist,” and then
+added, with something of a smile upon his countenance, and a queer look
+at Harry--“And yet, my little catechiser, I have sometimes thought about
+those miracles, that there was not much good in them, since the victim's
+head always finished by coming off at the third or fourth chop, and the
+caldron, if it did not boil one day, boiled the next. Howbeit, in our
+times, the Church has lost that questionable advantage of respites.
+There never was a shower to put out Ridley's fire, nor an angel to turn
+the edge of Campion's axe. The rack tore the limbs of Southwell
+the Jesuit and Sympson the Protestant alike. For faith, everywhere
+multitudes die willingly enough. I have read in Monsieur Rycaut's
+'History of the Turks,' of thousands of Mahomet's followers rushing
+upon death in battle as upon certain Paradise; and in the great Mogul's
+dominions people fling themselves by hundreds under the cars of the
+idols annually, and the widows burn themselves on their husbands'
+bodies, as 'tis well known. 'Tis not the dying for a faith that's so
+hard, Master Harry--every man of every nation has done that--'tis the
+living up to it that is difficult, as I know to my cost,” he added with
+a sigh. “And ah!” he added, “my poor lad, I am not strong enough to
+convince thee by my life--though to die for my religion would give me
+the greatest of joys--but I had a dear friend in Magdalen College in
+Oxford; I wish Joe Addison were here to convince thee, as he quickly
+could--for I think he's a match for the whole College of Jesuits; and
+what's more, in his life too. In that very sermon of Dr. Cudworth's
+which your priest was quoting from, and which suffered martydom in the
+brazier,”--Dick added with a smile, “I had a thought of wearing the
+black coat (but was ashamed of my life, you see, and took to this sorry
+red one); I have often thought of Joe Addison--Dr. Cudworth says,
+'A good conscience is the best looking-glass of heaven'--and there's
+serenity in my friend's face which always reflects it--I wish you could
+see him, Harry.”
+
+“Did he do you a great deal of good?” asked the lad, simply.
+
+“He might have done,” said the other--“at least he taught me to see and
+approve better things. 'Tis my own fault, deteriora sequi.”
+
+“You seem very good,” the boy said.
+
+“I'm not what I seem, alas!” answered the trooper--and indeed, as it
+turned out, poor Dick told the truth--for that very night, at supper
+in the hall, where the gentlemen of the troop took their repasts,
+and passed most part of their days dicing and smoking of tobacco, and
+singing and cursing, over the Castlewood ale--Harry Esmond found Dick
+the Scholar in a woful state of drunkenness. He hiccupped out a sermon
+and his laughing companions bade him sing a hymn, on which Dick,
+swearing he would run the scoundrel through the body who insulted his
+religion, made for his sword, which was hanging on the wall, and fell
+down flat on the floor under it, saying to Harry, who ran forward to
+help him, “Ah, little Papist, I wish Joseph Addison was here!”
+
+Though the troopers of the King's Life-Guards were all gentlemen, yet
+the rest of the gentlemen seemed ignorant and vulgar boors to Harry
+Esmond, with the exception of this good-natured Corporal Steele the
+Scholar, and Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant, who were always
+kind to the lad. They remained for some weeks or months encamped in
+Castlewood, and Harry learned from them, from time to time, how the lady
+at Hexton Castle was treated, and the particulars of her confinement
+there. 'Tis known that King William was disposed to deal very leniently
+with the gentry who remained faithful to the old King's cause; and no
+prince usurping a crown, as his enemies said he did, (righteously
+taking it, as I think now,) ever caused less blood to be shed. As for
+women-conspirators, he kept spies on the least dangerous, and locked up
+the others. Lady Castlewood had the best rooms in Hexton Castle, and the
+gaoler's garden to walk in; and though she repeatedly desired to be led
+out to execution, like Mary Queen of Scots, there never was any thought
+of taking her painted old head off, or any desire to do aught but keep
+her person in security.
+
+And it appeared she found that some were friends in her misfortune, whom
+she had, in her prosperity, considered as her worst enemies. Colonel
+Francis Esmond, my lord's cousin and her ladyship's, who had married the
+Dean of Winchester's daughter, and, since King James's departure out of
+England, had lived not very far away from Hexton town, hearing of his
+kinswoman's strait, and being friends with Colonel Brice, commanding for
+King William in Hexton, and with the Church dignitaries there, came
+to visit her ladyship in prison, offering to his uncle's daughter any
+friendly services which lay in his power. And he brought his lady and
+little daughter to see the prisoner, to the latter of whom, a child
+of great beauty and many winning ways, the old Viscountess took not
+a little liking, although between her ladyship and the child's mother
+there was little more love than formerly. There are some injuries which
+women never forgive one another; and Madam Francis Esmond, in marrying
+her cousin, had done one of those irretrievable wrongs to Lady
+Castlewood. But as she was now humiliated, and in misfortune, Madam
+Francis could allow a truce to her enmity, and could be kind for a
+while, at least, to her husband's discarded mistress. So the little
+Beatrix, her daughter, was permitted often to go and visit the
+imprisoned Viscountess, who, in so far as the child and its father
+were concerned, got to abate in her anger towards that branch of the
+Castlewood family. And the letters of Colonel Esmond coming to light,
+as has been said, and his conduct being known to the King's council, the
+Colonel was put in a better position with the existing government than
+he had ever before been; any suspicions regarding his loyalty were
+entirely done away; and so he was enabled to be of more service to his
+kinswoman than he could otherwise have been.
+
+And now there befell an event by which this lady recovered her liberty,
+and the house of Castlewood got a new owner, and fatherless little Harry
+Esmond a new and most kind protector and friend. Whatever that secret
+was which Harry was to hear from my lord, the boy never heard it; for
+that night when Father Holt arrived, and carried my lord away with him,
+was the last on which Harry ever saw his patron. What happened to my
+lord may be briefly told here. Having found the horses at the place
+where they were lying, my lord and Father Holt rode together to
+Chatteris, where they had temporary refuge with one of the Father's
+penitents in that city; but the pursuit being hot for them, and the
+reward for the apprehension of one or the other considerable, it was
+deemed advisable that they should separate; and the priest betook
+himself to other places of retreat known to him, whilst my lord passed
+over from Bristol into Ireland, in which kingdom King James had a court
+and an army. My lord was but a small addition to this; bringing, indeed,
+only his sword and the few pieces in his pocket; but the King received
+him with some kindness and distinction in spite of his poor plight,
+confirmed him in his new title of Marquis, gave him a regiment, and
+promised him further promotion. But titles or promotion were not to
+benefit him now. My lord was wounded at the fatal battle of the Boyne,
+flying from which field (long after his master had set him an example)
+he lay for a while concealed in the marshy country near to the town of
+Trim, and more from catarrh and fever caught in the bogs than from the
+steel of the enemy in the battle, sank and died. May the earth lie light
+upon Thomas of Castlewood! He who writes this must speak in charity,
+though this lord did him and his two grievous wrongs: for one of these
+he would have made amends, perhaps, had life been spared him; but the
+other lay beyond his power to repair, though 'tis to be hoped that a
+greater Power than a priest has absolved him of it. He got the comfort
+of this absolution, too, such as it was: a priest of Trim writing a
+letter to my lady to inform her of this calamity.
+
+But in those days letters were slow of travelling, and our priest's took
+two months or more on its journey from Ireland to England: where, when
+it did arrive, it did not find my lady at her own house; she was at the
+King's house of Hexton Castle when the letter came to Castlewood, but it
+was opened for all that by the officer in command there.
+
+Harry Esmond well remembered the receipt of this letter, which Lockwood
+brought in as Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant were on the green
+playing at bowls, young Esmond looking on at the sport, or reading his
+book in the arbor.
+
+“Here's news for Frank Esmond,” says Captain Westbury; “Harry, did you
+ever see Colonel Esmond?” And Captain Westbury looked very hard at the
+boy as he spoke.
+
+Harry said he had seen him but once when he was at Hexton, at the ball
+there.
+
+“And did he say anything?”
+
+“He said what I don't care to repeat,” Harry answered. For he was now
+twelve years of age: he knew what his birth was, and the disgrace of
+it; and he felt no love towards the man who had most likely stained his
+mother's honor and his own.
+
+“Did you love my Lord Castlewood?”
+
+“I wait until I know my mother, sir, to say,” the boy answered, his eyes
+filling with tears.
+
+“Something has happened to Lord Castlewood,” Captain Westbury said in a
+very grave tone--“something which must happen to us all. He is dead of a
+wound received at the Boyne, fighting for King James.”
+
+“I am glad my lord fought for the right cause,” the boy said.
+
+“It was better to meet death on the field like a man, than face it on
+Tower-hill, as some of them may,” continued Mr. Westbury. “I hope he has
+made some testament, or provided for thee somehow. This letter says he
+recommends unicum filium suum dilectissimum to his lady. I hope he has
+left you more than that.”
+
+Harry did not know, he said. He was in the hands of Heaven and Fate; but
+more lonely now, as it seemed to him, than he had been all the rest of
+his life; and that night, as he lay in his little room which he still
+occupied, the boy thought with many a pang of shame and grief of his
+strange and solitary condition: how he had a father and no father; a
+nameless mother that had been brought to ruin, perhaps, by that very
+father whom Harry could only acknowledge in secret and with a blush,
+and whom he could neither love nor revere. And he sickened to think how
+Father Holt, a stranger, and two or three soldiers, his acquaintances
+of the last six weeks, were the only friends he had in the great wide
+world, where he was now quite alone. The soul of the boy was full of
+love, and he longed as he lay in the darkness there for some one upon
+whom he could bestow it. He remembers, and must to his dying day, the
+thoughts and tears of that long night, the hours tolling through it.
+Who was he, and what? Why here rather than elsewhere? I have a mind, he
+thought, to go to that priest at Trim, and find out what my father said
+to him on his death-bed confession. Is there any child in the whole
+world so unprotected as I am? Shall I get up and quit this place, and
+run to Ireland? With these thoughts and tears the lad passed that night
+away until he wept himself to sleep.
+
+The next day, the gentlemen of the guard, who had heard what had
+befallen him, were more than usually kind to the child, especially his
+friend Scholar Dick, who told him about his own father's death, which
+had happened when Dick was a child at Dublin, not quite five years of
+age. “That was the first sensation of grief,” Dick said, “I ever knew.
+I remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat
+weeping beside it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating
+the coffin, and calling Papa; on which my mother caught me in her arms,
+and told me in a flood of tears Papa could not hear me, and would play
+with me no more, for they were going to put him under ground, whence he
+could never come to us again. And this,” said Dick kindly, “has made
+me pity all children ever since; and caused me to love thee, my poor
+fatherless, motherless lad. And, if ever thou wantest a friend, thou
+shalt have one in Richard Steele.”
+
+Harry Esmond thanked him, and was grateful. But what could Corporal
+Steele do for him? take him to ride a spare horse, and be servant to the
+troop? Though there might be a bar in Harry Esmond's shield, it was a
+noble one. The counsel of the two friends was, that little Harry
+should stay where he was, and abide his fortune: so Esmond stayed on at
+Castlewood, awaiting with no small anxiety the fate, whatever it was,
+which was over him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+I AM LEFT AT CASTLEWOOD AN ORPHAN, AND FIND MOST KIND PROTECTORS THERE.
+
+
+During the stay of the soldiers in Castlewood, honest Dick the Scholar
+was the constant companion of the lonely little orphan lad Harry Esmond:
+and they read together, and they played bowls together, and when the
+other troopers or their officers, who were free-spoken over their cups,
+(as was the way of that day, when neither men nor women were over-nice,)
+talked unbecomingly of their amours and gallantries before the child,
+Dick, who very likely was setting the whole company laughing, would stop
+their jokes with a maxima debetur pueris reverentia, and once offered
+to lug out against another trooper called Hulking Tom, who wanted to ask
+Harry Esmond a ribald question.
+
+Also, Dick seeing that the child had, as he said, a sensibility above
+his years, and a great and praiseworthy discretion, confided to Harry
+his love for a vintner's daughter, near to the Tollyard, Westminster,
+whom Dick addressed as Saccharissa in many verses of his composition,
+and without whom he said it would be impossible that he could continue
+to live. He vowed this a thousand times in a day, though Harry smiled to
+see the love-lorn swain had his health and appetite as well as the most
+heart-whole trooper in the regiment: and he swore Harry to secrecy too,
+which vow the lad religiously kept, until he found that officers and
+privates were all taken into Dick's confidence, and had the benefit of
+his verses. And it must be owned likewise that, while Dick was sighing
+after Saccharissa in London, he had consolations in the country; for
+there came a wench out of Castlewood village who had washed his linen,
+and who cried sadly when she heard he was gone: and without paying her
+bill too, which Harry Esmond took upon himself to discharge by giving
+the girl a silver pocket-piece, which Scholar Dick had presented to him,
+when, with many embraces and prayers for his prosperity, Dick parted
+from him, the garrison of Castlewood being ordered away. Dick the
+Scholar said he would never forget his young friend, nor indeed did he:
+and Harry was sorry when the kind soldiers vacated Castlewood, looking
+forward with no small anxiety (for care and solitude had made him
+thoughtful beyond his years) to his fate when the new lord and lady of
+the house came to live there. He had lived to be past twelve years old
+now; and had never had a friend, save this wild trooper, perhaps, and
+Father Holt; and had a fond and affectionate heart, tender to weakness,
+that would fain attach itself to somebody, and did not seem at rest
+until it had found a friend who would take charge of it.
+
+The instinct which led Henry Esmond to admire and love the gracious
+person, the fair apparition of whose beauty and kindness had so moved
+him when he first beheld her, became soon a devoted affection and
+passion of gratitude, which entirely filled his young heart, that
+as yet, except in the case of dear Father Holt, had had very little
+kindness for which to be thankful. O Dea certe, thought he, remembering
+the lines out of the AEneas which Mr. Holt had taught him. There seemed,
+as the boy thought, in every look or gesture of this fair creature,
+an angelical softness and bright pity--in motion or repose she seemed
+gracious alike; the tone of her voice, though she uttered words ever so
+trivial, gave him a pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It cannot
+be called love, that a lad of twelve years of age, little more than a
+menial, felt for an exalted lady, his mistress: but it was worship.
+To catch her glance, to divine her errand and run on it before she had
+spoken it; to watch, follow, adore her; became the business of his life.
+Meanwhile, as is the way often, his idol had idols of her own, and never
+thought of or suspected the admiration of her little pigmy adorer.
+
+My lady had on her side her three idols: first and foremost, Jove
+and supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry's patron, the good Viscount of
+Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If he had a headache,
+she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and
+was charmed. If he went a-hunting, she was always at the window to see
+him ride away, her little son crowing on her arm, or on the watch till
+his return. She made dishes for his dinner: spiced wine for him: made
+the toast for his tankard at breakfast: hushed the house when he slept
+in his chair, and watched for a look when he woke. If my lord was not a
+little proud of his beauty, my lady adored it. She clung to his arm as
+he paced the terrace, her two fair little hands clasped round his great
+one; her eyes were never tired of looking in his face and wondering at
+its perfection. Her little son was his son, and had his father's look
+and curly brown hair. Her daughter Beatrix was his daughter, and had his
+eyes--were there ever such beautiful eyes in the world? All the house
+was arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure. She liked
+the small gentry round about to come and pay him court, never caring for
+admiration for herself; those who wanted to be well with the lady must
+admire him. Not regarding her dress, she would wear a gown to rags,
+because he had once liked it: and, if he brought her a brooch or a
+ribbon, would prefer it to all the most costly articles of her wardrobe.
+
+My lord went to London every year for six weeks, and the family being
+too poor to appear at Court with any figure, he went alone. It was not
+until he was out of sight that her face showed any sorrow: and what
+a joy when he came back! What preparation before his return! The fond
+creature had his arm-chair at the chimney-side--delighting to put the
+children in it, and look at them there. Nobody took his place at the
+table; but his silver tankard stood there as when my lord was present.
+
+A pretty sight it was to see, during my lord's absence, or on those many
+mornings when sleep or headache kept him a-bed, this fair young lady of
+Castlewood, her little daughter at her knee, and her domestics gathered
+round her, reading the Morning Prayer of the English Church. Esmond
+long remembered how she looked and spoke, kneeling reverently before the
+sacred book, the sun shining upon her golden hair until it made a halo
+round about her. A dozen of the servants of the house kneeled in a line
+opposite their mistress; for a while Harry Esmond kept apart from these
+mysteries, but Doctor Tusher showing him that the prayers read were
+those of the Church of all ages, and the boy's own inclination prompting
+him to be always as near as he might to his mistress, and to think all
+things she did right, from listening to the prayers in the ante-chamber,
+he came presently to kneel down with the rest of the household in
+the parlor; and before a couple of years my lady had made a thorough
+convert. Indeed, the boy loved his catechiser so much that he would have
+subscribed to anything she bade him, and was never tired of listening to
+her fond discourse and simple comments upon the book, which she read to
+him in a voice of which it was difficult to resist the sweet persuasion
+and tender appealing kindness. This friendly controversy, and the
+intimacy which it occasioned, bound the lad more fondly than ever to his
+mistress. The happiest period of all his life was this; and the
+young mother, with her daughter and son, and the orphan lad whom she
+protected, read and worked and played, and were children together.
+If the lady looked forward--as what fond woman does not?--towards the
+future, she had no plans from which Harry Esmond was left out; and a
+thousand and a thousand times, in his passionate and impetuous way,
+he vowed that no power should separate him from his mistress; and only
+asked for some chance to happen by which he might show his fidelity
+to her. Now, at the close of his life, as he sits and recalls in
+tranquillity the happy and busy scenes of it, he can think, not
+ungratefully, that he has been faithful to that early vow. Such a life
+is so simple that years may be chronicled in a few lines. But few men's
+life-voyages are destined to be all prosperous; and this calm of which
+we are speaking was soon to come to an end.
+
+As Esmond grew, and observed for himself, he found of necessity much to
+read and think of outside that fond circle of kinsfolk who had admitted
+him to join hand with them. He read more books than they cared to study
+with him; was alone in the midst of them many a time, and passed nights
+over labors, futile perhaps, but in which they could not join him. His
+dear mistress divined his thoughts with her usual jealous watchfulness
+of affection: began to forebode a time when he would escape from his
+home-nest; and, at his eager protestations to the contrary, would
+only sigh and shake her head. Before those fatal decrees in life are
+executed, there are always secret previsions and warning omens. When
+everything yet seems calm, we are aware that the storm is coming. Ere
+the happy days were over, two at least of that home-party felt that they
+were drawing to a close; and were uneasy, and on the look-out for the
+cloud which was to obscure their calm.
+
+'Twas easy for Harry to see, however much his lady persisted in
+obedience and admiration for her husband, that my lord tired of his
+quiet life, and grew weary, and then testy, at those gentle bonds with
+which his wife would have held him. As they say the Grand Lama of Thibet
+is very much fatigued by his character of divinity, and yawns on
+his altar as his bonzes kneel and worship him, many a home-god grows
+heartily sick of the reverence with which his family-devotees pursue
+him, and sighs for freedom and for his old life, and to be off the
+pedestal on which his dependants would have him sit for ever, whilst
+they adore him, and ply him with flowers, and hymns, and incense,
+and flattery;--so, after a few years of his marriage my honest Lord
+Castlewood began to tire; all the high-flown raptures and devotional
+ceremonies with which his wife, his chief priestess, treated him, first
+sent him to sleep, and then drove him out of doors; for the truth must
+be told, that my lord was a jolly gentleman, with very little of the
+august or divine in his nature, though his fond wife persisted in
+revering it--and, besides, he had to pay a penalty for this love, which
+persons of his disposition seldom like to defray: and, in a word, if he
+had a loving wife, had a very jealous and exacting one. Then he wearied
+of this jealousy; then he broke away from it; then came, no doubt,
+complaints and recriminations; then, perhaps, promises of amendment
+not fulfilled; then upbraidings not the more pleasant because they
+were silent, and only sad looks and tearful eyes conveyed them. Then,
+perhaps, the pair reached that other stage which is not uncommon in
+married life, when the woman perceives that the god of the honeymoon is
+a god no more; only a mortal like the rest of us--and so she looks into
+her heart, and lo! vacuae sedes et inania arcana. And now, supposing our
+lady to have a fine genius and a brilliant wit of her own, and the magic
+spell and infatuation removed from her which had led her to worship as
+a god a very ordinary mortal--and what follows? They live together, and
+they dine together, and they say “my dear” and “my love” as heretofore;
+but the man is himself, and the woman herself: that dream of love is
+over as everything else is over in life; as flowers and fury, and griefs
+and pleasures, are over.
+
+Very likely the Lady Castlewood had ceased to adore her husband herself
+long before she got off her knees, or would allow her household to
+discontinue worshipping him. To do him justice, my lord never exacted
+this subservience: he laughed and joked and drank his bottle, and
+swore when he was angry, much too familiarly for any one pretending to
+sublimity; and did his best to destroy the ceremonial with which his
+wife chose to surround him. And it required no great conceit on young
+Esmond's part to see that his own brains were better than his patron's,
+who, indeed, never assumed any airs of superiority over the lad, or
+over any dependant of his, save when he was displeased, in which case he
+would express his mind in oaths very freely; and who, on the contrary,
+perhaps, spoiled “Parson Harry,” as he called young Esmond, by
+constantly praising his parts and admiring his boyish stock of learning.
+
+It may seem ungracious in one who has received a hundred favors from his
+patron to speak in any but a reverential manner of his elders; but the
+present writer has had descendants of his own, whom he has brought
+up with as little as possible of the servility at present exacted
+by parents from children (under which mask of duty there often lurks
+indifference, contempt, or rebellion): and as he would have his
+grandsons believe or represent him to be not an inch taller than Nature
+has made him: so, with regard to his past acquaintances, he would
+speak without anger, but with truth, as far as he knows it, neither
+extenuating nor setting down aught in malice.
+
+So long, then, as the world moved according to Lord Castlewood's wishes,
+he was good-humored enough; of a temper naturally sprightly and easy,
+liking to joke, especially with his inferiors, and charmed to receive
+the tribute of their laughter. All exercises of the body he could
+perform to perfection--shooting at a mark and flying, breaking horses,
+riding at the ring, pitching the quoit, playing at all games with great
+skill. And not only did he do these things well, but he thought he did
+them to perfection; hence he was often tricked about horses, which he
+pretended to know better than any jockey; was made to play at ball and
+billiards by sharpers who took his money, and came back from London
+wofully poorer each time than he went, as the state of his affairs
+testified when the sudden accident came by which his career was brought
+to an end.
+
+He was fond of the parade of dress, and passed as many hours daily at
+his toilette as an elderly coquette. A tenth part of his day was spent
+in the brushing of his teeth and the oiling of his hair, which was
+curling and brown, and which he did not like to conceal under a periwig,
+such as almost everybody of that time wore. (We have the liberty of our
+hair back now, but powder and pomatum along with it. When, I wonder,
+will these monstrous poll-taxes of our age be withdrawn, and men allowed
+to carry their colors, black, red, or gray, as Nature made them?) And as
+he liked her to be well dressed, his lady spared no pains in that matter
+to please him; indeed, she would dress her head or cut it off if he had
+bidden her.
+
+It was a wonder to young Esmond, serving as page to my lord and lady,
+to hear, day after day, to such company as came, the same boisterous
+stories told by my lord, at which his lady never failed to smile or hold
+down her head, and Doctor Tusher to burst out laughing at the proper
+point, or cry, “Fie, my lord, remember my cloth!” but with such a
+faint show of resistance, that it only provoked my lord further. Lord
+Castlewood's stories rose by degrees, and became stronger after the ale
+at dinner and the bottle afterwards; my lady always taking flight after
+the very first glass to Church and King, and leaving the gentlemen to
+drink the rest of the toasts by themselves.
+
+And, as Harry Esmond was her page, he also was called from duty at this
+time. “My lord has lived in the army and with soldiers,” she would
+say to the lad, “amongst whom great license is allowed. You have had
+a different nurture, and I trust these things will change as you grow
+older; not that any fault attaches to my lord, who is one of the best
+and most religious men in this kingdom.” And very likely she believed
+so. 'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
+
+And as Esmond has taken truth for his motto, it must be owned, even
+with regard to that other angel, his mistress, that she had a fault of
+character which flawed her perfections. With the other sex perfectly
+tolerant and kindly, of her own she was invariably jealous; and a proof
+that she had this vice is, that though she would acknowledge a thousand
+faults that she had not, to this which she had she could never be got
+to own. But if there came a woman with even a semblance of beauty to
+Castlewood, she was so sure to find out some wrong in her, that my lord,
+laughing in his jolly way, would often joke with her concerning her
+foible. Comely servant-maids might come for hire, but none were taken
+at Castlewood. The housekeeper was old; my lady's own waiting-woman
+squinted, and was marked with the small-pox; the housemaids and scullion
+were ordinary country wenches, to whom Lady Castlewood was kind, as her
+nature made her to everybody almost; but as soon as ever she had to do
+with a pretty woman, she was cold, retiring, and haughty. The country
+ladies found this fault in her; and though the men all admired her,
+their wives and daughters complained of her coldness and aims, and said
+that Castlewood was pleasanter in Lady Jezebel's time (as the dowager
+was called) than at present. Some few were of my mistress's side.
+Old Lady Blenkinsop Jointure, who had been at court in King James the
+First's time, always took her side; and so did old Mistress Crookshank,
+Bishop Crookshank's daughter, of Hexton, who, with some more of their
+like, pronounced my lady an angel: but the pretty women were not of this
+mind; and the opinion of the country was that my lord was tied to his
+wife's apron-strings, and that she ruled over him.
+
+The second fight which Harry Esmond had, was at fourteen years of age,
+with Bryan Hawkshaw, Sir John Hawkshaw's son, of Bramblebrook, who,
+advancing this opinion, that my lady was jealous and henpecked my lord,
+put Harry in such a fury, that Harry fell on him and with such rage,
+that the other boy, who was two years older and by far bigger than he,
+had by far the worst of the assault, until it was interrupted by Doctor
+Tusher walking out of the dinner-room.
+
+Bryan Hawkshaw got up bleeding at the nose, having, indeed, been
+surprised, as many a stronger man might have been, by the fury of the
+assault upon him.
+
+“You little bastard beggar!” he said, “I'll murder you for this!”
+
+And indeed he was big enough.
+
+“Bastard or not,” said the other, grinding his teeth, “I have a
+couple of swords, and if you like to meet me, as a man, on the terrace
+to-night--”
+
+And here the Doctor coming up, the colloquy of the young champions
+ended. Very likely, big as he was, Hawkshaw did not care to continue a
+fight with such a ferocious opponent as this had been.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+AFTER GOOD FORTUNE COMES EVIL.
+
+
+Since my Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought home the custom of
+inoculation from Turkey (a perilous practice many deem it, and only a
+useless rushing into the jaws of danger), I think the severity of the
+small-pox, that dreadful scourge of the world, has somewhat been abated
+in our part of it; and remember in my time hundreds of the young and
+beautiful who have been carried to the grave, or have only risen from
+their pillows frightfully scarred and disfigured by this malady. Many
+a sweet face hath left its roses on the bed on which this dreadful and
+withering blight has laid them. In my early days, this pestilence would
+enter a village and destroy half its inhabitants: at its approach, it
+may well be imagined, not only the beautiful but the strongest were
+alarmed, and those fled who could. One day in the year 1694 (I have good
+reason to remember it), Doctor Tusher ran into Castlewood House, with a
+face of consternation, saying that the malady had made its appearance at
+the blacksmith's house in the village, and that one of the maids there
+was down in the small-pox.
+
+The blacksmith, besides his forge and irons for horses, had an ale-house
+for men, which his wife kept, and his company sat on benches before the
+inn-door, looking at the smithy while they drank their beer. Now,
+there was a pretty girl at this inn, the landlord's men called Nancy
+Sievewright, a bouncing, fresh-looking lass, whose face was as red as
+the hollyhocks over the pales of the garden behind the inn. At this time
+Harry Esmond was a lad of sixteen, and somehow in his walks and rambles
+it often happened that he fell in with Nancy Sievewright's bonny face;
+if he did not want something done at the blacksmith's he would go and
+drink ale at the “Three Castles,” or find some pretext for seeing this
+poor Nancy. Poor thing, Harry meant or imagined no harm; and she, no
+doubt, as little, but the truth is they were always meeting--in the
+lanes, or by the brook, or at the garden-palings, or about Castlewood:
+it was, “Lord, Mr. Henry!” and “how do you do, Nancy?” many and many a
+time in the week. 'Tis surprising the magnetic attraction which draws
+people together from ever so far. I blush as I think of poor Nancy now,
+in a red bodice and buxom purple cheeks and a canvas petticoat; and that
+I devised schemes, and set traps, and made speeches in my heart, which
+I seldom had courage to say when in presence of that humble enchantress,
+who knew nothing beyond milking a cow, and opened her black eyes with
+wonder when I made one of my fine speeches out of Waller or Ovid. Poor
+Nancy! from the midst of far-off years thine honest country face beams
+out; and I remember thy kind voice as if I had heard it yesterday.
+
+When Doctor Tusher brought the news that the small-pox was at the “Three
+Castles,” whither a tramper, it was said, had brought the malady, Henry
+Esmond's first thought was of alarm for poor Nancy, and then of shame
+and disquiet for the Castlewood family, lest he might have brought this
+infection; for the truth is that Mr. Harry had been sitting in a back
+room for an hour that day, where Nancy Sievewright was with a little
+brother who complained of headache, and was lying stupefied and crying,
+either in a chair by the corner of the fire, or in Nancy's lap, or on
+mine.
+
+Little Lady Beatrix screamed out at Dr. Tusher's news; and my lord cried
+out, “God bless me!” He was a brave man, and not afraid of death in
+any shape but this. He was very proud of his pink complexion and fair
+hair--but the idea of death by small-pox scared him beyond all other
+ends. “We will take the children and ride away to-morrow to Walcote:”
+ this was my lord's small house, inherited from his mother, near to
+Winchester.
+
+“That is the best refuge in case the disease spreads,” said Dr. Tusher.
+“'Tis awful to think of it beginning at the ale-house; half the people
+of the village have visited that to-day, or the blacksmith's, which is
+the same thing. My clerk Nahum lodges with them--I can never go into my
+reading-desk and have that fellow so near me. I WON'T have that man near
+me.”
+
+“If a parishioner dying in the small-pox sent to you, would you not go?”
+ asked my lady, looking up from her frame of work, with her calm blue
+eyes.
+
+“By the Lord, I wouldn't,” said my lord.
+
+“We are not in a popish country; and a sick man doth not absolutely
+need absolution and confession,” said the Doctor. “'Tis true they are a
+comfort and a help to him when attainable, and to be administered with
+hope of good. But in a case where the life of a parish priest in the
+midst of his flock is highly valuable to them, he is not called upon to
+risk it (and therewith the lives, future prospects, and temporal, even
+spiritual welfare of his own family) for the sake of a single person,
+who is not very likely in a condition even to understand the religious
+message whereof the priest is the bringer--being uneducated, and
+likewise stupefied or delirious by disease. If your ladyship or his
+lordship, my excellent good friend and patron, were to take it . . .”
+
+“God forbid!” cried my lord.
+
+“Amen,” continued Dr. Tusher. “Amen to that prayer, my very good lord!
+for your sake I would lay my life down”--and, to judge from the alarmed
+look of the Doctor's purple face, you would have thought that that
+sacrifice was about to be called for instantly.
+
+To love children, and be gentle with them, was an instinct, rather than
+a merit, in Henry Esmond; so much so, that he thought almost with a
+sort of shame of his liking for them, and of the softness into which it
+betrayed him; and on this day the poor fellow had not only had his
+young friend, the milkmaid's brother, on his knee, but had been drawing
+pictures and telling stories to the little Frank Castlewood, who had
+occupied the same place for an hour after dinner, and was never tired
+of Henry's tales, and his pictures of soldiers and horses. As luck would
+have it, Beatrix had not on that evening taken her usual place, which
+generally she was glad enough to have, upon her tutor's lap. For
+Beatrix, from the earliest time, was jealous of every caress which was
+given to her little brother Frank. She would fling away even from the
+maternal arms, if she saw Frank had been there before her; insomuch that
+Lady Esmond was obliged not to show her love for her son in the presence
+of the little girl, and embraced one or the other alone. She would turn
+pale and red with rage if she caught signs of intelligence or affection
+between Frank and his mother: would sit apart, and not speak for a whole
+night, if she thought the boy had a better fruit or a larger cake than
+hers; would fling away a ribbon if he had one; and from the earliest
+age, sitting up in her little chair by the great fireplace opposite to
+the corner where Lady Castlewood commonly sat at her embroidery, would
+utter infantine sarcasms about the favor shown to her brother. These, if
+spoken in the presence of Lord Castlewood, tickled and amused his humor;
+he would pretend to love Frank best, and dandle and kiss him, and roar
+with laughter at Beatrix's jealousy. But the truth is, my lord did not
+often witness these scenes, nor very much trouble the quiet fireside at
+which his lady passed many long evenings. My lord was hunting all day
+when the season admitted; he frequented all the cock-fights and fairs
+in the country, and would ride twenty miles to see a main fought, or two
+clowns break their heads at a cudgelling-match; and he liked better to
+sit in his parlor drinking ale and punch with Jack and Tom, than in
+his wife's drawing-room: whither, if he came, he brought only too often
+bloodshot eyes, a hiccupping voice, and a reeling gait. The management
+of the house, and the property, the care of the few tenants and the
+village poor, and the accounts of the estate, were in the hands of his
+lady and her young secretary, Harry Esmond. My lord took charge of the
+stables, the kennel, and the cellar--and he filled this and emptied it
+too.
+
+So it chanced that upon this very day, when poor Harry Esmond had had
+the blacksmith's son, and the peer's son, alike upon his knee, little
+Beatrix, who would come to her tutor willingly enough with her book and
+her writing, had refused him, seeing the place occupied by her brother,
+and, luckily for her, had sat at the further end of the room, away from
+him, playing with a spaniel dog which she had, (and for which, by fits
+and starts, she would take a great affection,) and talking at Harry
+Esmond over her shoulder, as she pretended to caress the dog, saying
+that Fido would love her, and she would love Fido, and nothing but Fido
+all her life.
+
+When, then, the news was brought that the little boy at the “Three
+Castles” was ill with the small-pox, poor Harry Esmond felt a shock of
+alarm, not so much for himself as for his mistress's son, whom he might
+have brought into peril. Beatrix, who had pouted sufficiently, (and who,
+whenever a stranger appeared, began, from infancy almost, to play off
+little graces to catch his attention,) her brother being now gone to
+bed, was for taking her place upon Esmond's knee: for, though the Doctor
+was very obsequious to her, she did not like him, because he had thick
+boots and dirty hands (the pert young miss said), and because she hated
+learning the catechism.
+
+But as she advanced towards Esmond from the corner where she had been
+sulking, he started back and placed the great chair on which he was
+sitting between him and her--saying in the French language to Lady
+Castlewood, with whom the young lad had read much, and whom he had
+perfected in this tongue--“Madam, the child must not approach me; I must
+tell you that I was at the blacksmith's to-day, and had his little boy
+upon my lap.”
+
+“Where you took my son afterwards,” Lady Castlewood said, very angry,
+and turning red. “I thank you, sir, for giving him such company.
+Beatrix,” she said in English, “I forbid you to touch Mr. Esmond. Come
+away, child--come to your room. Come to your room--I wish your Reverence
+good-night--and you, sir, had you not better go back to your friends at
+the ale-house?” her eyes, ordinarily so kind, darted flashes of anger
+as she spoke; and she tossed up her head (which hung down commonly) with
+the mien of a princess.
+
+“Hey-day!” says my lord, who was standing by the fireplace--indeed
+he was in the position to which he generally came by that hour of the
+evening--“Hey-day! Rachel, what are you in a passion about? Ladies ought
+never to be in a passion. Ought they, Doctor Tusher? though it does good
+to see Rachel in a passion--Damme, Lady Castlewood, you look dev'lish
+handsome in a passion.”
+
+“It is, my lord, because Mr. Henry Esmond, having nothing to do with
+his time here, and not having a taste for our company, has been to the
+ale-house, where he has SOME FRIENDS.”
+
+My lord burst out, with a laugh and an oath--“You young slyboots, you've
+been at Nancy Sievewright. D--- the young hypocrite, who'd have thought
+it in him? I say, Tusher, he's been after--”
+
+“Enough, my lord,” said my lady, “don't insult me with this talk.”
+
+“Upon my word,” said poor Harry, ready to cry with shame and
+mortification, “the honor of that young person is perfectly unstained
+for me.”
+
+“Oh, of course, of course,” says my lord, more and more laughing and
+tipsy. “Upon his HONOR, Doctor--Nancy Sieve-- . . .”
+
+“Take Mistress Beatrix to bed,” my lady cried at this moment to Mrs.
+Tucker her woman, who came in with her ladyship's tea. “Put her into my
+room--no, into yours,” she added quickly. “Go, my child: go, I say: not
+a word!” And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority
+from one who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the
+room with a scared countenance, and waited even to burst out a-crying
+until she got to the door with Mrs. Tucker.
+
+For once her mother took little heed of her sobbing, and continued
+to speak eagerly--“My lord,” she said, “this young man--your
+dependant--told me just now in French--he was ashamed to speak in his
+own language--that he had been at the ale-house all day, where he has
+had that little wretch who is now ill of the small-pox on his knee. And
+he comes home reeking from that place--yes, reeking from it--and takes
+my boy into his lap without shame, and sits down by me, yes, by ME.
+He may have killed Frank for what I know--killed our child. Why was he
+brought in to disgrace our house? Why is he here? Let him go--let him
+go, I say, to-night, and pollute the place no more.”
+
+She had never once uttered a syllable of unkindness to Harry Esmond; and
+her cruel words smote the poor boy, so that he stood for some moments
+bewildered with grief and rage at the injustice of such a stab from such
+a hand. He turned quite white from red, which he had been.
+
+“I cannot help my birth, madam,” he said, “nor my other misfortune. And
+as for your boy, if--if my coming nigh to him pollutes him now, it was
+not so always. Good-night, my lord. Heaven bless you and yours for your
+goodness to me. I have tired her ladyship's kindness out, and I will
+go;” and, sinking down on his knee, Harry Esmond took the rough hand of
+his benefactor and kissed it.
+
+“He wants to go to the ale-house--let him go,” cried my lady.
+
+“I'm d--d if he shall,” said my lord. “I didn't think you could be so
+d--d ungrateful, Rachel.”
+
+Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with
+a rapid glance at Harry Esmond,--as my lord, not heeding them, and
+still in great good-humor, raised up his young client from his kneeling
+posture (for a thousand kindnesses had caused the lad to revere my lord
+as a father), and put his broad hand on Harry Esmond's shoulder.
+
+“She was always so,” my lord said; “the very notion of a woman drives
+her mad. I took to liquor on that very account, by Jove, for no other
+reason than that; for she can't be jealous of a beer-barrel or a bottle
+of rum, can she, Doctor? D--- it, look at the maids--just look at
+the maids in the house” (my lord pronounced all the words
+together--just-look-at-the-maze-in-the-house: jever-see-such-maze?) “You
+wouldn't take a wife out of Castlewood now, would you, Doctor?” and my
+lord burst out laughing.
+
+The Doctor, who had been looking at my Lord Castlewood from under his
+eyelids, said, “But joking apart, and, my lord, as a divine, I
+cannot treat the subject in a jocular light, nor, as a pastor of this
+congregation, look with anything but sorrow at the idea of so very young
+a sheep going astray.”
+
+“Sir,” said young Esmond, bursting out indignantly, “she told me that
+you yourself were a horrid old man, and had offered to kiss her in the
+dairy.”
+
+“For shame, Henry,” cried Doctor Tusher, turning as red as a
+turkey-cock, while my lord continued to roar with laughter. “If you
+listen to the falsehoods of an abandoned girl--”
+
+“She is as honest as any woman in England, and as pure for me,” cried
+out Henry, “and, as kind, and as good. For shame on you to malign her!”
+
+“Far be it from me to do so,” cried the Doctor. “Heaven grant I may
+be mistaken in the girl, and in you, sir, who have a truly PRECOCIOUS
+genius; but that is not the point at issue at present. It appears that
+the small-pox broke out in the little boy at the 'Three Castles;' that
+it was on him when you visited the ale-house, for your OWN reasons; and
+that you sat with the child for some time, and immediately afterwards
+with my young lord.” The Doctor raised his voice as he spoke, and
+looked towards my lady, who had now come back, looking very pale, with a
+handkerchief in her hand.
+
+“This is all very true, sir,” said Lady Esmond, looking at the young
+man.
+
+“'Tis to be feared that he may have brought the infection with him.”
+
+“From the ale-house--yes,” said my lady.
+
+“D--- it, I forgot when I collared you, boy,” cried my lord, stepping
+back. “Keep off, Harry my boy; there's no good in running into the
+wolf's jaws, you know.”
+
+My lady looked at him with some surprise, and instantly advancing to
+Henry Esmond, took his hand. “I beg your pardon, Henry,” she said; “I
+spoke very unkindly. I have no right to interfere with you--with your--”
+
+My lord broke out into an oath. “Can't you leave the boy alone, my
+lady?” She looked a little red, and faintly pressed the lad's hand as
+she dropped it.
+
+“There is no use, my lord,” she said; “Frank was on his knee as he was
+making pictures, and was running constantly from Henry to me. The evil
+is done, if any.”
+
+“Not with me, damme,” cried my lord. “I've been smoking,”--and he
+lighted his pipe again with a coal--“and it keeps off infection; and as
+the disease is in the village--plague take it--I would have you leave
+it. We'll go to-morrow to Walcote, my lady.”
+
+“I have no fear,” said my lady; “I may have had it as an infant: it
+broke out in our house then; and when four of my sisters had it at home,
+two years before our marriage, I escaped it, and two of my dear sisters
+died.”
+
+“I won't run the risk,” said my lord; “I'm as bold as any man, but I'll
+not bear that.”
+
+“Take Beatrix with you and go,” said my lady. “For us the mischief is
+done; and Tucker can wait upon us, who has had the disease.”
+
+“You take care to choose 'em ugly enough,” said my lord, at which her
+ladyship hung down her head and looked foolish: and my lord, calling
+away Tusher, bade him come to the oak parlor and have a pipe. The Doctor
+made a low bow to her ladyship (of which salaams he was profuse), and
+walked off on his creaking square-toes after his patron.
+
+When the lady and the young man were alone, there was a silence of some
+moments, during which he stood at the fire, looking rather vacantly
+at the dying embers, whilst her ladyship busied herself with the
+tambour-frame and needles.
+
+“I am sorry,” she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice,--“I REPEAT
+I am sorry that I showed myself so ungrateful for the safety of my son.
+It was not at all my wish that you should leave us, I am sure, unless
+you found pleasure elsewhere. But you must perceive, Mr. Esmond, that at
+your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that you can continue
+to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have been in this family.
+You have wished to go to the University, and I think 'tis quite as well
+that you should be sent thither. I did not press this matter, thinking
+you a child, as you are, indeed, in years--quite a child; and I
+should never have thought of treating you otherwise until--until these
+CIRCUMSTANCES came to light. And I shall beg my lord to despatch you
+as quick as possible: and will go on with Frank's learning as well as I
+can, (I owe my father thanks for a little grounding, and you, I'm sure,
+for much that you have taught me,)--and--and I wish you a good-night,
+Mr. Esmond.”
+
+And with this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle,
+went away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond
+stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce
+seemed to see until she was gone; and then her image was impressed upon
+him, and remained for ever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating,
+the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and
+her shining golden hair. He went to his own room, and to bed, where he
+tried to read, as his custom was; but he never knew what he was reading
+until afterwards he remembered the appearance of the letters of the book
+(it was in Montaigne's Essays), and the events of the day passed before
+him--that is, of the last hour of the day; for as for the morning, and
+the poor milkmaid yonder, he never so much as once thought. And he could
+not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache, and
+quite unrefreshed.
+
+He had brought the contagion with him from the “Three Castles” sure
+enough, and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the
+hall no more than it did the cottage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+I HAVE THE SMALL-POX, AND PREPARE TO LEAVE CASTLEWOOD.
+
+
+When Harry Esmond passed through the crisis of that malady, and returned
+to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also suffered
+and rallied after the disease, and the lady his mother was down with it,
+with a couple more of the household. “It was a Providence, for which we
+all ought to be thankful,” Doctor Tusher said, “that my lady and her son
+were spared, while Death carried off the poor domestics of the house;”
+ and rebuked Harry for asking, in his simple way, For which we ought
+to be thankful--that the servants were killed, or the gentlefolks
+were saved? Nor could young Esmond agree in the Doctor's vehement
+protestations to my lady, when he visited her during her convalescence,
+that the malady had not in the least impaired her charms, and had not
+been churl enough to injure the fair features of the Viscountess of
+Castlewood; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that
+her ladyship's beauty was very much injured by the small-pox. When
+the marks of the disease cleared away, they did not, it is true, leave
+furrows or scars on her face (except one, perhaps, on her forehead over
+her left eyebrow); but the delicacy of her rosy color and complexion was
+gone: her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her hair fell, and her face
+looked older. It was as if a coarse hand had rubbed off the delicate
+tints of that sweet picture, and brought it, as one has seen unskilful
+painting-cleaners do, to the dead color. Also, it must be owned, that
+for a year or two after the malady, her ladyship's nose was swollen and
+redder.
+
+There would be no need to mention these trivialities, but that they
+actually influenced many lives, as trifles will in the world, where a
+gnat often plays a greater part than an elephant, and a mole-hill, as
+we know in King William's case, can upset an empire. When Tusher in his
+courtly way (at which Harry Esmond always chafed and spoke scornfully)
+vowed and protested that my lady's face was none the worse--the lad
+broke out and said, “It IS worse and my mistress is not near so handsome
+as she was;” on which poor Lady Castlewood gave a rueful smile, and a
+look into a little Venice glass she had, which showed her, I suppose,
+that what the stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away
+from the glass, and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+The sight of these in Esmond's heart always created a sort of rage of
+pity, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the
+young blunderer sank down on his knees, and besought her to pardon him,
+saying that he was a fool and an idiot, that he was a brute to make such
+a speech, he who had caused her malady; and Doctor Tusher told him that
+a bear he was indeed, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor
+young Esmond was so dumbstricken that he did not even growl.
+
+“He is MY bear, and I will not have him baited, Doctor,” my lady said,
+patting her hand kindly on the boy's head, as he was still kneeling at
+her feet. “How your hair has come off! And mine, too,” she added with
+another sigh.
+
+“It is not for myself that I cared,” my lady said to Harry, when the
+parson had taken his leave; “but AM I very much changed? Alas! I fear
+'tis too true.”
+
+“Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the
+world, I think,” the lad said; and indeed he thought and thinks so.
+
+“Will my lord think so when he comes back?” the lady asked with a sigh,
+and another look at her Venice glass. “Suppose he should think as you
+do, sir, that I am hideous--yes, you said hideous--he will cease to care
+for me. 'Tis all men care for in women, our little beauty. Why did he
+select me from among my sisters? 'Twas only for that. We reign but for a
+day or two: and be sure that Vashti knew Esther was coming.”
+
+“Madam,” said Mr. Esmond, “Ahasuerus was the Grand Turk, and to change
+was the manner of his country, and according to his law.”
+
+“You are all Grand Turks for that matter,” said my lady, “or would be if
+you could. Come, Frank, come, my child. You are well, praised be Heaven.
+YOUR locks are not thinned by this dreadful small-pox: nor your poor
+face scarred--is it, my angel?”
+
+Frank began to shout and whimper at the idea of such a misfortune. From
+the very earliest time the young lord had been taught to admire his
+beauty by his mother: and esteemed it as highly as any reigning toast
+valued hers.
+
+One day, as he himself was recovering from his fever and illness, a
+pang of something like shame shot across young Esmond's breast, as he
+remembered that he had never once during his illness given a thought
+to the poor girl at the smithy, whose red cheeks but a month ago he
+had been so eager to see. Poor Nancy! her cheeks had shared the fate of
+roses, and were withered now. She had taken the illness on the same day
+with Esmond--she and her brother were both dead of the small-pox, and
+buried under the Castlewood yew-trees. There was no bright face looking
+now from the garden, or to cheer the old smith at his lonely fireside.
+Esmond would have liked to have kissed her in her shroud (like the
+lass in Mr. Prior's pretty poem); but she rested many a foot below the
+ground, when Esmond after his malady first trod on it.
+
+Doctor Tusher brought the news of this calamity, about which Harry
+Esmond longed to ask, but did not like. He said almost the whole village
+had been stricken with the pestilence; seventeen persons were dead
+of it, among them mentioning the names of poor Nancy and her little
+brother. He did not fail to say how thankful we survivors ought to be.
+It being this man's business to flatter and make sermons, it must be
+owned he was most industrious in it, and was doing the one or the other
+all day.
+
+And so Nancy was gone; and Harry Esmond blushed that he had not a single
+tear for her, and fell to composing an elegy in Latin verses over the
+rustic little beauty. He bade the dryads mourn and the river-nymphs
+deplore her. As her father followed the calling of Vulcan, he said that
+surely she was like a daughter of Venus, though Sievewright's wife was
+an ugly shrew, as he remembered to have heard afterwards. He made a
+long face, but, in truth, felt scarcely more sorrowful than a mute at a
+funeral. These first passions of men and women are mostly abortive; and
+are dead almost before they are born. Esmond could repeat, to his last
+day, some of the doggerel lines in which his muse bewailed his pretty
+lass; not without shame to remember how bad the verses were, and how
+good he thought them; how false the grief, and yet how he was rather
+proud of it. 'Tis an error, surely, to talk of the simplicity of youth.
+I think no persons are more hypocritical, and have a more affected
+behavior to one another, than the young. They deceive themselves and
+each other with artifices that do not impose upon men of the world; and
+so we get to understand truth better, and grow simpler as we grow older.
+
+When my lady heard of the fate which had befallen poor Nancy, she said
+nothing so long as Tusher was by, but when he was gone, she took Harry
+Esmond's hand and said--
+
+“Harry, I beg your pardon for those cruel words I used on the night you
+were taken ill. I am shocked at the fate of the poor creature, and
+am sure that nothing had happened of that with which, in my anger, I
+charged you. And the very first day we go out, you must take me to the
+blacksmith, and we must see if there is anything I can do to console
+the poor old man. Poor man! to lose both his children! What should I do
+without mine?”
+
+And this was, indeed, the very first walk which my lady took, leaning on
+Esmond's arm, after her illness. But her visit brought no consolation to
+the old father; and he showed no softness, or desire to speak. “The Lord
+gave and took away,” he said; and he knew what His servant's duty was.
+He wanted for nothing--less now than ever before, as there were
+fewer mouths to feed. He wished her ladyship and Master Esmond good
+morning--he had grown tall in his illness, and was but very little
+marked; and with this, and a surly bow, he went in from the smithy to
+the house, leaving my lady, somewhat silenced and shamefaced, at the
+door. He had a handsome stone put up for his two children, which may be
+seen in Castlewood churchyard to this very day; and before a year was
+out his own name was upon the stone. In the presence of Death, that
+sovereign ruler, a woman's coquetry is seared; and her jealousy will
+hardly pass the boundaries of that grim kingdom. 'Tis entirely of
+the earth, that passion, and expires in the cold blue air, beyond our
+sphere.
+
+At length, when the danger was quite over, it was announced that my lord
+and his daughter would return. Esmond well remembered the day. The lady
+his mistress was in a flurry of fear: before my lord came, she went into
+her room, and returned from it with reddened cheeks. Her fate was about
+to be decided. Her beauty was gone--was her reign, too, over? A minute
+would say. My lord came riding over the bridge--he could be seen from
+the great window, clad in scarlet, and mounted on his gray hackney--his
+little daughter ambled by him in a bright riding-dress of blue, on a
+shining chestnut horse. My lady leaned against the great mantel-piece,
+looking on, with one hand on her heart--she seemed only the more pale
+for those red marks on either cheek. She put her handkerchief to her
+eyes, and withdrew it, laughing hysterically--the cloth was quite red
+with the rouge when she took it away. She ran to her room again, and
+came back with pale cheeks and red eyes--her son in her hand--just as my
+lord entered, accompanied by young Esmond, who had gone out to meet his
+protector, and to hold his stirrup as he descended from horseback.
+
+“What, Harry, boy!” my lord said, good-naturedly, “you look as gaunt as
+a greyhound. The small-pox hasn't improved your beauty, and your side of
+the house hadn't never too much of it--ho, ho!”
+
+And he laughed, and sprang to the ground with no small agility, looking
+handsome and red, within a jolly face and brown hair, like a Beef-eater;
+Esmond kneeling again, as soon as his patron had descended, performed
+his homage, and then went to greet the little Beatrix, and help her from
+her horse.
+
+“Fie! how yellow you look,” she said; “and there are one, two, red
+holes in your face;” which, indeed, was very true; Harry Esmond's harsh
+countenance bearing, as long as it continued to be a human face, the
+marks of the disease.
+
+My lord laughed again, in high good-humor.
+
+“D--- it!” said he, with one of his usual oaths, “the little slut sees
+everything. She saw the Dowager's paint t'other day, and asked her
+why she wore that red stuff--didn't you, Trix? and the Tower; and
+St. James's; and the play; and the Prince George, and the Princess
+Anne--didn't you, Trix?”
+
+“They are both very fat, and smelt of brandy,” the child said.
+
+Papa roared with laughing.
+
+“Brandy!” he said. “And how do you know, Miss Pert?”
+
+“Because your lordship smells of it after supper, when I embrace you
+before you go to bed,” said the young lady, who, indeed, was as pert
+as her father said, and looked as beautiful a little gipsy as eyes ever
+gazed on.
+
+“And now for my lady,” said my lord, going up the stairs, and passing
+under the tapestry curtain that hung before the drawing-room door.
+Esmond remembered that noble figure, handsomely arrayed in scarlet.
+Within the last few months he himself had grown from a boy to be a man,
+and with his figure his thoughts had shot up, and grown manly.
+
+My lady's countenance, of which Harry Esmond was accustomed to watch the
+changes, and with a solicitous affection to note and interpret the signs
+of gladness or care, wore a sad and depressed look for many weeks
+after her lord's return: during which it seemed as if, by caresses and
+entreaties, she strove to win him back from some ill humor he had, and
+which he did not choose to throw off. In her eagerness to please him she
+practised a hundred of those arts which had formerly charmed him, but
+which seemed now to have lost their potency. Her songs did not amuse
+him; and she hushed them and the children when in his presence. My lord
+sat silent at his dinner, drinking greatly, his lady opposite to him,
+looking furtively at his face, though also speechless. Her silence
+annoyed him as much as her speech; and he would peevishly, and with an
+oath, ask her why she held her tongue and looked so glum; or he would
+roughly check her when speaking, and bid her not talk nonsense. It
+seemed as if, since his return, nothing she could do or say could please
+him.
+
+When a master and mistress are at strife in a house, the subordinates
+in the family take the one side or the other. Harry Esmond stood in
+so great fear of my lord, that he would run a league barefoot to do a
+message for him; but his attachment for Lady Esmond was such a passion
+of grateful regard, that to spare her a grief, or to do her a service,
+he would have given his life daily: and it was by the very depth and
+intensity of this regard that he began to divine how unhappy his adored
+lady's life was, and that a secret care (for she never spoke of her
+anxieties) was weighing upon her.
+
+Can any one, who has passed through the world and watched the nature
+of men and women there, doubt what had befallen her? I have seen, to be
+sure, some people carry down with them into old age the actual bloom
+of their youthful love, and I know that Mr. Thomas Parr lived to be a
+hundred and sixty years old. But, for all that, threescore and ten is
+the age of men, and few get beyond it; and 'tis certain that a man who
+marries for mere beaux yeux, as my lord did, considers this part of the
+contract at an end when the woman ceases to fulfil hers, and his love
+does not survive her beauty. I know 'tis often otherwise, I say; and can
+think (as most men in their own experience may) of many a house,
+where, lighted in early years, the sainted lamp of love hath never been
+extinguished; but so there is Mr. Parr, and so there is the great giant
+at the fair that is eight feet high--exceptions to men--and that poor
+lamp whereof I speak, that lights at first the nuptial chamber, is
+extinguished by a hundred winds and draughts down the chimney, or
+sputters out for want of feeding. And then--and then it is Chloe, in the
+dark, stark awake, and Strephon snoring unheeding; or vice versa, 'tis
+poor Strephon that has married a heartless jilt, and awoke out of that
+absurd vision of conjugal felicity, which was to last for ever, and is
+over like any other dream. One and other has made his bed, and so must
+lie in it, until that final day when life ends, and they sleep separate.
+
+About this time young Esmond, who had a knack of stringing verses,
+turned some of Ovid's Epistles into rhymes, and brought them to his lady
+for her delectation. Those which treated of forsaken women touched her
+immensely, Harry remarked; and when Oenone called after Paris, and Medea
+bade Jason come back again, the lady of Castlewood sighed, and said she
+thought that part of the verses was the most pleasing. Indeed, she would
+have chopped up the Dean, her old father, in order to bring her husband
+back again. But her beautiful Jason was gone, as beautiful Jasons will
+go, and the poor enchantress had never a spell to keep him.
+
+My lord was only sulky as long as his wife's anxious face or behavior
+seemed to upbraid him. When she had got to master these, and to show an
+outwardly cheerful countenance and behavior, her husband's good-humor
+returned partially, and he swore and stormed no longer at dinner, but
+laughed sometimes, and yawned unrestrainedly; absenting himself often
+from home, inviting more company thither, passing the greater part of
+his days in the hunting-field, or over the bottle as before; but with
+this difference, that the poor wife could no longer see now, as she had
+done formerly, the light of love kindled in his eyes. He was with her,
+but that flame was out: and that once welcome beacon no more shone
+there.
+
+What were this lady's feelings when forced to admit the truth whereof
+her foreboding glass had given her only too true warning, that within
+her beauty her reign had ended, and the days of her love were over?
+What does a seaman do in a storm if mast and rudder are carried away? He
+ships a jurymast, and steers as he best can with an oar. What happens if
+your roof falls in a tempest? After the first stun of the calamity the
+sufferer starts up, gropes around to see that the children are safe, and
+puts them under a shed out of the rain. If the palace burns down, you
+take shelter in the barn. What man's life is not overtaken by one or
+more of these tornadoes that send us out of the course, and fling us on
+rocks to shelter as best we may?
+
+When Lady Castlewood found that her great ship had gone down, she began
+as best she might after she had rallied from the effects of the loss,
+to put out small ventures of happiness; and hope for little gains and
+returns, as a merchant on 'Change, indocilis pauperiem pati, having lost
+his thousands, embarks a few guineas upon the next ship. She laid out
+her all upon her children, indulging them beyond all measure, as was
+inevitable with one of her kindness of disposition; giving all her
+thoughts to their welfare--learning, that she might teach them; and
+improving her own many natural gifts and feminine accomplishments, that
+she might impart them to her young ones. To be doing good for some one
+else, is the life of most good women. They are exuberant of kindness, as
+it were, and must impart it to some one. She made herself a good scholar
+of French, Italian, and Latin, having been grounded in these by her
+father in her youth; hiding these gifts from her husband out of fear,
+perhaps, that they should offend him, for my lord was no bookman--pish'd
+and psha'd at the notion of learned ladies, and would have been angry
+that his wife could construe out of a Latin book of which he could
+scarce understand two words. Young Esmond was usher, or house tutor,
+under her or over her, as it might happen. During my lord's many
+absences, these school-days would go on uninterruptedly: the mother
+and daughter learning with surprising quickness; the latter by fits and
+starts only, and as suited her wayward humor. As for the little lord,
+it must be owned that he took after his father in the matter of
+learning--liked marbles and play, and the great horse and the little one
+which his father brought him, and on which he took him out a-hunting, a
+great deal better than Corderius and Lily; marshalled the village boys,
+and had a little court of them, already flogging them, and domineering
+over them with a fine imperious spirit, that made his father laugh when
+he beheld it, and his mother fondly warn him. The cook had a son, the
+woodman had two, the big lad at the porter's lodge took his cuffs
+and his orders. Doctor Tusher said he was a young nobleman of gallant
+spirit; and Harry Esmond, who was his tutor, and eight years his little
+lordship's senior, had hard work sometimes to keep his own temper, and
+hold his authority over his rebellious little chief and kinsman.
+
+In a couple of years after that calamity had befallen which had robbed
+Lady Castlewood of a little--a very little--of her beauty, and her
+careless husband's heart (if the truth must be told, my lady had found
+not only that her reign was over, but that her successor was appointed,
+a Princess of a noble house in Drury Lane somewhere, who was installed
+and visited by my lord at the town eight miles off--pudet haec opprobria
+dicere nobis)--a great change had taken place in her mind, which, by
+struggles only known to herself, at least never mentioned to any one,
+and unsuspected by the person who caused the pain she endured--had
+been schooled into such a condition as she could not very likely have
+imagined possible a score of months since, before her misfortunes had
+begun.
+
+She had oldened in that time as people do who suffer silently great
+mental pain; and learned much that she had never suspected before. She
+was taught by that bitter teacher Misfortune. A child the mother of
+other children, but two years back her lord was a god to her; his words
+her law; his smile her sunshine; his lazy commonplaces listened to
+eagerly, as if they were words of wisdom--all his wishes and freaks
+obeyed with a servile devotion. She had been my lord's chief slave and
+blind worshipper. Some women bear farther than this, and submit not only
+to neglect but to unfaithfulness too--but here this lady's allegiance
+had failed her. Her spirit rebelled, and disowned any more obedience.
+First she had to bear in secret the passion of losing the adored object;
+then to get further initiation, and to find this worshipped being was
+but a clumsy idol: then to admit the silent truth, that it was she was
+superior, and not the monarch her master: that she had thoughts which
+his brains could never master, and was the better of the two; quite
+separate from my lord although tied to him, and bound, as almost all
+people (save a very happy few), to work all her life alone. My lord sat
+in his chair, laughing his laugh, cracking his joke, his face flushing
+with wine--my lady in her place over against him--he never suspecting
+that his superior was there, in the calm resigned lady, cold of manner,
+with downcast eyes. When he was merry in his cups, he would make jokes
+about her coldness, and, “D--- it, now my lady is gone, we will have
+t'other bottle,” he would say. He was frank enough in telling his
+thoughts, such as they were. There was little mystery about my lord's
+words or actions. His Fair Rosamond did not live in a Labyrinth, like
+the lady of Mr. Addison's opera, but paraded with painted cheeks and a
+tipsy retinue in the country town. Had she a mind to be revenged, Lady
+Castlewood could have found the way to her rival's house easily enough;
+and, if she had come with bowl and dagger, would have been routed off
+the ground by the enemy with a volley of Billingsgate, which the fair
+person always kept by her.
+
+Meanwhile, it has been said, that for Harry Esmond his benefactress's
+sweet face had lost none of its charms. It had always the kindest of
+looks and smiles for him--smiles, not so gay and artless perhaps as
+those which Lady Castlewood had formerly worn, when, a child herself,
+playing with her children, her husband's pleasure and authority were all
+she thought of; but out of her griefs and cares, as will happen I think
+when these trials fall upon a kindly heart, and are not too unbearable,
+grew up a number of thoughts and excellences which had never come into
+existence, had not her sorrow and misfortunes engendered them. Sure,
+occasion is the father of most that is good in us. As you have seen the
+awkward fingers and clumsy tools of a prisoner cut and fashion the most
+delicate little pieces of carved work; or achieve the most prodigious
+underground labors, and cut through walls of masonry, and saw iron bars
+and fetters; 'tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or
+endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but
+for the circumstance which gave them a being.
+
+“'Twas after Jason left her, no doubt,” Lady Castlewood once said with
+one of her smiles to young Esmond (who was reading to her a version of
+certain lines out of Euripides), “that Medea became a learned woman and
+a great enchantress.”
+
+“And she could conjure the stars out of heaven,” the young tutor added,
+“but she could not bring Jason back again.”
+
+“What do you mean?” asked my lady, very angry.
+
+“Indeed I mean nothing,” said the other, “save what I've read in books.
+What should I know about such matters? I have seen no woman save you
+and little Beatrix, and the parson's wife and my late mistress, and your
+ladyship's woman here.”
+
+“The men who wrote your books,” says my lady, “your Horaces, and Ovids,
+and Virgils, as far as I know of them, all thought ill of us, as all
+the heroes they wrote about used us basely. We were bred to be slaves
+always; and even of our own times, as you are still the only lawgivers,
+I think our sermons seem to say that the best woman is she who bears
+her master's chains most gracefully. 'Tis a pity there are no nunneries
+permitted by our church: Beatrix and I would fly to one, and end our
+days in peace there away from you.”
+
+“And is there no slavery in a convent?” says Esmond.
+
+“At least if women are slaves there, no one sees them,” answered the
+lady. “They don't work in street gangs with the public to jeer them: and
+if they suffer, suffer in private. Here comes my lord home from hunting.
+Take away the books. My lord does not love to see them. Lessons are over
+for to-day, Mr. Tutor.” And with a curtsy and a smile she would end this
+sort of colloquy.
+
+Indeed “Mr. Tutor,” as my lady called Esmond, had now business enough on
+his hands in Castlewood house. He had three pupils, his lady and her two
+children, at whose lessons she would always be present; besides writing
+my lord's letters, and arranging his accompts for him--when these could
+be got from Esmond's indolent patron.
+
+Of the pupils the two young people were but lazy scholars, and as my
+lady would admit no discipline such as was then in use, my lord's son
+only learned what he liked, which was but little, and never to his
+life's end could be got to construe more than six lines of Virgil.
+Mistress Beatrix chattered French prettily, from a very early age;
+and sang sweetly, but this was from her mother's teaching--not Harry
+Esmond's, who could scarce distinguish between “Green Sleeves” and
+“Lillibullero;” although he had no greater delight in life than to hear
+the ladies sing. He sees them now (will he ever forget them?) as they
+used to sit together of the summer evenings--the two golden heads over
+the page--the child's little hand, and the mother's beating the time,
+with their voices rising and falling in unison.
+
+But if the children were careless, 'twas a wonder how eagerly the
+mother learnt from her young tutor--and taught him too. The happiest
+instinctive faculty was this lady's--a faculty for discerning latent
+beauties and hidden graces of books, especially books of poetry, as in a
+walk she would spy out field-flowers and make posies of them, such as
+no other hand could. She was a critic, not by reason but by feeling; the
+sweetest commentator of those books they read together; and the happiest
+hours of young Esmond's life, perhaps, were those passed in the company
+of this kind mistress and her children.
+
+These happy days were to end soon, however; and it was by the Lady
+Castlewood's own decree that they were brought to a conclusion. It
+happened about Christmas-time, Harry Esmond being now past sixteen
+years of age, that his old comrade, adversary, and friend, Tom Tusher,
+returned from his school in London, a fair, well-grown, and sturdy lad,
+who was about to enter college, with an exhibition from his school, and
+a prospect of after promotion in the church. Tom Tusher's talk was of
+nothing but Cambridge now; and the boys, who were good friends, examined
+each other eagerly about their progress in books. Tom had learned some
+Greek and Hebrew, besides Latin, in which he was pretty well skilled,
+and also had given himself to mathematical studies under his father's
+guidance, who was a proficient in those sciences, of which Esmond knew
+nothing; nor could he write Latin so well as Tom, though he could talk
+it better, having been taught by his dear friend the Jesuit Father, for
+whose memory the lad ever retained the warmest affection, reading his
+books, keeping his swords clean in the little crypt where the Father
+had shown them to Esmond on the night of his visit; and often of a night
+sitting in the chaplain's room, which he inhabited, over his books, his
+verses, and rubbish, with which the lad occupied himself, he would look
+up at the window, thinking he wished it might open and let in the good
+Father. He had come and passed away like a dream; but for the swords
+and books Harry might almost think the Father was an imagination of his
+mind--and for two letters which had come to him, one from abroad, full
+of advice and affection, another soon after he had been confirmed by the
+Bishop of Hexton, in which Father Holt deplored his falling away. But
+Harry Esmond felt so confident now of his being in the right, and of his
+own powers as a casuist, that he thought he was able to face the Father
+himself in argument, and possibly convert him.
+
+To work upon the faith of her young pupil, Esmond's kind mistress sent
+to the library of her father the Dean, who had been distinguished in the
+disputes of the late king's reign; and, an old soldier now, had hung
+up his weapons of controversy. These he took down from his shelves
+willingly for young Esmond, whom he benefited by his own personal advice
+and instruction. It did not require much persuasion to induce the boy
+to worship with his beloved mistress. And the good old nonjuring Dean
+flattered himself with a conversion which, in truth, was owing to a much
+gentler and fairer persuader.
+
+Under her ladyship's kind eyes (my lord's being sealed in sleep pretty
+generally), Esmond read many volumes of the works of the famous British
+Divines of the last age, and was familiar with Wake and Sherlock, with
+Stillingfleet and Patrick. His mistress never tired to listen or to
+read, to pursue the texts with fond comments, to urge those points which
+her fancy dwelt on most, or her reason deemed most important. Since the
+death of her father the Dean, this lady hath admitted a certain latitude
+of theological reading which her orthodox father would never have
+allowed; his favorite writers appealing more to reason and antiquity
+than to the passions or imaginations of their readers, so that the works
+of Bishop Taylor, nay, those of Mr. Baxter and Mr. Law, have in reality
+found more favor with my Lady Castlewood than the severer volumes of our
+great English schoolmen.
+
+In later life, at the University, Esmond reopened the controversy, and
+pursued it in a very different manner, when his patrons had determined
+for him that he was to embrace the ecclesiastical life. But though his
+mistress's heart was in this calling, his own never was much. After that
+first fervor of simple devotion, which his beloved Jesuit priest had
+inspired in him, speculative theology took but little hold upon the
+young man's mind. When his early credulity was disturbed, and his saints
+and virgins taken out of his worship, to rank little higher than the
+divinities of Olympus, his belief became acquiescence rather than ardor;
+and he made his mind up to assume the cassock and bands, as another
+man does to wear a breastplate and jack-boots, or to mount a merchant's
+desk, for a livelihood, and from obedience and necessity, rather than
+from choice. There were scores of such men in Mr. Esmond's time at the
+universities, who were going to the church with no better calling than
+his.
+
+When Thomas Tusher was gone, a feeling of no small depression and
+disquiet fell upon young Esmond, of which, though he did not complain,
+his kind mistress must have divined the cause: for soon after she showed
+not only that she understood the reason of Harry's melancholy, but could
+provide a remedy for it. Her habit was thus to watch, unobservedly,
+those to whom duty or affection bound her, and to prevent their
+designs, or to fulfil them, when she had the power. It was this lady's
+disposition to think kindnesses, and devise silent bounties and to
+scheme benevolence, for those about her. We take such goodness, for the
+most part, as if it was our due; the Marys who bring ointment for our
+feet get but little thanks. Some of us never feel this devotion at all,
+or are moved by it to gratitude or acknowledgment; others only recall it
+years after, when the days are past in which those sweet kindnesses were
+spent on us, and we offer back our return for the debt by a poor tardy
+payment of tears. Then forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind
+glances shine out of the past--oh so bright and clear!--oh so longed
+after!--because they are out of reach; as holiday music from withinside
+a prison wall--or sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because
+unattainable--more bright because of the contrast of present darkness
+and solitude, whence there is no escape.
+
+All the notice, then, which Lady Castlewood seemed to take of Harry
+Esmond's melancholy, upon Tom Tusher's departure, was, by a gayety
+unusual to her, to attempt to dispel his gloom. She made his three
+scholars (herself being the chief one) more cheerful than ever they had
+been before, and more docile, too, all of them learning and reading
+much more than they had been accustomed to do. “For who knows,” said
+the lady, “what may happen, and whether we may be able to keep such a
+learned tutor long?”
+
+Frank Esmond said he for his part did not want to learn any more, and
+cousin Harry might shut up his book whenever he liked, if he would
+come out a-fishing; and little Beatrix declared she would send for Tom
+Tusher, and HE would be glad enough to come to Castlewood, if Harry
+chose to go away.
+
+At last comes a messenger from Winchester one day, bearer of a letter,
+with a great black seal, from the Dean there, to say that his sister
+was dead, and had left her fortune of 2,000L. among her six nieces, the
+Dean's daughters; and many a time since has Harry Esmond recalled the
+flushed face and eager look wherewith, after this intelligence, his kind
+lady regarded him. She did not pretend to any grief about the deceased
+relative, from whom she and her family had been many years parted.
+
+When my lord heard of the news, he also did not make any very long
+face. “The money will come very handy to furnish the music-room and the
+cellar, which is getting low, and buy your ladyship a coach and a
+couple of horses that will do indifferent to ride or for the coach. And,
+Beatrix, you shall have a spinnet: and, Frank, you shall have a little
+horse from Hexton Fair; and, Harry, you shall have five pounds to buy
+some books,” said my lord, who was generous with his own, and indeed
+with other folk's money. “I wish your aunt would die once a year,
+Rachel; we could spend your money, and all your sisters', too.”
+
+“I have but one aunt--and--and I have another use for the money, my
+lord,” says my lady, turning very red.
+
+“Another use, my dear; and what do you know about money?” cries my lord.
+“And what the devil is there that I don't give you which you want!”
+
+“I intend to give this money--can't you fancy how, my lord?”
+
+My lord swore one of his large oaths that he did not know in the least
+what she meant.
+
+“I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college. Cousin Harry,” says my
+lady, “you mustn't stay longer in this dull place, but make a name to
+yourself, and for us too, Harry.”
+
+“D--n it, Harry's well enough here,” says my lord, for a moment looking
+rather sulky.
+
+“Is Harry going away? You don't mean to say you will go away?” cry out
+Frank and Beatrix at one breath.
+
+“But he will come back: and this will always be his home,” cries my
+lady, with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness: “and his scholars
+will always love him; won't they?”
+
+“By G-d, Rachel, you're a good woman!” says my lord, seizing my lady's
+hand, at which she blushed very much, and shrank back, putting her
+children before her. “I wish you joy, my kinsman,” he continued, giving
+Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. “I won't balk your luck. Go
+to Cambridge, boy, and when Tusher dies you shall have the living
+here, if you are not better provided by that time. We'll furnish the
+dining-room and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out
+of the stable: take any one except my hack and the bay gelding and the
+coach-horses; and God speed thee, my boy!”
+
+“Have the sorrel, Harry; 'tis a good one. Father says 'tis the best
+in the stable,” says little Frank, clapping his hands, and jumping up.
+“Let's come and see him in the stable.” And the other, in his delight
+and eagerness, was for leaving the room that instant to arrange about
+his journey.
+
+The Lady Castlewood looked after him with sad penetrating glances. “He
+wishes to be gone already, my lord,” said she to her husband.
+
+The young man hung back abashed. “Indeed, I would stay for ever, if your
+ladyship bade me,” he said.
+
+“And thou wouldst be a fool for thy pains, kinsman,” said my lord. “Tut,
+tut, man. Go and see the world. Sow thy wild oats; and take the best
+luck that Fate sends thee. I wish I were a boy again, that I might go to
+college, and taste the Trumpington ale.”
+
+“Ours, indeed, is but a dull home,” cries my lady, with a little of
+sadness and, maybe, of satire, in her voice: “an old glum house, half
+ruined, and the rest only half furnished; a woman and two children are
+but poor company for men that are accustomed to better. We are only fit
+to be your worship's handmaids, and your pleasures must of necessity lie
+elsewhere than at home.”
+
+“Curse me, Rachel, if I know now whether thou art in earnest or not,”
+ said my lord.
+
+“In earnest, my lord!” says she, still clinging by one of her children.
+“Is there much subject here for joke?” And she made him a grand curtsy,
+and, giving a stately look to Harry Esmond, which seemed to say,
+“Remember; you understand me, though he does not,” she left the room
+with her children.
+
+“Since she found out that confounded Hexton business,” my lord
+said--“and be hanged to them that told her!--she has not been the same
+woman. She, who used to be as humble as a milkmaid, is as proud as a
+princess,” says my lord. “Take my counsel, Harry Esmond, and keep clear
+of women. Since I have had anything to do with the jades, they have
+given me nothing but disgust. I had a wife at Tangier, with whom, as she
+couldn't speak a word of my language, you'd have thought I might lead a
+quiet life. But she tried to poison me, because she was jealous of a Jew
+girl. There was your aunt, for aunt she is--aunt Jezebel, a pretty
+life your father led with HER! and here's my lady. When I saw her on a
+pillion, riding behind the Dean her father, she looked and was such a
+baby, that a sixpenny doll might have pleased her. And now you see what
+she is--hands off, highty-tighty, high and mighty, an empress couldn't
+be grander. Pass us the tankard, Harry my boy. A mug of beer and a toast
+at morn, says my host. A toast and a mug of beer at noon, says my dear.
+D--n it, Polly loves a mug of ale, too, and laced with brandy, by Jove!”
+ Indeed, I suppose they drank it together; for my lord was often thick
+in his speech at mid-day dinner; and at night at supper, speechless
+altogether.
+
+Harry Esmond's departure resolved upon, it seemed as if the Lady
+Castlewood, too, rejoiced to lose him; for more than once, when the
+lad, ashamed perhaps at his own secret eagerness to go away (at any
+rate stricken with sadness at the idea of leaving those from whom he
+had received so many proofs of love and kindness inestimable), tried to
+express to his mistress his sense of gratitude to her, and his sorrow at
+quitting those who had so sheltered and tended a nameless and houseless
+orphan, Lady Castlewood cut short his protests of love and his
+lamentations, and would hear of no grief, but only look forward to
+Harry's fame and prospects in life. “Our little legacy will keep you
+for four years like a gentleman. Heaven's Providence, your own genius,
+industry, honor, must do the rest for you. Castlewood will always be a
+home for you; and these children, whom you have taught and loved, will
+not forget to love you. And, Harry,” said she (and this was the only
+time when she spoke with a tear in her eye, or a tremor in her voice),
+“it may happen in the course of nature that I shall be called away
+from them: and their father--and--and they will need true friends and
+protectors. Promise me that you will be true to them--as--as I think I
+have been to you--and a mother's fond prayer and blessing go with you.”
+
+“So help me God, madam, I will,” said Harry Esmond, falling on his
+knees, and kissing the hand of his dearest mistress. “If you will have
+me stay now, I will. What matters whether or no I make my way in life,
+or whether a poor bastard dies as unknown as he is now? 'Tis enough
+that I have your love and kindness surely; and to make you happy is duty
+enough for me.”
+
+“Happy!” says she; “but indeed I ought to be, with my children, and--”
+
+“Not happy!” cried Esmond (for he knew what her life was, though he and
+his mistress never spoke a word concerning it). “If not happiness,
+it may be ease. Let me stay and work for you--let me stay and be your
+servant.”
+
+“Indeed, you are best away,” said my lady, laughing, as she put her hand
+on the boy's head for a moment. “You shall stay in no such dull place.
+You shall go to college and distinguish yourself as becomes your name.
+That is how you shall please me best; and--and if my children want you,
+or I want you, you shall come to us; and I know we may count on you.”
+
+“May heaven forsake me if you may not!” Harry said, getting up from his
+knee.
+
+“And my knight longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight,” said
+my lady, laughing; which speech made Harry Esmond start, and turn red;
+for indeed the very thought was in his mind, that he would like
+that some chance should immediately happen whereby he might show his
+devotion. And it pleased him to think that his lady had called him “her
+knight,” and often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed
+that he might be her true knight, too.
+
+My lady's bed-chamber window looked out over the country, and you could
+see from it the purple hills beyond Castlewood village, the green common
+betwixt that and the Hall, and the old bridge which crossed over the
+river. When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran
+alongside his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a
+moment, and looked back at the house where the best part of his life had
+been passed. It lay before him with its gray familiar towers, a pinnacle
+or two shining in the sun, the buttresses and terrace walls casting
+great blue shades on the grass. And Harry remembered, all his life
+after, how he saw his mistress at the window looking out on him in a
+white robe, the little Beatrix's chestnut curls resting at her mother's
+side. Both waved a farewell to him, and little Frank sobbed to leave
+him. Yes, he WOULD be his lady's true knight, he vowed in his heart; he
+waved her an adieu with his hat. The village people had Good-by to say
+to him too. All knew that Master Harry was going to college, and most of
+them had a kind word and a look of farewell. I do not stop to say what
+adventures he began to imagine, or what career to devise for himself
+before he had ridden three miles from home. He had not read Monsieur
+Galland's ingenious Arabian tales as yet; but be sure that there are
+other folks who build castles in the air, and have fine hopes, and kick
+them down too, besides honest Alnaschar.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+I GO TO CAMBRIDGE, AND DO BUT LITTLE GOOD THERE.
+
+
+Mr lord, who said he should like to revisit the old haunts of his youth,
+kindly accompanied Harry Esmond in his first journey to Cambridge. Their
+road lay through London, where my Lord Viscount would also have Harry
+stay a few days to show him the pleasures of the town before he entered
+upon his university studies, and whilst here Harry's patron conducted
+the young man to my Lady Dowager's house at Chelsey near London:
+the kind lady at Castlewood having specially ordered that the young
+gentleman and the old should pay a respectful visit in that quarter.
+
+Her ladyship the Viscountess Dowager occupied a handsome new house in
+Chelsey, with a garden behind it, and facing the river, always a bright
+and animated sight with its swarms of sailors, barges, and wherries.
+Harry laughed at recognizing in the parlor the well-remembered old
+piece of Sir Peter Lely, wherein his father's widow was represented as
+a virgin huntress, armed with a gilt bow-and-arrow, and encumbered only
+with that small quantity of drapery which it would seem the virgins in
+King Charles's day were accustomed to wear.
+
+My Lady Dowager had left off this peculiar habit of huntress when she
+married. But though she was now considerably past sixty years of age, I
+believe she thought that airy nymph of the picture could still be easily
+recognized in the venerable personage who gave an audience to Harry and
+his patron.
+
+She received the young man with even more favor than she showed to the
+elder, for she chose to carry on the conversation in French, in which my
+Lord Castlewood was no great proficient, and expressed her satisfaction
+at finding that Mr. Esmond could speak fluently in that language. “'Twas
+the only one fit for polite conversation,” she condescended to say, “and
+suitable to persons of high breeding.”
+
+My lord laughed afterwards, as the gentlemen went away, at his
+kinswoman's behavior. He said he remembered the time when she could
+speak English fast enough, and joked in his jolly way at the loss he had
+had of such a lovely wife as that.
+
+My Lady Viscountess deigned to ask his lordship news of his wife and
+children; she had heard that Lady Castlewood had had the small-pox; she
+hoped she was not so VERY much disfigured as people said.
+
+At this remark about his wife's malady, my Lord Viscount winced and
+turned red; but the Dowager, in speaking of the disfigurement of the
+young lady, turned to her looking-glass and examined her old wrinkled
+countenance in it with such a grin of satisfaction, that it was all her
+guests could do to refrain from laughing in her ancient face.
+
+She asked Harry what his profession was to be; and my lord, saying that
+the lad was to take orders, and have the living of Castlewood when old
+Dr. Tusher vacated it, she did not seem to show any particular anger at
+the notion of Harry's becoming a Church of England clergyman, nay, was
+rather glad than otherwise, that the youth should be so provided for.
+She bade Mr. Esmond not to forget to pay her a visit whenever he passed
+through London, and carried her graciousness so far as to send a purse
+with twenty guineas for him, to the tavern at which my lord put up (the
+“Greyhound,” in Charing Cross); and, along with this welcome gift for
+her kinsman, she sent a little doll for a present to my lord's little
+daughter Beatrix, who was growing beyond the age of dolls by this time,
+and was as tall almost as her venerable relative.
+
+After seeing the town, and going to the plays, my Lord Castlewood and
+Esmond rode together to Cambridge, spending two pleasant days upon the
+journey. Those rapid new coaches were not established, as yet, that
+performed the whole journey between London and the University in a
+single day; however, the road was pleasant and short enough to Harry
+Esmond, and he always gratefully remembered that happy holiday which his
+kind patron gave him.
+
+Mr. Esmond was entered a pensioner of Trinity College in Cambridge,
+to which famous college my lord had also in his youth belonged. Dr.
+Montague was master at this time, and received my Lord Viscount with
+great politeness: so did Mr. Bridge, who was appointed to be Harry's
+tutor. Tom Tusher, who was of Emanuel College, and was by this time
+a junior soph, came to wait upon my lord, and to take Harry under his
+protection; and comfortable rooms being provided for him in the great
+court close by the gate, and near to the famous Mr. Newton's lodgings,
+Harry's patron took leave of him with many kind words and blessings,
+and an admonition to him to behave better at the University than my lord
+himself had ever done.
+
+'Tis needless in these memoirs to go at any length into the particulars
+of Harry Esmond's college career. It was like that of a hundred young
+gentlemen of that day. But he had the ill fortune to be older by a
+couple of years than most of his fellow-students; and by his previous
+solitary mode of bringing up, the circumstances of his life, and the
+peculiar thoughtfulness and melancholy that had naturally engendered, he
+was, in a great measure, cut off from the society of comrades who were
+much younger and higher-spirited than he. His tutor, who had bowed
+down to the ground, as he walked my lord over the college grass-plats,
+changed his behavior as soon as the nobleman's back was turned, and
+was--at least Harry thought so--harsh and overbearing. When the lads
+used to assemble in their greges in hall, Harry found himself alone in
+the midst of that little flock of boys; they raised a great laugh at
+him when he was set on to read Latin, which he did with the foreign
+pronunciation taught to him by his old master, the Jesuit, than which
+he knew no other. Mr. Bridge, the tutor, made him the object of clumsy
+jokes, in which he was fond of indulging. The young man's spirit was
+chafed, and his vanity mortified; and he found himself, for some time,
+as lonely in this place as ever he had been at Castlewood, whither he
+longed to return. His birth was a source of shame to him, and he fancied
+a hundred slights and sneers from young and old, who, no doubt, had
+treated him better had he met them himself more frankly. And as he looks
+back, in calmer days, upon this period of his life, which he thought so
+unhappy, he can see that his own pride and vanity caused no small part
+of the mortifications which he attributed to other's ill will. The world
+deals good-naturedly with good-natured people, and I never knew a sulky
+misanthropist who quarrelled with it, but it was he, and not it, that
+was in the wrong. Tom Tusher gave Harry plenty of good advice on this
+subject, for Tom had both good sense and good humor; but Mr. Harry chose
+to treat his senior with a great deal of superfluous disdain and absurd
+scorn, and would by no means part from his darling injuries, in which,
+very likely, no man believed but himself. As for honest Doctor Bridge,
+the tutor found, after a few trials of wit with the pupil, that the
+young man was an ugly subject for wit, and that the laugh was often
+turned against him. This did not make tutor and pupil any better
+friends; but had, so far, an advantage for Esmond, that Mr. Bridge was
+induced to leave him alone; and so long as he kept his chapels, and did
+the college exercises required of him, Bridge was content not to see
+Harry's glum face in his class, and to leave him to read and sulk for
+himself in his own chamber.
+
+A poem or two in Latin and English, which were pronounced to have some
+merit, and a Latin oration, (for Mr. Esmond could write that language
+better than pronounce it,) got him a little reputation both with the
+authorities of the University and amongst the young men, with whom he
+began to pass for more than he was worth. A few victories over their
+common enemy, Mr. Bridge, made them incline towards him, and look upon
+him as the champion of their order against the seniors. Such of the lads
+as he took into his confidence found him not so gloomy and haughty as
+his appearance led them to believe; and Don Dismallo, as he was called,
+became presently a person of some little importance in his college, and
+was, as he believes, set down by the seniors there as rather a dangerous
+character.
+
+Don Dismallo was a staunch young Jacobite, like the rest of his family;
+gave himself many absurd airs of loyalty; used to invite young friends
+to Burgundy, and give the King's health on King James's birthday; wore
+black on the day of his abdication; fasted on the anniversary of King
+William's coronation; and performed a thousand absurd antics, of which
+he smiles now to think.
+
+These follies caused many remonstrances on Tom Tusher's part, who
+was always a friend to the powers that be, as Esmond was always in
+opposition to them. Tom was a Whig, while Esmond was a Tory. Tom never
+missed a lecture, and capped the proctor with the profoundest of bows.
+No wonder he sighed over Harry's insubordinate courses, and was angry
+when the others laughed at him. But that Harry was known to have my
+Lord Viscount's protection, Tom no doubt would have broken with him
+altogether. But honest Tom never gave up a comrade as long as he was the
+friend of a great man. This was not out of scheming on Tom's part, but
+a natural inclination towards the great. 'Twas no hypocrisy in him
+to flatter, but the bent of his mind, which was always perfectly
+good-humored, obliging, and servile.
+
+Harry had very liberal allowances, for his dear mistress of Castlewood
+not only regularly supplied him, but the Dowager of Chelsey made her
+donation annual, and received Esmond at her house near London every
+Christmas; but, in spite of these benefactions, Esmond was constantly
+poor; whilst 'twas a wonder with how small a stipend from his father Tom
+Tusher contrived to make a good figure. 'Tis true that Harry both spent,
+gave, and lent his money very freely, which Thomas never did. I think he
+was like the famous Duke of Marlborough in this instance, who, getting
+a present of fifty pieces, when a young man, from some foolish woman
+who fell in love with his good looks, showed the money to Cadogan in a
+drawer scores of years after, where it had lain ever since he had sold
+his beardless honor to procure it. I do not mean to say that Tom ever
+let out his good looks so profitably, for nature had not endowed him
+with any particular charms of person, and he ever was a pattern of moral
+behavior, losing no opportunity of giving the very best advice to his
+younger comrade; with which article, to do him justice, he parted very
+freely. Not but that he was a merry fellow, too, in his way; he loved a
+joke, if by good fortune he understood it, and took his share generously
+of a bottle if another paid for it, and especially if there was a young
+lord in company to drink it. In these cases there was not a harder
+drinker in the University than Mr. Tusher could be; and it was edifying
+to behold him, fresh shaved and with smug face, singing out “Amen!”
+ at early chapel in the morning. In his reading, poor Harry permitted
+himself to go a-gadding after all the Nine Muses, and so very likely had
+but little favor from any one of them; whereas Tom Tusher, who had
+no more turn for poetry than a ploughboy, nevertheless, by a dogged
+perseverance and obsequiousness in courting the divine Calliope, got
+himself a prize, and some credit in the University, and a fellowship
+at his college, as a reward for his scholarship. In this time of Mr.
+Esmond's life, he got the little reading which he ever could boast of,
+and passed a good part of his days greedily devouring all the books on
+which he could lay hand. In this desultory way the works of most of the
+English, French, and Italian poets came under his eyes, and he had
+a smattering of the Spanish tongue likewise, besides the ancient
+languages, of which, at least of Latin, he was a tolerable master.
+
+Then, about midway in his University career, he fell to reading for the
+profession to which worldly prudence rather than inclination called him,
+and was perfectly bewildered in theological controversy. In the course
+of his reading (which was neither pursued with that seriousness or that
+devout mind which such a study requires) the youth found himself at the
+end of one month a Papist, and was about to proclaim his faith; the next
+month a Protestant, with Chillingworth; and the third a sceptic, with
+Hobbes and Bayle. Whereas honest Tom Tusher never permitted his mind to
+stray out of the prescribed University path, accepted the Thirty-nine
+Articles with all his heart, and would have signed and sworn to other
+nine-and-thirty with entire obedience. Harry's wilfulness in this
+matter, and disorderly thoughts and conversation, so shocked and
+afflicted his senior, that there grew up a coldness and estrangement
+between them, so that they became scarce more than mere acquaintances,
+from having been intimate friends when they came to college first.
+Politics ran high, too, at the University; and here, also, the young
+men were at variance. Tom professed himself, albeit a high-churchman,
+a strong King William's-man; whereas Harry brought his family Tory
+politics to college with him, to which he must add a dangerous
+admiration for Oliver Cromwell, whose side, or King James's by turns,
+he often chose to take in the disputes which the young gentlemen used
+to hold in each other's rooms, where they debated on the state of the
+nation, crowned and deposed kings, and toasted past and present heroes
+and beauties in flagons of college ale.
+
+Thus, either from the circumstances of his birth, or the natural
+melancholy of his disposition, Esmond came to live very much by himself
+during his stay at the University, having neither ambition enough to
+distinguish himself in the college career, nor caring to mingle with
+the mere pleasures and boyish frolics of the students, who were, for
+the most part, two or three years younger than he. He fancied that the
+gentlemen of the common-room of his college slighted him on account of
+his birth, and hence kept aloof from their society. It may be that
+he made the ill will, which he imagined came from them, by his own
+behavior, which, as he looks back on it in after life, he now sees
+was morose and haughty. At any rate, he was as tenderly grateful for
+kindness as he was susceptible of slight and wrong; and, lonely as
+he was generally, yet had one or two very warm friendships for his
+companions of those days.
+
+One of these was a queer gentleman that resided in the University,
+though he was no member of it, and was the professor of a science scarce
+recognized in the common course of college education. This was a French
+refugee-officer, who had been driven out of his native country at the
+time of the Protestant persecutions there, and who came to Cambridge,
+where he taught the science of the small-sword, and set up a
+saloon-of-arms. Though he declared himself a Protestant, 'twas said
+Mr. Moreau was a Jesuit in disguise; indeed, he brought very strong
+recommendations to the Tory party, which was pretty strong in that
+University, and very likely was one of the many agents whom King James
+had in this country. Esmond found this gentleman's conversation very
+much more agreeable and to his taste than the talk of the college
+divines in the common-room; he never wearied of Moreau's stories of
+the wars of Turenne and Conde, in which he had borne a part; and being
+familiar with the French tongue from his youth, and in a place where
+but few spoke it, his company became very agreeable to the brave old
+professor of arms, whose favorite pupil he was, and who made Mr. Esmond
+a very tolerable proficient in the noble science of escrime.
+
+At the next term Esmond was to take his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and
+afterwards, in proper season, to assume the cassock and bands which his
+fond mistress would have him wear. Tom Tusher himself was a parson and
+a fellow of his college by this time; and Harry felt that he would very
+gladly cede his right to the living of Castlewood to Tom, and that his
+own calling was in no way to the pulpit. But as he was bound, before
+all things in the world, to his dear mistress at home, and knew that a
+refusal on his part would grieve her, he determined to give her no
+hint of his unwillingness to the clerical office: and it was in this
+unsatisfactory mood of mind that he went to spend the last vacation he
+should have at Castlewood before he took orders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+I COME HOME FOR A HOLIDAY TO CASTLEWOOD, AND FIND A SKELETON IN THE
+HOUSE.
+
+
+At his third long vacation, Esmond came as usual to Castlewood, always
+feeling an eager thrill of pleasure when he found himself once more
+in the house where he had passed so many years, and beheld the kind
+familiar eyes of his mistress looking upon him. She and her children
+(out of whose company she scarce ever saw him) came to greet him. Miss
+Beatrix was grown so tall that Harry did not quite know whether he
+might kiss her or no; and she blushed and held back when he offered
+that salutation, though she took it, and even courted it, when they were
+alone. The young lord was shooting up to be like his gallant father in
+look, though with his mother's kind eyes: the lady of Castlewood herself
+seemed grown, too, since Harry saw her--in her look more stately, in
+her person fuller, in her face still as ever most tender and friendly, a
+greater air of command and decision than had appeared in that guileless
+sweet countenance which Harry remembered so gratefully. The tone of her
+voice was so much deeper and sadder when she spoke and welcomed him,
+that it quite startled Esmond, who looked up at her surprised as she
+spoke, when she withdrew her eyes from him; nor did she ever look at him
+afterwards when his own eyes were gazing upon her. A something hinting
+at grief and secret, and filling his mind with alarm undefinable, seemed
+to speak with that low thrilling voice of hers, and look out of those
+clear sad eyes. Her greeting to Esmond was so cold that it almost pained
+the lad, (who would have liked to fall on his knees, and kiss the skirt
+of her robe, so fond and ardent was his respect and regard for her,)
+and he faltered in answering the questions which she, hesitating on her
+side, began to put to him. Was he happy at Cambridge? Did he study too
+hard? She hoped not. He had grown very tall, and looked very well.
+
+“He has got a moustache!” cries out Master Esmond.
+
+“Why does he not wear a peruke like my Lord Mohun?” asked Miss Beatrix.
+“My lord says that nobody wears their own hair.”
+
+“I believe you will have to occupy your old chamber,” says my lady. “I
+hope the housekeeper has got it ready.”
+
+“Why, mamma, you have been there ten times these three days yourself!”
+ exclaims Frank.
+
+“And she cut some flowers which you planted in my garden--do you
+remember, ever so many years ago? when I was quite a little girl,” cries
+out Miss Beatrix, on tiptoe. “And mamma put them in your window.”
+
+“I remember when you grew well after you were ill that you used to like
+roses,” said the lady, blushing like one of them. They all conducted
+Harry Esmond to his chamber; the children running before, Harry walking
+by his mistress hand-in-hand.
+
+The old room had been ornamented and beautified not a little to receive
+him. The flowers were in the window in a china vase; and there was a
+fine new counterpane on the bed, which chatterbox Beatrix said mamma had
+made too. A fire was crackling on the hearth, although it was June. My
+lady thought the room wanted warming; everything was done to make him
+happy and welcome: “And you are not to be a page any longer, but a
+gentleman and kinsman, and to walk with papa and mamma,” said the
+children. And as soon as his dear mistress and children had left him to
+himself, it was with a heart overflowing with love and gratefulness that
+he flung himself down on his knees by the side of the little bed, and
+asked a blessing upon those who were so kind to him.
+
+The children, who are always house tell-tales, soon made him acquainted
+with the little history of the house and family. Papa had been to London
+twice. Papa often went away now. Papa had taken Beatrix to Westlands,
+where she was taller than Sir George Harper's second daughter, though
+she was two years older. Papa had taken Beatrix and Frank both to
+Bellminster, where Frank had got the better of Lord Bellminster's son in
+a boxing-match--my lord, laughing, told Harry afterwards. Many gentlemen
+came to stop with papa, and papa had gotten a new game from London,
+a French game, called a billiard--that the French king played it very
+well: and the Dowager Lady Castlewood had sent Miss Beatrix a present;
+and papa had gotten a new chaise, with two little horses, which he drove
+himself, beside the coach, which mamma went in; and Dr. Tusher was a
+cross old plague, and they did not like to learn from him at all; and
+papa did not care about them learning, and laughed when they were at
+their books, but mamma liked them to learn, and taught them; and “I
+don't think papa is fond of mamma,” said Miss Beatrix, with her great
+eyes. She had come quite close up to Harry Esmond by the time this
+prattle took place, and was on his knee, and had examined all the points
+of his dress, and all the good or bad features of his homely face.
+
+“You shouldn't say that papa is not fond of mamma,” said the boy, at
+this confession. “Mamma never said so; and mamma forbade you to say it,
+Miss Beatrix.”
+
+'Twas this, no doubt, that accounted for the sadness in Lady
+Castlewood's eyes, and the plaintive vibrations of her voice. Who
+does not know of eyes, lighted by love once, where the flame shines no
+more?--of lamps extinguished, once properly trimmed and tended? Every
+man has such in his house. Such mementoes make our splendidest chambers
+look blank and sad; such faces seen in a day cast a gloom upon our
+sunshine. So oaths mutually sworn, and invocations of heaven, and
+priestly ceremonies, and fond belief, and love, so fond and faithful
+that it never doubted but that it should live for ever, are all of no
+avail towards making love eternal: it dies, in spite of the banns and
+the priest; and I have often thought there should be a visitation of the
+sick for it, and a funeral service, and an extreme unction, and an
+abi in pace. It has its course, like all mortal things--its beginning,
+progress, and decay. It buds and it blooms out into sunshine, and it
+withers and ends. Strephon and Chloe languish apart; join in a rapture:
+and presently you hear that Chloe is crying, and Strephon has broken
+his crook across her back. Can you mend it so as to show no marks of
+rupture? Not all the priests of Hymen, not all the incantations to the
+gods, can make it whole!
+
+Waking up from dreams, books, and visions of college honors, in which
+for two years, Harry Esmond had been immersed, he found himself,
+instantly, on his return home, in the midst of this actual tragedy of
+life, which absorbed and interested him more than all his tutor had
+taught him. The persons whom he loved best in the world, and to whom he
+owed most, were living unhappily together. The gentlest and kindest of
+women was suffering ill usage and shedding tears in secret: the man who
+made her wretched by neglect, if not by violence, was Harry's benefactor
+and patron. In houses where, in place of that sacred, inmost flame
+of love, there is discord at the centre, the whole household becomes
+hypocritical, and each lies to his neighbor. The husband (or it may
+be the wife) lies when the visitor comes in, and wears a grin of
+reconciliation or politeness before him. The wife lies (indeed, her
+business is to do that, and to smile, however much she is beaten),
+swallows her tears, and lies to her lord and master; lies in bidding
+little Jackey respect dear papa; lies in assuring grandpapa that she
+is perfectly happy. The servants lie, wearing grave faces behind their
+master's chair, and pretending to be unconscious of the fighting;
+and so, from morning till bedtime, life is passed in falsehood. And
+wiseacres call this a proper regard of morals, and point out Baucis and
+Philemon as examples of a good life.
+
+If my lady did not speak of her griefs to Harry Esmond, my lord was
+by no means reserved when in his cups, and spoke his mind very freely,
+bidding Harry in his coarse way, and with his blunt language, beware
+of all women as cheats, jades, jilts, and using other unmistakable
+monosyllables in speaking of them. Indeed, 'twas the fashion of the day,
+as I must own; and there's not a writer of my time of any note, with the
+exception of poor Dick Steele, that does not speak of a woman as of
+a slave, and scorn and use her as such. Mr. Pope, Mr. Congreve, Mr.
+Addison, Mr. Gay, every one of 'em, sing in this key, each according to
+his nature and politeness, and louder and fouler than all in abuse is
+Dr. Swift, who spoke of them as he treated them, worst of all.
+
+Much of the quarrels and hatred which arise between married people come
+in my mind from the husband's rage and revolt at discovering that
+his slave and bedfellow, who is to minister to all his wishes, and is
+church-sworn to honor and obey him--is his superior; and that HE,
+and not she, ought to be the subordinate of the twain; and in these
+controversies, I think, lay the cause of my lord's anger against his
+lady. When he left her, she began to think for herself, and her thoughts
+were not in his favor. After the illumination, when the love-lamp is
+put out that anon we spoke of, and by the common daylight we look at the
+picture, what a daub it looks! what a clumsy effigy! How many men and
+wives come to this knowledge, think you? And if it be painful to a woman
+to find herself mated for life to a boor, and ordered to love and honor
+a dullard; it is worse still for the man himself perhaps, whenever in
+his dim comprehension the idea dawns that his slave and drudge yonder
+is, in truth, his superior; that the woman who does his bidding, and
+submits to his humor, should be his lord; that she can think a thousand
+things beyond the power of his muddled brains; and that in yonder head,
+on the pillow opposite to him, lie a thousand feelings, mysteries of
+thought, latent scorns and rebellions, whereof he only dimly perceives
+the existence as they look out furtively from her eyes: treasures of
+love doomed to perish without a hand to gather them; sweet fancies and
+images of beauty that would grow and unfold themselves into flower;
+bright wit that would shine like diamonds could it be brought into the
+sun: and the tyrant in possession crushes the outbreak of all these,
+drives them back like slaves into the dungeon and darkness, and chafes
+without that his prisoner is rebellious, and his sworn subject undutiful
+and refractory. So the lamp was out in Castlewood Hall, and the lord
+and lady there saw each other as they were. With her illness and altered
+beauty my lord's fire for his wife disappeared; with his selfishness and
+faithlessness her foolish fiction of love and reverence was rent away.
+Love!--who is to love what is base and unlovely? Respect!--who is to
+respect what is gross and sensual? Not all the marriage oaths sworn
+before all the parsons, cardinals, ministers, muftis, and rabbins in
+the world, can bind to that monstrous allegiance. This couple was living
+apart then; the woman happy to be allowed to love and tend her children
+(who were never of her own good-will away from her), and thankful to
+have saved such treasures as these out of the wreck in which the better
+part of her heart went down.
+
+These young ones had had no instructors save their mother, and Doctor
+Tusher for their theology occasionally, and had made more progress than
+might have been expected under a tutor so indulgent and fond as Lady
+Castlewood. Beatrix could sing and dance like a nymph. Her voice was
+her father's delight after dinner. She ruled over the house with little
+imperial ways, which her parents coaxed and laughed at. She had long
+learned the value of her bright eyes, and tried experiments in coquetry,
+in corpore vili, upon rustics and country squires, until she should
+prepare to conquer the world and the fashion. She put on a new ribbon to
+welcome Harry Esmond, made eyes at him, and directed her young smiles at
+him, not a little to the amusement of the young man, and the joy of her
+father, who laughed his great laugh, and encouraged her in her thousand
+antics. Lady Castlewood watched the child gravely and sadly: the
+little one was pert in her replies to her mother, yet eager in her
+protestations of love and promises of amendment; and as ready to cry
+(after a little quarrel brought on by her own giddiness) until she
+had won back her mamma's favor, as she was to risk the kind lady's
+displeasure by fresh outbreaks of restless vanity. From her mother's sad
+looks she fled to her father's chair and boozy laughter. She already
+set the one against the other: and the little rogue delighted in the
+mischief which she knew how to make so early.
+
+The young heir of Castlewood was spoiled by father and mother both. He
+took their caresses as men do, and as if they were his right. He had
+his hawks and his spaniel dog, his little horse and his beagles. He had
+learned to ride, and to drink, and to shoot flying: and he had a
+small court, the sons of the huntsman and woodman, as became the
+heir-apparent, taking after the example of my lord his father. If he had
+a headache, his mother was as much frightened as if the plague were in
+the house: my lord laughed and jeered in his abrupt way--(indeed, 'twas
+on the day after New Year's Day, and an excess of mince-pie)--and said
+with some of his usual oaths--“D--n it, Harry Esmond--you see how my
+lady takes on about Frank's megrim. She used to be sorry about me, my
+boy (pass the tankard, Harry), and to be frightened if I had a headache
+once. She don't care about my head now. They're like that--women
+are--all the same, Harry, all jilts in their hearts. Stick to
+college--stick to punch and buttery ale: and never see a woman that's
+handsomer than an old cinder-faced bed-maker. That's my counsel.”
+
+It was my lord's custom to fling out many jokes of this nature, in
+presence of his wife and children, at meals--clumsy sarcasms which my
+lady turned many a time, or which, sometimes, she affected not to hear,
+or which now and again would hit their mark and make the poor victim
+wince (as you could see by her flushing face and eyes filling with
+tears), or which again worked her up to anger and retort, when,
+in answer to one of these heavy bolts, she would flash back with a
+quivering reply. The pair were not happy; nor indeed was it happy to be
+with them. Alas that youthful love and truth should end in bitterness
+and bankruptcy! To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder;
+but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all.
+Harry Esmond became the confidant of one and the other--that is, my
+lord told the lad all his griefs and wrongs (which were indeed of Lord
+Castlewood's own making), and Harry divined my lady's; his affection
+leading him easily to penetrate the hypocrisy under which Lady
+Castlewood generally chose to go disguised, and see her heart aching
+whilst her face wore a smile. 'Tis a hard task for women in life, that
+mask which the world bids them wear. But there is no greater crime than
+for a woman who is ill used and unhappy to show that she is so. The
+world is quite relentless about bidding her to keep a cheerful face; and
+our women, like the Malabar wives, are forced to go smiling and painted
+to sacrifice themselves with their husbands; their relations being the
+most eager to push them on to their duty, and, under their shouts and
+applauses, to smother and hush their cries of pain.
+
+So, into the sad secret of his patron's household, Harry Esmond became
+initiated, he scarce knew how. It had passed under his eyes two years
+before, when he could not understand it; but reading, and thought, and
+experience of men, had oldened him; and one of the deepest sorrows of a
+life which had never, in truth, been very happy, came upon him now, when
+he was compelled to understand and pity a grief which he stood quite
+powerless to relieve.
+
+
+It hath been said my lord would never take the oath of allegiance, nor
+his seat as a peer of the kingdom of Ireland, where, indeed, he had but
+a nominal estate; and refused an English peerage which King William's
+government offered him as a bribe to secure his loyalty.
+
+He might have accepted this, and would doubtless, but for the earnest
+remonstrances of his wife, who ruled her husband's opinions better than
+she could govern his conduct, and who being a simple-hearted woman,
+with but one rule of faith and right, never thought of swerving from her
+fidelity to the exiled family, or of recognizing any other sovereign but
+King James; and though she acquiesced in the doctrine of obedience to
+the reigning power, no temptation, she thought, could induce her to
+acknowledge the Prince of Orange as rightful monarch, nor to let her
+lord so acknowledge him. So my Lord Castlewood remained a nonjuror all
+his life nearly, though his self-denial caused him many a pang, and left
+him sulky and out of humor.
+
+The year after the Revolution, and all through King William's life, 'tis
+known there were constant intrigues for the restoration of the exiled
+family; but if my Lord Castlewood took any share of these, as is
+probable, 'twas only for a short time, and when Harry Esmond was too
+young to be introduced into such important secrets.
+
+But in the year 1695, when that conspiracy of Sir John Fenwick, Colonel
+Lowick, and others, was set on foot, for waylaying King William as he
+came from Hampton Court to London, and a secret plot was formed, in
+which a vast number of the nobility and people of honor were engaged,
+Father Holt appeared at Castlewood, and brought a young friend with
+him, a gentleman whom 'twas easy to see that both my lord and the Father
+treated with uncommon deference. Harry Esmond saw this gentleman, and
+knew and recognized him in after life, as shall be shown in its place;
+and he has little doubt now that my Lord Viscount was implicated
+somewhat in the transactions which always kept Father Holt employed
+and travelling hither and thither under a dozen of different names and
+disguises. The Father's companion went by the name of Captain James;
+and it was under a very different name and appearance that Harry Esmond
+afterwards saw him.
+
+It was the next year that the Fenwick conspiracy blew up, which is a
+matter of public history now, and which ended in the execution of Sir
+John and many more, who suffered manfully for their treason, and who
+were attended to Tyburn by my lady's father Dean Armstrong, Mr.
+Collier, and other stout nonjuring clergymen, who absolved them at the
+gallows-foot.
+
+'Tis known that when Sir John was apprehended, discovery was made of a
+great number of names of gentlemen engaged in the conspiracy; when, with
+a noble wisdom and clemency, the Prince burned the list of conspirators
+furnished to him, and said he would know no more. Now it was after this
+that Lord Castlewood swore his great oath, that he would never, so
+help him heaven, be engaged in any transaction against that brave and
+merciful man; and so he told Holt when the indefatigable priest visited
+him, and would have had him engage in a farther conspiracy. After this
+my lord ever spoke of King William as he was--as one of the wisest, the
+bravest, and the greatest of men. My Lady Esmond (for her part) said she
+could never pardon the King, first, for ousting his father-in-law
+from his throne, and secondly, for not being constant to his wife, the
+Princess Mary. Indeed, I think if Nero were to rise again, and be king
+of England, and a good family man, the ladies would pardon him. My lord
+laughed at his wife's objections--the standard of virtue did not fit him
+much.
+
+The last conference which Mr. Holt had with his lordship took place when
+Harry was come home for his first vacation from college (Harry saw his
+old tutor but for a half-hour, and exchanged no private words with him),
+and their talk, whatever it might be, left my Lord Viscount very much
+disturbed in mind--so much so, that his wife, and his young kinsman,
+Henry Esmond, could not but observe his disquiet. After Holt was
+gone, my lord rebuffed Esmond, and again treated him with the greatest
+deference; he shunned his wife's questions and company, and looked at
+his children with such a face of gloom and anxiety, muttering, “Poor
+children--poor children!” in a way that could not but fill those whose
+life it was to watch him and obey him with great alarm. For which gloom,
+each person interested in the Lord Castlewood, framed in his or her own
+mind an interpretation.
+
+My lady, with a laugh of cruel bitterness said, “I suppose the person
+at Hexton has been ill, or has scolded him” (for my lord's infatuation
+about Mrs. Marwood was known only too well). Young Esmond feared for his
+money affairs, into the condition of which he had been initiated; and
+that the expenses, always greater than his revenue, had caused Lord
+Castlewood disquiet.
+
+One of the causes why my Lord Viscount had taken young Esmond into his
+special favor was a trivial one, that hath not before been mentioned,
+though it was a very lucky accident in Henry Esmond's life. A very few
+months after my lord's coming to Castlewood, in the winter time--the
+little boy, being a child in a petticoat, trotting about--it happened
+that little Frank was with his father after dinner, who fell asleep over
+his wine, heedless of the child, who crawled to the fire; and, as good
+fortune would have it, Esmond was sent by his mistress for the boy just
+as the poor little screaming urchin's coat was set on fire by a log;
+when Esmond, rushing forward, tore the dress off the infant, so that his
+own hands were burned more than the child's, who was frightened rather
+than hurt by this accident. But certainly 'twas providential that a
+resolute person should have come in at that instant, or the child had
+been burned to death probably, my lord sleeping very heavily after
+drinking, and not waking so cool as a man should who had a danger to
+face.
+
+Ever after this the father, loud in his expressions of remorse and
+humility for being a tipsy good-for-nothing, and of admiration for Harry
+Esmond, whom his lordship would style a hero for doing a very trifling
+service, had the tenderest regard for his son's preserver, and Harry
+became quite as one of the family. His burns were tended with the
+greatest care by his kind mistress, who said that heaven had sent him
+to be the guardian of her children, and that she would love him all her
+life.
+
+And it was after this, and from the very great love and tenderness which
+had grown up in this little household, rather than from the exhortations
+of Dean Armstrong (though these had no small weight with him), that
+Harry came to be quite of the religion of his house and his dear
+mistress, of which he has ever since been a professing member. As for
+Dr. Tusher's boasts that he was the cause of this conversion--even in
+these young days Mr. Esmond had such a contempt for the Doctor, that had
+Tusher bade him believe anything (which he did not--never meddling at
+all), Harry would that instant have questioned the truth on't.
+
+My lady seldom drank wine; but on certain days of the year, such as
+birthdays (poor Harry had never a one) and anniversaries, she took a
+little; and this day, the 29th December, was one. At the end, then, of
+this year, '96, it might have been a fortnight after Mr. Holt's last
+visit, Lord Castlewood being still very gloomy in mind, and sitting at
+table--my lady bidding a servant bring her a glass of wine, and looking
+at her husband with one of her sweet smiles, said--
+
+“My lord, will you not fill a bumper too, and let me call a toast?”
+
+“What is it, Rachel?” says he, holding out his empty glass to be filled.
+
+“'Tis the 29th of December,” says my lady, with her fond look of
+gratitude: “and my toast is, 'Harry--and God bless him, who saved my
+boy's life!'”
+
+My lord looked at Harry hard, and drank the glass, but clapped it down
+on the table in a moment, and, with a sort of groan, rose up, and went
+out of the room. What was the matter? We all knew that some great grief
+was over him.
+
+Whether my lord's prudence had made him richer, or legacies had fallen
+to him, which enabled him to support a greater establishment than that
+frugal one which had been too much for his small means, Harry Esmond
+knew not; but the house of Castlewood was now on a scale much more
+costly than it had been during the first years of his lordship's coming
+to the title. There were more horses in the stable and more servants in
+the hall, and many more guests coming and going now than formerly, when
+it was found difficult enough by the strictest economy to keep the house
+as befitted one of his lordship's rank, and the estate out of debt. And
+it did not require very much penetration to find that many of the new
+acquaintances at Castlewood were not agreeable to the lady there: not
+that she ever treated them or any mortal with anything but courtesy; but
+they were persons who could not be welcome to her; and whose society a
+lady so refined and reserved could scarce desire for her children. There
+came fuddling squires from the country round, who bawled their songs
+under her windows and drank themselves tipsy with my lord's punch and
+ale: there came officers from Hexton, in whose company our little lord
+was made to hear talk and to drink, and swear too, in a way that made
+the delicate lady tremble for her son. Esmond tried to console her by
+saying what he knew of his College experience; that with this sort
+of company and conversation a man must fall in sooner or later in his
+course through the world: and it mattered very little whether he heard
+it at twelve years old or twenty--the youths who quitted mother's
+apron-strings the latest being not uncommonly the wildest rakes. But it
+was about her daughter that Lady Castlewood was the most anxious,
+and the danger which she thought menaced the little Beatrix from the
+indulgences which her father gave her, (it must be owned that my lord,
+since these unhappy domestic differences especially, was at once violent
+in his language to the children when angry, as he was too familiar, not
+to say coarse, when he was in a good humor,) and from the company into
+which the careless lord brought the child.
+
+Not very far off from Castlewood is Sark Castle, where the Marchioness
+of Sark lived, who was known to have been a mistress of the late King
+Charles--and to this house, whither indeed a great part of the country
+gentry went, my lord insisted upon going, not only himself, but on
+taking his little daughter and son, to play with the children there. The
+children were nothing loth, for the house was splendid, and the welcome
+kind enough. But my lady, justly no doubt, thought that the children of
+such a mother as that noted Lady Sark had been, could be no good company
+for her two; and spoke her mind to her lord. His own language when he
+was thwarted was not indeed of the gentlest: to be brief, there was a
+family dispute on this, as there had been on many other points--and the
+lady was not only forced to give in, for the other's will was law--nor
+could she, on account of their tender age, tell her children what
+was the nature of her objection to their visit of pleasure, or indeed
+mention to them any objection at all--but she had the additional secret
+mortification to find them returning delighted with their new friends,
+loaded with presents from them, and eager to be allowed to go back to
+a place of such delights as Sark Castle. Every year she thought the
+company there would be more dangerous to her daughter, as from a child
+Beatrix grew to a woman, and her daily increasing beauty, and many
+faults of character too, expanded.
+
+It was Harry Esmond's lot to see one of the visits which the old Lady of
+Sark paid to the Lady of Castlewood Hall: whither she came in state with
+six chestnut horses and blue ribbons, a page on each carriage step, a
+gentleman of the horse, and armed servants riding before and behind her.
+And, but that it was unpleasant to see Lady Castlewood's face, it was
+amusing to watch the behavior of the two enemies: the frigid patience
+of the younger lady, and the unconquerable good-humor of the elder--who
+would see no offence whatever her rival intended, and who never ceased
+to smile and to laugh, and to coax the children, and to pay compliments
+to every man, woman, child, nay dog, or chair and table, in Castlewood,
+so bent was she upon admiring everything there. She lauded the children,
+and wished as indeed she well might--that her own family had been
+brought up as well as those cherubs. She had never seen such a
+complexion as dear Beatrix's--though to be sure she had a right to
+it from father and mother--Lady Castlewood's was indeed a wonder of
+freshness, and Lady Sark sighed to think she had not been born a fair
+woman; and remarking Harry Esmond, with a fascinating superannuated
+smile, she complimented him on his wit, which she said she could see
+from his eyes and forehead; and vowed that she would never have HIM at
+Sark until her daughter were out of the way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+MY LORD MOHUN COMES AMONG US FOR NO GOOD.
+
+
+There had ridden along with this old Princess's cavalcade, two
+gentlemen: her son, my Lord Firebrace, and his friend, my Lord Mohun,
+who both were greeted with a great deal of cordiality by the hospitable
+Lord of Castlewood. My Lord Firebrace was but a feeble-minded
+and weak-limbed young nobleman, small in stature and limited in
+understanding to judge from the talk young Esmond had with him; but
+the other was a person of a handsome presence, with the bel air, and a
+bright daring warlike aspect, which, according to the chronicle of those
+days, had already achieved for him the conquest of several beauties and
+toasts. He had fought and conquered in France, as well as in Flanders;
+he had served a couple of campaigns with the Prince of Baden on the
+Danube, and witnessed the rescue of Vienna from the Turk. And he spoke
+of his military exploits pleasantly, and with the manly freedom of a
+soldier, so as to delight all his hearers at Castlewood, who were little
+accustomed to meet a companion so agreeable.
+
+On the first day this noble company came, my lord would not hear of
+their departure before dinner, and carried away the gentlemen to amuse
+them, whilst his wife was left to do the honors of her house to the old
+Marchioness and her daughter within. They looked at the stables where my
+Lord Mohun praised the horses, though there was but a poor show there:
+they walked over the old house and gardens, and fought the siege of
+Oliver's time over again: they played a game of rackets in the old
+court, where my Lord Castlewood beat my Lord Mohun, who said he loved
+ball of all things, and would quickly come back to Castlewood for his
+revenge. After dinner they played bowls and drank punch in the green
+alley; and when they parted they were sworn friends, my Lord Castlewood
+kissing the other lord before he mounted on horseback, and pronouncing
+him the best companion he had met for many a long day. All night long,
+over his tobacco-pipe, Castlewood did not cease to talk to Harry Esmond
+in praise of his new friend, and in fact did not leave off speaking of
+him until his lordship was so tipsy that he could not speak plainly any
+more.
+
+At breakfast next day it was the same talk renewed; and when my lady
+said there was something free in the Lord Mohun's looks and manner of
+speech which caused her to mistrust him, her lord burst out with one of
+his laughs and oaths; said that he never liked man, woman, or beast,
+but what she was sure to be jealous of it; that Mohun was the prettiest
+fellow in England; that he hoped to see more of him whilst in the
+country; and that he would let Mohun know what my Lady Prude said of
+him.
+
+“Indeed,” Lady Castlewood said, “I liked his conversation well enough.
+'Tis more amusing than that of most people I know. I thought it, I own,
+too free; not from what he said, as rather from what he implied.”
+
+“Psha! your ladyship does not know the world,” said her husband; “and
+you have always been as squeamish as when you were a miss of fifteen.”
+
+“You found no fault when I was a miss at fifteen.”
+
+“Begad, madam, you are grown too old for a pinafore now; and I hold
+that 'tis for me to judge what company my wife shall see,” said my lord,
+slapping the table.
+
+“Indeed, Francis, I never thought otherwise,” answered my lady, rising
+and dropping him a curtsy, in which stately action, if there was
+obedience, there was defiance too; and in which a bystander, deeply
+interested in the happiness of that pair as Harry Esmond was, might see
+how hopelessly separated they were; what a great gulf of difference and
+discord had run between them.
+
+“By G-d! Mohun is the best fellow in England; and I'll invite him here,
+just to plague that woman. Did you ever see such a frigid insolence as
+it is, Harry? That's the way she treats me,” he broke out, storming, and
+his face growing red as he clenched his fists and went on. “I'm nobody
+in my own house. I'm to be the humble servant of that parson's daughter.
+By Jove! I'd rather she should fling the dish at my head than sneer at
+me as she does. She puts me to shame before the children with her d--d
+airs; and, I'll swear, tells Frank and Beaty that papa's a reprobate,
+and that they ought to despise me.”
+
+“Indeed and indeed, sir, I never heard her say a word but of respect
+regarding you,” Harry Esmond interposed.
+
+“No, curse it! I wish she would speak. But she never does. She
+scorns me, and holds her tongue. She keeps off from me, as if I was a
+pestilence. By George! she was fond enough of her pestilence once. And
+when I came a-courting, you would see miss blush--blush red, by George!
+for joy. Why, what do you think she said to me, Harry? She said herself,
+when I joked with her about her d--d smiling red cheeks: ''Tis as they
+do at St. James's; I put up my red flag when my king comes.' I was the
+king, you see, she meant. But now, sir, look at her! I believe she would
+be glad if I was dead; and dead I've been to her these five years--ever
+since you all of you had the small-pox: and she never forgave me for
+going away.”
+
+“Indeed, my lord, though 'twas hard to forgive, I think my mistress
+forgave it,” Harry Esmond said; “and remember how eagerly she watched
+your lordship's return, and how sadly she turned away when she saw your
+cold looks.”
+
+“Damme!” cries out my lord; “would you have had me wait and catch the
+small-pox? Where the deuce had been the good of that? I'll bear danger
+with any man--but not useless danger--no, no. Thank you for nothing.
+And--you nod your head, and I know very well, Parson Harry, what you
+mean. There was the--the other affair to make her angry. But is a woman
+never to forgive a husband who goes a-tripping? Do you take me for a
+saint?”
+
+“Indeed, sir, I do not,” says Harry, with a smile.
+
+“Since that time my wife's as cold as the statue at Charing Cross. I
+tell thee she has no forgiveness in her, Henry. Her coldness blights
+my whole life, and sends me to the punch-bowl, or driving about the
+country. My children are not mine, but hers, when we are together. 'Tis
+only when she is out of sight with her abominable cold glances, that
+run through me, that they'll come to me, and that I dare to give them so
+much as a kiss; and that's why I take 'em and love 'em in other people's
+houses, Harry. I'm killed by the very virtue of that proud woman.
+Virtue! give me the virtue that can forgive; give me the virtue that
+thinks not of preserving itself, but of making other folks happy.
+Damme, what matters a scar or two if 'tis got in helping a friend in ill
+fortune?”
+
+And my lord again slapped the table, and took a great draught from the
+tankard. Harry Esmond admired as he listened to him, and thought how the
+poor preacher of this self-sacrifice had fled from the small-pox, which
+the lady had borne so cheerfully, and which had been the cause of so
+much disunion in the lives of all in this house. “How well men preach,”
+ thought the young man, “and each is the example in his own sermon. How
+each has a story in a dispute, and a true one, too, and both are right
+or wrong as you will!” Harry's heart was pained within him, to watch the
+struggles and pangs that tore the breast of this kind, manly friend and
+protector.
+
+“Indeed, sir,” said he, “I wish to God that my mistress could hear you
+speak as I have heard you; she would know much that would make her life
+the happier, could she hear it.” But my lord flung away with one of his
+oaths, and a jeer; he said that Parson Harry was a good fellow; but that
+as for women, all women were alike--all jades and heartless. So a man
+dashes a fine vase down, and despises it for being broken. It may be
+worthless--true: but who had the keeping of it, and who shattered it?
+
+Harry, who would have given his life to make his benefactress and her
+husband happy, bethought him, now that he saw what my lord's state of
+mind was, and that he really had a great deal of that love left in his
+heart, and ready for his wife's acceptance if she would take it, whether
+he could not be a means of reconciliation between these two persons,
+whom he revered the most in the world. And he cast about how he should
+break a part of his mind to his mistress, and warn her that in his,
+Harry's opinion, at least, her husband was still her admirer, and even
+her lover.
+
+But he found the subject a very difficult one to handle, when he
+ventured to remonstrate, which he did in the very gravest tone, (for
+long confidence and reiterated proofs of devotion and loyalty had given
+him a sort of authority in the house, which he resumed as soon as ever
+he returned to it,) and with a speech that should have some effect, as,
+indeed, it was uttered with the speaker's own heart, he ventured most
+gently to hint to his adored mistress that she was doing her husband
+harm by her ill opinion of him, and that the happiness of all the family
+depended upon setting her right.
+
+She, who was ordinarily calm and most gentle, and full of smiles and
+soft attentions, flushed up when young Esmond so spoke to her, and rose
+from her chair, looking at him with a haughtiness and indignation that
+he had never before known her to display. She was quite an altered being
+for that moment; and looked an angry princess insulted by a vassal.
+
+“Have you ever heard me utter a word in my lord's disparagement?” she
+asked hastily, hissing out her words, and stamping her foot.
+
+“Indeed, no,” Esmond said, looking down.
+
+“Are you come to me as his ambassador--YOU?” she continued.
+
+“I would sooner see peace between you than anything else in the world,”
+ Harry answered, “and would go of any embassy that had that end.”
+
+“So YOU are my lord's go-between?” she went on, not regarding this
+speech. “You are sent to bid me back into slavery again, and inform me
+that my lord's favor is graciously restored to his handmaid? He is weary
+of Covent Garden, is he, that he comes home and would have the fatted
+calf killed?”
+
+“There's good authority for it, surely,” said Esmond.
+
+“For a son, yes; but my lord is not my son. It was he who cast me away
+from him. It was he who broke our happiness down, and he bids me to
+repair it. It was he who showed himself to me at last, as he was, not
+as I had thought him. It is he who comes before my children stupid and
+senseless with wine--who leaves our company for that of frequenters of
+taverns and bagnios--who goes from his home to the City yonder and his
+friends there, and when he is tired of them returns hither, and expects
+that I shall kneel and welcome him. And he sends YOU as his chamberlain!
+What a proud embassy! Monsieur, I make you my compliment of the new
+place.”
+
+“It would be a proud embassy, and a happy embassy too, could I bring you
+and my lord together,” Esmond replied.
+
+“I presume you have fulfilled your mission now, sir. 'Twas a pretty
+one for you to undertake. I don't know whether 'tis your Cambridge
+philosophy, or time, that has altered your ways of thinking,” Lady
+Castlewood continued, still in a sarcastic tone. “Perhaps you too have
+learned to love drink, and to hiccup over your wine or punch;--which is
+your worship's favorite liquor? Perhaps you too put up at the 'Rose'
+on your way to London, and have your acquaintances in Covent Garden. My
+services to you, sir, to principal and ambassador, to master and--and
+lackey.”
+
+“Great heavens! madam,” cried Harry. “What have I done that thus, for a
+second time, you insult me? Do you wish me to blush for what I used to
+be proud of, that I lived on your bounty? Next to doing you a service
+(which my life would pay for), you know that to receive one from you is
+my highest pleasure. What wrong have I done you that you should wound me
+so, cruel woman?”
+
+“What wrong?” she said, looking at Esmond with wild eyes. “Well,
+none--none that you know of, Harry, or could help. Why did you bring
+back the small-pox,” she added, after a pause, “from Castlewood village?
+You could not help it, could you? Which of us knows whither fate leads
+us? But we were all happy, Henry, till then.” And Harry went away from
+this colloquy, thinking still that the estrangement between his patron
+and his beloved mistress was remediable, and that each had at heart a
+strong attachment to the other.
+
+The intimacy between the Lords Mohun and Castlewood appeared to increase
+as long as the former remained in the country; and my Lord of Castlewood
+especially seemed never to be happy out of his new comrade's sight.
+They sported together, they drank, they played bowls and tennis: my Lord
+Castlewood would go for three days to Sark, and bring back my Lord Mohun
+to Castlewood--where indeed his lordship made himself very welcome to
+all persons, having a joke or a new game at romps for the children, all
+the talk of the town for my lord, and music and gallantry and plenty of
+the beau langage for my lady, and for Harry Esmond, who was never tired
+of hearing his stories of his campaigns and his life at Vienna, Venice,
+Paris, and the famous cities of Europe which he had visited both in
+peace and war. And he sang at my lady's harpsichord, and played cards
+or backgammon, or his new game of billiards with my lord (of whom he
+invariably got the better) always having a consummate good-humor, and
+bearing himself with a certain manly grace, that might exhibit somewhat
+of the camp and Alsatia perhaps, but that had its charm, and stamped
+him a gentleman: and his manner to Lady Castlewood was so devoted and
+respectful, that she soon recovered from the first feelings of dislike
+which she had conceived against him--nay, before long, began to be
+interested in his spiritual welfare, and hopeful of his conversion,
+lending him books of piety, which he promised dutifully to study. With
+her my lord talked of reform, of settling into quiet life, quitting the
+court and town, and buying some land in the neighborhood--though it
+must be owned that, when the two lords were together over their Burgundy
+after dinner, their talk was very different, and there was very little
+question of conversion on my Lord Mohun's part. When they got to their
+second bottle, Harry Esmond used commonly to leave these two noble
+topers, who, though they talked freely enough, heaven knows, in his
+presence (Good Lord, what a set of stories, of Alsatia and Spring
+Garden, of the taverns and gaming-houses, of the ladies of the
+court, and mesdames of the theatres, he can recall out of their godly
+conversation!)--although, I say, they talked before Esmond freely, yet
+they seemed pleased when he went away, and then they had another
+bottle, and then they fell to cards, and then my Lord Mohun came to her
+ladyship's drawing-room; leaving his boon companion to sleep off his
+wine.
+
+'Twas a point of honor with the fine gentlemen of those days to lose
+or win magnificently at their horse-matches, or games of cards and
+dice--and you could never tell, from the demeanor of these two lords
+afterwards, which had been successful and which the loser at their
+games. And when my lady hinted to my lord that he played more than she
+liked, he dismissed her with a “pish,” and swore that nothing was more
+equal than play betwixt gentlemen, if they did but keep it up long
+enough. And these kept it up long enough, you may be sure. A man of
+fashion of that time often passed a quarter of his day at cards, and
+another quarter at drink: I have known many a pretty fellow, who was
+a wit too, ready of repartee, and possessed of a thousand graces, who
+would be puzzled if he had to write more than his name.
+
+There is scarce any thoughtful man or woman, I suppose, but can look
+back upon his course of past life, and remember some point, trifling
+as it may have seemed at the time of occurrence, which has nevertheless
+turned and altered his whole career. 'Tis with almost all of us, as
+in M. Massillon's magnificent image regarding King William, a grain de
+sable that perverts or perhaps overthrows us; and so it was but a light
+word flung in the air, a mere freak of perverse child's temper, that
+brought down a whole heap of crushing woes upon that family whereof
+Harry Esmond formed a part.
+
+Coming home to his dear Castlewood in the third year of his academical
+course, (wherein he had now obtained some distinction, his Latin Poem
+on the death of the Duke of Gloucester, Princess Anne of Denmark's son,
+having gained him a medal, and introduced him to the society of the
+University wits,) Esmond found his little friend and pupil Beatrix grown
+to be taller than her mother, a slim and lovely young girl, with cheeks
+mantling with health and roses: with eyes like stars shining out
+of azure, with waving bronze hair clustered about the fairest young
+forehead ever seen: and a mien and shape haughty and beautiful, such
+as that of the famous antique statue of the huntress Diana--at one time
+haughty, rapid, imperious, with eyes and arrows that dart and kill.
+Harry watched and wondered at this young creature, and likened her in
+his mind to Artemis with the ringing bow and shafts flashing death upon
+the children of Niobe; at another time she was coy and melting as
+Luna shining tenderly upon Endymion. This fair creature, this lustrous
+Phoebe, was only young as yet, nor had nearly reached her full splendor:
+but crescent and brilliant, our young gentleman of the University, his
+head full of poetical fancies, his heart perhaps throbbing with desires
+undefined, admired this rising young divinity; and gazed at her (though
+only as at some “bright particular star,” far above his earth) with
+endless delight and wonder. She had been a coquette from the earliest
+times almost, trying her freaks and jealousies, her wayward frolics and
+winning caresses, upon all that came within her reach; she set her women
+quarrelling in the nursery, and practised her eyes on the groom as she
+rode behind him on the pillion.
+
+She was the darling and torment of father and mother. She intrigued with
+each secretly; and bestowed her fondness and withdrew it, plied them
+with tears, smiles, kisses, cajolements;--when the mother was angry, as
+happened often, flew to the father, and sheltering behind him, pursued
+her victim; when both were displeased, transferred her caresses to the
+domestics, or watched until she could win back her parents' good graces,
+either by surprising them into laughter and good-humor, or appeasing
+them by submission and artful humility. She was saevo laeta negotio,
+like that fickle goddess Horace describes, and of whose “malicious joy”
+ a great poet of our own has written so nobly--who, famous and heroic as
+he was, was not strong enough to resist the torture of women.
+
+It was but three years before that the child, then but ten years old,
+had nearly managed to make a quarrel between Harry Esmond and his
+comrade, good-natured, phlegmatic Thomas Tusher, who never of his own
+seeking quarrelled with anybody: by quoting to the latter some silly
+joke which Harry had made regarding him--(it was the merest idlest jest,
+though it near drove two old friends to blows, and I think such a battle
+would have pleased her)--and from that day Tom kept at a distance from
+her; and she respected him, and coaxed him sedulously whenever they met.
+But Harry was much more easily appeased, because he was fonder of the
+child: and when she made mischief, used cutting speeches, or caused her
+friends pain, she excused herself for her fault, not by admitting and
+deploring it, but by pleading not guilty, and asserting innocence so
+constantly, and with such seeming artlessness, that it was impossible to
+question her plea. In her childhood, they were but mischiefs then which
+she did; but her power became more fatal as she grew older--as a kitten
+first plays with a ball, and then pounces on a bird and kills it. 'Tis
+not to be imagined that Harry Esmond had all this experience at this
+early stage of his life, whereof he is now writing the history--many
+things here noted were but known to him in later days. Almost everything
+Beatrix did or undid seemed good, or at least pardonable, to him then,
+and years afterwards.
+
+It happened, then, that Harry Esmond came home to Castlewood for his
+last vacation, with good hopes of a fellowship at his college, and a
+contented resolve to advance his fortune that way. 'Twas in the first
+year of the present century, Mr. Esmond (as far as he knew the period of
+his birth) being then twenty-two years old. He found his quondam pupil
+shot up into this beauty of which we have spoken, and promising yet
+more: her brother, my lord's son, a handsome high-spirited brave lad,
+generous and frank, and kind to everybody, save perhaps his sister,
+with whom Frank was at war (and not from his but her fault)--adoring his
+mother, whose joy he was: and taking her side in the unhappy matrimonial
+differences which were now permanent, while of course Mistress Beatrix
+ranged with her father. When heads of families fall out, it must
+naturally be that their dependants wear the one or the other party's
+color; and even in the parliaments in the servants' hall or the stables,
+Harry, who had an early observant turn, could see which were my lord's
+adherents and which my lady's, and conjecture pretty shrewdly how their
+unlucky quarrel was debated. Our lackeys sit in judgment on us. My
+lord's intrigues may be ever so stealthily conducted, but his valet
+knows them; and my lady's woman carries her mistress's private history
+to the servants' scandal market, and exchanges it against the secrets of
+other abigails.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+MY LORD LEAVES US AND HIS EVIL BEHIND HIM.
+
+
+My Lord Mohun (of whose exploits and fame some of the gentlemen of the
+University had brought down but ugly reports) was once more a guest at
+Castlewood, and seemingly more intimately allied with my lord even than
+before. Once in the spring those two noblemen had ridden to Cambridge
+from Newmarket, whither they had gone for the horse-racing, and had
+honored Harry Esmond with a visit at his rooms; after which Doctor
+Montague, the master of the College, who had treated Harry somewhat
+haughtily, seeing his familiarity with these great folks, and that my
+Lord Castlewood laughed and walked with his hand on Harry's shoulder,
+relented to Mr. Esmond, and condescended to be very civil to him; and
+some days after his arrival, Harry, laughing, told this story to Lady
+Esmond, remarking how strange it was that men famous for learning and
+renowned over Europe, should, nevertheless, so bow down to a title, and
+cringe to a nobleman ever so poor. At this Mistress Beatrix flung up her
+head, and said it became those of low origin to respect their betters;
+that the parsons made themselves a great deal too proud, she thought;
+and that she liked the way at Lady Sark's best, where the chaplain,
+though he loved pudding, as all parsons do, always went away before the
+custard.
+
+“And when I am a parson,” says Mr. Esmond, “will you give me no custard,
+Beatrix?”
+
+“You--you are different,” Beatrix answered. “You are of our blood.”
+
+“My father was a parson, as you call him,” said my lady.
+
+“But mine is a peer of Ireland,” says Mistress Beatrix, tossing her
+head. “Let people know their places. I suppose you will have me go down
+on my knees and ask a blessing of Mr. Thomas Tusher, that has just been
+made a curate and whose mother was a waiting-maid.”
+
+And she tossed out of the room, being in one of her flighty humors then.
+
+When she was gone, my lady looked so sad and grave, that Harry asked
+the cause of her disquietude. She said it was not merely what he said
+of Newmarket, but what she had remarked, with great anxiety and
+terror, that my lord, ever since his acquaintance with the Lord
+Mohun especially, had recurred to his fondness for play, which he had
+renounced since his marriage.
+
+“But men promise more than they are able to perform in marriage,” said
+my lady, with a sigh. “I fear he has lost large sums; and our property,
+always small, is dwindling away under this reckless dissipation. I heard
+of him in London with very wild company. Since his return, letters
+and lawyers are constantly coming and going: he seems to me to have a
+constant anxiety, though he hides it under boisterousness and laughter.
+I looked through--through the door last night, and--and before,” said
+my lady, “and saw them at cards after midnight; no estate will bear that
+extravagance, much less ours, which will be so diminished that my son
+will have nothing at all, and my poor Beatrix no portion!”
+
+“I wish I could help you, madam,” said Harry Esmond, sighing, and
+wishing that unavailingly, and for the thousandth time in his life.
+
+“Who can? Only God,” said Lady Esmond--“only God, in whose hands we
+are.” And so it is, and for his rule over his family, and for
+his conduct to wife and children--subjects over whom his power is
+monarchical--any one who watches the world must think with trembling
+sometimes of the account which many a man will have to render. For in
+our society there's no law to control the King of the Fireside. He is
+master of property, happiness--life almost. He is free to punish,
+to make happy or unhappy--to ruin or to torture. He may kill a wife
+gradually, and be no more questioned than the Grand seignior who drowns
+a slave at midnight. He may make slaves and hypocrites of his children;
+or friends and freemen; or drive them into revolt and enmity against the
+natural law of love. I have heard politicians and coffee-house wiseacres
+talking over the newspaper, and railing at the tyranny of the French
+King, and the Emperor, and wondered how these (who are monarchs, too,
+in their way) govern their own dominions at home, where each man rules
+absolute. When the annals of each little reign are shown to the Supreme
+Master, under whom we hold sovereignty, histories will be laid bare of
+household tyrants as cruel as Amurath, and as savage as Nero, and as
+reckless and dissolute as Charles.
+
+If Harry Esmond's patron erred, 'twas in the latter way, from a
+disposition rather self-indulgent than cruel; and he might have been
+brought back to much better feelings, had time been given to him to
+bring his repentance to a lasting reform.
+
+As my lord and his friend Lord Mohun were such close companions,
+Mistress Beatrix chose to be jealous of the latter; and the two
+gentlemen often entertained each other by laughing, in their rude
+boisterous way, at the child's freaks of anger and show of dislike.
+“When thou art old enough, thou shalt marry Lord Mohun,” Beatrix's
+father would say: on which the girl would pout and say, “I would rather
+marry Tom Tusher.” And because the Lord Mohun always showed an extreme
+gallantry to my Lady Castlewood, whom he professed to admire devotedly,
+one day, in answer to this old joke of her father's, Beatrix said, “I
+think my lord would rather marry mamma than marry me; and is waiting
+till you die to ask her.”
+
+The words were said lightly and pertly by the girl one night before
+supper, as the family party were assembled near the great fire. The two
+lords, who were at cards, both gave a start; my lady turned as red as
+scarlet, and bade Mistress Beatrix go to her own chamber; whereupon the
+girl, putting on, as her wont was, the most innocent air, said, “I am
+sure I meant no wrong; I am sure mamma talks a great deal more to Harry
+Esmond than she does to papa--and she cried when Harry went away, and
+she never does when papa goes away! and last night she talked to Lord
+Mohun for ever so long, and sent us out of the room, and cried when we
+came back, and--”
+
+“D--n!” cried out my Lord Castlewood, out of all patience. “Go out of
+the room, you little viper!” and he started up and flung down his cards.
+
+“Ask Lord Mohun what I said to him, Francis,” her ladyship said, rising
+up with a scared face, but yet with a great and touching dignity and
+candor in her look and voice. “Come away with me, Beatrix.” Beatrix
+sprung up too; she was in tears now.
+
+“Dearest mamma, what have I done?” she asked. “Sure I meant no harm.”
+ And she clung to her mother, and the pair went out sobbing together.
+
+“I will tell you what your wife said to me, Frank,” my Lord Mohun cried.
+“Parson Harry may hear it; and, as I hope for heaven, every word I say
+is true. Last night, with tears in her eyes, your wife implored me to
+play no more with you at dice or at cards, and you know best whether
+what she asked was not for your good.”
+
+“Of course, it was, Mohun,” says my lord in a dry hard voice. “Of course
+you are a model of a man: and the world knows what a saint you are.”
+
+My Lord Mohun was separated from his wife, and had had many affairs of
+honor: of which women as usual had been the cause.
+
+“I am no saint, though your wife is--and I can answer for my actions as
+other people must for their words,” said my Lord Mohun.
+
+“By G--, my lord, you shall,” cried the other, starting up.
+
+“We have another little account to settle first, my lord,” says Lord
+Mohun. Whereupon Harry Esmond, filled with alarm for the consequences
+to which this disastrous dispute might lead, broke out into the most
+vehement expostulations with his patron and his adversary. “Gracious
+heavens!” he said, “my lord, are you going to draw a sword upon your
+friend in your own house? Can you doubt the honor of a lady who is as
+pure as heaven, and would die a thousand times rather than do you a
+wrong? Are the idle words of a jealous child to set friends at variance?
+Has not my mistress, as much as she dared do, besought your lordship, as
+the truth must be told, to break your intimacy with my Lord Mohun; and
+to give up the habit which may bring ruin on your family? But for my
+Lord Mohun's illness, had he not left you?”
+
+“'Faith, Frank, a man with a gouty toe can't run after other men's
+wives,” broke out my Lord Mohun, who indeed was in that way, and with
+a laugh and a look at his swathed limb so frank and comical, that the
+other dashing his fist across his forehead was caught by that infectious
+good-humor, and said with his oath, “---- it, Harry, I believe thee,”
+ and so this quarrel was over, and the two gentlemen, at swords drawn but
+just now, dropped their points, and shook hands.
+
+Beati pacifici. “Go, bring my lady back,” said Harry's patron. Esmond
+went away only too glad to be the bearer of such good news. He found her
+at the door; she had been listening there, but went back as he came. She
+took both his hands, hers were marble cold. She seemed as if she would
+fall on his shoulder. “Thank you, and God bless you, my dear brother
+Harry,” she said. She kissed his hand, Esmond felt her tears upon it:
+and leading her into the room, and up to my lord, the Lord Castlewood,
+with an outbreak of feeling and affection such as he had not exhibited
+for many a long day, took his wife to his heart, and bent over and
+kissed her and asked her pardon.
+
+“'Tis time for me to go to roost. I will have my gruel a-bed,” said my
+Lord Mohun: and limped off comically on Harry Esmond's arm. “By George,
+that woman is a pearl!” he said; “and 'tis only a pig that wouldn't
+value her. Have you seen the vulgar traipsing orange-girl whom
+Esmond”--but here Mr. Esmond interrupted him, saying, that these were
+not affairs for him to know.
+
+My lord's gentleman came in to wait upon his master, who was no sooner
+in his nightcap and dressing-gown than he had another visitor whom his
+host insisted on sending to him: and this was no other than the Lady
+Castlewood herself with the toast and gruel, which her husband bade her
+make and carry with her own hands in to her guest.
+
+Lord Castlewood stood looking after his wife as she went on this errand,
+and as he looked, Harry Esmond could not but gaze on him, and remarked
+in his patron's face an expression of love, and grief, and care, which
+very much moved and touched the young man. Lord Castlewood's hands fell
+down at his sides, and his head on his breast, and presently he said,--
+
+“You heard what Mohun said, parson?”
+
+“That my lady was a saint?”
+
+“That there are two accounts to settle. I have been going wrong these
+five years, Harry Esmond. Ever since you brought that damned small-pox
+into the house, there has been a fate pursuing me, and I had best have
+died of it, and not run away from it like a coward. I left Beatrix with
+her relations, and went to London; and I fell among thieves, Harry, and
+I got back to confounded cards and dice, which I hadn't touched since
+my marriage--no, not since I was in the Duke's Guard, with those wild
+Mohocks. And I have been playing worse and worse, and going deeper and
+deeper into it; and I owe Mohun two thousand pounds now; and when it's
+paid I am little better than a beggar. I don't like to look my boy in
+the face; he hates me, I know he does. And I have spent Beaty's little
+portion: and the Lord knows what will come if I live; the best thing I
+can do is to die, and release what portion of the estate is redeemable
+for the boy.”
+
+Mohun was as much master at Castlewood as the owner of the Hall itself;
+and his equipages filled the stables, where, indeed, there was room
+and plenty for many more horses than Harry Esmond's impoverished patron
+could afford to keep. He had arrived on horseback with his people; but
+when his gout broke out my Lord Mohun sent to London for a light chaise
+he had, drawn by a pair of small horses, and running as swift, wherever
+roads were good, as a Laplander's sledge. When this carriage came, his
+lordship was eager to drive the Lady Castlewood abroad in it, and did so
+many times, and at a rapid pace, greatly to his companion's enjoyment,
+who loved the swift motion and the healthy breezes over the downs which
+lie hard upon Castlewood, and stretch thence towards the sea. As this
+amusement was very pleasant to her, and her lord, far from showing
+any mistrust of her intimacy with Lord Mohun, encouraged her to be his
+companion--as if willing by his present extreme confidence to make up
+for any past mistrust which his jealousy had shown--the Lady Castlewood
+enjoyed herself freely in this harmless diversion, which, it must be
+owned, her guest was very eager to give her; and it seemed that she grew
+the more free with Lord Mohun, and pleased with his company, because of
+some sacrifice which his gallantry was pleased to make in her favor.
+
+Seeing the two gentlemen constantly at cards still of evenings, Harry
+Esmond one day deplored to his mistress that this fatal infatuation
+of her lord should continue; and now they seemed reconciled together,
+begged his lady to hint to her husband that he should play no more.
+
+But Lady Castlewood, smiling archly and gayly, said she would speak to
+him presently, and that, for a few nights more at least, he might be let
+to have his amusement.
+
+“Indeed, madam,” said Harry, “you know not what it costs you; and 'tis
+easy for any observer who knows the game, to see that Lord Mohun is by
+far the stronger of the two.”
+
+“I know he is,” says my lady, still with exceeding good-humor; “he is
+not only the best player, but the kindest player in the world.”
+
+“Madam, madam!” Esmond cried, transported and provoked. “Debts of honor
+must be paid some time or other; and my master will be ruined if he goes
+on.”
+
+“Harry, shall I tell you a secret?” my lady replied, with kindness and
+pleasure still in her eyes. “Francis will not be ruined if he goes on;
+he will be rescued if he goes on. I repent of having spoken and thought
+unkindly of the Lord Mohun when he was here in the past year. He is full
+of much kindness and good; and 'tis my belief that we shall bring him
+to better things. I have lent him 'Tillotson' and your favorite
+'Bishop Taylor,' and he is much touched, he says; and as a proof of his
+repentance--(and herein lies my secret)--what do you think he is doing
+with Francis? He is letting poor Frank win his money back again. He hath
+won already at the last four nights; and my Lord Mohun says that he will
+not be the means of injuring poor Frank and my dear children.”
+
+“And in God's name, what do you return him for the sacrifice?” asked
+Esmond, aghast; who knew enough of men, and of this one in particular,
+to be aware that such a finished rake gave nothing for nothing. “How, in
+heaven's name, are you to pay him?”
+
+“Pay him! With a mother's blessing and a wife's prayers!” cries my lady,
+clasping her hands together. Harry Esmond did not know whether to
+laugh, to be angry, or to love his dear mistress more than ever for the
+obstinate innocency with which she chose to regard the conduct of a man
+of the world, whose designs he knew better how to interpret. He told the
+lady, guardedly, but so as to make his meaning quite clear to her, what
+he knew in respect of the former life and conduct of this nobleman; of
+other women against whom he had plotted, and whom he had overcome;
+of the conversation which he, Harry himself, had had with Lord Mohun,
+wherein the lord made a boast of his libertinism, and frequently avowed
+that he held all women to be fair game (as his lordship styled this
+pretty sport), and that they were all, without exception, to be won. And
+the return Harry had for his entreaties and remonstrances was a fit
+of anger on Lady Castlewood's part, who would not listen to his
+accusations; she said and retorted that he himself must be very wicked
+and perverted to suppose evil designs where she was sure none were
+meant. “And this is the good meddlers get of interfering,” Harry thought
+to himself with much bitterness; and his perplexity and annoyance were
+only the greater, because he could not speak to my Lord Castlewood
+himself upon a subject of this nature, or venture to advise or warn him
+regarding a matter so very sacred as his own honor, of which my lord was
+naturally the best guardian.
+
+But though Lady Castlewood would listen to no advice from her young
+dependant, and appeared indignantly to refuse it when offered, Harry
+had the satisfaction to find that she adopted the counsel which she
+professed to reject; for the next day she pleaded a headache, when my
+Lord Mohun would have had her drive out, and the next day the headache
+continued; and next day, in a laughing gay way, she proposed that the
+children should take her place in his lordship's car, for they would
+be charmed with a ride of all things; and she must not have all the
+pleasure for herself. My lord gave them a drive with a very good grace,
+though, I dare say, with rage and disappointment inwardly--not that his
+heart was very seriously engaged in his designs upon this simple lady:
+but the life of such men is often one of intrigue, and they can no more
+go through the day without a woman to pursue, than a fox-hunter without
+his sport after breakfast.
+
+Under an affected carelessness of demeanor, and though there was no
+outward demonstration of doubt upon his patron's part since the quarrel
+between the two lords, Harry yet saw that Lord Castlewood was watching
+his guest very narrowly; and caught sight of distrust and smothered rage
+(as Harry thought) which foreboded no good. On the point of honor Esmond
+knew how touchy his patron was; and watched him almost as a physician
+watches a patient, and it seemed to him that this one was slow to take
+the disease, though he could not throw off the poison when once it had
+mingled with his blood. We read in Shakspeare (whom the writer for his
+part considers to be far beyond Mr. Congreve, Mr. Dryden, or any of the
+wits of the present period,) that when jealousy is once declared, nor
+poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy syrups of the East, will ever
+soothe it or medicine it away.
+
+In fine, the symptoms seemed to be so alarming to this young physician
+(who, indeed, young as he was, had felt the kind pulses of all those
+dear kinsmen), that Harry thought it would be his duty to warn my Lord
+Mohun, and let him know that his designs were suspected and watched. So
+one day, when in rather a pettish humor his lordship had sent to Lady
+Castlewood, who had promised to drive with him, and now refused to come,
+Harry said--“My lord, if you will kindly give me a place by your side
+I will thank you; I have much to say to you, and would like to speak to
+you alone.”
+
+“You honor me by giving me your confidence, Mr. Henry Esmond,” says the
+other, with a very grand bow. My lord was always a fine gentleman, and
+young as he was there was that in Esmond's manner which showed that he
+was a gentleman too, and that none might take a liberty with him--so the
+pair went out, and mounted the little carriage, which was in waiting for
+them in the court, with its two little cream-colored Hanoverian horses
+covered with splendid furniture and champing at the bit.
+
+“My lord,” says Harry Esmond, after they were got into the country, and
+pointing to my Lord Mohun's foot, which was swathed in flannel, and put
+up rather ostentatiously on a cushion--“my lord, I studied medicine at
+Cambridge.”
+
+“Indeed, Parson Harry,” says he; “and are you going to take out a
+diploma: and cure your fellow-students of the--”
+
+“Of the gout,” says Harry, interrupting him, and looking him hard in the
+face; “I know a good deal about the gout.”
+
+“I hope you may never have it. 'Tis an infernal disease,” says my lord,
+“and its twinges are diabolical. Ah!” and he made a dreadful wry face,
+as if he just felt a twinge.
+
+“Your lordship would be much better if you took off all that flannel--it
+only serves to inflame the toe,” Harry continued, looking his man full
+in the face.
+
+“Oh! it only serves to inflame the toe, does it?” says the other, with
+an innocent air.
+
+“If you took off that flannel, and flung that absurd slipper away, and
+wore a boot,” continues Harry.
+
+“You recommend me boots, Mr. Esmond?” asks my lord.
+
+“Yes, boots and spurs. I saw your lordship three days ago run down the
+gallery fast enough,” Harry goes on. “I am sure that taking gruel at
+night is not so pleasant as claret to your lordship; and besides it
+keeps your lordship's head cool for play, whilst my patron's is hot and
+flustered with drink.”
+
+“'Sdeath, sir, you dare not say that I don't play fair?” cries my lord,
+whipping his horses, which went away at a gallop.
+
+“You are cool when my lord is drunk,” Harry continued; “your lordship
+gets the better of my patron. I have watched you as I looked up from my
+books.”
+
+“You young Argus!” says Lord Mohun, who liked Harry Esmond--and for
+whose company and wit, and a certain daring manner, Harry had a great
+liking too--“You young Argus! you may look with all your hundred eyes
+and see we play fair. I've played away an estate of a night, and I've
+played my shirt off my back; and I've played away my periwig and gone
+home in a nightcap. But no man can say I ever took an advantage of him
+beyond the advantage of the game. I played a dice-cogging scoundrel in
+Alsatia for his ears and won 'em, and have one of 'em in my lodging in
+Bow Street in a bottle of spirits. Harry Mohun will play any man for
+anything--always would.”
+
+“You are playing awful stakes, my lord, in my patron's house,” Harry
+said, “and more games than are on the cards.”
+
+“What do you mean, sir?” cries my lord, turning round, with a flush on
+his face.
+
+“I mean,” answers Harry, in a sarcastic tone, “that your gout is
+well--if ever you had it.”
+
+“Sir!” cried my lord, getting hot.
+
+“And to tell the truth I believe your lordship has no more gout than I
+have. At any rate, change of air will do you good, my Lord Mohun. And I
+mean fairly that you had better go from Castlewood.”
+
+“And were you appointed to give me this message?” cries the Lord Mohun.
+“Did Frank Esmond commission you?”
+
+“No one did. 'Twas the honor of my family that commissioned me.”
+
+“And you are prepared to answer this?” cries the other, furiously
+lashing his horses.
+
+“Quite, my lord: your lordship will upset the carriage if you whip so
+hotly.”
+
+“By George, you have a brave spirit!” my lord cried out, bursting into a
+laugh. “I suppose 'tis that infernal botte de Jesuite that makes you so
+bold,” he added.
+
+“'Tis the peace of the family I love best in the world,” Harry Esmond
+said warmly--“'tis the honor of a noble benefactor--the happiness of my
+dear mistress and her children. I owe them everything in life, my lord;
+and would lay it down for any one of them. What brings you here to
+disturb this quiet household? What keeps you lingering month after month
+in the country? What makes you feign illness, and invent pretexts for
+delay? Is it to win my poor patron's money? Be generous, my lord, and
+spare his weakness for the sake of his wife and children. Is it to
+practise upon the simple heart of a virtuous lady? You might as well
+storm the Tower single-handed. But you may blemish her name by light
+comments on it, or by lawless pursuits--and I don't deny that 'tis in
+your power to make her unhappy. Spare these innocent people, and leave
+them.”
+
+“By the Lord, I believe thou hast an eye to the pretty Puritan thyself,
+Master Harry,” says my lord, with his reckless, good-humored laugh, and
+as if he had been listening with interest to the passionate appeal of
+the young man. “Whisper, Harry. Art thou in love with her thyself? Hath
+tipsy Frank Esmond come by the way of all flesh?”
+
+“My lord, my lord,” cried Harry, his face flushing and his eyes filling
+as he spoke, “I never had a mother, but I love this lady as one. I
+worship her as a devotee worships a saint. To hear her name spoken
+lightly seems blasphemy to me. Would you dare think of your own mother
+so, or suffer any one so to speak of her? It is a horror to me to fancy
+that any man should think of her impurely. I implore you, I beseech you,
+to leave her. Danger will come out of it.”
+
+“Danger, psha!” says my lord, giving a cut to the horses, which at this
+minute--for we were got on to the Downs--fairly ran off into a gallop
+that no pulling could stop. The rein broke in Lord Mohun's hands, and
+the furious beasts scampered madly forwards, the carriage swaying to
+and fro, and the persons within it holding on to the sides as best
+they might, until seeing a great ravine before them, where an upset was
+inevitable, the two gentlemen leapt for their lives, each out of his
+side of the chaise. Harry Esmond was quit for a fall on the grass, which
+was so severe that it stunned him for a minute; but he got up presently
+very sick, and bleeding at the nose, but with no other hurt. The Lord
+Mohun was not so fortunate; he fell on his head against a stone, and lay
+on the ground, dead to all appearance.
+
+This misadventure happened as the gentlemen were on their return
+homewards; and my Lord Castlewood, with his son and daughter, who were
+going out for a ride, met the ponies as they were galloping with the car
+behind, the broken traces entangling their heels, and my lord's people
+turned and stopped them. It was young Frank who spied out Lord Mohun's
+scarlet coat as he lay on the ground, and the party made up to that
+unfortunate gentleman and Esmond, who was now standing over him. His
+large periwig and feathered hat had fallen off, and he was bleeding
+profusely from a wound on the forehead, and looking, and being, indeed,
+a corpse.
+
+“Great God! he's dead!” says my lord. “Ride, some one: fetch a
+doctor--stay. I'll go home and bring back Tusher; he knows surgery,” and
+my lord, with his son after him, galloped away.
+
+They were scarce gone when Harry Esmond, who was indeed but just come to
+himself, bethought him of a similar accident which he had seen on a ride
+from Newmarket to Cambridge, and taking off a sleeve of my lord's
+coat, Harry, with a penknife, opened a vein of his arm, and was greatly
+relieved, after a moment, to see the blood flow. He was near half an
+hour before he came to himself, by which time Doctor Tusher and little
+Frank arrived, and found my lord not a corpse indeed, but as pale as
+one.
+
+After a time, when he was able to bear motion, they put my lord upon
+a groom's horse, and gave the other to Esmond, the men walking on each
+side of my lord, to support him, if need were, and worthy Doctor Tusher
+with them. Little Frank and Harry rode together at a foot pace.
+
+When we rode together home, the boy said: “We met mamma, who was walking
+on the terrace with the doctor, and papa frightened her, and told her
+you were dead . . .”
+
+“That I was dead!” asks Harry.
+
+“Yes. Papa says: 'Here's poor Harry killed, my dear;' on which mamma
+gives a great scream; and oh, Harry! she drops down; and I thought she
+was dead too. And you never saw such a way as papa was in: he swore one
+of his great oaths: and he turned quite pale; and then he began to laugh
+somehow, and he told the Doctor to take his horse, and me to follow him;
+and we left him. And I looked back, and saw him dashing water out of the
+fountain on to mamma. Oh, she was so frightened!”
+
+Musing upon this curious history--for my Lord Mohun's name was Henry
+too, and they called each other Frank and Harry often--and not a little
+disturbed and anxious, Esmond rode home. His dear lady was on the
+terrace still, one of her women with her, and my lord no longer there.
+There are steps and a little door thence down into the road. My lord
+passed, looking very ghastly, with a handkerchief over his head, and
+without his hat and periwig, which a groom carried, but his politeness
+did not desert him, and he made a bow to the lady above.
+
+“Thank heaven, you are safe,” she said.
+
+“And so is Harry too, mamma,” says little Frank,--“huzzay!”
+
+Harry Esmond got off the horse to run to his mistress, as did little
+Frank, and one of the grooms took charge of the two beasts, while the
+other, hat and periwig in hand, walked by my lord's bridle to the front
+gate, which lay half a mile away.
+
+“Oh, my boy! what a fright you have given me!” Lady Castlewood said,
+when Harry Esmond came up, greeting him with one of her shining looks,
+and a voice of tender welcome; and she was so kind as to kiss the young
+man ['twas the second time she had so honored him), and she walked into
+the house between him and her son, holding a hand of each.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+WE RIDE AFTER HIM TO LONDON.
+
+
+After a repose of a couple of days, the Lord Mohun was so far recovered
+of his hurt as to be able to announce his departure for the next
+morning; when, accordingly, he took leave of Castlewood, proposing to
+ride to London by easy stages, and lie two nights upon the road. His
+host treated him with a studied and ceremonious courtesy, certainly
+different from my lord's usual frank and careless demeanor; but there
+was no reason to suppose that the two lords parted otherwise than good
+friends, though Harry Esmond remarked that my Lord Viscount only saw
+his guest in company with other persons, and seemed to avoid being alone
+with him. Nor did he ride any distance with Lord Mohun, as his custom
+was with most of his friends, whom he was always eager to welcome and
+unwilling to lose; but contented himself, when his lordship's horses
+were announced, and their owner appeared, booted for his journey, to
+take a courteous leave of the ladies of Castlewood, by following the
+Lord Mohun down stairs to his horses, and by bowing and wishing him
+a good-day, in the court-yard. “I shall see you in London before very
+long, Mohun,” my lord said, with a smile, “when we will settle our
+accounts together.”
+
+“Do not let them trouble you, Frank,” said the other good-naturedly, and
+holding out his hand, looked rather surprised at the grim and stately
+manner in which his host received his parting salutation; and so,
+followed by his people, he rode away.
+
+Harry Esmond was witness of the departure. It was very different to my
+lord's coming, for which great preparation had been made (the old house
+putting on its best appearance to welcome its guest), and there was
+a sadness and constraint about all persons that day, which filled Mr.
+Esmond with gloomy forebodings, and sad indefinite apprehensions. Lord
+Castlewood stood at the door watching his guest and his people as they
+went out under the arch of the outer gate. When he was there, Lord Mohun
+turned once more, my Lord Viscount slowly raised his beaver and bowed.
+His face wore a peculiar livid look, Harry thought. He cursed and kicked
+away his dogs, which came jumping about him--then he walked up to the
+fountain in the centre of the court, and leaned against a pillar and
+looked into the basin. As Esmond crossed over to his own room, late the
+chaplain's, on the other side of the court, and turned to enter in at
+the low door, he saw Lady Castlewood looking through the curtains of
+the great window of the drawing-room overhead, at my lord as he stood
+regarding the fountain. There was in the court a peculiar silence
+somehow; and the scene remained long in Esmond's memory:--the sky bright
+overhead; the buttresses of the building and the sun-dial casting shadow
+over the gilt memento mori inscribed underneath; the two dogs, a black
+greyhound and a spaniel nearly white, the one with his face up to the
+sun, and the other snuffing amongst the grass and stones, and my lord
+leaning over the fountain, which was bubbling audibly. 'Tis strange how
+that scene, and the sound of that fountain, remain fixed on the memory
+of a man who has beheld a hundred sights of splendor, and danger too, of
+which he has kept no account.
+
+It was Lady Castlewood--she had been laughing all the morning, and
+especially gay and lively before her husband and his guest--who as soon
+as the two gentlemen went together from her room, ran to Harry, the
+expression of her countenance quite changed now, and with a face and
+eyes full of care, and said, “Follow them, Harry, I am sure something
+has gone wrong.” And so it was that Esmond was made an eavesdropper at
+this lady's orders and retired to his own chamber, to give himself time
+in truth to try and compose a story which would soothe his mistress, for
+he could not but have his own apprehension that some serious quarrel was
+pending between the two gentlemen.
+
+And now for several days the little company at Castlewood sat at
+table as of evenings: this care, though unnamed and invisible, being
+nevertheless present alway, in the minds of at least three persons
+there. My lord was exceeding gentle and kind. Whenever he quitted the
+room, his wife's eyes followed him. He behaved to her with a kind of
+mournful courtesy and kindness remarkable in one of his blunt ways and
+ordinary rough manner. He called her by her Christian name often and
+fondly, was very soft and gentle with the children, especially with the
+boy, whom he did not love, and being lax about church generally, he went
+thither and performed all the offices (down even to listening to Dr.
+Tusher's sermon) with great devotion.
+
+“He paces his room all night; what is it? Henry, find out what it is,”
+ Lady Castlewood said constantly to her young dependant. “He has sent
+three letters to London,” she said, another day.
+
+“Indeed, madam, they were to a lawyer,” Harry answered, who knew of
+these letters, and had seen a part of the correspondence, which related
+to a new loan my lord was raising; and when the young man remonstrated
+with his patron, my lord said, “He was only raising money to pay off an
+old debt on the property, which must be discharged.”
+
+Regarding the money, Lady Castlewood was not in the least anxious. Few
+fond women feel money-distressed; indeed you can hardly give a woman
+a greater pleasure than to bid her pawn her diamonds for the man she
+loves; and I remember hearing Mr. Congreve say of my Lord Marlborough,
+that the reason why my lord was so successful with women as a young man,
+was because he took money of them. “There are few men who will make such
+a sacrifice for them,” says Mr. Congreve, who knew a part of the sex
+pretty well.
+
+Harry Esmond's vacation was just over, and, as hath been said, he was
+preparing to return to the University for his last term before taking
+his degree and entering into the Church. He had made up his mind for
+this office, not indeed with that reverence which becomes a man about to
+enter upon a duty so holy, but with a worldly spirit of acquiescence
+in the prudence of adopting that profession for his calling. But his
+reasoning was that he owed all to the family of Castlewood, and loved
+better to be near them than anywhere else in the world; that he might
+be useful to his benefactors, who had the utmost confidence in him and
+affection for him in return; that he might aid in bringing up the young
+heir of the house and acting as his governor; that he might continue to
+be his dear patron's and mistress's friend and adviser, who both were
+pleased to say that they should ever look upon him as such; and so, by
+making himself useful to those he loved best, he proposed to console
+himself for giving up of any schemes of ambition which he might have had
+in his own bosom. Indeed, his mistress had told him that she would not
+have him leave her; and whatever she commanded was will to him.
+
+The Lady Castlewood's mind was greatly relieved in the last few days of
+this well-remembered holiday time, by my lord's announcing one morning,
+after the post had brought him letters from London, in a careless tone,
+that the Lord Mohun was gone to Paris, and was about to make a great
+journey in Europe; and though Lord Castlewood's own gloom did not wear
+off, or his behavior alter, yet this cause of anxiety being removed from
+his lady's mind, she began to be more hopeful and easy in her spirits,
+striving too, with all her heart, and by all the means of soothing in
+her power, to call back my lord's cheerfulness and dissipate his moody
+humor.
+
+He accounted for it himself, by saying that he was out of health; that
+he wanted to see his physician; that he would go to London, and consult
+Doctor Cheyne. It was agreed that his lordship and Harry Esmond should
+make the journey as far as London together; and of a Monday morning, the
+11th of October, in the year 1700, they set forwards towards London on
+horseback. The day before being Sunday, and the rain pouring down, the
+family did not visit church; and at night my lord read the service
+to his family very finely, and with a peculiar sweetness and
+gravity--speaking the parting benediction, Harry thought, as solemn
+as ever he heard it. And he kissed and embraced his wife and children
+before they went to their own chambers with more fondness than he was
+ordinarily wont to show, and with a solemnity and feeling of which they
+thought in after days with no small comfort.
+
+They took horse the next morning (after adieux from the family as tender
+as on the night previous), lay that night on the road, and entered
+London at nightfall; my lord going to the “Trumpet,” in the Cockpit,
+Whitehall, a house used by the military in his time as a young man, and
+accustomed by his lordship ever since.
+
+An hour after my lord's arrival (which showed that his visit had been
+arranged beforehand), my lord's man of business arrived from Gray's Inn;
+and thinking that his patron might wish to be private with the lawyer,
+Esmond was for leaving them: but my lord said his business was short;
+introduced Mr. Esmond particularly to the lawyer, who had been engaged
+for the family in the old lord's time; who said that he had paid the
+money, as desired that day, to my Lord Mohun himself, at his lodgings in
+Bow Street; that his lordship had expressed some surprise, as it was not
+customary to employ lawyers, he said, in such transactions between men
+of honor; but nevertheless, he had returned my Lord Viscount's note of
+hand, which he held at his client's disposition.
+
+“I thought the Lord Mohun had been in Paris!” cried Mr. Esmond, in great
+alarm and astonishment.
+
+“He is come back at my invitation,” said my Lord Viscount. “We have
+accounts to settle together.”
+
+“I pray heaven they are over, sir,” says Esmond.
+
+“Oh, quite,” replied the other, looking hard at the young man. “He was
+rather troublesome about that money which I told you I had lost to him
+at play. And now 'tis paid, and we are quits on that score, and we shall
+meet good friends again.”
+
+“My lord,” cried out Esmond, “I am sure you are deceiving me, and that
+there is a quarrel between the Lord Mohun and you.”
+
+“Quarrel--pish! We shall sup together this very night, and drink a
+bottle. Every man is ill-humored who loses such a sum as I have lost.
+But now 'tis paid, and my anger is gone with it.”
+
+“Where shall we sup, sir?” says Harry.
+
+“WE! Let some gentlemen wait till they are asked,” says my Lord Viscount
+with a laugh. “You go to Duke Street, and see Mr. Betterton. You love
+the play, I know. Leave me to follow my own devices: and in the morning
+we'll breakfast together, with what appetite we may, as the play says.”
+
+“By G--! my lord, I will not leave you this night,” says Harry Esmond.
+“I think I know the cause of your dispute. I swear to you 'tis nothing.
+On the very day the accident befell Lord Mohun, I was speaking to him
+about it. I know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry on his
+part.”
+
+“You know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry between Lord Mohun
+and my wife,” says my lord, in a thundering voice--“you knew of this and
+did not tell me?”
+
+“I knew more of it than my dear mistress did herself, sir--a thousand
+times more. How was she, who was as innocent as a child, to know what
+was the meaning of the covert addresses of a villain?”
+
+“A villain he is, you allow, and would have taken my wife away from me.”
+
+“Sir, she is as pure as an angel,” cried young Esmond.
+
+“Have I said a word against her?” shrieks out my lord. “Did I ever doubt
+that she was pure? It would have been the last day of her life when
+I did. Do you fancy I think that SHE would go astray? No, she hasn't
+passion enough for that. She neither sins nor forgives. I know her
+temper--and now I've lost her, by heaven I love her ten thousand times
+more than ever I did--yes, when she was as young and as beautiful as an
+angel--when she smiled at me in her old father's house, and used to lie
+in wait for me there as I came from hunting--when I used to fling my
+head down on her little knees and cry like a child on her lap--and swear
+I would reform, and drink no more and play no more, and follow women no
+more; when all the men of the Court used to be following her--when she
+used to look with her child more beautiful, by George, than the Madonna
+in the Queen's Chapel. I am not good like her, I know it. Who is--by
+heaven, who is? I tired and wearied her, I know that very well. I
+could not talk to her. You men of wit and books could do that, and I
+couldn't--I felt I couldn't. Why, when you was but a boy of fifteen I
+could hear you two together talking your poetry and your books till I
+was in such a rage that I was fit to strangle you. But you were always a
+good lad, Harry, and I loved you, you know I did. And I felt she didn't
+belong to me: and the children don't. And I besotted myself, and gambled
+and drank, and took to all sorts of deviltries out of despair and fury.
+And now comes this Mohun, and she likes him, I know she likes him.”
+
+“Indeed, and on my soul, you are wrong, sir,” Esmond cried.
+
+“She takes letters from him,” cries my lord--“look here, Harry,” and he
+pulled out a paper with a brown stain of blood upon it. “It fell from
+him that day he wasn't killed. One of the grooms picked it up from the
+ground and gave it me. Here it is in their d--d comedy jargon. 'Divine
+Gloriana--Why look so coldly on your slave who adores you? Have you no
+compassion on the tortures you have seen me suffering? Do you vouchsafe
+no reply to billets that are written with the blood of my heart.' She
+had more letters from him.”
+
+“But she answered none,” cries Esmond.
+
+“That's not Mohun's fault,” says my lord, “and I will be revenged on
+him, as God's in heaven, I will.”
+
+“For a light word or two, will you risk your lady's honor and your
+family's happiness, my lord?” Esmond interposed beseechingly.
+
+“Psha--there shall be no question of my wife's honor,” said my lord; “we
+can quarrel on plenty of grounds beside. If I live, that villain will be
+punished; if I fall, my family will be only the better: there will only
+be a spendthrift the less to keep in the world: and Frank has better
+teaching than his father. My mind is made up, Harry Esmond, and whatever
+the event is, I am easy about it. I leave my wife and you as guardians
+to the children.”
+
+Seeing that my lord was bent upon pursuing this quarrel, and that no
+entreaties would draw him from it, Harry Esmond (then of a hotter and
+more impetuous nature than now, when care, and reflection, and gray
+hairs have calmed him) thought it was his duty to stand by his kind,
+generous patron, and said, “My lord, if you are determined upon war, you
+must not go into it alone. 'Tis the duty of our house to stand by its
+chief; and I should neither forgive myself nor you if you did not call
+me, or I should be absent from you at a moment of danger.”
+
+“Why, Harry, my poor boy, you are bred for a parson,” says my lord,
+taking Esmond by the hand very kindly; “and it were a great pity that
+you should meddle in the matter.”
+
+“Your lordship thought of being a churchman once,” Harry answered, “and
+your father's orders did not prevent him fighting at Castlewood against
+the Roundheads. Your enemies are mine, sir; I can use the foils, as you
+have seen, indifferently well, and don't think I shall be afraid when
+the buttons are taken off 'em.” And then Harry explained, with some
+blushes and hesitation (for the matter was delicate, and he feared lest,
+by having put himself forward in the quarrel, he might have offended
+his patron), how he had himself expostulated with the Lord Mohun, and
+proposed to measure swords with him if need were, and he could not be
+got to withdraw peaceably in this dispute. “And I should have beat him,
+sir,” says Harry, laughing. “He never could parry that botte I brought
+from Cambridge. Let us have half an hour of it, and rehearse--I can
+teach it your lordship: 'tis the most delicate point in the world, and
+if you miss it, your adversary's sword is through you.”
+
+“By George, Harry, you ought to be the head of the house,” says my lord,
+gloomily. “You had been a better Lord Castlewood than a lazy sot like
+me,” he added, drawing his hand across his eyes, and surveying his
+kinsman with very kind and affectionate glances.
+
+“Let us take our coats off and have half an hour's practice before
+nightfall,” says Harry, after thankfully grasping his patron's manly
+hand.
+
+“You are but a little bit of a lad,” says my lord, good-humoredly;
+“but, in faith, I believe you could do for that fellow. No, my boy,” he
+continued, “I'll have none of your feints and tricks of stabbing: I can
+use my sword pretty well too, and will fight my own quarrel my own way.”
+
+“But I shall be by to see fair play?” cries Harry.
+
+“Yes, God bless you--you shall be by.”
+
+“When is it, sir?” says Harry, for he saw that the matter had been
+arranged privately and beforehand by my lord.
+
+“'Tis arranged thus: I sent off a courier to Jack Westbury to say that I
+wanted him specially. He knows for what, and will be here presently, and
+drink part of that bottle of sack. Then we shall go to the theatre in
+Duke Street, where we shall meet Mohun; and then we shall all go sup at
+the 'Rose' or the 'Greyhound.' Then we shall call for cards, and
+there will be probably a difference over the cards--and then, God help
+us!--either a wicked villain and traitor shall go out of the world, or
+a poor worthless devil, that doesn't care to remain in it. I am better
+away, Hal--my wife will be all the happier when I am gone,” says my
+lord, with a groan, that tore the heart of Harry Esmond, so that he
+fairly broke into a sob over his patron's kind hand.
+
+“The business was talked over with Mohun before he left home--Castlewood
+I mean”--my lord went on. “I took the letter in to him, which I had
+read, and I charged him with his villainy, and he could make no denial
+of it, only he said that my wife was innocent.”
+
+“And so she is; before heaven, my lord, she is!” cries Harry.
+
+“No doubt, no doubt. They always are,” says my lord. “No doubt, when she
+heard he was killed, she fainted from accident.”
+
+“But, my lord, MY name is Harry,” cried out Esmond, burning red. “You
+told my lady, 'Harry was killed!'”
+
+“Damnation! shall I fight you too?” shouts my lord in a fury. “Are you,
+you little serpent, warmed by my fire, going to sting--YOU?--No, my boy,
+you're an honest boy; you are a good boy.” (And here he broke from rage
+into tears even more cruel to see.) “You are an honest boy, and I love
+you; and, by heavens, I am so wretched that I don't care what sword it
+is that ends me. Stop, here's Jack Westbury. Well, Jack! Welcome, old
+boy! This is my kinsman, Harry Esmond.”
+
+“Who brought your bowls for you at Castlewood, sir?” says Harry, bowing;
+and the three gentlemen sat down and drank of that bottle of sack which
+was prepared for them.
+
+“Harry is number three,” says my lord. “You needn't be afraid of him,
+Jack.” And the Colonel gave a look, as much as to say, “Indeed, he don't
+look as if I need.” And then my lord explained what he had only told by
+hints before. When he quarrelled with Lord Mohun he was indebted to his
+lordship in a sum of sixteen hundred pounds, for which Lord Mohun said
+he proposed to wait until my Lord Viscount should pay him. My lord
+had raised the sixteen hundred pounds and sent them to Lord Mohun that
+morning, and before quitting home had put his affairs into order, and
+was now quite ready to abide the issue of the quarrel.
+
+When we had drunk a couple of bottles of sack, a coach was called, and
+the three gentlemen went to the Duke's Playhouse, as agreed. The play
+was one of Mr. Wycherley's--“Love in a Wood.”
+
+Harry Esmond has thought of that play ever since with a kind of terror,
+and of Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress who performed the girl's part in
+the comedy. She was disguised as a page, and came and stood before the
+gentlemen as they sat on the stage, and looked over her shoulder with
+a pair of arch black eyes, and laughed at my lord, and asked what ailed
+the gentleman from the country, and had he had bad news from Bullock
+fair?
+
+Between the acts of the play the gentlemen crossed over and conversed
+freely. There were two of Lord Mohun's party, Captain Macartney, in a
+military habit, and a gentleman in a suit of blue velvet and silver in a
+fair periwig, with a rich fall of point of Venice lace--my Lord the Earl
+of Warwick and Holland. My lord had a paper of oranges, which he ate and
+offered to the actresses, joking with them. And Mrs. Bracegirdle, when
+my Lord Mohun said something rude, turned on him, and asked him what he
+did there, and whether he and his friends had come to stab anybody else,
+as they did poor Will Mountford? My lord's dark face grew darker at this
+taunt, and wore a mischievous, fatal look. They that saw it remembered
+it, and said so afterward.
+
+When the play was ended the two parties joined company; and my Lord
+Castlewood then proposed that they should go to a tavern and sup.
+Lockit's, the “Greyhound,” in Charing Cross, was the house selected.
+All six marched together that way; the three lords going a-head, Lord
+Mohun's captain, and Colonel Westbury, and Harry Esmond, walking behind
+them. As they walked, Westbury told Harry Esmond about his old friend
+Dick the Scholar, who had got promotion, and was Cornet of the Guards,
+and had wrote a book called the “Christian Hero,” and had all the Guards
+to laugh at him for his pains, for the Christian Hero was breaking the
+commandments constantly, Westbury said, and had fought one or two duels
+already. And, in a lower tone, Westbury besought young Mr. Esmond to
+take no part in the quarrel. “There was no need for more seconds than
+one,” said the Colonel, “and the Captain or Lord Warwick might easily
+withdraw.” But Harry said no; he was bent on going through with the
+business. Indeed, he had a plan in his head, which, he thought, might
+prevent my Lord Viscount from engaging.
+
+They went in at the bar of the tavern, and desired a private room and
+wine and cards, and when the drawer had brought these, they began to
+drink and call healths, and as long as the servants were in the room
+appeared very friendly.
+
+Harry Esmond's plan was no other than to engage in talk with Lord Mohun,
+to insult him, and so get the first of the quarrel. So when cards were
+proposed he offered to play. “Psha!” says my Lord Mohun (whether wishing
+to save Harry, or not choosing, to try the botte de Jesuite, it is
+not to be known)--“Young gentlemen from college should not play these
+stakes. You are too young.”
+
+“Who dares say I am too young?” broke out Harry. “Is your lordship
+afraid?”
+
+“Afraid!” cries out Mohun.
+
+But my good Lord Viscount saw the move--“I'll play you for ten moidores,
+Mohun,” says he. “You silly boy, we don't play for groats here as you
+do at Cambridge.” And Harry, who had no such sum in his pocket (for his
+half-year's salary was always pretty well spent before it was due), fell
+back with rage and vexation in his heart that he had not money enough to
+stake.
+
+“I'll stake the young gentleman a crown,” says the Lord Mohun's captain.
+
+“I thought crowns were rather scarce with the gentlemen of the army,”
+ says Harry.
+
+“Do they birch at College?” says the Captain.
+
+“They birch fools,” says Harry, “and they cane bullies, and they fling
+puppies into the water.”
+
+“Faith, then, there's some escapes drowning,” says the Captain, who was
+an Irishman; and all the gentlemen began to laugh, and made poor Harry
+only more angry.
+
+My Lord Mohun presently snuffed a candle. It was when the drawers
+brought in fresh bottles and glasses and were in the room on which my
+Lord Viscount said--“The Deuce take you, Mohun, how damned awkward you
+are. Light the candle, you drawer.”
+
+“Damned awkward is a damned awkward expression, my lord,” says the
+other. “Town gentlemen don't use such words--or ask pardon if they do.”
+
+“I'm a country gentleman,” says my Lord Viscount.
+
+“I see it by your manner,” says my Lord Mohun. “No man shall say damned
+awkward to me.”
+
+“I fling the words in your face, my lord,” says the other; “shall I send
+the cards too?”
+
+“Gentlemen, gentlemen! before the servants?” cry out Colonel Westbury
+and my Lord Warwick in a breath. The drawers go out of the room hastily.
+They tell the people below of the quarrel up stairs.
+
+“Enough has been said,” says Colonel Westbury. “Will your lordships meet
+to-morrow morning?”
+
+“Will my Lord Castlewood withdraw his words?” asks the Earl of Warwick.
+
+“My Lord Castlewood will be ---- first,” says Colonel Westbury.
+
+“Then we have nothing for it. Take notice, gentlemen, there have been
+outrageous words--reparation asked and refused.”
+
+“And refused,” says my Lord Castlewood, putting on his hat. “Where shall
+the meeting be? and when?”
+
+“Since my Lord refuses me satisfaction, which I deeply regret, there is
+no time so good as now,” says my Lord Mohun. “Let us have chairs and go
+to Leicester Field.”
+
+“Are your lordship and I to have the honor of exchanging a pass or two?”
+ says Colonel Westbury, with a low bow to my Lord of Warwick and Holland.
+
+“It is an honor for me,” says my lord, with a profound congee, “to be
+matched with a gentleman who has been at Mons and Namur.”
+
+“Will your Reverence permit me to give you a lesson?” says the Captain.
+
+“Nay, nay, gentlemen, two on a side are plenty,” says Harry's patron.
+“Spare the boy, Captain Macartney,” and he shook Harry's hand--for the
+last time, save one, in his life.
+
+At the bar of the tavern all the gentlemen stopped, and my Lord Viscount
+said, laughing, to the barwoman, that those cards set people sadly
+a-quarrelling; but that the dispute was over now, and the parties were
+all going away to my Lord Mohun's house, in Bow Street, to drink a
+bottle more before going to bed.
+
+A half-dozen of chairs were now called, and the six gentlemen stepping
+into them, the word was privately given to the chairmen to go to
+Leicester Field, where the gentlemen were set down opposite the
+“Standard Tavern.” It was midnight, and the town was abed by this time,
+and only a few lights in the windows of the houses; but the night was
+bright enough for the unhappy purpose which the disputants came about;
+and so all six entered into that fatal square, the chairmen standing
+without the railing and keeping the gate, lest any persons should
+disturb the meeting.
+
+All that happened there hath been matter of public notoriety, and is
+recorded, for warning to lawless men, in the annals of our country.
+After being engaged for not more than a couple of minutes, as Harry
+Esmond thought (though being occupied at the time with his own
+adversary's point, which was active, he may not have taken a good note
+of time), a cry from the chairmen without, who were smoking their pipes,
+and leaning over the railings of the field as they watched the dim
+combat within, announced that some catastrophe had happened, which
+caused Esmond to drop his sword and look round, at which moment his
+enemy wounded him in the right hand. But the young man did not heed
+this hurt much, and ran up to the place where he saw his dear master was
+down.
+
+My Lord Mohun was standing over him.
+
+“Are you much hurt, Frank?” he asked in a hollow voice.
+
+“I believe I am a dead man,” my lord said from the ground.
+
+“No, no, not so,” says the other; “and I call God to witness, Frank
+Esmond, that I would have asked your pardon, had you but given me a
+chance. In--in the first cause of our falling out, I swear that no one
+was to blame but me, and--and that my lady--”
+
+“Hush!” says my poor Lord Viscount, lifting himself on his elbow and
+speaking faintly. “'Twas a dispute about the cards--the cursed cards.
+Harry my boy, are you wounded, too? God help thee! I loved thee, Harry,
+and thou must watch over my little Frank--and--and carry this little
+heart to my wife.”
+
+And here my dear lord felt in his breast for a locket he wore there,
+and, in the act, fell back fainting.
+
+We were all at this terrified, thinking him dead; but Esmond and Colonel
+Westbury bade the chairmen come into the field; and so my lord was
+carried to one Mr. Aimes, a surgeon, in Long Acre, who kept a bath, and
+there the house was wakened up, and the victim of this quarrel carried
+in.
+
+My Lord Viscount was put to bed, and his wound looked to by the surgeon,
+who seemed both kind and skilful. When he had looked to my lord, he
+bandaged up Harry Esmond's hand (who, from loss of blood, had fainted
+too, in the house, and may have been some time unconscious); and when
+the young man came to himself, you may be sure he eagerly asked what
+news there were of his dear patron; on which the surgeon carried him
+to the room where the Lord Castlewood lay; who had already sent for a
+priest; and desired earnestly, they said, to speak with his kinsman. He
+was lying on a bed, very pale and ghastly, with that fixed, fatal look
+in his eyes, which betokens death; and faintly beckoning all the other
+persons away from him with his hand, and crying out “Only Harry Esmond,”
+ the hand fell powerless down on the coverlet, as Harry came forward, and
+knelt down and kissed it.
+
+“Thou art all but a priest, Harry,” my Lord Viscount gasped out, with a
+faint smile, and pressure of his cold hand. “Are they all gone? Let me
+make thee a death-bed confession.”
+
+And with sacred Death waiting, as it were, at the bed-foot, as an awful
+witness of his words, the poor dying soul gasped out his last wishes
+in respect of his family;--his humble profession of contrition for his
+faults;--and his charity towards the world he was leaving. Some things
+he said concerned Harry Esmond as much as they astonished him. And
+my Lord Viscount, sinking visibly, was in the midst of these strange
+confessions, when the ecclesiastic for whom my lord had sent, Mr.
+Atterbury, arrived.
+
+This gentleman had reached to no great church dignity as yet, but
+was only preacher at St. Bride's, drawing all the town thither by his
+eloquent sermons. He was godson to my lord, who had been pupil to his
+father; had paid a visit to Castlewood from Oxford more than once; and
+it was by his advice, I think, that Harry Esmond was sent to Cambridge,
+rather than to Oxford, of which place Mr. Atterbury, though a
+distinguished member, spoke but ill.
+
+Our messenger found the good priest already at his books at five o'clock
+in the morning, and he followed the man eagerly to the house where my
+poor Lord Viscount lay--Esmond watching him, and taking his dying words
+from his mouth.
+
+My lord, hearing of Mr. Atterbury's arrival, and squeezing Esmond's
+hand, asked to be alone with the priest; and Esmond left them there for
+this solemn interview. You may be sure that his own prayers and grief
+accompanied that dying benefactor. My lord had said to him that which
+confounded the young man--informed him of a secret which greatly
+concerned him. Indeed, after hearing it, he had had good cause for doubt
+and dismay; for mental anguish as well as resolution. While the colloquy
+between Mr. Atterbury and his dying penitent took place within, an
+immense contest of perplexity was agitating Lord Castlewood's young
+companion.
+
+At the end of an hour--it may be more--Mr. Atterbury came out of the
+room, looking very hard at Esmond, and holding a paper.
+
+“He is on the brink of God's awful judgment,” the priest whispered. “He
+has made his breast clean to me. He forgives and believes, and makes
+restitution. Shall it be in public? Shall we call a witness to sign it?”
+
+“God knows,” sobbed out the young man, “my dearest lord has only done me
+kindness all his life.”
+
+The priest put the paper into Esmond's hand. He looked at it. It swam
+before his eyes.
+
+“'Tis a confession,” he said.
+
+“'Tis as you please,” said Mr. Atterbury.
+
+There was a fire in the room where the cloths were drying for the baths,
+and there lay a heap in a corner saturated with the blood of my dear
+lord's body. Esmond went to the fire, and threw the paper into it. 'Twas
+a great chimney with glazed Dutch tiles. How we remember such trifles at
+such awful moments!--the scrap of the book that we have read in a great
+grief--the taste of that last dish that we have eaten before a duel, or
+some such supreme meeting or parting. On the Dutch tiles at the Bagnio
+was a rude picture representing Jacob in hairy gloves, cheating Isaac of
+Esau's birthright. The burning paper lighted it up.
+
+“'Tis only a confession, Mr. Atterbury,” said the young man. He leaned
+his head against the mantel-piece: a burst of tears came to his eyes.
+They were the first he had shed as he sat by his lord, scared by this
+calamity, and more yet by what the poor dying gentleman had told him,
+and shocked to think that he should be the agent of bringing this double
+misfortune on those he loved best.
+
+“Let us go to him,” said Mr. Esmond. And accordingly they went into the
+next chamber, where by this time, the dawn had broke, which showed my
+lord's poor pale face and wild appealing eyes, that wore that awful
+fatal look of coming dissolution. The surgeon was with him. He went into
+the chamber as Atterbury came out thence. My Lord Viscount turned round
+his sick eyes towards Esmond. It choked the other to hear that rattle in
+his throat.
+
+“My Lord Viscount,” says Mr. Atterbury, “Mr. Esmond wants no witnesses,
+and hath burned the paper.”
+
+“My dearest master!” Esmond said, kneeling down, and taking his hand and
+kissing it.
+
+My Lord Viscount sprang up in his bed, and flung his arms round Esmond.
+“God bl--bless--” was all he said. The blood rushed from his mouth,
+deluging the young man. My dearest lord was no more. He was gone with a
+blessing on his lips, and love and repentance and kindness in his manly
+heart.
+
+“Benedicti benedicentes,” says Mr. Atterbury, and the young man,
+kneeling at the bedside, groaned out an “Amen.”
+
+“Who shall take the news to her?” was Mr. Esmond's next thought. And
+on this he besought Mr. Atterbury to bear the tidings to Castlewood.
+He could not face his mistress himself with those dreadful news. Mr.
+Atterbury complying kindly, Esmond writ a hasty note on his table-book
+to my lord's man, bidding him get the horses for Mr. Atterbury, and ride
+with him, and send Esmond's own valise to the Gatehouse prison, whither
+he resolved to go and give himself up.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+CONTAINS MR. ESMOND'S MILITARY LIFE, AND OTHER MATTERS APPERTAINING TO
+THE ESMOND FAMILY.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+I AM IN PRISON, AND VISITED, BUT NOT CONSOLED THERE.
+
+
+Those may imagine, who have seen death untimely strike down persons
+revered and beloved, and know how unavailing consolation is, what was
+Harry Esmond's anguish after being an actor in that ghastly midnight
+scene of blood and homicide. He could not, he felt, have faced his dear
+mistress, and told her that story. He was thankful that kind Atterbury
+consented to break the sad news to her; but, besides his grief, which
+he took into prison with him, he had that in his heart which secretly
+cheered and consoled him.
+
+A great secret had been told to Esmond by his unhappy stricken kinsman,
+lying on his death-bed. Were he to disclose it, as in equity and honor
+he might do, the discovery would but bring greater grief upon those whom
+he loved best in the world, and who were sad enough already. Should he
+bring down shame and perplexity upon all those beings to whom he was
+attached by so many tender ties of affection and gratitude? degrade his
+father's widow? impeach and sully his father's and kinsman's honor? and
+for what? for a barren title, to be worn at the expense of an innocent
+boy, the son of his dearest benefactress. He had debated this matter in
+his conscience, whilst his poor lord was making his dying confession. On
+one side were ambition, temptation, justice even; but love, gratitude,
+and fidelity, pleaded on the other. And when the struggle was over in
+Harry's mind, a glow of righteous happiness filled it; and it was with
+grateful tears in his eyes that he returned thanks to God for that
+decision which he had been enabled to make.
+
+“When I was denied by my own blood,” thought he, “these dearest friends
+received and cherished me. When I was a nameless orphan myself, and
+needed a protector, I found one in yonder kind soul, who has gone to his
+account repenting of the innocent wrong he has done.”
+
+And with this consoling thought he went away to give himself up at the
+prison, after kissing the cold lips of his benefactor.
+
+It was on the third day after he had come to the Gatehouse prison,
+(where he lay in no small pain from his wound, which inflamed and ached
+severely,) and with those thoughts and resolutions that have been just
+spoke of, to depress, and yet to console him, that H. Esmond's keeper
+came and told him that a visitor was asking for him, and though he could
+not see her face, which was enveloped in a black hood, her whole figure,
+too, being veiled and covered with the deepest mourning, Esmond knew at
+once that his visitor was his dear mistress.
+
+He got up from his bed, where he was lying, being very weak; and
+advancing towards her as the retiring keeper shut the door upon him and
+his guest in that sad place, he put forward his left hand (for the right
+was wounded and bandaged), and he would have taken that kind one of his
+mistress, which had done so many offices of friendship for him for so
+many years.
+
+But the Lady Castlewood went back from him, putting back her hood, and
+leaning against the great stanchioned door which the gaoler had just
+closed upon them. Her face was ghastly white, as Esmond saw it, looking
+from the hood; and her eyes, ordinarily so sweet and tender, were fixed
+on him with such a tragic glance of woe and anger, as caused the young
+man, unaccustomed to unkindness from that person, to avert his own
+glances from her face.
+
+“And this, Mr. Esmond,” she said, “is where I see you; and 'tis to this
+you have brought me!”
+
+“You have come to console me in my calamity, madam,” said he (though, in
+truth, he scarce knew how to address her, his emotions at beholding her
+so overpowered him).
+
+She advanced a little, but stood silent and trembling, looking out
+at him from her black draperies, with her small white hands clasped
+together, and quivering lips and hollow eyes.
+
+“Not to reproach me,” he continued after a pause. “My grief is
+sufficient as it is.”
+
+“Take back your hand--do not touch me with it!” she cried. “Look!
+there's blood on it!”
+
+“I wish they had taken it all,” said Esmond; “if you are unkind to me.”
+
+“Where is my husband?” she broke out. “Give me back my husband, Henry.
+Why did you stand by at midnight and see him murdered? Why did the
+traitor escape who did it? You, the champion of your house, who offered
+to die for us! You that he loved and trusted, and to whom I confided
+him--you that vowed devotion and gratitude, and I believed you--yes, I
+believed you--why are you here, and my noble Francis gone? Why did
+you come among us? You have only brought us grief and sorrow; and
+repentance, bitter, bitter repentance, as a return for our love and
+kindness. Did I ever do you a wrong, Henry? You were but an orphan child
+when I first saw you--when HE first saw you, who was so good, and noble,
+and trusting. He would have had you sent away, but, like a foolish
+woman, I besought him to let you stay. And you pretended to love us, and
+we believed you--and you made our house wretched, and my husband's heart
+went from me: and I lost him through you--I lost him--the husband of my
+youth, I say. I worshipped him: you know I worshipped him--and he was
+changed to me. He was no more my Francis of old--my dear, dear soldier.
+He loved me before he saw you; and I loved him. Oh, God is my witness
+how I loved him! Why did he not send you from among us? 'Twas only
+his kindness, that could refuse me nothing then. And, young as you
+were--yes, and weak and alone--there was evil, I knew there was evil in
+keeping you. I read it in your face and eyes. I saw that they boded harm
+to us--and it came, I knew it would. Why did you not die when you had
+the small-pox--and I came myself and watched you, and you didn't know me
+in your delirium--and you called out for me, though I was there at your
+side? All that has happened since, was a just judgment on my wicked
+heart--my wicked jealous heart. Oh, I am punished--awfully punished!
+My husband lies in his blood--murdered for defending me, my kind, kind,
+generous lord--and you were by, and you let him die, Henry!”
+
+These words, uttered in the wildness of her grief, by one who was
+ordinarily quiet, and spoke seldom except with a gentle smile and a
+soothing tone, rung in Esmond's ear; and 'tis said that he repeated many
+of them in the fever into which he now fell from his wound, and perhaps
+from the emotion which such passionate, undeserved upbraidings caused
+him. It seemed as if his very sacrifices and love for this lady and her
+family were to turn to evil and reproach: as if his presence amongst
+them was indeed a cause of grief, and the continuance of his life but
+woe and bitterness to theirs. As the Lady Castlewood spoke bitterly,
+rapidly, without a tear, he never offered a word of appeal or
+remonstrance: but sat at the foot of his prison-bed, stricken only with
+the more pain at thinking it was that soft and beloved hand which should
+stab him so cruelly, and powerless against her fatal sorrow. Her words
+as she spoke struck the chords of all his memory, and the whole of
+his boyhood and youth passed within him; whilst this lady, so fond
+and gentle but yesterday--this good angel whom he had loved and
+worshipped--stood before him, pursuing him with keen words and aspect
+malign.
+
+“I wish I were in my lord's place,” he groaned out. “It was not my fault
+that I was not there, madam. But Fate is stronger than all of us, and
+willed what has come to pass. It had been better for me to have died
+when I had the illness.”
+
+“Yes, Henry,” said she--and as she spoke she looked at him with a glance
+that was at once so fond and so sad, that the young man, tossing up his
+arms, wildly fell back, hiding his head in the coverlet of the bed. As
+he turned he struck against the wall with his wounded hand, displacing
+the ligature; and he felt the blood rushing again from the wound. He
+remembered feeling a secret pleasure at the accident--and thinking,
+“Suppose I were to end now, who would grieve for me?”
+
+This hemorrhage, or the grief and despair in which the luckless young
+man was at the time of the accident, must have brought on a deliquium
+presently; for he had scarce any recollection afterwards, save of some
+one, his mistress probably, seizing his hand--and then of the buzzing
+noise in his ears as he awoke, with two or three persons of the prison
+around his bed, whereon he lay in a pool of blood from his arm.
+
+It was now bandaged up again by the prison surgeon, who happened to be
+in the place; and the governor's wife and servant, kind people both,
+were with the patient. Esmond saw his mistress still in the room when
+he awoke from his trance; but she went away without a word; though
+the governor's wife told him that she sat in her room for some time
+afterward, and did not leave the prison until she heard that Esmond was
+likely to do well.
+
+Days afterwards, when Esmond was brought out of a fever which he had,
+and which attacked him that night pretty sharply, the honest keeper's
+wife brought her patient a handkerchief fresh washed and ironed, and at
+the corner of which he recognized his mistress's well-known cipher
+and viscountess's crown. “The lady had bound it round his arm when he
+fainted, and before she called for help,” the keeper's wife said. “Poor
+lady! she took on sadly about her husband. He has been buried to-day,
+and a many of the coaches of the nobility went with him--my Lord
+Marlborough's and my Lord Sunderland's, and many of the officers of the
+Guards, in which he served in the old King's time; and my lady has been
+with her two children to the King at Kensington, and asked for justice
+against my Lord Mohun, who is in hiding, and my Lord the Earl of Warwick
+and Holland, who is ready to give himself up and take his trial.”
+
+Such were the news, coupled with assertions about her own honesty and
+that of Molly her maid, who would never have stolen a certain trumpery
+gold sleeve-button of Mr. Esmond's that was missing after his fainting
+fit, that the keeper's wife brought to her lodger. His thoughts followed
+to that untimely grave, the brave heart, the kind friend, the gallant
+gentleman, honest of word and generous of thought, (if feeble of
+purpose, but are his betters much stronger than he?) who had given him
+bread and shelter when he had none; home and love when he needed them;
+and who, if he had kept one vital secret from him, had done that
+of which he repented ere dying--a wrong indeed, but one followed by
+remorse, and occasioned by almost irresistible temptation.
+
+Esmond took his handkerchief when his nurse left him, and very likely
+kissed it, and looked at the bauble embroidered in the corner. “It
+has cost thee grief enough,” he thought, “dear lady, so loving and so
+tender. Shall I take it from thee and thy children? No, never! Keep it,
+and wear it, my little Frank, my pretty boy. If I cannot make a name for
+myself, I can die without one. Some day, when my dear mistress sees my
+heart, I shall be righted; or if not here or now, why, elsewhere; where
+Honor doth not follow us, but where Love reigns perpetual.”
+
+'Tis needless to relate here, as the reports of the lawyers already have
+chronicled them, the particulars or issue of that trial which ensued
+upon my Lord Castlewood's melancholy homicide. Of the two lords engaged
+in that sad matter, the second, my Lord the Earl of Warwick and Holland,
+who had been engaged with Colonel Westbury, and wounded by him, was
+found not guilty by his peers, before whom he was tried (under the
+presidence of the Lord Steward, Lord Somers); and the principal, the
+Lord Mohun, being found guilty of the manslaughter, (which, indeed, was
+forced upon him, and of which he repented most sincerely,) pleaded his
+clergy, and so was discharged without any penalty. The widow of the
+slain nobleman, as it was told us in prison, showed an extraordinary
+spirit; and, though she had to wait for ten years before her son was old
+enough to compass it, declared she would have revenge of her husband's
+murderer. So much and suddenly had grief, anger, and misfortune appeared
+to change her. But fortune, good or ill, as I take it, does not change
+men and women. It but develops their characters. As there are a thousand
+thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the
+pen to write, so the heart is a secret even to him (or her) who has it
+in his own breast. Who hath not found himself surprised into revenge, or
+action, or passion, for good or evil, whereof the seeds lay within him,
+latent and unsuspected, until the occasion called them forth? With the
+death of her lord, a change seemed to come over the whole conduct and
+mind of Lady Castlewood; but of this we shall speak in the right season
+and anon.
+
+The lords being tried then before their peers at Westminster, according
+to their privilege, being brought from the Tower with state processions
+and barges, and accompanied by lieutenants and axe-men, the commoners
+engaged in that melancholy fray took their trial at Newgate, as became
+them; and, being all found guilty, pleaded likewise their benefit
+of clergy. The sentence, as we all know in these cases, is, that the
+culprit lies a year in prison, or during the King's pleasure, and is
+burned in the hand, or only stamped with a cold iron; or this part of
+the punishment is altogether remitted at the grace of the Sovereign. So
+Harry Esmond found himself a criminal and a prisoner at two-and-twenty
+years old; as for the two colonels, his comrades, they took the matter
+very lightly. Duelling was a part of their business; and they could not
+in honor refuse any invitations of that sort.
+
+But the case was different with Mr. Esmond. His life was changed by
+that stroke of the sword which destroyed his kind patron's. As he lay in
+prison, old Dr. Tusher fell ill and died; and Lady Castlewood appointed
+Thomas Tusher to the vacant living; about the filling of which she had
+a thousand times fondly talked to Harry Esmond: how they never should
+part; how he should educate her boy; how to be a country clergyman, like
+saintly George Herbert or pious Dr. Ken, was the happiest and greatest
+lot in life; how (if he were obstinately bent on it, though, for her
+part, she owned rather to holding Queen Bess's opinion, that a bishop
+should have no wife, and if not a bishop why a clergyman?) she would
+find a good wife for Harry Esmond: and so on, with a hundred pretty
+prospects told by fireside evenings, in fond prattle, as the children
+played about the hall. All these plans were overthrown now. Thomas
+Tusher wrote to Esmond, as he lay in prison, announcing that his
+patroness had conferred upon him the living his reverend father had
+held for many years; that she never, after the tragical events which had
+occurred (whereof Tom spoke with a very edifying horror), could see
+in the revered Tusher's pulpit, or at her son's table, the man who was
+answerable for the father's life; that her ladyship bade him to say that
+she prayed for her kinsman's repentance and his worldly happiness; that
+he was free to command her aid for any scheme of life which he might
+propose to himself; but that on this side of the grave she would see him
+no more. And Tusher, for his own part, added that Harry should have his
+prayers as a friend of his youth, and commended him whilst he was in
+prison to read certain works of theology, which his Reverence pronounced
+to be very wholesome for sinners in his lamentable condition.
+
+And this was the return for a life of devotion--this the end of years of
+affectionate intercourse and passionate fidelity! Harry would have died
+for his patron, and was held as little better than his murderer: he had
+sacrificed, she did not know how much, for his mistress, and she threw
+him aside; he had endowed her family with all they had, and she talked
+about giving him alms as to a menial! The grief for his patron's loss;
+the pains of his own present position, and doubts as to the future: all
+these were forgotten under the sense of the consummate outrage which he
+had to endure, and overpowered by the superior pang of that torture.
+
+He writ back a letter to Mr. Tusher from his prison, congratulating
+his Reverence upon his appointment to the living of Castlewood:
+sarcastically bidding him to follow in the footsteps of his admirable
+father, whose gown had descended upon him; thanking her ladyship for her
+offer of alms, which he said he should trust not to need; and beseeching
+her to remember that, if ever her determination should change towards
+him, he would be ready to give her proofs of a fidelity which had never
+wavered, and which ought never to have been questioned by that house.
+“And if we meet no more, or only as strangers in this world,” Mr. Esmond
+concluded, “a sentence against the cruelty and injustice of which I
+disdain to appeal; hereafter she will know who was faithful to her,
+and whether she had any cause to suspect the love and devotion of her
+kinsman and servant.”
+
+After the sending of this letter, the poor young fellow's mind was more
+at ease than it had been previously. The blow had been struck, and he
+had borne it. His cruel goddess had shaken her wings and fled: and left
+him alone and friendless, but virtute sua. And he had to bear him up, at
+once the sense of his right and the feeling of his wrongs, his honor
+and his misfortune. As I have seen men waking and running to arms at a
+sudden trumpet, before emergency a manly heart leaps up resolute;
+meets the threatening danger with undaunted countenance; and, whether
+conquered or conquering, faces it always. Ah! no man knows his strength
+or his weakness, till occasion proves them. If there be some thoughts
+and actions of his life from the memory of which a man shrinks with
+shame, sure there are some which he may be proud to own and remember;
+forgiven injuries, conquered temptations (now and then) and difficulties
+vanquished by endurance.
+
+It was these thoughts regarding the living, far more than any great
+poignancy of grief respecting the dead, which affected Harry Esmond
+whilst in prison after his trial: but it may be imagined that he could
+take no comrade of misfortune into the confidence of his feelings,
+and they thought it was remorse and sorrow for his patron's loss which
+affected the young man, in error of which opinion he chose to leave
+them. As a companion he was so moody and silent that the two officers,
+his fellow-sufferers, left him to himself mostly, liked little very
+likely what they knew of him, consoled themselves with dice, cards, and
+the bottle, and whiled away their own captivity in their own way. It
+seemed to Esmond as if he lived years in that prison: and was changed
+and aged when he came out of it. At certain periods of life we live
+years of emotion in a few weeks--and look back on those times, as on
+great gaps between the old life and the new. You do not know how much
+you suffer in those critical maladies of the heart, until the disease is
+over and you look back on it afterwards. During the time, the suffering
+is at least sufferable. The day passes in more or less of pain, and the
+night wears away somehow. 'Tis only in after days that we see what the
+danger has been--as a man out a-hunting or riding for his life looks at
+a leap, and wonders how he should have survived the taking of it. O dark
+months of grief and rage! of wrong and cruel endurance! He is old now
+who recalls you. Long ago he has forgiven and blest the soft hand that
+wounded him: but the mark is there, and the wound is cicatrized only--no
+time, tears, caresses, or repentance, can obliterate the scar. We are
+indocile to put up with grief, however. Reficimus rates quassas: we
+tempt the ocean again and again, and try upon new ventures. Esmond
+thought of his early time as a novitiate, and of this past trial as
+an initiation before entering into life--as our young Indians undergo
+tortures silently before they pass to the rank of warriors in the tribe.
+
+The officers, meanwhile, who were not let into the secret of the grief
+which was gnawing at the side of their silent young friend, and being
+accustomed to such transactions, in which one comrade or another was
+daily paying the forfeit of the sword, did not, of course, bemoan
+themselves very inconsolably about the fate of their late companion in
+arms. This one told stories of former adventures of love, or war,
+or pleasure, in which poor Frank Esmond had been engaged; t'other
+recollected how a constable had been bilked, or a tavern-bully beaten:
+whilst my lord's poor widow was sitting at his tomb worshipping him as
+an actual saint and spotless hero--so the visitors said who had news of
+Lady Castlewood; and Westbury and Macartney had pretty nearly had all
+the town to come and see them.
+
+The duel, its fatal termination, the trial of the two peers and the
+three commoners concerned, had caused the greatest excitement in the
+town. The prints and News Letters were full of them. The three gentlemen
+in Newgate were almost as much crowded as the bishops in the Tower, or
+a highwayman before execution. We were allowed to live in the Governor's
+house, as hath been said, both before trial and after condemnation,
+waiting the King's pleasure; nor was the real cause of the fatal quarrel
+known, so closely had my lord and the two other persons who knew it kept
+the secret, but every one imagined that the origin of the meeting was
+a gambling dispute. Except fresh air, the prisoners had, upon payment,
+most things they could desire. Interest was made that they should not
+mix with the vulgar convicts, whose ribald choruses and loud laughter
+and curses could be heard from their own part of the prison, where they
+and the miserable debtors were confined pell-mell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+I COME TO THE END OF MY CAPTIVITY, BUT NOT OF MY TROUBLE.
+
+
+Among the company which came to visit the two officers was an old
+acquaintance of Harry Esmond; that gentleman of the Guards, namely,
+who had been so kind to Harry when Captain Westbury's troop had been
+quartered at Castlewood more than seven years before. Dick the Scholar
+was no longer Dick the Trooper now, but Captain Steele of Lucas's
+Fusiliers, and secretary to my Lord Cutts, that famous officer of King
+William's, the bravest and most beloved man of the English army. The
+two jolly prisoners had been drinking with a party of friends (for
+our cellar and that of the keepers of Newgate, too, were supplied
+with endless hampers of Burgundy and Champagne that the friends of the
+Colonels sent in); and Harry, having no wish for their drink or their
+conversation, being too feeble in health for the one and too sad in
+spirits for the other, was sitting apart in his little room, reading
+such books as he had, one evening, when honest Colonel Westbury, flushed
+with liquor, and always good-humored in and out of his cups, came
+laughing into Harry's closet and said, “Ho, young Killjoy! here's a
+friend come to see thee; he'll pray with thee, or he'll drink with thee;
+or he'll drink and pray turn about. Dick, my Christian hero, here's the
+little scholar of Castlewood.”
+
+Dick came up and kissed Esmond on both cheeks, imparting a strong
+perfume of burnt sack along with his caress to the young man.
+
+“What! is this the little man that used to talk Latin and fetch our
+bowls? How tall thou art grown! I protest I should have known thee
+anywhere. And so you have turned ruffian and fighter; and wanted to
+measure swords with Mohun, did you? I protest that Mohun said at the
+Guard dinner yesterday, where there was a pretty company of us, that the
+young fellow wanted to fight him, and was the better man of the two.”
+
+“I wish we could have tried and proved it, Mr. Steele,” says Esmond,
+thinking of his dead benefactor, and his eyes filling with tears.
+
+With the exception of that one cruel letter which he had from his
+mistress, Mr. Esmond heard nothing from her, and she seemed determined
+to execute her resolve of parting from him and disowning him. But he had
+news of her, such as it was, which Mr. Steele assiduously brought him
+from the Prince's and Princess's Court, where our honest Captain had
+been advanced to the post of gentleman waiter. When off duty there,
+Captain Dick often came to console his friends in captivity; a good
+nature and a friendly disposition towards all who were in ill-fortune
+no doubt prompting him to make his visits, and good-fellowship and good
+wine to prolong them.
+
+“Faith,” says Westbury, “the little scholar was the first to begin the
+quarrel--I mind me of it now--at Lockit's. I always hated that fellow
+Mohun. What was the real cause, of the quarrel betwixt him and poor
+Frank? I would wager 'twas a woman.”
+
+“'Twas a quarrel about play--on my word, about play,” Harry said. “My
+poor lord lost great sums to his guest at Castlewood. Angry words passed
+between them; and, though Lord Castlewood was the kindest and most
+pliable soul alive, his spirit was very high; and hence that meeting
+which has brought us all here,” says Mr. Esmond, resolved never to
+acknowledge that there had ever been any other cause but cards for the
+duel.
+
+“I do not like to use bad words of a nobleman,” says Westbury; “but
+if my Lord Mohun were a commoner, I would say, 'twas a pity he was not
+hanged. He was familiar with dice and women at a time other boys are at
+school being birched; he was as wicked as the oldest rake, years ere he
+had done growing; and handled a sword and a foil, and a bloody one, too,
+before he ever used a razor. He held poor Will Mountford in talk that
+night, when bloody Dick Hill ran him through. He will come to a bad end,
+will that young lord; and no end is bad enough for him,” says honest
+Mr. Westbury: whose prophecy was fulfilled twelve years after, upon that
+fatal day when Mohun fell, dragging down one of the bravest and greatest
+gentlemen in England in his fall.
+
+From Mr. Steele, then, who brought the public rumor, as well as his own
+private intelligence, Esmond learned the movements of his unfortunate
+mistress. Steele's heart was of very inflammable composition; and the
+gentleman usher spoke in terms of boundless admiration both of the widow
+(that most beautiful woman, as he said) and of her daughter, who, in
+the Captain's eyes, was a still greater paragon. If the pale widow, whom
+Captain Richard, in his poetic rapture compared to a Niobe in tears--to
+a Sigismunda--to a weeping Belvidera, was an object the most lovely
+and pathetic which his eyes had ever beheld, or for which his heart had
+melted, even her ripened perfections and beauty were as nothing compared
+to the promise of that extreme loveliness which the good Captain saw
+in her daughter. It was matre pulcra filia pulcrior. Steele composed
+sonnets whilst he was on duty in his Prince's ante-chamber, to the
+maternal and filial charms. He would speak for hours about them to Harry
+Esmond; and, indeed, he could have chosen few subjects more likely to
+interest the unhappy young man, whose heart was now as always devoted
+to these ladies; and who was thankful to all who loved them, or praised
+them, or wished them well.
+
+Not that his fidelity was recompensed by any answering kindness, or
+show of relenting even, on the part of a mistress obdurate now after ten
+years of love and benefactions. The poor young man getting no answer,
+save Tusher's, to that letter which he had written, and being too proud
+to write more, opened a part of his heart to Steele, than whom no man,
+when unhappy, could find a kinder hearer, or more friendly emissary;
+described (in words which were no doubt pathetic, for they came imo
+pectore, and caused honest Dick to weep plentifully) his youth, his
+constancy, his fond devotion to that household which had reared him; his
+affection, how earned, and how tenderly requited until but yesterday,
+and (as far as he might) the circumstances and causes for which that
+sad quarrel had made of Esmond a prisoner under sentence, a widow and
+orphans of those whom in life he held dearest. In terms that might well
+move a harder-hearted man than young Esmond's confidant--for, indeed,
+the speaker's own heart was half broke as he uttered them--he described
+a part of what had taken place in that only sad interview which his
+mistress had granted him; how she had left him with anger and almost
+imprecation, whose words and thoughts until then had been only blessing
+and kindness; how she had accused him of the guilt of that blood, in
+exchange for which he would cheerfully have sacrificed his own (indeed,
+in this the Lord Mohun, the Lord Warwick, and all the gentlemen engaged,
+as well as the common rumor out of doors--Steele told him--bore out the
+luckless young man); and with all his heart, and tears, he besought
+Mr. Steele to inform his mistress of her kinsman's unhappiness, and to
+deprecate that cruel anger she showed him. Half frantic with grief
+at the injustice done him, and contrasting it with a thousand soft
+recollections of love and confidence gone by, that made his present
+misery inexpressibly more bitter, the poor wretch passed many a lonely
+day and wakeful night in a kind of powerless despair and rage against
+his iniquitous fortune. It was the softest hand that struck him, the
+gentlest and most compassionate nature that persecuted him. “I would as
+lief,” he said, “have pleaded guilty to the murder, and have suffered
+for it like any other felon, as have to endure the torture to which my
+mistress subjects me.”
+
+Although the recital of Esmond's story, and his passionate appeals and
+remonstrances, drew so many tears from Dick who heard them, they had
+no effect upon the person whom they were designed to move. Esmond's
+ambassador came back from the mission with which the poor young
+gentleman had charged him, with a sad blank face and a shake of the
+head, which told that there was no hope for the prisoner; and scarce a
+wretched culprit in that prison of Newgate ordered for execution, and
+trembling for a reprieve, felt more cast down than Mr. Esmond, innocent
+and condemned.
+
+As had been arranged between the prisoner and his counsel in their
+consultations, Mr. Steele had gone to the dowager's house in Chelsey,
+where it has been said the widow and her orphans were, had seen my Lady
+Viscountess, and pleaded the cause of her unfortunate kinsman. “And I
+think I spoke well, my poor boy,” says Mr. Steele; “for who would not
+speak well in such a cause, and before so beautiful a judge? I did not
+see the lovely Beatrix (sure her famous namesake of Florence was never
+half so beautiful), only the young Viscount was in the room with the
+Lord Churchill, my Lord of Marlborough's eldest son. But these young
+gentlemen went off to the garden; I could see them from the window
+tilting at each other with poles in a mimic tournament (grief touches
+the young but lightly, and I remember that I beat a drum at the coffin
+of my own father). My Lady Viscountess looked out at the two boys at
+their game and said--'You see, sir, children are taught to use weapons
+of death as toys, and to make a sport of murder;' and as she spoke she
+looked so lovely, and stood there in herself so sad and beautiful, an
+instance of that doctrine whereof I am a humble preacher, that had I not
+dedicated my little volume of the 'Christian Hero'--(I perceive, Harry,
+thou hast not cut the leaves of it. The sermon is good, believe me,
+though the preacher's life may not answer it)--I say, hadn't I dedicated
+the volume to Lord Cutts, I would have asked permission to place her
+ladyship's name on the first page. I think I never saw such a beautiful
+violet as that of her eyes, Harry. Her complexion is of the pink of the
+blush-rose, she hath an exquisite turned wrist and dimpled hand, and I
+make no doubt--”
+
+“Did you come to tell me about the dimples on my lady's hand?” broke out
+Mr. Esmond, sadly.
+
+“A lovely creature in affliction seems always doubly beautiful to me,”
+ says the poor Captain, who indeed was but too often in a state to see
+double, and so checked he resumed the interrupted thread of his story.
+“As I spoke my business,” Mr. Steele said, “and narrated to your
+mistress what all the world knows, and the other side hath been eager to
+acknowledge--that you had tried to put yourself between the two lords,
+and to take your patron's quarrel on your own point; I recounted the
+general praises of your gallantry, besides my Lord Mohun's particular
+testimony to it; I thought the widow listened with some interest, and
+her eyes--I have never seen such a violet, Harry--looked up at mine once
+or twice. But after I had spoken on this theme for a while she suddenly
+broke away with a cry of grief. 'I would to God, sir,' she said, 'I had
+never heard that word gallantry which you use, or known the meaning of
+it. My lord might have been here but for that; my home might be happy;
+my poor boy have a father. It was what you gentlemen call gallantry came
+into my home, and drove my husband on to the cruel sword that killed
+him. You should not speak the word to a Christian woman, sir, a poor
+widowed mother of orphans, whose home was happy until the world came
+into it--the wicked godless world, that takes the blood of the innocent,
+and lets the guilty go free.'
+
+“As the afflicted lady spoke in this strain, sir,” Mr. Steele
+continued, “it seemed as if indignation moved her, even more than grief.
+'Compensation!' she went on passionately, her cheeks and eyes kindling;
+'what compensation does your world give the widow for her husband, and
+the children for the murderer of their father? The wretch who did the
+deed has not even a punishment. Conscience! what conscience has he, who
+can enter the house of a friend, whisper falsehood and insult to a woman
+that never harmed him, and stab the kind heart that trusted him? My
+Lord--my Lord Wretch's, my Lord Villain's, my Lord Murderer's peers meet
+to try him, and they dismiss him with a word or two of reproof and send
+him into the world again, to pursue women with lust and falsehood, and
+to murder unsuspecting guests that harbor him. That day, my Lord--my
+Lord Murderer--(I will never name him)--was let loose, a woman was
+executed at Tyburn for stealing in a shop. But a man may rob another of
+his life, or a lady of her honor, and shall pay no penalty! I take my
+child, run to the throne, and on my knees ask for justice, and the King
+refuses me. The King! he is no king of mine--he never shall be. He, too,
+robbed the throne from the king his father--the true king--and he has
+gone unpunished, as the great do.'
+
+“I then thought to speak for you,” Mr. Steele continued, “and I
+interposed by saying, 'There was one, madam, who, at least, would have
+put his own breast between your husband's and my Lord Mohun's sword.
+Your poor young kinsman, Harry Esmond, hath told me that he tried to
+draw the quarrel on himself.'
+
+“'Are you come from HIM?' asked the lady (so Mr. Steele went on) rising
+up with a great severity and stateliness. 'I thought you had come from
+the Princess. I saw Mr. Esmond in his prison, and bade him farewell. He
+brought misery into my house. He never should have entered it.'
+
+“'Madam, madam, he is not to blame,' I interposed,” continued Mr.
+Steele.
+
+“'Do I blame him to you, sir?' asked the widow. 'If 'tis he who sent
+you, say that I have taken counsel, where'--she spoke with a very
+pallid cheek now, and a break in her voice--'where all who ask may have
+it;--and that it bids me to part from him, and to see him no more. We
+met in the prison for the last time--at least for years to come. It
+may be, in years hence, when--when our knees and our tears and our
+contrition have changed our sinful hearts, sir, and wrought our pardon,
+we may meet again--but not now. After what has passed, I could not bear
+to see him. I wish him well, sir; but I wish him farewell, too; and if
+he has that--that regard towards us which he speaks of, I beseech him to
+prove it by obeying me in this.'
+
+“'I shall break the young man's heart, madam, by this hard sentence,'”
+ Mr. Steele said.
+
+“The lady shook her head,” continued my kind scholar. “'The hearts of
+young men, Mr. Steele, are not so made,' she said. 'Mr. Esmond will find
+other--other friends. The mistress of this house has relented very much
+towards the late lord's son,' she added, with a blush, 'and has promised
+me, that is, has promised that she will care for his fortune. Whilst I
+live in it, after the horrid horrid deed which has passed, Castlewood
+must never be a home to him--never. Nor would I have him write to
+me--except--no--I would have him never write to me, nor see him more.
+Give him, if you will, my parting--Hush! not a word of this before my
+daughter.'
+
+“Here the fair Beatrix entered from the river, with her cheeks flushing
+with health, and looking only the more lovely and fresh for the mourning
+habiliments which she wore. And my Lady Viscountess said--
+
+“'Beatrix, this is Mr. Steele, gentleman-usher to the Prince's Highness.
+When does your new comedy appear, Mr. Steele?' I hope thou wilt be out
+of prison for the first night, Harry.”
+
+The sentimental Captain concluded his sad tale, saying, “Faith, the
+beauty of Filia pulcrior drove pulcram matrem out of my head; and yet
+as I came down the river, and thought about the pair, the pallid dignity
+and exquisite grace of the matron had the uppermost, and I thought her
+even more noble than the virgin!”
+
+
+The party of prisoners lived very well in Newgate, and with comforts
+very different to those which were awarded to the poor wretches there
+(his insensibility to their misery, their gayety still more frightful,
+their curses and blasphemy, hath struck with a kind of shame since--as
+proving how selfish, during his imprisonment, his own particular grief
+was, and how entirely the thoughts of it absorbed him): if the three
+gentlemen lived well under the care of the Warden of Newgate, it was
+because they paid well: and indeed the cost at the dearest ordinary
+or the grandest tavern in London could not have furnished a longer
+reckoning, than our host of the “Handcuff Inn”--as Colonel Westbury
+called it. Our rooms were the three in the gate over Newgate--on the
+second story looking up Newgate Street towards Cheapside and Paul's
+Church. And we had leave to walk on the roof, and could see thence
+Smithfield and the Bluecoat Boys' School, Gardens, and the Chartreux,
+where, as Harry Esmond remembered, Dick the Scholar, and his friend Tom
+Tusher, had had their schooling.
+
+Harry could never have paid his share of that prodigious heavy reckoning
+which my landlord brought to his guests once a week: for he had but
+three pieces in his pockets that fatal night before the duel, when the
+gentlemen were at cards, and offered to play five. But whilst he was yet
+ill at the Gatehouse, after Lady Castlewood had visited him there, and
+before his trial, there came one in an orange-tawny coat and blue lace,
+the livery which the Esmonds always wore, and brought a sealed packet
+for Mr. Esmond, which contained twenty guineas, and a note saying that
+a counsel had been appointed for him, and that more money would be
+forthcoming whenever he needed it.
+
+'Twas a queer letter from the scholar as she was, or as she called
+herself: the Dowager Viscountess Castlewood, written in the strange
+barbarous French which she and many other fine ladies of that
+time--witness her Grace of Portsmouth--employed. Indeed, spelling was
+not an article of general commodity in the world then, and my Lord
+Marlborough's letters can show that he, for one, had but a little share
+of this part of grammar:--
+
+
+“MONG COUSSIN,” my Lady Viscountess Dowager wrote, “je scay que vous
+vous etes bravement batew et grievement blessay--du coste de feu M. le
+Vicomte. M. le Compte de Varique ne se playt qua parlay de vous: M. de
+Moon aucy. Il di que vous avay voulew vous bastre avecque luy--que vous
+estes plus fort que luy fur l'ayscrimme--quil'y a surtout certaine Botte
+que vous scavay quil n'a jammay sceu pariay: et que c'en eut ete fay de
+luy si vouseluy vous vous fussiay battews ansamb. Aincy ce pauv Vicompte
+est mort. Mort et pontayt--Mon coussin, mon coussin! jay dans la tayste
+que vous n'estes quung pety Monst--angcy que les Esmonds ong tousjours
+este. La veuve est chay moy. J'ay recuilly cet' pauve famme. Elle est
+furieuse cont vous, allans tous les jours chercher ley Roy (d'icy)
+demandant a gran cri revanche pour son Mary. Elle ne veux voyre ni
+entende parlay de vous: pourtant elle ne fay qu'en parlay milfoy par
+jour. Quand vous seray hor prison venay me voyre. J'auray soing de vous.
+Si cette petite Prude veut se defaire de song pety Monste (Helas je
+craing quil ne soy trotar!) je m'on chargeray. J'ay encor quelqu interay
+et quelques escus de costay.
+
+“La Veuve se raccommode avec Miladi Marlboro qui est tout puicante
+avecque la Reine Anne. Cet dam senteraysent pour la petite prude; qui
+pourctant a un fi du mesme asge que vous savay.
+
+“En sortant de prisong venez icy. Je ne puy vous recevoir chaymoy a
+cause des mechansetes du monde, may pre du moy vous aurez logement.
+
+“ISABELLE VICOMTESSE D'ESMOND”
+
+
+Marchioness of Esmond this lady sometimes called herself, in virtue
+of that patent which had been given by the late King James to Harry
+Esmond's father; and in this state she had her train carried by a
+knight's wife, a cup and cover of assay to drink from, and fringed
+cloth.
+
+He who was of the same age as little Francis, whom we shall henceforth
+call Viscount Castlewood here, was H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, born
+in the same year and month with Frank, and just proclaimed at Saint
+Germains, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+I TAKE THE QUEEN'S PAY IN QUIN'S REGIMENT.
+
+
+The fellow in the orange-tawny livery with blue lace and facings was
+in waiting when Esmond came out of prison, and, taking the young
+gentleman's slender baggage, led the way out of that odious Newgate, and
+by Fleet Conduit, down to the Thames, where a pair of oars was called,
+and they went up the river to Chelsey. Esmond thought the sun had never
+shone so bright; nor the air felt so fresh and exhilarating. Temple
+Garden, as they rowed by, looked like the garden of Eden to him, and
+the aspect of the quays, wharves, and buildings by the river, Somerset
+House, and Westminster (where the splendid new bridge was just
+beginning), Lambeth tower and palace, and that busy shining scene of the
+Thames swarming with boats and barges, filled his heart with pleasure
+and cheerfulness--as well such a beautiful scene might to one who had
+been a prisoner so long, and with so many dark thoughts deepening the
+gloom of his captivity. They rowed up at length to the pretty village
+of Chelsey, where the nobility have many handsome country-houses; and
+so came to my Lady Viscountess's house, a cheerful new house in the
+row facing the river, with a handsome garden behind it, and a pleasant
+look-out both towards Surrey and Kensington, where stands the noble
+ancient palace of the Lord Warwick, Harry's reconciled adversary.
+
+Here in her ladyship's saloon, the young man saw again some of those
+pictures which had been at Castlewood, and which she had removed thence
+on the death of her lord, Harry's father. Specially, and in the place of
+honor, was Sir Peter Lely's picture of the honorable Mistress Isabella
+Esmond as Diana, in yellow satin, with a bow in her hand and a crescent
+in her forehead; and dogs frisking about her. 'Twas painted about the
+time when royal Endymions were said to find favor with this virgin
+huntress; and, as goddesses have youth perpetual, this one believed to
+the day of her death that she never grew older: and always persisted in
+supposing the picture was still like her.
+
+After he had been shown to her room by the groom of the chamber, who
+filled many offices besides in her ladyship's modest household, and
+after a proper interval, his elderly goddess Diana vouchsafed to appear
+to the young man. A blackamoor in a Turkish habit, with red boots and a
+silver collar, on which the Viscountess's arms were engraven, preceded
+her and bore her cushion; then came her gentlewoman; a little pack of
+spaniels barking and frisking about preceded the austere huntress--then,
+behold, the Viscountess herself “dropping odors.” Esmond recollected
+from his childhood that rich aroma of musk which his mother-in-law
+(for she may be called so) exhaled. As the sky grows redder and redder
+towards sunset, so, in the decline of her years, the cheeks of my Lady
+Dowager blushed more deeply. Her face was illuminated with vermilion,
+which appeared the brighter from the white paint employed to set it off.
+She wore the ringlets which had been in fashion in King Charles's time;
+whereas the ladies of King William's had head-dresses like the towers of
+Cybele. Her eyes gleamed out from the midst of this queer structure of
+paint, dyes, and pomatums. Such was my Lady Viscountess, Mr. Esmond's
+father's widow.
+
+He made her such a profound bow as her dignity and relationship merited,
+and advanced with the greatest gravity, and once more kissed that
+hand, upon the trembling knuckles of which glittered a score of
+rings--remembering old times when that trembling hand made him tremble.
+“Marchioness,” says he, bowing, and on one knee, “is it only the hand I
+may have the honor of saluting?” For, accompanying that inward laughter,
+which the sight of such an astonishing old figure might well produce
+in the young man, there was good will too, and the kindness of
+consanguinity. She had been his father's wife, and was his grandfather's
+daughter. She had suffered him in old days, and was kind to him now
+after her fashion. And now that bar-sinister was removed from Esmond's
+thought, and that secret opprobrium no longer cast upon his mind, he was
+pleased to feel family ties and own them--perhaps secretly vain of the
+sacrifice he had made, and to think that he, Esmond, was really the
+chief of his house, and only prevented by his own magnanimity from
+advancing his claim.
+
+At least, ever since he had learned that secret from his poor patron
+on his dying bed, actually as he was standing beside it, he had felt an
+independency which he had never known before, and which since did not
+desert him. So he called his old aunt Marchioness, but with an air as if
+he was the Marquis of Esmond who so addressed her.
+
+Did she read in the young gentleman's eyes, which had now no fear of
+hers or their superannuated authority, that he knew or suspected the
+truth about his birth? She gave a start of surprise at his altered
+manner: indeed, it was quite a different bearing to that of the
+Cambridge student who had paid her a visit two years since, and whom
+she had dismissed with five pieces sent by the groom of the chamber. She
+eyed him, then trembled a little more than was her wont, perhaps, and
+said, “Welcome, cousin,” in a frightened voice.
+
+His resolution, as has been said before, had been quite different,
+namely, so to bear himself through life as if the secret of his birth
+was not known to him; but he suddenly and rightly determined on a
+different course. He asked that her ladyship's attendants should be
+dismissed, and when they were private--“Welcome, nephew, at least,
+madam, it should be,” he said. “A great wrong has been done to me and to
+you, and to my poor mother, who is no more.”
+
+“I declare before heaven that I was guiltless of it,” she cried out,
+giving up her cause at once. “It was your wicked father who--”
+
+“Who brought this dishonor on our family,” says Mr. Esmond. “I know it
+full well. I want to disturb no one. Those who are in present possession
+have been my dearest benefactors, and are quite innocent of intentional
+wrong to me. The late lord, my dear patron, knew not the truth until a
+few months before his death, when Father Holt brought the news to him.”
+
+“The wretch! he had it in confession! he had it in confession!” cried
+out the Dowager Lady.
+
+“Not so. He learned it elsewhere as well as in confession,” Mr. Esmond
+answered. “My father, when wounded at the Boyne, told the truth to a
+French priest, who was in hiding after the battle, as well as to the
+priest there, at whose house he died. This gentleman did not think fit
+to divulge the story till he met with Mr. Holt at Saint Omer's. And
+the latter kept it back for his own purpose, and until he had learned
+whether my mother was alive or no. She is dead years since, my poor
+patron told me with his dying breath, and I doubt him not. I do not know
+even whether I could prove a marriage. I would not if I could. I do
+not care to bring shame on our name, or grief upon those whom I love,
+however hardly they may use me. My father's son, madam, won't aggravate
+the wrong my father did you. Continue to be his widow, and give me
+your kindness. 'Tis all I ask from you; and I shall never speak of this
+matter again.”
+
+“Mais vous etes un noble jeune homme!” breaks out my lady, speaking, as
+usual with her when she was agitated, in the French language.
+
+“Noblesse oblige,” says Mr. Esmond, making her a low bow. “There are
+those alive to whom, in return for their love to me, I often fondly said
+I would give my life away. Shall I be their enemy now, and quarrel about
+a title? What matters who has it? 'Tis with the family still.”
+
+“What can there be in that little prude of a woman that makes men so
+raffoler about her?” cries out my Lady Dowager. “She was here for a
+month petitioning the King. She is pretty, and well conserved; but she
+has not the bel air. In his late Majesty's Court all the men pretended
+to admire her, and she was no better than a little wax doll. She is
+better now, and looks the sister of her daughter; but what mean you
+all by bepraising her? Mr. Steele, who was in waiting on Prince George,
+seeing her with her two children going to Kensington, writ a poem about
+her, and says he shall wear her colors, and dress in black for the
+future. Mr. Congreve says he will write a 'Mourning Widow,' that shall
+be better than his 'Mourning Bride.' Though their husbands quarrelled
+and fought when that wretch Churchill deserted the King (for which he
+deserved to be hung), Lady Marlborough has again gone wild about the
+little widow; insulted me in my own drawing-room, by saying 'twas not
+the OLD widow, but the young Viscountess, she had come to see. Little
+Castlewood and little Lord Churchill are to be sworn friends, and have
+boxed each other twice or thrice like brothers already. 'Twas that
+wicked young Mohun who, coming back from the provinces last year, where
+he had disinterred her, raved about her all the winter; said she was a
+pearl set before swine; and killed poor stupid Frank. The quarrel was
+all about his wife. I know 'twas all about her. Was there anything
+between her and Mohun, nephew? Tell me now--was there anything? About
+yourself, I do not ask you to answer questions.”
+
+Mr. Esmond blushed up. “My lady's virtue is like that of a saint in
+heaven, madam,” he cried out.
+
+“Eh!--mon neveu. Many saints get to heaven after having a deal to repent
+of. I believe you are like all the rest of the fools, and madly in love
+with her.”
+
+“Indeed, I loved and honored her before all the world,” Esmond answered.
+“I take no shame in that.”
+
+“And she has shut her door on you--given the living to that horrid young
+cub, son of that horrid old bear, Tusher, and says she will never see
+you more. Monsieur mon neveu--we are all like that. When I was a young
+woman, I'm positive that a thousand duels were fought about me. And when
+poor Monsieur de Souchy drowned himself in the canal at Bruges because I
+danced with Count Springbock, I couldn't squeeze out a single tear, but
+danced till five o'clock the next morning. 'Twas the Count--no, 'twas my
+Lord Ormond that played the fiddles, and his Majesty did me the honor of
+dancing all night with me.--How you are grown! You have got the bel air.
+You are a black man. Our Esmonds are all black. The little prude's son
+is fair; so was his father--fair and stupid. You were an ugly little
+wretch when you came to Castlewood--you were all eyes, like a young
+crow. We intended you should be a priest. That awful Father Holt--how
+he used to frighten me when I was ill! I have a comfortable director
+now--the Abbe Douillette--a dear man. We make meagre on Fridays always.
+My cook is a devout pious man. You, of course, are of the right way of
+thinking. They say the Prince of Orange is very ill indeed.”
+
+In this way the old Dowager rattled on remorselessly to Mr. Esmond, who
+was quite astounded with her present volubility, contrasting it with her
+former haughty behavior to him. But she had taken him into favor for the
+moment, and chose not only to like him, as far as her nature permitted,
+but to be afraid of him; and he found himself to be as familiar with her
+now as a young man, as, when a boy, he had been timorous and silent.
+She was as good as her word respecting him. She introduced him to her
+company, of which she entertained a good deal--of the adherents of King
+James of course--and a great deal of loud intriguing took place over her
+card-tables. She presented Mr. Esmond as her kinsman to many persons
+of honor; she supplied him not illiberally with money, which he had no
+scruple in accepting from her, considering the relationship which he
+bore to her, and the sacrifices which he himself was making in behalf
+of the family. But he had made up his mind to continue at no woman's
+apron-strings longer; and perhaps had cast about how he should
+distinguish himself, and make himself a name, which his singular
+fortune had denied him. A discontent with his former bookish life and
+quietude,--a bitter feeling of revolt at that slavery in which he had
+chosen to confine himself for the sake of those whose hardness
+towards him make his heart bleed,--a restless wish to see men and the
+world,--led him to think of the military profession: at any rate,
+to desire to see a few campaigns, and accordingly he pressed his new
+patroness to get him a pair of colors; and one day had the honor of
+finding himself appointed an ensign in Colonel Quin's regiment of
+Fusileers on the Irish establishment.
+
+Mr. Esmond's commission was scarce three weeks old when that accident
+befell King William which ended the life of the greatest, the wisest,
+the bravest, and most clement sovereign whom England ever knew.
+'Twas the fashion of the hostile party to assail this great prince's
+reputation during his life; but the joy which they and all his enemies
+in Europe showed at his death, is a proof of the terror in which they
+held him. Young as Esmond was, he was wise enough (and generous enough
+too, let it be said) to scorn that indecency of gratulation which broke
+out amongst the followers of King James in London, upon the death of
+this illustrious prince, this invincible warrior, this wise and moderate
+statesman. Loyalty to the exiled king's family was traditional, as has
+been said, in that house to which Mr. Esmond belonged. His father's
+widow had all her hopes, sympathies, recollections, prejudices, engaged
+on King James's side; and was certainly as noisy a conspirator as ever
+asserted the King's rights, or abused his opponent's, over a
+quadrille table or a dish of bohea. Her ladyship's house swarmed with
+ecclesiastics, in disguise and out; with tale-bearers from St. Germains;
+and quidnuncs that knew the last news from Versailles; nay, the exact
+force and number of the next expedition which the French king was to
+send from Dunkirk, and which was to swallow up the Prince of Orange, his
+army and his court. She had received the Duke of Berwick when he landed
+here in '96. She kept the glass he drank from, vowing she never would
+use it till she drank King James the Third's health in it on his
+Majesty's return; she had tokens from the Queen, and relics of the saint
+who, if the story was true, had not always been a saint as far as she
+and many others were concerned. She believed in the miracles wrought at
+his tomb, and had a hundred authentic stories of wondrous cures effected
+by the blessed king's rosaries, the medals which he wore, the locks of
+his hair, or what not. Esmond remembered a score of marvellous tales
+which the credulous old woman told him. There was the Bishop of Autun,
+that was healed of a malady he had for forty years, and which left
+him after he said mass for the repose of the king's soul. There was M.
+Marais, a surgeon in Auvergne, who had a palsy in both his legs, which
+was cured through the king's intercession. There was Philip Pitet, of
+the Benedictines, who had a suffocating cough, which wellnigh
+killed him, but he besought relief of heaven through the merits and
+intercession of the blessed king, and he straightway felt a profuse
+sweat breaking out all over him, and was recovered perfectly. And
+there was the wife of Mons. Lepervier, dancing-master to the Duke
+of Saxe-Gotha, who was entirely eased of a rheumatism by the king's
+intercession, of which miracle there could be no doubt, for her surgeon
+and his apprentice had given their testimony, under oath, that they did
+not in any way contribute to the cure. Of these tales, and a thousand
+like them, Mr. Esmond believed as much as he chose. His kinswoman's
+greater faith had swallow for them all.
+
+The English High Church party did not adopt these legends. But truth and
+honor, as they thought, bound them to the exiled king's side; nor
+had the banished family any warmer supporter than that kind lady of
+Castlewood, in whose house Esmond was brought up. She influenced her
+husband, very much more perhaps than my lord knew, who admired his wife
+prodigiously though he might be inconstant to her, and who, adverse
+to the trouble of thinking himself, gladly enough adopted the opinions
+which she chose for him. To one of her simple and faithful heart,
+allegiance to any sovereign but the one was impossible. To serve King
+William for interest's sake would have been a monstrous hypocrisy and
+treason. Her pure conscience could no more have consented to it than to
+a theft, a forgery, or any other base action. Lord Castlewood might have
+been won over, no doubt, but his wife never could: and he submitted his
+conscience to hers in this case as he did in most others, when he was
+not tempted too sorely. And it was from his affection and gratitude
+most likely, and from that eager devotion for his mistress, which
+characterized all Esmond's youth, that the young man subscribed to this,
+and other articles of faith, which his fond benefactress set him. Had
+she been a Whig, he had been one; had she followed Mr. Fox, and turned
+Quaker, no doubt he would have abjured ruffles and a periwig, and have
+forsworn swords, lace-coats, and clocked stockings. In the scholars'
+boyish disputes at the University, where parties ran very high,
+Esmond was noted as a Jacobite, and very likely from vanity as much as
+affection took the side of his family.
+
+Almost the whole of the clergy of the country and more than a half of
+the nation were on this side. Ours is the most loyal people in the world
+surely; we admire our kings, and are faithful to them long after they
+have ceased to be true to us. 'Tis a wonder to any one who looks back at
+the history of the Stuart family to think how they kicked their
+crowns away from them; how they flung away chances after chances; what
+treasures of loyalty they dissipated, and how fatally they were bent on
+consummating their own ruin. If ever men had fidelity, 'twas they; if
+ever men squandered opportunity, 'twas they; and, of all the enemies
+they had, they themselves were the most fatal.
+
+When the Princess Anne succeeded, the wearied nation was glad enough to
+cry a truce from all these wars, controversies, and conspiracies, and
+to accept in the person of a Princess of the blood royal a compromise
+between the parties into which the country was divided. The Tories
+could serve under her with easy consciences; though a Tory herself,
+she represented the triumph of the Whig opinion. The people of England,
+always liking that their Princes should be attached to their own
+families, were pleased to think the Princess was faithful to hers; and
+up to the very last day and hour of her reign, and but for that fatality
+which he inherited from his fathers along with their claims to the
+English crown, King James the Third might have worn it. But he neither
+knew how to wait an opportunity, nor to use it when he had it; he was
+venturesome when he ought to have been cautious, and cautious when
+he ought to have dared everything. 'Tis with a sort of rage at his
+inaptitude that one thinks of his melancholy story. Do the Fates deal
+more specially with kings than with common men? One is apt to imagine
+so, in considering the history of that royal race, in whose behalf
+so much fidelity, so much valor, so much blood were desperately and
+bootlessly expended.
+
+The King dead then, the Princess Anne (ugly Anne Hyde's daughter, our
+Dowager at Chelsey called her) was proclaimed by trumpeting heralds
+all over the town from Westminster to Ludgate Hill, amidst immense
+jubilations of the people.
+
+Next week my Lord Marlborough was promoted to the Garter, and to
+be Captain-General of her Majesty's forces at home and abroad. This
+appointment only inflamed the Dowager's rage, or, as she thought it, her
+fidelity to her rightful sovereign. “The Princess is but a puppet in
+the hands of that fury of a woman, who comes into my drawing-room and
+insults me to my face. What can come to a country that is given over to
+such a woman?” says the Dowager: “As for that double-faced traitor, my
+Lord Marlborough, he has betrayed every man and every woman with whom he
+has had to deal, except his horrid wife, who makes him tremble. 'Tis all
+over with the country when it has got into the clutches of such wretches
+as these.”
+
+Esmond's old kinswoman saluted the new powers in this way; but some good
+fortune at last occurred to a family which stood in great need of it, by
+the advancement of these famous personages who benefited humbler people
+that had the luck of being in their favor. Before Mr. Esmond left
+England in the month of August, and being then at Portsmouth, where he
+had joined his regiment, and was busy at drill, learning the practice
+and mysteries of the musket and pike, he heard that a pension on the
+Stamp Office had been got for his late beloved mistress, and that the
+young Mistress Beatrix was also to be taken into court. So much good,
+at least, had come of the poor widow's visit to London, not revenge upon
+her husband's enemies, but reconcilement to old friends, who pitied, and
+seemed inclined to serve her. As for the comrades in prison and the
+late misfortune, Colonel Westbury was with the Captain-General gone to
+Holland; Captain Macartney was now at Portsmouth, with his regiment of
+Fusileers and the force under command of his Grace the Duke of Ormond,
+bound for Spain it was said; my Lord Warwick was returned home; and Lord
+Mohun, so far from being punished for the homicide which had brought so
+much grief and change into the Esmond family, was gone in company of my
+Lord Macclesfield's splendid embassy to the Elector of Hanover, carrying
+the Garter to his Highness, and a complimentary letter from the Queen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+RECAPITULATIONS.
+
+
+From such fitful lights as could be cast upon his dark history by the
+broken narrative of his poor patron, torn by remorse and struggling in
+the last pangs of dissolution, Mr. Esmond had been made to understand
+so far, that his mother was long since dead; and so there could be
+no question as regarded her or her honor, tarnished by her husband's
+desertion and injury, to influence her son in any steps which he might
+take either for prosecuting or relinquishing his own just claims. It
+appeared from my poor lord's hurried confession, that he had been made
+acquainted with the real facts of the case only two years since, when
+Mr. Holt visited him, and would have implicated him in one of those many
+conspiracies by which the secret leaders of King James's party in this
+country were ever endeavoring to destroy the Prince of Orange's life or
+power: conspiracies so like murder, so cowardly in the means used, so
+wicked in the end, that our nation has sure done well in throwing
+off all allegiance and fidelity to the unhappy family that could not
+vindicate its right except by such treachery--by such dark intrigue and
+base agents. There were designs against King William that were no
+more honorable than the ambushes of cut-throats and footpads. 'Tis
+humiliating to think that a great Prince, possessor of a great and
+sacred right, and upholder of a great cause, should have stooped to such
+baseness of assassination and treasons as are proved by the unfortunate
+King James's own warrant and sign manual given to his supporters in this
+country. What he and they called levying war was, in truth, no better
+than instigating murder. The noble Prince of Orange burst magnanimously
+through those feeble meshes of conspiracy in which his enemies tried
+to envelop him: it seemed as if their cowardly daggers broke upon the
+breast of his undaunted resolution. After King James's death, the
+Queen and her people at St. Germains--priests and women for the most
+part--continued their intrigues in behalf of the young Prince, James the
+Third, as he was called in France and by his party here (this Prince, or
+Chevalier de St. George, was born in the same year with Esmond's young
+pupil Frank, my Lord Viscount's son); and the Prince's affairs, being in
+the hands of priests and women, were conducted as priests and women will
+conduct them, artfully, cruelly, feebly, and to a certain bad issue. The
+moral of the Jesuits' story I think as wholesome a one as ever was
+writ: the artfullest, the wisest, the most toilsome, and dexterous
+plot-builders in the world--there always comes a day when the roused
+public indignation kicks their flimsy edifice down, and sends its
+cowardly enemies a-flying. Mr. Swift hath finely described that passion
+for intrigue, that love of secrecy, slander, and lying, which belongs to
+weak people, hangers-on of weak courts. 'Tis the nature of such to
+hate and envy the strong, and conspire their ruin; and the conspiracy
+succeeds very well, and everything presages the satisfactory overthrow
+of the great victim; until one day Gulliver rouses himself, shakes off
+the little vermin of an enemy, and walks away unmolested. Ah! the Irish
+soldiers might well say after the Boyne, “Change kings with us and we
+will fight it over again.” Indeed, the fight was not fair between the
+two. 'Twas a weak, priest-ridden, woman-ridden man, with such puny
+allies and weapons as his own poor nature led him to choose, contending
+against the schemes, the generalship, the wisdom, and the heart of a
+hero.
+
+On one of these many coward's errands then, (for, as I view them now,
+I can call them no less,) Mr. Holt had come to my lord at Castlewood,
+proposing some infallible plan for the Prince of Orange's destruction,
+in which my Lord Viscount, loyalist as he was, had indignantly refused
+to join. As far as Mr. Esmond could gather from his dying words, Holt
+came to my lord with a plan of insurrection, and offer of the renewal,
+in his person, of that marquis's title which King James had conferred on
+the preceding viscount; and on refusal of this bribe, a threat was made,
+on Holt's part, to upset my Lord Viscount's claim to his estate and
+title of Castlewood altogether. To back this astounding piece of
+intelligence, of which Henry Esmond's patron now had the first light,
+Holt came armed with the late lord's dying declaration, after the affair
+of the Boyne, at Trim, in Ireland, made both to the Irish priest and a
+French ecclesiastic of Holt's order, that was with King James's army.
+Holt showed, or pretended to show, the marriage certificate of the late
+Viscount Esmond with my mother, in the city of Brussels, in the year
+1677, when the viscount, then Thomas Esmond, was serving with the
+English army in Flanders; he could show, he said, that this Gertrude,
+deserted by her husband long since, was alive, and a professed nun in
+the year 1685, at Brussels, in which year Thomas Esmond married
+his uncle's daughter, Isabella, now called Viscountess Dowager of
+Castlewood; and leaving him, for twelve hours, to consider this
+astounding news (so the poor dying lord said), disappeared with his
+papers in the mysterious way in which he came. Esmond knew how, well
+enough: by that window from which he had seen the Father issue:--but
+there was no need to explain to my poor lord, only to gather from his
+parting lips the words which he would soon be able to utter no more.
+
+Ere the twelve hours were over, Holt himself was a prisoner, implicated
+in Sir John Fenwick's conspiracy, and locked up at Hexton first, whence
+he was transferred to the Tower; leaving the poor Lord Viscount, who
+was not aware of the others being taken, in daily apprehension of his
+return, when (as my Lord Castlewood declared, calling God to witness,
+and with tears in his dying eyes) it had been his intention at once to
+give up his estate and his title to their proper owner, and to retire to
+his own house at Walcote with his family. “And would to God I had done
+it,” the poor lord said. “I would not be here now, wounded to death, a
+miserable, stricken man!”
+
+My lord waited day after day, and, as may be supposed, no messenger
+came; but at a month's end Holt got means to convey to him a message
+out of the Tower, which was to this effect: that he should consider all
+unsaid that had been said, and that things were as they were.
+
+“I had a sore temptation,” said my poor lord. “Since I had come into
+this cursed title of Castlewood, which hath never prospered with me, I
+have spent far more than the income of that estate, and my paternal one,
+too. I calculated all my means down to the last shilling, and found I
+never could pay you back, my poor Harry, whose fortune I had had for
+twelve years. My wife and children must have gone out of the house
+dishonored, and beggars. God knows, it hath been a miserable one for me
+and mine. Like a coward, I clung to that respite which Holt gave me. I
+kept the truth from Rachel and you. I tried to win money of Mohun, and
+only plunged deeper into debt; I scarce dared look thee in the face when
+I saw thee. This sword hath been hanging over my head these two years. I
+swear I felt happy when Mohun's blade entered my side.”
+
+After lying ten months in the Tower, Holt, against whom nothing could
+be found except that he was a Jesuit priest, known to be in King James's
+interest, was put on shipboard by the incorrigible forgiveness of King
+William, who promised him, however, a hanging if ever he should again
+set foot on English shore. More than once, whilst he was in prison
+himself, Esmond had thought where those papers could be, which the
+Jesuit had shown to his patron, and which had such an interest for
+himself. They were not found on Mr. Holt's person when that Father was
+apprehended, for had such been the case my Lords of the Council had seen
+them, and this family history had long since been made public. However,
+Esmond cared not to seek the papers. His resolution being taken; his
+poor mother dead; what matter to him that documents existed proving his
+right to a title which he was determined not to claim, and of which he
+vowed never to deprive that family which he loved best in the world?
+Perhaps he took a greater pride out of his sacrifice than he would have
+had in those honors which he was resolved to forego. Again, as long as
+these titles were not forthcoming, Esmond's kinsman, dear young Francis,
+was the honorable and undisputed owner of the Castlewood estate and
+title. The mere word of a Jesuit could not overset Frank's right of
+occupancy, and so Esmond's mind felt actually at ease to think the
+papers were missing, and in their absence his dear mistress and her son
+the lawful Lady and Lord of Castlewood.
+
+Very soon after his liberation, Mr. Esmond made it his business to ride
+to that village of Ealing where he had passed his earliest years in
+this country, and to see if his old guardians were still alive and
+inhabitants of that place. But the only relique which he found of old
+M. Pastoureau was a stone in the churchyard, which told that Athanasius
+Pastoureau, a native of Flanders, lay there buried, aged 87 years. The
+old man's cottage, which Esmond perfectly recollected, and the garden
+(where in his childhood he had passed many hours of play and reverie,
+and had many a beating from his termagant of a foster-mother), were
+now in the occupation of quite a different family; and it was with
+difficulty that he could learn in the village what had come of
+Pastoureau's widow and children. The clerk of the parish recollected
+her--the old man was scarce altered in the fourteen years that had
+passed since last Esmond set eyes on him. It appeared she had pretty
+soon consoled herself after the death of her old husband, whom she ruled
+over, by taking a new one younger than herself, who spent her money
+and ill-treated her and her children. The girl died; one of the boys
+'listed; the other had gone apprentice. Old Mr. Rogers, the clerk, said
+he had heard that Mrs. Pastoureau was dead too. She and her husband had
+left Ealing this seven year; and so Mr. Esmond's hopes of gaining any
+information regarding his parentage from this family were brought to an
+end. He gave the old clerk a crown-piece for his news, smiling to think
+of the time when he and his little playfellows had slunk out of the
+churchyard or hidden behind the gravestones, at the approach of this
+awful authority.
+
+Who was his mother? What had her name been? When did she die? Esmond
+longed to find some one who could answer these questions to him, and
+thought even of putting them to his aunt the Viscountess, who had
+innocently taken the name which belonged of right to Henry's mother.
+But she knew nothing, or chose to know nothing, on this subject, nor,
+indeed, could Mr. Esmond press her much to speak on it. Father Holt was
+the only man who could enlighten him, and Esmond felt he must wait until
+some fresh chance or new intrigue might put him face to face with his
+old friend, or bring that restless indefatigable spirit back to England
+again.
+
+The appointment to his ensigncy, and the preparations necessary for the
+campaign, presently gave the young gentleman other matters to think of.
+His new patroness treated him very kindly and liberally; she promised
+to make interest and pay money, too, to get him a company speedily; she
+bade him procure a handsome outfit, both of clothes and of arms, and
+was pleased to admire him when he made his first appearance in his laced
+scarlet coat, and to permit him to salute her on the occasion of this
+interesting investiture. “Red,” says she, tossing up her old head, “hath
+always been the color worn by the Esmonds.” And so her ladyship wore
+it on her own cheeks very faithfully to the last. She would have him be
+dressed, she said, as became his father's son, and paid cheerfully for
+his five-pound beaver, his black buckled periwig, and his fine holland
+shirts, and his swords, and his pistols, mounted with silver. Since the
+day he was born, poor Harry had never looked such a fine gentleman: his
+liberal step-mother filled his purse with guineas, too, some of which
+Captain Steele and a few choice spirits helped Harry to spend in an
+entertainment which Dick ordered (and, indeed, would have paid for, but
+that he had no money when the reckoning was called for; nor would the
+landlord give him any more credit) at the “Garter,” over against the
+gate of the Palace, in Pall Mall.
+
+The old Viscountess, indeed, if she had done Esmond any wrong formerly,
+seemed inclined to repair it by the present kindness of her behavior:
+she embraced him copiously at parting, wept plentifully, bade him write
+by every packet, and gave him an inestimable relic, which she besought
+him to wear round his neck--a medal, blessed by I know not what pope,
+and worn by his late sacred Majesty King James. So Esmond arrived at his
+regiment with a better equipage than most young officers could afford.
+He was older than most of his seniors, and had a further advantage which
+belonged but to very few of the army gentlemen in his day--many of whom
+could do little more than write their names--that he had read much, both
+at home and at the University, was master of two or three languages, and
+had that further education which neither books nor years will give, but
+which some men get from the silent teaching of adversity. She is a great
+schoolmistress, as many a poor fellow knows, that hath held his hand out
+to her ferule, and whimpered over his lesson before her awful chair.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+I GO ON THE VIGO BAY EXPEDITION, TASTE SALT-WATER AND SMELL POWDER.
+
+
+The first expedition in which Mr. Esmond had the honor to be engaged,
+rather resembled one of the invasions projected by the redoubted Captain
+Avory or Captain Kidd, than a war between crowned heads, carried on by
+generals of rank and honor. On the 1st day of July, 1702, a great fleet,
+of a hundred and fifty sail, set sail from Spithead, under the command
+of Admiral Shovell, having on board 12,000 troops, with his Grace the
+Duke of Ormond as the Capt.-General of the expedition. One of these
+12,000 heroes having never been to sea before, or, at least, only once
+in his infancy, when he made the voyage to England from that unknown
+country where he was born--one of those 12,000--the junior ensign of
+Colonel Quin's regiment of Fusileers--was in a quite unheroic state of
+corporal prostration a few hours after sailing; and an enemy, had he
+boarded the ship, would have had easy work of him. From Portsmouth
+we put into Plymouth, and took in fresh reinforcements. We were off
+Finisterre on the 31st of July, so Esmond's table-book informs him: and
+on the 8th of August made the rock of Lisbon. By this time the Ensign
+was grown as bold as an admiral, and a week afterwards had the fortune
+to be under fire for the first time--and under water, too,--his boat
+being swamped in the surf in Toros Bay, where the troops landed. The
+ducking of his new coat was all the harm the young soldier got in this
+expedition, for, indeed, the Spaniards made no stand before our troops,
+and were not in strength to do so.
+
+But the campaign, if not very glorious, was very pleasant. New sights of
+nature, by sea and land--a life of action, beginning now for the first
+time--occupied and excited the young man. The many accidents, and the
+routine of shipboard--the military duty--the new acquaintances, both of
+his comrades in arms, and of the officers of the fleet--served to cheer
+and occupy his mind, and waken it out of that selfish depression into
+which his late unhappy fortunes had plunged him. He felt as if the ocean
+separated him from his past care, and welcomed the new era of life which
+was dawning for him. Wounds heal rapidly in a heart of two-and-twenty;
+hopes revive daily; and courage rallies in spite of a man. Perhaps,
+as Esmond thought of his late despondency and melancholy, and how
+irremediable it had seemed to him, as he lay in his prison a few months
+back, he was almost mortified in his secret mind at finding himself so
+cheerful.
+
+To see with one's own eyes men and countries, is better than reading all
+the books of travel in the world: and it was with extreme delight and
+exultation that the young man found himself actually on his grand tour,
+and in the view of people and cities which he had read about as a boy.
+He beheld war for the first time--the pride, pomp, and circumstance of
+it, at least, if not much of the danger. He saw actually, and with
+his own eyes, those Spanish cavaliers and ladies whom he had beheld
+in imagination in that immortal story of Cervantes, which had been
+the delight of his youthful leisure. 'Tis forty years since Mr. Esmond
+witnessed those scenes, but they remain as fresh in his memory as on the
+day when first he saw them as a young man. A cloud, as of grief, that
+had lowered over him, and had wrapped the last years of his life in
+gloom, seemed to clear away from Esmond during this fortunate voyage and
+campaign. His energies seemed to awaken and to expand under a cheerful
+sense of freedom. Was his heart secretly glad to have escaped from that
+fond but ignoble bondage at home? Was it that the inferiority to
+which the idea of his base birth had compelled him, vanished with the
+knowledge of that secret, which though, perforce, kept to himself, was
+yet enough to cheer and console him? At any rate, young Esmond of the
+army was quite a different being to the sad little dependant of the
+kind Castlewood household, and the melancholy student of Trinity Walks;
+discontented with his fate, and with the vocation into which that drove
+him, and thinking, with a secret indignation, that the cassock and
+bands, and the very sacred office with which he had once proposed to
+invest himself, were, in fact, but marks of a servitude which was to
+continue all his life long. For, disguise it as he might to himself,
+he had all along felt that to be Castlewood's chaplain was to be
+Castlewood's inferior still, and that his life was but to be a long,
+hopeless servitude. So, indeed, he was far from grudging his old friend
+Tom Tusher's good fortune (as Tom, no doubt, thought it). Had it been a
+mitre and Lambeth which his friends offered him, and not a small living
+and a country parsonage, he would have felt as much a slave in one case
+as in the other, and was quite happy and thankful to be free.
+
+The bravest man I ever knew in the army, and who had been present in
+most of King William's actions, as well as in the campaigns of the great
+Duke of Marlborough, could never be got to tell us of any achievement of
+his, except that once Prince Eugene ordered him up a tree to reconnoitre
+the enemy, which feat he could not achieve on account of the horseman's
+boots he wore; and on another day that he was very nearly taken prisoner
+because of these jack-boots, which prevented him from running away.
+The present narrator shall imitate this laudable reserve, and doth not
+intend to dwell upon his military exploits, which were in truth not very
+different from those of a thousand other gentlemen. This first campaign
+of Mr. Esmond's lasted but a few days; and as a score of books have been
+written concerning it, it may be dismissed very briefly here.
+
+When our fleet came within view of Cadiz, our commander sent a boat
+with a white flag and a couple of officers to the Governor of Cadiz, Don
+Scipio de Brancaccio, with a letter from his Grace, in which he hoped
+that as Don Scipio had formerly served with the Austrians against the
+French, 'twas to be hoped that his Excellency would now declare himself
+against the French King, and for the Austrian in the war between King
+Philip and King Charles. But his Excellency, Don Scipio, prepared a
+reply, in which he announced that, having served his former king with
+honor and fidelity, he hoped to exhibit the same loyalty and devotion
+towards his present sovereign, King Philip V.; and by the time this
+letter was ready, the two officers had been taken to see the town, and
+the alameda, and the theatre, where bull-fights are fought, and the
+convents, where the admirable works of Don Bartholomew Murillo inspired
+one of them with a great wonder and delight--such as he had never felt
+before--concerning this divine art of painting; and these sights over,
+and a handsome refection and chocolate being served to the English
+gentlemen, they were accompanied back to their shallop with every
+courtesy, and were the only two officers of the English army that saw at
+that time that famous city.
+
+The general tried the power of another proclamation on the Spaniards, in
+which he announced that we only came in the interest of Spain and King
+Charles, and for ourselves wanted to make no conquest nor settlement
+in Spain at all. But all this eloquence was lost upon the Spaniards, it
+would seem: the Captain-General of Andalusia would no more listen to us
+than the Governor of Cadiz; and in reply to his Grace's proclamation,
+the Marquis of Villadarias fired off another, which those who knew the
+Spanish thought rather the best of the two; and of this number was Harry
+Esmond, whose kind Jesuit in old days had instructed him, and now had
+the honor of translating for his Grace these harmless documents of war.
+There was a hard touch for his Grace, and, indeed, for other generals in
+her Majesty's service, in the concluding sentence of the Don: “That he
+and his council had the generous example of their ancestors to follow,
+who had never yet sought their elevation in the blood or in the flight
+of their kings. 'Mori pro patria' was his device, which the Duke might
+communicate to the Princess who governed England.”
+
+Whether the troops were angry at this repartee or no, 'tis certain
+something put them in a fury; for, not being able to get possession of
+Cadiz, our people seized upon Port Saint Mary's and sacked it, burning
+down the merchants' storehouses, getting drunk with the famous wines
+there, pillaging and robbing quiet houses and convents, murdering and
+doing worse. And the only blood which Mr. Esmond drew in this shameful
+campaign, was the knocking down an English sentinel with a half-pike,
+who was offering insult to a poor trembling nun. Is she going to turn
+out a beauty? or a princess? or perhaps Esmond's mother that he had lost
+and never seen? Alas no, it was but a poor wheezy old dropsical woman,
+with a wart upon her nose. But having been early taught a part of the
+Roman religion, he never had the horror of it that some Protestants have
+shown, and seem to think to be a part of ours.
+
+After the pillage and plunder of St. Mary's and an assault upon a fort
+or two, the troops all took shipping, and finished their expedition, at
+any rate, more brilliantly than it had begun. Hearing that the French
+fleet with a great treasure was in Vigo Bay, our Admirals, Rooke and
+Hopson, pursued the enemy thither; the troops landed and carried the
+forts that protected the bay, Hopson passing the boom first on board
+his ship the “Torbay,” and the rest of the ships, English and Dutch,
+following him. Twenty ships were burned or taken in the Port of
+Redondilla, and a vast deal more plunder than was ever accounted for;
+but poor men before that expedition were rich afterwards, and so often
+was it found and remarked that the Vigo officers came home with pockets
+full of money, that the notorious Jack Shafto, who made such a figure at
+the coffeehouses and gaming-tables in London, and gave out that he had
+been a soldier at Vigo, owned, when he was about to be hanged, that
+Bagshot Heath had been HIS Vigo, and that he only spoke of La Redondilla
+to turn away people's eyes from the real place where the booty lay.
+Indeed, Hounslow or Vigo--which matters much? The latter was a bad
+business, though Mr. Addison did sing its praises in Latin. That honest
+gentleman's muse had an eye to the main chance; and I doubt whether she
+saw much inspiration in the losing side.
+
+But though Esmond, for his part, got no share of this fabulous booty,
+one great prize which he had out of the campaign was, that excitement of
+action and change of scene, which shook off a great deal of his previous
+melancholy. He learnt at any rate to bear his fate cheerfully. He
+brought back a browned face, a heart resolute enough, and a little
+pleasant store of knowledge and observation, from that expedition, which
+was over with the autumn, when the troops were back in England again;
+and Esmond giving up his post of secretary to General Lumley, whose
+command was over, and parting with that officer with many kind
+expressions of good will on the General's side, had leave to go to
+London, to see if he could push his fortunes any way further, and found
+himself once more in his dowager aunt's comfortable quarters at Chelsey,
+and in greater favor than ever with the old lady. He propitiated her
+with a present of a comb, a fan, and a black mantle, such as the ladies
+of Cadiz wear, and which my Lady Viscountess pronounced became her style
+of beauty mightily. And she was greatily edified at hearing of that
+story of his rescue of the nun, and felt very little doubt but that her
+King James's relic, which he had always dutifully worn in his desk, had
+kept him out of danger, and averted the shot of the enemy. My lady made
+feasts for him, introduced him to more company, and pushed his fortunes
+with such enthusiasm and success, that she got a promise of a company
+for him through the Lady Marlborough's interest, who was graciously
+pleased to accept of a diamond worth a couple of hundred guineas, which
+Mr. Esmond was enabled to present to her ladyship through his aunt's
+bounty, and who promised that she would take charge of Esmond's fortune.
+He had the honor to make his appearance at the Queen's drawing-room
+occasionally, and to frequent my Lord Marlborough's levees. That
+great man received the young one with very especial favor, so Esmond's
+comrades said, and deigned to say that he had received the best reports
+of Mr. Esmond, both for courage and ability, whereon you may be sure
+the young gentleman made a profound bow, and expressed himself eager to
+serve under the most distinguished captain in the world.
+
+Whilst his business was going on thus prosperously, Esmond had his
+share of pleasure too, and made his appearance along with other young
+gentlemen at the coffee-houses, the theatres, and the Mall. He longed to
+hear of his dear mistress and her family: many a time, in the midst of
+the gayeties and pleasures of the town, his heart fondly reverted to
+them; and often as the young fellows of his society were making merry
+at the tavern, and calling toasts (as the fashion of that day was) over
+their wine, Esmond thought of persons--of two fair women, whom he had
+been used to adore almost, and emptied his glass with a sigh.
+
+By this time the elder Viscountess had grown tired again of the younger,
+and whenever she spoke of my lord's widow, 'twas in terms by no means
+complimentary towards that poor lady: the younger woman not needing her
+protection any longer, the elder abused her. Most of the family quarrels
+that I have seen in life (saving always those arising from money
+disputes, when a division of twopence halfpenny will often drive the
+dearest relatives into war and estrangement,) spring out of jealousy
+and envy. Jack and Tom, born of the same family and to the same fortune,
+live very cordially together, not until Jack is ruined when Tom deserts
+him, but until Tom makes a sudden rise in prosperity, which Jack can't
+forgive. Ten times to one 'tis the unprosperous man that is angry, not
+the other who is in fault. 'Tis Mrs. Jack, who can only afford a chair,
+that sickens at Mrs. Tom's new coach-and-sick, cries out against her
+sister's airs, and sets her husband against his brother. 'Tis Jack who
+sees his brother shaking hands with a lord (with whom Jack would like
+to exchange snuff-boxes himself), that goes home and tells his wife how
+poor Tom is spoiled, he fears, and no better than a sneak, parasite, and
+beggar on horse back. I remember how furious the coffee-house wits were
+with Dick Steele when he set up his coach and fine house in Bloomsbury:
+they began to forgive him when the bailiffs were after him, and abused
+Mr. Addison for selling Dick's country-house. And yet Dick in the
+sponging-house, or Dick in the Park, with his four mares and plated
+harness, was exactly the same gentle, kindly, improvident, jovial Dick
+Steele: and yet Mr. Addison was perfectly right in getting the money
+which was his, and not giving up the amount of his just claim, to
+be spent by Dick upon champagne and fiddlers, laced clothes, fine
+furniture, and parasites, Jew and Christian, male and female, who clung
+to him. As, according to the famous maxim of Monsieur de Rochefoucault,
+“in our friends' misfortunes there's something secretly pleasant to us;”
+ so, on the other hand, their good fortune is disagreeable. If 'tis hard
+for a man to bear his own good luck, 'tis harder still for his friends
+to bear it for him and but few of them ordinarily can stand that trial:
+whereas one of the “precious uses” of adversity is, that it is a great
+reconciler; that it brings back averted kindness, disarms animosity, and
+causes yesterday's enemy to fling his hatred aside, and hold out a hand
+to the fallen friend of old days. There's pity and love, as well as
+envy, in the same heart and towards the same person. The rivalry stops
+when the competitor tumbles; and, as I view it, we should look at these
+agreeable and disagreeable qualities of our humanity humbly alike. They
+are consequent and natural, and our kindness and meanness both manly.
+
+So you may either read the sentence, that the elder of Esmond's two
+kinswomen pardoned the younger her beauty, when that had lost somewhat
+of its freshness, perhaps; and forgot most her grievances against the
+other, when the subject of them was no longer prosperous and enviable;
+or we may say more benevolently (but the sum comes to the same figures,
+worked either way,) that Isabella repented of her unkindness towards
+Rachel, when Rachel was unhappy; and, bestirring herself in behalf of
+the poor widow and her children, gave them shelter and friendship.
+The ladies were quite good friends as long as the weaker one needed a
+protector. Before Esmond went away on his first campaign, his mistress
+was still on terms of friendship (though a poor little chit, a
+woman that had evidently no spirit in her, &c.) with the elder Lady
+Castlewood; and Mistress Beatrix was allowed to be a beauty.
+
+But between the first year of Queen Anne's reign, and the second, sad
+changes for the worse had taken place in the two younger ladies,
+at least in the elder's description of them. Rachel, Viscountess
+Castlewood, had no more face than a dumpling, and Mrs. Beatrix was grown
+quite coarse, and was losing all her beauty. Little Lord Blandford--(she
+never would call him Lord Blandford; his father was Lord Churchill--the
+King, whom he betrayed, had made him Lord Churchill, and he was Lord
+Churchill still)--might be making eyes at her; but his mother, that
+vixen of a Sarah Jennings, would never hear of such a folly. Lady
+Marlborough had got her to be a maid of honor at Court to the Princess,
+but she would repent of it. The widow Francis (she was but Mrs. Francis
+Esmond) was a scheming, artful, heartless hussy. She was spoiling her
+brat of a boy, and she would end by marrying her chaplain.
+
+“What, Tusher!” cried Mr. Esmond, feeling a strange pang of rage and
+astonishment.
+
+“Yes--Tusher, my maid's son; and who has got all the qualities of
+his father the lackey in black, and his accomplished mamma the
+waiting-woman,” cries my lady. “What do you suppose that a sentimental
+widow, who will live down in that dingy dungeon of a Castlewood, where
+she spoils her boy, kills the poor with her drugs, has prayers twice a
+day and sees nobody but the chaplain--what do you suppose she can do,
+mon Cousin, but let the horrid parson, with his great square toes and
+hideous little green eyes, make love to her? Cela c'est vu, mon Cousin.
+When I was a girl at Castlewood, all the chaplains fell in love with
+me--they've nothing else to do.”
+
+My lady went on with more talk of this kind, though, in truth, Esmond
+had no idea of what she said further, so entirely did her first words
+occupy his thought. Were they true? Not all, nor half, nor a tenth part
+of what the garrulous old woman said, was true. Could this be so? No
+ear had Esmond for anything else, though his patroness chatted on for an
+hour.
+
+Some young gentlemen of the town, with whom Esmond had made
+acquaintance, had promised to present him to that most charming of
+actresses, and lively and agreeable of women, Mrs. Bracegirdle, about
+whom Harry's old adversary Mohun had drawn swords, a few years before my
+poor lord and he fell out. The famous Mr. Congreve had stamped with his
+high approval, to the which there was no gainsaying, this delightful
+person: and she was acting in Dick Steele's comedies, and finally, and
+for twenty-four hours after beholding her, Mr. Esmond felt himself, or
+thought himself, to be as violently enamored of this lovely brunette,
+as were a thousand other young fellows about the city. To have once seen
+her was to long to behold her again; and to be offered the delightful
+privilege of her acquaintance, was a pleasure the very idea of which set
+the young lieutenant's heart on fire. A man cannot live with comrades
+under the tents without finding out that he too is five-and-twenty. A
+young fellow cannot be cast down by grief and misfortune ever so severe
+but some night he begins to sleep sound, and some day when dinner-time
+comes to feel hungry for a beefsteak. Time, youth and good health, new
+scenes and the excitement of action and a campaign, had pretty well
+brought Esmond's mourning to an end; and his comrades said that Don
+Dismal, as they called him, was Don Dismal no more. So when a party was
+made to dine at the “Rose,” and go to the playhouse afterward, Esmond
+was as pleased as another to take his share of the bottle and the play.
+
+How was it that the old aunt's news, or it might be scandal, about
+Tom Tusher, caused such a strange and sudden excitement in Tom's old
+playfellow? Hadn't he sworn a thousand times in his own mind that the
+Lady of Castlewood, who had treated him with such kindness once,
+and then had left him so cruelly, was, and was to remain henceforth,
+indifferent to him for ever? Had his pride and his sense of justice not
+long since helped him to cure the pain of that desertion--was it even a
+pain to him now? Why, but last night as he walked across the fields
+and meadows to Chelsey from Pall Mall, had he not composed two or three
+stanzas of a song, celebrating Bracegirdle's brown eyes, and declaring
+them a thousand times more beautiful than the brightest blue ones that
+ever languished under the lashes of an insipid fair beauty! But Tom
+Tusher! Tom Tusher, the waiting-woman's son, raising up his little eyes
+to his mistress! Tom Tusher presuming to think of Castlewood's widow!
+Rage and contempt filled Mr. Harry's heart at the very notion; the honor
+of the family, of which he was the chief, made it his duty to prevent
+so monstrous an alliance, and to chastise the upstart who could dare
+to think of such an insult to their house. 'Tis true Mr. Esmond often
+boasted of republican principles, and could remember many fine speeches
+he had made at college and elsewhere, with WORTH and not BIRTH for a
+text: but Tom Tusher to take the place of the noble Castlewood--faugh!
+'twas as monstrous as King Hamlet's widow taking off her weeds for
+Claudius. Esmond laughed at all widows, all wives, all women; and were
+the banns about to be published, as no doubt they were, that very next
+Sunday at Walcote Church, Esmond swore that he would be present to shout
+No! in the face of the congregation, and to take a private revenge upon
+the ears of the bridegroom.
+
+Instead of going to dinner then at the “Rose” that night, Mr. Esmond
+bade his servant pack a portmanteau and get horses, and was at Farnham,
+half-way on the road to Walcote, thirty miles off, before his comrades
+had got to their supper after the play. He bade his man give no hint to
+my Lady Dowager's household of the expedition on which he was going;
+and as Chelsey was distant from London, the roads bad, and infested
+by footpads, and Esmond often in the habit, when engaged in a party of
+pleasure, of lying at a friend's lodging in town, there was no need that
+his old aunt should be disturbed at his absence--indeed, nothing more
+delighted the old lady than to fancy that mon cousin, the incorrigible
+young sinner, was abroad boxing the watch, or scouring St. Giles's. When
+she was not at her books of devotion, she thought Etheridge and Sedley
+very good reading. She had a hundred pretty stories about Rochester,
+Harry Jermyn, and Hamilton; and if Esmond would but have run away with
+the wife even of a citizen, 'tis my belief she would have pawned her
+diamonds (the best of them went to our Lady of Chaillot) to pay his
+damages.
+
+My lord's little house of Walcote--which he inhabited before he took
+his title and occupied the house of Castlewood--lies about a mile from
+Winchester, and his widow had returned to Walcote after my lord's death
+as a place always dear to her, and where her earliest and happiest days
+had been spent, cheerfuller than Castlewood, which was too large for her
+straitened means, and giving her, too, the protection of the ex-dean,
+her father. The young Viscount had a year's schooling at the famous
+college there, with Mr. Tusher as his governor. So much news of them Mr.
+Esmond had had during the past year from the old Viscountess, his own
+father's widow; from the young one there had never been a word.
+
+Twice or thrice in his benefactor's lifetime, Esmond had been to
+Walcote; and now, taking but a couple of hours' rest only at the inn on
+the road, he was up again long before daybreak, and made such good speed
+that he was at Walcote by two o'clock of the day. He rid to the end of
+the village, where he alighted and sent a man thence to Mr. Tusher, with
+a message that a gentleman from London would speak with him on urgent
+business. The messenger came back to say the Doctor was in town, most
+likely at prayers in the Cathedral. My Lady Viscountess was there, too;
+she always went to Cathedral prayers every day.
+
+The horses belonged to the post-house at Winchester. Esmond mounted
+again and rode on to the “George;” whence he walked, leaving his
+grumbling domestic at last happy with a dinner, straight to the
+Cathedral. The organ was playing: the winter's day was already growing
+gray: as he passed under the street-arch into the Cathedral yard, and
+made his way into the ancient solemn edifice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE 29TH DECEMBER.
+
+
+There was scarce a score of persons in the Cathedral beside the Dean and
+some of his clergy, and the choristers, young and old, that performed
+the beautiful evening prayer. But Mr. Tusher was one of the officiants,
+and read from the eagle in an authoritative voice, and a great black
+periwig; and in the stalls, still in her black widow's hood, sat
+Esmond's dear mistress, her son by her side, very much grown, and indeed
+a noble-looking youth, with his mother's eyes, and his father's curling
+brown hair, that fell over his point de Venise--a pretty picture such
+as Van Dyck might have painted. Mons. Rigaud's portrait of my Lord
+Viscount, done at Paris afterwards, gives but a French version of his
+manly, frank, English face. When he looked up there were two sapphire
+beams out of his eyes such as no painter's palette has the color to
+match, I think. On this day there was not much chance of seeing that
+particular beauty of my young lord's countenance; for the truth is, he
+kept his eyes shut for the most part, and, the anthem being rather long,
+was asleep.
+
+But the music ceasing, my lord woke up, looking about him, and his eyes
+lighting on Mr. Esmond, who was sitting opposite him, gazing with no
+small tenderness and melancholy upon two persons who had so much of his
+heart for so many years, Lord Castlewood, with a start, pulled at his
+mother's sleeve (her face had scarce been lifted from her book), and
+said, “Look, mother!” so loud, that Esmond could hear on the other side
+of the church, and the old Dean on his throned stall. Lady Castlewood
+looked for an instant as her son bade her, and held up a warning finger
+to Frank; Esmond felt his whole face flush, and his heart throbbing,
+as that dear lady beheld him once more. The rest of the prayers were
+speedily over; Mr. Esmond did not hear them; nor did his mistress, very
+likely, whose hood went more closely over her face, and who never lifted
+her head again until the service was over, the blessing given, and Mr.
+Dean, and his procession of ecclesiastics, out of the inner chapel.
+
+Young Castlewood came clambering over the stalls before the clergy were
+fairly gone, and running up to Esmond, eagerly embraced him. “My dear,
+dearest old Harry!” he said, “are you come back? Have you been to the
+wars? You'll take me with you when you go again? Why didn't you write to
+us? Come to mother.”
+
+Mr. Esmond could hardly say more than a “God bless you, my boy,” for
+his heart was very full and grateful at all this tenderness on the lad's
+part; and he was as much moved at seeing Frank as he was fearful about
+that other interview which was now to take place: for he knew not if the
+widow would reject him as she had done so cruelly a year ago.
+
+“It was kind of you to come back to us, Henry,” Lady Esmond said. “I
+thought you might come.”
+
+“We read of the fleet coming to Portsmouth. Why did you not come from
+Portsmouth?” Frank asked, or my Lord Viscount, as he now must be called.
+
+Esmond had thought of that too. He would have given one of his eyes so
+that he might see his dear friends again once more; but believing
+that his mistress had forbidden him her house, he had obeyed her, and
+remained at a distance.
+
+“You had but to ask, and you know I would be here,” he said.
+
+She gave him her hand, her little fair hand; there was only her marriage
+ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief and estrangement
+was passed. They never had been separated. His mistress had never been
+out of his mind all that time. No, not once. No, not in the prison; nor
+in the camp; nor on shore before the enemy; nor at sea under the stars
+of solemn midnight; nor as he watched the glorious rising of the dawn:
+not even at the table, where he sat carousing with friends, or at the
+theatre yonder, where he tried to fancy that other eyes were brighter
+than hers. Brighter eyes there might be, and faces more beautiful, but
+none so dear--no voice so sweet as that of his beloved mistress, who
+had been sister, mother, goddess to him during his youth--goddess now no
+more, for he knew of her weaknesses; and by thought, by suffering,
+and that experience it brings, was older now than she; but more fondly
+cherished as woman perhaps than ever she had been adored as divinity.
+What is it? Where lies it? the secret which makes one little hand the
+dearest of all? Whoever can unriddle that mystery? Here she was, her son
+by his side, his dear boy. Here she was, weeping and happy. She took
+his hand in both hers; he felt her tears. It was a rapture of
+reconciliation.
+
+“Here comes Squaretoes,” says Frank. “Here's Tusher.”
+
+Tusher, indeed, now appeared, creaking on his great heels. Mr. Tom had
+divested himself of his alb or surplice, and came forward habited in his
+cassock and great black periwig. How had Esmond ever been for a moment
+jealous of this fellow?
+
+“Give us thy hand, Tom Tusher,” he said. The chaplain made him a very
+low and stately bow. “I am charmed to see Captain Esmond,” says he. “My
+lord and I have read the Reddas incolumem precor, and applied it, I am
+sure, to you. You come back with Gaditanian laurels; when I heard you
+were bound thither, I wished, I am sure, I was another Septimius. My
+Lord Viscount, your lordship remembers Septimi, Gades aditure mecum?”
+
+“There's an angle of earth that I love better than Gades, Tusher,” says
+Mr. Esmond. “'Tis that one where your reverence hath a parsonage, and
+where our youth was brought up.”
+
+“A house that has so many sacred recollections to me,” says Mr. Tusher
+(and Harry remembered how Tom's father used to flog him there)--“a house
+near to that of my respected patron, my most honored patroness, must
+ever be a dear abode to me. But, madam, the verger waits to close the
+gates on your ladyship.”
+
+“And Harry's coming home to supper. Huzzay! huzzay!” cries my lord.
+“Mother, I shall run home and bid Beatrix put her ribbons on. Beatrix is
+a maid of honor, Harry. Such a fine set-up minx!”
+
+“Your heart was never in the Church, Harry,” the widow said, in her
+sweet low tone, as they walked away together. (Now, it seemed they never
+had been parted, and again, as if they had been ages asunder.) “I always
+thought you had no vocation that way; and that 'twas a pity to shut you
+out from the world. You would but have pined and chafed at Castlewood:
+and 'tis better you should make a name for yourself. I often said so to
+my dear lord. How he loved you! 'Twas my lord that made you stay with
+us.”
+
+“I asked no better than to stay near you always,” said Mr. Esmond.
+
+“But to go was best, Harry. When the world cannot give peace, you will
+know where to find it; but one of your strong imagination and eager
+desires must try the world first before he tires of it. 'Twas not to be
+thought of, or if it once was, it was only by my selfishness, that you
+should remain as chaplain to a country gentleman and tutor to a little
+boy. You are of the blood of the Esmonds, kinsman; and that was always
+wild in youth. Look at Francis. He is but fifteen, and I scarce can keep
+him in my nest. His talk is all of war and pleasure, and he longs to
+serve in the next campaign. Perhaps he and the young Lord Churchill
+shall go the next. Lord Marlborough has been good to us. You know how
+kind they were in my misfortune. And so was your--your father's widow.
+No one knows how good the world is, till grief comes to try us. 'Tis
+through my Lady Marlborough's goodness that Beatrix hath her place at
+Court; and Frank is under my Lord Chamberlain. And the dowager lady,
+your father's widow, has promised to provide for you--has she not?”
+
+Esmond said, “Yes. As far as present favor went, Lady Castlewood was
+very good to him. And should her mind change,” he added gayly, “as
+ladies' minds will, I am strong enough to bear my own burden, and make
+my way somehow. Not by the sword very likely. Thousands have a better
+genius for that than I, but there are many ways in which a young man of
+good parts and education can get on in the world; and I am pretty sure,
+one way or other, of promotion!” Indeed, he had found patrons already in
+the army, and amongst persons very able to serve him, too; and told his
+mistress of the flattering aspect of fortune. They walked as though
+they had never been parted, slowly, with the gray twilight closing round
+them.
+
+“And now we are drawing near to home,” she continued, “I knew you would
+come, Harry, if--if it was but to forgive me for having spoken unjustly
+to you after that horrid--horrid misfortune. I was half frantic with
+grief then when I saw you. And I know now--they have told me. That
+wretch, whose name I can never mention, even has said it: how you tried
+to avert the quarrel, and would have taken it on yourself, my poor
+child: but it was God's will that I should be punished, and that my dear
+lord should fall.”
+
+“He gave me his blessing on his death-bed,” Esmond said. “Thank God for
+that legacy!”
+
+“Amen, amen! dear Henry,” said the lady, pressing his arm. “I knew it.
+Mr. Atterbury, of St. Bride's, who was called to him, told me so. And I
+thanked God, too, and in my prayers ever since remembered it.”
+
+“You had spared me many a bitter night, had you told me sooner,” Mr.
+Esmond said.
+
+“I know it, I know it,” she answered, in a tone of such sweet humility,
+as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to reproach her. “I
+know how wicked my heart has been; and I have suffered too, my dear. I
+confessed to Mr. Atterbury--I must not tell any more. He--I said I
+would not write to you or go to you--and it was better even that having
+parted, we should part. But I knew you would come back--I own that. That
+is no one's fault. And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang
+it, 'When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that
+dream,' I thought, yes, like them that dream--them that dream. And then
+it went, 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that goeth
+forth and weepeth, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing
+his sheaves with him;' I looked up from the book, and saw you. I was not
+surprised when I saw you. I knew you would come, my dear, and saw the
+gold sunshine round your head.”
+
+She smiled an almost wild smile as she looked up at him. The moon was up
+by this time, glittering keen in the frosty sky. He could see, for the
+first time now clearly, her sweet careworn face.
+
+“Do you know what day it is?” she continued. “It is the 29th of
+December--it is your birthday! But last year we did not drink it--no,
+no. My lord was cold, and my Harry was likely to die: and my brain
+was in a fever; and we had no wine. But now--now you are come again,
+bringing your sheaves with you, my dear.” She burst into a wild flood of
+weeping as she spoke; she laughed and sobbed on the young man's heart,
+crying out wildly, “bringing your sheaves with you--your sheaves with
+you!”
+
+As he had sometimes felt, gazing up from the deck at midnight into the
+boundless starlit depths overhead, in a rapture of devout wonder at that
+endless brightness and beauty--in some such a way now, the depth of this
+pure devotion (which was, for the first time, revealed to him) quite
+smote upon him, and filled his heart with thanksgiving. Gracious God,
+who was he, weak and friendless creature, that such a love should be
+poured out upon him? Not in vain--not in vain has he lived--hard and
+thankless should he be to think so--that has such a treasure given him.
+What is ambition compared to that, but selfish vanity? To be rich, to be
+famous? What do these profit a year hence, when other names sound louder
+than yours, when you lie hidden away under the ground, along with
+idle titles engraven on your coffin? But only true love lives after
+you--follows your memory with secret blessing--or precedes you, and
+intercedes for you. Non omnis moriar--if dying, I yet live in a tender
+heart or two; nor am lost and hopeless living, if a sainted departed
+soul still loves and prays for me.
+
+“If--if 'tis so, dear lady,” Mr. Esmond said, “why should I ever leave
+you? If God hath given me this great boon--and near or far from me, as I
+know now, the heart of my dearest mistress follows me, let me have that
+blessing near me, nor ever part with it till death separate us. Come
+away--leave this Europe, this place which has so many sad recollections
+for you. Begin a new life in a new world. My good lord often talked
+of visiting that land in Virginia which King Charles gave us--gave his
+ancestor. Frank will give us that. No man there will ask if there is a
+blot on my name, or inquire in the woods what my title is.”
+
+“And my children--and my duty--and my good father, Henry?” she broke
+out. “He has none but me now! for soon my sister will leave him, and the
+old man will be alone. He has conformed since the new Queen's reign; and
+here in Winchester, where they love him, they have found a church for
+him. When the children leave me, I will stay with him. I cannot follow
+them into the great world, where their way lies--it scares me. They will
+come and visit me; and you will, sometimes, Henry--yes, sometimes, as
+now, in the Holy Advent season, when I have seen and blessed you once
+more.”
+
+“I would leave all to follow you,” said Mr. Esmond; “and can you not be
+as generous for me, dear lady?”
+
+“Hush, boy!” she said, and it was with a mother's sweet plaintive tone
+and look that she spoke. “The world is beginning for you. For me, I have
+been so weak and sinful that I must leave it, and pray out an expiation,
+dear Henry. Had we houses of religion as there were once, and many
+divines of our Church would have them again, I often think I would
+retire to one and pass my life in penance. But I would love you
+still--yes, there is no sin in such a love as mine now; and my dear lord
+in heaven may see my heart; and knows the tears that have washed my sin
+away--and now--now my duty is here, by my children whilst they need me,
+and by my poor old father, and--”
+
+“And not by me?” Henry said.
+
+“Hush!” she said again, and raised her hand up to his lip. “I have been
+your nurse. You could not see me, Harry, when you were in the small-pox,
+and I came and sat by you. Ah! I prayed that I might die, but it would
+have been in sin, Henry. Oh, it is horrid to look back to that time.
+It is over now and past, and it has been forgiven me. When you need me
+again, I will come ever so far. When your heart is wounded, then come
+to me, my dear. Be silent! let me say all. You never loved me, dear
+Henry--no, you do not now, and I thank heaven for it. I used to watch
+you, and knew by a thousand signs that it was so. Do you remember how
+glad you were to go away to college? 'Twas I sent you. I told my papa
+that, and Mr. Atterbury too, when I spoke to him in London. And they
+both gave me absolution--both--and they are godly men, having authority
+to bind and to loose. And they forgave me, as my dear lord forgave me
+before he went to heaven.”
+
+“I think the angels are not all in heaven,” Mr. Esmond said. And as
+a brother folds a sister to his heart; and as a mother cleaves to her
+son's breast--so for a few moments Esmond's beloved mistress came to him
+and blessed him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+I AM MADE WELCOME AT WALCOTE.
+
+
+As they came up to the house at Walcote, the windows from within were
+lighted up with friendly welcome; the supper-table was spread in the
+oak-parlor; it seemed as if forgiveness and love were awaiting the
+returning prodigal. Two or three familiar faces of domestics were on the
+look-out at the porch--the old housekeeper was there, and young Lockwood
+from Castlewood in my lord's livery of tawny and blue. His dear mistress
+pressed his arm as they passed into the hall. Her eyes beamed out on him
+with affection indescribable. “Welcome,” was all she said, as she looked
+up, putting back her fair curls and black hood. A sweet rosy smile
+blushed on her face; Harry thought he had never seen her look so
+charming. Her face was lighted with a joy that was brighter than
+beauty--she took a hand of her son who was in the hall waiting his
+mother--she did not quit Esmond's arm.
+
+“Welcome, Harry!” my young lord echoed after her. “Here, we are all come
+to say so. Here's old Pincot, hasn't she grown handsome?” and Pincot,
+who was older, and no handsomer than usual, made a curtsy to the
+Captain, as she called Esmond, and told my lord to “Have done, now.”
+
+“And here's Jack Lockwood. He'll make a famous grenadier, Jack; and so
+shall I; we'll both 'list under you, Cousin. As soon as I'm seventeen,
+I go to the army--every gentleman goes to the army. Look! who comes
+here--ho, ho!” he burst into a laugh. “'Tis Mistress Trix, with a new
+ribbon; I knew she would put one on as soon as she heard a captain was
+coming to supper.”
+
+This laughing colloquy took place in the hall of Walcote House: in the
+midst of which is a staircase that leads from an open gallery, where are
+the doors of the sleeping chambers: and from one of these, a wax candle
+in her hand, and illuminating her, came Mistress Beatrix--the light
+falling indeed upon the scarlet ribbon which she wore, and upon the most
+brilliant white neck in the world.
+
+Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond the common
+height; and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of beauty, that
+his eyes might well show surprise and delight at beholding her. In hers
+there was a brightness so lustrous and melting, that I have seen a whole
+assembly follow her as if by an attraction irresistible: and that night
+the great Duke was at the playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned
+and looked (she chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theatre at
+the same moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty: that
+is, her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes were dark: her hair
+curling with rich undulations, and waving over her shoulders; but her
+complexion was as dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks,
+which were a bright red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper
+crimson. Her mouth and chin, they said, were too large and full, and so
+they might be for a goddess in marble, but not for a woman whose eyes
+were fire, whose look was love, whose voice was the sweetest low song,
+whose shape was perfect symmetry, health, decision, activity, whose
+foot as it planted itself on the ground was firm but flexible, and whose
+motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect grace--agile as
+a nymph, lofty as a queen,--now melting, now imperious, now
+sarcastic--there was no single movement of hers but was beautiful. As he
+thinks of her, he who writes feels young again, and remembers a paragon.
+
+So she came holding her dress with one fair rounded arm, and her taper
+before her, tripping down the stair to greet Esmond.
+
+“She hath put on her scarlet stockings and white shoes,” says my lord,
+still laughing. “Oh, my fine mistress! is this the way you set your cap
+at the Captain?” She approached, shining smiles upon Esmond, who could
+look at nothing but her eyes. She advanced holding forward her head, as
+if she would have him kiss her as he used to do when she was a child.
+
+“Stop,” she said, “I am grown too big! Welcome, cousin Harry,” and she
+made him an arch curtsy, sweeping down to the ground almost, with the
+most gracious bend, looking up the while with the brightest eyes and
+sweetest smile. Love seemed to radiate from her. Harry eyed her with
+such a rapture as the first lover is described as having by Milton.
+
+“N'est-ce pas?” says my lady, in a low, sweet voice, still hanging on
+his arm.
+
+Esmond turned round with a start and a blush, as he met his mistress's
+clear eyes. He had forgotten her, rapt in admiration of the filia
+pulcrior.
+
+“Right foot forward, toe turned out, so: now drop the curtsy, and show
+the red stockings, Trix. They've silver clocks, Harry. The Dowager sent
+'em. She went to put 'em on,” cries my lord.
+
+“Hush, you stupid child!” says Miss, smothering her brother with kisses;
+and then she must come and kiss her mamma, looking all the while at
+Harry, over his mistress's shoulder. And if she did not kiss him, she
+gave him both her hands, and then took one of his in both hands, and
+said, “Oh, Harry, we're so, SO glad you're come!”
+
+“There are woodcocks for supper,” says my lord. “Huzzay! It was such a
+hungry sermon.”
+
+“And it is the 29th of December; and our Harry has come home.”
+
+“Huzzay, old Pincot!” again says my lord; and my dear lady's lips looked
+as if they were trembling with a prayer. She would have Harry lead in
+Beatrix to the supper-room, going herself with my young Lord Viscount;
+and to this party came Tom Tusher directly, whom four at least out of
+the company of five wished away. Away he went, however, as soon as the
+sweetmeats were put down, and then, by the great crackling fire, his
+mistress or Beatrix, with her blushing graces, filling his glass
+for him, Harry told the story of his campaign, and passed the most
+delightful night his life had ever known. The sun was up long ere he
+was, so deep, sweet, and refreshing was his slumber. He woke as if
+angels had been watching at his bed all night. I dare say one that was
+as pure and loving as an angel had blessed his sleep with her prayers.
+
+Next morning the chaplain read prayers to the little household at
+Walcote, as the custom was; Esmond thought Mistress Beatrix did not
+listen to Tusher's exhortation much: her eyes were wandering everywhere
+during the service, at least whenever he looked up he met them. Perhaps
+he also was not very attentive to his Reverence the Chaplain. “This
+might have been my life,” he was thinking; “this might have been my duty
+from now till old age. Well, were it not a pleasant one to be with these
+dear friends and part from 'em no more? Until--until the destined lover
+comes and takes away pretty Beatrix”--and the best part of Tom Tusher's
+exposition, which may have been very learned and eloquent, was quite
+lost to poor Harry by this vision of the destined lover, who put the
+preacher out.
+
+All the while of the prayers, Beatrix knelt a little way before Harry
+Esmond. The red stockings were changed for a pair of gray, and black
+shoes, in which her feet looked to the full as pretty. All the roses
+of spring could not vie with the brightness of her complexion; Esmond
+thought he had never seen anything like the sunny lustre of her eyes. My
+Lady Viscountess looked fatigued, as if with watching, and her face was
+pale.
+
+Miss Beatrix remarked these signs of indisposition in her mother and
+deplored them. “I am an old woman,” says my lady, with a kind smile; “I
+cannot hope to look as young as you do, my dear.”
+
+“She'll never look as good as you do if she lives till she's a hundred,”
+ says my lord, taking his mother by the waist, and kissing her hand.
+
+“Do I look very wicked, cousin?” says Beatrix, turning full round on
+Esmond, with her pretty face so close under his chin, that the soft
+perfumed hair touched it. She laid her finger-tips on his sleeve as she
+spoke; and he put his other hand over hers.
+
+“I'm like your looking-glass,” says he, “and that can't flatter you.”
+
+“He means that you are always looking at him, my dear,” says her mother,
+archly. Beatrix ran away from Esmond at this, and flew to her mamma,
+whom she kissed, stopping my lady's mouth with her pretty hand.
+
+“And Harry is very good to look at,” says my lady, with her fond eyes
+regarding the young man.
+
+“If 'tis good to see a happy face,” says he, “you see that.” My lady
+said, “Amen,” with a sigh; and Harry thought the memory of her dear lord
+rose up and rebuked her back again into sadness; for her face lost the
+smile, and resumed its look of melancholy.
+
+“Why, Harry, how fine we look in our scarlet and silver, and our black
+periwig,” cries my lord. “Mother, I am tired of my own hair. When shall
+I have a peruke? Where did you get your steenkirk, Harry?”
+
+“It's some of my Lady Dowager's lace,” says Harry; “she gave me this and
+a number of other fine things.”
+
+“My Lady Dowager isn't such a bad woman,” my lord continued.
+
+“She's not so--so red as she's painted,” says Miss Beatrix.
+
+Her brother broke into a laugh. “I'll tell her you said so; by the Lord,
+Trix, I will,” he cries out.
+
+“She'll know that you hadn't the wit to say it, my lord,” says Miss
+Beatrix.
+
+“We won't quarrel the first day Harry's here, will we, mother?” said the
+young lord. “We'll see if we can get on to the new year without a fight.
+Have some of this Christmas pie. And here comes the tankard; no, it's
+Pincot with the tea.”
+
+“Will the Captain choose a dish?” asked Mistress Beatrix.
+
+“I say, Harry,” my lord goes on, “I'll show thee my horses after
+breakfast; and we'll go a bird-netting to-night, and on Monday there's a
+cock-match at Winchester--do you love cock-fighting, Harry?--between
+the gentlemen of Sussex and the gentlemen of Hampshire, at ten pound the
+battle, and fifty pound the odd battle to show one-and-twenty cocks.”
+
+“And what will you do, Beatrix, to amuse our kinsman?” asks my lady.
+
+“I'll listen to him,” says Beatrix. “I am sure he has a hundred things
+to tell us. And I'm jealous already of the Spanish ladies. Was that
+a beautiful nun at Cadiz that you rescued from the soldiers? Your man
+talked of it last night in the kitchen, and Mrs. Betty told me this
+morning as she combed my hair. And he says you must be in love, for you
+sat on deck all night, and scribbled verses all day in your tablebook.”
+ Harry thought if he had wanted a subject for verses yesterday, to-day he
+had found one: and not all the Lindamiras and Ardelias of the poets were
+half so beautiful as this young creature; but he did not say so, though
+some one did for him.
+
+This was his dear lady, who, after the meal was over, and the young
+people were gone, began talking of her children with Mr. Esmond, and of
+the characters of one and the other, and of her hopes and fears for
+both of them. “'Tis not while they are at home,” she said, “and in their
+mother's nest, I fear for them--'tis when they are gone into the world,
+whither I shall not be able to follow them. Beatrix will begin her
+service next year. You may have heard a rumor about--about my Lord
+Blandford. They were both children; and it is but idle talk. I know my
+kinswoman would never let him make such a poor marriage as our Beatrix
+would be. There's scarce a princess in Europe that she thinks is good
+enough for him or for her ambition.”
+
+“There's not a princess in Europe to compare with her,” says Esmond.
+
+“In beauty? No, perhaps not,” answered my lady. “She is most beautiful,
+isn't she? 'Tis not a mother's partiality that deceives me. I marked
+you yesterday when she came down the stair: and read it in your face.
+We look when you don't fancy us looking, and see better than you think,
+dear Harry: and just now when they spoke about your poems--you writ
+pretty lines when you were but a boy--you thought Beatrix was a pretty
+subject for verse, did not you, Harry?” (The gentleman could only blush
+for a reply.) “And so she is--nor are you the first her pretty face has
+captivated. 'Tis quickly done. Such a pair of bright eyes as hers learn
+their power very soon, and use it very early.” And, looking at him
+keenly with hers, the fair widow left him.
+
+And so it is--a pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to
+subdue a man; to enslave him, and inflame him; to make him even forget;
+they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he
+so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess 'em. What is
+the fond love of dearest friends compared to this treasure? Is memory as
+strong as expectancy? fruition, as hunger? gratitude, as desire? I have
+looked at royal diamonds in the jewel-rooms in Europe, and thought how
+wars have been made about 'em; Mogul sovereigns deposed and strangled
+for them, or ransomed with them; millions expended to buy them; and
+daring lives lost in digging out the little shining toys that I value
+no more than the button in my hat. And so there are other glittering
+baubles (of rare water too) for which men have been set to kill and
+quarrel ever since mankind began; and which last but for a score of
+years, when their sparkle is over. Where are those jewels now that
+beamed under Cleopatra's forehead, or shone in the sockets of Helen?
+
+The second day after Esmond's coming to Walcote, Tom Tusher had leave
+to take a holiday, and went off in his very best gown and bands to court
+the young woman whom his Reverence desired to marry, and who was not
+a viscount's widow, as it turned out, but a brewer's relict at
+Southampton, with a couple of thousand pounds to her fortune: for honest
+Tom's heart was under such excellent control, that Venus herself without
+a portion would never have caused it to flutter. So he rode away on his
+heavy-paced gelding to pursue his jog-trot loves, leaving Esmond to the
+society of his dear mistress and her daughter, and with his young lord
+for a companion, who was charmed, not only to see an old friend, but to
+have the tutor and his Latin books put out of the way.
+
+The boy talked of things and people, and not a little about himself, in
+his frank artless way. 'Twas easy to see that he and his sister had the
+better of their fond mother, for the first place in whose affections,
+though they fought constantly, and though the kind lady persisted that
+she loved both equally, 'twas not difficult to understand that Frank was
+his mother's darling and favorite. He ruled the whole household (always
+excepting rebellious Beatrix) not less now than when he was a child
+marshalling the village boys in playing at soldiers, and caning them
+lustily too, like the sturdiest corporal. As for Tom Tusher, his
+Reverence treated the young lord with that politeness and deference
+which he always showed for a great man, whatever his age or his stature
+was. Indeed, with respect to this young one, it was impossible not to
+love him, so frank and winning were his manners, his beauty, his gayety,
+the ring of his laughter, and the delightful tone of his voice. Wherever
+he went, he charmed and domineered. I think his old grandfather the
+Dean, and the grim old housekeeper, Mrs. Pincot, were as much his
+slaves as his mother was: and as for Esmond, he found himself presently
+submitting to a certain fascination the boy had, and slaving it like the
+rest of the family. The pleasure which he had in Frank's mere company
+and converse exceeded that which he ever enjoyed in the society of any
+other man, however delightful in talk, or famous for wit. His presence
+brought sunshine into a room, his laugh, his prattle, his noble beauty
+and brightness of look cheered and charmed indescribably. At the least
+tale of sorrow, his hands were in his purse, and he was eager with
+sympathy and bounty. The way in which women loved and petted him, when,
+a year or two afterwards, he came upon the world, yet a mere boy, and
+the follies which they did for him (as indeed he for them), recalled
+the career of Rochester, and outdid the successes of Grammont. His very
+creditors loved him; and the hardest usurers, and some of the rigid
+prudes of the other sex too, could deny him nothing. He was no more
+witty than another man, but what he said, he said and looked as no
+man else could say or look it. I have seen the women at the comedy at
+Bruxelles crowd round him in the lobby: and as he sat on the stage more
+people looked at him than at the actors, and watched him; and I remember
+at Ramillies, when he was hit and fell, a great big red-haired Scotch
+sergeant flung his halbert down, burst out a-crying like a woman,
+seizing him up as if he had been an infant, and carrying him out of the
+fire. This brother and sister were the most beautiful couple ever seen;
+though after he winged away from the maternal nest this pair were seldom
+together.
+
+Sitting at dinner two days after Esmond's arrival (it was the last day
+of the year), and so happy a one to Harry Esmond, that to enjoy it was
+quite worth all the previous pain which he had endured and forgot, my
+young lord, filling a bumper, and bidding Harry take another, drank to
+his sister, saluting her under the title of “Marchioness.”
+
+“Marchioness!” says Harry, not without a pang of wonder, for he was
+curious and jealous already.
+
+“Nonsense, my lord,” says Beatrix, with a toss of her head. My Lady
+Viscountess looked up for a moment at Esmond, and cast her eyes down.
+
+“The Marchioness of Blandford,” says Frank. “Don't you know--hath not
+Rouge Dragon told you?” (My lord used to call the Dowager of Chelsey by
+this and other names.) “Blandford has a lock of her hair: the Duchess
+found him on his knees to Mistress Trix, and boxed his ears, and said
+Dr. Hare should whip him.”
+
+“I wish Mr. Tusher would whip you too,” says Beatrix.
+
+My lady only said: “I hope you will tell none of these silly stories
+elsewhere than at home, Francis.”
+
+“'Tis true, on my word,” continues Frank: “look at Harry scowling,
+mother, and see how Beatrix blushes as red as the silver-clocked
+stockings.”
+
+“I think we had best leave the gentlemen to their wine and their talk,”
+ says Mistress Beatrix, rising up with the air of a young queen, tossing
+her rustling flowing draperies about her, and quitting the room,
+followed by her mother.
+
+Lady Castlewood again looked at Esmond, as she stooped down and kissed
+Frank. “Do not tell those silly stories, child,” she said: “do not drink
+much wine, sir; Harry never loved to drink wine.” And she went away,
+too, in her black robes, looking back on the young man with her fair,
+fond face.
+
+“Egad! it's true,” says Frank, sipping his wine with the air of a lord.
+“What think you of this Lisbon--real Collares? 'Tis better than your
+heady port: we got it out of one of the Spanish ships that came from
+Vigo last year: my mother bought it at Southampton, as the ship was
+lying there--the 'Rose,' Captain Hawkins.”
+
+“Why, I came home in that ship,” says Harry.
+
+“And it brought home a good fellow and good wine,” says my lord. “I say,
+Harry, I wish thou hadst not that cursed bar sinister.”
+
+“And why not the bar sinister?” asks the other.
+
+“Suppose I go to the army and am killed--every gentleman goes to the
+army--who is to take care of the women? Trix will never stop at home;
+mother's in love with you,--yes, I think mother's in love with you. She
+was always praising you, and always talking about you; and when she
+went to Southampton, to see the ship, I found her out. But you see it is
+impossible: we are of the oldest blood in England; we came in with the
+Conqueror; we were only baronets,--but what then? we were forced into
+that. James the First forced our great grandfather. We are above titles;
+we old English gentry don't want 'em; the Queen can make a duke any day.
+Look at Blandford's father, Duke Churchill, and Duchess Jennings, what
+were they, Harry? Damn it, sir, what are they, to turn up their noses at
+us? Where were they when our ancestor rode with King Henry at Agincourt,
+and filled up the French King's cup after Poictiers? 'Fore George, sir,
+why shouldn't Blandford marry Beatrix? By G--! he SHALL marry Beatrix,
+or tell me the reason why. We'll marry with the best blood of England,
+and none but the best blood of England. You are an Esmond, and you can't
+help your birth, my boy. Let's have another bottle. What! no more? I've
+drunk three parts of this myself. I had many a night with my father; you
+stood to him like a man, Harry. You backed your blood; you can't help
+your misfortune, you know,--no man can help that.”
+
+The elder said he would go in to his mistress's tea-table. The young
+lad, with a heightened color and voice, began singing a snatch of a
+song, and marched out of the room. Esmond heard him presently calling
+his dogs about him, and cheering and talking to them; and by a hundred
+of his looks and gestures, tricks of voice and gait, was reminded of the
+dead lord, Frank's father.
+
+And so, the sylvester night passed away; the family parted long before
+midnight, Lady Castlewood remembering, no doubt, former New Years' Eves,
+when healths were drunk, and laughter went round in the company of him,
+to whom years, past, and present, and future, were to be as one; and so
+cared not to sit with her children and hear the Cathedral bells ringing
+the birth of the year 1703. Esmond heard the chimes as he sat in his own
+chamber, ruminating by the blazing fire there, and listened to the last
+notes of them, looking out from his window towards the city, and the
+great gray towers of the Cathedral lying under the frosty sky, with the
+keen stars shining above.
+
+The sight of these brilliant orbs no doubt made him think of other
+luminaries. “And so her eyes have already done execution,” thought
+Esmond--“on whom?--who can tell me?” Luckily his kinsman was by,
+and Esmond knew he would have no difficulty in finding out Mistress
+Beatrix's history from the simple talk of the boy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+FAMILY TALK.
+
+
+What Harry admired and submitted to in the pretty lad his kinsman was
+(for why should he resist it?) the calmness of patronage which my young
+lord assumed, as if to command was his undoubted right, and all the
+world (below his degree) ought to bow down to Viscount Castlewood.
+
+“I know my place, Harry,” he said. “I'm not proud--the boys at
+Winchester College say I'm proud: but I'm not proud. I am simply Francis
+James Viscount Castlewood in the peerage of Ireland. I might have been
+(do you know that?) Francis James Marquis and Earl of Esmond in that of
+England. The late lord refused the title which was offered to him by
+my godfather, his late Majesty. You should know that--you are of our
+family, you know you cannot help your bar sinister, Harry, my dear
+fellow; and you belong to one of the best families in England, in spite
+of that; and you stood by my father, and by G--! I'll stand by you.
+You shall never want a friend, Harry, while Francis James Viscount
+Castlewood has a shilling. It's now 1703--I shall come of age in 1709.
+I shall go back to Castlewood; I shall live at Castlewood; I shall build
+up the house. My property will be pretty well restored by then. The late
+viscount mismanaged my property, and left it in a very bad state.
+My mother is living close, as you see, and keeps me in a way hardly
+befitting a peer of these realms; for I have but a pair of horses, a
+governor, and a man that is valet and groom. But when I am of age, these
+things will be set right, Harry. Our house will be as it should be. You
+will always come to Castlewood, won't you? You shall always have your
+two rooms in the court kept for you; and if anybody slights you, d---
+them! let them have a care of ME. I shall marry early--Trix will be a
+duchess by that time, most likely; for a cannon ball may knock over his
+grace any day, you know.”
+
+“How?” says Harry.
+
+“Hush, my dear!” says my Lord Viscount. “You are of the family--you are
+faithful to us, by George, and I tell you everything. Blandford will
+marry her--or”--and here he put his little hand on his sword--“you
+understand the rest. Blandford knows which of us two is the best weapon.
+At small-sword, or back-sword, or sword and dagger if he likes; I can
+beat him. I have tried him, Harry; and begad he knows I am a man not to
+be trifled with.”
+
+“But you do not mean,” says Harry, concealing his laughter, but not his
+wonder, “that you can force my Lord Blandford, the son of the first man
+of this kingdom, to marry your sister at sword's point?”
+
+“I mean to say that we are cousins by the mother's side, though that's
+nothing to boast of. I mean to say that an Esmond is as good as a
+Churchill; and when the King comes back, the Marquis of Esmond's sister
+may be a match for any nobleman's daughter in the kingdom. There are
+but two marquises in all England, William Herbert Marquis of Powis, and
+Francis James Marquis of Esmond; and hark you, Harry,--now swear you
+will never mention this. Give me your honor as a gentleman, for you ARE
+a gentleman, though you are a--”
+
+“Well, well?” says Harry, a little impatient.
+
+“Well, then, when after my late viscount's misfortune, my mother went
+up with us to London, to ask for justice against you all (as for Mohun,
+I'll have his blood, as sure as my name is Francis Viscount Esmond)--we
+went to stay with our cousin my Lady Marlborough, with whom we had
+quarrelled for ever so long. But when misfortune came, she stood by her
+blood:--so did the Dowager Viscountess stand by her blood,--so did
+you. Well, sir, whilst my mother was petitioning the late Prince of
+Orange--for I will never call him king--and while you were in prison, we
+lived at my Lord Marlborough's house, who was only a little there, being
+away with the army in Holland. And then . . . I say, Harry, you won't
+tell, now?”
+
+Harry again made a vow of secrecy.
+
+“Well, there used to be all sorts of fun, you know: my Lady Marlborough
+was very fond of us, and she said I was to be her page; and she got Trix
+to be a maid of honor, and while she was up in her room crying, we used
+to be always having fun, you know; and the Duchess used to kiss me, and
+so did her daughters, and Blandford fell tremendous in love with Trix,
+and she liked him; and one day he--he kissed her behind a door--he did
+though,--and the Duchess caught him, and she banged such a box of the
+ear both at Trix and Blandford--you should have seen it! And then she
+said that we must leave directly, and abused my mamma who was cognizant
+of the business; but she wasn't--never thinking about anything but
+father. And so we came down to Walcote. Blandford being locked up, and
+not allowed to see Trix. But I got at him. I climbed along the gutter,
+and in through the window, where he was crying.
+
+“'Marquis,' says I, when he had opened it and helped me in, 'you know I
+wear a sword,' for I had brought it.
+
+“'Oh, viscount,' says he--'oh, my dearest Frank!' and he threw himself
+into my arms and burst out a-crying. 'I do love Mistress Beatrix so,
+that I shall die if I don't have her.'
+
+“'My dear Blandford,' says I, 'you are young to think of marrying;' for
+he was but fifteen, and a young fellow of that age can scarce do so, you
+know.
+
+“'But I'll wait twenty years, if she'll have me,' says he. 'I'll
+never marry--no, never, never, never, marry anybody but her. No, not a
+princess, though they would have me do it ever so. If Beatrix will wait
+for me, her Blandford swears he will be faithful.' And he wrote a paper
+(it wasn't spelt right, for he wrote 'I'm ready to SINE WITH MY BLODE,'
+which, you know, Harry, isn't the way of spelling it), and vowing that
+he would marry none other but the Honorable Mistress Gertrude Beatrix
+Esmond, only sister of his dearest friend Francis James, fourth Viscount
+Esmond. And so I gave him a locket of her hair.”
+
+“A locket of her hair?” cries Esmond.
+
+“Yes. Trix gave me one after the fight with the Duchess that very day.
+I am sure I didn't want it; and so I gave it him, and we kissed at
+parting, and said--'Good-by, brother.' And I got back through the
+gutter; and we set off home that very evening. And he went to King's
+College, in Cambridge, and I'M going to Cambridge soon; and if he
+doesn't stand to his promise (for he's only wrote once),--he knows I
+wear a sword, Harry. Come along, and let's go see the cocking-match at
+Winchester.
+
+“. . . . But I say,” he added, laughing, after a pause, “I don't think
+Trix will break her heart about him. La bless you! whenever she sees
+a man, she makes eyes at him; and young Sir Wilmot Crawley of Queen's
+Crawley, and Anthony Henley of Airesford, were at swords drawn about
+her, at the Winchester Assembly, a month ago.”
+
+That night Mr. Harry's sleep was by no means so pleasant or sweet as it
+had been on the first two evenings after his arrival at Walcote. “So the
+bright eyes have been already shining on another,” thought he, “and the
+pretty lips, or the cheeks at any rate, have begun the work which they
+were made for. Here's a girl not sixteen, and one young gentleman is
+already whimpering over a lock of her hair, and two country squires
+are ready to cut each other's throats that they may have the honor of a
+dance with her. What a fool am I to be dallying about this passion, and
+singeing my wings in this foolish flame. Wings!--why not say crutches?
+'There is but eight years' difference between us, to be sure; but in
+life I am thirty years older. How could I ever hope to please such a
+sweet creature as that, with my rough ways and glum face? Say that I
+have merit ever so much, and won myself a name, could she ever listen
+to me? She must be my Lady Marchioness, and I remain a nameless bastard.
+Oh! my master, my master!” (here he fell to thinking with a passionate
+grief of the vow which he had made to his poor dying lord.) “Oh! my
+mistress, dearest and kindest, will you be contented with the sacrifice
+which the poor orphan makes for you, whom you love, and who so loves
+you?”
+
+And then came a fiercer pang of temptation. “A word from me,” Harry
+thought, “a syllable of explanation, and all this might be changed; but
+no, I swore it over the dying bed of my benefactor. For the sake of him
+and his; for the sacred love and kindness of old days; I gave my promise
+to him, and may kind heaven enable me to keep my vow!”
+
+The next day, although Esmond gave no sign of what was going on in his
+mind, but strove to be more than ordinarily gay and cheerful when he met
+his friends at the morning meal, his dear mistress, whose clear eyes it
+seemed no emotion of his could escape, perceived that something troubled
+him, for she looked anxiously towards him more than once during the
+breakfast, and when he went up to his chamber afterwards she presently
+followed him, and knocked at his door.
+
+As she entered, no doubt the whole story was clear to her at once,
+for she found our young gentleman packing his valise, pursuant to the
+resolution which he had come to over-night of making a brisk retreat out
+of this temptation.
+
+She closed the door very carefully behind her, and then leant against
+it, very pale, her hands folded before her, looking at the young man,
+who was kneeling over his work of packing. “Are you going so soon?” she
+said.
+
+He rose up from his knees, blushing, perhaps, to be so discovered, in
+the very act, as it were, and took one of her fair little hands--it was
+that which had her marriage ring on--and kissed it.
+
+“It is best that it should be so, dearest lady,” he said.
+
+“I knew you were going, at breakfast. I--I thought you might stay. What
+has happened? Why can't you remain longer with us? What has Frank told
+you--you were talking together late last night?”
+
+“I had but three days' leave from Chelsey,” Esmond said, as gayly as he
+could. “My aunt--she lets me call her aunt--is my mistress now! I owe
+her my lieutenancy and my laced coat. She has taken me into high favor;
+and my new General is to dine at Chelsey to-morrow--General Lumley,
+madam--who has appointed me his aide-de-camp, and on whom I must have
+the honor of waiting. See, here is a letter from the Dowager; the
+post brought it last night; and I would not speak of it, for fear of
+disturbing our last merry meeting.”
+
+My lady glanced at the letter, and put it down with a smile that
+was somewhat contemptuous. “I have no need to read the letter,” says
+she--(indeed, 'twas as well she did not; for the Chelsey missive, in the
+poor Dowager's usual French jargon, permitted him a longer holiday
+than he said. “Je vous donne,” quoth her ladyship, “oui jour, pour vous
+fatigay parfaictement de vos parens fatigans”)--“I have no need to read
+the letter,” says she. “What was it Frank told you last night?”
+
+“He told me little I did not know,” Mr. Esmond answered. “But I have
+thought of that little, and here's the result: I have no right to the
+name I bear, dear lady; and it is only by your sufferance that I am
+allowed to keep it. If I thought for an hour of what has perhaps crossed
+your mind too--”
+
+“Yes, I did, Harry,” said she; “I thought of it; and think of it. I
+would sooner call you my son than the greatest prince in Europe--yes,
+than the greatest prince. For who is there so good and so brave, and who
+would love her as you would? But there are reasons a mother can't tell.”
+
+“I know them,” said Mr. Esmond, interrupting her with a smile. “I know
+there's Sir Wilmot Crawley of Queen's Crawley, and Mr. Anthony Henley
+of the Grange, and my Lord Marquis of Blandford, that seems to be the
+favored suitor. You shall ask me to wear my Lady Marchioness's favors
+and to dance at her ladyship's wedding.”
+
+“Oh! Harry, Harry, it is none of these follies that frighten me,” cried
+out Lady Castlewood. “Lord Churchill is but a child, his outbreak about
+Beatrix was a mere boyish folly. His parents would rather see him buried
+than married to one below him in rank. And do you think that I would
+stoop to sue for a husband for Francis Esmond's daughter; or submit to
+have my girl smuggled into that proud family to cause a quarrel between
+son and parents, and to be treated only as an inferior? I would disdain
+such a meanness. Beatrix would scorn it. Ah! Henry, 'tis not with you
+the fault lies, 'tis with her. I know you both, and love you: need I
+be ashamed of that love now? No, never, never, and 'tis not you, dear
+Harry, that is unworthy. 'Tis for my poor Beatrix I tremble--whose
+headstrong will frightens me; whose jealous temper (they say I was
+jealous too, but, pray God, I am cured of that sin) and whose vanity no
+words or prayers of mine can cure--only suffering, only experience, and
+remorse afterwards. Oh! Henry, she will make no man happy who loves her.
+Go away, my son: leave her: love us always, and think kindly of us: and
+for me, my dear, you know that these walls contain all that I love in
+the world.”
+
+In after life, did Esmond find the words true which his fond mistress
+spoke from her sad heart? Warning he had: but I doubt others had warning
+before his time, and since: and he benefited by it as most men do.
+
+My young Lord Viscount was exceeding sorry when he heard that Harry
+could not come to the cock-match with him, and must go to London, but no
+doubt my lord consoled himself when the Hampshire cocks won the match;
+and he saw every one of the battles, and crowed properly over the
+conquered Sussex gentlemen.
+
+As Esmond rode towards town his servant, coming up to him, informed him
+with a grin, that Mistress Beatrix had brought out a new gown and blue
+stockings for that day's dinner, in which she intended to appear, and
+had flown into a rage and given her maid a slap on the face soon after
+she heard he was going away. Mistress Beatrix's woman, the fellow said,
+came down to the servants' hall crying, and with the mark of a blow
+still on her cheek: but Esmond peremptorily ordered him to fall back
+and be silent, and rode on with thoughts enough of his own to occupy
+him--some sad ones, some inexpressibly dear and pleasant.
+
+His mistress, from whom he had been a year separated, was his dearest
+mistress again. The family from which he had been parted, and which he
+loved with the fondest devotion, was his family once more. If Beatrix's
+beauty shone upon him, it was with a friendly lustre, and he could
+regard it with much such a delight as he brought away after seeing the
+beautiful pictures of the smiling Madonnas in the convent at Cadiz, when
+he was despatched thither with a flag; and as for his mistress, 'twas
+difficult to say with what a feeling he regarded her. 'Twas happiness to
+have seen her; 'twas no great pang to part; a filial tenderness, a love
+that was at once respect and protection, filled his mind as he thought
+of her; and near her or far from her, and from that day until now, and
+from now till death is past and beyond it, he prays that sacred flame
+may ever burn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+I MAKE THE CAMPAIGN OF 1704.
+
+
+Mr. Esmond rode up to London then, where, if the Dowager had been angry
+at the abrupt leave of absence he took, she was mightily pleased at his
+speedy return.
+
+He went immediately and paid his court to his new general, General
+Lumley, who received him graciously, having known his father, and also,
+he was pleased to say, having had the very best accounts of Mr. Esmond
+from the officer whose aide-de-camp he had been at Vigo. During this
+winter Mr. Esmond was gazetted to a lieutenancy in Brigadier Webb's
+regiment of Fusileers, then with their colonel in Flanders; but being
+now attached to the suite of Mr. Lumley, Esmond did not join his own
+regiment until more than a year afterwards, and after his return from
+the campaign of Blenheim, which was fought the next year. The campaign
+began very early, our troops marching out of their quarters before the
+winter was almost over, and investing the city of Bonn, on the Rhine,
+under the Duke's command. His Grace joined the army in deep grief of
+mind, with crape on his sleeve, and his household in mourning; and the
+very same packet which brought the Commander-in-Chief over, brought
+letters to the forces which preceded him, and one from his dear mistress
+to Esmond, which interested him not a little.
+
+The young Marquis of Blandford, his Grace's son, who had been entered in
+King's College in Cambridge, (whither my Lord Viscount had also gone,
+to Trinity, with Mr. Tusher as his governor,) had been seized with
+small-pox, and was dead at sixteen years of age, and so poor Frank's
+schemes for his sister's advancement were over, and that innocent
+childish passion nipped in the birth.
+
+Esmond's mistress would have had him return, at least her letters hinted
+as much; but in the presence of the enemy this was impossible, and
+our young man took his humble share in the siege, which need not be
+described here, and had the good luck to escape without a wound of any
+sort, and to drink his general's health after the surrender. He was
+in constant military duty this year, and did not think of asking for a
+leave of absence, as one or two of his less fortunate friends did, who
+were cast away in that tremendous storm which happened towards the
+close of November, that “which of late o'er pale Britannia past” (as
+Mr. Addison sang of it), and in which scores of our greatest ships and
+15,000 of our seamen went down.
+
+They said that our Duke was quite heart-broken by the calamity which had
+befallen his family; but his enemies found that he could subdue them,
+as well as master his grief. Successful as had been this great General's
+operations in the past year, they were far enhanced by the splendor of
+his victory in the ensuing campaign. His Grace the Captain-General went
+to England after Bonn, and our army fell back into Holland, where, in
+April 1704, his Grace again found the troops, embarking from Harwich
+and landing at Maesland Sluys: thence his Grace came immediately to the
+Hague, where he received the foreign ministers, general officers, and
+other people of quality. The greatest honors were paid to his Grace
+everywhere--at the Hague, Utrecht, Ruremonde, and Maestricht; the civil
+authorities coming to meet his coaches: salvos of cannon saluting him,
+canopies of state being erected for him where he stopped, and feasts
+prepared for the numerous gentlemen following in his suite. His Grace
+reviewed the troops of the States-General between Liege and Maestricht,
+and afterwards the English forces, under the command of General
+Churchill, near Bois-le-Duc. Every preparation was made for a long
+march; and the army heard, with no small elation, that it was the
+Commander-in-Chief's intention to carry the war out of the Low
+Countries, and to march on the Mozelle. Before leaving our camp at
+Maestricht, we heard that the French, under the Marshal Villeroy, were
+also bound towards the Mozelle.
+
+Towards the end of May, the army reached Coblentz; and next day, his
+Grace, and the generals accompanying him, went to visit the Elector of
+Treves at his Castle of Ehrenbreitstein, the horse and dragoons passing
+the Rhine whilst the Duke was entertained at a grand feast by the
+Elector. All as yet was novelty, festivity, and splendor--a brilliant
+march of a great and glorious army through a friendly country, and
+sure through some of the most beautiful scenes of nature which I ever
+witnessed.
+
+The foot and artillery, following after the horse as quick as possible,
+crossed the Rhine under Ehrenbreitstein, and so to Castel, over against
+Mayntz, in which city his Grace, his generals, and his retinue were
+received at the landing-place by the Elector's coaches, carried to
+his Highness's palace amidst the thunder of cannon, and then once more
+magnificently entertained. Gidlingen, in Bavaria, was appointed as the
+general rendezvous of the army, and thither, by different routes, the
+whole forces of English, Dutch, Danes, and German auxiliaries took their
+way. The foot and artillery under General Churchill passed the Neckar,
+at Heidelberg; and Esmond had an opportunity of seeing that city and
+palace, once so famous and beautiful (though shattered and battered by
+the French, under Turenne, in the late war), where his grandsire had
+served the beautiful and unfortunate Electress-Palatine, the first King
+Charles's sister.
+
+At Mindelsheim, the famous Prince of Savoy came to visit our commander,
+all of us crowding eagerly to get a sight of that brilliant and intrepid
+warrior; and our troops were drawn up in battalia before the Prince,
+who was pleased to express his admiration of this noble English army. At
+length we came in sight of the enemy between Dillingen and Lawingen, the
+Brentz lying between the two armies. The Elector, judging that Donauwort
+would be the point of his Grace's attack, sent a strong detachment of
+his best troops to Count Darcos, who was posted at Schellenberg, near
+that place, where great intrenchments were thrown up, and thousands of
+pioneers employed to strengthen the position.
+
+On the 2nd of July his Grace stormed the post, with what success on our
+part need scarce be told. His Grace advanced with six thousand foot,
+English and Dutch, thirty squadrons, and three regiments of Imperial
+Cuirassiers, the Duke crossing the river at the head of the cavalry.
+Although our troops made the attack with unparalleled courage and
+fury--rushing up to the very guns of the enemy, and being slaughtered
+before their works--we were driven back many times, and should not have
+carried them, but that the Imperialists came up under the Prince of
+Baden, when the enemy could make no head against us: we pursued them
+into the trenches, making a terrible slaughter there, and into the very
+Danube, where a great part of his troops, following the example of their
+generals, Count Darcos and the Elector himself, tried to save themselves
+by swimming. Our army entered Donauwort, which the Bavarians evacuated;
+and where 'twas said the Elector purposed to have given us a warm
+reception, by burning us in our beds; the cellars of the houses, when we
+took possession of them, being found stuffed with straw. But though the
+links were there, the link-boys had run away. The townsmen saved their
+houses, and our General took possession of the enemy's ammunition in the
+arsenals, his stores, and magazines. Five days afterwards a great “Te
+Deum” was sung in Prince Lewis's army, and a solemn day of thanksgiving
+held in our own; the Prince of Savoy's compliments coming to his Grace
+the Captain-General during the day's religious ceremony, and concluding,
+as it were, with an Amen.
+
+And now, having seen a great military march through a friendly country;
+the pomps and festivities of more than one German court; the severe
+struggle of a hotly contested battle, and the triumph of victory, Mr.
+Esmond beheld another part of military duty: our troops entering the
+enemy's territory, and putting all around them to fire and sword;
+burning farms, wasted fields, shrieking women, slaughtered sons and
+fathers, and drunken soldiery, cursing and carousing in the midst of
+tears, terror, and murder. Why does the stately Muse of History, that
+delights in describing the valor of heroes and the grandeur of conquest,
+leave out these scenes, so brutal, mean, and degrading, that yet form by
+far the greater part of the drama of war? You, gentlemen of England, who
+live at home at ease, and compliment yourselves in the songs of triumph
+with which our chieftains are bepraised--you pretty maidens, that come
+tumbling down the stairs when the fife and drum call you, and huzzah for
+the British Grenadiers--do you take account that these items go to make
+up the amount of the triumph you admire, and form part of the duties of
+the heroes you fondle? Our chief, whom England and all Europe, saving
+only the Frenchmen, worshipped almost, had this of the godlike in him,
+that he was impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat.
+Before the greatest obstacle or the most trivial ceremony; before a
+hundred thousand men drawn in battalia, or a peasant slaughtered at the
+door of his burning hovel; before a carouse of drunken German lords, or
+a monarch's court or a cottage table, where his plans were laid, or an
+enemy's battery, vomiting flame and death, and strewing corpses round
+about him;--he was always cold, calm, resolute, like fate. He performed
+a treason or a court-bow, he told a falsehood as black as Styx, as
+easily as he paid a compliment or spoke about the weather. He took a
+mistress, and left her; he betrayed his benefactor, and supported him,
+or would have murdered him, with the same calmness always, and having
+no more remorse than Clotho when she weaves the thread, or Lachesis when
+she cuts it. In the hour of battle I have heard the Prince of Savoy's
+officers say, the Prince became possessed with a sort of warlike fury;
+his eyes lighted up; he rushed hither and thither, raging; he shrieked
+curses and encouragement, yelling and harking his bloody war-dogs on,
+and himself always at the first of the hunt. Our duke was as calm at the
+mouth of the cannon as at the door of a drawing-room. Perhaps he could
+not have been the great man he was, had he had a heart either for
+love or hatred, or pity or fear, or regret or remorse. He achieved
+the highest deed of daring, or deepest calculation of thought, as he
+performed the very meanest action of which a man is capable; told a lie,
+or cheated a fond woman, or robbed a poor beggar of a halfpenny, with a
+like awful serenity and equal capacity of the highest and lowest acts of
+our nature.
+
+His qualities were pretty well known in the army, where there were
+parties of all politics, and of plenty of shrewdness and wit; but there
+existed such a perfect confidence in him, as the first captain of the
+world, and such a faith and admiration in his prodigious genius and
+fortune, that the very men whom he notoriously cheated of their pay, the
+chiefs whom he used and injured--(for he used all men, great and small,
+that came near him, as his instruments alike, and took something of
+theirs, either some quality or some property)--the blood of a soldier, it
+might be, or a jewelled hat, or a hundred thousand crowns from a king,
+or a portion out of a starving sentinel's three-farthings; or (when he
+was young) a kiss from a woman, and the gold chain off her neck, taking
+all he could from woman or man, and having, as I have said, this of the
+godlike in him, that he could see a hero perish or a sparrow fall, with
+the same amount of sympathy for either. Not that he had no tears; he
+could always order up this reserve at the proper moment to battle; he
+could draw upon tears or smiles alike, and whenever need was for using
+this cheap coin. He would cringe to a shoeblack, as he would flatter a
+minister or a monarch; be haughty, be humble, threaten, repent, weep,
+grasp your hand, (or stab you whenever he saw occasion)--but yet those
+of the army, who knew him best and had suffered most from him, admired
+him most of all: and as he rode along the lines to battle or galloped
+up in the nick of time to a battalion reeling from before the enemy's
+charge or shot, the fainting men and officers got new courage as they
+saw the splendid calm of his face, and felt that his will made them
+irresistible.
+
+After the great victory of Blenheim the enthusiasm of the army for the
+Duke, even of his bitterest personal enemies in it, amounted to a sort
+of rage--nay, the very officers who cursed him in their hearts were
+among the most frantic to cheer him. Who could refuse his meed of
+admiration to such a victory and such a victor? Not he who writes: a man
+may profess to be ever so much a philosopher; but he who fought on that
+day must feel a thrill of pride as he recalls it.
+
+The French right was posted near to the village of Blenheim, on the
+Danube, where the Marshal Tallard's quarters were; their line extending
+through, it may be a league and a half, before Lutzingen and up to a
+woody hill, round the base of which, and acting against the Prince of
+Savoy, were forty of his squadrons.
+
+Here was a village that the Frenchmen had burned, the wood being, in
+fact, a better shelter and easier of guard than any village.
+
+Before these two villages and the French lines ran a little stream, not
+more than two foot broad, through a marsh (that was mostly dried up
+from the heats of the weather), and this stream was the only separation
+between the two armies--ours coming up and ranging themselves in line
+of battle before the French, at six o'clock in the morning; so that our
+line was quite visible to theirs; and the whole of this great plain was
+black and swarming with troops for hours before the cannonading began.
+
+On one side and the other this cannonading lasted many hours. The French
+guns being in position in front of their line, and doing severe damage
+among our horse especially, and on our right wing of Imperialists under
+the Prince of Savoy, who could neither advance his artillery nor his
+lines, the ground before him being cut up by ditches, morasses, and very
+difficult of passage for the guns.
+
+It was past mid-day when the attack began on our left, where Lord Cutts
+commanded, the bravest and most beloved officer in the English army.
+And now, as if to make his experience in war complete, our young
+aide-de-camp having seen two great armies facing each other in line of
+battle, and had the honor of riding with orders from one end to other
+of the line, came in for a not uncommon accompaniment of military glory,
+and was knocked on the head, along with many hundred of brave fellows,
+almost at the very commencement of this famous day of Blenheim. A little
+after noon, the disposition for attack being completed with much delay
+and difficulty, and under a severe fire from the enemy's guns, that
+were better posted and more numerous than ours, a body of English and
+Hessians, with Major-General Wilkes commanding at the extreme left of
+our line, marched upon Blenheim, advancing with great gallantry, the
+Major-General on foot, with his officers, at the head of the column, and
+marching, with his hat off, intrepidly in the face of the enemy, who was
+pouring in a tremendous fire from his guns and musketry, to which our
+people were instructed not to reply, except with pike and bayonet when
+they reached the French palisades. To these Wilkes walked intrepidly,
+and struck the woodwork with his sword before our people charged it.
+He was shot down at the instant, with his colonel, major, and several
+officers; and our troops cheering and huzzaing, and coming on, as they
+did, with immense resolution and gallantry, were nevertheless stopped by
+the murderous fire from behind the enemy's defences, and then attacked
+in flank by a furious charge of French horse which swept out of
+Blenheim, and cut down our men in great numbers. Three fierce and
+desperate assaults of our foot were made and repulsed by the enemy; so
+that our columns of foot were quite shattered, and fell back, scrambling
+over the little rivulet, which we had crossed so resolutely an hour
+before, and pursued by the French cavalry, slaughtering us and cutting
+us down.
+
+And now the conquerors were met by a furious charge of English horse
+under Esmond's general, General Lumley, behind whose squadrons the
+flying foot found refuge, and formed again, whilst Lumley drove back the
+French horse, charging up to the village of Blenheim and the palisades
+where Wilkes, and many hundred more gallant Englishmen, lay in
+slaughtered heaps. Beyond this moment, and of this famous victory, Mr.
+Esmond knows nothing; for a shot brought down his horse and our young
+gentleman on it, who fell crushed and stunned under the animal, and came
+to his senses he knows not how long after, only to lose them again from
+pain and loss of blood. A dim sense, as of people groaning round about
+him, a wild incoherent thought or two for her who occupied so much of
+his heart now, and that here his career, and his hopes, and misfortunes
+were ended, he remembers in the course of these hours. When he woke up,
+it was with a pang of extreme pain, his breastplate was taken off, his
+servant was holding his head up, the good and faithful lad of Hampshire*
+was blubbering over his master, whom he found and had thought dead, and
+a surgeon was probing a wound in the shoulder, which he must have got
+at the same moment when his horse was shot and fell over him. The battle
+was over at this end of the field, by this time: the village was in
+possession of the English, its brave defenders prisoners, or fled,
+or drowned, many of them, in the neighboring waters of Donau. But for
+honest Lockwood's faithful search after his master, there had no doubt
+been an end of Esmond here, and of this his story. The marauders were
+out riffling the bodies as they lay on the field, and Jack had brained
+one of these gentry with the club-end of his musket, who had eased
+Esmond of his hat and periwig, his purse, and fine silver-mounted
+pistols which the Dowager gave him, and was fumbling in his pockets
+for further treasure, when Jack Lockwood came up and put an end to the
+scoundrel's triumph.
+
+     * My mistress, before I went this campaign, sent me John
+     Lockwood out of Walcote, who hath ever since remained with
+     me.--H. E.
+
+Hospitals for our wounded were established at Blenheim, and here for
+several weeks Esmond lay in very great danger of his life; the wound
+was not very great from which he suffered, and the ball extracted by the
+surgeon on the spot where our young gentleman received it; but a fever
+set in next day, as he was lying in hospital, and that almost carried
+him away. Jack Lockwood said he talked in the wildest manner during his
+delirium; that he called himself the Marquis of Esmond, and seizing one
+of the surgeon's assistants who came to dress his wounds, swore that he
+was Madam Beatrix, and that he would make her a duchess if she would
+but say yes. He was passing the days in these crazy fancies, and vana
+somnia, whilst the army was singing “Te Deum” for the victory, and
+those famous festivities were taking place at which our Duke, now made a
+Prince of the Empire, was entertained by the King of the Romans and his
+nobility. His Grace went home by Berlin and Hanover, and Esmond lost
+the festivities which took place at those cities, and which his general
+shared in company of the other general officers who travelled with our
+great captain. When he could move, it was by the Duke of Wurtemberg's
+city of Stuttgard that he made his way homewards, revisiting Heidelberg
+again, whence he went to Manheim, and hence had a tedious but easy water
+journey down the river of Rhine, which he had thought a delightful and
+beautiful voyage indeed, but that his heart was longing for home, and
+something far more beautiful and delightful.
+
+As bright and welcome as the eyes almost of his mistress shone the
+lights of Harwich, as the packet came in from Holland. It was not
+many hours ere he, Esmond, was in London, of that you may be sure, and
+received with open arms by the old Dowager of Chelsey, who vowed, in her
+jargon of French and English, that he had the air noble, that his pallor
+embellished him, that he was an Amadis and deserved a Gloriana; and oh!
+flames and darts! what was his joy at hearing that his mistress was come
+into waiting, and was now with her Majesty at Kensington! Although Mr.
+Esmond had told Jack Lockwood to get horses and they would ride for
+Winchester that night, when he heard this news he countermanded the
+horses at once; his business lay no longer in Hants; all his hope and
+desire lay within a couple of miles of him in Kensington Park wall. Poor
+Harry had never looked in the glass before so eagerly to see whether he
+had the bel air, and his paleness really did become him; he never
+took such pains about the curl of his periwig, and the taste of his
+embroidery and point-lace, as now, before Mr. Amadis presented himself
+to Madam Gloriana. Was the fire of the French lines half so murderous
+as the killing glances from her ladyship's eyes? Oh! darts and raptures,
+how beautiful were they!
+
+And as, before the blazing sun of morning, the moon fades away in the
+sky almost invisible, Esmond thought, with a blush perhaps, of another
+sweet pale face, sad and faint, and fading out of sight, with its sweet
+fond gaze of affection; such a last look it seemed to cast as Eurydice
+might have given, yearning after her lover, when Fate and Pluto summoned
+her, and she passed away into the shades.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+AN OLD STORY ABOUT A FOOL AND A WOMAN.
+
+
+Any taste for pleasure which Esmond had (and he liked to desipere in
+loco, neither more nor less than most young men of his age) he could
+now gratify to the utmost extent, and in the best company which the town
+afforded. When the army went into winter quarters abroad, those of the
+officers who had interest or money easily got leave of absence, and
+found it much pleasanter to spend their time in Pall Mall and Hyde Park,
+than to pass the winter away behind the fortifications of the dreary
+old Flanders towns, where the English troops were gathered. Yachts and
+packets passed daily between the Dutch and Flemish ports and Harwich;
+the roads thence to London and the great inns were crowded with
+army gentlemen; the taverns and ordinaries of the town swarmed with
+red-coats; and our great Duke's levees at St. James's were as thronged
+as they had been at Ghent and Brussels, where we treated him, and he us,
+with the grandeur and ceremony of a sovereign. Though Esmond had been
+appointed to a lieutenancy in the Fusileer regiment, of which that
+celebrated officer, Brigadier John Richmond Webb, was colonel, he
+had never joined the regiment, nor been introduced to its excellent
+commander, though they had made the same campaign together, and been
+engaged in the same battle. But being aide-de-camp to General Lumley,
+who commanded the division of horse, and the army marching to its point
+of destination on the Danube by different routes, Esmond had not fallen
+in, as yet, with his commander and future comrades of the fort; and it
+was in London, in Golden Square, where Major-General Webb lodged, that
+Captain Esmond had the honor of first paying his respects to his friend,
+patron, and commander of after days.
+
+Those who remember this brilliant and accomplished gentleman may
+recollect his character, upon which he prided himself, I think, not a
+little, of being the handsomest man in the army; a poet who writ a
+dull copy of verses upon the battle of Oudenarde three years after,
+describing Webb, says:--
+
+     “To noble danger Webb conducts the way,
+     His great example all his troops obey;
+     Before the front the general sternly rides,
+     With such an air as Mars to battle strides:
+     Propitious heaven must sure a hero save,
+     Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave.”
+
+Mr. Webb thought these verses quite as fine as Mr. Addison's on the
+Blenheim Campaign, and, indeed, to be Hector a la mode de Paris, was
+part of this gallant gentleman's ambition. It would have been difficult
+to find an officer in the whole army, or amongst the splendid courtiers
+and cavaliers of the Maison du Roy, that fought under Vendosme and
+Villeroy in the army opposed to ours, who was a more accomplished
+soldier and perfect gentleman, and either braver or better-looking.
+And if Mr. Webb believed of himself what the world said of him, and was
+deeply convinced of his own indisputable genius, beauty, and valor, who
+has a right to quarrel with him very much? This self-content of his kept
+him in general good-humor, of which his friends and dependants got the
+benefit.
+
+He came of a very ancient Wiltshire family, which he respected above all
+families in the world: he could prove a lineal descent from King Edward
+the First, and his first ancestor, Roaldus de Richmond, rode by William
+the Conqueror's side on Hastings field. “We were gentlemen, Esmond,” he
+used to say, “when the Churchills were horse-boys.” He was a very
+tall man, standing in his pumps six feet three inches (in his great
+jack-boots, with his tall fair periwig, and hat and feather, he could
+not have been less than eight feet high). “I am taller than Churchill,”
+ he would say, surveying himself in the glass, “and I am a better made
+man; and if the women won't like a man that hasn't a wart on his nose,
+faith, I can't help myself, and Churchill has the better of me there.”
+ Indeed, he was always measuring himself with the Duke, and always asking
+his friends to measure them. And talking in this frank way, as he would
+do, over his cups, wags would laugh and encourage him; friends would
+be sorry for him; schemers and flatterers would egg him on, and
+tale-bearers carry the stories to headquarters, and widen the difference
+which already existed there, between the great captain and one of the
+ablest and bravest lieutenants he ever had.
+
+His rancor against the Duke was so apparent, that one saw it in the
+first half-hour's conversation with General Webb; and his lady, who
+adored her General, and thought him a hundred times taller, handsomer,
+and braver than a prodigal nature had made him, hated the great Duke
+with such an intensity as it becomes faithful wives to feel against
+their husbands' enemies. Not that my Lord Duke was so yet; Mr. Webb had
+said a thousand things against him, which his superior had pardoned; and
+his Grace, whose spies were everywhere, had heard a thousand things more
+that Webb had never said. But it cost this great man no pains to pardon;
+and he passed over an injury or a benefit alike easily.
+
+Should any child of mine take the pains to read these his ancestor's
+memoirs, I would not have him judge of the great Duke* by what a
+contemporary has written of him. No man hath been so immensely lauded
+and decried as this great statesman and warrior; as, indeed, no man ever
+deserved better the very greatest praise and the strongest censure. If
+the present writer joins with the latter faction, very likely a private
+pique of his own may be the cause of his ill-feeling.
+
+     * This passage in the Memoirs of Esmond is written on a leaf
+     inserted into the MS. book, and dated 1744, probably after
+     he had heard of the Duchess's death.
+
+On presenting himself at the Commander-in-Chief's levee, his Grace had
+not the least remembrance of General Lumley's aide-de-camp, and though
+he knew Esmond's family perfectly well, having served with both lords
+(my Lord Francis and the Viscount Esmond's father) in Flanders, and in
+the Duke of York's Guard, the Duke of Marlborough, who was friendly
+and serviceable to the (so-styled) legitimate representatives of the
+Viscount Castlewood, took no sort of notice of the poor lieutenant
+who bore their name. A word of kindness or acknowledgment, or a single
+glance of approbation, might have changed Esmond's opinion of the great
+man; and instead of a satire, which his pen cannot help writing, who
+knows but that the humble historian might have taken the other side of
+panegyric? We have but to change the point of view, and the greatest
+action looks mean; as we turn the perspective-glass, and a giant appears
+a pigmy. You may describe, but who can tell whether your sight is clear
+or not, or your means of information accurate? Had the great man said
+but a word of kindness to the small one (as he would have stepped out
+of his gilt chariot to shake hands with Lazarus in rags and sores, if he
+thought Lazarus could have been of any service to him), no doubt Esmond
+would have fought for him with pen and sword to the utmost of his might;
+but my lord the lion did not want master mouse at this moment, and so
+Muscipulus went off and nibbled in opposition.
+
+So it was, however, that a young gentleman, who, in the eyes of his
+family, and in his own, doubtless, was looked upon as a consummate hero,
+found that the great hero of the day took no more notice of him than
+of the smallest drummer in his Grace's army. The Dowager at Chelsey was
+furious against this neglect of her family, and had a great battle with
+Lady Marlborough (as Lady Castlewood insisted on calling the Duchess).
+Her Grace was now Mistress of the Robes to her Majesty, and one of the
+greatest personages in this kingdom, as her husband was in all Europe,
+and the battle between the two ladies took place in the Queen's
+drawing-room.
+
+The Duchess, in reply to my aunt's eager clamor, said haughtily, that
+she had done her best for the legitimate branch of the Esmonds, and
+could not be expected to provide for the bastard brats of the family.
+
+“Bastards!” says the Viscountess, in a fury. “There are bastards among
+the Churchills, as your Grace knows, and the Duke of Berwick is provided
+for well enough.”
+
+“Madam,” says the Duchess, “you know whose fault it is that there are
+no such dukes in the Esmond family too, and how that little scheme of a
+certain lady miscarried.”
+
+Esmond's friend, Dick Steele, who was in waiting on the Prince, heard
+the controversy between the ladies at court. “And faith,” says Dick, “I
+think, Harry, thy kinswoman had the worst of it.”
+
+He could not keep the story quiet; 'twas all over the coffee-houses ere
+night; it was printed in a News Letter before a month was over, and “The
+reply of her Grace the Duchess of M-rlb-r-gh to a Popish Lady of the
+Court, once a favorite of the late K--- J-m-s,” was printed in half a
+dozen places, with a note stating that “this duchess, when the head
+of this lady's family came by his death lately in a fatal duel, never
+rested until she got a pension for the orphan heir, and widow, from her
+Majesty's bounty.” The squabble did not advance poor Esmond's promotion
+much, and indeed made him so ashamed of himself that he dared not show
+his face at the Commander-in-Chief's levees again.
+
+During those eighteen months which had passed since Esmond saw his dear
+mistress, her good father, the old Dean, quitted this life, firm in his
+principles to the very last, and enjoining his family always to remember
+that the Queen's brother, King James the Third, was their rightful
+sovereign. He made a very edifying end, as his daughter told Esmond, and
+not a little to her surprise, after his death (for he had lived always
+very poorly) my lady found that her father had left no less a sum than
+3,000L. behind him, which he bequeathed to her.
+
+With this little fortune Lady Castlewood was enabled, when her
+daughter's turn at Court came, to come to London, where she took a small
+genteel house at Kensington, in the neighborhood of the Court, bringing
+her children with her, and here it was that Esmond found his friends.
+
+As for the young lord, his university career had ended rather abruptly.
+Honest Tusher, his governor, had found my young gentleman quite
+ungovernable. My lord worried his life away with tricks; and broke out,
+as home-bred lads will, into a hundred youthful extravagances, so that
+Dr. Bentley, the new master of Trinity, thought fit to write to the
+Viscountess Castlewood, my lord's mother, and beg her to remove the
+young nobleman from a college where he declined to learn, and where he
+only did harm by his riotous example. Indeed, I believe he nearly set
+fire to Nevil's Court, that beautiful new quadrangle of our college,
+which Sir Christopher Wren had lately built. He knocked down a
+proctor's man that wanted to arrest him in a midnight prank; he gave
+a dinner-party on the Prince of Wales's birthday, which was within
+a fortnight of his own, and the twenty young gentlemen then present
+sallied out after their wine, having toasted King James's health with
+open windows, and sung cavalier songs, and shouted “God save the
+King!” in the great court, so that the master came out of his lodge at
+midnight, and dissipated the riotous assembly.
+
+This was my lord's crowning freak, and the Rev. Thomas Tusher, domestic
+chaplain to the Right Honorable the Lord Viscount Castlewood, finding
+his prayers and sermons of no earthly avail to his lordship, gave up his
+duties of governor; went and married his brewer's widow at Southampton,
+and took her and her money to his parsonage house at Castlewood.
+
+My lady could not be angry with her son for drinking King James's
+health, being herself a loyal Tory, as all the Castlewood family were,
+and acquiesced with a sigh, knowing, perhaps, that her refusal would be
+of no avail to the young lord's desire for a military life. She would
+have liked him to be in Mr. Esmond's regiment, hoping that Harry might
+act as a guardian and adviser to his wayward young kinsman; but my young
+lord would hear of nothing but the Guards, and a commission was got for
+him in the Duke of Ormond's regiment; so Esmond found my lord, ensign
+and lieutenant, when he returned from Germany after the Blenheim
+campaign.
+
+The effect produced by both Lady Castlewood's children when they
+appeared in public was extraordinary, and the whole town speedily rang
+with their fame: such a beautiful couple, it was declared, never had
+been seen; the young maid of honor was toasted at every table and
+tavern, and as for my young lord, his good looks were even more admired
+than his sister's. A hundred songs were written about the pair, and
+as the fashion of that day was, my young lord was praised in these
+Anacreontics as warmly as Bathyllus. You may be sure that he accepted
+very complacently the town's opinion of him, and acquiesced with that
+frankness and charming good-humor he always showed in the idea that he
+was the prettiest fellow in all London.
+
+The old Dowager at Chelsey, though she could never be got to acknowledge
+that Mistress Beatrix was any beauty at all, (in which opinion, as it
+may be imagined, a vast number of the ladies agreed with her), yet, on
+the very first sight of young Castlewood, she owned she fell in love
+with him: and Henry Esmond, on his return to Chelsey, found himself
+quite superseded in her favor by her younger kinsman. The feat of
+drinking the King's health at Cambridge would have won her heart, she
+said, if nothing else did. “How had the dear young fellow got such
+beauty?” she asked. “Not from his father--certainly not from his mother.
+How had he come by such noble manners, and the perfect bel air? That
+countrified Walcote widow could never have taught him.” Esmond had his
+own opinion about the countrified Walcote widow, who had a quiet grace
+and serene kindness, that had always seemed to him the perfection of
+good breeding, though he did not try to argue this point with his aunt.
+But he could agree in most of the praises which the enraptured old
+dowager bestowed on my Lord Viscount, than whom he never beheld a more
+fascinating and charming gentleman. Castlewood had not wit so much as
+enjoyment. “The lad looks good things,” Mr. Steele used to say; “and
+his laugh lights up a conversation as much as ten repartees from
+Mr. Congreve. I would as soon sit over a bottle with him as with Mr.
+Addison; and rather listen to his talk than hear Nicolini. Was ever
+man so gracefully drunk as my Lord Castlewood? I would give anything to
+carry my wine” (though, indeed, Dick bore his very kindly, and plenty
+of it, too), “like this incomparable young man. When he is sober he is
+delightful; and when tipsy, perfectly irresistible.” And referring to
+his favorite, Shakspeare (who was quite out of fashion until Steele
+brought him back into the mode), Dick compared Lord Castlewood to Prince
+Hal, and was pleased to dub Esmond as ancient Pistol.
+
+The Mistress of the Robes, the greatest lady in England after the Queen,
+or even before her Majesty, as the world said, though she never could be
+got to say a civil word to Beatrix, whom she had promoted to her place
+as maid of honor, took her brother into instant favor. When young
+Castlewood, in his new uniform, and looking like a prince out of a fairy
+tale, went to pay his duty to her Grace, she looked at him for a minute
+in silence, the young man blushing and in confusion before her, then
+fairly burst out a-crying, and kissed him before her daughters and
+company. “He was my boy's friend,” she said, through her sobs. “My
+Blandford might have been like him.” And everybody saw, after this mark
+of the Duchess's favor, that my young lord's promotion was secure, and
+people crowded round the favorite's favorite, who became vainer and
+gayer, and more good-humored than ever.
+
+Meanwhile Madam Beatrix was making her conquests on her own side, and
+amongst them was one poor gentleman, who had been shot by her young eyes
+two years before, and had never been quite cured of that wound; he knew,
+to be sure, how hopeless any passion might be, directed in that quarter,
+and had taken that best, though ignoble, remedium amoris, a speedy
+retreat from before the charmer, and a long absence from her; and not
+being dangerously smitten in the first instance, Esmond pretty soon got
+the better of his complaint, and if he had it still, did not know he had
+it, and bore it easily. But when he returned after Blenheim, the young
+lady of sixteen, who had appeared the most beautiful object his eyes had
+ever looked on two years back, was now advanced to a perfect ripeness
+and perfection of beauty, such as instantly enthralled the poor devil,
+who had already been a fugitive from her charms. Then he had seen her
+but for two days, and fled; now he beheld her day after day, and when
+she was at Court watched after her; when she was at home, made one of
+the family party; when she went abroad, rode after her mother's chariot;
+when she appeared in public places, was in the box near her, or in the
+pit looking at her; when she went to church was sure to be there, though
+he might not listen to the sermon, and be ready to hand her to her chair
+if she deigned to accept of his services, and select him from a score of
+young men who were always hanging round about her. When she went away,
+accompanying her Majesty to Hampton Court, a darkness fell over London.
+Gods, what nights has Esmond passed, thinking of her, rhyming about her,
+talking about her! His friend Dick Steele was at this time courting
+the young lady, Mrs. Scurlock, whom he married; she had a lodging in
+Kensington Square, hard by my Lady Castlewood's house there. Dick and
+Harry, being on the same errand, used to meet constantly at Kensington.
+They were always prowling about that place, or dismally walking thence,
+or eagerly running thither. They emptied scores of bottles at the
+“King's Arms,” each man prating of his love, and allowing the other to
+talk on condition that he might have his own turn as a listener. Hence
+arose an intimacy between them, though to all the rest of their friends
+they must have been insufferable. Esmond's verses to “Gloriana at the
+Harpsichord,” to “Gloriana's Nosegay,” to “Gloriana at Court,” appeared
+this year in the Observator.--Have you never read them? They were
+thought pretty poems, and attributed by some to Mr. Prior.
+
+This passion did not escape--how should it?--the clear eyes of Esmond's
+mistress: he told her all; what will a man not do when frantic with
+love? To what baseness will he not demean himself? What pangs will he
+not make others suffer, so that he may ease his selfish heart of a part
+of its own pain? Day after day he would seek his dear mistress, pour
+insane hopes, supplications, rhapsodies, raptures, into her ear. She
+listened, smiled, consoled, with untiring pity and sweetness. Esmond was
+the eldest of her children, so she was pleased to say; and as for her
+kindness, who ever had or would look for aught else from one who was
+an angel of goodness and pity? After what has been said, 'tis needless
+almost to add that poor Esmond's suit was unsuccessful. What was a
+nameless, penniless lieutenant to do, when some of the greatest in
+the land were in the field? Esmond never so much as thought of asking
+permission to hope so far above his reach as he knew this prize was
+and passed his foolish, useless life in mere abject sighs and impotent
+longing. What nights of rage, what days of torment, of passionate
+unfulfilled desire, of sickening jealousy can he recall! Beatrix
+thought no more of him than of the lackey that followed her chair. His
+complaints did not touch her in the least; his raptures rather fatigued
+her; she cared for his verses no more than for Dan Chaucer's, who's
+dead these ever so many hundred years; she did not hate him; she rather
+despised him, and just suffered him.
+
+One day, after talking to Beatrix's mother, his dear, fond, constant
+mistress--for hours--for all day long--pouring out his flame and his
+passion, his despair and rage, returning again and again to the theme,
+pacing the room, tearing up the flowers on the table, twisting and
+breaking into bits the wax out of the stand-dish, and performing a
+hundred mad freaks of passionate folly; seeing his mistress at last
+quite pale and tired out with sheer weariness of compassion, and
+watching over his fever for the hundredth time, Esmond seized up his
+hat, and took his leave. As he got into Kensington Square, a sense of
+remorse came over him for the wearisome pain he had been inflicting upon
+the dearest and kindest friend ever man had. He went back to the house,
+where the servant still stood at the open door, ran up the stairs, and
+found his mistress where he had left her in the embrasure of the window,
+looking over the fields towards Chelsey. She laughed, wiping away at the
+same time the tears which were in her kind eyes; he flung himself down
+on his knees, and buried his head in her lap. She had in her hand the
+stalk of one of the flowers, a pink, that he had torn to pieces. “Oh,
+pardon me, pardon me, my dearest and kindest,” he said; “I am in hell,
+and you are the angel that brings me a drop of water.”
+
+“I am your mother, you are my son, and I love you always,” she said,
+holding her hands over him: and he went away comforted and humbled in
+mind, as he thought of that amazing and constant love and tenderness
+with which this sweet lady ever blessed and pursued him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE FAMOUS MR. JOSEPH ADDISON.
+
+
+The gentlemen ushers had a table at Kensington, and the Guard a very
+splendid dinner daily at St. James's, at either of which ordinaries
+Esmond was free to dine. Dick Steele liked the Guard-table better than
+his own at the gentlemen ushers', where there was less wine and more
+ceremony; and Esmond had many a jolly afternoon in company of his
+friend, and a hundred times at least saw Dick into his chair. If there
+is verity in wine, according to the old adage, what an amiable-natured
+character Dick's must have been! In proportion as he took in wine he
+overflowed with kindness. His talk was not witty so much as charming.
+He never said a word that could anger anybody, and only became the more
+benevolent the more tipsy he grew. Many of the wags derided the poor
+fellow in his cups, and chose him as a butt for their satire: but there
+was a kindness about him, and a sweet playful fancy, that seemed to
+Esmond far more charming than the pointed talk of the brightest wits,
+with their elaborate repartees and affected severities. I think
+Steele shone rather than sparkled. Those famous beaux-esprits of the
+coffee-houses (Mr. William Congreve, for instance, when his gout and
+his grandeur permitted him to come among us) would make many brilliant
+hits--half a dozen in a night sometimes--but, like sharp-shooters, when
+they had fired their shot, they were obliged to retire under cover till
+their pieces were loaded again, and wait till they got another chance at
+their enemy; whereas Dick never thought that his bottle companion was a
+butt to aim at--only a friend to shake by the hand. The poor fellow had
+half the town in his confidence; everybody knew everything about his
+loves and his debts, his creditors or his mistress's obduracy. When
+Esmond first came on to the town, honest Dick was all flames and
+raptures for a young lady, a West India fortune, whom he married. In a
+couple of years the lady was dead, the fortune was all but spent, and
+the honest widower was as eager in pursuit of a new paragon of beauty,
+as if he had never courted and married and buried the last one.
+
+Quitting the Guard-table one Sunday afternoon, when by chance Dick had a
+sober fit upon him, he and his friend were making their way down Germain
+Street, and Dick all of a sudden left his companion's arm, and ran after
+a gentleman who was poring over a folio volume at the book-shop near to
+St. James's Church. He was a fair, tall man, in a snuff-colored suit,
+with a plain sword, very sober, and almost shabby in appearance--at
+least when compared to Captain Steele, who loved to adorn his jolly
+round person with the finest of clothes, and shone in scarlet and gold
+lace. The Captain rushed up, then, to the student of the book-stall,
+took him in his arms, hugged him, and would have kissed him--for Dick
+was always hugging and bussing his friends--but the other stepped
+back with a flush on his pale face, seeming to decline this public
+manifestation of Steele's regard.
+
+“My dearest Joe, where hast thou hidden thyself this age?” cries the
+Captain, still holding both his friend's hands; “I have been languishing
+for thee this fortnight.”
+
+“A fortnight is not an age, Dick,” says the other, very good-humoredly.
+(He had light blue eyes, extraordinary bright, and a face perfectly
+regular and handsome, like a tinted statue.) “And I have been hiding
+myself--where do you think?”
+
+“What! not across the water, my dear Joe?” says Steele, with a look of
+great alarm: “thou knowest I have always--”
+
+“No,” says his friend, interrupting him with a smile: “we are not come
+to such straits as that, Dick. I have been hiding, sir, at a place where
+people never think of finding you--at my own lodgings, whither I am
+going to smoke a pipe now and drink a glass of sack: will your honor
+come?”
+
+“Harry Esmond, come hither,” cries out Dick. “Thou hast heard me talk
+over and over again of my dearest Joe, my guardian angel?”
+
+“Indeed,” says Mr. Esmond, with a bow, “it is not from you only that I
+have learnt to admire Mr. Addison. We loved good poetry at Cambridge as
+well as at Oxford; and I have some of yours by heart, though I have put
+on a red coat. . . . 'O qui canoro blandius Orpheo vocale ducis carmen;'
+shall I go on, sir?” says Mr. Esmond, who, indeed, had read and loved
+the charming Latin poems of Mr. Addison, as every scholar of that time
+knew and admired them.
+
+“This is Captain Esmond who was at Blenheim,” says Steele.
+
+“Lieutenant Esmond,” says the other, with a low bow, “at Mr. Addison's
+service.
+
+“I have heard of you,” says Mr. Addison, with a smile; as, indeed,
+everybody about town had heard that unlucky story about Esmond's dowager
+aunt and the Duchess.
+
+“We were going to the 'George' to take a bottle before the play,” says
+Steele: “wilt thou be one, Joe?”
+
+Mr. Addison said his own lodgings were hard by, where he was still rich
+enough to give a good bottle of wine to his friends; and invited the
+two gentlemen to his apartment in the Haymarket, whither we accordingly
+went.
+
+“I shall get credit with my landlady,” says he, with a smile, “when she
+sees two such fine gentlemen as you come up my stair.” And he politely
+made his visitors welcome to his apartment, which was indeed but a
+shabby one, though no grandee of the land could receive his guests with
+a more perfect and courtly grace than this gentleman. A frugal dinner,
+consisting of a slice of meat and a penny loaf, was awaiting the owner
+of the lodgings. “My wine is better than my meat,” says Mr. Addison;
+“my Lord Halifax sent me the Burgundy.” And he set a bottle and glasses
+before his friends, and ate his simple dinner in a very few minutes,
+after which the three fell to, and began to drink. “You see,” says Mr.
+Addison, pointing to his writing-table, whereon was a map of the action
+at Hochstedt, and several other gazettes and pamphlets relating to the
+battle, “that I, too, am busy about your affairs, Captain. I am engaged
+as a poetical gazetteer, to say truth, and am writing a poem on the
+campaign.”
+
+So Esmond, at the request of his host, told him what he knew about the
+famous battle, drew the river on the table aliquo mero, and with the aid
+of some bits of tobacco-pipe showed the advance of the left wing, where
+he had been engaged.
+
+A sheet or two of the verses lay already on the table beside our bottles
+and glasses, and Dick having plentifully refreshed himself from the
+latter, took up the pages of manuscript, writ out with scarce a blot or
+correction, in the author's slim, neat handwriting, and began to read
+therefrom with great emphasis and volubility. At pauses of the verse,
+the enthusiastic reader stopped and fired off a great salvo of applause.
+
+Esmond smiled at the enthusiasm of Addison's friend. “You are like the
+German Burghers,” says he, “and the Princes on the Mozelle: when our
+army came to a halt, they always sent a deputation to compliment the
+chief, and fired a salute with all their artillery from their walls.”
+
+“And drunk the great chiefs health afterward, did not they?” says
+Captain Steele, gayly filling up a bumper;--he never was tardy at that
+sort of acknowledgment of a friend's merit.
+
+“And the Duke, since you will have me act his Grace's part,” says Mr.
+Addison, with a smile, and something of a blush, “pledged his friends in
+return. Most Serene Elector of Covent Garden, I drink to your Highness's
+health,” and he filled himself a glass. Joseph required scarce more
+pressing than Dick to that sort of amusement; but the wine never seemed
+at all to fluster Mr. Addison's brains; it only unloosed his tongue:
+whereas Captain Steele's head and speech were quite overcome by a single
+bottle.
+
+No matter what the verses were, and, to say truth, Mr. Esmond found some
+of them more than indifferent, Dick's enthusiasm for his chief
+never faltered, and in every line from Addison's pen, Steele found
+a master-stroke. By the time Dick had come to that part of the poem,
+wherein the bard describes as blandly as though he were recording
+a dance at the opera, or a harmless bout of bucolic cudgelling at a
+village fair, that bloody and ruthless part of our campaign, with the
+remembrance whereof every soldier who bore a part in it must sicken
+with shame--when we were ordered to ravage and lay waste the Elector's
+country; and with fire and murder, slaughter and crime, a great part of
+his dominions was overrun; when Dick came to the lines--
+
+     “In vengeance roused the soldier fills his hand
+     With sword and fire, and ravages the land,
+     In crackling flames a thousand harvests burn,
+     A thousand villages to ashes turn.
+     To the thick woods the woolly flocks retreat,
+     And mixed with bellowing herds confusedly bleat.
+     Their trembling lords the common shade partake,
+     And cries of infants found in every brake.
+     The listening soldier fixed in sorrow stands,
+     Loth to obey his leader's just commands.
+     The leader grieves, by generous pity swayed,
+     To see his just commands so well obeyed;”
+
+by this time wine and friendship had brought poor Dick to a perfectly
+maudlin state, and he hiccupped out the last line with a tenderness that
+set one of his auditors a-laughing.
+
+“I admire the license of your poets,” says Esmond to Mr. Addison. (Dick,
+after reading of the verses, was fain to go off, insisting on kissing
+his two dear friends before his departure, and reeling away with his
+periwig over his eyes.) “I admire your art: the murder of the campaign
+is done to military music, like a battle at the opera, and the virgins
+shriek in harmony, as our victorious grenadiers march into their
+villages. Do you know what a scene it was?”--(by this time, perhaps,
+the wine had warmed Mr. Esmond's head too,)--“what a triumph you are
+celebrating? what scenes of shame and horror were enacted, over which
+the commander's genius presided, as calm as though he didn't belong to
+our sphere? You talk of the 'listening soldier fixed in sorrow,' the
+'leader's grief swayed by generous pity;' to my belief the leader cared
+no more for bleating flocks than he did for infants' cries, and many
+of our ruffians butchered one or the other with equal alacrity. I was
+ashamed of my trade when I saw those horrors perpetrated, which came
+under every man's eyes. You hew out of your polished verses a stately
+image of smiling victory; I tell you 'tis an uncouth, distorted, savage
+idol; hideous, bloody, and barbarous. The rites performed before it are
+shocking to think of. You great poets should show it as it is--ugly and
+horrible, not beautiful and serene. Oh, sir, had you made the campaign,
+believe me, you never would have sung it so.”
+
+During this little outbreak, Mr. Addison was listening, smoking out of
+his long pipe, and smiling very placidly. “What would you have?” says
+he. “In our polished days, and according to the rules of art, 'tis
+impossible that the Muse should depict tortures or begrime her hands
+with the horrors of war. These are indicated rather than described; as
+in the Greek tragedies, that, I dare say, you have read (and sure there
+can be no more elegant specimens of composition), Agamemnon is slain, or
+Medea's children destroyed, away from the scene;--the chorus occupying
+the stage and singing of the action to pathetic music. Something of this
+I attempt, my dear sir, in my humble way: 'tis a panegyric I mean to
+write, and not a satire. Were I to sing as you would have me, the town
+would tear the poet in pieces, and burn his book by the hands of the
+common hangman. Do you not use tobacco? Of all the weeds grown on earth,
+sure the nicotian is the most soothing and salutary. We must paint our
+great Duke,” Mr. Addison went on, “not as a man, which no doubt he is,
+with weaknesses like the rest of us, but as a hero. 'Tis in a triumph,
+not a battle, that your humble servant is riding his sleek Pegasus. We
+college poets trot, you know, on very easy nags; it hath been, time
+out of mind, part of the poet's profession to celebrate the actions of
+heroes in verse, and to sing the deeds which you men of war perform. I
+must follow the rules of my art, and the composition of such a strain
+as this must be harmonious and majestic, not familiar, or too near
+the vulgar truth. Si parva licet: if Virgil could invoke the divine
+Augustus, a humbler poet from the banks of the Isis may celebrate a
+victory and a conqueror of our own nation, in whose triumphs every
+Briton has a share, and whose glory and genius contributes to every
+citizen's individual honor. When hath there been, since our Henrys' and
+Edwards' days, such a great feat of arms as that from which you yourself
+have brought away marks of distinction? If 'tis in my power to sing that
+song worthily, I will do so, and be thankful to my Muse. If I fail as a
+poet, as a Briton at least I will show my loyalty, and fling up my cap
+and huzzah for the conqueror:--
+
+                      “'Rheni pacator et Istri
+     Omnis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit
+     Ordinibus; laetatur eques, plauditque senator,
+     Votaque patricio certant plebeia favori.'”
+
+“There were as brave men on that field,” says Mr. Esmond (who never
+could be made to love the Duke of Marlborough, nor to forget those
+stories which he used to hear in his youth regarding that great chiefs
+selfishness and treachery)--“there were men at Blenheim as good as the
+leader, whom neither knights nor senators applauded, nor voices plebeian
+or patrician favored, and who lie there forgotten, under the clods. What
+poet is there to sing them?”
+
+“To sing the gallant souls of heroes sent to Hades!” says Mr. Addison,
+with a smile. “Would you celebrate them all? If I may venture to
+question anything in such an admirable work, the catalogue of the ships
+in Homer hath always appeared to me as somewhat wearisome; what had the
+poem been, supposing the writer had chronicled the names of captains,
+lieutenants, rank and file? One of the greatest of a great man's
+qualities is success; 'tis the result of all the others; 'tis a latent
+power in him which compels the favor of the gods, and subjugates
+fortune. Of all his gifts I admire that one in the great Marlborough. To
+be brave? every man is brave. But in being victorious, as he is, I fancy
+there is something divine. In presence of the occasion, the great
+soul of the leader shines out, and the god is confessed. Death itself
+respects him, and passes by him to lay others low. War and carnage flee
+before him to ravage other parts of the field, as Hector from before the
+divine Achilles. You say he hath no pity; no more have the gods, who are
+above it, and superhuman. The fainting battle gathers strength at his
+aspect; and, wherever he rides, victory charges with him.”
+
+A couple of days after, when Mr. Esmond revisited his poetic friend, he
+found this thought, struck out in the fervor of conversation, improved
+and shaped into those famous lines, which are in truth the noblest in
+the poem of the “Campaign.” As the two gentlemen sat engaged in talk,
+Mr. Addison solacing himself with his customary pipe, the little
+maid-servant that waited on his lodging came up, preceding a gentleman
+in fine laced clothes, that had evidently been figuring at Court or a
+great man's levee. The courtier coughed a little at the smoke of the
+pipe, and looked round the room curiously, which was shabby enough, as
+was the owner in his worn, snuff-colored suit and plain tie-wig.
+
+“How goes on the magnum opus, Mr. Addison?” says the Court gentleman on
+looking down at the papers that were on the table.
+
+“We were but now over it,” says Addison (the greatest courtier in the
+land could not have a more splendid politeness, or greater dignity of
+manner). “Here is the plan,” says he, “on the table: hac ibat Simois,
+here ran the little river Nebel: hic est Sigeia tellus, here are
+Tallard's quarters, at the bowl of this pipe, at the attack of which
+Captain Esmond was present. I have the honor to introduce him to Mr.
+Boyle; and Mr. Esmond was but now depicting aliquo proelia mixta mero,
+when you came in.” In truth, the two gentlemen had been so engaged when
+the visitor arrived, and Addison, in his smiling way, speaking of Mr.
+Webb, colonel of Esmond's regiment (who commanded a brigade in the
+action, and greatly distinguished himself there), was lamenting that he
+could find never a suitable rhyme for Webb, otherwise the brigade should
+have had a place in the poet's verses. “And for you, you are but a
+lieutenant,” says Addison, “and the Muse can't occupy herself with any
+gentleman under the rank of a field officer.”
+
+Mr. Boyle was all impatient to hear, saying that my Lord Treasurer
+and my Lord Halifax were equally anxious; and Addison, blushing, began
+reading of his verses, and, I suspect, knew their weak parts as well
+as the most critical hearer. When he came to the lines describing the
+angel, that
+
+     “Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,
+     And taught the doubtful battle where to rage,”
+
+he read with great animation, looking at Esmond, as much as to say,
+“You know where that simile came from--from our talk, and our bottle of
+Burgundy, the other day.”
+
+The poet's two hearers were caught with enthusiasm, and applauded the
+verses with all their might. The gentleman of the Court sprang up in
+great delight. “Not a word more, my dear sir,” says he. “Trust me with
+the papers--I'll defend them with my life. Let me read them over to my
+Lord Treasurer, whom I am appointed to see in half an hour. I venture to
+promise, the verses shall lose nothing by my reading, and then, sir, we
+shall see whether Lord Halifax has a right to complain that his friend's
+pension is no longer paid.” And without more ado, the courtier in lace
+seized the manuscript pages, placed them in his breast with his ruffled
+hand over his heart, executed a most gracious wave of the hat with the
+disengaged hand, and smiled and bowed out of the room, leaving an odor
+of pomander behind him.
+
+“Does not the chamber look quite dark?” says Addison, surveying it,
+“after the glorious appearance and disappearance of that gracious
+messenger? Why, he illuminated the whole room. Your scarlet, Mr. Esmond,
+will bear any light; but this threadbare old coat of mine, how very worn
+it looked under the glare of that splendor! I wonder whether they will
+do anything for me,” he continued. “When I came out of Oxford into the
+world, my patrons promised me great things; and you see where their
+promises have landed me, in a lodging up two pair of stairs, with a
+sixpenny dinner from the cook's shop. Well, I suppose this promise will
+go after the others, and fortune will jilt me, as the jade has been
+doing any time these seven years. 'I puff the prostitute away,'” says
+he, smiling, and blowing a cloud out of his pipe. “There is no hardship
+in poverty, Esmond, that is not bearable; no hardship even in honest
+dependence that an honest man may not put up with. I came out of the lap
+of Alma Mater, puffed up with her praises of me, and thinking to make
+a figure in the world with the parts and learning which had got me no
+small name in our college. The world is the ocean, and Isis and Charwell
+are but little drops, of which the sea takes no account. My reputation
+ended a mile beyond Maudlin Tower; no one took note of me; and I learned
+this at least, to bear up against evil fortune with a cheerful heart.
+Friend Dick hath made a figure in the world, and has passed me in the
+race long ago. What matters a little name or a little fortune? There is
+no fortune that a philosopher cannot endure. I have been not unknown as
+a scholar, and yet forced to live by turning bear-leader, and teaching
+a boy to spell. What then? The life was not pleasant, but possible--the
+bear was bearable. Should this venture fail, I will go back to Oxford;
+and some day, when you are a general, you shall find me a curate in a
+cassock and bands, and I shall welcome your honor to my cottage in the
+country, and to a mug of penny ale. 'Tis not poverty that's the hardest
+to bear, or the least happy lot in life,” says Mr. Addison, shaking the
+ash out of his pipe. “See, my pipe is smoked out. Shall we have another
+bottle? I have still a couple in the cupboard, and of the right sort. No
+more?--let us go abroad and take a turn on the Mall, or look in at the
+theatre and see Dick's comedy. 'Tis not a masterpiece of wit; but Dick
+is a good fellow, though he doth not set the Thames on fire.”
+
+Within a month after this day, Mr. Addison's ticket had come up a
+prodigious prize in the lottery of life. All the town was in an uproar
+of admiration of his poem, the “Campaign,” which Dick Steele was
+spouting at every coffee-house in Whitehall and Covent Garden. The wits
+on the other side of Temple Bar saluted him at once as the greatest poet
+the world had seen for ages; the people huzza'ed for Marlborough and
+for Addison, and, more than this, the party in power provided for the
+meritorious poet, and Addison got the appointment of Commissioner of
+Excise, which the famous Mr. Locke vacated, and rose from this place to
+other dignities and honors; his prosperity from henceforth to the end of
+his life being scarce ever interrupted. But I doubt whether he was not
+happier in his garret in the Haymarket, than ever he was in his splendid
+palace at Kensington; and I believe the fortune that came to him in the
+shape of the countess his wife was no better than a shrew and a vixen.
+
+
+Gay as the town was, 'twas but a dreary place for Mr. Esmond, whether
+his charmer was in or out of it, and he was glad when his general gave
+him notice that he was going back to his division of the army which lay
+in winter-quarters at Bois-le-Duc. His dear mistress bade him
+farewell with a cheerful face; her blessing he knew he had always, and
+wheresoever fate carried him. Mistress Beatrix was away in attendance on
+her Majesty at Hampton Court, and kissed her fair fingertips to him, by
+way of adieu, when he rode thither to take his leave. She received her
+kinsman in a waiting-room, where there were half a dozen more ladies of
+the Court, so that his high-flown speeches, had he intended to make
+any (and very likely he did), were impossible; and she announced to her
+friends that her cousin was going to the army, in as easy a manner as
+she would have said he was going to a chocolate-house. He asked with
+a rather rueful face, if she had any orders for the army? and she was
+pleased to say that she would like a mantle of Mechlin lace. She made
+him a saucy curtsy in reply to his own dismal bow. She deigned to kiss
+her fingertips from the window, where she stood laughing with the other
+ladies, and chanced to see him as he made his way to the “Toy.” The
+Dowager at Chelsey was not sorry to part with him this time. “Mon cher,
+vous etes triste comme un sermon,” she did him the honor to say to him;
+indeed, gentlemen in his condition are by no means amusing companions,
+and besides, the fickle old woman had now found a much more amiable
+favorite, and raffoled for her darling lieutenant of the Guard. Frank
+remained behind for a while, and did not join the army till later, in
+the suite of his Grace the Commander-in-Chief. His dear mother, on the
+last day before Esmond went away, and when the three dined together,
+made Esmond promise to befriend her boy, and besought Frank to take the
+example of his kinsman as of a loyal gentleman and brave soldier, so
+she was pleased to say; and at parting, betrayed not the least sign of
+faltering or weakness, though, God knows, that fond heart was fearful
+enough when others were concerned, though so resolute in bearing its own
+pain.
+
+Esmond's general embarked at Harwich. 'Twas a grand sight to see Mr.
+Webb dressed in scarlet on the deck, waving his hat as our yacht put
+off, and the guns saluted from the shore. Harry did not see his viscount
+again, until three months after, at Bois-le-Duc, when his Grace the Duke
+came to take the command, and Frank brought a budget of news from home:
+how he had supped with this actress, and got tired of that; how he had
+got the better of Mr. St. John, both over the bottle, and with Mrs.
+Mountford, of the Haymarket Theatre (a veteran charmer of fifty, with
+whom the young scapegrace chose to fancy himself in love); how his
+sister was always at her tricks, and had jilted a young baron for an
+old earl. “I can't make out Beatrix,” he said; “she cares for none of
+us--she only thinks about herself; she is never happy unless she is
+quarrelling; but as for my mother--my mother, Harry, is an angel.” Harry
+tried to impress on the young fellow the necessity of doing everything
+in his power to please that angel; not to drink too much; not to go into
+debt; not to run after the pretty Flemish girls, and so forth, as became
+a senior speaking to a lad. “But Lord bless thee!” the boy said; “I
+may do what I like, and I know she will love me all the same;” and
+so, indeed, he did what he liked. Everybody spoiled him, and his grave
+kinsman as much as the rest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+I GET A COMPANY IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1706.
+
+
+On Whit-Sunday, the famous 23rd of May, 1706, my young lord first came
+under the fire of the enemy, whom we found posted in order of battle,
+their lines extending three miles or more, over the high ground behind
+the little Gheet river, and having on his left the little village of
+Anderkirk or Autre-eglise, and on his right Ramillies, which has given
+its name to one of the most brilliant and disastrous days of battle that
+history ever hath recorded.
+
+Our Duke here once more met his old enemy of Blenheim, the Bavarian
+Elector and the Marechal Villeroy, over whom the Prince of Savoy had
+gained the famous victory of Chiari. What Englishman or Frenchman doth
+not know the issue of that day? Having chosen his own ground, having
+a force superior to the English, and besides the excellent Spanish and
+Bavarian troops, the whole Maison-du-Roy with him, the most splendid
+body of horse in the world,--in an hour (and in spite of the prodigious
+gallantry of the French Royal Household, who charged through the centre
+of our line and broke it,) this magnificent army of Villeroy was utterly
+routed by troops that had been marching for twelve hours, and by the
+intrepid skill of a commander, who did, indeed, seem in the presence of
+the enemy to be the very Genius of Victory.
+
+I think it was more from conviction than policy, though that policy was
+surely the most prudent in the world, that the great Duke always spoke
+of his victories with an extraordinary modesty, and as if it was not so
+much his own admirable genius and courage which achieved these amazing
+successes, but as if he was a special and fatal instrument in the hands
+of Providence, that willed irresistibly the enemy's overthrow. Before
+his actions he always had the church service read solemnly, and
+professed an undoubting belief that our Queen's arms were blessed and
+our victory sure. All the letters which he writ after his battles
+show awe rather than exultation; and he attributes the glory of these
+achievements, about which I have heard mere petty officers and men
+bragging with a pardonable vainglory, in nowise to his own bravery or
+skill, but to the superintending protection of heaven, which he ever
+seemed to think was our especial ally. And our army got to believe so,
+and the enemy learnt to think so too; for we never entered into a battle
+without a perfect confidence that it was to end in a victory; nor did
+the French, after the issue of Blenheim, and that astonishing triumph of
+Ramillies, ever meet us without feeling that the game was lost before it
+was begun to be played, and that our general's fortune was irresistible.
+Here, as at Blenheim, the Duke's charger was shot, and 'twas thought for
+a moment he was dead. As he mounted another, Binfield, his master of the
+horse, kneeling to hold his Grace's stirrup, had his head shot away by
+a cannon-ball. A French gentleman of the Royal Household, that was a
+prisoner with us, told the writer that at the time of the charge of
+the Household, when their horse and ours were mingled, an Irish officer
+recognized the Prince-Duke, and calling out--“Marlborough, Marlborough!”
+ fired his pistol at him a bout-portant, and that a score more carbines
+and pistols were discharged at him. Not one touched him: he rode through
+the French Curiassiers sword-in-hand, and entirely unhurt, and calm and
+smiling, rallied the German Horse, that was reeling before the enemy,
+brought these and twenty squadrons of Orkney's back upon them, and
+drove the French across the river, again leading the charge himself, and
+defeating the only dangerous move the French made that day.
+
+Major-General Webb commanded on the left of our line, and had his own
+regiment under the orders of their beloved colonel. Neither he nor they
+belied their character for gallantry on this occasion; but it was about
+his dear young lord that Esmond was anxious, never having sight of him
+save once, in the whole course of the day, when he brought an order from
+the Commander-in-Chief to Mr. Webb. When our horse, having charged round
+the right flank of the enemy by Overkirk, had thrown him into entire
+confusion, a general advance was made, and our whole line of foot,
+crossing the little river and the morass, ascended the high ground where
+the French were posted, cheering as they went, the enemy retreating
+before them. 'Twas a service of more glory than danger, the French
+battalions never waiting to exchange push of pike or bayonet with ours;
+and the gunners flying from their pieces, which our line left behind us
+as they advanced, and the French fell back.
+
+At first it was a retreat orderly enough; but presently the retreat
+became a rout, and a frightful slaughter of the French ensued on this
+panic: so that an army of sixty thousand men was utterly crushed and
+destroyed in the course of a couple of hours. It was as if a hurricane
+had seized a compact numerous fleet, flung it all to the winds,
+shattered, sunk, and annihilated it: afflavit Deus, et dissipati sunt.
+The French army of Flanders was gone, their artillery, their standards,
+their treasure, provisions, and ammunition were all left behind them:
+the poor devils had even fled without their soup-kettles, which are
+as much the palladia of the French infantry as of the Grand Seignior's
+Janissaries, and round which they rally even more than round their
+lilies.
+
+The pursuit, and a dreadful carnage which ensued (for the dregs of a
+battle, however brilliant, are ever a base residue of rapine, cruelty,
+and drunken plunder,) was carried far beyond the field of Ramillies.
+
+Honest Lockwood, Esmond's servant, no doubt wanted to be among the
+marauders himself and take his share of the booty; for when, the action
+over, and the troops got to their ground for the night, the Captain bade
+Lockwood get a horse, he asked, with a very rueful countenance, whether
+his honor would have him come too; but his honor only bade him go about
+his own business, and Jack hopped away quite delighted as soon as he
+saw his master mounted. Esmond made his way, and not without danger
+and difficulty, to his Grace's headquarters, and found for himself very
+quickly where the aide-de-camps' quarters were, in an out-building of
+a farm, where several of these gentlemen were seated, drinking and
+singing, and at supper. If he had any anxiety about his boy, 'twas
+relieved at once. One of the gentlemen was singing a song to a tune that
+Mr. Farquhar and Mr. Gay both had used in their admirable comedies, and
+very popular in the army of that day; and after the song came a chorus,
+“Over the hills and far away;” and Esmond heard Frank's fresh voice,
+soaring, as it were, over the songs of the rest of the young men--a
+voice that had always a certain artless, indescribable pathos with it,
+and indeed which caused Mr. Esmond's eyes to fill with tears now, out
+of thankfulness to God the child was safe and still alive to laugh and
+sing.
+
+When the song was over Esmond entered the room, where he knew several of
+the gentlemen present, and there sat my young lord, having taken off
+his cuirass, his waistcoat open, his face flushed, his long yellow
+hair hanging over his shoulders, drinking with the rest; the youngest,
+gayest, handsomest there. As soon as he saw Esmond, he clapped down his
+glass, and running towards his friend, put both his arms round him and
+embraced him. The other's voice trembled with joy as he greeted the
+lad; he had thought but now as he stood in the court-yard under the
+clear-shining moonlight: “Great God! what a scene of murder is here
+within a mile of us; what hundreds and thousands have faced danger
+to-day; and here are these lads singing over their cups, and the same
+moon that is shining over yonder horrid field is looking down on Walcote
+very likely, while my lady sits and thinks about her boy that is at the
+war.” As Esmond embraced his young pupil now, 'twas with the feeling
+of quite religious thankfulness and an almost paternal pleasure that he
+beheld him.
+
+Round his neck was a star with a striped ribbon, that was made of small
+brilliants and might be worth a hundred crowns. “Look,” says he, “won't
+that be a pretty present for mother?”
+
+“Who gave you the Order?” says Harry, saluting the gentleman: “did you
+win it in battle?”
+
+“I won it,” cried the other, “with my sword and my spear. There was a
+mousquetaire that had it round his neck--such a big mousquetaire, as big
+as General Webb. I called out to him to surrender, and that I'd give him
+quarter: he called me a petit polisson and fired his pistol at me, and
+then sent it at my head with a curse. I rode at him, sir, drove my sword
+right under his arm-hole, and broke it in the rascal's body. I found
+a purse in his holster with sixty-five Louis in it, and a bundle of
+love-letters, and a flask of Hungary-water. Vive la guerre! there are
+the ten pieces you lent me. I should like to have a fight every day;”
+ and he pulled at his little moustache and bade a servant bring a supper
+to Captain Esmond.
+
+Harry fell to with a very good appetite; he had tasted nothing since
+twenty hours ago, at early dawn. Master Grandson, who read this, do you
+look for the history of battles and sieges? Go, find them in the proper
+books; this is only the story of your grandfather and his family. Far
+more pleasant to him than the victory, though for that too he may say
+meminisse juvat, it was to find that the day was over, and his dear
+young Castlewood was unhurt.
+
+And would you, sirrah, wish to know how it was that a sedate Captain
+of Foot, a studious and rather solitary bachelor of eight or nine and
+twenty years of age, who did not care very much for the jollities which
+his comrades engaged in, and was never known to lose his heart in any
+garrison-town--should you wish to know why such a man had so prodigious
+a tenderness, and tended so fondly a boy of eighteen, wait, my good
+friend, until thou art in love with thy schoolfellow's sister, and then
+see how mighty tender thou wilt be towards him. Esmond's general and
+his Grace the Prince-Duke were notoriously at variance, and the former's
+friendship was in nowise likely to advance any man's promotion of whose
+services Webb spoke well; but rather likely to injure him, so the army
+said, in the favor of the greater man. However, Mr. Esmond had the good
+fortune to be mentioned very advantageously by Major-General Webb in his
+report after the action; and the major of his regiment and two of the
+captains having been killed upon the day of Ramillies, Esmond, who was
+second of the lieutenants, got his company, and had the honor of serving
+as Captain Esmond in the next campaign.
+
+My lord went home in the winter, but Esmond was afraid to follow him.
+His dear mistress wrote him letters more than once, thanking him, as
+mothers know how to thank, for his care and protection of her boy,
+extolling Esmond's own merits with a great deal more praise than they
+deserved; for he did his duty no better than any other officer; and
+speaking sometimes, though gently and cautiously, of Beatrix. News came
+from home of at least half a dozen grand matches that the beautiful maid
+of honor was about to make. She was engaged to an earl, our gentleman of
+St. James's said, and then jilted him for a duke, who, in his turn, had
+drawn off. Earl or duke it might be who should win this Helen, Esmond
+knew she would never bestow herself on a poor captain. Her conduct, it
+was clear, was little satisfactory to her mother, who scarcely mentioned
+her, or else the kind lady thought it was best to say nothing, and leave
+time to work out its cure. At any rate, Harry was best away from the
+fatal object which always wrought him so much mischief; and so he never
+asked for leave to go home, but remained with his regiment that was
+garrisoned in Brussels, which city fell into our hands when the victory
+of Ramillies drove the French out of Flanders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+I MEET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IN FLANDERS, AND FIND MY MOTHER'S GRAVE AND
+MY OWN CRADLE THERE.
+
+
+Being one day in the Church of St. Gudule, at Brussels, admiring the
+antique splendor of the architecture (and always entertaining a great
+tenderness and reverence for the Mother Church, that hath been as
+wickedly persecuted in England as ever she herself persecuted in the
+days of her prosperity), Esmond saw kneeling at a side altar an officer
+in a green uniform coat, very deeply engaged in devotion. Something
+familiar in the figure and posture of the kneeling man struck Captain
+Esmond, even before he saw the officer's face. As he rose up, putting
+away into his pocket a little black breviary, such as priests use,
+Esmond beheld a countenance so like that of his friend and tutor of
+early days, Father Holt, that he broke out into an exclamation of
+astonishment and advanced a step towards the gentleman, who was making
+his way out of church. The German officer too looked surprised when he
+saw Esmond, and his face from being pale grew suddenly red. By this mark
+of recognition, the Englishman knew that he could not be mistaken; and
+though the other did not stop, but on the contrary rather hastily walked
+away towards the door, Esmond pursued him and faced him once more, as
+the officer, helping himself to holy water, turned mechanically towards
+the altar, to bow to it ere he quitted the sacred edifice.
+
+
+“My Father!” says Esmond in English.
+
+“Silence! I do not understand. I do not speak English,” says the other
+in Latin.
+
+Esmond smiled at this sign of confusion, and replied in the same
+language--“I should know my Father in any garment, black or white,
+shaven or bearded;” for the Austrian officer was habited quite in the
+military manner, and had as warlike a mustachio as any Pandour.
+
+He laughed--we were on the church steps by this time, passing through
+the crowd of beggars that usually is there holding up little trinkets
+for sale and whining for alms. “You speak Latin,” says he, “in the
+English way, Harry Esmond; you have forsaken the old true Roman tongue
+you once knew.” His tone was very frank, and friendly quite; the kind
+voice of fifteen years back; he gave Esmond his hand as he spoke.
+
+“Others have changed their coats too, my Father,” says Esmond, glancing
+at his friend's military decoration.
+
+“Hush! I am Mr. or Captain von Holtz, in the Bavarian Elector's service,
+and on a mission to his Highness the Prince of Savoy. You can keep a
+secret I know from old times.”
+
+“Captain von Holtz,” says Esmond, “I am your very humble servant.”
+
+“And you, too, have changed your coat,” continues the other in his
+laughing way; “I have heard of you at Cambridge and afterwards: we have
+friends everywhere; and I am told that Mr. Esmond at Cambridge was as
+good a fencer as he was a bad theologian.” (So, thinks Esmond, my old
+maitre d'armes was a Jesuit, as they said.)
+
+“Perhaps you are right,” says the other, reading his thoughts quite as
+he used to do in old days; “you were all but killed at Hochstedt of a
+wound in the left side. You were before that at Vigo, aide-de-camp to
+the Duke of Ormonde. You got your company the other day after Ramillies;
+your general and the Prince-Duke are not friends; he is of the Webbs of
+Lydiard Tregoze, in the county of York, a relation of my Lord St. John.
+Your cousin, M. de Castlewood, served his first campaign this year in
+the Guard; yes, I do know a few things, as you see.”
+
+Captain Esmond laughed in his turn. “You have indeed a curious
+knowledge,” he says. A foible of Mr. Holt's, who did know more about
+books and men than, perhaps, almost any person Esmond had ever met,
+was omniscience; thus in every point he here professed to know, he was
+nearly right, but not quite. Esmond's wound was in the right side, not
+the left; his first general was General Lumley; Mr. Webb came out of
+Wiltshire, not out of Yorkshire; and so forth. Esmond did not think fit
+to correct his old master in these trifling blunders, but they served
+to give him a knowledge of the other's character, and he smiled to think
+that this was his oracle of early days; only now no longer infallible or
+divine.
+
+“Yes,” continues Father Holt, or Captain von Holtz, “for a man who has
+not been in England these eight years, I know what goes on in London
+very well. The old Dean is dead, my Lady Castlewood's father. Do you
+know that your recusant bishops wanted to consecrate him Bishop
+of Southampton, and that Collier is Bishop of Thetford by the same
+imposition? The Princess Anne has the gout and eats too much; when the
+King returns, Collier will be an archbishop.”
+
+“Amen!” says Esmond, laughing; “and I hope to see your Eminence no
+longer in jack-boots, but red stockings, at Whitehall.”
+
+“You are always with us--I know that--I heard of that when you were at
+Cambridge; so was the late lord; so is the young viscount.”
+
+“And so was my father before me,” said Mr. Esmond, looking calmly at the
+other, who did not, however, show the least sign of intelligence in his
+impenetrable gray eyes--how well Harry remembered them and their look!
+only crows' feet were wrinkled round them--marks of black old Time had
+settled there.
+
+Esmond's face chose to show no more sign of meaning than the Father's.
+There may have been on the one side and the other just the faintest
+glitter of recognition, as you see a bayonet shining out of an ambush;
+but each party fell back, when everything was again dark.
+
+“And you, mon capitaine, where have you been?” says Esmond, turning
+away the conversation from this dangerous ground, where neither chose to
+engage.
+
+“I may have been in Pekin,” says he, “or I may have been in
+Paraguay--who knows where? I am now Captain von Holtz, in the service of
+his Electoral Highness, come to negotiate exchange of prisoners with his
+Highness of Savoy.”
+
+'Twas well known that very many officers in our army were well-affected
+towards the young king at St. Germains, whose right to the throne was
+undeniable, and whose accession to it, at the death of his sister, by
+far the greater part of the English people would have preferred, to
+the having a petty German prince for a sovereign, about whose cruelty,
+rapacity, boorish manners, and odious foreign ways, a thousand stories
+were current. It wounded our English pride to think that a shabby
+High-Dutch duke, whose revenues were not a tithe as great as those of
+many of the princes of our ancient English nobility, who could not speak
+a word of our language, and whom we chose to represent as a sort
+of German boor, feeding on train-oil and sour-crout, with a bevy of
+mistresses in a barn, should come to reign over the proudest and most
+polished people in the world. Were we, the conquerors of the Grand
+Monarch, to submit to that ignoble domination? What did the Hanoverian's
+Protestantism matter to us? Was it not notorious (we were told and led
+to believe so) that one of the daughters of this Protestant hero was
+being bred up with no religion at all, as yet, and ready to be made
+Lutheran or Roman, according as the husband might be whom her parents
+should find for her? This talk, very idle and abusive much of it was,
+went on at a hundred mess-tables in the army; there was scarce an ensign
+that did not hear it, or join in it, and everybody knew, or affected to
+know, that the Commander-in-Chief himself had relations with his nephew,
+the Duke of Berwick ['twas by an Englishman, thank God, that we were
+beaten at Almanza), and that his Grace was most anxious to restore the
+royal race of his benefactors, and to repair his former treason.
+
+This is certain, that for a considerable period no officer in the
+Duke's army lost favor with the Commander-in-Chief for entertaining or
+proclaiming his loyalty towards the exiled family. When the Chevalier de
+St. George, as the King of England called himself, came with the dukes
+of the French blood royal, to join the French army under Vendosme,
+hundreds of ours saw him and cheered him, and we all said he was like
+his father in this, who, seeing the action of La Hogue fought between
+the French ships and ours, was on the side of his native country during
+the battle. But this, at least the Chevalier knew, and every one knew,
+that, however well our troops and their general might be inclined
+towards the prince personally, in the face of the enemy there was no
+question at all. Wherever my Lord Duke found a French army, he would
+fight and beat it, as he did at Oudenarde, two years after Ramillies,
+where his Grace achieved another of his transcendent victories; and the
+noble young prince, who charged gallantly along with the magnificent
+Maison-du-Roy, sent to compliment his conquerors after the action.
+
+In this battle, where the young Electoral Prince of Hanover behaved
+himself very gallantly, fighting on our side, Esmond's dear General
+Webb distinguished himself prodigiously, exhibiting consummate skill
+and coolness as a general, and fighting with the personal bravery of
+a common soldier. Esmond's good-luck again attended him; he escaped
+without a hurt, although more than a third of his regiment was killed,
+had again the honor to be favorably mentioned in his commander's report,
+and was advanced to the rank of major. But of this action there is
+little need to speak, as it hath been related in every Gazette, and
+talked of in every hamlet in this country. To return from it to the
+writer's private affairs, which here, in his old age, and at a distance,
+he narrates for his children who come after him. Before Oudenarde, after
+that chance rencontre with Captain von Holtz at Brussels, a space of
+more than a year elapsed, during which the captain of Jesuits and the
+captain of Webb's Fusileers were thrown very much together. Esmond had
+no difficulty in finding out (indeed, the other made no secret of it
+to him, being assured from old times of his pupil's fidelity), that
+the negotiator of prisoners was an agent from St. Germains, and that he
+carried intelligence between great personages in our camp and that of
+the French. “My business,” said he--“and I tell you, both because I can
+trust you and your keen eyes have already discovered it--is between the
+King of England and his subjects here engaged in fighting the French
+king. As between you and them, all the Jesuits in the world will not
+prevent your quarrelling: fight it out, gentlemen. St. George for
+England, I say--and you know who says so, wherever he may be.”
+
+I think Holt loved to make a parade of mystery, as it were, and would
+appear and disappear at our quarters as suddenly as he used to return
+and vanish in the old days at Castlewood. He had passes between both
+armies, and seemed to know (but with that inaccuracy which belonged to
+the good Father's omniscience) equally well what passed in the French
+camp and in ours. One day he would give Esmond news of a great feste
+that took place in the French quarters, of a supper of Monsieur de
+Rohan's, where there was play and violins, and then dancing and masques;
+the King drove thither in Marshal Villars' own guinguette. Another day
+he had the news of his Majesty's ague: the King had not had a fit these
+ten days, and might be said to be well. Captain Holtz made a visit to
+England during this time, so eager was he about negotiating prisoners;
+and 'twas on returning from this voyage that he began to open himself
+more to Esmond, and to make him, as occasion served, at their various
+meetings, several of those confidences which are here set down all
+together.
+
+The reason of his increased confidence was this: upon going to London,
+the old director of Esmond's aunt, the dowager, paid her ladyship a
+visit at Chelsey, and there learnt from her that Captain Esmond was
+acquainted with the secret of his family, and was determined never to
+divulge it. The knowledge of this fact raised Esmond in his old tutor's
+eyes, so Holt was pleased to say, and he admired Harry very much for his
+abnegation.
+
+“The family at Castlewood have done far more for me than my own ever
+did,” Esmond said. “I would give my life for them. Why should I grudge
+the only benefit that 'tis in my power to confer on them?” The good
+Father's eyes filled with tears at this speech, which to the other
+seemed very simple: he embraced Esmond, and broke out into many admiring
+expressions; he said he was a noble coeur, that he was proud of him, and
+fond of him as his pupil and friend--regretted more than ever that he
+had lost him, and been forced to leave him in those early times, when
+he might have had an influence over him, have brought him into that
+only true church to which the Father belonged, and enlisted him in the
+noblest army in which a man ever engaged--meaning his own society of
+Jesus, which numbers (says he) in its troops the greatest heroes the
+world ever knew;--warriors brave enough to dare or endure anything, to
+encounter any odds, to die any death--soldiers that have won triumphs a
+thousand times more brilliant than those of the greatest general; that
+have brought nations on their knees to their sacred banner, the Cross;
+that have achieved glories and palms incomparably brighter than those
+awarded to the most splendid earthly conquerors--crowns of immortal
+light, and seats in the high places of heaven.
+
+Esmond was thankful for his old friend's good opinion, however little
+he might share the Jesuit-father's enthusiasm. “I have thought of
+that question, too,” says he, “dear Father,” and he took the other's
+hand--“thought it out for myself, as all men must, and contrive to do
+the right, and trust to heaven as devoutly in my way as you in yours.
+Another six months of you as a child, and I had desired no better. I
+used to weep upon my pillow at Castlewood as I thought of you, and I
+might have been a brother of your order; and who knows,” Esmond added,
+with a smile, “a priest in full orders, and with a pair of mustachios,
+and a Bavarian uniform?”
+
+“My son,” says Father Holt, turning red, “in the cause of religion and
+loyalty all disguises are fair.”
+
+“Yes,” broke in Esmond, “all disguises are fair, you say; and all
+uniforms, say I, black or red,--a black cockade or a white one--or a
+laced hat, or a sombrero, with a tonsure under it. I cannot believe that
+St. Francis Xavier sailed over the sea in a cloak, or raised the dead--I
+tried, and very nearly did once, but cannot. Suffer me to do the right,
+and to hope for the best in my own way.”
+
+Esmond wished to cut short the good Father's theology, and succeeded;
+and the other, sighing over his pupil's invincible ignorance, did not
+withdraw his affection from him, but gave him his utmost confidence--as
+much, that is to say, as a priest can give: more than most do; for he
+was naturally garrulous, and too eager to speak.
+
+Holt's friendship encouraged Captain Esmond to ask, what he long wished
+to know, and none could tell him, some history of the poor mother
+whom he had often imagined in his dreams, and whom he never knew. He
+described to Holt those circumstances which are already put down in the
+first part of this story--the promise he had made to his dear lord, and
+that dying friend's confession; and he besought Mr. Holt to tell him
+what he knew regarding the poor woman from whom he had been taken.
+
+“She was of this very town,” Holt said, and took Esmond to see the
+street where her father lived, and where, as he believed, she was born.
+“In 1676, when your father came hither in the retinue of the late king,
+then Duke of York, and banished hither in disgrace, Captain Thomas
+Esmond became acquainted with your mother, pursued her, and made a
+victim of her; he hath told me in many subsequent conversations, which
+I felt bound to keep private then, that she was a woman of great virtue
+and tenderness, and in all respects a most fond, faithful creature. He
+called himself Captain Thomas, having good reason to be ashamed of
+his conduct towards her, and hath spoken to me many times with sincere
+remorse for that, as with fond love for her many amiable qualities, he
+owned to having treated her very ill: and that at this time his life was
+one of profligacy, gambling, and poverty. She became with child of
+you; was cursed by her own parents at that discovery; though she never
+upbraided, except by her involuntary tears, and the misery depicted on
+her countenance, the author of her wretchedness and ruin.
+
+“Thomas Esmond--Captain Thomas, as he was called--became engaged in a
+gaming-house brawl, of which the consequence was a duel, and a wound so
+severe that he never--his surgeon said--could outlive it. Thinking his
+death certain, and touched with remorse, he sent for a priest of the
+very Church of St. Gudule where I met you; and on the same day, after
+his making submission to our Church, was married to your mother a few
+weeks before you were born. My Lord Viscount Castlewood, Marquis of
+Esmond, by King James's patent, which I myself took to your father, your
+lordship was christened at St. Gudule by the same cure who married your
+parents, and by the name of Henry Thomas, son of E. Thomas, officier
+Anglois, and Gertrude Maes. You see you belong to us from your birth,
+and why I did not christen you when you became my dear little pupil at
+Castlewood.
+
+“Your father's wound took a favorable turn--perhaps his conscience was
+eased by the right he had done--and to the surprise of the doctors
+he recovered. But as his health came back, his wicked nature, too,
+returned. He was tired of the poor girl, whom he had ruined; and
+receiving some remittance from his uncle, my lord the old viscount, then
+in England, he pretended business, promised return, and never saw your
+poor mother more.
+
+“He owned to me, in confession first, but afterwards in talk before your
+aunt, his wife, else I never could have disclosed what I now tell you,
+that on coming to London he writ a pretended confession to poor Gertrude
+Maes--Gertrude Esmond--of his having been married in England previously,
+before uniting himself with her; said that his name was not Thomas;
+that he was about to quit Europe for the Virginian plantations, where,
+indeed, your family had a grant of land from King Charles the First;
+sent her a supply of money, the half of the last hundred guineas he had,
+entreated her pardon, and bade her farewell.
+
+“Poor Gertrude never thought that the news in this letter might be
+untrue as the rest of your father's conduct to her. But though a young
+man of her own degree, who knew her history, and whom she liked before
+she saw the English gentleman who was the cause of all her misery,
+offered to marry her, and to adopt you as his own child, and give you
+his name, she refused him. This refusal only angered her father, who had
+taken her home; she never held up her head there, being the subject
+of constant unkindness after her fall; and some devout ladies of her
+acquaintance offering to pay a little pension for her, she went into a
+convent, and you were put out to nurse.
+
+“A sister of the young fellow who would have adopted you as his son
+was the person who took charge of you. Your mother and this person were
+cousins. She had just lost a child of her own, which you replaced, your
+own mother being too sick and feeble to feed you; and presently your
+nurse grew so fond of you, that she even grudged letting you visit the
+convent where your mother was, and where the nuns petted the little
+infant, as they pitied and loved its unhappy parent. Her vocation became
+stronger every day, and at the end of two years she was received as a
+sister of the house.
+
+“Your nurse's family were silk-weavers out of France, whither they
+returned to Arras in French Flanders, shortly before your mother took
+her vows, carrying you with them, then a child of three years old. 'Twas
+a town, before the late vigorous measures of the French king, full of
+Protestants, and here your nurse's father, old Pastoureau, he with
+whom you afterwards lived at Ealing, adopted the reformed doctrines,
+perverting all his house with him. They were expelled thence by the
+edict of his most Christian Majesty, and came to London, and set up
+their looms in Spittlefields. The old man brought a little money with
+him, and carried on his trade, but in a poor way. He was a widower; by
+this time his daughter, a widow too, kept house for him, and his son
+and he labored together at their vocation. Meanwhile your father had
+publicly owned his conversion just before King Charles's death (in whom
+our Church had much such another convert), was reconciled to my Lord
+Viscount Castlewood, and married, as you know, to his daughter.
+
+“It chanced that the younger Pastoureau, going with a piece of brocade
+to the mercer who employed him, on Ludgate Hill, met his old rival
+coming out of an ordinary there. Pastoureau knew your father at once,
+seized him by the collar, and upbraided him as a villain, who had
+seduced his mistress, and afterwards deserted her and her son. Mr.
+Thomas Esmond also recognized Pastoureau at once, besought him to calm
+his indignation, and not to bring a crowd round about them; and bade
+him to enter into the tavern, out of which he had just stepped, when
+he would give him any explanation. Pastoureau entered, and heard the
+landlord order the drawer to show Captain Thomas to a room; it was by
+his Christian name that your father was familiarly called at his tavern
+haunts, which, to say the truth, were none of the most reputable.
+
+“I must tell you that Captain Thomas, or my Lord Viscount afterwards,
+was never at a loss for a story, and could cajole a woman or a dun with
+a volubility, and an air of simplicity at the same time, of which many
+a creditor of his has been the dupe. His tales used to gather
+verisimilitude as he went on with them. He strung together fact after
+fact with a wonderful rapidity and coherence. It required, saving your
+presence, a very long habit of acquaintance with your father to know
+when his lordship was l----,--telling the truth or no.
+
+“He told me with rueful remorse when he was ill--for the fear of death
+set him instantly repenting, and with shrieks of laughter when he was
+well, his lordship having a very great sense of humor--how in a half an
+hour's time, and before a bottle was drunk, he had completely succeeded
+in biting poor Pastoureau. The seduction he owned to: that he could not
+help: he was quite ready with tears at a moment's warning, and shed them
+profusely to melt his credulous listener. He wept for your mother even
+more than Pastoureau did, who cried very heartily, poor fellow, as my
+lord informed me; he swore upon his honor that he had twice sent money
+to Brussels, and mentioned the name of the merchant with whom it was
+lying for poor Gertrude's use. He did not even know whether she had
+a child or no, or whether she was alive or dead; but got these facts
+easily out of honest Pastoureau's answers to him. When he heard that
+she was in a convent, he said he hoped to end his days in one himself,
+should he survive his wife, whom he hated, and had been forced by a
+cruel father to marry; and when he was told that Gertrude's son was
+alive, and actually in London, 'I started,' says he; 'for then, damme,
+my wife was expecting to lie in, and I thought should this old Put, my
+father-in-law, run rusty, here would be a good chance to frighten him.'
+
+“He expressed the deepest gratitude to the Pastoureau family for the
+care of the infant: you were now near six years old; and on Pastoureau
+bluntly telling him, when he proposed to go that instant and see the
+darling child, that they never wished to see his ill-omened face again
+within their doors; that he might have the boy, though they should all
+be very sorry to lose him; and that they would take his money, they
+being poor, if he gave it; or bring him up, by God's help, as they had
+hitherto done, without: he acquiesced in this at once, with a sigh,
+said, 'Well, 'twas better that the dear child should remain with
+friends who had been so admirably kind to him;' and in his talk to
+me afterwards, honestly praised and admired the weaver's conduct and
+spirit; owned that the Frenchman was a right fellow, and he, the Lord
+have mercy upon him, a sad villain.
+
+“Your father,” Mr. Holt went on to say, “was good-natured with his money
+when he had it; and having that day received a supply from his uncle,
+gave the weaver ten pieces with perfect freedom, and promised him
+further remittances. He took down eagerly Pastoureau's name and place of
+abode in his table-book, and when the other asked him for his own,
+gave, with the utmost readiness, his name as Captain Thomas, New Lodge,
+Penzance, Cornwall; he said he was in London for a few days only on
+business connected with his wife's property; described her as a shrew,
+though a woman of kind disposition; and depicted his father as a Cornish
+squire, in an infirm state of health, at whose death he hoped for
+something handsome, when he promised richly to reward the admirable
+protector of his child, and to provide for the boy. 'And by Gad, sir,'
+he said to me in his strange laughing way, 'I ordered a piece of brocade
+of the very same pattern as that which the fellow was carrying, and
+presented it to my wife for a morning wrapper, to receive company after
+she lay in of our little boy.'
+
+“Your little pension was paid regularly enough; and when your father
+became Viscount Castlewood on his uncle's demise, I was employed to keep
+a watch over you, and 'twas at my instance that you were brought home.
+Your foster-mother was dead; her father made acquaintance with a woman
+whom he married, who quarrelled with his son. The faithful creature came
+back to Brussels to be near the woman he loved, and died, too, a few
+months before her. Will you see her cross in the convent cemetery? The
+Superior is an old penitent of mine, and remembers Soeur Marie Madeleine
+fondly still.”
+
+
+Esmond came to this spot in one sunny evening of spring, and saw,
+amidst a thousand black crosses, casting their shadows across the grassy
+mounds, that particular one which marked his mother's resting-place.
+Many more of those poor creatures that lay there had adopted that same
+name, with which sorrow had rebaptized her, and which fondly seemed to
+hint their individual story of love and grief. He fancied her in tears
+and darkness, kneeling at the foot of her cross, under which her cares
+were buried. Surely he knelt down, and said his own prayer there, not
+in sorrow so much as in awe (for even his memory had no recollection of
+her), and in pity for the pangs which the gentle soul in life had
+been made to suffer. To this cross she brought them; for this heavenly
+bridegroom she exchanged the husband who had wooed her, the traitor
+who had left her. A thousand such hillocks lay round about, the gentle
+daisies springing out of the grass over them, and each bearing its
+cross and requiescat. A nun, veiled in black, was kneeling hard by, at a
+sleeping sister's bedside (so fresh made, that the spring had scarce
+had time to spin a coverlid for it); beyond the cemetery walls you had
+glimpses of life and the world, and the spires and gables of the city. A
+bird came down from a roof opposite, and lit first on a cross, and then
+on the grass below it, whence it flew away presently with a leaf in its
+mouth: then came a sound as of chanting, from the chapel of the
+sisters hard by; others had long since filled the place which poor Mary
+Magdeleine once had there, were kneeling at the same stall, and hearing
+the same hymns and prayers in which her stricken heart had found
+consolation. Might she sleep in peace--might she sleep in peace; and we,
+too, when our struggles and pains are over! But the earth is the Lord's
+as the heaven is; we are alike his creatures here and yonder. I took a
+little flower off the hillock and kissed it, and went my way, like
+the bird that had just lighted on the cross by me, back into the world
+again. Silent receptacle of death; tranquil depth of calm, out of reach
+of tempest and trouble! I felt as one who had been walking below the
+sea, and treading amidst the bones of shipwrecks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE CAMPAIGN OF 1707, 1708.
+
+
+During the whole of the year which succeeded that in which the glorious
+battle of Ramillies had been fought, our army made no movement of
+importance, much to the disgust of very many of our officers remaining
+inactive in Flanders, who said that his Grace the Captain-General had
+had fighting enough, and was all for money now, and the enjoyment of his
+five thousand a year and his splendid palace at Woodstock, which was
+now being built. And his Grace had sufficient occupation fighting his
+enemies at home this year, where it began to be whispered that his favor
+was decreasing, and his duchess losing her hold on the Queen, who was
+transferring her royal affections to the famous Mrs. Masham, and Mrs.
+Masham's humble servant, Mr. Harley. Against their intrigues, our Duke
+passed a great part of his time intriguing. Mr. Harley was got out
+of office, and his Grace, in so far, had a victory. But her Majesty,
+convinced against her will, was of that opinion still, of which the poet
+says people are when so convinced, and Mr. Harley before long had his
+revenge.
+
+Meanwhile the business of fighting did not go on any way to the
+satisfaction of Marlborough's gallant lieutenants. During all 1707,
+with the French before us, we had never so much as a battle; our army in
+Spain was utterly routed at Almanza by the gallant Duke of Berwick; and
+we of Webb's, which regiment the young Duke had commanded before his
+father's abdication, were a little proud to think that it was our
+colonel who had achieved this victory. “I think if I had had Galway's
+place, and my Fusileers,” says our General, “we would not have laid down
+our arms, even to our old colonel, as Galway did;” and Webb's officers
+swore if we had had Webb, at least we would not have been taken
+prisoners. Our dear old general talked incautiously of himself and of
+others; a braver or a more brilliant soldier never lived than he; but
+he blew his honest trumpet rather more loudly than became a commander of
+his station, and, mighty man of valor as he was, shook his great spear
+and blustered before the army too fiercely.
+
+Mysterious Mr. Holtz went off on a secret expedition in the early part
+of 1708, with great elation of spirits and a prophecy to Esmond that a
+wonderful something was about to take place. This secret came out on
+my friend's return to the army, whither he brought a most rueful and
+dejected countenance, and owned that the great something he had been
+engaged upon had failed utterly. He had been indeed with that luckless
+expedition of the Chevalier de St. George, who was sent by the French
+king with ships and an army from Dunkirk, and was to have invaded
+and conquered Scotland. But that ill wind which ever opposed all the
+projects upon which the Prince ever embarked, prevented the Chevalier's
+invasion of Scotland, as 'tis known, and blew poor Monsieur von Holtz
+back into our camp again, to scheme and foretell, and to pry about as
+usual. The Chevalier (the king of England, as some of us held him) went
+from Dunkirk to the French army to make the campaign against us. The
+Duke of Burgundy had the command this year, having the Duke of Berry
+with him, and the famous Mareschal Vendosme and the Duke of Matignon to
+aid him in the campaign. Holtz, who knew everything that was passing
+in Flanders and France (and the Indies for what I know), insisted that
+there would be no more fighting in 1708 than there had been in the
+previous year, and that our commander had reasons for keeping him quiet.
+Indeed, Esmond's general, who was known as a grumbler, and to have a
+hearty mistrust of the great Duke, and hundreds more officers besides,
+did not scruple to say that these private reasons came to the Duke
+in the shape of crown-pieces from the French King, by whom the
+Generalissimo was bribed to avoid a battle. There were plenty of men in
+our lines, quidnuncs, to whom Mr. Webb listened only too willingly, who
+could specify the exact sums the Duke got, how much fell to Cadogan's
+share, and what was the precise fee given to Doctor Hare.
+
+And the successes with which the French began the campaign of 1708
+served to give strength to these reports of treason, which were in
+everybody's mouth. Our general allowed the enemy to get between us and
+Ghent, and declined to attack him, though for eight and forty hours the
+armies were in presence of each other. Ghent was taken, and on the same
+day Monsieur de la Mothe summoned Bruges; and these two great cities
+fell into the hands of the French without firing a shot. A few days
+afterwards La Mothe seized upon the fort of Plashendall: and it began
+to be supposed that all Spanish Flanders, as well as Brabant, would fall
+into the hands of the French troops; when the Prince Eugene arrived from
+the Mozelle, and then there was no more shilly-shallying.
+
+The Prince of Savoy always signalized his arrival at the army by a great
+feast (my Lord Duke's entertainments were both seldom and shabby): and
+I remember our general returning from this dinner with the two
+commanders-in-chief; his honest head a little excited by wine, which
+was dealt out much more liberally by the Austrian than by the English
+commander:--“Now,” says my general, slapping the table, with an oath,
+“he must fight; and when he is forced to it, d--- it, no man in Europe
+can stand up against Jack Churchill.” Within a week the battle of
+Oudenarde was fought, when, hate each other as they might, Esmond's
+general and the Commander-in-Chief were forced to admire each other, so
+splendid was the gallantry of each upon this day.
+
+The brigade commanded by Major-General Webb gave and received about
+as hard knocks as any that were delivered in that action, in which Mr.
+Esmond had the fortune to serve at the head of his own company in his
+regiment, under the command of their own Colonel as Major-General; and
+it was his good luck to bring the regiment out of action as commander
+of it, the four senior officers above him being killed in the prodigious
+slaughter which happened on that day. I like to think that Jack
+Haythorn, who sneered at me for being a bastard and a parasite of
+Webb's, as he chose to call me, and with whom I had had words, shook
+hands with me the day before the battle began. Three days before, poor
+Brace, our Lieutenant-Colonel, had heard of his elder brother's death,
+and was heir to a baronetcy in Norfolk, and four thousand a year. Fate,
+that had left him harmless through a dozen campaigns, seized on him just
+as the world was worth living for, and he went into action knowing, as
+he said, that the luck was going to turn against him. The Major had just
+joined us--a creature of Lord Marlborough, put in much to the dislike of
+the other officers, and to be a spy upon us, as it was said. I know
+not whether the truth was so, nor who took the tattle of our mess to
+headquarters, but Webb's regiment, as its Colonel, was known to be in
+the Commander-in-Chief's black books: “And if he did not dare to break
+it up at home,” our gallant old chief used to say, “he was determined to
+destroy it before the enemy;” so that poor Major Proudfoot was put into
+a post of danger.
+
+Esmond's dear young Viscount, serving as aide-de-camp to my Lord Duke,
+received a wound, and won an honorable name for himself in the Gazette;
+and Captain Esmond's name was sent in for promotion by his General, too,
+whose favorite he was. It made his heart beat to think that certain eyes
+at home, the brightest in the world, might read the page on which his
+humble services were recorded; but his mind was made up steadily to keep
+out of their dangerous influence, and to let time and absence conquer
+that passion he had still lurking about him. Away from Beatrix, it did
+not trouble him; but he knew as certain that if he returned home, his
+fever would break out again, and avoided Walcote as a Lincolnshire man
+avoids returning to his fens, where he is sure that the ague is lying in
+wait for him.
+
+We of the English party in the army, who were inclined to sneer at
+everything that came out of Hanover, and to treat as little better than
+boors and savages the Elector's court and family, were yet forced to
+confess that, on the day of Oudenarde, the young Electoral Prince, then
+making his first campaign, conducted himself with the spirit and courage
+of an approved soldier. On this occasion his Electoral Highness had
+better luck than the King of England, who was with his cousins in the
+enemy's camp, and had to run with them at the ignominious end of the
+day. With the most consummate generals in the world before them, and
+an admirable commander on their own side, they chose to neglect the
+councils, and to rush into a combat with the former, which would have
+ended in the utter annihilation of their army but for the great skill
+and bravery of the Duke of Vendosme, who remedied, as far as courage and
+genius might, the disasters occasioned by the squabbles and follies of
+his kinsmen, the legitimate princes of the blood royal.
+
+“If the Duke of Berwick had but been in the army, the fate of the day
+would have been very different,” was all that poor Mr. von Holtz could
+say; “and you would have seen that the hero of Almanza was fit to
+measure swords with the conqueror of Blenheim.”
+
+The business relative to the exchange of prisoners was always going on,
+and was at least that ostensible one which kept Mr. Holtz perpetually on
+the move between the forces of the French and the Allies. I can answer
+for it, that he was once very near hanged as a spy by Major-General
+Wayne, when he was released and sent on to head-quarters by a special
+order of the Commander-in-Chief. He came and went, always favored,
+wherever he was, by some high though occult protection. He carried
+messages between the Duke of Berwick and his uncle, our Duke. He seemed
+to know as well what was taking place in the Prince's quarter as our
+own: he brought the compliments of the King of England to some of our
+officers, the gentlemen of Webb's among the rest, for their behavior on
+that great day; and after Wynendael, when our General was chafing at the
+neglect of our Commander-in-Chief, he said he knew how that action
+was regarded by the chiefs of the French army, and that the stand made
+before Wynendael wood was the passage by which the Allies entered Lille.
+
+“Ah!” says Holtz (and some folks were very willing to listen to him),
+“if the king came by his own, how changed the conduct of affairs would
+be! His Majesty's very exile has this advantage, that he is enabled to
+read England impartially, and to judge honestly of all the eminent men.
+His sister is always in the hand of one greedy favorite or another,
+through whose eyes she sees, and to whose flattery or dependants she
+gives away everything. Do you suppose that his Majesty, knowing England
+so well as he does, would neglect such a man as General Webb? He ought
+to be in the House of Peers as Lord Lydiard. The enemy and all Europe
+know his merit; it is that very reputation which certain great people,
+who hate all equality and independence, can never pardon.” It was
+intended that these conversations should be carried to Mr. Webb. They
+were welcome to him, for great as his services were, no man could value
+them more than John Richmond Webb did himself, and the differences
+between him and Marlborough being notorious, his Grace's enemies in
+the army and at home began to court Webb, and set him up against
+the all-grasping, domineering chief. And soon after the victory of
+Oudenarde, a glorious opportunity fell into General Webb's way, which
+that gallant warrior did not neglect, and which gave him the means of
+immensely increasing his reputation at home.
+
+After Oudenarde, and against the counsels of Marlborough, it was
+said, the Prince of Savoy sat down before Lille, the capital of French
+Flanders, and commenced that siege, the most celebrated of our time,
+and almost as famous as the siege of Troy itself, for the feats of valor
+performed in the assault and the defence. The enmity of the Prince of
+Savoy against the French king was a furious personal hate, quite unlike
+the calm hostility of our great English general, who was no more moved
+by the game of war than that of billiards, and pushed forward his
+squadrons, and drove his red battalions hither and thither as calmly as
+he would combine a stroke or make a cannon with the balls. The game
+over (and he played it so as to be pretty sure to win it), not the
+least animosity against the other party remained in the breast of this
+consummate tactician. Whereas between the Prince of Savoy and the French
+it was guerre a mort. Beaten off in one quarter, as he had been at
+Toulon in the last year, he was back again on another frontier of
+France, assailing it with his indefatigable fury. When the Prince came
+to the army, the smouldering fires of war were lighted up and burst
+out into a flame. Our phlegmatic Dutch allies were made to advance at a
+quick march--our calm Duke forced into action. The Prince was an army
+in himself against the French; the energy of his hatred, prodigious,
+indefatigable--infectious over hundreds of thousands of men. The
+Emperor's general was repaying, and with a vengeance, the slight the
+French King had put upon the fiery little Abbe of Savoy. Brilliant and
+famous as a leader himself, and beyond all measure daring and intrepid,
+and enabled to cope with almost the best of those famous men of war who
+commanded the armies of the French King, Eugene had a weapon, the equal
+of which could not be found in France, since the cannon-shot of Sasbach
+laid low the noble Turenne, and could hurl Marlborough at the heads
+of the French host, and crush them as with a rock, under which all the
+gathered strength of their strongest captains must go down.
+
+The English Duke took little part in that vast siege of Lille, which
+the Imperial Generalissimo pursued with all his force and vigor, further
+than to cover the besieging lines from the Duke of Burgundy's army,
+between which and the Imperialists our Duke lay. Once, when Prince
+Eugene was wounded, our Duke took his Highness's place in the trenches;
+but the siege was with the Imperialists, not with us. A division under
+Webb and Rantzau was detached into Artois and Picardy upon the most
+painful and odious service that Mr. Esmond ever saw in the course of his
+military life. The wretched towns of the defenceless provinces, whose
+young men had been drafted away into the French armies, which year after
+year the insatiable war devoured, were left at our mercy; and our orders
+were to show them none. We found places garrisoned by invalids,
+and children and women; poor as they were, and as the costs of this
+miserable war had made them, our commission was to rob these almost
+starving wretches--to tear the food out of their granaries, and strip
+them of their rags. 'Twas an expedition of rapine and murder we were
+sent on: our soldiers did deeds such as an honest man must blush to
+remember. We brought back money and provisions in quantity to the Duke's
+camp; there had been no one to resist us, and yet who dares to tell with
+what murder and violence, with what brutal cruelty, outrage, insult,
+that ignoble booty had been ravished from the innocent and miserable
+victims of the war?
+
+Meanwhile, gallantly as the operations before Lille had been conducted,
+the Allies had made but little progress, and 'twas said when we returned
+to the Duke of Marlborough's camp, that the siege would never be brought
+to a satisfactory end, and that the Prince of Savoy would be forced to
+raise it. My Lord Marlborough gave this as his opinion openly; those who
+mistrusted him, and Mr. Esmond owns himself to be of the number, hinted
+that the Duke had his reasons why Lille should not be taken, and that he
+was paid to that end by the French King. If this was so, and I believe
+it, General Webb had now a remarkable opportunity of gratifying his
+hatred of the Commander-in-Chief, of balking that shameful avarice,
+which was one of the basest and most notorious qualities of the famous
+Duke, and of showing his own consummate skill as a commander. And when
+I consider all the circumstances preceding the event which will now
+be related, that my Lord Duke was actually offered certain millions
+of crowns provided that the siege of Lille should be raised: that the
+Imperial army before it was without provisions and ammunition, and must
+have decamped but for the supplies that they received; that the march
+of the convoy destined to relieve the siege was accurately known to the
+French; and that the force covering it was shamefully inadequate to that
+end, and by six times inferior to Count de la Mothe's army, which
+was sent to intercept the convoy; when 'tis certain that the Duke of
+Berwick, De la Mothe's chief, was in constant correspondence with his
+uncle, the English Generalissimo: I believe on my conscience that 'twas
+my Lord Marlborough's intention to prevent those supplies, of which the
+Prince of Savoy stood in absolute need, from ever reaching his Highness;
+that he meant to sacrifice the little army which covered this convoy,
+and to betray it as he had betrayed Tollemache at Brest; as he had
+betrayed every friend he had, to further his own schemes of avarice or
+ambition. But for the miraculous victory which Esmond's general won over
+an army six or seven times greater than his own, the siege of Lille
+must have been raised; and it must be remembered that our gallant little
+force was under the command of a general whom Marlborough hated, that he
+was furious with the conqueror, and tried by the most open and shameless
+injustice afterwards to rob him of the credit of his victory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+GENERAL WEBB WINS THE BATTLE OF WYNENDAEL.
+
+
+By the besiegers and besieged of Lille, some of the most brilliant feats
+of valor were performed that ever illustrated any war. On the French
+side (whose gallantry was prodigious, the skill and bravery of Marshal
+Boufflers actually eclipsing those of his conqueror, the Prince of
+Savoy) may be mentioned that daring action of Messieurs de Luxembourg
+and Tournefort, who, with a body of horse and dragoons, carried powder
+into the town, of which the besieged were in extreme want, each soldier
+bringing a bag with forty pounds of powder behind him; with which
+perilous provision they engaged our own horse, faced the fire of the
+foot brought out to meet them: and though half of the men were blown up
+in the dreadful errand they rode on, a part of them got into the town
+with the succors of which the garrison was so much in want. A French
+officer, Monsieur du Bois, performed an act equally daring, and
+perfectly successful. The Duke's great army lying at Helchin, and
+covering the siege, and it being necessary for M. de Vendosme to get
+news of the condition of the place, Captain Dubois performed his famous
+exploit: not only passing through the lines of the siege, but swimming
+afterwards no less than seven moats and ditches: and coming back the
+same way, swimming with his letters in his mouth.
+
+By these letters Monsieur de Boufflers said that he could undertake
+to hold the place till October; and that if one of the convoys of the
+Allies could be intercepted, they must raise the siege altogether.
+
+Such a convoy as hath been said was now prepared at Ostend, and about to
+march for the siege; and on the 27th September we (and the French
+too) had news that it was on its way. It was composed of 700 wagons,
+containing ammunition of all sorts, and was escorted out of Ostend by
+2,000 infantry and 300 horse. At the same time M. de la Mothe quitted
+Bruges, having with him five-and-thirty battalions, and upwards of sixty
+squadrons and forty guns, in pursuit of the convoy.
+
+Major-General Webb had meanwhile made up a force of twenty battalions
+and three squadrons of dragoons at Turout, whence he moved to cover the
+convoy and pursue La Mothe: with whose advanced guard ours came up upon
+the great plain of Turout, and before the little wood and castle of
+Wynendael; behind which the convoy was marching.
+
+As soon as they came in sight of the enemy, our advanced troops were
+halted, with the wood behind them, and the rest of our force brought up
+as quickly as possible, our little body of horse being brought forward
+to the opening of the plain, as our General said, to amuse the enemy.
+When M. de la Mothe came up, he found us posted in two lines in front of
+the wood; and formed his own army in battle facing ours, in eight lines,
+four of infantry in front, and dragoons and cavalry behind.
+
+The French began the action, as usual, with a cannonade which lasted
+three hours, when they made their attack, advancing in eight lines, four
+of foot and four of horse, upon the allied troops in the wood where we
+were posted. Their infantry behaved ill; they were ordered to charge
+with the bayonet, but, instead, began to fire, and almost at the very
+first discharge from our men, broke and fled. The cavalry behaved
+better; with these alone, who were three or four times as numerous as
+our whole force, Monsieur de la Mothe might have won victory: but only
+two of our battalions were shaken in the least; and these speedily
+rallied: nor could the repeated attacks of the French horse cause our
+troops to budge an inch from the position in the wood in which our
+General had placed them.
+
+After attacking for two hours, the French retired at nightfall entirely
+foiled. With all the loss we had inflicted upon him, the enemy was still
+three times stronger than we: and it could not be supposed that our
+General could pursue M. de la Mothe, or do much more than hold our
+ground about the wood, from which the Frenchman had in vain attempted
+to dislodge us. La Mothe retired behind his forty guns, his cavalry
+protecting them better than it had been enabled to annoy us; and
+meanwhile the convoy, which was of more importance than all our little
+force, and the safe passage of which we would have dropped to the last
+man to accomplish, marched away in perfect safety during the action, and
+joyfully reached the besieging camp before Lille.
+
+Major-General Cadogan, my Lord Duke's Quarter-Master-General, (and
+between whom and Mr. Webb there was no love lost), accompanied the
+convoy, and joined Mr. Webb with a couple of hundred horse just as the
+battle was over, and the enemy in full retreat. He offered, readily
+enough, to charge with his horse upon the French as they fell back; but
+his force was too weak to inflict any damage upon them; and Mr. Webb,
+commanding as Cadogan's senior, thought enough was done in holding
+our ground before an enemy that might still have overwhelmed us had we
+engaged him in the open territory, and in securing the safe passage of
+the convoy. Accordingly, the horse brought up by Cadogan did not draw
+a sword; and only prevented, by the good countenance they showed, any
+disposition the French might have had to renew the attack on us. And no
+attack coming, at nightfall General Cadogan drew off with his squadron,
+being bound for head-quarters, the two Generals at parting grimly
+saluting each other.
+
+“He will be at Roncq time enough to lick my Lord Duke's trenchers at
+supper,” says Mr. Webb.
+
+Our own men lay out in the woods of Wynendael that night, and our
+General had his supper in the little castle there.
+
+“If I was Cadogan, I would have a peerage for this day's work,” General
+Webb said; “and, Harry, thou shouldst have a regiment. Thou hast been
+reported in the last two actions: thou wert near killed in the first. I
+shall mention thee in my despatch to his Grace the Commander-in-Chief,
+and recommend thee to poor Dick Harwood's vacant majority. Have you ever
+a hundred guineas to give Cardonnel? Slip them into his hand to-morrow,
+when you go to head-quarters with my report.”
+
+In this report the Major-General was good enough to mention Captain
+Esmond's name with particular favor; and that gentleman carried the
+despatch to head-quarters the next day, and was not a little pleased
+to bring back a letter by his Grace's secretary, addressed to
+Lieutenant-General Webb. The Dutch officer despatched by Count Nassau
+Woudenbourg, Vaelt-Mareschal Auverquerque's son, brought back also a
+complimentary letter to his commander, who had seconded Mr. Webb in the
+action with great valor and skill.
+
+Esmond, with a low bow and a smiling face, presented his despatch, and
+saluted Mr. Webb as Lieutenant-General, as he gave it in. The gentlemen
+round about him--he was riding with his suite on the road to Menin as
+Esmond came up with him--gave a cheer, and he thanked them, and opened
+the despatch with rather a flushed, eager face.
+
+He slapped it down on his boot in a rage after he had read it. “'Tis not
+even writ with his own hand. Read it out, Esmond.” And Esmond read it
+out:--
+
+
+“SIR,--Mr. Cadogan is just now come in, and has acquainted me with the
+success of the action you had yesterday in the afternoon against the
+body of troops commanded by M. de la Mothe, at Wynendael, which must be
+attributed chiefly to your good conduct and resolution. You may be sure
+I shall do you justice at home, and be glad on all occasions to own the
+service you have done in securing this convoy.--Yours, &c., M.”
+
+
+“Two lines by that d--d Cardonnel, and no more, for the taking of
+Lille--for beating five times our number--for an action as brilliant
+as the best he ever fought,” says poor Mr. Webb. “Lieutenant-General!
+That's not his doing. I was the oldest major-general. By ----, I believe
+he had been better pleased if I had been beat.”
+
+The letter to the Dutch officer was in French, and longer and more
+complimentary than that to Mr. Webb.
+
+“And this is the man,” he broke out, “that's gorged with gold--that's
+covered with titles and honors that we won for him--and that grudges
+even a line of praise to a comrade in arms! Hasn't he enough? Don't
+we fight that he may roll in riches? Well, well, wait for the Gazette,
+gentlemen. The Queen and the country will do us justice if his Grace
+denies it us.” There were tears of rage in the brave warrior's eyes as
+he spoke; and he dashed them off his face on to his glove. He shook his
+fist in the air. “Oh, by the Lord!” says he, “I know what I had rather
+have than a peerage!”
+
+“And what is that, sir?” some of them asked.
+
+“I had rather have a quarter of an hour with John Churchill, on a fair
+green field, and only a pair of rapiers between my shirt and his--”
+
+“Sir!” interposes one.
+
+“Tell him so! I know that's what you mean. I know every word goes to him
+that's dropped from every general officer's mouth. I don't say he's not
+brave. Curse him! he's brave enough; but we'll wait for the Gazette,
+gentlemen. God save her Majesty! she'll do us justice.”
+
+The Gazette did not come to us till a month afterwards; when my General
+and his officers had the honor to dine with Prince Eugene in Lille; his
+Highness being good enough to say that we had brought the provisions,
+and ought to share in the banquet. 'Twas a great banquet. His Grace of
+Marlborough was on his Highness's right, and on his left the Mareschal
+de Boufflers, who had so bravely defended the place. The chief officers
+of either army were present; and you may be sure Esmond's General was
+splendid this day: his tall noble person, and manly beauty of face, made
+him remarkable anywhere; he wore, for the first time, the star of the
+Order of Generosity, that his Prussian Majesty had sent to him for
+his victory. His Highness the Prince of Savoy called a toast to the
+conqueror of Wynendael. My Lord Duke drank it with rather a sickly
+smile. The aides-de-camp were present: and Harry Esmond and his dear
+young lord were together, as they always strove to be when duty would
+permit: they were over against the table where the generals were, and
+could see all that passed pretty well. Frank laughed at my Lord Duke's
+glum face: the affair of Wynendael, and the Captain-General's conduct to
+Webb, had been the talk of the whole army. When his Highness spoke, and
+gave--“Le vainqueur de Wynendael; son armee et sa victoire,” adding,
+“qui nous font diner a Lille aujourd'huy”--there was a great cheer
+through the hall; for Mr. Webb's bravery, generosity, and very
+weaknesses of character caused him to be beloved in the army.
+
+“Like Hector, handsome, and like Paris, brave!” whispers Frank
+Castlewood. “A Venus, an elderly Venus, couldn't refuse him a pippin.
+Stand up, Harry. See, we are drinking the army of Wynendael. Ramillies
+is nothing to it. Huzzay! huzzay!”
+
+At this very time, and just after our General had made his
+acknowledgment, some one brought in an English Gazette--and was passing
+it from hand to hand down the table. Officers were eager enough to read
+it; mothers and sisters at home must have sickened over it. There scarce
+came out a Gazette for six years that did not tell of some heroic death
+or some brilliant achievement.
+
+“Here it is--Action of Wynendael--here you are, General,” says Frank,
+seizing hold of the little dingy paper that soldiers love to read so;
+and, scrambling over from our bench, he went to where the General
+sat, who knew him, and had seen many a time at his table his laughing,
+handsome face, which everybody loved who saw. The generals in their
+great perukes made way for him. He handed the paper over General Dohna's
+buff-coat to our General on the opposite side.
+
+He came hobbling back, and blushing at his feat: “I thought he'd like
+it, Harry,” the young fellow whispered. “Didn't I like to read my name
+after Ramillies, in the London Gazette?--Viscount Castlewood serving a
+volunteer--I say, what's yonder?”
+
+Mr. Webb, reading the Gazette, looked very strange--slapped it down
+on the table--then sprang up in his place, and began to--“Will your
+Highness please to--”
+
+His Grace the Duke of Marlborough here jumped up too--“There's some
+mistake, my dear General Webb.”
+
+“Your Grace had better rectify it,” says Mr. Webb, holding out the
+letter; but he was five off his Grace the Prince Duke, who, besides,
+was higher than the General (being seated with the Prince of Savoy,
+the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and the envoys of Prussia and Denmark,
+under a baldaquin), and Webb could not reach him, tall as he was.
+
+“Stay,” says he, with a smile, as if catching at some idea, and then,
+with a perfect courtesy, drawing his sword, he ran the Gazette through
+with the point, and said, “Permit me to hand it to your Grace.”
+
+The Duke looked very black. “Take it,” says he, to his Master of the
+Horse, who was waiting behind him.
+
+The Lieutenant-General made a very low bow, and retired and finished his
+glass. The Gazette in which Mr. Cardonnel, the Duke's secretary, gave an
+account of the victory of Wynendael, mentioned Mr. Webb's name, but gave
+the sole praise and conduct of the action to the Duke's favorite, Mr.
+Cadogan.
+
+There was no little talk and excitement occasioned by this strange
+behavior of General Webb, who had almost drawn a sword upon the
+Commander-in-Chief; but the General, after the first outbreak of
+his anger, mastered it outwardly altogether; and, by his
+subsequent behavior, had the satisfaction of even more angering the
+Commander-in-Chief, than he could have done by any public exhibition of
+resentment.
+
+On returning to his quarters, and consulting with his chief adviser, Mr.
+Esmond, who was now entirely in the General's confidence, and treated by
+him as a friend, and almost a son, Mr. Webb writ a letter to his Grace
+the Commander-in-Chief, in which he said:--
+
+
+“Your Grace must be aware that the sudden perusal of the London
+Gazette, in which your Grace's secretary, Mr. Cardonnel, hath mentioned
+Major-General Cadogan's name as the officer commanding in the late
+action of Wynendael, must have caused a feeling of anything but pleasure
+to the General who fought that action.
+
+“Your Grace must be aware that Mr. Cadogan was not even present at the
+battle, though he arrived with squadrons of horse at its close, and put
+himself under the command of his superior officer. And as the result of
+the battle of Wynendael, in which Lieutenant-General Webb had the good
+fortune to command, was the capture of Lille, the relief of Brussels,
+then invested by the enemy under the Elector of Bavaria, the restoration
+of the great cities of Ghent and Bruges, of which the enemy (by treason
+within the walls) had got possession in the previous year, Mr. Webb
+cannot consent to forego the honors of such a success and service, for
+the benefit of Mr. Cadogan, or any other person.
+
+“As soon as the military operations of the year are over,
+Lieutenant-General Webb will request permission to leave the army, and
+return to his place in Parliament, where he gives notice to his Grace
+the Commander-in Chief, that he shall lay his case before the House of
+Commons, the country, and her Majesty the Queen.
+
+“By his eagerness to rectify that false statement of the Gazette, which
+had been written by his Grace's secretary, Mr. Cardonnel, Mr. Webb, not
+being able to reach his Grace the Commander-in-Chief on account of the
+gentlemen seated between them, placed the paper containing the false
+statement on his sword, so that it might more readily arrive in the
+hands of his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, who surely would wish to do
+justice to every officer of his army.
+
+“Mr. Webb knows his duty too well to think of insubordination to his
+superior officer, or of using his sword in a campaign against any but
+the enemies of her Majesty. He solicits permission to return to England
+immediately the military duties will permit, and take with him to
+England Captain Esmond, of his regiment, who acted as his aide-de-camp,
+and was present during the entire action, and noted by his watch the
+time when Mr. Cadogan arrived at its close.”
+
+
+The Commander-in-Chief could not but grant this permission, nor could
+he take notice of Webb's letter, though it was couched in terms the most
+insulting. Half the army believed that the cities of Ghent and Bruges
+were given up by a treason, which some in our army very well understood;
+that the Commander-in-Chief would not have relieved Lille if he could
+have helped himself; that he would not have fought that year had not the
+Prince of Savoy forced him. When the battle once began, then, for his
+own renown, my Lord Marlborough would fight as no man in the world ever
+fought better; and no bribe on earth could keep him from beating the
+enemy.*
+
+     * Our Grandfather's hatred of the Duke of Marlborough
+     appears all through his account of these campaigns.  He
+     always persisted that the Duke was the greatest traitor and
+     soldier history ever told of: and declared that he took
+     bribes on all hands during the war.  My Lord Marquis (for so
+     we may call him here, though he never went by any other name
+     than Colonel Esmond) was in the habit of telling many
+     stories which he did not set down in his memoirs, and which
+     he had from his friend the Jesuit, who was not always
+     correctly informed, and who persisted that Marlborough was
+     looking for a bribe of two millions of crowns before the
+     campaign of Ramillies.
+
+     And our Grandmother used to tell us children, that on his
+     first presentation to my Lord duke, the Duke turned his back
+     upon my Grandfather; and said to the Duchess, who told my
+     lady dowager at Chelsey, who afterwards told Colonel Esmond
+     --“Tom Esmond's bastard has been to my levee: he has the
+     hang-dog look of his rogue of a father”--an expression which
+     my Grandfather never forgave.  He was as constant in his
+     dislikes as in his attachments; and exceedingly partial to
+     Webb, whose side he took against the more celebrated
+     general.  We have General Webb's portrait now at Castlewood,
+     Va.
+
+But the matter was taken up by the subordinates; and half the army might
+have been by the ears, if the quarrel had not been stopped. General
+Cadogan sent an intimation to General Webb to say that he was ready if
+Webb liked, and would meet him. This was a kind of invitation our
+stout old general was always too ready to accept, and 'twas with great
+difficulty we got the General to reply that he had no quarrel with Mr.
+Cadogan, who had behaved with perfect gallantry, but only with those at
+head-quarters, who had belied him. Mr. Cardonnel offered General Webb
+reparation; Mr. Webb said he had a cane at the service of Mr. Cardonnel,
+and the only satisfaction he wanted from him was one he was not likely
+to get, namely, the truth. The officers in our staff of Webb's, and
+those in the immediate suite of the General, were ready to come to
+blows; and hence arose the only affair in which Mr. Esmond ever engaged
+as principal, and that was from a revengeful wish to wipe off an old
+injury.
+
+My Lord Mohun, who had a troop in Lord Macclesfield's regiment of the
+Horse Guards, rode this campaign with the Duke. He had sunk by this time
+to the very worst reputation; he had had another fatal duel in Spain; he
+had married, and forsaken his wife; he was a gambler, a profligate, and
+debauchee. He joined just before Oudenarde; and, as Esmond feared, as
+soon as Frank Castlewood heard of his arrival, Frank was for seeking him
+out, and killing him. The wound my lord got at Oudenarde prevented their
+meeting, but that was nearly healed, and Mr. Esmond trembled daily lest
+any chance should bring his boy and this known assassin together. They
+met at the mess-table of Handyside's regiment at Lille; the officer
+commanding not knowing of the feud between the two noblemen.
+
+Esmond had not seen the hateful handsome face of Mohun for nine years,
+since they had met on that fatal night in Leicester Field. It was
+degraded with crime and passion now; it wore the anxious look of a man
+who has three deaths, and who knows how many hidden shames, and lusts,
+and crimes on his conscience. He bowed with a sickly low bow, and slunk
+away when our host presented us round to one another. Frank Castlewood
+had not known him till then, so changed was he. He knew the boy well
+enough.
+
+'Twas curious to look at the two--especially the young man, whose face
+flushed up when he heard the hated name of the other; and who said in
+his bad French and his brave boyish voice--“He had long been anxious to
+meet my Lord Mohun.” The other only bowed, and moved away from him. I do
+him justice, he wished to have no quarrel with the lad.
+
+Esmond put himself between them at table. “D--- it,” says Frank, “why
+do you put yourself in the place of a man who is above you in degree? My
+Lord Mohun should walk after me. I want to sit by my Lord Mohun.”
+
+Esmond whispered to Lord Mohun, that Frank was hurt in the leg at
+Oudenarde; and besought the other to be quiet. Quiet enough he was for
+some time; disregarding the many taunts which young Castlewood flung at
+him, until after several healths, when my Lord Mohun got to be rather in
+liquor.
+
+“Will you go away, my lord?” Mr. Esmond said to him, imploring him to
+quit the table.
+
+“No, by G--,” says my Lord Mohun. “I'll not go away for any man;” he was
+quite flushed with wine by this time.
+
+The talk got round to the affairs of yesterday. Webb had offered to
+challenge the Commander-in-Chief: Webb had been ill-used: Webb was the
+bravest, handsomest, vainest man in the army. Lord Mohun did not know
+that Esmond was Webb's aide-de-camp. He began to tell some stories
+against the General; which, from t'other side of Esmond, young
+Castlewood contradicted.
+
+“I can't bear any more of this,” says my Lord Mohun.
+
+“Nor can I, my lord,” says Mr. Esmond, starting up. “The story my Lord
+Mohun has told respecting General Webb is false, gentlemen--false, I
+repeat,” and making a low bow to Lord Mohun, and without a single word
+more, Esmond got up and left the dining-room. These affairs were common
+enough among the military of those days. There was a garden behind
+the house, and all the party turned instantly into it; and the two
+gentlemen's coats were off and their points engaged within two minutes
+after Esmond's words had been spoken. If Captain Esmond had put Mohun
+out of the world, as he might, a villain would have been punished
+and spared further villanies--but who is one man to punish another? I
+declare upon my honor that my only thought was to prevent Lord Mohun
+from mischief with Frank, and the end of this meeting was, that after
+half a dozen passes my lord went home with a hurt which prevented him
+from lifting his right arm for three months.
+
+“Oh, Harry! why didn't you kill the villain?” young Castlewood asked. “I
+can't walk without a crutch: but I could have met him on horseback with
+sword and pistol.” But Harry Esmond said, “'Twas best to have no man's
+life on one's conscience, not even that villain's.” And this affair,
+which did not occupy three minutes, being over, the gentlemen went back
+to their wine, and my Lord Mohun to his quarters, where he was laid up
+with a fever which had spared mischief had it proved fatal. And very
+soon after this affair Harry Esmond and his General left the camp for
+London; whither a certain reputation had preceded the Captain, for my
+Lady Castlewood of Chelsey received him as if he had been a conquering
+hero. She gave a great dinner to Mr. Webb, where the General's chair
+was crowned with laurels; and her ladyship called Esmond's health in
+a toast, to which my kind General was graciously pleased to bear the
+strongest testimony: and took down a mob of at least forty coaches to
+cheer our General as he came out of the House of Commons, the day when
+he received the thanks of Parliament for his action. The mob huzza'd and
+applauded him, as well as the fine company: it was splendid to see
+him waving his hat, and bowing, and laying his hand upon his Order
+of Generosity. He introduced Mr. Esmond to Mr. St. John and the Right
+Honorable Robert Harley, Esquire, as he came out of the House walking
+between them; and was pleased to make many flattering observations
+regarding Mr. Esmond's behavior during the three last campaigns.
+
+Mr. St. John (who had the most winning presence of any man I ever saw,
+excepting always my peerless young Frank Castlewood) said he had heard
+of Mr. Esmond before from Captain Steele, and how he had helped Mr.
+Addison to write his famous poem of the “Campaign.”
+
+“'Twas as great an achievement as the victory of Blenheim itself,” Mr.
+Harley said, who was famous as a judge and patron of letters, and
+so, perhaps, it may be--though for my part I think there are twenty
+beautiful lines, but all the rest is commonplace, and Mr. Addison's hymn
+worth a thousand such poems.
+
+All the town was indignant at my Lord Duke's unjust treatment of General
+Webb, and applauded the vote of thanks which the House of Commons gave
+to the General for his victory at Wynendael. 'Tis certain that the
+capture of Lille was the consequence of that lucky achievement, and the
+humiliation of the old French King, who was said to suffer more at
+the loss of this great city, than from any of the former victories
+our troops had won over him. And, I think, no small part of Mr. Webb's
+exultation at his victory arose from the idea that Marlborough had been
+disappointed of a great bribe the French King had promised him, should
+the siege be raised. The very sum of money offered to him was mentioned
+by the Duke's enemies; and honest Mr. Webb chuckled at the notion,
+not only of beating the French, but of beating Marlborough too, and
+intercepting a convoy of three millions of French crowns, that were on
+their way to the Generalissimo's insatiable pockets. When the General's
+lady went to the Queen's drawing-room, all the Tory women crowded round
+her with congratulations, and made her a train greater than the Duchess
+of Marlborough's own. Feasts were given to the General by all the chiefs
+of the Tory party, who vaunted him as the Duke's equal in military
+skill; and perhaps used the worthy soldier as their instrument, whilst
+he thought they were but acknowledging his merits as a commander. As the
+General's aide-de-camp and favorite officer, Mr. Esmond came in for a
+share of his chief's popularity, and was presented to her Majesty,
+and advanced to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, at the request of his
+grateful chief.
+
+We may be sure there was one family in which any good fortune that
+happened to Esmond caused such a sincere pride and pleasure, that he,
+for his part, was thankful he could make them so happy. With these fond
+friends, Blenheim and Oudenarde seemed to be mere trifling incidents of
+the war; and Wynendael was its crowning victory. Esmond's mistress never
+tired to hear accounts of the battle; and I think General Webb's lady
+grew jealous of her, for the General was for ever at Kensington, and
+talking on that delightful theme. As for his aide-de-camp, though, no
+doubt, Esmond's own natural vanity was pleased at the little share
+of reputation which his good fortune had won him, yet it was chiefly
+precious to him (he may say so, now that he hath long since outlived
+it,) because it pleased his mistress, and, above all, because Beatrix
+valued it.
+
+As for the old Dowager of Chelsey, never was an old woman in all England
+more delighted nor more gracious than she. Esmond had his quarters in
+her ladyship's house, where the domestics were instructed to consider
+him as their master. She bade him give entertainments, of which she
+defrayed the charges, and was charmed when his guests were carried away
+tipsy in their coaches. She must have his picture taken; and accordingly
+he was painted by Mr. Jervas, in his red coat, and smiling upon a
+bomb-shell, which was bursting at the corner of the piece. She vowed
+that unless he made a great match, she should never die easy, and was
+for ever bringing young ladies to Chelsey, with pretty faces and pretty
+fortunes, at the disposal of the Colonel. He smiled to think how times
+were altered with him, and of the early days in his father's lifetime,
+when a trembling page he stood before her, with her ladyship's basin and
+ewer, or crouched in her coach-step. The only fault she found with
+him was, that he was more sober than an Esmond ought to be; and would
+neither be carried to bed by his valet, nor lose his heart to any
+beauty, whether of St. James's or Covent Garden.
+
+What is the meaning of fidelity in love, and whence the birth of it?
+'Tis a state of mind that men fall into, and depending on the man rather
+than the woman. We love being in love, that's the truth on't. If we
+had not met Joan, we should have met Kate, and adored her. We know our
+mistresses are no better than many other women, nor no prettier, nor no
+wiser, nor no wittier. 'Tis not for these reasons we love a woman, or
+for any special quality or charm I know of; we might as well demand that
+a lady should be the tallest woman in the world, like the Shropshire
+giantess,* as that she should be a paragon in any other character,
+before we began to love her. Esmond's mistress had a thousand faults
+beside her charms; he knew both perfectly well! She was imperious, she
+was light-minded, she was flighty, she was false, she had no reverence
+in her character; she was in everything, even in beauty, the contrast
+of her mother, who was the most devoted and the least selfish of women.
+Well, from the very first moment he saw her on the stairs at Walcote,
+Esmond knew he loved Beatrix. There might be better women--he wanted
+that one. He cared for none other. Was it because she was gloriously
+beautiful? Beautiful as she was, he had heard people say a score of
+times in their company that Beatrix's mother looked as young, and was
+the handsomer of the two. Why did her voice thrill in his ear so? She
+could not sing near so well as Nicolini or Mrs. Tofts; nay, she sang out
+of tune, and yet he liked to hear her better than St. Cecilia. She had
+not a finer complexion than Mrs. Steele, (Dick's wife, whom he had now
+got, and who ruled poor Dick with a rod of pickle,) and yet to see her
+dazzled Esmond; he would shut his eyes, and the thought of her dazzled
+him all the same. She was brilliant and lively in talk, but not so
+incomparably witty as her mother, who, when she was cheerful, said the
+finest things; but yet to hear her, and to be with her, was Esmond's
+greatest pleasure. Days passed away between him and these ladies, he
+scarce knew how. He poured his heart out to them, so as he never could
+in any other company, where he hath generally passed for being moody, or
+supercilious and silent. This society** was more delightful than that
+of the greatest wits to him. May heaven pardon him the lies he told
+the Dowager at Chelsey, in order to get a pretext for going away
+to Kensington: the business at the Ordnance which he invented; the
+interview with his General, the courts and statesmen's levees which
+he DIDN'T frequent and describe; who wore a new suit on Sunday at St.
+James's or at the Queen's birthday; how many coaches filled the street
+at Mr. Harley's levee; how many bottles he had had the honor to drink
+over-night with Mr. St. John at the “Cocoa-Tree,” or at the “Garter”
+ with Mr. Walpole and Mr. Steele.
+
+     * 'Tis not thus WOMAN LOVES: Col. E. hath owned to this
+     folly for a SCORE OF WOMEN besides.--R.
+
+     ** And, indeed, so was his to them, a thousand thousand
+     times more charming, for where was his equal?--R.
+
+Mistress Beatrix Esmond had been a dozen times on the point of making
+great matches, so the Court scandal said; but for his part Esmond never
+would believe the stories against her; and came back, after three years'
+absence from her, not so frantic as he had been perhaps, but still
+hungering after her and no other; still hopeful, still kneeling, with
+his heart in his hand for the young lady to take. We were now got to
+1709. She was near twenty-two years old, and three years at Court, and
+without a husband.
+
+“'Tis not for want of being asked,” Lady Castlewood said, looking into
+Esmond's heart, as she could, with that perceptiveness affection gives.
+“But she will make no mean match, Harry: she will not marry as I would
+have her; the person whom I should like to call my son, and Henry Esmond
+knows who that is, is best served by my not pressing his claim. Beatrix
+is so wilful, that what I would urge on her, she would be sure to
+resist. The man who would marry her, will not be happy with her, unless
+he be a great person, and can put her in a great position. Beatrix loves
+admiration more than love; and longs, beyond all things, for command.
+Why should a mother speak so of her child? You are my son, too, Harry.
+You should know the truth about your sister. I thought you might cure
+yourself of your passion,” my lady added, fondly. “Other people can
+cure themselves of that folly, you know. But I see you are still as
+infatuated as ever. When we read your name in the Gazette, I pleaded
+for you, my poor boy. Poor boy, indeed! You are growing a grave old
+gentleman, now, and I am an old woman. She likes your fame well
+enough, and she likes your person. She says you have wit, and fire,
+and good-breeding, and are more natural than the fine gentlemen of the
+Court. But this is not enough. She wants a commander-in-chief, and not
+a colonel. Were a duke to ask her, she would leave an earl whom she
+had promised. I told you so before. I know not how my poor girl is so
+worldly.”
+
+“Well,” says Esmond, “a man can but give his best and his all. She has
+that from me. What little reputation I have won, I swear I cared for it
+because I thought Beatrix would be pleased with it. What care I to be a
+colonel or a general? Think you 'twill matter a few score years hence,
+what our foolish honors to-day are? I would have had a little fame, that
+she might wear it in her hat. If I had anything better, I would endow
+her with it. If she wants my life, I would give it her. If she marries
+another, I will say God bless him. I make no boast, nor no complaint. I
+think my fidelity is folly, perhaps. But so it is. I cannot help myself.
+I love her. You are a thousand times better: the fondest, the fairest,
+the dearest of women. Sure, my dear lady, I see all Beatrix's faults as
+well as you do. But she is my fate. 'Tis endurable. I shall not die
+for not having her. I think I should be no happier if I won her. Que
+voulez-vous? as my Lady of Chelsey would say. Je l'aime.”
+
+“I wish she would have you,” said Harry's fond mistress, giving a hand
+to him. He kissed the fair hand ['twas the prettiest dimpled little hand
+in the world, and my Lady Castlewood, though now almost forty years old,
+did not look to be within ten years of her age). He kissed and kept her
+fair hand, as they talked together.
+
+“Why,” says he, “should she hear me? She knows what I would say. Far or
+near, she knows I'm her slave. I have sold myself for nothing, it may
+be. Well, 'tis the price I choose to take. I am worth nothing, or I am
+worth all.”
+
+“You are such a treasure,” Esmond's mistress was pleased to say, “that
+the woman who has your love, shouldn't change it away against a kingdom,
+I think. I am a country-bred woman, and cannot say but the ambitions of
+the town seem mean to me. I never was awe-stricken by my Lady Duchess's
+rank and finery, or afraid,” she added, with a sly laugh, “of anything
+but her temper. I hear of Court ladies who pine because her Majesty
+looks cold on them; and great noblemen who would give a limb that
+they might wear a garter on the other. This worldliness, which I can't
+comprehend, was born with Beatrix, who, on the first day of her waiting,
+was a perfect courtier. We are like sisters, and she the eldest sister,
+somehow. She tells me I have a mean spirit. I laugh, and say she adores
+a coach-and-six. I cannot reason her out of her ambition. 'Tis natural
+to her, as to me to love quiet, and be indifferent about rank and
+riches. What are they, Harry? and for how long do they last? Our home
+is not here.” She smiled as she spoke, and looked like an angel that was
+only on earth on a visit. “Our home is where the just are, and where our
+sins and sorrows enter not. My father used to rebuke me, and say that
+I was too hopeful about heaven. But I cannot help my nature, and grow
+obstinate as I grow to be an old woman; and as I love my children so,
+sure our Father loves us with a thousand and a thousand times greater
+love. It must be that we shall meet yonder, and be happy. Yes, you--and
+my children, and my dear lord. Do you know, Harry, since his death, it
+has always seemed to me as if his love came back to me, and that we are
+parted no more. Perhaps he is here now, Harry--I think he is. Forgiven
+I am sure he is: even Mr. Atterbury absolved him, and he died forgiving.
+Oh, what a noble heart he had! How generous he was! I was but fifteen
+and a child when he married me. How good he was to stoop to me! He was
+always good to the poor and humble.” She stopped, then presently, with a
+peculiar expression, as if her eyes were looking into heaven, and saw
+my lord there, she smiled, and gave a little laugh. “I laugh to see you,
+sir,” she says; “when you come, it seems as if you never were away.” One
+may put her words down, and remember them, but how describe her sweet
+tones, sweeter than music!
+
+My young lord did not come home at the end of the campaign, and wrote
+that he was kept at Bruxelles on military duty. Indeed, I believe he
+was engaged in laying siege to a certain lady, who was of the suite of
+Madame de Soissons, the Prince of Savoy's mother, who was just dead, and
+who, like the Flemish fortresses, was taken and retaken a great
+number of times during the war, and occupied by French, English, and
+Imperialists. Of course, Mr. Esmond did not think fit to enlighten Lady
+Castlewood regarding the young scapegrace's doings: nor had he said a
+word about the affair with Lord Mohun, knowing how abhorrent that man's
+name was to his mistress. Frank did not waste much time or money on pen
+and ink; and, when Harry came home with his General, only writ two lines
+to his mother, to say his wound in the leg was almost healed, that he
+would keep his coming of age next year--that the duty aforesaid would
+keep him at Bruxelles, and that Cousin Harry would tell all the news.
+
+But from Bruxelles, knowing how the Lady Castlewood always liked to have
+a letter about the famous 29th of December, my lord writ her a long and
+full one, and in this he must have described the affair with Mohun; for
+when Mr. Esmond came to visit his mistress one day, early in the new
+year, to his great wonderment, she and her daughter both came up and
+saluted him, and after them the Dowager of Chelsey, too, whose chairman
+had just brought her ladyship from her village to Kensington across the
+fields. After this honor, I say, from the two ladies of Castlewood, the
+Dowager came forward in great state, with her grand tall head-dress of
+King James's reign, that, she never forsook, and said, “Cousin Henry,
+all our family have met; and we thank you, cousin, for your noble
+conduct towards the head of our house.” And pointing to her blushing
+cheek, she made Mr. Esmond aware that he was to enjoy the rapture of an
+embrace there. Having saluted one cheek, she turned to him the other.
+“Cousin Harry,” said both the other ladies, in a little chorus, “we
+thank you for your noble conduct;” and then Harry became aware that the
+story of the Lille affair had come to his kinswomen's ears. It pleased
+him to hear them all saluting him as one of their family.
+
+The tables of the dining-room were laid for a great entertainment; and
+the ladies were in gala dresses--my Lady of Chelsey in her highest tour,
+my Lady Viscountess out of black, and looking fair and happy a ravir;
+and the Maid of Honor attired with that splendor which naturally
+distinguished her, and wearing on her beautiful breast the French
+officer's star which Frank had sent home after Ramillies.
+
+“You see, 'tis a gala day with us,” says she, glancing down to the star
+complacently, “and we have our orders on. Does not mamma look charming?
+'Twas I dressed her!” Indeed, Esmond's dear mistress, blushing as
+he looked at her, with her beautiful fair hair, and an elegant dress
+according to the mode, appeared to have the shape and complexion of a
+girl of twenty.
+
+On the table was a fine sword, with a red velvet scabbard, and a
+beautiful chased silver handle, with a blue ribbon for a sword-knot.
+“What is this?” says the Captain, going up to look at this pretty piece.
+
+Mrs. Beatrix advanced towards it. “Kneel down,” says she: “we dub you
+our knight with this”--and she waved the sword over his head. “My Lady
+Dowager hath given the sword; and I give the ribbon, and mamma hath sewn
+on the fringe.”
+
+“Put the sword on him, Beatrix,” says her mother. “You are our knight,
+Harry--our true knight. Take a mother's thanks and prayers for defending
+her son, my dear, dear friend.” She could say no more, and even the
+Dowager was affected, for a couple of rebellious tears made sad marks
+down those wrinkled old roses which Esmond had just been allowed to
+salute.
+
+“We had a letter from dearest Frank,” his mother said, “three days
+since, whilst you were on your visit to your friend Captain Steele, at
+Hampton. He told us all that you had done, and how nobly you had put
+yourself between him and that--that wretch.”
+
+“And I adopt you from this day,” says the Dowager, “and I wish I was
+richer, for your sake, son Esmond,” she added with a wave of her hand;
+and as Mr. Esmond dutifully went down on his knee before her ladyship,
+she cast her eyes up to the ceiling, (the gilt chandelier, and the
+twelve wax-candles in it, for the party was numerous,) and invoked a
+blessing from that quarter upon the newly adopted son.
+
+“Dear Frank,” says the other viscountess, “how fond he is of his
+military profession! He is studying fortification very hard. I wish he
+were here. We shall keep his coming of age at Castlewood next year.”
+
+“If the campaign permit us,” says Mr. Esmond.
+
+“I am never afraid when he is with you,” cries the boy's mother. “I am
+sure my Henry will always defend him.”
+
+“But there will be a peace before next year; we know it for certain,”
+ cries the Maid of Honor. “Lord Marlborough will be dismissed, and that
+horrible duchess turned out of all her places. Her Majesty won't speak
+to her now. Did you see her at Bushy, Harry? She is furious, and she
+ranges about the park like a lioness, and tears people's eyes out.”
+
+“And the Princess Anne will send for somebody,” says my Lady of Chelsey,
+taking out her medal and kissing it.
+
+“Did you see the King at Oudenarde, Harry?” his mistress asked. She was
+a staunch Jacobite, and would no more have thought of denying her king
+than her God.
+
+“I saw the young Hanoverian only,” Harry said. “The Chevalier de St.
+George--”
+
+“The King, sir, the King!” said the ladies and Miss Beatrix; and she
+clapped her pretty hands, and cried, “Vive le Roy.”
+
+By this time there came a thundering knock, that drove in the doors of
+the house almost. It was three o'clock, and the company were arriving;
+and presently the servant announced Captain Steele and his lady.
+
+Captain and Mrs. Steele, who were the first to arrive, had driven to
+Kensington from their country-house, the Hovel at Hampton Wick. “Not
+from our mansion in Bloomsbury Square,” as Mrs. Steele took care to
+inform the ladies. Indeed Harry had ridden away from Hampton that very
+morning, leaving the couple by the ears; for from the chamber where
+he lay, in a bed that was none of the cleanest, and kept awake by the
+company which he had in his own bed, and the quarrel which was going
+on in the next room, he could hear both night and morning the curtain
+lecture which Mrs. Steele was in the habit of administering to poor
+Dick.
+
+At night it did not matter so much for the culprit; Dick was fuddled,
+and when in that way no scolding could interrupt his benevolence. Mr.
+Esmond could hear him coaxing and speaking in that maudlin manner, which
+punch and claret produce, to his beloved Prue, and beseeching her to
+remember that there was a distiwisht officer ithe rex roob, who would
+overhear her. She went on, nevertheless, calling him a drunken wretch,
+and was only interrupted in her harangues by the Captain's snoring.
+
+In the morning, the unhappy victim awoke to a headache, and
+consciousness, and the dialogue of the night was resumed. “Why do you
+bring captains home to dinner when there's not a guinea in the house?
+How am I to give dinners when you leave me without a shilling? How am
+I to go traipsing to Kensington in my yellow satin sack before all the
+fine company? I've nothing fit to put on; I never have:” and so the
+dispute went on--Mr. Esmond interrupting the talk when it seemed to be
+growing too intimate by blowing his nose as loudly as ever he could,
+at the sound of which trumpet there came a lull. But Dick was charming,
+though his wife was odious, and 'twas to give Mr. Steele pleasure, that
+the ladies of Castlewood, who were ladies of no small fashion, invited
+Mrs. Steele.
+
+Besides the Captain and his lady, there was a great and notable
+assemblage of company: my Lady of Chelsey having sent her lackeys
+and liveries to aid the modest attendance at Kensington. There was
+Lieutenant-General Webb, Harry's kind patron, of whom the Dowager
+took possession, and who resplended in velvet and gold lace; there was
+Harry's new acquaintance, the Right Honorable Henry St. John, Esquire,
+the General's kinsman, who was charmed with the Lady Castlewood, even
+more than with her daughter; there was one of the greatest noblemen in
+the kingdom, the Scots Duke of Hamilton, just created Duke of Brandon
+in England; and two other noble lords of the Tory party, my Lord
+Ashburnham, and another I have forgot; and for ladies, her Grace the
+Duchess of Ormonde and her daughters, the Lady Mary and the Lady Betty,
+the former one of Mistress Beatrix's colleagues in waiting on the Queen.
+
+“What a party of Tories!” whispered Captain Steele to Esmond, as we were
+assembled in the parlor before dinner. Indeed, all the company present,
+save Steele, were of that faction.
+
+Mr. St. John made his special compliments to Mrs. Steele, and so charmed
+her that she declared she would have Steele a Tory too.
+
+“Or will you have me a Whig?” says Mr. St. John. “I think, madam, you
+could convert a man to anything.”
+
+“If Mr. St. John ever comes to Bloomsbury Square I will teach him what
+I know,” says Mrs. Steele, dropping her handsome eyes. “Do you know
+Bloomsbury Square?”
+
+“Do I know the Mall? Do I know the Opera? Do I know the reigning toast?
+Why, Bloomsbury is the very height of the mode,” says Mr. St. John.
+“'Tis rus in urbe. You have gardens all the way to Hampstead, and
+palaces round about you--Southampton House and Montague House.”
+
+“Where you wretches go and fight duels,” cries Mrs. Steele.
+
+“Of which the ladies are the cause!” says her entertainer. “Madam, is
+Dick a good swordsman? How charming the 'Tatler' is! We all recognized
+your portrait in the 49th number, and I have been dying to know you
+ever since I read it. 'Aspasia must be allowed to be the first of
+the beauteous order of love.' Doth not the passage run so? 'In this
+accomplished lady love is the constant effect, though it is never the
+design; yet though her mien carries much more invitation than command,
+to behold her is an immediate check to loose behavior, and to love her
+is a liberal education.'”
+
+“Oh, indeed!” says Mrs. Steele, who did not seem to understand a word of
+what the gentleman was saying.
+
+“Who could fail to be accomplished under such a mistress?” says Mr. St.
+John, still gallant and bowing.
+
+“Mistress! upon my word, sir!” cries the lady. “If you mean me, sir, I
+would have you know that I am the Captain's wife.”
+
+“Sure we all know it,” answers Mr. St. John, keeping his countenance
+very gravely; and Steele broke in saying, “'Twas not about Mrs. Steele I
+writ that paper--though I am sure she is worthy of any compliment I can
+pay her--but of the Lady Elizabeth Hastings.”
+
+“I hear Mr. Addison is equally famous as a wit and a poet,” says Mr.
+St. John. “Is it true that his hand is to be found in your 'Tatler,' Mr.
+Steele?”
+
+“Whether 'tis the sublime or the humorous, no man can come near him,”
+ cries Steele.
+
+“A fig, Dick, for your Mr. Addison!” cries out his lady: “a gentleman
+who gives himself such airs and holds his head so high now. I hope your
+ladyship thinks as I do: I can't bear those very fair men with white
+eyelashes--a black man for me.” (All the black men at table applauded,
+and made Mrs. Steele a bow for this compliment.) “As for this Mr.
+Addison,” she went on, “he comes to dine with the Captain sometimes,
+never says a word to me, and then they walk up stairs both tipsy, to a
+dish of tea. I remember your Mr. Addison when he had but one coat to his
+back, and that with a patch at the elbow.”
+
+“Indeed--a patch at the elbow! You interest me,” says Mr. St. John.
+“'Tis charming to hear of one man of letters from the charming wife of
+another.”
+
+“La, I could tell you ever so much about 'em,” continues the voluble
+lady. “What do you think the Captain has got now?--a little hunchback
+fellow--a little hop-o'-my-thumb creature that he calls a poet--a little
+Popish brat!”
+
+“Hush, there are two in the room,” whispers her companion.
+
+“Well, I call him Popish because his name is Pope,” says the lady.
+“'Tis only my joking way. And this little dwarf of a fellow has wrote a
+pastoral poem--all about shepherds and shepherdesses, you know.”
+
+“A shepherd should have a little crook,” says my mistress, laughing from
+her end of the table: on which Mrs. Steele said, “She did not know, but
+the Captain brought home this queer little creature when she was in bed
+with her first boy, and it was a mercy he had come no sooner; and Dick
+raved about his genus, and was always raving about some nonsense or
+other.”
+
+“Which of the 'Tatlers' do you prefer, Mrs. Steele?” asked Mr. St. John.
+
+“I never read but one, and think it all a pack of rubbish, sir,” says
+the lady. “Such stuff about Bickerstaffe, and Distaff, and Quarterstaff,
+as it all is! There's the Captain going on still with the Burgundy--I
+know he'll be tipsy before he stops--Captain Steele!”
+
+“I drink to your eyes, my dear,” says the Captain, who seemed to think
+his wife charming, and to receive as genuine all the satiric compliments
+which Mr. St. John paid her.
+
+All this while the Maid of Honor had been trying to get Mr. Esmond to
+talk, and no doubt voted him a dull fellow. For, by some mistake, just
+as he was going to pop into the vacant place, he was placed far away
+from Beatrix's chair, who sat between his Grace and my Lord Ashburnham,
+and shrugged her lovely white shoulders, and cast a look as if to say,
+“Pity me,” to her cousin. My Lord Duke and his young neighbor were
+presently in a very animated and close conversation. Mrs. Beatrix could
+no more help using her eyes than the sun can help shining, and setting
+those it shines on a-burning. By the time the first course was done the
+dinner seemed long to Esmond; by the time the soup came he fancied they
+must have been hours at table: and as for the sweets and jellies he
+thought they never would be done.
+
+At length the ladies rose, Beatrix throwing a Parthian glance at her
+duke as she retreated; a fresh bottle and glasses were fetched, and
+toasts were called. Mr. St. John asked his Grace the Duke of Hamilton
+and the company to drink to the health of his Grace the Duke of Brandon.
+Another lord gave General Webb's health, “and may he get the command the
+bravest officer in the world deserves.” Mr. Webb thanked the company,
+complimented his aide-de-camp, and fought his famous battle over again.
+
+“Il est fatiguant,” whispers Mr. St. John, “avec sa trompette de
+Wynendael.”
+
+Captain Steele, who was not of our side, loyally gave the health of the
+Duke of Marlborough, the greatest general of the age.
+
+“I drink to the greatest general with all my heart,” says Mr. Webb;
+“there can be no gainsaying that character of him. My glass goes to the
+General, and not to the Duke, Mr. Steele.” And the stout old gentleman
+emptied his bumper; to which Dick replied by filling and emptying a pair
+of brimmers, one for the General and one for the Duke.
+
+And now his Grace of Hamilton, rising up with flashing eyes (we had all
+been drinking pretty freely), proposed a toast to the lovely, to the
+incomparable Mrs. Beatrix Esmond; we all drank it with cheers, and my
+Lord Ashburnham especially, with a shout of enthusiasm.
+
+“What a pity there is a Duchess of Hamilton,” whispers St. John, who
+drank more wine and yet was more steady than most of the others, and we
+entered the drawing-room where the ladies were at their tea. As for poor
+Dick, we were obliged to leave him alone at the dining-table, where he
+was hiccupping out the lines from the “Campaign,” in which the greatest
+poet had celebrated the greatest general in the world; and Harry Esmond
+found him, half an hour afterwards, in a more advanced stage of liquor,
+and weeping about the treachery of Tom Boxer.
+
+The drawing-room was all dark to poor Harry, in spite of the grand
+illumination. Beatrix scarce spoke to him. When my Lord Duke went away,
+she practised upon the next in rank, and plied my young Lord Ashburnham
+with all the fire of her eyes and the fascinations of her wit. Most of
+the party were set to cards, and Mr. St. John, after yawning in the face
+of Mrs. Steele, whom he did not care to pursue any more; and talking in
+his most brilliant animated way to Lady Castlewood, whom he pronounced
+to be beautiful, of a far higher order of beauty than her daughter,
+presently took his leave, and went his way. The rest of the company
+speedily followed, my Lord Ashburnham the last, throwing fiery glances
+at the smiling young temptress, who had bewitched more hearts than his
+in her thrall.
+
+No doubt, as a kinsman of the house, Mr. Esmond thought fit to be the
+last of all in it; he remained after the coaches had rolled away--after
+his dowager aunt's chair and flambeaux had marched off in the darkness
+towards Chelsey, and the town's people had gone to bed, who had been
+drawn into the square to gape at the unusual assemblage of chairs and
+chariots, lackeys, and torchmen. The poor mean wretch lingered yet for
+a few minutes, to see whether the girl would vouchsafe him a smile, or a
+parting word of consolation. But her enthusiasm of the morning was quite
+died out, or she chose to be in a different mood. She fell to joking
+about the dowdy appearance of Lady Betty, and mimicked the vulgarity
+of Mrs. Steele; and then she put up her little hand to her mouth and
+yawned, lighted a taper, and shrugged her shoulders, and dropping Mr.
+Esmond a saucy curtsy, sailed off to bed.
+
+“The day began so well, Henry, that I hoped it might have ended better,”
+ was all the consolation that poor Esmond's fond mistress could give him;
+and as he trudged home through the dark alone, he thought with bitter
+rage in his heart, and a feeling of almost revolt against the sacrifice
+he had made:--“She would have me,” thought he, “had I but a name to
+give her. But for my promise to her father, I might have my rank and my
+mistress too.”
+
+I suppose a man's vanity is stronger than any other passion in him; for
+I blush, even now, as I recall the humiliation of those distant days,
+the memory of which still smarts, though the fever of balked desire
+has passed away more than a score of years ago. When the writer's
+descendants come to read this memoir, I wonder will they have lived to
+experience a similar defeat and shame? Will they ever have knelt to a
+woman who has listened to them, and played with them, and laughed with
+them--who beckoning them with lures and caresses, and with Yes smiling
+from her eyes, has tricked them on to their knees, and turned her
+back and left them. All this shame Mr. Esmond had to undergo; and he
+submitted, and revolted, and presently came crouching back for more.
+
+After this feste, my young Lord Ashburnham's coach was for ever rolling
+in and out of Kensington Square; his lady-mother came to visit Esmond's
+mistress, and at every assembly in the town, wherever the Maid of Honor
+made her appearance, you might be pretty sure to see the young gentleman
+in a new suit every week, and decked out in all the finery that his
+tailor or embroiderer could furnish for him. My lord was for ever paying
+Mr. Esmond compliments: bidding him to dinner, offering him horses to
+ride, and giving him a thousand uncouth marks of respect and
+good-will. At last, one night at the coffee-house, whither my lord came
+considerably flushed and excited with drink, he rushes up to Mr. Esmond,
+and cries out--“Give me joy, my dearest Colonel; I am the happiest of
+men.”
+
+“The happiest of men needs no dearest colonel to give him joy,” says Mr.
+Esmond. “What is the cause of this supreme felicity?”
+
+“Haven't you heard?” says he. “Don't you know? I thought the family told
+you everything: the adorable Beatrix hath promised to be mine.”
+
+“What!” cries out Mr. Esmond, who had spent happy hours with Beatrix
+that very morning--had writ verses for her, that she had sung at the
+harpsichord.
+
+“Yes,” says he; “I waited on her to-day. I saw you walking towards
+Knightsbridge as I passed in my coach; and she looked so lovely,
+and spoke so kind, that I couldn't help going down on my knees,
+and--and--sure I am the happiest of men in all the world; and I'm very
+young; but she says I shall get older: and you know I shall be of age in
+four months; and there's very little difference between us; and I'm so
+happy. I should like to treat the company to something. Let us have a
+bottle--a dozen bottles--and drink the health of the finest woman in
+England.”
+
+Esmond left the young lord tossing off bumper after bumper, and strolled
+away to Kensington to ask whether the news was true. 'Twas only too
+sure: his mistress's sad, compassionate face told him the story; and
+then she related what particulars of it she knew, and how my young lord
+had made his offer, half an hour after Esmond went away that morning,
+and in the very room where the song lay yet on the harpsichord, which
+Esmond had writ, and they had sung together.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+CONTAINING THE END OF MR. ESMOND'S ADVENTURES IN ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+I COME TO AN END OF MY BATTLES AND BRUISES.
+
+
+That feverish desire to gain a little reputation which Esmond had had,
+left him now perhaps that he had attained some portion of his wish, and
+the great motive of his ambition was over. His desire for military honor
+was that it might raise him in Beatrix's eyes. 'Twas next to nobility
+and wealth, the only kind of rank she valued. It was the stake quickest
+won or lost too; for law is a very long game that requires a life to
+practise; and to be distinguished in letters or the Church would not
+have forwarded the poor gentleman's plans in the least. So he had no
+suit to play but the red one, and he played it; and this, in truth, was
+the reason of his speedy promotion; for he exposed himself more than
+most gentlemen do, and risked more to win more. Is he the only man that
+hath set his life against a stake which may be not worth the winning?
+Another risks his life (and his honor, too, sometimes,) against a bundle
+of bank-notes, or a yard of blue ribbon, or a seat in Parliament; and
+some for the mere pleasure and excitement of the sport; as a field of a
+hundred huntsmen will do, each out-bawling and out-galloping the other
+at the tail of a dirty fox, that is to be the prize of the foremost
+happy conqueror.
+
+When he heard this news of Beatrix's engagement in marriage, Colonel
+Esmond knocked under to his fate, and resolved to surrender his sword,
+that could win him nothing now he cared for; and in this dismal frame of
+mind he determined to retire from the regiment, to the great delight of
+the captain next in rank to him, who happened to be a young gentleman
+of good fortune, who eagerly paid Mr. Esmond a thousand guineas for
+his majority in Webb's regiment, and was knocked on the head the next
+campaign. Perhaps Esmond would not have been sorry to share his fate. He
+was more the Knight of the Woful Countenance than ever he had been. His
+moodiness must have made him perfectly odious to his friends under the
+tents, who like a jolly fellow, and laugh at a melancholy warrior always
+sighing after Dulcinea at home.
+
+Both the ladies of Castlewood approved of Mr. Esmond quitting the army,
+and his kind General coincided in his wish of retirement and helped
+in the transfer of his commission, which brought a pretty sum into his
+pocket. But when the Commander-in-Chief came home, and was forced, in
+spite of himself, to appoint Lieutenant-General Webb to the command of a
+division of the army in Flanders, the Lieutenant-General prayed Colonel
+Esmond so urgently to be his aide-de-camp and military secretary, that
+Esmond could not resist his kind patron's entreaties, and again took the
+field, not attached to any regiment, but under Webb's orders. What must
+have been the continued agonies of fears* and apprehensions which racked
+the gentle breasts of wives and matrons in those dreadful days, when
+every Gazette brought accounts of deaths and battles, and when the
+present anxiety over, and the beloved person escaped, the doubt still
+remained that a battle might be fought, possibly, of which the next
+Flanders letter would bring the account; so they, the poor tender
+creatures, had to go on sickening and trembling through the whole
+campaign. Whatever these terrors were on the part of Esmond's mistress,
+(and that tenderest of women must have felt them most keenly for both
+her sons, as she called them), she never allowed them outwardly to
+appear, but hid her apprehension, as she did her charities and devotion.
+'Twas only by chance that Esmond, wandering in Kensington, found his
+mistress coming out of a mean cottage there, and heard that she had
+a score of poor retainers, whom she visited and comforted in their
+sickness and poverty, and who blessed her daily. She attended the
+early church daily (though of a Sunday, especially, she encouraged and
+advanced all sorts of cheerfulness and innocent gayety in her little
+household): and by notes entered into a table-book of hers at this time,
+and devotional compositions writ with a sweet artless fervor, such as
+the best divines could not surpass, showed how fond her heart was, how
+humble and pious her spirit, what pangs of apprehension she endured
+silently, and with what a faithful reliance she committed the care of
+those she loved to the awful Dispenser of death and life.
+
+     * What indeed?  Psm. xci. 2, 3, 7.--R. E.
+
+As for her ladyship at Chelsey, Esmond's newly adopted mother, she was
+now of an age when the danger of any second party doth not disturb the
+rest much. She cared for trumps more than for most things in life. She
+was firm enough in her own faith, but no longer very bitter against
+ours. She had a very good-natured, easy French director, Monsieur
+Gauthier by name, who was a gentleman of the world, and would take a
+hand of cards with Dean Atterbury, my lady's neighbor at Chelsey, and
+was well with all the High Church party. No doubt Monsieur Gauthier knew
+what Esmond's peculiar position was, for he corresponded with Holt, and
+always treated Colonel Esmond with particular respect and kindness; but
+for good reasons the Colonel and the Abbe never spoke on this matter
+together, and so they remained perfect good friends.
+
+All the frequenters of my Lady of Chelsey's house were of the Tory and
+High Church party. Madame Beatrix was as frantic about the King as her
+elderly kinswoman: she wore his picture on her heart; she had a piece
+of his hair; she vowed he was the most injured, and gallant, and
+accomplished, and unfortunate, and beautiful of princes. Steele, who
+quarrelled with very many of his Tory friends, but never with Esmond,
+used to tell the Colonel that his kinswoman's house was a rendezvous of
+Tory intrigues; that Gauthier was a spy; that Atterbury was a spy;
+that letters were constantly going from that house to the Queen at St.
+Germains; on which Esmond, laughing, would reply, that they used to
+say in the army the Duke of Marlborough was a spy too, and as much in
+correspondence with that family as any Jesuit. And without entering very
+eagerly into the controversy, Esmond had frankly taken the side of his
+family. It seemed to him that King James the Third was undoubtedly King
+of England by right: and at his sister's death it would be better to
+have him than a foreigner over us. No man admired King William more; a
+hero and a conqueror, the bravest, justest, wisest of men--but 'twas by
+the sword he conquered the country, and held and governed it by the very
+same right that the great Cromwell held it, who was truly and greatly
+a sovereign. But that a foreign despotic Prince, out of Germany,
+who happened to be descended from King James the First, should
+take possession of this empire, seemed to Mr. Esmond a monstrous
+injustice--at least, every Englishman had a right to protest, and the
+English Prince, the heir-at-law, the first of all. What man of spirit
+with such a cause would not back it? What man of honor with such a crown
+to win would not fight for it? But that race was destined. That Prince
+had himself against him, an enemy he could not overcome. He never dared
+to draw his sword, though he had it. He let his chances slip by as he
+lay in the lap of opera-girls, or snivelled at the knees of priests
+asking pardon; and the blood of heroes, and the devotedness of honest
+hearts, and endurance, courage, fidelity, were all spent for him in
+vain.
+
+But let us return to my Lady of Chelsey, who, when her son Esmond
+announced to her ladyship that he proposed to make the ensuing campaign,
+took leave of him with perfect alacrity, and was down to piquet with
+her gentlewoman before he had well quitted the room on his last visit.
+“Tierce to a king,” were the last words he ever heard her say: the
+game of life was pretty nearly over for the good lady, and three months
+afterwards she took to her bed, where she flickered out without any
+pain, so the Abbe Gauthier wrote over to Mr. Esmond, then with his
+General on the frontier of France. The Lady Castlewood was with her at
+her ending, and had written too, but these letters must have been taken
+by a privateer in the packet that brought them; for Esmond knew nothing
+of their contents until his return to England.
+
+My Lady Castlewood had left everything to Colonel Esmond, “as a
+reparation for the wrong done to him;” 'twas writ in her will. But
+her fortune was not much, for it never had been large, and the honest
+viscountess had wisely sunk most of the money she had upon an annuity
+which terminated with her life. However, there was the house and
+furniture, plate and pictures at Chelsey, and a sum of money lying at
+her merchant's, Sir Josiah Child, which altogether would realize a
+sum of near three hundred pounds per annum, so that Mr. Esmond found
+himself, if not rich, at least easy for life. Likewise there were the
+famous diamonds which had been said to be worth fabulous sums, though
+the goldsmith pronounced they would fetch no more than four thousand
+pounds. These diamonds, however, Colonel Esmond reserved, having a
+special use for them: but the Chelsey house, plate, goods, &c., with the
+exception of a few articles which he kept back, were sold by his orders;
+and the sums resulting from the sale invested in the public securities
+so as to realize the aforesaid annual income of three hundred pounds.
+
+Having now something to leave, he made a will and despatched it home.
+The army was now in presence of the enemy; and a great battle expected
+every day. 'Twas known that the General-in-Chief was in disgrace, and
+the parties at home strong against him, and there was no stroke this
+great and resolute player would not venture to recall his fortune when
+it seemed desperate. Frank Castlewood was with Colonel Esmond; his
+General having gladly taken the young nobleman on to his staff. His
+studies of fortifications at Bruxelles were over by this time. The
+fort he was besieging had yielded, I believe, and my lord had not only
+marched in with flying colors, but marched out again. He used to tell
+his boyish wickednesses with admirable humor, and was the most charming
+young scapegrace in the army.
+
+'Tis needless to say that Colonel Esmond had left every penny of his
+little fortune to this boy. It was the Colonel's firm conviction that
+the next battle would put an end to him: for he felt aweary of the sun,
+and quite ready to bid that and the earth farewell. Frank would not
+listen to his comrade's gloomy forebodings, but swore they would keep
+his birthday at Castlewood that autumn, after the campaign. He had
+heard of the engagement at home. “If Prince Eugene goes to London,” says
+Frank, “and Trix can get hold of him, she'll jilt Ashburnham for his
+Highness. I tell you, she used to make eyes at the Duke of Marlborough,
+when she was only fourteen, and ogling poor little Blandford. I wouldn't
+marry her, Harry--no, not if her eyes were twice as big. I'll take my
+fun. I'll enjoy for the next three years every possible pleasure. I'll
+sow my wild oats then, and marry some quiet, steady, modest, sensible
+viscountess; hunt my harriers; and settle down at Castlewood. Perhaps
+I'll represent the county--no, damme, YOU shall represent the county.
+You have the brains of the family. By the Lord, my dear old Harry, you
+have the best head and the kindest heart in all the army; and every man
+says so--and when the Queen dies, and the King comes back, why shouldn't
+you go to the House of Commons, and be a Minister, and be made a Peer,
+and that sort of thing? YOU be shot in the next action! I wager a dozen
+of Burgundy you are not touched. Mohun is well of his wound. He is
+always with Corporal John now. As soon as ever I see his ugly face I'll
+spit in it. I took lessons of Father--of Captain Holt at Bruxelles. What
+a man that is! He knows everything.” Esmond bade Frank have a care; that
+Father Holt's knowledge was rather dangerous; not, indeed, knowing as
+yet how far the Father had pushed his instructions with his young pupil.
+
+The gazetteers and writers, both of the French and English side,
+have given accounts sufficient of that bloody battle of Blarignies or
+Malplaquet, which was the last and the hardest earned of the victories
+of the great Duke of Marlborough. In that tremendous combat near upon
+two hundred and fifty thousand men were engaged, more than thirty
+thousand of whom were slain or wounded (the Allies lost twice as
+many men as they killed of the French, whom they conquered): and this
+dreadful slaughter very likely took place because a great general's
+credit was shaken at home, and he thought to restore it by a victory. If
+such were the motives which induced the Duke of Marlborough to venture
+that prodigious stake, and desperately sacrifice thirty thousand brave
+lives, so that he might figure once more in a Gazette, and hold his
+places and pensions a little longer, the event defeated the dreadful and
+selfish design, for the victory was purchased at a cost which no nation,
+greedy of glory as it may be, would willingly pay for any triumph. The
+gallantry of the French was as remarkable as the furious bravery of
+their assailants. We took a few score of their flags, and a few pieces
+of their artillery; but we left twenty thousand of the bravest soldiers
+of the world round about the intrenched lines, from which the enemy was
+driven. He retreated in perfect good order; the panic-spell seemed to
+be broke, under which the French had labored ever since the disaster
+of Hochstedt; and, fighting now on the threshold of their country, they
+showed an heroic ardor of resistance, such as had never met us in the
+course of their aggressive war. Had the battle been more successful,
+the conqueror might have got the price for which he waged it. As it was,
+(and justly, I think,) the party adverse to the Duke in England were
+indignant at the lavish extravagance of slaughter, and demanded more
+eagerly than ever the recall of a chief whose cupidity and desperation
+might urge him further still. After this bloody fight of Malplaquet, I
+can answer for it, that in the Dutch quarters and our own, and amongst
+the very regiments and commanders whose gallantry was most conspicuous
+upon this frightful day of carnage, the general cry was, that there was
+enough of the war. The French were driven back into their own boundary,
+and all their conquests and booty of Flanders disgorged. As for the
+Prince of Savoy, with whom our Commander-in-Chief, for reasons of his
+own, consorted more closely than ever, 'twas known that he was animated
+not merely by a political hatred, but by personal rage against the old
+French King: the Imperial Generalissimo never forgot the slight put by
+Lewis upon the Abbe de Savoie; and in the humiliation or ruin of his
+most Christian Majesty, the Holy Roman Emperor found his account.
+But what were these quarrels to us, the free citizens of England and
+Holland! Despot as he was, the French monarch was yet the chief of
+European civilization, more venerable in his age and misfortunes than at
+the period of his most splendid successes; whilst his opponent was but
+a semi-barbarous tyrant, with a pillaging, murderous horde of Croats
+and Pandours, composing a half of his army, filling our camp with their
+strange figures, bearded like the miscreant Turks their neighbors, and
+carrying into Christian warfare their native heathen habits of rapine,
+lust, and murder. Why should the best blood in England and France be
+shed in order that the Holy Roman and Apostolic master of these ruffians
+should have his revenge over the Christian king? And it was to this end
+we were fighting; for this that every village and family in England was
+deploring the death of beloved sons and fathers. We dared not speak to
+each other, even at table, of Malplaquet, so frightful were the gaps
+left in our army by the cannon of that bloody action. 'Twas heartrending
+for an officer who had a heart to look down his line on a parade-day
+afterwards, and miss hundreds of faces of comrades--humble or of high
+rank--that had gathered but yesterday full of courage and cheerfulness
+round the torn and blackened flags. Where were our friends? As the great
+Duke reviewed us, riding along our lines with his fine suite of prancing
+aides-de-camp and generals, stopping here and there to thank an officer
+with those eager smiles and bows of which his Grace was always lavish,
+scarce a huzzah could be got for him, though Cadogan, with an oath, rode
+up and cried--“D--n you, why don't you cheer?” But the men had no
+heart for that: not one of them but was thinking, “Where's my
+comrade?--where's my brother that fought by me, or my dear captain that
+led me yesterday?” 'Twas the most gloomy pageant I ever looked on; and
+the “Te Deum” sung by our chaplains, the most woful and dreary satire.
+
+Esmond's General added one more to the many marks of honor which he
+had received in the front of a score of battles, and got a wound in
+the groin, which laid him on his back; and you may be sure he
+consoled himself by abusing the Commander-in-Chief, as he lay
+groaning,--“Corporal John's as fond of me,” he used to say, “as King
+David was of General Uriah; and so he always gives me the post of
+danger.” He persisted, to his dying day, in believing that the Duke
+intended he should be beat at Wynendael, and sent him purposely with a
+small force, hoping that he might be knocked on the head there. Esmond
+and Frank Castlewood both escaped without hurt, though the division
+which our General commanded suffered even more than any other, having to
+sustain not only the fury of the enemy's cannonade, which was very hot
+and well served, but the furious and repeated charges of the famous
+Maison du Roy, which we had to receive and beat off again and again,
+with volleys of shot and hedges of iron, and our four lines of
+musqueteers and pikemen. They said the King of England charged us
+no less than twelve times that day, along with the French Household.
+Esmond's late regiment, General Webb's own Fusileers, served in the
+division which their colonel commanded. The General was thrice in the
+centre of the square of the Fusileers, calling the fire at the French
+charges, and, after the action, his Grace the Duke of Berwick sent his
+compliments to his old regiment and their Colonel for their behavior on
+the field.
+
+We drank my Lord Castlewood's health and majority, the 25th of
+September, the army being then before Mons: and here Colonel Esmond was
+not so fortunate as he had been in actions much more dangerous, and was
+hit by a spent ball just above the place where his former wound was,
+which caused the old wound to open again, fever, spitting of blood,
+and other ugly symptoms, to ensue; and, in a word, brought him near to
+death's door. The kind lad, his kinsman, attended his elder comrade with
+a very praiseworthy affectionateness and care until he was pronounced
+out of danger by the doctors, when Frank went off, passed the winter at
+Bruxelles, and besieged, no doubt, some other fortress there. Very few
+lads would have given up their pleasures so long and so gayly as Frank
+did; his cheerful prattle soothed many long days of Esmond's pain and
+languor. Frank was supposed to be still at his kinsman's bedside for
+a month after he had left it, for letters came from his mother at
+home full of thanks to the younger gentleman for his care of his elder
+brother (so it pleased Esmond's mistress now affectionately to style
+him); nor was Mr. Esmond in a hurry to undeceive her, when the good
+young fellow was gone for his Christmas holiday. It was as pleasant to
+Esmond on his couch to watch the young man's pleasure at the idea of
+being free, as to note his simple efforts to disguise his satisfaction
+on going away. There are days when a flask of champagne at a cabaret,
+and a red-cheeked partner to share it, are too strong temptations for
+any young fellow of spirit. I am not going to play the moralist, and
+cry “Fie.” For ages past, I know how old men preach, and what young
+men practise; and that patriarchs have had their weak moments too, long
+since Father Noah toppled over after discovering the vine. Frank went
+off, then, to his pleasures at Bruxelles, in which capital many young
+fellows of our army declared they found infinitely greater diversion
+even than in London: and Mr. Henry Esmond remained in his sick-room,
+where he writ a fine comedy, that his mistress pronounced to be sublime,
+and that was acted no less than three successive nights in London in the
+next year.
+
+Here, as he lay nursing himself, ubiquitous Mr. Holt reappeared, and
+stopped a whole month at Mons, where he not only won over Colonel Esmond
+to the King's side in politics (that side being always held by the
+Esmond family); but where he endeavored to reopen the controversial
+question between the churches once more, and to recall Esmond to that
+religion in which, in his infancy, he had been baptized. Holt was a
+casuist, both dexterous and learned, and presented the case between
+the English church and his own in such a way that those who granted
+his premises ought certainly to allow his conclusions. He touched on
+Esmond's delicate state of health, chance of dissolution, and so forth;
+and enlarged upon the immense benefits that the sick man was likely to
+forego--benefits which the church of England did not deny to those of
+the Roman communion, as how should she, being derived from that church,
+and only an offshoot from it? But Mr. Esmond said that his church was
+the church of his country, and to that he chose to remain faithful:
+other people were welcome to worship and to subscribe any other set of
+articles, whether at Rome or at Augsburg. But if the good Father meant
+that Esmond should join the Roman communion for fear of consequences,
+and that all England ran the risk of being damned for heresy, Esmond,
+for one, was perfectly willing to take his chance of the penalty along
+with the countless millions of his fellow-countrymen, who were bred
+in the same faith, and along with some of the noblest, the truest, the
+purest, the wisest, the most pious and learned men and women in the
+world.
+
+As for the political question, in that Mr. Esmond could agree with the
+Father much more readily, and had come to the same conclusion,
+though, perhaps, by a different way. The right divine, about which Dr.
+Sacheverel and the High Church party in England were just now making a
+bother, they were welcome to hold as they chose. If Richard Cromwell,
+and his father before him had been crowned and anointed (and bishops
+enough would have been found to do it), it seemed to Mr. Esmond that
+they would have had the right divine just as much as any Plantagenet, or
+Tudor, or Stuart. But the desire of the country being unquestionably
+for an hereditary monarchy, Esmond thought an English king out of St.
+Germains was better and fitter than a German prince from Herrenhausen,
+and that if he failed to satisfy the nation, some other Englishman might
+be found to take his place; and so, though with no frantic enthusiasm,
+or worship of that monstrous pedigree which the Tories chose to consider
+divine, he was ready to say, “God save King James!” when Queen Anne went
+the way of kings and commoners.
+
+“I fear, Colonel, you are no better than a republican at heart,” says
+the priest with a sigh.
+
+“I am an Englishman,” says Harry, “and take my country as I find her.
+The will of the nation being for church and king, I am for church and
+king too; but English church and English king; and that is why your
+church isn't mine, though your king is.”
+
+Though they lost the day at Malplaquet, it was the French who were
+elated by that action, whilst the conquerors were dispirited, by it; and
+the enemy gathered together a larger army than ever, and made prodigious
+efforts for the next campaign. Marshal Berwick was with the French this
+year; and we heard that Mareschal Villars was still suffering of his
+wound, was eager to bring our Duke to action, and vowed he would fight
+us in his coach. Young Castlewood came flying back from Bruxelles, as
+soon as he heard that fighting was to begin; and the arrival of the
+Chevalier de St. George was announced about May. “It's the King's third
+campaign, and it's mine,” Frank liked saying. He was come back a greater
+Jacobite than ever, and Esmond suspected that some fair conspirators
+at Bruxelles had been inflaming the young man's ardor. Indeed, he owned
+that he had a message from the Queen, Beatrix's godmother, who had given
+her name to Frank's sister the year before he and his sovereign were
+born.
+
+However desirous Marshal Villars might be to fight, my Lord Duke did not
+seem disposed to indulge him this campaign. Last year his Grace had been
+all for the Whigs and Hanoverians; but finding, on going to England, his
+country cold towards himself, and the people in a ferment of High Church
+loyalty, the Duke comes back to his army cooled towards the Hanoverians,
+cautious with the Imperialists, and particularly civil and polite
+towards the Chevalier de St. George. 'Tis certain that messengers and
+letters were continually passing between his Grace and his brave nephew,
+the Duke of Berwick, in the opposite camp. No man's caresses were more
+opportune than his Grace's, and no man ever uttered expressions of
+regard and affection more generously. He professed to Monsieur de Torcy,
+so Mr. St. John told the writer, quite an eagerness to be cut in pieces
+for the exiled Queen and her family; nay more, I believe, this year
+he parted with a portion of the most precious part of himself--his
+money--which he sent over to the royal exiles. Mr. Tunstal, who was in
+the Prince's service, was twice or thrice in and out of our camp; the
+French, in theirs of Arlieu and about Arras. A little river, the Canihe
+I think 'twas called, (but this is writ away from books and Europe; and
+the only map the writer hath of these scenes of his youth, bears no
+mark of this little stream,) divided our pickets from the enemy's.
+Our sentries talked across the stream, when they could make themselves
+understood to each other, and when they could not, grinned, and handed
+each other their brandy-flasks or their pouches of tobacco. And one fine
+day of June, riding thither with the officer who visited the outposts,
+(Colonel Esmond was taking an airing on horseback, being too weak for
+military duty,) they came to this river, where a number of English and
+Scots were assembled, talking to the good-natured enemy on the other
+side.
+
+Esmond was especially amused with the talk of one long fellow, with a
+great curling red moustache, and blue eyes, that was half a dozen
+inches taller than his swarthy little comrades on the French side of the
+stream, and being asked by the Colonel, saluted him, and said that he
+belonged to the Royal Cravats.
+
+From his way of saying “Royal Cravat,” Esmond at once knew that the
+fellow's tongue had first wagged on the banks of the Liffey, and not
+the Loire; and the poor soldier--a deserter probably--did not like to
+venture very deep into French conversation, lest his unlucky brogue
+should peep out. He chose to restrict himself to such few expressions
+in the French language as he thought he had mastered easily; and
+his attempt at disguise was infinitely amusing. Mr. Esmond whistled
+Lillibullero, at which Teague's eyes began to twinkle, and then flung
+him a dollar, when the poor boy broke out with a “God bless--that is,
+Dieu benisse votre honor,” that would infallibly have sent him to the
+provost-marshal had he been on our side of the river.
+
+Whilst this parley was going on, three officers on horseback, on the
+French side, appeared at some little distance, and stopped as if eying
+us, when one of them left the other two, and rode close up to us who
+were by the stream. “Look, look!” says the Royal Cravat, with great
+agitation, “pas lui, that's he; not him, l'autre,” and pointed to the
+distant officer on a chestnut horse, with a cuirass shining in the sun,
+and over it a broad blue ribbon.
+
+“Please to take Mr. Hamilton's services to my Lord Marlborough--my Lord
+Duke,” says the gentleman in English: and, looking to see that the party
+were not hostilely disposed, he added, with a smile, “There's a friend
+of yours, gentlemen, yonder; he bids me to say that he saw some of your
+faces on the 11th of September last year.”
+
+As the gentleman spoke, the other two officers rode up, and came quite
+close. We knew at once who it was. It was the King, then two-and-twenty
+years old, tall and slim, with deep brown eyes, that looked melancholy,
+though his lips wore a smile. We took off our hats and saluted him. No
+man, sure, could see for the first time, without emotion, the youthful
+inheritor of so much fame and misfortune. It seemed to Mr. Esmond that
+the Prince was not unlike young Castlewood, whose age and figure he
+resembled. The Chevalier de St. George acknowledged the salute, and
+looked at us hard. Even the idlers on our side of the river set up a
+hurrah. As for the Royal Cravat, he ran to the Prince's stirrup, knelt
+down and kissed his boot, and bawled and looked a hundred ejaculations
+and blessings. The prince bade the aide-de-camp give him a piece of
+money; and when the party saluting us had ridden away, Cravat spat upon
+the piece of gold by way of benediction, and swaggered away, pouching
+his coin and twirling his honest carroty moustache.
+
+The officer in whose company Esmond was, the same little captain of
+Handyside's regiment, Mr. Sterne, who had proposed the garden at Lille,
+when my Lord Mohun and Esmond had their affair, was an Irishman too, and
+as brave a little soul as ever wore a sword. “Bedad,” says Roger Sterne,
+“that long fellow spoke French so beautiful that I shouldn't have known
+he wasn't a foreigner, till he broke out with his hulla-ballooing, and
+only an Irish calf can bellow like that.” And Roger made another remark
+in his wild way, in which there was sense as well as absurdity--“If that
+young gentleman,” says he, “would but ride over to our camp, instead of
+Villars's, toss up his hat and say, 'Here am I, the King, who'll follow
+me?' by the Lord, Esmond, the whole army would rise and carry him home
+again, and beat Villars, and take Paris by the way.”
+
+The news of the Prince's visit was all through the camp quickly, and
+scores of ours went down in hopes to see him. Major Hamilton, whom
+we had talked with, sent back by a trumpet several silver pieces for
+officers with us. Mr. Esmond received one of these; and that medal, and
+a recompense not uncommon amongst Princes, were the only rewards he
+ever had from a Royal person, whom he endeavored not very long after to
+serve.
+
+Esmond quitted the army almost immediately after this, following his
+general home; and, indeed, being advised to travel in the fine weather
+and attempt to take no further part in the campaign. But he heard from
+the army, that of the many who crowded to see the Chevalier de St.
+George, Frank Castlewood had made himself most conspicuous: my Lord
+Viscount riding across the little stream bareheaded to where the Prince
+was, and dismounting and kneeling before him to do him homage. Some
+said that the Prince had actually knighted him, but my lord denied
+that statement, though he acknowledged the rest of the story, and
+said:--“From having been out of favor with Corporal John,” as he called
+the Duke, “before his Grace warned him not to commit those follies, and
+smiled on him cordially ever after.”
+
+“And he was so kind to me,” Frank writ, “that I thought I would put in a
+good word for Master Harry, but when I mentioned your name he looked as
+black as thunder, and said he had never heard of you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+I GO HOME, AND HARP ON THE OLD STRING.
+
+
+After quitting Mons and the army, and as he was waiting for a packet
+at Ostend, Esmond had a letter from his young kinsman Castlewood at
+Bruxelles, conveying intelligence whereof Frank besought him to be the
+bearer to London, and which caused Colonel Esmond no small anxiety.
+
+The young scapegrace, being one-and-twenty years old, and being anxious
+to sow his “wild otes,” as he wrote, had married Mademoiselle de
+Wertheim, daughter of Count de Wertheim, Chamberlain to the Emperor,
+and having a post in the Household of the Governor of the Netherlands.
+“P.S.,” the young gentleman wrote: “Clotilda is OLDER THAN ME, which
+perhaps may be objected to her: but I am so OLD A RAIK that the age
+makes no difference, and I am DETERMINED to reform. We were married at
+St. Gudule, by Father Holt. She is heart and soul for the GOOD CAUSE.
+And here the cry is Vif-le-Roy, which my mother will JOIN IN, and Trix
+TOO. Break this news to 'em gently: and tell Mr. Finch, my agent, to
+press the people for their rents, and send me the RYNO anyhow. Clotilda
+sings, and plays on the Spinet BEAUTIFULLY. She is a fair beauty. And
+if it's a son, you shall stand GODFATHER. I'm going to leave the army,
+having had ENUF OF SOLDERING; and my Lord Duke RECOMMENDS me. I shall
+pass the winter here: and stop at least until Clo's lying in. I call
+her OLD CLO, but nobody else shall. She is the cleverest woman in all
+Bruxelles: understanding painting, music, poetry, and perfect at COOKERY
+AND PUDDENS. I borded with the Count, that's how I came to know her.
+There are four Counts her brothers. One an Abbey--three with the
+Prince's army. They have a lawsuit for AN IMMENCE FORTUNE: but are now
+in a PORE WAY. Break this to mother, who'll take anything from YOU.
+And write, and bid Finch write AMEDIATELY. Hostel de l'Aigle Noire,
+Bruxelles, Flanders.”
+
+So Frank had married a Roman Catholic lady, and an heir was expected,
+and Mr. Esmond was to carry this intelligence to his mistress at London.
+'Twas a difficult embassy; and the Colonel felt not a little tremor as
+he neared the capital.
+
+He reached his inn late, and sent a messenger to Kensington to announce
+his arrival and visit the next morning. The messenger brought back news
+that the Court was at Windsor, and the fair Beatrix absent and engaged
+in her duties there. Only Esmond's mistress remained in her house at
+Kensington. She appeared in court but once in the year; Beatrix was
+quite the mistress and ruler of the little mansion, inviting the company
+thither, and engaging in every conceivable frolic of town pleasure.
+Whilst her mother, acting as the young lady's protectress and elder
+sister, pursued her own path, which was quite modest and secluded.
+
+As soon as ever Esmond was dressed (and he had been awake long before
+the town), he took a coach for Kensington, and reached it so early that
+he met his dear mistress coming home from morning prayers. She carried
+her prayer-book, never allowing a footman to bear it, as everybody else
+did: and it was by this simple sign Esmond knew what her occupation had
+been. He called to the coachman to stop, and jumped out as she looked
+towards him. She wore her hood as usual, and she turned quite pale when
+she saw him. To feel that kind little hand near to his heart seemed
+to give him strength. They were soon at the door of her ladyship's
+house--and within it.
+
+With a sweet sad smile she took his hand and kissed it.
+
+“How ill you have been: how weak you look, my dear Henry,” she said.
+
+'Tis certain the Colonel did look like a ghost, except that ghosts do
+not look very happy, 'tis said. Esmond always felt so on returning to
+her after absence, indeed whenever he looked in her sweet kind face.
+
+“I am come back to be nursed by my family,” says he. “If Frank had
+not taken care of me after my wound, very likely I should have gone
+altogether.”
+
+“Poor Frank, good Frank!” says his mother. “You'll always be kind to
+him, my lord,” she went on. “The poor child never knew he was doing you
+a wrong.”
+
+“My lord!” cries out Colonel Esmond. “What do you mean, dear lady?”
+
+“I am no lady,” says she; “I am Rachel Esmond, Francis Esmond's widow,
+my lord. I cannot bear that title. Would we never had taken it from him
+who has it now. But we did all in our power, Henry: we did all in our
+power; and my lord and I--that is--”
+
+“Who told you this tale, dearest lady?” asked the Colonel.
+
+“Have you not had the letter I writ you? I writ to you at Mons directly
+I heard it,” says Lady Esmond.
+
+“And from whom?” again asked Colonel Esmond--and his mistress then told
+him that on her death-bed the Dowager Countess, sending for her, had
+presented her with this dismal secret as a legacy. “'Twas very malicious
+of the Dowager,” Lady Esmond said, “to have had it so long, and to
+have kept the truth from me.” “Cousin Rachel,” she said,--and Esmond's
+mistress could not forbear smiling as she told the story--“Cousin
+Rachel,” cries the Dowager, “I have sent for you, as the doctors say
+I may go off any day in this dysentery; and to ease my conscience of a
+great load that has been on it. You always have been a poor creature and
+unfit for great honor, and what I have to say won't, therefore, affect
+you so much. You must know, Cousin Rachel, that I have left my house,
+plate, and furniture, three thousand pounds in money, and my diamonds
+that my late revered Saint and Sovereign, King James, presented me with,
+to my Lord Viscount Castlewood.”
+
+“To my Frank?” says Lady Castlewood; “I was in hopes--”
+
+To Viscount Castlewood, my dear; Viscount Castlewood and Baron Esmond
+of Shandon in the Kingdom of Ireland, Earl and Marquis of Esmond under
+patent of his Majesty King James the Second, conferred upon my husband
+the late Marquis--for I am Marchioness of Esmond before God and man.”
+
+“And have you left poor Harry nothing, dear Marchioness?” asks Lady
+Castlewood (she hath told me the story completely since with her quiet
+arch way; the most charming any woman ever had: and I set down the
+narrative here at length, so as to have done with it). “And have you
+left poor Harry nothing?” asks my dear lady: “for you know, Henry,” she
+says with her sweet smile, “I used always to pity Esau--and I think I am
+on his side--though papa tried very hard to convince me the other way.”
+
+“Poor Harry!” says the old lady. “So you want something left to poor
+Harry: he,--he! (reach me the drops, cousin). Well, then, my dear, since
+you want poor Harry to have a fortune, you must understand that ever
+since the year 1691, a week after the battle of the Boyne, where the
+Prince of Orange defeated his royal sovereign and father, for which
+crime he is now suffering in flames (ugh! ugh!) Henry Esmond hath been
+Marquis of Esmond and Earl of Castlewood in the United Kingdom, and
+Baron and Viscount Castlewood of Shandon in Ireland, and a Baronet--and
+his eldest son will be, by courtesy, styled Earl of Castlewood--he! he!
+What do you think of that, my dear?”
+
+“Gracious mercy! how long have you known this?” cries the other lady
+(thinking perhaps that the old Marchioness was wandering in her wits).
+
+“My husband, before he was converted, was a wicked wretch,” the sick
+sinner continued. “When he was in the Low Countries he seduced a
+weaver's daughter; and added to his wickedness by marrying her. And then
+he came to this country and married me--a poor girl--a poor innocent
+young thing--I say,”--“though she was past forty, you know, Harry, when
+she married: and as for being innocent”--“Well,” she went on, “I knew
+nothing of my lord's wickedness for three years after our marriage, and
+after the burial of our poor little boy I had it done over again, my
+dear: I had myself married by Father Holt in Castlewood chapel, as soon
+as ever I heard the creature was dead--and having a great illness then,
+arising from another sad disappointment I had, the priest came and told
+me that my lord had a son before our marriage, and that the child was at
+nurse in England; and I consented to let the brat be brought home, and a
+queer little melancholy child it was when it came.
+
+“Our intention was to make a priest of him: and he was bred for this,
+until you perverted him from it, you wicked woman. And I had again hopes
+of giving an heir to my lord, when he was called away upon the King's
+business, and died fighting gloriously at the Boyne water.
+
+“Should I be disappointed--I owed your husband no love, my dear, for he
+had jilted me in the most scandalous way and I thought there would be
+time to declare the little weaver's son for the true heir. But I was
+carried off to prison, where your husband was so kind to me--urging
+all his friends to obtain my release, and using all his credit in my
+favor--that I relented towards him, especially as my director counselled
+me to be silent; and that it was for the good of the King's service
+that the title of our family should continue with your husband the late
+viscount, whereby his fidelity would be always secured to the King. And
+a proof of this is, that a year before your husband's death, when he
+thought of taking a place under the Prince of Orange, Mr. Holt went to
+him, and told him what the state of the matter was, and obliged him to
+raise a large sum for his Majesty; and engaged him in the true cause so
+heartily, that we were sure of his support on any day when it should be
+considered advisable to attack the usurper. Then his sudden death came;
+and there was a thought of declaring the truth. But 'twas determined
+to be best for the King's service to let the title still go with the
+younger branch; and there's no sacrifice a Castlewood wouldn't make for
+that cause, my dear.
+
+“As for Colonel Esmond, he knew the truth already.” (“And then, Harry,”
+ my mistress said, “she told me of what had happened at my dear husband's
+death-bed”). “He doth not intend to take the title, though it belongs to
+him. But it eases my conscience that you should know the truth, my dear.
+And your son is lawfully Viscount Castlewood so long as his cousin doth
+not claim the rank.”
+
+This was the substance of the Dowager's revelation. Dean Atterbury had
+knowledge of it, Lady Castlewood said, and Esmond very well knows how:
+that divine being the clergyman for whom the late lord had sent on his
+death-bed: and when Lady Castlewood would instantly have written to her
+son, and conveyed the truth to him, the Dean's advice was that a letter
+should be writ to Colonel Esmond rather; that the matter should be
+submitted to his decision, by which alone the rest of the family were
+bound to abide.
+
+“And can my dearest lady doubt what that will be?” says the Colonel.
+
+“It rests with you, Harry, as the head of our house.”
+
+“It was settled twelve years since, by my dear lord's bedside,” says
+Colonel Esmond. “The children must know nothing of this. Frank and his
+heirs after him must bear our name. 'Tis his rightfully; I have not even
+a proof of that marriage of my father and mother, though my poor lord,
+on his death-bed, told me that Father Holt had brought such a proof to
+Castlewood. I would not seek it when I was abroad. I went and looked at
+my poor mother's grave in her convent. What matter to her now? No court
+of law on earth, upon my mere word, would deprive my Lord Viscount and
+set me up. I am the head of the house, dear lady; but Frank is Viscount
+of Castlewood still. And rather than disturb him, I would turn monk, or
+disappear in America.”
+
+As he spoke so to his dearest mistress, for whom he would have been
+willing to give up his life, or to make any sacrifice any day, the fond
+creature flung herself down on her knees before him, and kissed both his
+hands in an outbreak of passionate love and gratitude, such as could not
+but melt his heart, and make him feel very proud and thankful that God
+had given him the power to show his love for her, and to prove it by
+some little sacrifice on his own part. To be able to bestow benefits
+or happiness on those one loves is sure the greatest blessing conferred
+upon a man--and what wealth or name, or gratification of ambition or
+vanity, could compare with the pleasure Esmond now had of being able to
+confer some kindness upon his best and dearest friends?
+
+“Dearest saint,” says he--“purest soul, that has had so much to suffer,
+that has blest the poor lonely orphan with such a treasure of love. 'Tis
+for me to kneel, not for you: 'tis for me to be thankful that I can make
+you happy. Hath my life any other aim? Blessed be God that I can serve
+you! What pleasure, think you, could all the world give me compared to
+that?”
+
+“Don't raise me,” she said, in a wild way, to Esmond, who would have
+lifted her. “Let me kneel--let me kneel, and--and--worship you.”
+
+Before such a partial judge as Esmond's dear mistress owned herself to
+be, any cause which he might plead was sure to be given in his favor;
+and accordingly he found little difficulty in reconciling her to the
+news whereof he was bearer, of her son's marriage to a foreign lady,
+Papist though she was. Lady Castlewood never could be brought to think
+so ill of that religion as other people in England thought of it: she
+held that ours was undoubtedly a branch of the Catholic church, but that
+the Roman was one of the main stems on which, no doubt, many errors had
+been grafted (she was, for a woman, extraordinarily well versed in this
+controversy, having acted, as a girl, as secretary to her father, the
+late dean, and written many of his sermons, under his dictation); and if
+Frank had chosen to marry a lady of the church of south Europe, as she
+would call the Roman communion, there was no need why she should not
+welcome her as a daughter-in-law: and accordingly she wrote to her new
+daughter a very pretty, touching letter (as Esmond thought, who had
+cognizance of it before it went), in which the only hint of reproof was
+a gentle remonstrance that her son had not written to herself, to ask
+a fond mother's blessing for that step which he was about taking.
+“Castlewood knew very well,” so she wrote to her son, “that she never
+denied him anything in her power to give, much less would she think of
+opposing a marriage that was to make his happiness, as she trusted, and
+keep him out of wild courses, which had alarmed her a good deal:” and
+she besought him to come quickly to England, to settle down in his
+family house of Castlewood (“It is his family house,” says she, to
+Colonel Esmond, “though only his own house by your forbearance”) and to
+receive the accompt of her stewardship during his ten years' minority.
+By care and frugality, she had got the estate into a better condition
+than ever it had been since the Parliamentary wars; and my lord was now
+master of a pretty, small income, not encumbered of debts, as it
+had been, during his father's ruinous time. “But in saving my son's
+fortune,” says she, “I fear I have lost a great part of my hold on him.”
+ And, indeed, this was the case: her ladyship's daughter complaining that
+their mother did all for Frank, and nothing for her; and Frank himself
+being dissatisfied at the narrow, simple way of his mother's living at
+Walcote, where he had been brought up more like a poor parson's son
+than a young nobleman that was to make a figure in the world. 'Twas this
+mistake in his early training, very likely, that set him so eager upon
+pleasure when he had it in his power; nor is he the first lad that has
+been spoiled by the over-careful fondness of women. No training is so
+useful for children, great or small, as the company of their betters in
+rank or natural parts; in whose society they lose the overweening sense
+of their own importance, which stay-at-home people very commonly learn.
+
+But, as a prodigal that's sending in a schedule of his debts to his
+friends, never puts all down, and, you may be sure, the rogue keeps back
+some immense swingeing bill, that he doesn't dare to own; so the poor
+Frank had a very heavy piece of news to break to his mother, and which
+he hadn't the courage to introduce into his first confession. Some
+misgivings Esmond might have, upon receiving Frank's letter, and knowing
+into what hands the boy had fallen; but whatever these misgivings were,
+he kept them to himself, not caring to trouble his mistress with any
+fears that might be groundless.
+
+However, the next mail which came from Bruxelles, after Frank had
+received his mother's letters there, brought back a joint composition
+from himself and his wife, who could spell no better than her young
+scapegrace of a husband, full of expressions of thanks, love, and duty
+to the Dowager Viscountess, as my poor lady now was styled; and along
+with this letter (which was read in a family council, namely, the
+Viscountess, Mistress Beatrix, and the writer of this memoir, and which
+was pronounced to be vulgar by the maid of honor, and felt to be so by
+the other two), there came a private letter for Colonel Esmond from poor
+Frank, with another dismal commission for the Colonel to execute, at his
+best opportunity; and this was to announce that Frank had seen fit,
+“by the exhortation of Mr. Holt, the influence of his Clotilda, and the
+blessing of heaven and the saints,” says my lord, demurely, “to change
+his religion, and be received into the bosom of that church of which
+his sovereign, many of his family, and the greater part of the civilized
+world, were members.” And his lordship added a postscript, of which
+Esmond knew the inspiring genius very well, for it had the genuine twang
+of the Seminary, and was quite unlike poor Frank's ordinary style of
+writing and thinking; in which he reminded Colonel Esmond that he too
+was, by birth, of that church; and that his mother and sister should
+have his lordship's prayers to the saints (an inestimable benefit,
+truly!) for their conversion.
+
+If Esmond had wanted to keep this secret, he could not; for a day or
+two after receiving this letter, a notice from Bruxelles appeared in
+the Post-Boy and other prints, announcing that “a young Irish lord, the
+Viscount C-stlew--d, just come to his majority, and who had served the
+last campaigns with great credit, as aide-de-camp to his Grace the Duke
+of Marlborough, had declared for the Popish religion at Bruxelles, and
+had walked in a procession barefoot, with a wax-taper in his hand.” The
+notorious Mr. Holt, who had been employed as a Jacobite agent during
+the last reign, and many times pardoned by King William, had been, the
+Post-Boy said, the agent of this conversion.
+
+The Lady Castlewood was as much cast down by this news as Miss Beatrix
+was indignant at it. “So,” says she, “Castlewood is no longer a home
+for us, mother. Frank's foreign wife will bring her confessor, and there
+will be frogs for dinner; and all Tusher's and my grandfather's sermons
+are flung away upon my brother. I used to tell you that you killed him
+with the catechism, and that he would turn wicked as soon as he broke
+from his mammy's leading-strings. Oh, mother, you would not believe that
+the young scapegrace was playing you tricks, and that sneak of a Tusher
+was not a fit guide for him. Oh, those parsons, I hate 'em all!” says
+Mistress Beatrix, clapping her hands together; “yes, whether they wear
+cassocks and buckles, or beards and bare feet. There's a horrid Irish
+wretch who never misses a Sunday at Court, and who pays me compliments
+there, the horrible man; and if you want to know what parsons are, you
+should see his behavior, and hear him talk of his own cloth. They're all
+the same, whether they're bishops, or bonzes, or Indian fakirs. They
+try to domineer, and they frighten us with kingdom come; and they wear a
+sanctified air in public, and expect us to go down on our knees and ask
+their blessing; and they intrigue, and they grasp, and they backbite,
+and they slander worse than the worst courtier or the wickedest old
+woman. I heard this Mr. Swift sneering at my Lord Duke of Marlborough's
+courage the other day. He! that Teague from Dublin! because his Grace is
+not in favor, dares to say this of him; and he says this that it may get
+to her Majesty's ear, and to coax and wheedle Mrs. Masham. They say
+the Elector of Hanover has a dozen of mistresses in his court at
+Herrenhausen, and if he comes to be king over us, I wager that the
+bishops and Mr. Swift, that wants to be one, will coax and wheedle them.
+Oh, those priests and their grave airs! I'm sick of their square toes
+and their rustling cassocks. I should like to go to a country where
+there was not one, or turn Quaker, and get rid of 'em; and I would, only
+the dress is not becoming, and I've much too pretty a figure to hide
+it. Haven't I, cousin?” and here she glanced at her person and the
+looking-glass, which told her rightly that a more beautiful shape and
+face never were seen.
+
+“I made that onslaught on the priests,” says Miss Beatrix, afterwards,
+“in order to divert my poor dear mother's anguish about Frank. Frank is
+as vain as a girl, cousin. Talk of us girls being vain, what are WE to
+you? It was easy to see that the first woman who chose would make a fool
+of him, or the first robe--I count a priest and a woman all the same. We
+are always caballing; we are not answerable for the fibs we tell; we are
+always cajoling and coaxing, or threatening; and we are always making
+mischief, Colonel Esmond--mark my word for that, who know the world,
+sir, and have to make my way in it. I see as well as possible how
+Frank's marriage hath been managed. The Count, our papa-in-law, is
+always away at the coffee-house. The Countess, our mother, is always in
+the kitchen looking after the dinner. The Countess, our sister, is at
+the spinet. When my lord comes to say he is going on the campaign, the
+lovely Clotilda bursts into tears, and faints--so; he catches her in his
+arms--no, sir, keep your distance, cousin, if you please--she cries
+on his shoulder, and he says, 'Oh, my divine, my adored, my beloved
+Clotilda, are you sorry to part with me?' 'Oh, my Francisco,' says
+she, 'oh my lord!' and at this very instant mamma and a couple of young
+brothers, with moustaches and long rapiers, come in from the kitchen,
+where they have been eating bread and onions. Mark my word, you will
+have all this woman's relations at Castlewood three months after she has
+arrived there. The old count and countess, and the young counts and all
+the little countesses her sisters. Counts! every one of these wretches
+says he is a count. Guiscard, that stabbed Mr. Harvey, said he was
+a count; and I believe he was a barber. All Frenchmen are
+barbers--Fiddledee! don't contradict me--or else dancing-masters, or
+else priests.” And so she rattled on.
+
+“Who was it taught YOU to dance, Cousin Beatrix?” says the Colonel.
+
+She laughed out the air of a minuet, and swept a low curtsy, coming up
+to the recover with the prettiest little foot in the world pointed out.
+Her mother came in as she was in this attitude; my lady had been in her
+closet, having taken poor Frank's conversion in a very serious way; the
+madcap girl ran up to her mother, put her arms round her waist, kissed
+her, tried to make her dance, and said: “Don't be silly, you kind little
+mamma, and cry about Frank turning Papist. What a figure he must be,
+with a white sheet and a candle, walking in a procession barefoot!” And
+she kicked off her little slippers (the wonderfullest little shoes
+with wonderful tall red heels: Esmond pounced upon one as it fell close
+beside him), and she put on the drollest little moue, and marched up and
+down the room holding Esmond's cane by way of taper. Serious as her mood
+was, Lady Castlewood could not refrain from laughing; and as for
+Esmond he looked on with that delight with which the sight of this fair
+creature always inspired him: never had he seen any woman so arch, so
+brilliant, and so beautiful.
+
+Having finished her march, she put out her foot for her slipper. The
+Colonel knelt down: “If you will be Pope I will turn Papist,” says he;
+and her Holiness gave him gracious leave to kiss the little stockinged
+foot before he put the slipper on.
+
+Mamma's feet began to pat on the floor during this operation, and
+Beatrix, whose bright eyes nothing escaped, saw that little mark of
+impatience. She ran up and embraced her mother, with her usual cry of,
+“Oh, you silly little mamma: your feet are quite as pretty as mine,”
+ says she: “they are, cousin, though she hides 'em; but the shoemaker
+will tell you that he makes for both off the same last.”
+
+“You are taller than I am, dearest,” says her mother, blushing over her
+whole sweet face--“and--and it is your hand, my dear, and not your foot
+he wants you to give him;” and she said it with a hysteric laugh, that
+had more of tears than laughter in it; laying her head on her daughter's
+fair shoulder, and hiding it there. They made a very pretty picture
+together, and looked like a pair of sisters--the sweet simple matron
+seeming younger than her years, and her daughter, if not older, yet
+somehow, from a commanding manner and grace which she possessed above
+most women, her mother's superior and protectress.
+
+“But oh!” cries my mistress, recovering herself after this scene, and
+returning to her usual sad tone, “'tis a shame that we should laugh
+and be making merry on a day when we ought to be down on our knees and
+asking pardon.”
+
+“Asking pardon for what?” says saucy Mrs. Beatrix--“because Frank takes
+it into his head to fast on Fridays and worship images? You know if you
+had been born a Papist, mother, a Papist you would have remained to the
+end of your days. 'Tis the religion of the King and of some of the best
+quality. For my part, I'm no enemy to it, and think Queen Bess was not a
+penny better than Queen Mary.”
+
+“Hush, Beatrix! Do not jest with sacred things, and remember of what
+parentage you come,” cries my lady. Beatrix was ordering her ribbons,
+and adjusting her tucker, and performing a dozen provokingly pretty
+ceremonies, before the glass. The girl was no hypocrite at least. She
+never at that time could be brought to think but of the world and her
+beauty; and seemed to have no more sense of devotion than some people
+have of music, that cannot distinguish one air from another. Esmond
+saw this fault in her, as he saw many others--a bad wife would Beatrix
+Esmond make, he thought, for any man under the degree of a Prince. She
+was born to shine in great assemblies, and to adorn palaces, and to
+command everywhere--to conduct an intrigue of politics, or to glitter in
+a queen's train. But to sit at a homely table, and mend the stockings of
+a poor man's children! that was no fitting duty for her, or at least
+one that she wouldn't have broke her heart in trying to do. She was a
+princess, though she had scarce a shilling to her fortune; and one
+of her subjects--the most abject and devoted wretch, sure, that ever
+drivelled at a woman's knees--was this unlucky gentleman; who bound his
+good sense, and reason, and independence, hand and foot, and submitted
+them to her.
+
+And who does not know how ruthlessly women will tyrannize when they are
+let to domineer? and who does not know how useless advice is? I could
+give good counsel to my descendants, but I know they'll follow their own
+way, for all their grandfather's sermon. A man gets his own experience
+about women, and will take nobody's hearsay; nor, indeed, is the young
+fellow worth a fig that would. 'Tis I that am in love with my mistress,
+not my old grandmother that counsels me: 'tis I that have fixed the
+value of the thing I would have, and know the price I would pay for
+it. It may be worthless to you, but 'tis all my life to me. Had Esmond
+possessed the Great Mogul's crown and all his diamonds, or all the Duke
+of Marlborough's money, or all the ingots sunk at Vigo, he would have
+given them all for this woman. A fool he was, if you will; but so is
+a sovereign a fool, that will give half a principality for a little
+crystal as big as a pigeon's egg, and called a diamond: so is a wealthy
+nobleman a fool, that will face danger or death, and spend half his
+life, and all his tranquillity, caballing for a blue ribbon; so is a
+Dutch merchant a fool, that hath been known to pay ten thousand crowns
+for a tulip. There's some particular prize we all of us value, and that
+every man of spirit will venture his life for. With this, it may be
+to achieve a great reputation for learning; with that, to be a man of
+fashion, and the admiration of the town; with another, to consummate a
+great work of art or poetry, and go to immortality that way; and with
+another, for a certain time of his life, the sole object and aim is a
+woman.
+
+Whilst Esmond was under the domination of this passion, he remembers
+many a talk he had with his intimates, who used to rally Our Knight of
+the Rueful Countenance at his devotion, whereof he made no disguise, to
+Beatrix; and it was with replies such as the above he met his friends'
+satire. “Granted, I am a fool,” says he, “and no better than you; but
+you are no better than I. You have your folly you labor for; give me the
+charity of mine. What flatteries do you, Mr. St. John, stoop to whisper
+in the ears of a queen's favorite? What nights of labor doth not the
+laziest man in the world endure, foregoing his bottle, and his boon
+companions, foregoing Lais, in whose lap he would like to be yawning,
+that he may prepare a speech full of lies, to cajole three hundred
+stupid country-gentlemen in the House of Commons, and get the hiccupping
+cheers of the October Club! What days will you spend in your jolting
+chariot.” (Mr. Esmond often rode to Windsor, and especially, of later
+days, with the secretary.) “What hours will you pass on your gouty
+feet--and how humbly will you kneel down to present a despatch--you, the
+proudest man in the world, that has not knelt to God since you were a
+boy, and in that posture whisper, flatter, adore almost, a stupid woman,
+that's often boozy with too much meat and drink, when Mr. Secretary goes
+for his audience! If my pursuit is vanity, sure yours is too.” And then
+the Secretary, would fly out in such a rich flow of eloquence, as this
+pen cannot pretend to recall; advocating his scheme of ambition, showing
+the great good he would do for his country when he was the undisputed
+chief of it; backing his opinion with a score of pat sentences from
+Greek and Roman authorities (of which kind of learning he made rather
+an ostentatious display), and scornfully vaunting the very arts and
+meannesses by which fools were to be made to follow him, opponents to be
+bribed or silenced, doubters converted, and enemies overawed.
+
+“I am Diogenes,” says Esmond, laughing, “that is taken up for a ride
+in Alexander's chariot. I have no desire to vanquish Darius or to tame
+Bucephalus. I do not want what you want, a great name or a high place:
+to have them would bring me no pleasure. But my moderation is taste, not
+virtue; and I know that what I do want is as vain as that which you long
+after. Do not grudge me my vanity, if I allow yours; or rather, let us
+laugh at both indifferently, and at ourselves, and at each other.”
+
+“If your charmer holds out,” says St. John, “at this rate she may
+keep you twenty years besieging her, and surrender by the time you are
+seventy, and she is old enough to be a grandmother. I do not say the
+pursuit of a particular woman is not as pleasant a pastime as any other
+kind of hunting,” he added; “only, for my part, I find the game won't
+run long enough. They knock under too soon--that's the fault I find with
+'em.”
+
+“The game which you pursue is in the habit of being caught, and used to
+being pulled down,” says Mr. Esmond.
+
+“But Dulcinea del Toboso is peerless, eh?” says the other. “Well, honest
+Harry, go and attack windmills--perhaps thou art not more mad than other
+people,” St. John added, with a sigh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A PAPER OUT OF THE “SPECTATOR.”
+
+
+Doth any young gentleman of my progeny, who may read his old
+grandfather's papers, chance to be presently suffering under the passion
+of Love? There is a humiliating cure, but one that is easy and almost
+specific for the malady--which is, to try an alibi. Esmond went away
+from his mistress and was cured a half-dozen times; he came back to her
+side, and instantly fell ill again of the fever. He vowed that he could
+leave her and think no more of her, and so he could pretty well, at
+least, succeed in quelling that rage and longing he had whenever he was
+with her; but as soon as he returned he was as bad as ever again. Truly
+a ludicrous and pitiable object, at least exhausting everybody's pity
+but his dearest mistress's, Lady Castlewood's, in whose tender breast he
+reposed all his dreary confessions, and who never tired of hearing him
+and pleading for him.
+
+Sometimes Esmond would think there was hope. Then again he would be
+plagued with despair, at some impertinence or coquetry of his mistress.
+For days they would be like brother and sister, or the dearest
+friends--she, simple, fond, and charming--he, happy beyond measure at
+her good behavior. But this would all vanish on a sudden. Either he
+would be too pressing, and hint his love, when she would rebuff him
+instantly, and give his vanity a box on the ear; or he would be jealous,
+and with perfect good reason, of some new admirer that had sprung up,
+or some rich young gentleman newly arrived in the town, that this
+incorrigible flirt would set her nets and baits to draw in. If Esmond
+remonstrated, the little rebel would say--“Who are you? I shall go my
+own way, sirrah, and that way is towards a husband, and I don't want
+YOU on the way. I am for your betters, Colonel, for your betters: do
+you hear that? You might do if you had an estate and were younger; only
+eight years older than I, you say! pish, you are a hundred years older.
+You are an old, old Graveairs, and I should make you miserable, that
+would be the only comfort I should have in marrying you. But you have
+not money enough to keep a cat decently after you have paid your man his
+wages, and your landlady her bill. Do you think I am going to live in
+a lodging, and turn the mutton at a string whilst your honor nurses the
+baby? Fiddlestick, and why did you not get this nonsense knocked out of
+your head when you were in the wars? You are come back more dismal and
+dreary than ever. You and mamma are fit for each other. You might be
+Darby and Joan, and play cribbage to the end of your lives.”
+
+“At least you own to your worldliness, my poor Trix,” says her mother.
+
+“Worldliness. Oh, my pretty lady! Do you think that I am a child in the
+nursery, and to be frightened by Bogey! Worldliness, to be sure; and
+pray, madam, where is the harm of wishing to be comfortable? When you
+are gone, you dearest old woman, or when I am tired of you and have
+run away from you, where shall I go? Shall I go and be head nurse to my
+Popish sister-in-law, take the children their physic, and whip 'em,
+and put 'em to bed when they are naughty? Shall I be Castlewood's upper
+servant, and perhaps marry Tom Tusher? Merci! I have been long enough
+Frank's humble servant. Why am I not a man? I have ten times his brains,
+and had I worn the--well, don't let your ladyship be frightened--had
+I worn a sword and periwig instead of this mantle and commode to which
+nature has condemned me--(though 'tis a pretty stuff, too--Cousin
+Esmond! you will go to the Exchange to-morrow, and get the exact
+counterpart of this ribbon, sir; do you hear?)--I would have made our
+name talked about. So would Graveairs here have made something out of
+our name if he had represented it. My Lord Graveairs would have done
+very well. Yes, you have a very pretty way, and would have made a very
+decent, grave speaker.” And here she began to imitate Esmond's way of
+carrying himself and speaking to his face, and so ludicrously that his
+mistress burst out a-laughing, and even he himself could see there was
+some likeness in the fantastical malicious caricature.
+
+“Yes,” says she, “I solemnly vow, own, and confess, that I want a
+good husband. Where's the harm of one? My face is my fortune. Who'll
+come?--buy, buy, buy! I cannot toil, neither can I spin, but I can play
+twenty-three games on the cards. I can dance the last dance, I can hunt
+the stag, and I think I could shoot flying. I can talk as wicked as any
+woman of my years, and know enough stories to amuse a sulky husband for
+at least one thousand and one nights. I have a pretty taste for dress,
+diamonds, gambling, and old China. I love sugar-plums, Malines lace
+(that you brought me, cousin, is very pretty), the opera, and everything
+that is useless and costly. I have got a monkey and a little
+black boy--Pompey, sir, go and give a dish of chocolate to Colonel
+Graveairs,--and a parrot and a spaniel, and I must have a husband.
+Cupid, you hear?”
+
+“Iss, Missis!” says Pompey, a little grinning negro Lord Peterborrow
+gave her, with a bird of Paradise in his turbant, and a collar with his
+mistress's name on it.
+
+“Iss, Missis!” says Beatrix, imitating the child. “And if husband not
+come, Pompey must go fetch one.”
+
+And Pompey went away grinning with his chocolate tray as Miss Beatrix
+ran up to her mother and ended her sally of mischief in her common way,
+with a kiss--no wonder that upon paying such a penalty her fond judge
+pardoned her.
+
+
+When Mr. Esmond came home, his health was still shattered; and he took a
+lodging near to his mistresses, at Kensington, glad enough to be served
+by them, and to see them day after day. He was enabled to see a little
+company--and of the sort he liked best. Mr. Steele and Mr. Addison both
+did him the honor to visit him; and drank many a glass of good claret
+at his lodging, whilst their entertainer, through his wound, was kept to
+diet drink and gruel. These gentlemen were Whigs, and great admirers of
+my Lord Duke of Marlborough; and Esmond was entirely of the other party.
+But their different views of politics did not prevent the gentlemen from
+agreeing in private, nor from allowing, on one evening when Esmond's
+kind old patron, Lieutenant-General Webb, with a stick and a crutch,
+hobbled up to the Colonel's lodging (which was prettily situate at
+Knightsbridge, between London and Kensington, and looking over
+the Gardens), that the Lieutenant-General was a noble and gallant
+soldier--and even that he had been hardly used in the Wynendael affair.
+He took his revenge in talk, that must be confessed; and if Mr. Addison
+had had a mind to write a poem about Wynendael, he might have heard from
+the commander's own lips the story a hundred times over.
+
+Mr. Esmond, forced to be quiet, betook himself to literature for a
+relaxation, and composed his comedy, whereof the prompter's copy lieth
+in my walnut escritoire, sealed up and docketed, “The Faithful Fool,
+a Comedy, as it was performed by her Majesty's Servants.” 'Twas a
+very sentimental piece; and Mr. Steele, who had more of that kind of
+sentiment than Mr. Addison, admired it, whilst the other rather sneered
+at the performance; though he owned that, here and there, it contained
+some pretty strokes. He was bringing out his own play of “Cato” at the
+time, the blaze of which quite extinguished Esmond's farthing candle;
+and his name was never put to the piece, which was printed as by a
+Person of Quality. Only nine copies were sold, though Mr. Dennis, the
+great critic, praised it, and said 'twas a work of great merit; and
+Colonel Esmond had the whole impression burned one day in a rage, by
+Jack Lockwood, his man.
+
+All this comedy was full of bitter satiric strokes against a certain
+young lady. The plot of the piece was quite a new one. A young woman was
+represented with a great number of suitors, selecting a pert fribble of
+a peer, in place of the hero (but ill-acted, I think, by Mr. Wilks,
+the Faithful Fool,) who persisted in admiring her. In the fifth act,
+Teraminta was made to discover the merits of Eugenio (the F. F.), and
+to feel a partiality for him too late; for he announced that he had
+bestowed his hand and estate upon Rosaria, a country lass, endowed with
+every virtue. But it must be owned that the audience yawned through the
+play; and that it perished on the third night, with only half a dozen
+persons to behold its agonies. Esmond and his two mistresses came to the
+first night, and Miss Beatrix fell asleep; whilst her mother, who had
+not been to a play since King James the Second's time, thought the
+piece, though not brilliant, had a very pretty moral.
+
+Mr. Esmond dabbled in letters, and wrote a deal of prose and verse at
+this time of leisure. When displeased with the conduct of Miss Beatrix,
+he would compose a satire, in which he relieved his mind. When smarting
+under the faithlessness of women, he dashed off a copy of verses, in
+which he held the whole sex up to scorn. One day, in one of these moods,
+he made a little joke, in which (swearing him to secrecy) he got his
+friend Dick Steele to help him; and, composing a paper, he had it
+printed exactly like Steele's paper, and by his printer, and laid on his
+mistress's breakfast-table the following--
+
+                        “SPECTATOR.
+
+     “No. 341.                    “Tuesday, April 1, 1712.
+
+     Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur.--HORACE.
+     Thyself the morain of the fable see.--CREECH.
+
+
+“Jocasta is known as a woman of learning and fashion, and as one of
+the most amiable persons of this court and country. She is at home two
+mornings of the week, and all the wits and a few of the beauties of
+London flock to her assemblies. When she goes abroad to Tunbridge or the
+Bath, a retinue of adorers rides the journey with her; and besides
+the London beaux, she has a crowd of admirers at the Wells, the
+polite amongst the natives of Sussex and Somerset pressing round her
+tea-tables, and being anxious for a nod from her chair. Jocasta's
+acquaintance is thus very numerous. Indeed, 'tis one smart writer's work
+to keep her visiting-book--a strong footman is engaged to carry it;
+and it would require a much stronger head even than Jocasta's own to
+remember the names of all her dear friends.
+
+“Either at Epsom Wells or at Tunbridge (for of this important matter
+Jocasta cannot be certain) it was her ladyship's fortune to become
+acquainted with a young gentleman, whose conversation was so sprightly,
+and manners amiable, that she invited the agreeable young spark to visit
+her if ever he came to London, where her house in Spring Garden should
+be open to him. Charming as he was, and without any manner of doubt
+a pretty fellow, Jocasta hath such a regiment of the like continually
+marching round her standard, that 'tis no wonder her attention
+is distracted amongst them. And so, though this gentleman made a
+considerable impression upon her, and touched her heart for at least
+three-and-twenty minutes, it must be owned that she has forgotten his
+name. He is a dark man, and may be eight-and-twenty years old. His dress
+is sober, though of rich materials. He has a mole on his forehead over
+his left eye; has a blue ribbon to his cane and sword, and wears his own
+hair.
+
+“Jocasta was much flattered by beholding her admirer (for that everybody
+admires who sees her is a point which she never can for a moment doubt)
+in the next pew to her at St. James's Church last Sunday; and the manner
+in which he appeared to go to sleep during the sermon--though from under
+his fringed eyelids it was evident he was casting glances of respectful
+rapture towards Jocasta--deeply moved and interested her. On coming out
+of church, he found his way to her chair, and made her an elegant bow as
+she stepped into it. She saw him at Court afterwards, where he carried
+himself with a most distinguished air, though none of her acquaintances
+knew his name; and the next night he was at the play, where her ladyship
+was pleased to acknowledge him from the side-box.
+
+“During the whole of the comedy she racked her brains so to remember his
+name that she did not hear a word of the piece: and having the happiness
+to meet him once more in the lobby of the playhouse, she went up to
+him in a flutter, and bade him remember that she kept two nights in the
+week, and that she longed to see him at Spring Garden.
+
+“He appeared on Tuesday, in a rich suit, showing a very fine taste both
+in the tailor and wearer; and though a knot of us were gathered round
+the charming Jocasta, fellows who pretended to know every face upon
+the town, not one could tell the gentleman's name in reply to Jocasta's
+eager inquiries, flung to the right and left of her as he advanced up
+the room with a bow that would become a duke.
+
+“Jocasta acknowledged this salute with one of those smiles and curtsies
+of which that lady hath the secret. She curtsies with a languishing air,
+as if to say, 'You are come at last. I have been pining for you:' and
+then she finishes her victim with a killing look, which declares: 'O
+Philander! I have no eyes but for you.' Camilla hath as good a curtsy
+perhaps, and Thalestris much such another look; but the glance and the
+curtsy together belong to Jocasta of all the English beauties alone.
+
+“'Welcome to London, sir,' says she. 'One can see you are from the
+country by your looks.' She would have said 'Epsom,' or 'Tunbridge,'
+had she remembered rightly at which place she had met the stranger; but,
+alas! she had forgotten.
+
+“The gentleman said, 'he had been in town but three days; and one of his
+reasons for coming hither was to have the honor of paying his court to
+Jocasta.'
+
+“She said, 'the waters had agreed with her but indifferently.'
+
+“'The waters were for the sick,' the gentleman said: 'the young and
+beautiful came but to make them sparkle. And as the clergyman read the
+service on Sunday,' he added, 'your ladyship reminded me of the angel
+that visited the pool.' A murmur of approbation saluted this sally.
+Manilio, who is a wit when he is not at cards, was in such a rage that
+he revoked when he heard it.
+
+“Jocasta was an angel visiting the waters; but at which of the
+Bethesdas? She was puzzled more and more; and, as her way always is,
+looked the more innocent and simple, the more artful her intentions
+were.
+
+“'We were discoursing,' says she, 'about spelling of names and words
+when you came. Why should we say goold and write gold, and call china
+chayney, and Cavendish Candish, and Cholmondeley Chumley? If we call
+Pulteney Poltney, why shouldn't we call poultry pultry--and--'
+
+“'Such an enchantress as your ladyship,' says he, 'is mistress of all
+sorts of spells.' But this was Dr. Swift's pun, and we all knew it.
+
+“'And--and how do you spell your name?' says she, coming to the point at
+length; for this sprightly conversation had lasted much longer than is
+here set down, and been carried on through at least three dishes of tea.
+
+“'Oh, madam,' says he, 'I SPELL MY NAME WITH THE Y.' And laying down his
+dish, my gentleman made another elegant bow, and was gone in a moment.
+
+“Jocasta hath had no sleep since this mortification, and the stranger's
+disappearance. If balked in anything, she is sure to lose her health and
+temper; and we, her servants, suffer, as usual, during the angry fits of
+our Queen. Can you help us, Mr. Spectator, who know everything, to read
+this riddle for her, and set at rest all our minds? We find in her list,
+Mr. Berty, Mr. Smith, Mr. Pike, Mr. Tyler--who may be Mr. Bertie, Mr.
+Smyth, Mr. Pyke, Mr. Tiler, for what we know. She hath turned away
+the clerk of her visiting-book, a poor fellow with a great family of
+children. Read me this riddle, good Mr. Shortface, and oblige your
+admirer--OEDIPUS.”
+
+
+“THE TRUMPET COFFEE-HOUSE, WHITEHALL.
+
+“MR. SPECTATOR,--I am a gentleman but little acquainted with the town,
+though I have had a university education, and passed some years
+serving my country abroad, where my name is better known than in the
+coffee-house and St. James's.
+
+“Two years since my uncle died, leaving me a pretty estate in the county
+of Kent; and being at Tunbridge Wells last summer, after my mourning was
+over, and on the look-out, if truth must be told, for some young lady
+who would share with me the solitude of my great Kentish house, and be
+kind to my tenantry (for whom a woman can do a great deal more good than
+the best-intentioned man can), I was greatly fascinated by a young lady
+of London, who was the toast of all the company at the Wells. Every one
+knows Saccharissa's beauty; and I think, Mr. Spectator, no one better
+than herself.
+
+“My table-book informs me that I danced no less than seven-and-twenty
+sets with her at the Assembly. I treated her to the fiddles twice. I
+was admitted on several days to her lodging, and received by her with a
+great deal of distinction, and, for a time, was entirely her slave. It
+was only when I found, from common talk of the company at the Wells, and
+from narrowly watching one, who I once thought of asking the most sacred
+question a man can put to a woman, that I became aware how unfit she was
+to be a country gentleman's wife; and that this fair creature was but a
+heartless worldly jilt, playing with affections that she never meant to
+return, and, indeed, incapable of returning them. 'Tis admiration such
+women want, not love that touches them; and I can conceive, in her old
+age, no more wretched creature than this lady will be, when her beauty
+hath deserted her, when her admirers have left her, and she hath neither
+friendship nor religion to console her.
+
+“Business calling me to London, I went to St. James's Church last
+Sunday, and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells. Her behavior
+during the whole service was so pert, languishing, and absurd; she
+flirted her fan, and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I
+was obliged to shut my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever
+I opened them beheld hers (and very bright they are) still staring at
+me. I fell in with her afterwards at Court, and at the playhouse; and
+here nothing would satisfy her but she must elbow through the crowd
+and speak to me, and invite me to the assembly, which she holds at her
+house, not very far from Ch-r-ng Cr-ss.
+
+“Having made her a promise to attend, of course I kept my promise; and
+found the young widow in the midst of a half-dozen of card tables, and
+a crowd of wits and admirers. I made the best bow I could, and advanced
+towards her; and saw by a peculiar puzzled look in her face, though she
+tried to hide her perplexity, that she had forgotten even my name.
+
+“Her talk, artful as it was, convinced me that I had guessed aright. She
+turned the conversation most ridiculously upon the spelling of names and
+words; and I replied with as ridiculous fulsome compliments as I could
+pay her: indeed, one in which I compared her to an angel visiting the
+sick wells, went a little too far; nor should I have employed it, but
+that the allusion came from the Second Lesson last Sunday, which we both
+had heard, and I was pressed to answer her.
+
+“Then she came to the question, which I knew was awaiting me, and asked
+how I SPELT my name? 'Madam,' says I, turning on my heel, 'I spell it
+with a Y.' And so I left her, wondering at the light-heartedness of the
+town-people, who forget and make friends so easily, and resolved to look
+elsewhere for a partner for your constant reader,
+
+“CYMON WYLDOATS.”
+
+“You know my real name, Mr. Spectator, in which there is no such a
+letter as HUPSILON. But if the lady, whom I have called Saccharissa,
+wonders that I appear no more at the tea-tables, she is hereby
+respectfully informed the reason Y.”
+
+
+The above is a parable, whereof the writer will now expound the meaning.
+Jocasta was no other than Miss Esmond, Maid of Honor to her Majesty.
+She had told Mr. Esmond this little story of having met a gentleman
+somewhere, and forgetting his name, when the gentleman, with no such
+malicious intentions as those of “Cymon” in the above fable, made the
+answer simply as above; and we all laughed to think how little Mistress
+Jocasta-Beatrix had profited by her artifice and precautions.
+
+As for Cymon, he was intended to represent yours and her very humble
+servant, the writer of the apologue and of this story, which we had
+printed on a “Spectator” paper at Mr. Steele's office, exactly as
+those famous journals were printed, and which was laid on the table
+at breakfast in place of the real newspaper. Mistress Jocasta, who had
+plenty of wit, could not live without her Spectator to her tea; and
+this sham Spectator was intended to convey to the young woman that
+she herself was a flirt, and that Cymon was a gentleman of honor and
+resolution, seeing all her faults, and determined to break the chains
+once and for ever.
+
+For though enough hath been said about this love-business
+already--enough, at least, to prove to the writer's heirs what a silly
+fond fool their old grandfather was, who would like them to consider him
+as a very wise old gentleman; yet not near all has been told concerning
+this matter, which, if it were allowed to take in Esmond's journal the
+space it occupied in his time, would weary his kinsmen and women of a
+hundred years' time beyond all endurance; and form such a diary of folly
+and drivelling, raptures and rage, as no man of ordinary vanity would
+like to leave behind him.
+
+The truth is, that, whether she laughed at him or encouraged him;
+whether she smiled or was cold, and turned her smiles on another;
+worldly and ambitious, as he knew her to be; hard and careless, as she
+seemed to grow with her court life, and a hundred admirers that came to
+her and left her; Esmond, do what he would, never could get Beatrix out
+of his mind; thought of her constantly at home or away. If he read his
+name in a Gazette, or escaped the shot of a cannon-ball or a greater
+danger in the campaign, as has happened to him more than once, the
+instant thought after the honor achieved or the danger avoided, was,
+“What will SHE say of it?” “Will this distinction or the idea of this
+peril elate her or touch her, so as to be better inclined towards me?”
+ He could no more help this passionate fidelity of temper than he could
+help the eyes he saw with--one or the other seemed a part of his nature;
+and knowing every one of her faults as well as the keenest of her
+detractors, and the folly of an attachment to such a woman, of which the
+fruition could never bring him happiness for above a week, there was yet
+a charm about this Circe from which the poor deluded gentleman could
+not free himself; and for a much longer period than Ulysses (another
+middle-aged officer, who had travelled much, and been in the foreign
+wars,) Esmond felt himself enthralled and besotted by the wiles of this
+enchantress. Quit her! He could no more quit her, as the Cymon of
+this story was made to quit his false one, than he could lose his
+consciousness of yesterday. She had but to raise her finger, and he
+would come back from ever so far; she had but to say I have discarded
+such and such an adorer, and the poor infatuated wretch would be sure to
+come and roder about her mother's house, willing to be put on the ranks
+of suitors, though he knew he might be cast off the next week. If he
+were like Ulysses in his folly, at least she was in so far like Penelope
+that she had a crowd of suitors, and undid day after day and night after
+night the handiwork of fascination and the web of coquetry with which
+she was wont to allure and entertain them.
+
+Part of her coquetry may have come from her position about the Court,
+where the beautiful maid of honor was the light about which a thousand
+beaux came and fluttered; where she was sure to have a ring of admirers
+round her, crowding to listen to her repartees as much as to admire her
+beauty; and where she spoke and listened to much free talk, such as
+one never would have thought the lips or ears of Rachel Castlewood's
+daughter would have uttered or heard. When in waiting at Windsor or
+Hampton, the Court ladies and gentlemen would be making riding parties
+together; Mrs. Beatrix in a horseman's coat and hat, the foremost after
+the stag-hounds and over the park fences, a crowd of young fellows at
+her heels. If the English country ladies at this time were the most pure
+and modest of any ladies in the world--the English town and court ladies
+permitted themselves words and behavior that were neither modest nor
+pure; and claimed, some of them, a freedom which those who love that
+sex most would never wish to grant them. The gentlemen of my family that
+follow after me (for I don't encourage the ladies to pursue any such
+studies), may read in the works of Mr. Congreve, and Dr. Swift and
+others, what was the conversation and what the habits of our time.
+
+The most beautiful woman in England in 1712, when Esmond returned to
+this country, a lady of high birth, and though of no fortune to be sure,
+with a thousand fascinations of wit and manners, Beatrix Esmond was
+now six-and-twenty years old, and Beatrix Esmond still. Of her hundred
+adorers she had not chosen one for a husband; and those who had asked
+had been jilted by her; and more still had left her. A succession of
+near ten years' crops of beauties had come up since her time, and had
+been reaped by proper HUSBANDmen, if we may make an agricultural simile,
+and had been housed comfortably long ago. Her own contemporaries were
+sober mothers by this time; girls with not a tithe of her charms, or
+her wit, having made good matches, and now claiming precedence over
+the spinster who but lately had derided and outshone them. The young
+beauties were beginning to look down on Beatrix as an old maid, and
+sneer, and call her one of Charles II.'s ladies, and ask whether her
+portrait was not in the Hampton Court Gallery? But still she reigned,
+at least in one man's opinion, superior over all the little misses
+that were the toasts of the young lads; and in Esmond's eyes was ever
+perfectly lovely and young.
+
+Who knows how many were nearly made happy by possessing her, or, rather,
+how many were fortunate in escaping this siren? 'Tis a marvel to think
+that her mother was the purest and simplest woman in the whole world,
+and that this girl should have been born from her. I am inclined to
+fancy, my mistress, who never said a harsh word to her children (and
+but twice or thrice only to one person), must have been too fond and
+pressing with the maternal authority; for her son and her daughter both
+revolted early; nor after their first flight from the nest could they
+ever be brought back quite to the fond mother's bosom. Lady Castlewood,
+and perhaps it was as well, knew little of her daughter's life and real
+thoughts. How was she to apprehend what passes in Queen's ante-chambers
+and at Court tables? Mrs. Beatrix asserted her own authority so
+resolutely that her mother quickly gave in. The maid of honor had her
+own equipage; went from home and came back at her own will: her mother
+was alike powerless to resist her or to lead her, or to command or to
+persuade her.
+
+She had been engaged once, twice, thrice, to be married, Esmond
+believed. When he quitted home, it hath been said, she was promised to
+my Lord Ashburnham, and now, on his return, behold his lordship was just
+married to Lady Mary Butler, the Duke of Ormonde's daughter, and his
+fine houses, and twelve thousand a year of fortune, for which Miss
+Beatrix had rather coveted him, was out of her power. To her Esmond
+could say nothing in regard to the breaking of this match; and, asking
+his mistress about it, all Lady Castlewood answered was: “do not speak
+to me about it, Harry. I cannot tell you how or why they parted, and I
+fear to inquire. I have told you before, that with all her kindness, and
+wit, and generosity, and that sort of splendor of nature she has, I can
+say but little good of poor Beatrix, and look with dread at the marriage
+she will form. Her mind is fixed on ambition only, and making a
+great figure; and, this achieved, she will tire of it as she does
+of everything. Heaven help her husband, whoever he shall be! My Lord
+Ashburnham was a most excellent young man, gentle and yet manly, of very
+good parts, so they told me, and as my little conversation would enable
+me to judge: and a kind temper--kind and enduring I'm sure he must have
+been, from all that he had to endure. But he quitted her at last,
+from some crowning piece of caprice or tyranny of hers; and now he has
+married a young woman that will make him a thousand times happier than
+my poor girl ever could.”
+
+The rupture, whatever its cause was, (I heard the scandal, but indeed
+shall not take pains to repeat at length in this diary the trumpery
+coffee-house story,) caused a good deal of low talk; and Mr. Esmond was
+present at my lord's appearance at the Birthday with his bride, over
+whom the revenge that Beatrix took was to look so imperial and lovely
+that the modest downcast young lady could not appear beside her, and
+Lord Ashburnham, who had his reasons for wishing to avoid her, slunk
+away quite shamefaced, and very early. This time his Grace the Duke of
+Hamilton, whom Esmond had seen about her before, was constant at Miss
+Beatrix's side: he was one of the most splendid gentlemen of Europe,
+accomplished by books, by travel, by long command of the best company,
+distinguished as a statesman, having been ambassador in King Williamn's
+time, and a noble speaker in the Scots' Parliament, where he had led the
+party that was against the Union, and though now five or six and forty
+years of age, a gentleman so high in stature, accomplished in wit, and
+favored in person, that he might pretend to the hand of any Princess in
+Europe.
+
+“Should you like the Duke for a cousin?” says Mr. Secretary St. John,
+whispering to Colonel Esmond in French; “it appears that the widower
+consoles himself.”
+
+But to return to our little Spectator paper and the conversation which
+grew out of it. Miss Beatrix at first was quite BIT (as the phrase of
+that day was) and did not “smoke” the authorship of the story; indeed
+Esmond had tried to imitate as well as he could Mr. Steele's manner
+(as for the other author of the Spectator, his prose style I think is
+altogether inimitable); and Dick, who was the idlest and best-natured of
+men, would have let the piece pass into his journal and go to posterity
+as one of his own lucubrations, but that Esmond did not care to have
+a lady's name whom he loved sent forth to the world in a light so
+unfavorable. Beatrix pished and psha'd over the paper; Colonel Esmond
+watching with no little interest her countenance as she read it.
+
+“How stupid your friend Mr. Steele becomes!” cries Miss Beatrix. “Epsom
+and Tunbridge! Will he never have done with Epsom and Tunbridge, and
+with beaux at church, and Jocastas and Lindamiras? Why does he not call
+women Nelly and Betty, as their godfathers and godmothers did for them
+in their baptism?”
+
+“Beatrix. Beatrix!” says her mother, “speak gravely of grave things.”
+
+“Mamma thinks the Church Catechism came from heaven, I believe,”
+ says Beatrix, with a laugh, “and was brought down by a bishop from a
+mountain. Oh, how I used to break my heart over it! Besides, I had a
+Popish godmother, mamma; why did you give me one?”
+
+“I gave you the Queen's name,” says her mother blushing. “And a very
+pretty name it is,” said somebody else.
+
+Beatrix went on reading--“Spell my name with a Y--why, you wretch,” says
+she, turning round to Colonel Esmond, “you have been telling my story to
+Mr. Steele--or stop--you have written the paper yourself to turn me into
+ridicule. For shame, sir!”
+
+Poor Mr. Esmond felt rather frightened, and told a truth, which was
+nevertheless an entire falsehood. “Upon my honor,” says he, “I have not
+even read the Spectator of this morning.” Nor had he, for that was not
+the Spectator, but a sham newspaper put in its place.
+
+She went on reading: her face rather flushed as she read. “No,” she
+says, “I think you couldn't have written it. I think it must have been
+Mr. Steele when he was drunk--and afraid of his horrid vulgar wife.
+Whenever I see an enormous compliment to a woman, and some outrageous
+panegyric about female virtue, I always feel sure that the Captain and
+his better half have fallen out over-night, and that he has been brought
+home tipsy, or has been found out in--”
+
+“Beatrix!” cries the Lady Castlewood.
+
+“Well, mamma! Do not cry out before you are hurt. I am not going to say
+anything wrong. I won't give you more annoyance than you can help, you
+pretty kind mamma. Yes, and your little Trix is a naughty little Trix,
+and she leaves undone those things which she ought to have done, and
+does those things which she ought not to have done, and there's--well
+now--I won't go on. Yes, I will, unless you kiss me.” And with this the
+young lady lays aside her paper, and runs up to her mother and performs
+a variety of embraces with her ladyship, saying as plain as eyes could
+speak to Mr. Esmond--“There, sir: would not YOU like to play the very
+same pleasant game?”
+
+“Indeed, madam, I would,” says he.
+
+“Would what?” asked Miss Beatrix.
+
+“What you meant when you looked at me in that provoking way,” answers
+Esmond.
+
+“What a confessor!” cries Beatrix, with a laugh.
+
+“What is it Henry would like, my dear?” asks her mother, the kind soul,
+who was always thinking what we would like, and how she could please us.
+
+The girl runs up to her--“Oh, you silly kind mamma,” she says, kissing
+her again, “that's what Harry would like;” and she broke out into a
+great joyful laugh; and Lady Castlewood blushed as bashful as a maid of
+sixteen.
+
+“Look at her, Harry,” whispers Beatrix, running up, and speaking in her
+sweet low tones. “Doesn't the blush become her? Isn't she pretty? She
+looks younger than I am, and I am sure she is a hundred million thousand
+times better.”
+
+Esmond's kind mistress left the room, carrying her blushes away with
+her.
+
+“If we girls at Court could grow such roses as that,” continues Beatrix,
+with her laugh, “what wouldn't we do to preserve 'em? We'd clip their
+stalks and put 'em in salt and water. But those flowers don't bloom
+at Hampton Court and Windsor, Henry.” She paused for a minute, and the
+smile fading away from her April face, gave place to a menacing shower
+of tears; “Oh, how good she is, Harry,” Beatrix went on to say. “Oh,
+what a saint she is! Her goodness frightens me. I'm not fit to live with
+her. I should be better I think if she were not so perfect. She has had
+a great sorrow in her life, and a great secret; and repented of it. It
+could not have been my father's death. She talks freely about that; nor
+could she have loved him very much--though who knows what we women do
+love, and why?”
+
+“What, and why, indeed,” says Mr. Esmond.
+
+“No one knows,” Beatrix went on, without noticing this interruption
+except by a look, “what my mother's life is. She hath been at early
+prayer this morning; she passes hours in her closet; if you were to
+follow her thither, you would find her at prayers now. She tends the
+poor of the place--the horrid dirty poor! She sits through the curate's
+sermons--oh, those dreary sermons! And you see on a beau dire; but
+good as they are, people like her are not fit to commune with us of the
+world. There is always, as it were, a third person present, even when I
+and my mother are alone. She can't be frank with me quite; who is always
+thinking of the next world, and of her guardian angel, perhaps that's in
+company. Oh, Harry, I'm jealous of that guardian angel!” here broke out
+Mistress Beatrix. “It's horrid, I know; but my mother's life is all
+for heaven, and mine--all for earth. We can never be friends quite; and
+then, she cares more for Frank's little finger than she does for me--I
+know she does: and she loves you, sir, a great deal too much; and I hate
+you for it. I would have had her all to myself; but she wouldn't. In my
+childhood, it was my father she loved--(oh, how could she? I remember
+him kind and handsome, but so stupid, and not being able to speak after
+drinking wine). And then it was Frank; and now, it is heaven and the
+clergyman. How I would have loved her! From a child I used to be in a
+rage that she loved anybody but me; but she loved you all better--all, I
+know she did. And now, she talks of the blessed consolation of religion.
+Dear soul! she thinks she is happier for believing, as she must, that
+we are all of us wicked and miserable sinners; and this world is only a
+pied-a-terre for the good, where they stay for a night, as we do, coming
+from Walcote, at that great, dreary, uncomfortable Hounslow Inn, in
+those horrid beds--oh, do you remember those horrid beds?--and the
+chariot comes and fetches them to heaven the next morning.”
+
+“Hush, Beatrix,” says Mr. Esmond.
+
+“Hush, indeed. You are a hypocrite, too, Henry, with your grave airs
+and your glum face. We are all hypocrites. O dear me! We are all alone,
+alone, alone,” says poor Beatrix, her fair breast heaving with a sigh.
+
+“It was I that writ every line of that paper, my dear,” says Mr. Esmond.
+“You are not so worldly as you think yourself, Beatrix, and better than
+we believe you. The good we have in us we doubt of; and the happiness
+that's to our hand we throw away. You bend your ambition on a great
+marriage and establishment--and why? You'll tire of them when you win
+them; and be no happier with a coronet on your coach--”
+
+“Than riding pillion with Lubin to market,” says Beatrix. “Thank you,
+Lubin!”
+
+“I'm a dismal shepherd, to be sure,” answers Esmond, with a blush;
+“and require a nymph that can tuck my bed-clothes up, and make me
+water-gruel. Well, Tom Lockwood can do that. He took me out of the fire
+upon his shoulders, and nursed me through my illness as love will scarce
+ever do. Only good wages, and a hope of my clothes, and the contents of
+my portmanteau. How long was it that Jacob served an apprenticeship for
+Rachel?”
+
+“For mamma?” says Beatrix. “It is mamma your honor wants, and that I
+should have the happiness of calling you papa?”
+
+Esmond blushed again. “I spoke of a Rachel that a shepherd courted five
+thousand years ago; when shepherds were longer lived than now. And my
+meaning was, that since I saw you first after our separation--a child
+you were then . . .”
+
+“And I put on my best stockings to captivate you, I remember, sir . . .”
+
+“You have had my heart ever since then, such as it was; and such as you
+were, I cared for no other woman. What little reputation I have won, it
+was that you might be pleased with it: and indeed, it is not much; and
+I think a hundred fools in the army have got and deserved quite as much.
+Was there something in the air of that dismal old Castlewood that made
+us all gloomy, and dissatisfied, and lonely under its ruined old roof?
+We were all so, even when together and united, as it seemed, following
+our separate schemes, each as we sat round the table.”
+
+“Dear, dreary old place!” cries Beatrix. “Mamma hath never had the heart
+to go back thither since we left it, when--never mind how many years
+ago.” And she flung back her curls, and looked over her fair shoulder at
+the mirror superbly, as if she said, “Time, I defy you.”
+
+“Yes,” says Esmond, who had the art, as she owned, of divining many of
+her thoughts. “You can afford to look in the glass still; and only be
+pleased by the truth it tells you. As for me, do you know what my scheme
+is? I think of asking Frank to give me the Virginian estate King Charles
+gave our grandfather. (She gave a superb curtsy, as much as to say,
+'Our grandfather, indeed! Thank you, Mr. Bastard.') Yes, I know you are
+thinking of my bar-sinister, and so am I. A man cannot get over it in
+this country; unless, indeed, he wears it across a king's arms, when
+'tis a highly honorable coat; and I am thinking of retiring into the
+plantations, and building myself a wigwam in the woods, and perhaps, if
+I want company, suiting myself with a squaw. We will send your ladyship
+furs over for the winter; and, when you are old, we'll provide you with
+tobacco. I am not quite clever enough, or not rogue enough--I know not
+which--for the Old World. I may make a place for myself in the New,
+which is not so full; and found a family there. When you are a mother
+yourself, and a great lady, perhaps I shall send you over from the
+plantation some day a little barbarian that is half Esmond half Mohock,
+and you will be kind to him for his father's sake, who was, after all,
+your kinsman; and whom you loved a little.”
+
+“What folly you are talking, Harry,” says Miss Beatrix, looking with her
+great eyes.
+
+“'Tis sober earnest,” says Esmond. And, indeed, the scheme had been
+dwelling a good deal in his mind for some time past, and especially
+since his return home, when he found how hopeless, and even degrading
+to himself, his passion was. “No,” says he, then: “I have tried half a
+dozen times now. I can bear being away from you well enough; but being
+with you is intolerable” (another low curtsy on Mistress Beatrix's
+part), “and I will go. I have enough to buy axes and guns for my men,
+and beads and blankets for the savages; and I'll go and live amongst
+them.”
+
+“Mon ami,” she says quite kindly, and taking Esmond's hand, with an air
+of great compassion, “you can't think that in our position anything more
+than our present friendship is possible. You are our elder brother--as
+such we view you, pitying your misfortune, not rebuking you with it.
+Why, you are old enough and grave enough to be our father. I always
+thought you a hundred years old, Harry, with your solemn face and grave
+air. I feel as a sister to you, and can no more. Isn't that enough,
+sir?” And she put her face quite close to his--who knows with what
+intention?
+
+“It's too much,” says Esmond, turning away. “I can't bear this life,
+and shall leave it. I shall stay, I think, to see you married, and then
+freight a ship, and call it the 'Beatrix,' and bid you all . . .”
+
+Here the servant, flinging the door open, announced his Grace the Duke
+of Hamilton, and Esmond started back with something like an imprecation
+on his lips, as the nobleman entered, looking splendid in his star and
+green ribbon. He gave Mr. Esmond just that gracious bow which he would
+have given to a lackey who fetched him a chair or took his hat, and
+seated himself by Miss Beatrix, as the poor Colonel went out of the room
+with a hang-dog look.
+
+Esmond's mistress was in the lower room as he passed down stairs. She
+often met him as he was coming away from Beatrix; and she beckoned him
+into the apartment.
+
+“Has she told you, Harry?” Lady Castlewood said.
+
+“She has been very frank--very,” says Esmond.
+
+“But--but about what is going to happen?”
+
+“What is going to happen?” says he, his heart beating.
+
+“His Grace the Duke of Hamilton has proposed to her,” says my lady. “He
+made his offer yesterday. They will marry as soon as his mourning is
+over; and you have heard his Grace is appointed Ambassador to Paris; and
+the Ambassadress goes with him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+BEATRIX'S NEW SUITOR.
+
+
+The gentleman whom Beatrix had selected was, to be sure, twenty years
+older than the Colonel, with whom she quarrelled for being too old; but
+this one was but a nameless adventurer, and the other the greatest duke
+in Scotland, with pretensions even to a still higher title. My Lord Duke
+of Hamilton had, indeed, every merit belonging to a gentleman, and he
+had had the time to mature his accomplishments fully, being upwards of
+fifty years old when Madam Beatrix selected him for a bridegroom. Duke
+Hamilton, then Earl of Arran, had been educated at the famous Scottish
+university of Glasgow, and, coming to London, became a great favorite
+of Charles the Second, who made him a lord of his bedchamber, and
+afterwards appointed him ambassador to the French king, under whom the
+Earl served two campaigns as his Majesty's aide-de-camp; and he was
+absent on this service when King Charles died.
+
+King James continued my lord's promotion--made him Master of the
+Wardrobe and Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Horse; and his lordship
+adhered firmly to King James, being of the small company that never
+quitted that unfortunate monarch till his departure out of England; and
+then it was, in 1688 namely, that he made the friendship with Colonel
+Francis Esmond, that had always been, more or less, maintained in the
+two families.
+
+The Earl professed a great admiration for King William always, but never
+could give him his allegiance; and was engaged in more than one of the
+plots in the late great King's reign which always ended in the plotters'
+discomfiture, and generally in their pardon, by the magnanimity of the
+King. Lord Arran was twice prisoner in the Tower during this reign,
+undauntedly saying, when offered his release, upon parole not to engage
+against King William, that he would not give his word, because “he
+was sure he could not keep it;” but, nevertheless, he was both times
+discharged without any trial; and the King bore this noble enemy so
+little malice, that when his mother, the Duchess of Hamilton, of her
+own right, resigned her claim on her husband's death, the Earl was,
+by patent signed at Loo, 1690, created Duke of Hamilton, Marquis
+of Clydesdale, and Earl of Arran, with precedency from the original
+creation. His Grace took the oaths and his seat in the Scottish
+parliament in 1700: was famous there for his patriotism and eloquence,
+especially in the debates about the Union Bill, which Duke Hamilton
+opposed with all his strength, though he would not go the length of the
+Scottish gentry, who were for resisting it by force of arms. 'Twas
+said he withdrew his opposition all of a sudden, and in consequence
+of letters from the King at St. Germains, who entreated him on his
+allegiance not to thwart the Queen his sister in this measure; and the
+Duke, being always bent upon effecting the King's return to his kingdom
+through a reconciliation between his Majesty and Queen Anne, and quite
+averse to his landing with arms and French troops, held aloof, and
+kept out of Scotland during the time when the Chevalier de St. George's
+descent from Dunkirk was projected, passing his time in England in his
+great estate in Staffordshire.
+
+When the Whigs went out of office in 1710, the Queen began to show
+his Grace the very greatest marks of her favor. He was created Duke
+of Brandon and Baron of Dutton in England; having the Thistle already
+originally bestowed on him by King James the Second, his Grace was
+now promoted to the honor of the Garter--a distinction so great and
+illustrious, that no subject hath ever borne them hitherto together.
+When this objection was made to her Majesty, she was pleased to say,
+“Such a subject as the Duke of Hamilton has a pre-eminent claim to every
+mark of distinction which a crowned head can confer. I will henceforth
+wear both orders myself.”
+
+At the Chapter held at Windsor in October, 1712, the Duke and other
+knights, including Lord-Treasurer, the new-created Earl of Oxford
+and Mortimer, were installed; and a few days afterwards his Grace was
+appointed Ambassador-Extraordinary to France, and his equipages, plate,
+and liveries commanded, of the most sumptuous kind, not only for his
+Excellency the Ambassador, but for her Excellency the Ambassadress,
+who was to accompany him. Her arms were already quartered on the coach
+panels, and her brother was to hasten over on the appointed day to give
+her away.
+
+His lordship was a widower, having married, in 1698, Elizabeth, daughter
+of Digby Lord Gerard, by which marriage great estates came into the
+Hamilton family; and out of these estates came, in part, that tragic
+quarrel which ended the Duke's career.
+
+
+From the loss of a tooth to that of a mistress there's no pang that is
+not bearable. The apprehension is much more cruel than the certainty;
+and we make up our mind to the misfortune when 'tis irremediable, part
+with the tormentor, and mumble our crust on t'other side of the jaws.
+I think Colonel Esmond was relieved when a ducal coach and six came and
+whisked his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher
+sphere. As you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the
+clouds at the end of the piece where Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and all the
+divine company of Olympians are seated, and quaver out her last song
+as a goddess: so when this portentous elevation was accomplished in
+the Esmond family, I am not sure that every one of us did not treat the
+divine Beatrix with special honors; at least the saucy little beauty
+carried her head with a toss of supreme authority, and assumed a
+touch-me-not air, which all her friends very good-humoredly bowed to.
+
+An old army acquaintance of Colonel Esmond's, honest Tom Trett, who had
+sold his company, married a wife, and turned merchant in the city, was
+dreadfully gloomy for a long time, though living in a fine house on the
+river, and carrying on a great trade to all appearance. At length Esmond
+saw his friend's name in the Gazette as a bankrupt; and a week after
+this circumstance my bankrupt walks into Mr. Esmond's lodging with a
+face perfectly radiant with good-humor, and as jolly and careless as
+when they had sailed from Southampton ten years before for Vigo. “This
+bankruptcy,” says Tom, “has been hanging over my head these three
+years; the thought hath prevented my sleeping, and I have looked at poor
+Polly's head on t'other pillow, and then towards my razor on the table,
+and thought to put an end to myself, and so give my woes the slip. But
+now we are bankrupts: Tom Trett pays as many shillings in the pound as
+he can; his wife has a little cottage at Fulham, and her fortune secured
+to herself. I am afraid neither of bailiff nor of creditor: and for the
+last six nights have slept easy.” So it was that when Fortune shook her
+wings and left him, honest Tom cuddled himself up in his ragged virtue,
+and fell asleep.
+
+Esmond did not tell his friend how much his story applied to Esmond too;
+but he laughed at it, and used it; and having fairly struck his docket
+in this love transaction, determined to put a cheerful face on his
+bankruptcy. Perhaps Beatrix was a little offended at his gayety.
+“Is this the way, sir, that you receive the announcement of your
+misfortune,” says she, “and do you come smiling before me as if you were
+glad to be rid of me?”
+
+Esmond would not be put off from his good-humor, but told her the story
+of Tom Trett and his bankruptcy. “I have been hankering after the grapes
+on the wall,” says he, “and lost my temper because they were beyond my
+reach; was there any wonder? They're gone now, and another has them--a
+taller man than your humble servant has won them.” And the Colonel made
+his cousin a low bow.
+
+“A taller man, Cousin Esmond!” says she. “A man of spirit would have
+sealed the wall, sir, and seized them! A man of courage would have
+fought for 'em, not gaped for 'em.”
+
+“A Duke has but to gape and they drop into his mouth,” says Esmond, with
+another low bow.
+
+“Yes, sir,” says she, “a Duke IS a taller man than you. And why should I
+not be grateful to one such as his Grace, who gives me his heart and his
+great name? It is a great gift he honors me with; I know 'tis a bargain
+between us; and I accept it, and will do my utmost to perform my part of
+it. 'Tis no question of sighing and philandering between a noble man
+of his Grace's age and a girl who hath little of that softness in her
+nature. Why should I not own that I am ambitious, Harry Esmond; and if
+it be no sin in a man to covet honor, why should a woman too not desire
+it? Shall I be frank with you, Harry, and say that if you had not been
+down on your knees, and so humble, you might have fared better with
+me? A woman of my spirit, cousin, is to be won by gallantry, and not
+by sighs and rueful faces. All the time you are worshipping and singing
+hymns to me, I know very well I am no goddess, and grow weary of the
+incense. So would you have been weary of the goddess too--when she was
+called Mrs. Esmond, and got out of humor because she had not pin-money
+enough, and was forced to go about in an old gown. Eh! cousin, a
+goddess in a mob-cap, that has to make her husband's gruel, ceases to
+be divine--I am sure of it. I should have been sulky and scolded; and of
+all the proud wretches in the world Mr. Esmond is the proudest, let me
+tell him that. You never fall into a passion; but you never forgive, I
+think. Had you been a great man, you might have been good-humored; but
+being nobody, sir, you are too great a man for me; and I'm afraid of
+you, cousin--there! and I won't worship you, and you'll never be happy
+except with a woman who will. Why, after I belonged to you, and after
+one of my tantrums, you would have put the pillow over my head some
+night, and smothered me, as the black man does the woman in the play
+that you're so fond of. What's the creature's name?--Desdemona. You
+would, you little black-dyed Othello!”
+
+“I think I should, Beatrix,” says the Colonel.
+
+“And I want no such ending. I intend to live to be a hundred, and to
+go to ten thousand routs and balls, and to play cards every night of my
+life till the year eighteen hundred. And I like to be the first of my
+company, sir; and I like flattery and compliments, and you give me none;
+and I like to be made to laugh, sir, and who's to laugh at YOUR
+dismal face, I should like to know? and I like a coach-and six or a
+coach-and-eight; and I like diamonds, and a new gown every week; and
+people to say--'That's the Duchess--How well her Grace looks--Make
+way for Madame l'Ambassadrice d'Angleterre--Call her Excellency's
+people'--that's what I like. And as for you, you want a woman to bring
+your slippers and cap, and to sit at your feet, and cry, 'O caro! O
+bravo!' whilst you read your Shakespeares and Miltons and stuff. Mamma
+would have been the wife for you, had you been a little older, though
+you look ten years older than she does--you do, you glum-faced,
+blue-bearded little old man! You might have sat, like Darby and Joan,
+and flattered each other; and billed and cooed like a pair of old
+pigeons on a perch. I want my wings and to use them, sir.” And she
+spread out her beautiful arms, as if indeed she could fly off like the
+pretty “Gawrie,” whom the man in the story was enamored of.
+
+“And what will your Peter Wilkins say to your flight?” says Esmond, who
+never admired this fair creature more than when she rebelled and laughed
+at him.
+
+“A duchess knows her place,” says she, with a laugh. “Why, I have a
+son already made for me, and thirty years old (my Lord Arran), and four
+daughters. How they will scold, and what a rage they will be in, when I
+come to take the head of the table! But I give them only a month to
+be angry; at the end of that time they shall love me every one, and
+so shall Lord Arran, and so shall all his Grace's Scots vassals and
+followers in the Highlands. I'm bent on it; and when I take a thing in
+my head, 'tis done. His Grace is the greatest gentleman in Europe, and
+I'll try and make him happy; and, when the King comes back, you may
+count on my protection, Cousin Esmond--for come back the King will and
+shall; and I'll bring him back from Versailles, if he comes under my
+hoop.”
+
+“I hope the world will make you happy, Beatrix,” says Esmond, with a
+sigh. “You'll be Beatrix till you are my Lady Duchess--will you not? I
+shall then make your Grace my very lowest bow.”
+
+“None of these sighs and this satire, cousin,” she says. “I take his
+Grace's great bounty thankfully--yes, thankfully; and will wear his
+honors becomingly. I do not say he hath touched my heart; but he has my
+gratitude, obedience, admiration--I have told him that, and no more;
+and with that his noble heart is content. I have told him all--even the
+story of that poor creature that I was engaged to--and that I could not
+love; and I gladly gave his word back to him, and jumped for joy to get
+back my own. I am twenty-five years old.”
+
+“Twenty-six, my dear,” says Esmond.
+
+“Twenty-five, sir--I choose to be twenty-five; and in eight years no man
+hath ever touched my heart. Yes--you did once, for a little, Harry, when
+you came back after Lille, and engaging with that murderer Mohun, and
+saving Frank's life. I thought I could like you; and mamma begged me
+hard, on her knees, and I did--for a day. But the old chill came over
+me, Henry, and the old fear of you and your melancholy; and I was glad
+when you went away, and engaged with my Lord Ashburnham, that I might
+hear no more of you, that's the truth. You are too good for me, somehow.
+I could not make you happy, and should break my heart in trying, and
+not being able to love you. But if you had asked me when we gave you
+the sword, you might have had me, sir, and we both should have been
+miserable by this time. I talked with that silly lord all night just to
+vex you and mamma, and I succeeded, didn't I? How frankly we can talk
+of these things! It seems a thousand years ago: and, though we are here
+sitting in the same room, there is a great wall between us. My dear,
+kind, faithful, gloomy old cousin! I can like now, and admire you too,
+sir, and say that you are brave, and very kind, and very true, and a
+fine gentleman for all--for all your little mishap at your birth,” says
+she, wagging her arch head.
+
+“And now, sir,” says she, with a curtsy, “we must have no more talk
+except when mamma is by, as his Grace is with us; for he does not half
+like you, cousin, and is jealous as the black man in your favorite
+play.”
+
+Though the very kindness of the words stabbed Mr. Esmond with the
+keenest pang, he did not show his sense of the wound by any look of his
+(as Beatrix, indeed, afterwards owned to him), but said, with a perfect
+command of himself and an easy smile, “The interview must not end yet,
+my dear, until I have had my last word. Stay, here comes your mother”
+ (indeed she came in here with her sweet anxious face, and Esmond going
+up kissed her hand respectfully). “My dear lady may hear, too, the
+last words, which are no secrets, and are only a parting benediction
+accompanying a present for your marriage from an old gentleman your
+guardian; for I feel as if I was the guardian of all the family, and an
+old old fellow that is fit to be the grandfather of you all; and in this
+character let me make my Lady Duchess her wedding present. They are the
+diamonds my father's widow left me. I had thought Beatrix might have
+had them a year ago; but they are good enough for a duchess, though not
+bright enough for the handsomest woman in the world.” And he took the
+case out of his pocket in which the jewels were, and presented them to
+his cousin.
+
+She gave a cry of delight, for the stones were indeed very handsome,
+and of great value; and the next minute the necklace was where Belinda's
+cross is in Mr. Pope's admirable poem, and glittering on the whitest and
+most perfectly-shaped neck in all England.
+
+The girl's delight at receiving these trinkets was so great, that after
+rushing to the looking-glass and examining the effect they produced upon
+that fair neck which they surrounded, Beatrix was running back with her
+arms extended, and was perhaps for paying her cousin with a price, that
+he would have liked no doubt to receive from those beautiful rosy
+lips of hers, but at this moment the door opened, and his Grace the
+bridegroom elect was announced.
+
+He looked very black upon Mr. Esmond, to whom he made a very low bow
+indeed, and kissed the hand of each lady in his most ceremonious manner.
+He had come in his chair from the palace hard by, and wore his two stars
+of the Garter and the Thistle.
+
+“Look, my Lord Duke,” says Mistress Beatrix, advancing to him, and
+showing the diamonds on her breast.
+
+“Diamonds,” says his Grace. “Hm! they seem pretty.”
+
+“They are a present on my marriage,” says Beatrix.
+
+“From her Majesty?” asks the Duke. “The Queen is very good.”
+
+“From my cousin Henry--from our cousin Henry”--cry both the ladies in a
+breath.
+
+“I have not the honor of knowing the gentleman. I thought that my Lord
+Castlewood had no brother: and that on your ladyship's side there were
+no nephews.”
+
+“From our cousin, Colonel Henry Esmond, my lord,” says Beatrix, taking
+the Colonel's hand very bravely,--“who was left guardian to us by our
+father, and who has a hundred times shown his love and friendship for
+our family.”
+
+“The Duchess of Hamilton receives no diamonds but from her husband,
+madam,” says the Duke--“may I pray you to restore these to Mr. Esmond?”
+
+“Beatrix Esmond may receive a present from our kinsman and benefactor,
+my Lord Duke,” says Lady Castlewood, with an air of great dignity. “She
+is my daughter yet: and if her mother sanctions the gift--no one else
+hath the right to question it.”
+
+“Kinsman and benefactor!” says the Duke. “I know of no kinsman: and I do
+not choose that my wife should have for benefactor a--”
+
+“My lord!” says Colonel Esmond.
+
+“I am not here to bandy words,” says his Grace: “frankly I tell you
+that your visits to this house are too frequent, and that I choose no
+presents for the Duchess of Hamilton from gentlemen that bear a name
+they have no right to.”
+
+“My lord!” breaks out Lady Castlewood, “Mr. Esmond hath the best right
+to that name of any man in the world: and 'tis as old and as honorable
+as your Grace's.”
+
+My Lord Duke smiled, and looked as if Lady Castlewood was mad, that was
+so talking to him.
+
+“If I called him benefactor,” said my mistress, “it is because he has
+been so to us--yes, the noblest, the truest, the bravest, the dearest of
+benefactors. He would have saved my husband's life from Mohun's sword.
+He did save my boy's, and defended him from that villain. Are those no
+benefits?”
+
+“I ask Colonel Esmond's pardon,” says his Grace, if possible more
+haughty than before. “I would say not a word that should give him
+offence, and thank him for his kindness to your ladyship's family. My
+Lord Mohun and I are connected, you know, by marriage--though neither
+by blood nor friendship; but I must repeat what I said, that my wife can
+receive no presents from Colonel Esmond.”
+
+“My daughter may receive presents from the Head of our House: my
+daughter may thankfully take kindness from her father's, her mother's,
+her brother's dearest friend; and be grateful for one more benefit
+besides the thousand we owe him,” cries Lady Esmond. “What is a string
+of diamond stones compared to that affection he hath given us--our
+dearest preserver and benefactor? We owe him not only Frank's life, but
+our all--yes, our all,” says my mistress, with a heightened color and a
+trembling voice. “The title we bear is his, if he would claim it. 'Tis
+we who have no right to our name: not he that's too great for it. He
+sacrificed his name at my dying lord's bedside--sacrificed it to my
+orphan children; gave up rank and honor because he loved us so nobly.
+His father was Viscount of Castlewood and Marquis of Esmond before
+him; and he is his father's lawful son and true heir, and we are the
+recipients of his bounty, and he the chief of a house that's as old as
+your own. And if he is content to forego his name that my child may
+bear it, we love him and honor him and bless him under whatever name he
+bears”--and here the fond and affectionate creature would have knelt to
+Esmond again, but that he prevented her; and Beatrix, running up to her
+with a pale face and a cry of alarm, embraced her and said, “Mother,
+what is this?”
+
+“'Tis a family secret, my Lord Duke,” says Colonel Esmond: “poor Beatrix
+knew nothing of it; nor did my lady till a year ago. And I have as good
+a right to resign my title as your Grace's mother to abdicate hers to
+you.”
+
+“I should have told everything to the Duke of Hamilton,” said my
+mistress, “had his Grace applied to me for my daughter's hand, and not
+to Beatrix. I should have spoken with you this very day in private, my
+lord, had not your words brought about this sudden explanation--and now
+'tis fit Beatrix should hear it; and know, as I would have all the world
+know, what we owe to our kinsman and patron.”
+
+And then in her touching way, and having hold of her daughter's hand,
+and speaking to her rather than my Lord Duke, Lady Castlewood told the
+story which you know already--lauding up to the skies her kinsman's
+behavior. On his side Mr. Esmond explained the reasons that seemed quite
+sufficiently cogent with him, why the succession in the family, as at
+present it stood, should not be disturbed; and he should remain as he
+was, Colonel Esmond.
+
+“And Marquis of Esmond, my lord,” says his Grace, with a low bow.
+“Permit me to ask your lordship's pardon for words that were uttered in
+ignorance; and to beg for the favor of your friendship. To be allied to
+you, sir, must be an honor under whatever name you are known” (so his
+Grace was pleased to say); “and in return for the splendid present you
+make my wife, your kinswoman, I hope you will please to command any
+service that James Douglas can perform. I shall never be easy until I
+repay you a part of my obligations at least; and ere very long, and with
+the mission her Majesty hath given me,” says the Duke, “that may perhaps
+be in my power. I shall esteem it as a favor, my lord, if Colonel Esmond
+will give away the bride.”
+
+“And if he will take the usual payment in advance, he is welcome,” says
+Beatrix, stepping up to him; and, as Esmond kissed her, she whispered,
+“Oh, why didn't I know you before?”
+
+My Lord Duke was as hot as a flame at this salute, but said never a
+word: Beatrix made him a proud curtsy, and the two ladies quitted the
+room together.
+
+“When does your Excellency go for Paris?” asks Colonel Esmond.
+
+“As soon after the ceremony as may be,” his Grace answered. “'Tis fixed
+for the first of December: it cannot be sooner. The equipage will not be
+ready till then. The Queen intends the embassy should be very grand--and
+I have law business to settle. That ill-omened Mohun has come, or is
+coming, to London again: we are in a lawsuit about my late Lord Gerard's
+property; and he hath sent to me to meet him.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MOHUN APPEARS FOR THE LAST TIME IN THIS HISTORY.
+
+
+Besides my Lord Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who for family reasons had
+kindly promised his protection and patronage to Colonel Esmond, he had
+other great friends in power now, both able and willing to assist him,
+and he might, with such allies, look forward to as fortunate advancement
+in civil life at home as he had got rapid promotion abroad. His Grace
+was magnanimous enough to offer to take Mr. Esmond as secretary on
+his Paris embassy, but no doubt he intended that proposal should be
+rejected; at any rate, Esmond could not bear the thoughts of attending
+his mistress farther than the church-door after her marriage, and so
+declined that offer which his generous rival made him.
+
+Other gentlemen in power were liberal at least of compliments and
+promises to Colonel Esmond. Mr. Harley, now become my Lord Oxford and
+Mortimer, and installed Knight of the Garter on the same day as his
+Grace of Hamilton had received the same honor, sent to the Colonel to
+say that a seat in Parliament should be at his disposal presently,
+and Mr. St. John held out many flattering hopes of advancement to
+the Colonel when he should enter the House. Esmond's friends were all
+successful, and the most successful and triumphant of all was his dear
+old commander, General Webb, who was now appointed Lieutenant-General of
+the Land Forces, and received with particular honor by the Ministry, by
+the Queen, and the people out of doors, who huzza'd the brave chief
+when they used to see him in his chariot going to the House or to the
+Drawing-room, or hobbling on foot to his coach from St. Stephen's upon
+his glorious old crutch and stick, and cheered him as loud as they had
+ever done Marlborough.
+
+That great Duke was utterly disgraced; and honest old Webb dated all
+his Grace's misfortunes from Wynendael, and vowed that Fate served the
+traitor right. Duchess Sarah had also gone to ruin; she had been forced
+to give up her keys, and her places, and her pensions:--“Ah, ah!” says
+Webb, “she would have locked up three millions of French crowns with her
+keys had I but been knocked on the head, but I stopped that convoy at
+Wynendael.” Our enemy Cardonnel was turned out of the House of Commons
+(along with Mr. Walpole) for malversation of public money. Cadogan lost
+his place of Lieutenant of the Tower. Marlborough's daughters resigned
+their posts of ladies of the bedchamber; and so complete was the Duke's
+disgrace, that his son-in-law, Lord Bridgewater, was absolutely obliged
+to give up his lodgings at St. James's, and had his half-pension,
+as Master of the Horse, taken away. But I think the lowest depth of
+Marlborough's fall was when he humbly sent to ask General Webb when he
+might wait upon him; he who had commanded the stout old General, who
+had injured him and sneered at him, who had kept him dangling in his
+ante-chamber, who could not even after his great service condescend to
+write him a letter in his own hand. The nation was as eager for peace as
+ever it had been hot for war. The Prince of Savoy came amongst us, had
+his audience of the Queen, and got his famous Sword of Honor, and strove
+with all his force to form a Whig party together, to bring over the
+young Prince of Hanover to do anything which might prolong the war, and
+consummate the ruin of the old sovereign whom he hated so implacably.
+But the nation was tired of the struggle: so completely wearied of it
+that not even our defeat at Denain could rouse us into any anger, though
+such an action so lost two years before would have set all England in
+a fury. 'Twas easy to see that the great Marlborough was not with the
+army. Eugene was obliged to fall back in a rage, and forego the dazzling
+revenge of his life. 'Twas in vain the Duke's side asked, “Would we
+suffer our arms to be insulted? Would we not send back the only
+champion who could repair our honor?” The nation had had its bellyful of
+fighting; nor could taunts or outcries goad up our Britons any more.
+
+For a statesman that was always prating of liberty, and had the grandest
+philosophic maxims in his mouth, it must be owned that Mr. St. John
+sometimes rather acted like a Turkish than a Greek philosopher, and
+especially fell foul of one unfortunate set of men, the men of letters,
+with a tyranny a little extraordinary in a man who professed to respect
+their calling so much. The literary controversy at this time was very
+bitter, the Government side was the winning one, the popular one, and
+I think might have been the merciful one. 'Twas natural that the
+opposition should be peevish and cry out: some men did so from their
+hearts, admiring the Duke of Marlborough's prodigious talents, and
+deploring the disgrace of the greatest general the world ever knew:
+'twas the stomach that caused other patriots to grumble, and such men
+cried out because they were poor, and paid to do so. Against these my
+Lord Bolingbroke never showed the slightest mercy, whipping a dozen into
+prison or into the pillory without the least commiseration.
+
+From having been a man of arms Mr. Esmond had now come to be a man of
+letters, but on a safer side than that in which the above-cited poor
+fellows ventured their liberties and ears. There was no danger on ours,
+which was the winning side; besides, Mr. Esmond pleased himself by
+thinking that he writ like a gentleman if he did not always succeed as a
+wit.
+
+Of the famous wits of that age, who have rendered Queen Anne's reign
+illustrious, and whose works will be in all Englishmen's hands in ages
+yet to come, Mr. Esmond saw many, but at public places chiefly; never
+having a great intimacy with any of them, except with honest Dick Steele
+and Mr. Addison, who parted company with Esmond, however, when that
+gentleman became a declared Tory, and lived on close terms with the
+leading persons of that party. Addison kept himself to a few friends,
+and very rarely opened himself except in their company. A man more
+upright and conscientious than he it was not possible to find in public
+life, and one whose conversation was so various, easy, and delightful.
+Writing now in my mature years, I own that I think Addison's politics
+were the right, and were my time to come over again, I would be a Whig
+in England and not a Tory; but with people that take a side in politics,
+'tis men rather than principles that commonly bind them. A kindness or a
+slight puts a man under one flag or the other, and he marches with it
+to the end of the campaign. Esmond's master in war was injured by
+Marlborough, and hated him: and the lieutenant fought the quarrels of
+his leader. Webb coming to London was used as a weapon by Marlborough's
+enemies (and true steel he was, that honest chief); nor was his
+aide-de-camp, Mr. Esmond, an unfaithful or unworthy partisan. 'Tis
+strange here, and on a foreign soil, and in a land that is independent
+in all but the name, (for that the North American colonies shall remain
+dependants on yonder little island for twenty years more, I never can
+think,) to remember how the nation at home seemed to give itself up to
+the domination of one or other aristocratic party, and took a Hanoverian
+king, or a French one, according as either prevailed. And while the
+Tories, the October club gentlemen, the High Church parsons that held by
+the Church of England, were for having a Papist king, for whom many of
+their Scottish and English leaders, firm churchmen all, laid down their
+lives with admirable loyalty and devotion; they were governed by men who
+had notoriously no religion at all, but used it as they would use any
+opinion for the purpose of forwarding their own ambition. The Whigs, on
+the other hand, who professed attachment to religion and liberty too,
+were compelled to send to Holland or Hanover for a monarch around
+whom they could rally. A strange series of compromises is that English
+History; compromise of principle, compromise of party, compromise of
+worship! The lovers of English freedom and independence submitted their
+religious consciences to an Act of Parliament; could not consolidate
+their liberty without sending to Zell or the Hague for a king to live
+under; and could not find amongst the proudest people in the world a
+man speaking their own language, and understanding their laws, to govern
+them. The Tory and High Church patriots were ready to die in defence of
+a Papist family that had sold us to France; the great Whig nobles, the
+sturdy republican recusants who had cut off Charles Stuart's head for
+treason, were fain to accept a king whose title came to him through a
+royal grandmother, whose own royal grandmother's head had fallen under
+Queen Bess's hatchet. And our proud English nobles sent to a petty
+German town for a monarch to come and reign in London and our prelates
+kissed the ugly hands of his Dutch mistresses, and thought it no
+dishonor. In England you can but belong to one party or t'other, and you
+take the house you live in with all its encumbrances, its retainers, its
+antique discomforts, and ruins even; you patch up, but you never build
+up anew. Will we of the new world submit much longer, even nominally,
+to this ancient British superstition? There are signs of the times which
+make me think that ere long we shall care as little about King George
+here, and peers temporal and peers spiritual, as we do for King Canute
+or the Druids.
+
+This chapter began about the wits, my grandson may say, and hath
+wandered very far from their company. The pleasantest of the wits I
+knew were the Doctors Garth and Arbuthnot, and Mr. Gay, the author of
+“Trivia,” the most charming kind soul that ever laughed at a joke or
+cracked a bottle. Mr. Prior I saw, and he was the earthen pot swimming
+with the pots of brass down the stream, and always and justly frightened
+lest he should break in the voyage. I met him both at London and Paris,
+where he was performing piteous congees to the Duke of Shrewsbury, not
+having courage to support the dignity which his undeniable genius and
+talent had won him, and writing coaxing letters to Secretary St. John,
+and thinking about his plate and his place, and what on earth should
+become of him should his party go out. The famous Mr. Congreve I saw
+a dozen of times at Button's, a splendid wreck of a man, magnificently
+attired, and though gouty, and almost blind, bearing a brave face
+against fortune.
+
+The great Mr. Pope (of whose prodigious genius I have no words to
+express my admiration) was quite a puny lad at this time, appearing
+seldom in public places. There were hundreds of men, wits, and pretty
+fellows frequenting the theatres and coffee-houses of that day--whom
+“nunc perscribere longum est.” Indeed I think the most brilliant of that
+sort I ever saw was not till fifteen years afterwards, when I paid my
+last visit in England, and met young Harry Fielding, son of the Fielding
+that served in Spain and afterwards in Flanders with us, and who for fun
+and humor seemed to top them all. As for the famous Dr. Swift, I can say
+of him, “Vidi tantum.” He was in London all these years up to the death
+of the Queen; and in a hundred public places where I saw him, but no
+more; he never missed Court of a Sunday, where once or twice he was
+pointed out to your grandfather. He would have sought me out eagerly
+enough had I been a great man with a title to my name, or a star on my
+coat. At Court the Doctor had no eyes but for the very greatest. Lord
+Treasurer and St. John used to call him Jonathan, and they paid him
+with this cheap coin for the service they took of him. He writ their
+lampoons, fought their enemies, flogged and bullied in their service,
+and it must be owned with a consummate skill and fierceness. 'Tis said
+he hath lost his intellect now, and forgotten his wrongs and his rage
+against mankind. I have always thought of him and of Marlborough as the
+two greatest men of that age. I have read his books (who doth not know
+them?) here in our calm woods, and imagine a giant to myself as I think
+of him, a lonely fallen Prometheus, groaning as the vulture tears him.
+Prometheus I saw, but when first I ever had any words with him, the
+giant stepped out of a sedan chair in the Poultry, whither he had come
+with a tipsy Irish servant parading before him, who announced him,
+bawling out his Reverence's name, whilst his master below was as yet
+haggling with the chairman. I disliked this Mr. Swift, and heard many a
+story about him, of his conduct to men, and his words to women. He could
+flatter the great as much as he could bully the weak; and Mr. Esmond,
+being younger and hotter in that day than now, was determined, should he
+ever meet this dragon, not to run away from his teeth and his fire.
+
+Men have all sorts of motives which carry them onwards in life, and are
+driven into acts of desperation, or it may be of distinction, from a
+hundred different causes. There was one comrade of Esmond's, an honest
+little Irish lieutenant of Handyside's, who owed so much money to a camp
+sutler, that he began to make love to the man's daughter, intending to
+pay his debt that way; and at the battle of Malplaquet, flying away from
+the debt and lady too, he rushed so desperately on the French lines,
+that he got his company; and came a captain out of the action, and had
+to marry the sutler's daughter after all, who brought him his cancelled
+debt to her father as poor Roger's fortune. To run out of the reach of
+bill and marriage, he ran on the enemy's pikes; and as these did not
+kill him he was thrown back upon t'other horn of his dilemma. Our great
+Duke at the same battle was fighting, not the French, but the Tories in
+England; and risking his life and the army's, not for his country but
+for his pay and places; and for fear of his wife at home, that only
+being in life whom he dreaded. I have asked about men in my own company,
+(new drafts of poor country boys were perpetually coming over to us
+during the wars, and brought from the ploughshare to the sword,) and
+found that a half of them under the flags were driven thither on account
+of a woman: one fellow was jilted by his mistress and took the shilling
+in despair; another jilted the girl, and fled from her and the parish
+to the tents where the law could not disturb him. Why go on
+particularizing? What can the sons of Adam and Eve expect, but to
+continue in that course of love and trouble their father and mother set
+out on? Oh, my grandson! I am drawing nigh to the end of that period of
+my history, when I was acquainted with the great world of England and
+Europe; my years are past the Hebrew poet's limit, and I say unto thee,
+all my troubles and joys too, for that matter, have come from a woman;
+as thine will when thy destined course begins. 'Twas a woman that made a
+soldier of me, that set me intriguing afterwards; I believe I would have
+spun smocks for her had she so bidden me; what strength I had in my head
+I would have given her; hath not every man in his degree had his Omphale
+and Delilah? Mine befooled me on the banks of the Thames, and in dear
+old England; thou mayest find thine own by Rappahannock.
+
+To please that woman then I tried to distinguish myself as a soldier,
+and afterwards as a wit and a politician; as to please another I would
+have put on a black cassock and a pair of bands, and had done so but
+that a superior fate intervened to defeat that project. And I say, I
+think the world is like Captain Esmond's company I spoke of anon;
+and could you see every man's career in life, you would find a woman
+clogging him; or clinging round his march and stopping him; or cheering
+him and goading him: or beckoning him out of her chariot, so that he
+goes up to her, and leaves the race to be run without him or bringing
+him the apple, and saying “Eat;” or fetching him the daggers and
+whispering “Kill! yonder lies Duncan, and a crown, and an opportunity.”
+
+Your grandfather fought with more effect as a politician than as a
+wit: and having private animosities and grievances of his own and
+his General's against the great Duke in command of the army, and more
+information on military matters than most writers, who had never seen
+beyond the fire of a tobacco-pipe at “Wills's,” he was enabled to do
+good service for that cause which he embarked in, and for Mr. St. John
+and his party. But he disdained the abuse in which some of the Tory
+writers indulged; for instance, Dr. Swift, who actually chose to doubt
+the Duke of Marlborough's courage, and was pleased to hint that his
+Grace's military capacity was doubtful: nor were Esmond's performances
+worse for the effect they were intended to produce, (though no doubt
+they could not injure the Duke of Marlborough nearly so much in the
+public eyes as the malignant attacks of Swift did, which were carefully
+directed so as to blacken and degrade him,) because they were writ
+openly and fairly by Mr. Esmond, who made no disguise of them, who was
+now out of the army, and who never attacked the prodigious courage and
+talents, only the selfishness and rapacity, of the chief.
+
+The Colonel then, having writ a paper for one of the Tory journals,
+called the Post-Boy, (a letter upon Bouchain, that the town talked about
+for two whole days, when the appearance of an Italian singer supplied
+a fresh subject for conversation,) and having business at the Exchange,
+where Mistress Beatrix wanted a pair of gloves or a fan very likely,
+Esmond went to correct his paper, and was sitting at the printer's, when
+the famous Doctor Swift came in, his Irish fellow with him that used
+to walk before his chair, and bawled out his master's name with great
+dignity.
+
+Mr. Esmond was waiting for the printer too, whose wife had gone to the
+tavern to fetch him, and was meantime engaged in drawing a picture of
+a soldier on horseback for a dirty little pretty boy of the printer's
+wife, whom she had left behind her.
+
+“I presume you are the editor of the Post-Boy, sir?” says the Doctor,
+in a grating voice that had an Irish twang; and he looked at the Colonel
+from under his two bushy eyebrows with a pair of very clear blue eyes.
+His complexion was muddy, his figure rather fat, his chin double. He
+wore a shabby cassock, and a shabby hat over his black wig, and he
+pulled out a great gold watch, at which he looks very fierce.
+
+“I am but a contributor, Doctor Swift,” says Esmond, with the little boy
+still on his knee. He was sitting with his back in the window, so that
+the Doctor could not see him.
+
+“Who told you I was Dr. Swift?” says the Doctor, eying the other very
+haughtily.
+
+“Your Reverence's valet bawled out your name,” says the Colonel. “I
+should judge you brought him from Ireland?”
+
+“And pray, sir, what right have you to judge whether my servant came
+from Ireland or no? I want to speak with your employer, Mr. Leach. I'll
+thank ye go fetch him.”
+
+“Where's your papa, Tommy?” asks the Colonel of the child, a smutty
+little wretch in a frock.
+
+Instead of answering, the child begins to cry; the Doctor's appearance
+had no doubt frightened the poor little imp.
+
+“Send that squalling little brat about his business, and do what I bid
+ye, sir,” says the Doctor.
+
+“I must finish, the picture first for Tommy,” says the Colonel,
+laughing. “Here, Tommy, will you have your Pandour with whiskers or
+without?”
+
+“Whisters,” says Tommy, quite intent on the picture.
+
+“Who the devil are ye, sir?” cries the Doctor; “are ye a printer's man
+or are ye not?” he pronounced it like NAUGHT.
+
+“Your reverence needn't raise the devil to ask who I am,” says Colonel
+Esmond. “Did you ever hear of Doctor Faustus, little Tommy? or Friar
+Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and set the Thames on fire?”
+
+Mr. Swift turned quite red, almost purple. “I did not intend any
+offence, sir,” says he.
+
+“I dare say, sir, you offended without meaning,” says the other, dryly.
+
+“Who are ye, sir? Do you know who I am, sir? You are one of the pack
+of Grub Street scribblers that my friend Mr. Secretary hath laid by the
+heels. How dare ye, sir, speak to me in this tone?” cries the Doctor, in
+a great fume.
+
+“I beg your honor's humble pardon if I have offended your honor,” says
+Esmond in a tone of great humility. “Rather than be sent to the Compter,
+or be put in the pillory, there's nothing I wouldn't do. But Mrs.
+Leach, the printer's lady, told me to mind Tommy whilst she went for her
+husband to the tavern, and I daren't leave the child lest he should fall
+into the fire; but if your Reverence will hold him--”
+
+“I take the little beast!” says the Doctor, starting back. “I am
+engaged to your betters, fellow. Tell Mr. Leach that when he makes an
+appointment with Dr. Swift he had best keep it, do ye hear? And keep a
+respectful tongue in your head, sir, when you address a person like me.”
+
+“I'm but a poor broken-down soldier,” says the Colonel, “and I've seen
+better days, though I am forced now to turn my hand to writing. We can't
+help our fate, sir.”
+
+“You're the person that Mr. Leach hath spoken to me of, I presume. Have
+the goodness to speak civilly when you are spoken to--and tell Leach
+to call at my lodgings in Bury Street, and bring the papers with him
+to-night at ten o'clock. And the next time you see me, you'll know me,
+and be civil, Mr. Kemp.”
+
+Poor Kemp, who had been a lieutenant at the beginning of the war, and
+fallen into misfortune, was the writer of the Post-Boy, and now took
+honest Mr. Leach's pay in place of her Majesty's. Esmond had seen this
+gentleman, and a very ingenious, hardworking honest fellow he was,
+toiling to give bread to a great family, and watching up many a long
+winter night to keep the wolf from his door. And Mr. St. John, who had
+liberty always on his tongue, had just sent a dozen of the opposition
+writers into prison, and one actually into the pillory, for what he
+called libels, but libels not half so violent as those writ on our
+side. With regard to this very piece of tyranny, Esmond had remonstrated
+strongly with the Secretary, who laughed and said the rascals were
+served quite right; and told Esmond a joke of Swift's regarding the
+matter. Nay, more, this Irishman, when St. John was about to pardon
+a poor wretch condemned to death for rape, absolutely prevented the
+Secretary from exercising this act of good-nature, and boasted that he
+had had the man hanged; and great as the Doctor's genius might be, and
+splendid his ability, Esmond for one would affect no love for him, and
+never desired to make his acquaintance. The Doctor was at Court every
+Sunday assiduously enough, a place the Colonel frequented but rarely,
+though he had a great inducement to go there in the person of a fair
+maid of honor of her Majesty's; and the airs and patronage Mr.
+Swift gave himself, forgetting gentlemen of his country whom he knew
+perfectly, his loud talk at once insolent and servile, nay, perhaps his
+very intimacy with Lord Treasurer and the Secretary, who indulged all
+his freaks and called him Jonathan, you may be sure, were remarked by
+many a person of whom the proud priest himself took no note, during that
+time of his vanity and triumph.
+
+'Twas but three days after the 15th of November, 1712 (Esmond minds him
+well of the date), that he went by invitation to dine with his General,
+the foot of whose table he used to take on these festive occasions, as
+he had done at many a board, hard and plentiful, during the campaign.
+This was a great feast, and of the latter sort; the honest old gentleman
+loved to treat his friends splendidly: his Grace of Ormonde, before he
+joined his army as generalissimo, my Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, one of
+her Majesty's Secretaries of State, my Lord Orkney, that had served
+with us abroad, being of the party. His Grace of Hamilton, Master of
+the Ordnance, and in whose honor the feast had been given, upon his
+approaching departure as Ambassador to Paris, had sent an excuse to
+General Webb at two o'clock, but an hour before the dinner: nothing but
+the most immediate business, his Grace said, should have prevented him
+having the pleasure of drinking a parting glass to the health of General
+Webb. His absence disappointed Esmond's old chief, who suffered much
+from his wounds besides; and though the company was grand, it was rather
+gloomy. St. John came last, and brought a friend with him: “I'm sure,”
+ says my General, bowing very politely, “my table hath always a place for
+Dr. Swift.”
+
+Mr. Esmond went up to the Doctor with a bow and a smile:--“I gave Dr.
+Swift's message,” says he, “to the printer: I hope he brought your
+pamphlet to your lodgings in time.” Indeed poor Leach had come to his
+house very soon after the Doctor left it, being brought away rather
+tipsy from the tavern by his thrifty wife; and he talked of Cousin Swift
+in a maudlin way, though of course Mr. Esmond did not allude to this
+relationship. The Doctor scowled, blushed, and was much confused, and
+said scarce a word during the whole of dinner. A very little stone
+will sometimes knock down these Goliaths of wit; and this one was often
+discomfited when met by a man of any spirit; he took his place sulkily,
+put water in his wine that the others drank plentifully, and scarce said
+a word.
+
+The talk was about the affairs of the day, or rather about persons than
+affairs: my Lady Marlborough's fury, her daughters in old clothes and
+mob-caps looking out from their windows and seeing the company pass to
+the Drawing-room; the gentleman-usher's horror when the Prince of
+Savoy was introduced to her Majesty in a tie-wig, no man out of a
+full-bottomed periwig ever having kissed the Royal hand before; about
+the Mohawks and the damage they were doing, rushing through the town,
+killing and murdering. Some one said the ill-omened face of Mohun had
+been seen at the theatre the night before, and Macartney and Meredith
+with him. Meant to be a feast, the meeting, in spite of drink and talk,
+was as dismal as a funeral. Every topic started subsided into gloom.
+His Grace of Ormonde went away because the conversation got upon Denain,
+where we had been defeated in the last campaign. Esmond's General
+was affected at the allusion to this action too, for his comrade of
+Wynendael, the Count of Nassau Woudenbourg, had been slain there. Mr.
+Swift, when Esmond pledged him, said he drank no wine, and took his hat
+from the peg and went away, beckoning my Lord Bolingbroke to follow him;
+but the other bade him take his chariot and save his coach-hire--he had
+to speak with Colonel Esmond; and when the rest of the company withdrew
+to cards, these two remained behind in the dark.
+
+Bolingbroke always spoke freely when he had drunk freely. His enemies
+could get any secret out of him in that condition; women were even
+employed to ply him, and take his words down. I have heard that my Lord
+Stair, three years after, when the Secretary fled to France and became
+the Pretender's Minister, got all the information he wanted by putting
+female spies over St. John in his cups. He spoke freely now:--“Jonathan
+knows nothing of this for certain, though he suspects it, and by George,
+Webb will take an Archbishopric, and Jonathan a--no,--damme--Jonathan
+will take an Arch-bishopric from James, I warrant me, gladly enough.
+Your Duke hath the string of the whole matter in his hand,” the
+Secretary went on. “We have that which will force Marlborough to keep
+his distance, and he goes out of London in a fortnight. Prior hath his
+business; he left me this morning, and mark me, Harry, should fate carry
+off our august, our beloved, our most gouty and plethoric Queen, and
+Defender of the Faith, la bonne cause triomphera. A la sante de la bonne
+cause! Everything good comes from France. Wine comes from France; give
+us another bumper to the bonne cause.” We drank it together.
+
+“Will the bonne cause turn Protestant?” asked Mr. Esmond.
+
+“No, hang it,” says the other, “he'll defend our Faith as in duty bound,
+but he'll stick by his own. The Hind and the Panther shall run in the
+same car, by Jove. Righteousness and peace shall kiss each other: and
+we'll have Father Massillon to walk down the aisle of St. Paul's, cheek
+by jowl with Dr. Sacheverel. Give us more wine; here's a health to the
+bonne cause, kneeling--damme, let's drink it kneeling.” He was quite
+flushed and wild with wine as he was talking.
+
+“And suppose,” says Esmond, who always had this gloomy apprehension,
+“the bonne cause should give us up to the French, as his father and
+uncle did before him?”
+
+“Give us up to the French!” starts up Bolingbroke; “is there any English
+gentleman that fears that? You who have seen Blenheim and Ramillies,
+afraid of the French! Your ancestors and mine, and brave old Webb's
+yonder, have met them in a hundred fields, and our children will be
+ready to do the like. Who's he that wishes for more men from England? My
+Cousin Westmoreland? Give us up to the French, pshaw!”
+
+“His uncle did,” says Mr. Esmond.
+
+“And what happened to his grandfather?” broke out St. John, filling out
+another bumper. “Here's to the greatest monarch England ever saw; here's
+to the Englishman that made a kingdom of her. Our great King came from
+Huntingdon, not Hanover; our fathers didn't look for a Dutchman to rule
+us. Let him come and we'll keep him, and we'll show him Whitehall. If
+he's a traitor let us have him here to deal with him; and then there are
+spirits here as great as any that have gone before. There are men
+here that can look at danger in the face and not be frightened at it.
+Traitor! treason! what names are these to scare you and me? Are all
+Oliver's men dead, or his glorious name forgotten in fifty years? Are
+there no men equal to him, think you, as good--ay, as good? God save the
+King! and, if the monarchy fails us, God save the British Republic!”
+
+He filled another great bumper, and tossed it up and drained it wildly,
+just as the noise of rapid carriage-wheels approaching was stopped at
+our door, and after a hurried knock and a moment's interval, Mr. Swift
+came into the hall, ran up stairs to the room we were dining in, and
+entered it with a perturbed face. St. John, excited with drink, was
+making some wild quotation out of Macbeth, but Swift stopped him.
+
+“Drink no more, my lord, for God's sake!” says he. “I come with the most
+dreadful news.”
+
+“Is the Queen dead?” cries out Bolingbroke, seizing on a water-glass.
+
+“No, Duke Hamilton is dead: he was murdered an hour ago by Mohun and
+Macartney; they had a quarrel this morning; they gave him not so much
+time as to write a letter. He went for a couple of his friends, and he
+is dead, and Mohun, too, the bloody villain, who was set on him. They
+fought in Hyde Park just before sunset; the Duke killed Mohun, and
+Macartney came up and stabbed him, and the dog is fled. I have your
+chariot below; send to every part of the country and apprehend that
+villain; come to the Duke's house and see if any life be left in him.”
+
+“Oh, Beatrix, Beatrix,” thought Esmond, “and here ends my poor girl's
+ambition!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+POOR BEATRIX.
+
+
+There had been no need to urge upon Esmond the necessity of a separation
+between him and Beatrix: Fate had done that completely; and I think from
+the very moment poor Beatrix had accepted the Duke's offer, she began
+to assume the majestic air of a Duchess, nay, Queen Elect, and to carry
+herself as one sacred and removed from us common people. Her mother
+and kinsman both fell into her ways, the latter scornfully perhaps, and
+uttering his usual gibes at her vanity and his own. There was a certain
+charm about this girl of which neither Colonel Esmond nor his fond
+mistress could forego the fascination; in spite of her faults and her
+pride and wilfulness, they were forced to love her; and, indeed, might
+be set down as the two chief flatterers of the brilliant creature's
+court.
+
+Who, in the course of his life, hath not been so bewitched, and
+worshipped some idol or another? Years after this passion hath been dead
+and buried, along with a thousand other worldly cares and ambitions, he
+who felt it can recall it out of its grave, and admire, almost as fondly
+as he did in his youth, that lovely queenly creature. I invoke that
+beautiful spirit from the shades and love her still; or rather I should
+say such a past is always present to a man; such a passion once felt
+forms a part of his whole being, and cannot be separated from it; it
+becomes a portion of the man of to-day, just as any great faith or
+conviction, the discovery of poetry, the awakening of religion, ever
+afterwards influence him; just as the wound I had at Blenheim, and of
+which I wear the scar, hath become part of my frame and influenced my
+whole body, nay, spirit subsequently, though 'twas got and healed forty
+years ago. Parting and forgetting! What faithful heart can do these?
+Our great thoughts, our great affections, the Truths of our life, never
+leave us. Surely, they cannot separate from our consciousness; shall
+follow it whithersoever that shall go; and are of their nature divine
+and immortal.
+
+With the horrible news of this catsstrophe, which was confirmed by the
+weeping domestics at the Duke's own door, Esmond rode homewards as quick
+as his lazy coach would carry him, devising all the time how he should
+break the intelligence to the person most concerned in it; and if a
+satire upon human vanity could be needed, that poor soul afforded it in
+the altered company and occupations in which Esmond found her. For
+days before, her chariot had been rolling the street from mercer to
+toyshop--from goldsmith to laceman: her taste was perfect, or at least
+the fond bridegroom had thought so, and had given her entire authority
+over all tradesmen, and for all the plate, furniture and equipages, with
+which his Grace the Ambassador wished to adorn his splendid mission. She
+must have her picture by Kneller, a duchess not being complete without
+a portrait, and a noble one he made, and actually sketched in, on a
+cushion, a coronet which she was about to wear. She vowed she would wear
+it at King James the Third's coronation, and never a princess in the
+land would have become ermine better. Esmond found the ante-chamber
+crowded with milliners and toyshop women, obsequious goldsmiths with
+jewels, salvers, and tankards; and mercers' men with hangings, and
+velvets, and brocades. My Lady Duchess elect was giving audience to
+one famous silversmith from Exeter Change, who brought with him a great
+chased salver, of which he was pointing out the beauties as Colonel
+Esmond entered. “Come,” says she, “cousin, and admire the taste of this
+pretty thing.” I think Mars and Venus were lying in the golden bower,
+that one gilt Cupid carried off the war-god's casque--another his
+sword--another his great buckler, upon which my Lord Duke Hamilton's
+arms with ours were to be engraved--and a fourth was kneeling down to
+the reclining goddess with the ducal coronet in her hands, God help us!
+The next time Mr. Esmond saw that piece of plate, the arms were changed,
+the ducal coronet had been replaced by a viscount's; it formed part of
+the fortune of the thrifty goldsmith's own daughter, when she married my
+Lord Viscount Squanderfield two years after.
+
+“Isn't this a beautiful piece?” says Beatrix, examining it, and she
+pointed out the arch graces of the Cupids, and the fine carving of the
+languid prostrate Mars. Esmond sickened as he thought of the warrior
+dead in his chamber, his servants and children weeping around him; and
+of this smiling creature attiring herself, as it were, for that nuptial
+death-bed. “'Tis a pretty piece of vanity,” says he, looking gloomily at
+the beautiful creature: there were flambeaux in the room lighting up the
+brilliant mistress of it. She lifted up the great gold salver with her
+fair arms.
+
+“Vanity!” says she, haughtily. “What is vanity in you, sir, is propriety
+in me. You ask a Jewish price for it, Mr. Graves; but have it I will, if
+only to spite Mr. Esmond.”
+
+“Oh, Beatrix, lay it down!” says Mr. Esmond. “Herodias! you know not
+what you carry in the charger.”
+
+She dropped it with a clang; the eager goldsmith running to seize
+his fallen ware. The lady's face caught the fright from Esmond's pale
+countenance, and her eyes shone out like beacons of alarm:--“What is it,
+Henry!” says she, running to him, and seizing both his hands. “What do
+you mean by your pale face and gloomy tones?”
+
+“Come away, come away!” says Esmond, leading her: she clung frightened
+to him, and he supported her upon his heart, bidding the scared
+goldsmith leave them. The man went into the next apartment, staring with
+surprise, and hugging his precious charger.
+
+“Oh, my Beatrix, my sister!” says Esmond, still holding in his arms the
+pallid and affrighted creature, “you have the greatest courage of any
+woman in the world; prepare to show it now, for you have a dreadful
+trial to bear.”
+
+She sprang away from the friend who would have protected her:--“Hath he
+left me?” says she. “We had words this morning: he was very gloomy, and
+I angered him: but he dared not, he dared not!” As she spoke a burning
+blush flushed over her whole face and bosom. Esmond saw it reflected in
+the glass by which she stood, with clenched hands, pressing her swelling
+heart.
+
+“He has left you,” says Esmond, wondering that rage rather than sorrow
+was in her looks.
+
+“And he is alive,” cried Beatrix, “and you bring me this commission! He
+has left me, and you haven't dared to avenge me! You, that pretend to
+be the champion of our house, have let me suffer this insult! Where is
+Castlewood? I will go to my brother.”
+
+“The Duke is not alive, Beatrix,” said Esmond.
+
+She looked at her cousin wildly, and fell back to the wall as though
+shot in the breast:--“And you come here, and--and--you killed him?”
+
+“No; thank heaven!” her kinsman said. “The blood of that noble heart
+doth not stain my sword! In its last hour it was faithful to thee,
+Beatrix Esmond. Vain and cruel woman! kneel and thank the awful heaven
+which awards life and death, and chastises pride, that the noble
+Hamilton died true to you; at least that 'twas not your quarrel, or your
+pride, or your wicked vanity, that drove him to his fate. He died by the
+bloody sword which already had drank your own father's blood. O woman, O
+sister! to that sad field where two corpses are lying--for the murderer
+died too by the hand of the man he slew--can you bring no mourners but
+your revenge and your vanity? God help and pardon thee, Beatrix, as he
+brings this awful punishment to your hard and rebellious heart.”
+
+Esmond had scarce done speaking, when his mistress came in. The colloquy
+between him and Beatrix had lasted but a few minutes, during which time
+Esmond's servant had carried the disastrous news through the household.
+The army of Vanity Fair, waiting without, gathered up all their
+fripperies and fled aghast. Tender Lady Castlewood had been in talk
+above with Dean Atterbury, the pious creature's almoner and director;
+and the Dean had entered with her as a physician whose place was at
+a sick-bed. Beatrix's mother looked at Esmond and ran towards her
+daughter, with a pale face and open heart and hands, all kindness
+and pity. But Beatrix passed her by, nor would she have any of the
+medicaments of the spiritual physician. “I am best in my own room and by
+myself,” she said. Her eyes were quite dry; nor did Esmond ever see them
+otherwise, save once, in respect to that grief. She gave him a cold hand
+as she went out: “Thank you, brother,” she said, in a low voice, and
+with a simplicity more touching than tears; “all you have said is true
+and kind, and I will go away and ask pardon.” The three others remained
+behind, and talked over the dreadful story. It affected Dr. Atterbury
+more even than us, as it seemed. The death of Mohun, her husband's
+murderer, was more awful to my mistress than even the Duke's unhappy
+end. Esmond gave at length what particulars he knew of their quarrel,
+and the cause of it. The two noblemen had long been at war with respect
+to the Lord Gerard's property, whose two daughters my Lord Duke and
+Mohun had married. They had met by appointment that day at the lawyer's
+in Lincoln's Inn Fields; had words which, though they appeared very
+trifling to those who heard them, were not so to men exasperated by long
+and previous enmity. Mohun asked my Lord Duke where he could see his
+Grace's friends, and within an hour had sent two of his own to arrange
+this deadly duel. It was pursued with such fierceness, and sprung from
+so trifling a cause, that all men agreed at the time that there was
+a party, of which these three notorious brawlers were but agents, who
+desired to take Duke Hamilton's life away. They fought three on a side,
+as in that tragic meeting twelve years back, which hath been recounted
+already, and in which Mohun performed his second murder. They rushed
+in, and closed upon each other at once without any feints or crossing
+of swords even, and stabbed one at the other desperately, each receiving
+many wounds; and Mohun having his death-wound, and my Lord Duke lying
+by him, Macartney came up and stabbed his Grace as he lay on the ground,
+and gave him the blow of which he died. Colonel Macartney denied
+this, of which the horror and indignation of the whole kingdom would
+nevertheless have him guilty, and fled the country, whither he never
+returned.
+
+What was the real cause of the Duke Hamilton's death?--a paltry quarrel
+that might easily have been made up, and with a ruffian so low, base,
+profligate, and degraded with former crimes and repeated murders, that
+a man of such renown and princely rank as my Lord Duke might have
+disdained to sully his sword with the blood of such a villain. But his
+spirit was so high that those who wished his death knew that his courage
+was like his charity, and never turned any man away; and he died by the
+hands of Mohun, and the other two cut-throats that were set on him. The
+Queen's ambassador to Paris died, the loyal and devoted servant of the
+House of Stuart, and a Royal Prince of Scotland himself, and carrying
+the confidence, the repentance of Queen Anne along with his own open
+devotion, and the good-will of millions in the country more, to the
+Queen's exiled brother and sovereign.
+
+That party to which Lord Mohun belonged had the benefit of his
+service, and now were well rid of such a ruffian. He, and Meredith, and
+Macartney, were the Duke of Marlborough's men; and the two colonels had
+been broke but the year before for drinking perdition to the Tories. His
+Grace was a Whig now and a Hanoverian, and as eager for war as Prince
+Eugene himself. I say not that he was privy to Duke Hamilton's death, I
+say that his party profited by it; and that three desperate and bloody
+instruments were found to effect that murder.
+
+As Esmond and the Dean walked away from Kensington discoursing of this
+tragedy, and how fatal it was to the cause which they both had at heart,
+the street-criers were already out with their broadsides, shouting
+through the town the full, true, and horrible account of the death of
+Lord Mohun and Duke Hamilton in a duel. A fellow had got to Kensington,
+and was crying it in the square there at very early morning, when Mr.
+Esmond happened to pass by. He drove the man from under Beatrix's very
+window, whereof the casement had been set open. The sun was shining
+though 'twas November: he had seen the market-carts rolling into London,
+the guard relieved at the palace, the laborers trudging to their work in
+the gardens between Kensington and the City--the wandering merchants
+and hawkers filling the air with their cries. The world was going to its
+business again, although dukes lay dead and ladies mourned for them; and
+kings, very likely, lost their chances. So night and day pass away,
+and to-morrow comes, and our place knows us not. Esmond thought of the
+courier, now galloping on the North road to inform him, who was Earl of
+Arran yesterday, that he was Duke of Hamilton to-day, and of a thousand
+great schemes, hopes, ambitions, that were alive in the gallant heart,
+beating a few hours since, and now in a little dust quiescent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+I VISIT CASTLEWOOD ONCE MORE.
+
+
+Thus, for a third time, Beatrix's ambitious hopes were circumvented, and
+she might well believe that a special malignant fate watched and pursued
+her, tearing her prize out of her hand just as she seemed to grasp it,
+and leaving her with only rage and grief for her portion. Whatever her
+feelings might have been of anger or of sorrow, (and I fear me that the
+former emotion was that which most tore her heart,) she would take no
+confidant, as people of softer natures would have done under such a
+calamity; her mother and her kinsman knew that she would disdain their
+pity, and that to offer it would be but to infuriate the cruel wound
+which fortune had inflicted. We knew that her pride was awfully humbled
+and punished by this sudden and terrible blow; she wanted no teaching of
+ours to point out the sad moral of her story. Her fond mother could give
+but her prayers, and her kinsman his faithful friendship and patience to
+the unhappy, stricken creature; and it was only by hints, and a word or
+two uttered months afterwards, that Beatrix showed she understood their
+silent commiseration, and on her part was secretly thankful for their
+forbearance. The people about the Court said there was that in her
+manner which frightened away scoffing and condolence: she was above
+their triumph and their pity, and acted her part in that dreadful
+tragedy greatly and courageously; so that those who liked her least were
+yet forced to admire her. We, who watched her after her disaster, could
+not but respect the indomitable courage and majestic calm with which she
+bore it. “I would rather see her tears than her pride,” her mother said,
+who was accustomed to bear her sorrows in a very different way, and
+to receive them as the stroke of God, with an awful submission and
+meekness. But Beatrix's nature was different to that tender parent's;
+she seemed to accept her grief and to defy it; nor would she allow it (I
+believe not even in private and in her own chamber) to extort from her
+the confession of even a tear of humiliation or a cry of pain. Friends
+and children of our race, who come after me, in which way will you bear
+your trials? I know one that prays God will give you love rather than
+pride, and that the Eye all-seeing shall find you in the humble place.
+Not that we should judge proud spirits otherwise than charitably. 'Tis
+nature hath fashioned some for ambition and dominion, as it hath formed
+others for obedience and gentle submission. The leopard follows his
+nature as the lamb does, and acts after leopard law; she can neither
+help her beauty, nor her courage, nor her cruelty; nor a single spot on
+her shining coat; nor the conquering spirit which impels her; nor the
+shot which brings her down.
+
+During that well-founded panic the Whigs had, lest the Queen should
+forsake their Hanoverian Prince, bound by oaths and treaties as she was
+to him, and recall her brother, who was allied to her by yet stronger
+ties of nature and duty; the Prince of Savoy, and the boldest of that
+party of the Whigs, were for bringing the young Duke of Cambridge over,
+in spite of the Queen, and the outcry of her Tory servants, arguing that
+the Electoral Prince, a Peer and Prince of the Blood-Royal of this Realm
+too, and in the line of succession to the crown, had, a right to sit
+in the Parliament whereof he was a member, and to dwell in the country
+which he one day was to govern. Nothing but the strongest ill will
+expressed by the Queen, and the people about her, and menaces of the
+Royal resentment, should this scheme be persisted in, prevented it from
+being carried into effect.
+
+The boldest on our side were, in like manner, for having our Prince into
+the country. The undoubted inheritor of the right divine; the feelings
+of more than half the nation, of almost all the clergy, of the gentry of
+England and Scotland with him; entirely innocent of the crime for which
+his father suffered--brave, young, handsome, unfortunate--who in England
+would dare to molest the Prince should he come among us, and fling
+himself upon British generosity, hospitality, and honor? An invader with
+an army of Frenchmen behind him, Englishmen of spirit would resist to
+the death, and drive back to the shores whence he came; but a Prince,
+alone, armed with his right only, and relying on the loyalty of his
+people, was sure, many of his friends argued, of welcome, at least of
+safety, among us. The hand of his sister the Queen, of the people his
+subjects, never could be raised to do him a wrong. But the Queen was
+timid by nature, and the successive Ministers she had, had private
+causes for their irresolution. The bolder and honester men, who had at
+heart the illustrious young exile's cause, had no scheme of interest of
+their own to prevent them from seeing the right done, and, provided only
+he came as an Englishman, were ready to venture their all to welcome and
+defend him.
+
+St. John and Harley both had kind words in plenty for the Prince's
+adherents, and gave him endless promises of future support; but hints
+and promises were all they could be got to give; and some of his friends
+were for measures much bolder, more efficacious, and more open. With
+a party of these, some of whom are yet alive, and some whose names Mr.
+Esmond has no right to mention, he found himself engaged the year after
+that miserable death of Duke Hamilton, which deprived the Prince of
+his most courageous ally in this country. Dean Atterbury was one of the
+friends whom Esmond may mention, as the brave bishop is now beyond exile
+and persecution, and to him, and one or two more, the Colonel opened
+himself of a scheme of his own, that, backed by a little resolution on
+the Prince's part, could not fail of bringing about the accomplishment
+of their dearest wishes.
+
+My young Lord Viscount Castlewood had not come to England to keep his
+majority, and had now been absent from the country for several years.
+The year when his sister was to be married and Duke Hamilton died, my
+lord was kept at Bruxelles by his wife's lying-in. The gentle Clotilda
+could not bear her husband out of her sight; perhaps she mistrusted the
+young scapegrace should he ever get loose from her leading-strings; and
+she kept him by her side to nurse the baby and administer posset to the
+gossips. Many a laugh poor Beatrix had had about Frank's uxoriousness:
+his mother would have gone to Clotilda when her time was coming, but
+that the mother-in-law was already in possession, and the negotiations
+for poor Beatrix's marriage were begun. A few months after the horrid
+catastrophe in Hyde Park, my mistress and her daughter retired to
+Castlewood, where my lord, it was expected, would soon join them. But,
+to say truth, their quiet household was little to his taste; he could be
+got to come to Walcote but once after his first campaign; and then the
+young rogue spent more than half his time in London, not appearing at
+Court or in public under his own name and title, but frequenting plays,
+bagnios, and the very worst company, under the name of Captain Esmond
+(whereby his innocent kinsman got more than once into trouble); and so
+under various pretexts, and in pursuit of all sorts of pleasures,
+until he plunged into the lawful one of marriage, Frank Castlewood
+had remained away from this country, and was unknown, save amongst the
+gentlemen of the army, with whom he had served abroad. The fond heart of
+his mother was pained by this long absence. 'Twas all that Henry Esmond
+could do to soothe her natural mortification, and find excuses for his
+kinsman's levity.
+
+In the autumn of the year 1713, Lord Castlewood thought of returning
+home. His first child had been a daughter; Clotilda was in the way of
+gratifying his lordship with a second, and the pious youth thought that,
+by bringing his wife to his ancestral home, by prayers to St. Philip of
+Castlewood, and what not, heaven might be induced to bless him with a
+son this time, for whose coming the expectant mamma was very anxious.
+
+The long-debated peace had been proclaimed this year at the end of
+March; and France was open to us. Just as Frank's poor mother had
+made all things ready for Lord Castlewood's reception, and was eagerly
+expecting her son, it was by Colonel Esmond's means that the kind lady
+was disappointed of her longing, and obliged to defer once more the
+darling hope of her heart.
+
+Esmond took horses to Castlewood. He had not seen its ancient gray
+towers and well-remembered woods for nearly fourteen years, and since he
+rode thence with my lord, to whom his mistress with her young children
+by her side waved an adieu. What ages seemed to have passed since then,
+what years of action and passion, of care, love, hope, disaster! The
+children were grown up now, and had stories of their own. As for
+Esmond, he felt to be a hundred years old; his dear mistress only seemed
+unchanged; she looked and welcomed him quite as of old. There was the
+fountain in the court babbling its familiar music, the old hall and its
+furniture, the carved chair my late lord used, the very flagon he drank
+from. Esmond's mistress knew he would like to sleep in the little room
+he used to occupy; 'twas made ready for him, and wall-flowers and sweet
+herbs set in the adjoining chamber, the chaplain's room.
+
+In tears of not unmanly emotion, with prayers of submission to the awful
+Dispenser of death and life, of good and evil fortune, Mr. Esmond passed
+a part of that first night at Castlewood, lying awake for many hours as
+the clock kept tolling (in tones so well remembered), looking back, as
+all men will, that revisit their home of childhood, over the great gulf
+of time, and surveying himself on the distant bank yonder, a sad little
+melancholy boy with his lord still alive--his dear mistress, a girl yet,
+her children sporting around her. Years ago, a boy on that very bed,
+when she had blessed him and called him her knight, he had made a vow
+to be faithful and never desert her dear service. Had he kept that fond
+boyish promise? Yes, before heaven; yes, praise be to God! His life had
+been hers; his blood, his fortune, his name, his whole heart ever since
+had been hers and her children's. All night long he was dreaming his
+boyhood over again, and waking fitfully; he half fancied he heard Father
+Holt calling to him from the next chamber, and that he was coming in and
+out of from the mysterious window.
+
+Esmond rose up before the dawn, passed into the next room, where the
+air was heavy with the odor of the wall-flowers; looked into the brazier
+where the papers had been burnt, into the old presses where Holt's books
+and papers had been kept, and tried the spring and whether the window
+worked still. The spring had not been touched for years, but yielded at
+length, and the whole fabric of the window sank down. He lifted it and
+it relapsed into its frame; no one had ever passed thence since Holt
+used it sixteen years ago.
+
+Esmond remembered his poor lord saying, on the last day of his life,
+that Holt used to come in and out of the house like a ghost, and
+knew that the Father liked these mysteries, and practised such secret
+disguises, entrances and exits: this was the way the ghost came and
+went, his pupil had always conjectured. Esmond closed the casement up
+again as the dawn was rising over Castlewood village; he could hear the
+clinking at the blacksmith's forge yonder among the trees, across the
+green, and past the river, on which a mist still lay sleeping.
+
+Next Esmond opened that long cupboard over the woodwork of the
+mantel-piece, big enough to hold a man, and in which Mr. Holt used to
+keep sundry secret properties of his. The two swords he remembered so
+well as a boy, lay actually there still, and Esmond took them out and
+wiped them, with a strange curiosity of emotion. There were a bundle of
+papers here, too, which no doubt had been left at Holt's last visit to
+the place, in my Lord Viscount's life, that very day when the priest had
+been arrested and taken to Hexham Castle. Esmond made free with these
+papers, and found treasonable matter of King William's reign, the names
+of Charnock and Perkins, Sir John Fenwick and Sir John Friend, Rookwood
+and Lodwick, Lords Montgomery and Allesbury, Clarendon and Yarmouth,
+that had all been engaged in plots against the usurper; a letter from
+the Duke of Berwick too, and one from the King at St. Germains, offering
+to confer upon his trusty and well-beloved Francis Viscount Castlewood
+the titles of Earl and Marquis of Esmond, bestowed by patent royal, and
+in the fourth year of his reign, upon Thomas Viscount Castlewood and
+the heirs-male of his body, in default of which issue the ranks and
+dignities were to pass to Francis aforesaid.
+
+This was the paper, whereof my lord had spoken, which Holt showed him
+the very day he was arrested, and for an answer to which he would come
+back in a week's time. I put these papers hastily into the crypt whence
+I had taken them, being interrupted by a tapping of a light finger at
+the ring of the chamber-door: 'twas my kind mistress, with her face full
+of love and welcome. She, too, had passed the night wakefuly, no doubt;
+but neither asked the other how the hours had been spent. There are
+things we divine without speaking, and know though they happen out of
+our sight. This fond lady hath told me that she knew both days when
+I was wounded abroad. Who shall say how far sympathy reaches, and how
+truly love can prophesy? “I looked into your room,” was all she said;
+“the bed was vacant, the little old bed! I knew I should find you here.”
+ And tender and blushing faintly with a benediction in her eyes, the
+gentle creature kissed him.
+
+They walked out, hand-in-hand, through the old court, and to the
+terrace-walk, where the grass was glistening with dew, and the birds in
+the green woods above were singing their delicious choruses under the
+blushing morning sky. How well all things were remembered! The ancient
+towers and gables of the hall darkling against the east, the purple
+shadows on the green slopes, the quaint devices and carvings of the
+dial, the forest-crowned heights, the fair yellow plain cheerful with
+crops and corn, the shining river rolling through it towards the pearly
+hills beyond; all these were before us, along with a thousand beautiful
+memories of our youth, beautiful and sad, but as real and vivid in our
+minds as that fair and always-remembered scene our eyes beheld once
+more. We forget nothing. The memory sleeps, but wakens again; I often
+think how it shall be when, after the last sleep of death, the
+reveillee shall arouse us for ever, and the past in one flash of
+self-consciousness rush back, like the soul revivified.
+
+The house would not be up for some hours yet, (it was July, and the dawn
+was only just awake,) and here Esmond opened himself to his mistress, of
+the business he had in hand, and what part Frank was to play in it. He
+knew he could confide anything to her, and that the fond soul would die
+rather than reveal it; and bidding her keep the secret from all, he laid
+it entirely before his mistress (always as staunch a little loyalist as
+any in the kingdom), and indeed was quite sure that any plan, of his was
+secure of her applause and sympathy. Never was such a glorious scheme to
+her partial mind, never such a devoted knight to execute it. An hour or
+two may have passed whilst they were having their colloquy. Beatrix came
+out to them just as their talk was over; her tall beautiful form robed
+in sable (which she wore without ostentation ever since last year's
+catastrophe), sweeping over the green terrace, and casting its shadows
+before her across the grass.
+
+She made us one of her grand curtsies smiling, and called us “the
+young people.” She was older, paler, and more majestic than in the year
+before; her mother seemed the youngest of the two. She never once spoke
+of her grief, Lady Castlewood told Esmond, or alluded, save by a quiet
+word or two, to the death of her hopes.
+
+When Beatrix came back to Castlewood she took to visiting all the
+cottages and all the sick. She set up a school of children, and taught
+singing to some of them. We had a pair of beautiful old organs in
+Castlewood Church, on which she played admirably, so that the music
+there became to be known in the country for many miles round, and no
+doubt people came to see the fair organist as well as to hear her.
+Parson Tusher and his wife were established at the vicarage, but his
+wife had brought him no children wherewith Tom might meet his enemies
+at the gate. Honest Tom took care not to have many such, his great
+shovel-hat was in his hand for everybody. He was profuse of bows
+and compliments. He behaved to Esmond as if the Colonel had been a
+Commander-in-Chief; he dined at the hall that day, being Sunday, and
+would not partake of pudding except under extreme pressure. He deplored
+my lord's perversion, but drank his lordship's health very devoutly;
+and an hour before at church sent the Colonel to sleep, with a long,
+learned, and refreshing sermon.
+
+Esmond's visit home was but for two days; the business he had in hand
+calling him away and out of the country. Ere he went, he saw Beatrix
+but once alone, and then she summoned him out of the long tapestry room,
+where he and his mistress were sitting, quite as in old times, into
+the adjoining chamber, that had been Viscountess Isabel's sleeping
+apartment, and where Esmond perfectly well remembered seeing the old
+lady sitting up in the bed, in her night-rail, that morning when the
+troop of guard came to fetch her. The most beautiful woman in England
+lay in that bed now, whereof the great damask hangings were scarce faded
+since Esmond saw them last.
+
+Here stood Beatrix in her black robes, holding a box in her hand; 'twas
+that which Esmond had given her before her marriage, stamped with a
+coronet which the disappointed girl was never to wear; and containing
+his aunt's legacy of diamonds.
+
+“You had best take these with you, Harry,” says she; “I have no need
+of diamonds any more.” There was not the least token of emotion in her
+quiet low voice. She held out the black shagreen case with her fair
+arm, that did not shake in the least. Esmond saw she wore a black velvet
+bracelet on it, with my Lord Duke's picture in enamel; he had given it
+her but three days before he fell.
+
+Esmond said the stones were his no longer, and strove to turn off that
+proffered restoration with a laugh: “Of what good,” says he, “are they
+to me? The diamond loop to his hat did not set off Prince Eugene, and
+will not make my yellow face look any handsomer.”
+
+“You will give them to your wife, cousin,” says she. “My cousin, your
+wife has a lovely complexion and shape.”
+
+“Beatrix,” Esmond burst out, the old fire flaming out as it would at
+times, “will you wear those trinkets at your marriage? You whispered
+once you did not know me: you know me better now: how I sought, what I
+have sighed for, for ten years, what foregone!”
+
+“A price for your constancy, my lord!” says she; “such a preux chevalier
+wants to be paid. Oh fie, cousin!”
+
+“Again,” Esmond spoke out, “if I do something you have at heart;
+something worthy of me and you; something that shall make me a name with
+which to endow you; will you take it? There was a chance for me once,
+you said; is it impossible to recall it? Never shake your head, but hear
+me; say you will hear me a year hence. If I come back to you and bring
+you fame, will that please you? If I do what you desire most--what he
+who is dead desired most--will that soften you?”
+
+“What is it, Henry?” says she, her face lighting up; “what mean you?”
+
+“Ask no questions,” he said; “wait, and give me but time; if I bring
+back that you long for, that I have a thousand times heard you pray for,
+will you have no reward for him who has done you that service? Put away
+those trinkets, keep them: it shall not be at my marriage, it shall not
+be at yours; but if man can do it, I swear a day shall come when there
+shall be a feast in your house, and you shall be proud to wear them. I
+say no more now; put aside these words, and lock away yonder box until
+the day when I shall remind you of both. All I pray of you now is, to
+wait and to remember.”
+
+“You are going out of the country?” says Beatrix, in some agitation.
+
+“Yes, to-morrow,” says Esmond.
+
+“To Lorraine, cousin?” says Beatrix, laying her hand on his arm; 'twas
+the hand on which she wore the Duke's bracelet. “Stay, Harry!” continued
+she, with a tone that had more despondency in it than she was accustomed
+to show. “Hear a last word. I do love you. I do admire you--who would
+not, that has known such love as yours has been for us all? But I think
+I have no heart; at least I have never seen the man that could touch it;
+and, had I found him, I would have followed him in rags had he been a
+private soldier, or to sea, like one of those buccaneers you used to
+read to us about when we were children. I would do anything for such
+a man, bear anything for him: but I never found one. You were ever too
+much of a slave to win my heart; even my Lord Duke could not command it.
+I had not been happy had I married him. I knew that three months after
+our engagement--and was too vain to break it. Oh, Harry! I cried once or
+twice, not for him, but with tears of rage because I could not be sorry
+for him. I was frightened to find I was glad of his death; and were
+I joined to you, I should have the same sense of servitude, the same
+longing to escape. We should both be unhappy, and you the most, who are
+as jealous as the Duke was himself. I tried to love him; I tried, indeed
+I did: affected gladness when he came: submitted to hear when he was by
+me, and tried the wife's part I thought I was to play for the rest of my
+days. But half an hour of that complaisance wearied me, and what would
+a lifetime be? My thoughts were away when he was speaking; and I was
+thinking, Oh that this man would drop my hand, and rise up from before
+my feet! I knew his great and noble qualities, greater and nobler than
+mine a thousand times, as yours are, cousin, I tell you, a million and a
+million times better. But 'twas not for these I took him. I took him to
+have a great place in the world, and I lost it. I lost it, and do not
+deplore him--and I often thought, as I listened to his fond vows and
+ardent words, Oh, if I yield to this man, and meet THE OTHER, I shall
+hate him and leave him! I am not good, Harry: my mother is gentle and
+good like an angel. I wonder how she should have had such a child. She
+is weak, but she would die rather than do a wrong; I am stronger than
+she, but I would do it out of defiance. I do not care for what the
+parsons tell me with their droning sermons: I used to see them at court
+as mean and as worthless as the meanest woman there. Oh, I am sick and
+weary of the world! I wait but for one thing, and when 'tis done, I will
+take Frank's religion and your poor mother's, and go into a nunnery, and
+end like her. Shall I wear the diamonds then?--they say the nuns wear
+their best trinkets the day they take the veil. I will put them away as
+you bid me; farewell, cousin: mamma is pacing the next room racking her
+little head to know what we have been saying. She is jealous, all women
+are. I sometimes think that is the only womanly quality I have.”
+
+“Farewell. Farewell, brother.” She gave him her cheek as a brotherly
+privilege. The cheek was as cold as marble.
+
+Esmond's mistress showed no signs of jealousy when he returned to
+the room where she was. She had schooled herself so as to look quite
+inscrutably, when she had a mind. Amongst her other feminine qualities
+she had that of being a perfect dissembler.
+
+He rode away from Castlewood to attempt the task he was bound on, and
+stand or fall by it; in truth his state of mind was such, that he was
+eager for some outward excitement to counteract that gnawing malady
+which he was inwardly enduring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+I TRAVEL TO FRANCE AND BRING HOME A PORTRAIT OF RIGAUD.
+
+
+Mr. Esmond did not think fit to take leave at Court, or to inform all
+the world of Pall Mall and the coffee-houses, that he was about to quit
+England; and chose to depart in the most private manner possible. He
+procured a pass as for a Frenchman, through Dr. Atterbury, who did that
+business for him, getting the signature even from Lord Bolingbroke's
+office, without any personal application to the Secretary. Lockwood, his
+faithful servant, he took with him to Castlewood, and left behind there:
+giving out ere he left London that he himself was sick, and gone to
+Hampshire for country air, and so departed as silently as might be upon
+his business.
+
+As Frank Castlewood's aid was indispensable for Mr. Esmond's scheme, his
+first visit was to Bruxelles (passing by way of Antwerp, where the Duke
+of Marlborough was in exile), and in the first-named place Harry found
+his dear young Benedict, the married man, who appeared to be rather
+out of humor with his matrimonial chain, and clogged with the obstinate
+embraces which Clotilda kept round his neck. Colonel Esmond was not
+presented to her; but Monsieur Simon was, a gentleman of the Royal
+Cravat (Esmond bethought him of the regiment of his honest Irishman,
+whom he had seen that day after Malplaquet, when he first set eyes on
+the young King); and Monsieur Simon was introduced to the Viscountess
+Castlewood, nee Comptesse Wertheim; to the numerous counts, the Lady
+Clotilda's tall brothers; to her father the chamberlain; and to the lady
+his wife, Frank's mother-in-law, a tall and majestic person of large
+proportions, such as became the mother of such a company of grenadiers
+as her warlike sons formed. The whole race were at free quarters in the
+little castle nigh to Bruxelles which Frank had taken; rode his horses;
+drank his wine; and lived easily at the poor lad's charges. Mr. Esmond
+had always maintained a perfect fluency in the French, which was his
+mother tongue; and if this family (that spoke French with the twang
+which the Flemings use) discovered any inaccuracy in Mr. Simon's
+pronunciation, 'twas to be attributed to the latter's long residence
+in England, where he had married and remained ever since he was taken
+prisoner at Blenheim. His story was perfectly pat; there were none there
+to doubt it save honest Frank, and he was charmed with his kinsman's
+scheme, when he became acquainted with it; and, in truth, always admired
+Colonel Esmond with an affectionate fidelity, and thought his cousin
+the wisest and best of all cousins and men. Frank entered heart and soul
+into the plan, and liked it the better as it was to take him to Paris,
+out of reach of his brothers, his father, and his mother-in-law, whose
+attentions rather fatigued him.
+
+Castlewood, I have said, was born in the same year as the Prince of
+Wales; had not a little of the Prince's air, height, and figure; and,
+especially since he had seen the Chevalier de St. George on the occasion
+before-named, took no small pride in his resemblance to a person so
+illustrious; which likeness he increased by all means in his power,
+wearing fair brown periwigs, such as the Prince wore, and ribbons, and
+so forth, of the Chevalier's color.
+
+This resemblance was, in truth, the circumstance on which Mr. Esmond's
+scheme was founded; and having secured Frank's secrecy and enthusiasm,
+he left him to continue his journey, and see the other personages on
+whom its success depended. The place whither Mr. Simon next travelled
+was Bar, in Lorraine, where that merchant arrived with a consignment
+of broadcloths, valuable laces from Malines, and letters for his
+correspondent there.
+
+Would you know how a prince, heroic from misfortunes, and descended
+from a line of kings, whose race seemed to be doomed like the Atridae of
+old--would you know how he was employed, when the envoy who came to him
+through danger and difficulty beheld him for the first time? The young
+king, in a flannel jacket, was at tennis with the gentlemen of his
+suite, crying out after the balls, and swearing like the meanest of his
+subjects. The next time Mr. Esmond saw him, 'twas when Monsieur Simon
+took a packet of laces to Miss Oglethorpe: the Prince's ante-chamber in
+those days, at which ignoble door men were forced to knock for admission
+to his Majesty. The admission was given, the envoy found the King and
+the mistress together; the pair were at cards and his Majesty was
+in liquor. He cared more for three honors than three kingdoms; and
+a half-dozen glasses of ratafia made him forget all his woes and his
+losses, his father's crown, and his grandfather's head.
+
+Mr. Esmond did not open himself to the Prince then. His Majesty was
+scarce in a condition to hear him; and he doubted whether a King who
+drank so much could keep a secret in his fuddled head; or whether a hand
+that shook so, was strong enough to grasp at a crown. However, at last,
+and after taking counsel with the Prince's advisers, amongst whom were
+many gentlemen, honest and faithful, Esmond's plan was laid before the
+King, and her actual Majesty Queen Oglethorpe, in council. The Prince
+liked the scheme well enough; 'twas easy and daring, and suited to his
+reckless gayety and lively youthful spirit. In the morning after he had
+slept his wine off, he was very gay, lively, and agreeable. His manner
+had an extreme charm of archness, and a kind simplicity; and, to do her
+justice, her Oglethorpean Majesty was kind, acute, resolute, and of good
+counsel; she gave the Prince much good advice that he was too weak
+to follow, and loved him with a fidelity which he returned with an
+ingratitude quite Royal.
+
+Having his own forebodings regarding his scheme should it ever be
+fulfilled, and his usual sceptic doubts as to the benefit which might
+accrue to the country by bringing a tipsy young monarch back to it,
+Colonel Esmond had his audience of leave and quiet. Monsieur Simon took
+his departure. At any rate the youth at Bar was as good as the older
+Pretender at Hanover; if the worst came to the worst, the Englishman
+could be dealt with as easy as the German. Monsieur Simon trotted
+on that long journey from Nancy to Paris, and saw that famous town,
+stealthily and like a spy, as in truth he was; and where, sure, more
+magnificence and more misery is heaped together, more rags and lace,
+more filth and gilding, than in any city in this world. Here he was
+put in communication with the King's best friend, his half brother, the
+famous Duke of Berwick; Esmond recognized him as the stranger who had
+visited Castlewood now near twenty years ago. His Grace opened to him
+when he found that Mr. Esmond was one of Webb's brave regiment, that had
+once been his Grace's own. He was the sword and buckler indeed of the
+Stuart cause: there was no stain on his shield except the bar across it,
+which Marlborough's sister left him. Had Berwick been his father's heir,
+James the Third had assuredly sat on the English throne. He could dare,
+endure, strike, speak, be silent. The fire and genius, perhaps, he had
+not (that were given to baser men), but except these he had some of the
+best qualities of a leader. His Grace knew Esmond's father and history;
+and hinted at the latter in such a way as made the Colonel to think he
+was aware of the particulars of that story. But Esmond did not choose to
+enter on it, nor did the Duke press him. Mr. Esmond said, “No doubt he
+should come by his name if ever greater people came by theirs.”
+
+What confirmed Esmond in his notion that the Duke of Berwick knew of his
+case was, that when the Colonel went to pay his duty at St. Germains,
+her Majesty once addressed him by the title of Marquis. He took the
+Queen the dutiful remembrances of her goddaughter, and the lady whom,
+in the days of her prosperity, her Majesty had befriended. The
+Queen remembered Rachel Esmond perfectly well, had heard of my Lord
+Castlewood's conversion, and was much edified by that act of heaven in
+his favor. She knew that others of that family had been of the only true
+church too: “Your father and your mother, M. le Marquis,” her Majesty
+said (that was the only time she used the phrase). Monsieur Simon bowed
+very low, and said he had found other parents than his own, who had
+taught him differently; but these had only one king: on which her
+Majesty was pleased to give him a medal blessed by the Pope, which had
+been found very efficacious in cases similar to his own, and to promise
+she would offer up prayers for his conversion and that of the family:
+which no doubt this pious lady did, though up to the present moment, and
+after twenty-seven years, Colonel Esmond is bound to say that neither
+the medal nor the prayers have had the slightest known effect upon his
+religious convictions.
+
+As for the splendors of Versailles, Monsieur Simon, the merchant, only
+beheld them as a humble and distant spectator, seeing the old King but
+once, when he went to feed his carps; and asking for no presentation at
+his Majesty's Court.
+
+By this time my Lord Viscount Castlewood was got to Paris, where, as the
+London prints presently announced, her ladyship was brought to bed of a
+son and heir. For a long while afterwards she was in a delicate state
+of health, and ordered by the physicians not to travel; otherwise 'twas
+well known that the Viscount Castlewood proposed returning to England,
+and taking up his residence at his own seat.
+
+Whilst he remained at Paris, my Lord Castlewood had his picture done by
+the famous French painter, Monsieur Rigaud, a present for his mother
+in London; and this piece Monsieur Simon took back with him when he
+returned to that city, which he reached about May, in the year 1714,
+very soon after which time my Lady Castlewood and her daughter, and
+their kinsman, Colonel Esmond, who had been at Castlewood all this
+time, likewise returned to London; her ladyship occupying her house
+at Kensington, Mr. Esmond returning to his lodgings at Knightsbridge,
+nearer the town, and once more making his appearance at all public
+places, his health greatly improved by his long stay in the country.
+
+The portrait of my lord, in a handsome gilt frame, was hung up in
+the place of honor in her ladyship's drawing-room. His lordship was
+represented in his scarlet uniform of Captain of the Guard, with a light
+brown periwig, a cuirass under his coat, a blue ribbon, and a fall of
+Bruxelles lace. Many of her ladyship's friends admired the piece beyond
+measure, and flocked to see it; Bishop Atterbury, Mr. Lesly, good old
+Mr. Collier, and others amongst the clergy, were delighted with the
+performance, and many among the first quality examined and praised it;
+only I must own that Doctor Tusher happening to come up to London, and
+seeing the picture, (it was ordinarily covered by a curtain, but on this
+day Miss Beatrix happened to be looking at it when the Doctor arrived,)
+the Vicar of Castlewood vowed he could not see any resemblance in the
+piece to his old pupil, except, perhaps, a little about the chin and the
+periwig; but we all of us convinced him that he had not seen Frank for
+five years or more; that he knew no more about the Fine Arts than a
+ploughboy, and that he must be mistaken; and we sent him home assured
+that the piece was an excellent likeness. As for my Lord Bolingbroke,
+who honored her ladyship with a visit occasionally, when Colonel Esmond
+showed him the picture he burst out laughing, and asked what devilry he
+was engaged on? Esmond owned simply that the portrait was not that of
+Viscount Castlewood; besought the Secretary on his honor to keep the
+secret; said that the ladies of the house were enthusiastic Jacobites,
+as was well known; and confessed that the picture was that of the
+Chevalier St. George.
+
+The truth is, that Mr. Simon, waiting upon Lord Castlewood one day
+at Monsieur Rigaud's whilst his lordship was sitting for his picture,
+affected to be much struck with a piece representing the Chevalier,
+whereof the head only was finished, and purchased it of the painter
+for a hundred crowns. It had been intended, the artist said, for Miss
+Oglethorpe, the Prince's mistress, but that young lady quitting Paris,
+had left the work on the artist's hands; and taking this piece home,
+when my lord's portrait arrived, Colonel Esmond, alias Monsieur Simon,
+had copied the uniform and other accessories from my lord's picture to
+fill up Rigaud's incomplete canvas: the Colonel all his life having been
+a practitioner of painting, and especially followed it during his long
+residence in the cities of Flanders, among the masterpieces of Van Dyck
+and Rubens. My grandson hath the piece, such as it is, in Virginia now.
+
+At the commencement of the month of June, Miss Beatrix Esmond, and my
+Lady Viscountess, her mother, arrived from Castlewood; the former to
+resume her services at Court, which had been interrupted by the fatal
+catastrophe of Duke Hamilton's death. She once more took her place,
+then, in her Majesty's suite and at the Maids' table, being always a
+favorite with Mrs. Masham, the Queen's chief woman, partly perhaps on
+account of their bitterness against the Duchess of Marlborough, whom
+Miss Beatrix loved no better than her rival did. The gentlemen about the
+Court, my Lord Bolingbroke amongst others, owned that the young lady had
+come back handsomer than ever, and that the serious and tragic air which
+her face now involuntarily wore became her better than her former smiles
+and archness.
+
+All the old domestics at the little house of Kensington Square were
+changed; the old steward that had served the family any time these
+five-and-twenty years, since the birth of the children of the house, was
+despatched into the kingdom of Ireland to see my lord's estate there:
+the housekeeper, who had been my lady's woman time out of mind, and the
+attendant of the young children, was sent away grumbling to Walcote,
+to see to the new painting and preparing of that house, which my Lady
+Dowager intended to occupy for the future, giving up Castlewood to
+her daughter-in-law that might be expected daily from France. Another
+servant the Viscountess had was dismissed too--with a gratuity--on the
+pretext that her ladyship's train of domestics must be diminished; so,
+finally, there was not left in the household a single person who had
+belonged to it during the time my young Lord Castlewood was yet at home.
+
+For the plan which Colonel Esmond had in view, and the stroke he
+intended, 'twas necessary that the very smallest number of persons
+should be put in possession of his secret. It scarce was known, except
+to three or four out of his family, and it was kept to a wonder.
+
+On the 10th of June, 1714, there came by Mr. Prior's messenger from
+Paris a letter from my Lord Viscount Castlewood to his mother, saying
+that he had been foolish in regard of money matters, that he was ashamed
+to own he had lost at play, and by other extravagances; and that instead
+of having great entertainments as he had hoped at Castlewood this year,
+he must live as quiet as he could, and make every effort to be saving.
+So far every word of poor Frank's letter was true, nor was there a doubt
+that he and his tall brothers-in-law had spent a great deal more than
+they ought, and engaged the revenues of the Castlewood property, which
+the fond mother had husbanded and improved so carefully during the time
+of her guardianship.
+
+His “Clotilda,” Castlewood went on to say, “was still delicate, and her
+physicians thought her lying-in had best take place at Paris. He should
+come without her ladyship, and be at his mother's house about the 17th
+or 18th day of June, proposing to take horse from Paris immediately,
+and bringing but a single servant with him; and he requested that the
+lawyers of Gray's inn might be invited to meet him with their account,
+and the land-steward come from Castlewood with his, so that he might
+settle with them speedily, raise a sum of money whereof he stood in
+need, and be back to his viscountess by the time of her lying-in.” Then
+his lordship gave some of the news of the town, sent his remembrance to
+kinsfolk, and so the letter ended. 'Twas put in the common post, and no
+doubt the French police and the English there had a copy of it, to which
+they were exceeding welcome.
+
+Two days after another letter was despatched by the public post of
+France, in the same open way, and this, after giving news of the fashion
+at Court there, ended by the following sentences, in which, but for
+those that had the key, 'twould be difficult for any man to find any
+secret lurked at all:--
+
+
+“(The King will take) medicine on Thursday. His Majesty is better than
+he hath been of late, though incommoded by indigestion from his too
+great appetite. Madame Maintenon continues well. They have performed a
+play of Mons. Racine at St. Cyr. The Duke of Shrewsbury and Mr. Prior,
+our envoy, and all the English nobility here were present at it. (The
+Viscount Castlewood's passports) were refused to him, 'twas said; his
+lordship being sued by a goldsmith for Vaisselle plate, and a pearl
+necklace supplied to Mademoiselle Meruel of the French Comedy. 'Tis a
+pity such news should get abroad (and travel to England) about our young
+nobility here. Mademoiselle Meruel has been sent to the Fort l'Evesque;
+they say she has ordered not only plate, but furniture, and a chariot
+and horses (under that lord's name), of which extravagance his
+unfortunate Viscountess knows nothing.
+
+“(His Majesty will be) eighty-two years of age on his next birthday. The
+Court prepares to celebrate it with a great feast. Mr. Prior is in a sad
+way about their refusing at home to send him his plate. All here admired
+my Lord Viscount's portrait, and said it was a masterpiece of Rigaud.
+Have you seen it? It is (at the Lady Castlewood's house in Kensington
+Square). I think no English painter could produce such a piece.
+
+“Our poor friend the Abbe hath been at the Bastile, but is now
+transported to the Conciergerie (where his friends may visit him. They
+are to ask for) a remission of his sentence soon. Let us hope the poor
+rogue will have repented in prison.
+
+“(The Lord Castlewood) has had the affair of the plate made up, and
+departs for England.
+
+“Is not this a dull letter? I have a cursed headache with drinking with
+Mat and some more over-night, and tipsy or sober am
+
+“Thine ever ----.”
+
+
+All this letter, save some dozen of words which I have put above between
+brackets, was mere idle talk, though the substance of the letter was as
+important as any letter well could be. It told those that had the key,
+that The King will take the Viscount Castlewood's passports and travel
+to England under that lord's name. His Majesty will be at the Lady
+Castlewood's house in Kensington Square, where his friends may visit
+him; they are to ask for the Lord Castlewood. This note may have passed
+under Mr. Prior's eyes, and those of our new allies the French, and
+taught them nothing; though it explains sufficiently to persons in
+London what the event was which was about to happen, as 'twill show
+those who read my memoirs a hundred years hence, what was that errand on
+which Colonel Esmond of late had been busy. Silently and swiftly to do
+that about which others were conspiring, and thousands of Jacobites
+all over the country clumsily caballing; alone to effect that which the
+leaders here were only talking about; to bring the Prince of Wales into
+the country openly in the face of all, under Bolingbroke's very eyes,
+the walls placarded with the proclamation signed with the Secretary's
+name, and offering five hundred pounds reward for his apprehension:
+this was a stroke, the playing and winning of which might well give any
+adventurous spirit pleasure: the loss of the stake might involve a heavy
+penalty, but all our family were eager to risk that for the glorious
+chance of winning the game.
+
+Nor shall it be called a game, save perhaps with the chief player, who
+was not more or less sceptical than most public men with whom he had
+acquaintance in that age. (Is there ever a public man in England that
+altogether believes in his party? Is there one, however doubtful, that
+will not fight for it?) Young Frank was ready to fight without much
+thinking, he was a Jacobite as his father before him was; all the
+Esmonds were Royalists. Give him but the word, he would cry, “God save
+King James!” before the palace guard, or at the Maypole in the Strand;
+and with respect to the women, as is usual with them, 'twas not a
+question of party but of faith; their belief was a passion; either
+Esmond's mistress or her daughter would have died for it cheerfully. I
+have laughed often, talking of King William's reign, and said I thought
+Lady Castlewood was disappointed the King did not persecute the family
+more; and those who know the nature of women may fancy for themselves,
+what needs not here be written down, the rapture with which these
+neophytes received the mystery when made known to them; the eagerness
+with which they looked forward to its completion; the reverence which
+they paid the minister who initiated them into that secret Truth, now
+known only to a few, but presently to reign over the world. Sure there
+is no bound to the trustingness of women. Look at Arria worshipping the
+drunken clodpate of a husband who beats her; look at Cornelia treasuring
+as a jewel in her maternal heart the oaf her son; I have known a woman
+preach Jesuit's bark, and afterwards Dr. Berkeley's tar-water, as though
+to swallow them were a divine decree, and to refuse them no better than
+blasphemy.
+
+On his return from France Colonel Esmond put himself at the head of
+this little knot of fond conspirators. No death or torture he knew would
+frighten them out of their constancy. When he detailed his plan for
+bringing the King back, his elder mistress thought that that Restoration
+was to be attributed under heaven to the Castlewood family and to its
+chief, and she worshipped and loved Esmond, if that could be, more than
+ever she had done. She doubted not for one moment of the success of his
+scheme, to mistrust which would have seemed impious in her eyes. And as
+for Beatrix, when she became acquainted with the plan, and joined it, as
+she did with all her heart, she gave Esmond one of her searching bright
+looks. “Ah, Harry,” says she, “why were you not the head of our house?
+You are the only one fit to raise it; why do you give that silly boy the
+name and the honor? But 'tis so in the world; those get the prize that
+don't deserve or care for it. I wish I could give you YOUR silly prize,
+cousin, but I can't; I have tried, and I can't.” And she went away,
+shaking her head mournfully, but always, it seemed to Esmond, that her
+liking and respect for him was greatly increased, since she knew what
+capability he had both to act and bear; to do and to forego.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE ORIGINAL OF THE PORTRAIT COMES TO ENGLAND.
+
+
+'Twas announced in the family that my Lord Castlewood would arrive,
+having a confidential French gentleman in his suite, who acted as
+secretary to his lordship, and who, being a Papist, and a foreigner of
+a good family, though now in rather a menial place, would have his meals
+served in his chamber, and not with the domestics of the house. The
+Viscountess gave up her bedchamber contiguous to her daughter's, and
+having a large convenient closet attached to it, in which a bed was
+put up, ostensibly for Monsieur Baptiste, the Frenchman; though, 'tis
+needless to say, when the doors of the apartments were locked, and the
+two guests retired within it, the young viscount became the servant of
+the illustrious Prince whom he entertained, and gave up gladly the more
+convenient and airy chamber and bed to his master. Madam Beatrix
+also retired to the upper region, her chamber being converted into
+a sitting-room for my lord. The better to carry the deceit, Beatrix
+affected to grumble before the servants, and to be jealous that she was
+turned out of her chamber to make way for my lord.
+
+No small preparations were made, you may be sure, and no slight tremor
+of expectation caused the hearts of the gentle ladies of Castlewood to
+flutter, before the arrival of the personages who were about to honor
+their house. The chamber was ornamented with flowers; the bed covered
+with the very finest of linen; the two ladies insisting on making it
+themselves, and kneeling down at the bedside and kissing the sheets out
+of respect for the web that was to hold the sacred person of a King. The
+toilet was of silver and crystal; there was a copy of “Eikon Basilike”
+ laid on the writing-table; a portrait of the martyred King hung always
+over the mantel, having a sword of my poor Lord Castlewood underneath
+it, and a little picture or emblem which the widow loved always to have
+before her eyes on waking, and in which the hair of her lord and her two
+children was worked together. Her books of private devotions, as they
+were all of the English Church, she carried away with her to the upper
+apartment, which she destined for herself. The ladies showed Mr. Esmond,
+when they were completed, the fond preparations they had made. 'Twas
+then Beatrix knelt down and kissed the linen sheets. As for her mother,
+Lady Castlewood made a curtsy at the door, as she would have done to the
+altar on entering a church, and owned that she considered the chamber in
+a manner sacred.
+
+The company in the servants' hall never for a moment supposed that these
+preparations were made for any other person than the young viscount,
+the lord of the house, whom his fond mother had been for so many years
+without seeing. Both ladies were perfect housewives, having the greatest
+skill in the making of confections, scented waters, &c., and keeping a
+notable superintendence over the kitchen. Calves enough were killed to
+feed an army of prodigal sons, Esmond thought, and laughed when he came
+to wait on the ladies, on the day when the guests were to arrive, to
+find two pairs of the finest and roundest arms to be seen in England (my
+Lady Castlewood was remarkable for this beauty of her person), covered
+with flour up above the elbows, and preparing paste, and turning
+rolling-pins in the housekeeper's closet. The guest would not arrive
+till supper-time, and my lord would prefer having that meal in his own
+chamber. You may be sure the brightest plate of the house was laid out
+there, and can understand why it was that the ladies insisted that they
+alone would wait upon the young chief of the family.
+
+Taking horse, Colonel Esmond rode rapidly to Rochester, and there
+awaited the King in that very town where his father had last set his
+foot on the English shore. A room had been provided at an inn there for
+my Lord Castlewood and his servant; and Colonel Esmond timed his ride so
+well that he had scarce been half an hour in the place, and was looking
+over the balcony into the yard of the inn, when two travellers rode in
+at the inn gate, and the Colonel running down, the next moment embraced
+his dear young lord.
+
+My lord's companion, acting the part of a domestic, dismounted, and was
+for holding the viscount's stirrup; but Colonel Esmond, calling to his
+own man, who was in the court, bade him take the horses and settle with
+the lad who had ridden the post along with the two travellers, crying
+out in a cavalier tone in the French language to my lord's companion,
+and affecting to grumble that my lord's fellow was a Frenchman, and did
+not know the money or habits of the country:--“My man will see to the
+horses, Baptiste,” says Colonel Esmond: “do you understand English?”
+ “Very leetle!” “So, follow my lord and wait upon him at dinner in his
+own room.” The landlord and his people came up presently bearing the
+dishes; 'twas well they made a noise and stir in the gallery, or they
+might have found Colonel Esmond on his knee before Lord Castlewood's
+servant, welcoming his Majesty to his kingdom, and kissing the hand
+of the King. We told the landlord that the Frenchman would wait on
+his master; and Esmond's man was ordered to keep sentry in the gallery
+without the door. The Prince dined with a good appetite, laughing and
+talking very gayly, and condescendingly bidding his two companions
+to sit with him at table. He was in better spirits than poor Frank
+Castlewood, who Esmond thought might be woe-begone on account of parting
+with his divine Clotilda; but the Prince wishing to take a short siesta
+after dinner, and retiring to an inner chamber where there was a bed,
+the cause of poor Frank's discomfiture came out; and bursting into
+tears, with many expressions of fondness, friendship, and humiliation,
+the faithful lad gave his kinsman to understand that he now knew all the
+truth, and the sacrifices which Colonel Esmond had made for him.
+
+Seeing no good in acquainting poor Frank with that secret, Mr. Esmond
+had entreated his mistress also not to reveal it to her son. The Prince
+had told the poor lad all as they were riding from Dover: “I had as lief
+he had shot me, cousin,” Frank said: “I knew you were the best, and the
+bravest, and the kindest of all men” (so the enthusiastic young fellow
+went on); “but I never thought I owed you what I do, and can scarce bear
+the weight of the obligation.”
+
+“I stand in the place of your father,” says Mr. Esmond, kindly, “and
+sure a father may dispossess himself in favor of his son. I abdicate the
+twopenny crown, and invest you with the kingdom of Brentford; don't be a
+fool and cry; you make a much taller and handsomer viscount than ever
+I could.” But the fond boy, with oaths and protestations, laughter and
+incoherent outbreaks of passionate emotion, could not be got, for some
+little time, to put up with Esmond's raillery; wanted to kneel down to
+him, and kissed his hand; asked him and implored him to order something,
+to bid Castlewood give his own life or take somebody else's; anything,
+so that he might show his gratitude for the generosity Esmond showed
+him.
+
+“The K---, HE laughed,” Frank said, pointing to the door where the
+sleeper was, and speaking in a low tone. “I don't think he should have
+laughed as he told me the story. As we rode along from Dover, talking in
+French, he spoke about you, and your coming to him at Bar; he called
+you 'le grand serieux,' Don Bellianis of Greece, and I don't know what
+names; mimicking your manner” (here Castlewood laughed himself)--“and
+he did it very well. He seems to sneer at everything. He is not like a
+king: somehow Harry, I fancy you are like a king. He does not seem
+to think what a stake we are all playing. He would have stopped at
+Canterbury to run after a barmaid there, had I not implored him to come
+on. He hath a house at Chaillot, where he used to go and bury himself
+for weeks away from the Queen, and with all sorts of bad company,” says
+Frank, with a demure look; “you may smile, but I am not the wild fellow
+I was; no, no, I have been taught better,” says Castlewood devoutly,
+making a sign on his breast.
+
+“Thou art my dear brave boy,” says Colonel Esmond, touched at the young
+fellow's simplicity, “and there will be a noble gentleman at Castlewood
+so long as my Frank is there.”
+
+The impetuous young lad was for going down on his knees again, with
+another explosion of gratitude, but that we heard the voice from the
+next chamber of the august sleeper, just waking, calling out:--“Eh,
+La-Fleur, un verre d'eau!” His Majesty came out yawning:--“A pest,” says
+he, “upon your English ale, 'tis so strong that, ma foi, it hath turned
+my head.”
+
+The effect of the ale was like a spur upon our horses, and we rode
+very quickly to London, reaching Kensington at nightfall. Mr. Esmond's
+servant was left behind at Rochester, to take care of the tired horses,
+whilst we had fresh beasts provided along the road. And galloping by
+the Prince's side the Colonel explained to the Prince of Wales what his
+movements had been; who the friends were that knew of the expedition;
+whom, as Esmond conceived, the Prince should trust; entreating him,
+above all, to maintain the very closest secrecy until the time should
+come when his Royal Highness should appear. The town swarmed with
+friends of the Prince's cause; there were scores of correspondents with
+St. Germains; Jacobites known and secret; great in station and humble;
+about the Court and the Queen; in the Parliament, Church, and among the
+merchants in the City. The Prince had friends numberless in the army,
+in the Privy Council, and the Officers of State. The great object, as it
+seemed, to the small band of persons who had concerted that bold stroke,
+who had brought the Queen's brother into his native country, was, that
+his visit should remain unknown till the proper time came, when his
+presence should surprise friends and enemies alike; and the latter
+should be found so unprepared and disunited, that they should not
+find time to attack him. We feared more from his friends than from his
+enemies. The lies and tittle-tattle sent over to St. Germains by the
+Jacobite agents about London, had done an incalculable mischief to his
+cause, and wofully misguided him, and it was from these especially, that
+the persons engaged in the present venture were anxious to defend the
+chief actor in it.*
+
+     * The managers were the Bishop, who cannot be hurt by having
+     his name mentioned, a very active and loyal Nonconformist
+     Divine, a lady in the highest favor at Court, with whom
+     Beatrix Esmond had communication, and two noblemen of the
+     greatest rank, and a member of the House of Commons, who was
+     implicated in more transactions than one in behalf of the
+     Stuart family.
+
+The party reached London by nightfall, leaving their horses at the
+Posting-House over against Westminster, and being ferried over the
+water, where Lady Esmond's coach was already in waiting. In another hour
+we were all landed at Kensington, and the mistress of the house had that
+satisfaction which her heart had yearned after for many years, once more
+to embrace her son, who, on his side, with all his waywardness, ever
+retained a most tender affection for his parent.
+
+She did not refrain from this expression of her feeling, though the
+domestics were by, and my Lord Castlewood's attendant stood in the hall.
+Esmond had to whisper to him in French to take his hat off. Monsieur
+Baptiste was constantly neglecting his part with an inconceivable
+levity: more than once on the ride to London, little observations of the
+stranger, light remarks, and words betokening the greatest ignorance of
+the country the Prince came to govern, had hurt the susceptibility of
+the two gentlemen forming his escort; nor could either help owning in
+his secret mind that they would have had his behavior otherwise,
+and that the laughter and the lightness, not to say license, which
+characterized his talk, scarce befitted such a great Prince, and such a
+solemn occasion. Not but that he could act at proper times with spirit
+and dignity. He had behaved, as we all knew, in a very courageous manner
+on the field. Esmond had seen a copy of the letter the Prince had writ
+with his own hand when urged by his friends in England to abjure his
+religion, and admired that manly and magnanimous reply by which he
+refused to yield to the temptation. Monsieur Baptiste took off his
+hat, blushing at the hint Colonel Esmond ventured to give him, and
+said:--“Tenez, elle est jolie, la petite mere. Foi de Chevalier! elle
+est charmante; mais l'autre, qui est cette nymphe, cet astre qui brille,
+cette Diane qui descend sur nous?” And he started back, and pushed
+forward, as Beatrix was descending the stair. She was in colors for the
+first time at her own house; she wore the diamonds Esmond gave her; it
+had been agreed between them, that she should wear these brilliants on
+the day when the King should enter the house, and a Queen she looked,
+radiant in charms, and magnificent and imperial in beauty.
+
+Castlewood himself was startled by that beauty and splendor; he stepped
+back and gazed at his sister as though he had not been aware before (nor
+was he very likely) how perfectly lovely she was, and I thought blushed
+as he embraced her. The Prince could not keep his eyes off her; he quite
+forgot his menial part, though he had been schooled to it, and a little
+light portmanteau prepared expressly that he should carry it. He pressed
+forward before my Lord Viscount. 'Twas lucky the servants' eyes were
+busy in other directions, or they must have seen that this was no
+servant, or at least a very insolent and rude one.
+
+Again Colonel Esmond was obliged to cry out, “Baptiste,” in a loud
+imperious voice, “have a care to the valise;” at which hint the wilful
+young man ground his teeth together with something very like a curse
+between them, and then gave a brief look of anything but pleasure to his
+Mentor. Being reminded, however, he shouldered the little portmanteau,
+and carried it up the stair, Esmond preceding him, and a servant with
+lighted tapers. He flung down his burden sulkily in the bedchamber:--“A
+Prince that will wear a crown must wear a mask,” says Mr. Esmond in
+French.
+
+“Ah peste! I see how it is,” says Monsieur Baptiste, continuing the
+talk in French. “The Great Serious is seriously”--“alarmed for Monsieur
+Baptiste,” broke in the Colonel. Esmond neither liked the tone with
+which the Prince spoke of the ladies, nor the eyes with which he
+regarded them.
+
+The bedchamber and the two rooms adjoining it, the closet and the
+apartment which was to be called my lord's parlor, were already lighted
+and awaiting their occupier; and the collation laid for my lord's
+supper. Lord Castlewood and his mother and sister came up the stair
+a minute afterwards, and, so soon as the domestics had quitted the
+apartment, Castlewood and Esmond uncovered, and the two ladies went down
+on their knees before the Prince, who graciously gave a hand to each.
+He looked his part of Prince much more naturally than that of servant,
+which he had just been trying, and raised them both with a great deal of
+nobility, as well as kindness in his air. “Madam,” says he, “my mother
+will thank your ladyship for your hospitality to her son; for you,
+madam,” turning to Beatrix, “I cannot bear to see so much beauty in such
+a posture. You will betray Monsieur Baptiste if you kneel to him; sure
+'tis his place rather to kneel to you.”
+
+A light shone out of her eyes; a gleam bright enough to kindle passion
+in any breast. There were times when this creature was so handsome,
+that she seemed, as it were, like Venus revealing herself a goddess in a
+flash of brightness. She appeared so now; radiant, and with eyes bright
+with a wonderful lustre. A pang, as of rage and jealousy, shot through
+Esmond's heart, as he caught the look she gave the Prince; and he
+clenched his hand involuntarily and looked across to Castlewood, whose
+eyes answered his alarm-signal, and were also on the alert. The Prince
+gave his subjects an audience of a few minutes, and then the two ladies
+and Colonel Esmond quitted the chamber. Lady Castlewood pressed his hand
+as they descended the stair, and the three went down to the lower rooms,
+where they waited awhile till the travellers above should be refreshed
+and ready for their meal.
+
+Esmond looked at Beatrix, blazing with her jewels on her beautiful neck.
+“I have kept my word,” says he: “And I mine,” says Beatrix, looking down
+on the diamonds.
+
+“Were I the Mogul Emperor,” says the Colonel, “you should have all that
+were dug out of Golconda.”
+
+“These are a great deal too good for me,” says Beatrix, dropping her
+head on her beautiful breast,--“so are you all, all!” And when she
+looked up again, as she did in a moment, and after a sigh, her eyes,
+as they gazed at her cousin, wore that melancholy and inscrutable look
+which 'twas always impossible to sound.
+
+When the time came for the supper, of which we were advertised by a
+knocking overhead, Colonel Esmond and the two ladies went to the upper
+apartment, where the Prince already was, and by his side the young
+Viscount, of exactly the same age, shape, and with features not
+dissimilar, though Frank's were the handsomer of the two. The Prince
+sat down and bade the ladies sit. The gentlemen remained standing: there
+was, indeed, but one more cover laid at the table:--“Which of you will
+take it?” says he.
+
+“The head of our house,” says Lady Castlewood, taking her son's hand,
+and looking towards Colonel Esmond with a bow and a great tremor of the
+voice; “the Marquis of Esmond will have the honor of serving the King.”
+
+“I shall have the honor of waiting on his Royal Highness,” says Colonel
+Esmond, filling a cup of wine, and, as the fashion of that day was, he
+presented it to the King on his knee.
+
+“I drink to my hostess and her family,” says the Prince, with no very
+well-pleased air; but the cloud passed immediately off his face, and he
+talked to the ladies in a lively, rattling strain, quite undisturbed
+by poor Mr. Esmond's yellow countenance, that, I dare say, looked very
+glum.
+
+When the time came to take leave, Esmond marched homewards to his
+lodgings, and met Mr. Addison on the road that night, walking to a
+cottage he had at Fulham, the moon shining on his handsome serene
+face:--“What cheer, brother?” says Addison, laughing: “I thought it was
+a footpad advancing in the dark, and behold 'tis an old friend. We
+may shake hands, Colonel, in the dark, 'tis better than fighting by
+daylight. Why should we quarrel, because I am a Whig and thou art
+a Tory? Turn thy steps and walk with me to Fulham, where there is a
+nightingale still singing in the garden, and a cool bottle in a cave I
+know of; you shall drink to the Pretender if you like, and I will drink
+my liquor my own way: I have had enough of good liquor?--no, never!
+There is no such word as enough as a stopper for good wine. Thou wilt
+not come? Come any day, come soon. You know I remember Simois and the
+Sigeia tellus, and the praelia mixta mero, mixta mero,” he repeated,
+with ever so slight a touch of merum in his voice, and walked back a
+little way on the road with Esmond, bidding the other remember he was
+always his friend, and indebted to him for his aid in the “Campaign”
+ poem. And very likely Mr. Under-Secretary would have stepped in and
+taken t'other bottle at the Colonel's lodging, had the latter invited
+him, but Esmond's mood was none of the gayest, and he bade his friend an
+inhospitable good-night at the door.
+
+“I have done the deed,” thought he, sleepless, and looking out into the
+night; “he is here, and I have brought him; he and Beatrix are sleeping
+under the same roof now. Whom did I mean to serve in bringing him? Was
+it the Prince? was it Henry Esmond? Had I not best have joined the manly
+creed of Addison yonder, that scouts the old doctrine of right
+divine, that boldly declares that Parliament and people consecrate the
+Sovereign, not bishops, nor genealogies, nor oils, nor coronations.”
+ The eager gaze of the young Prince, watching every movement of Beatrix,
+haunted Esmond and pursued him. The Prince's figure appeared before him
+in his feverish dreams many times that night. He wished the deed undone
+for which he had labored so. He was not the first that has regretted his
+own act, or brought about his own undoing. Undoing? Should he write
+that word in his late years? No, on his knees before heaven, rather be
+thankful for what then he deemed his misfortune, and which hath caused
+the whole subsequent happiness of his life.
+
+Esmond's man, honest John Lockwood, had served his master and the family
+all his life, and the Colonel knew that he could answer for John's
+fidelity as for his own. John returned with the horses from Rochester
+betimes the next morning, and the Colonel gave him to understand that on
+going to Kensington, where he was free of the servants' hall, and indeed
+courting Miss Beatrix's maid, he was to ask no questions, and betray no
+surprise, but to vouch stoutly that the young gentleman he should see in
+a red coat there was my Lord Viscount Castlewood, and that his attendant
+in gray was Monsieur Baptiste the Frenchman. He was to tell his friends
+in the kitchen such stories as he remembered of my Lord Viscount's youth
+at Castlewood; what a wild boy he was; how he used to drill Jack and
+cane him, before ever he was a soldier; everything, in fine, he knew
+respecting my Lord Viscount's early days. Jack's ideas of painting
+had not been much cultivated during his residence in Flanders with his
+master; and, before my young lord's return, he had been easily got to
+believe that the picture brought over from Paris, and now hanging in
+Lady Castlewood's drawing-room, was a perfect likeness of her son, the
+young lord. And the domestics having all seen the picture many times,
+and catching but a momentary imperfect glimpse of the two strangers on
+the night of their arrival, never had a reason to doubt the fidelity
+of the portrait; and next day, when they saw the original of the piece
+habited exactly as he was represented in the painting, with the same
+periwig, ribbons, and uniform of the Guard, quite naturally addressed
+the gentleman as my Lord Castlewood, my Lady Viscountess's son.
+
+The secretary of the night previous was now the viscount; the viscount
+wore the secretary's gray frock; and John Lockwood was instructed to
+hint to the world below stairs that my lord being a Papist, and very
+devout in that religion, his attendant might be no other than his
+chaplain from Bruxelles; hence, if he took his meals in my lord's
+company there was little reason for surprise. Frank was further
+cautioned to speak English with a foreign accent, which task he
+performed indifferently well, and this caution was the more necessary
+because the Prince himself scarce spoke our language like a native of
+the island: and John Lockwood laughed with the folks below stairs at the
+manner in which my lord, after five years abroad, sometimes forgot his
+own tongue, and spoke it like a Frenchman. “I warrant,” says he, “that,
+with the English beef and beer, his lordship will soon get back the
+proper use of his mouth;” and, to do his new lordship justice, he took
+to beer and beef very kindly.
+
+The Prince drank so much, and was so loud and imprudent in his talk
+after his drink, that Esmond often trembled for him. His meals were
+served as much as possible in his own chamber, though frequently he made
+his appearance in Lady Castlewood's parlor and drawing-room, calling
+Beatrix “sister,” and her ladyship “mother,” or “madam” before the
+servants. And, choosing to act entirely up to the part of brother and
+son, the Prince sometimes saluted Mrs. Beatrix and Lady Castlewood with
+a freedom which his secretary did not like, and which, for his part, set
+Colonel Esmond tearing with rage.
+
+The guests had not been three days in the house when poor Jack Lockwood
+came with a rueful countenance to his master, and said: “My Lord--that
+is the gentleman--has been tampering with Mrs. Lucy (Jack's sweetheart),
+and given her guineas and a kiss.” I fear that Colonel Esmond's mind was
+rather relieved than otherwise when he found that the ancillary beauty
+was the one whom the Prince had selected. His royal tastes were known
+to lie that way, and continued so in after life. The heir of one of
+the greatest names, of the greatest kingdoms, and of the greatest
+misfortunes in Europe, was often content to lay the dignity of his birth
+and grief at the wooden shoes of a French chambermaid, and to repent
+afterwards (for he was very devout) in ashes taken from the dust-pan.
+'Tis for mortals such as these that nations suffer, that parties
+struggle, that warriors fight and bleed. A year afterwards gallant heads
+were falling, and Nithsdale in escape, and Derwentwater on the scaffold;
+whilst the heedless ingrate, for whom they risked and lost all, was
+tippling with his seraglio of mistresses in his petite maison of
+Chaillot.
+
+Blushing to be forced to bear such an errand, Esmond had to go to the
+Prince and warn him that the girl whom his Highness was bribing was John
+Lockwood's sweetheart, an honest resolute man, who had served in six
+campaigns, and feared nothing, and who knew that the person calling
+himself Lord Castlewood was not his young master: and the Colonel
+besought the Prince to consider what the effect of a single man's
+jealousy might be, and to think of other designs he had in hand, more
+important than the seduction of a waiting-maid, and the humiliation of a
+brave man.
+
+Ten times, perhaps, in the course of as many days, Mr. Esmond had to
+warn the royal young adventurer of some imprudence or some freedom. He
+received these remonstrances very testily, save perhaps in this affair
+of poor Lockwood's, when he deigned to burst out a-laughing, and said,
+“What! the soubrette has peached to the amoureux, and Crispin is angry,
+and Crispin has served, and Crispin has been a corporal, has he? Tell
+him we will reward his valor with a pair of colors, and recompense his
+fidelity.”
+
+Colonel Esmond ventured to utter some other words of entreaty, but the
+Prince, stamping imperiously, cried out, “Assez, milord: je m'ennuye
+a la preche; I am not come to London to go to the sermon.” And he
+complained afterwards to Castlewood, that “le petit jaune, le noir
+Colonel, le Marquis Misanthrope” (by which facetious names his Royal
+Highness was pleased to designate Colonel Esmond), “fatigued him with
+his grand airs and virtuous homilies.”
+
+The Bishop of Rochester, and other gentlemen engaged in the transaction
+which had brought the Prince over, waited upon his Royal Highness,
+constantly asking for my Lord Castlewood on their arrival at Kensington,
+and being openly conducted to his Royal Highness in that character, who
+received them either in my lady's drawing-room below, or above in his
+own apartment; and all implored him to quit the house as little as
+possible, and to wait there till the signal should be given for him to
+appear. The ladies entertained him at cards, over which amusement he
+spent many hours in each day and night. He passed many hours more in
+drinking, during which time he would rattle and talk very agreeably, and
+especially if the Colonel was absent, whose presence always seemed to
+frighten him; and the poor “Colonel Noir” took that hint as a command
+accordingly, and seldom intruded his black face upon the convivial hours
+of this august young prisoner. Except for those few persons of whom the
+porter had the list, Lord Castlewood was denied to all friends of the
+house who waited on his lordship. The wound he had received had broke
+out again from his journey on horseback, so the world and the domestics
+were informed. And Doctor A----,* his physician (I shall not mention his
+name, but he was physician to the Queen, of the Scots nation, and a man
+remarkable for his benevolence as well as his wit), gave orders that he
+should be kept perfectly quiet until the wound should heal. With this
+gentleman, who was one of the most active and influential of our party,
+and the others before spoken of, the whole secret lay; and it was kept
+with so much faithfulness, and the story we told so simple and natural,
+that there was no likelihood of a discovery except from the imprudence
+of the Prince himself, and an adventurous levity that we had the
+greatest difficulty to control. As for Lady Castlewood, although she
+scarce spoke a word, 'twas easy to gather from her demeanor, and one
+or two hints she dropped, how deep her mortification was at finding the
+hero whom she had chosen to worship all her life (and whose restoration
+had formed almost the most sacred part of her prayers), no more than
+a man, and not a good one. She thought misfortune might have chastened
+him; but that instructress had rather rendered him callous than humble.
+His devotion, which was quite real, kept him from no sin he had a mind
+to. His talk showed good-humor, gayety, even wit enough; but there was
+a levity in his acts and words that he had brought from among those
+libertine devotees with whom he had been bred, and that shocked the
+simplicity and purity of the English lady, whose guest he was. Esmond
+spoke his mind to Beatrix pretty freely about the Prince, getting her
+brother to put in a word of warning. Beatrix was entirely of their
+opinion; she thought he was very light, very light and reckless; she
+could not even see the good looks Colonel Esmond had spoken of. The
+Prince had bad teeth, and a decided squint. How could we say he did not
+squint? His eyes were fine, but there was certainly a cast in them. She
+rallied him at table with wonderful wit; she spoke of him invariably as
+of a mere boy; she was more fond of Esmond than ever, praised him to her
+brother, praised him to the Prince, when his Royal Highness was pleased
+to sneer at the Colonel, and warmly espoused his cause: “And if your
+Majesty does not give him the Garter his father had, when the Marquis
+of Esmond comes to your Majesty's court, I will hang myself in my own
+garters, or will cry my eyes out.” “Rather than lose those,” says the
+Prince, “he shall be made Archbishop and Colonel of the Guard” (it was
+Frank Castlewood who told me of this conversation over their supper).
+
+     * There can be very little doubt that the Doctor mentioned
+     by my dear father was the famous Dr. Arbuthnot.--R. E. W.
+
+“Yes,” cries she, with one of her laughs--I fancy I hear it now.
+Thirty years afterwards I hear that delightful music. “Yes, he shall be
+Archbishop of Esmond and Marquis of Canterbury.”
+
+“And what will your ladyship be?” says the Prince; “you have but to
+choose your place.”
+
+“I,” says Beatrix, “will be mother of the maids to the Queen of his
+Majesty King James the Third--Vive le Roy!” and she made him a great
+curtsy, and drank a part of a glass of wine in his honor.
+
+“The Prince seized hold of the glass and drank the last drop of it,”
+ Castlewood said, “and my mother, looking very anxious, rose up and asked
+leave to retire. But that Trix is my mother's daughter, Harry,” Frank
+continued, “I don't know what a horrid fear I should have of her. I
+wish--I wish this business were over. You are older than I am,
+and wiser, and better, and I owe you everything, and would die for
+you--before George I would; but I wish the end of this were come.”
+
+Neither of us very likely passed a tranquil night; horrible doubts and
+torments racked Esmond's soul: 'twas a scheme of personal ambition,
+a daring stroke for a selfish end--he knew it. What cared he, in his
+heart, who was King? Were not his very sympathies and secret convictions
+on the other side--on the side of People, Parliament, Freedom? And here
+was he, engaged for a Prince that had scarce heard the word liberty;
+that priests and women, tyrants by nature, both made a tool of. The
+misanthrope was in no better humor after hearing that story, and his
+grim face more black and yellow than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+WE ENTERTAIN A VERY DISTINGUISHED GUEST AT KENSINGTON.
+
+
+Should any clue be found to the dark intrigues at the latter end of
+Queen Anne's time, or any historian be inclined to follow it, 'twill be
+discovered, I have little doubt, that not one of the great personages
+about the Queen had a defined scheme of policy, independent of that
+private and selfish interest which each was bent on pursuing: St.
+John was for St. John, and Harley for Oxford, and Marlborough for
+John Churchill, always; and according as they could get help from
+St. Germains or Hanover, they sent over proffers of allegiance to
+the Princes there, or betrayed one to the other: one cause, or one
+sovereign, was as good as another to them, so that they could hold the
+best place under him; and like Lockit and Peachem, the Newgate chiefs
+in the “Rogues' Opera,” Mr. Gay wrote afterwards, had each in his hand
+documents and proofs of treason which would hang the other, only he did
+not dare to use the weapon, for fear of that one which his neighbor
+also carried in his pocket. Think of the great Marlborough, the greatest
+subject in all the world, a conqueror of princes, that had marched
+victorious over Germany, Flanders, and France, that had given the law to
+sovereigns abroad, and been worshipped as a divinity at home, forced to
+sneak out of England--his credit, honors, places, all taken from him;
+his friends in the army broke and ruined; and flying before Harley, as
+abject and powerless as a poor debtor before a bailiff with a writ. A
+paper, of which Harley got possession, and showing beyond doubt that the
+Duke was engaged with the Stuart family, was the weapon with which the
+Treasurer drove Marlborough out of the kingdom. He fled to Antwerp, and
+began intriguing instantly on the other side, and came back to England,
+as all know, a Whig and a Hanoverian.
+
+Though the Treasurer turned out of the army and office every man,
+military or civil, known to be the Duke's friend, and gave the vacant
+posts among the Tory party; he, too, was playing the double game between
+Hanover and St. Germains, awaiting the expected catastrophe of the
+Queen's death to be Master of the State, and offer it to either family
+that should bribe him best, or that the nation should declare for.
+Whichever the King was, Harley's object was to reign over him; and to
+this end he supplanted the former famous favorite, decried the actions
+of the war which had made Marlborough's name illustrious, and disdained
+no more than the great fallen competitor of his, the meanest arts,
+flatteries, intimidations, that would secure his power. If the greatest
+satirist the world ever hath seen had writ against Harley, and not for
+him, what a history had he left behind of the last years of Queen Anne's
+reign! But Swift, that scorned all mankind, and himself not the least of
+all, had this merit of a faithful partisan, that he loved those chiefs
+who treated him well, and stuck by Harley bravely in his fall, as he
+gallantly had supported him in his better fortune.
+
+Incomparably more brilliant, more splendid, eloquent, accomplished than
+his rival, the great St. John could be as selfish as Oxford was, and
+could act the double part as skilfully as ambidextrous Churchill. He
+whose talk was always of liberty, no more shrunk from using persecution
+and the pillory against his opponents than if he had been at Lisbon and
+Grand Inquisitor. This lofty patriot was on his knees at Hanover and St.
+Germains too; notoriously of no religion, he toasted Church and Queen
+as boldly as the stupid Sacheverel, whom he used and laughed at; and
+to serve his turn, and to overthrow his enemy, he could intrigue, coax,
+bully, wheedle, fawn on the Court favorite and creep up the back-stair
+as silently as Oxford, who supplanted Marlborough, and whom he himself
+supplanted. The crash of my Lord Oxford happened at this very time
+whereat my history is now arrived. He was come to the very last days of
+his power, and the agent whom he employed to overthrow the conqueror of
+Blenheim, was now engaged to upset the conqueror's conqueror, and hand
+over the staff of government to Bolingbroke, who had been panting to
+hold it.
+
+In expectation of the stroke that was now preparing, the Irish regiments
+in the French service were all brought round about Boulogne in Picardy,
+to pass over if need were with the Duke of Berwick; the soldiers of
+France no longer, but subjects of James the Third of England and Ireland
+King. The fidelity of the great mass of the Scots (though a most active,
+resolute, and gallant Whig party, admirably and energetically ordered
+and disciplined, was known to be in Scotland too) was notoriously
+unshaken in their King. A very great body of Tory clergy, nobility, and
+gentry, were public partisans of the exiled Prince; and the indifferents
+might be counted on to cry King George or King James, according as
+either should prevail. The Queen, especially in her latter days,
+inclined towards her own family. The Prince was lying actually in
+London, within a stone's cast of his sister's palace; the first Minister
+toppling to his fall, and so tottering that the weakest push of
+a woman's finger would send him down; and as for Bolingbroke, his
+successor, we know on whose side his power and his splendid eloquence
+would be on the day when the Queen should appear openly before her
+Council and say:--“This, my lords, is my brother; here is my father's
+heir, and mine after me.”
+
+During the whole of the previous year the Queen had had many and
+repeated fits of sickness, fever, and lethargy, and her death had been
+constantly looked for by all her attendants. The Elector of Hanover had
+wished to send his son, the Duke of Cambridge--to pay his court to his
+cousin the Queen, the Elector said;--in truth, to be on the spot when
+death should close her career. Frightened perhaps to have such a memento
+mori under her royal eyes, her Majesty had angrily forbidden the young
+Prince's coming into England. Either she desired to keep the chances for
+her brother open yet; or the people about her did not wish to close with
+the Whig candidate till they could make terms with him. The quarrels
+of her Ministers before her face at the Council board, the pricks of
+conscience very likely, the importunities of her Ministers, and constant
+turmoil and agitation round about her, had weakened and irritated the
+Princess extremely; her strength was giving way under these continual
+trials of her temper, and from day to day it was expected she must
+come to a speedy end of them. Just before Viscount Castlewood and his
+companion came from France, her Majesty was taken ill. The St.
+Anthony's fire broke out on the royal legs; there was no hurry for
+the presentation of the young lord at Court, or that person who should
+appear under his name; and my Lord Viscount's wound breaking out
+opportunely, he was kept conveniently in his chamber until such time as
+his physician would allow him to bend his knee before the Queen. At
+the commencement of July, that influential lady, with whom it has been
+mentioned that our party had relations, came frequently to visit her
+young friend, the Maid of Honor, at Kensington, and my Lord Viscount
+(the real or supposititious), who was an invalid at Lady Castlewood's
+house.
+
+On the 27th day of July, the lady in question, who held the most
+intimate post about the Queen, came in her chair from the Palace hard
+by, bringing to the little party in Kensington Square intelligence of
+the very highest importance. The final blow had been struck, and my Lord
+of Oxford and Mortimer was no longer Treasurer. The staff was as yet
+given to no successor, though my Lord Bolingbroke would undoubtedly be
+the man. And now the time was come, the Queen's Abigail said: and now my
+Lord Castlewood ought to be presented to the Sovereign.
+
+After that scene which Lord Castlewood witnessed and described to his
+cousin, who passed such a miserable night of mortification and jealousy
+as he thought over the transaction, no doubt the three persons who were
+set by nature as protectors over Beatrix came to the same conclusion,
+that she must be removed from the presence of a man whose desires
+towards her were expressed only too clearly; and who was no more
+scrupulous in seeking to gratify them than his father had been before
+him. I suppose Esmond's mistress, her son, and the Colonel himself, had
+been all secretly debating this matter in their minds, for when Frank
+broke out, in his blunt way, with:--“I think Beatrix had best be
+anywhere but here,”--Lady Castlewood said:--“I thank you, Frank, I have
+thought so, too;” and Mr. Esmond, though he only remarked that it was
+not for him to speak, showed plainly, by the delight on his countenance,
+how very agreeable that proposal was to him.
+
+“One sees that you think with us, Henry,” says the viscountess, with
+ever so little of sarcasm in her tone: “Beatrix is best out of this
+house whilst we have our guest in it, and as soon as this morning's
+business is done, she ought to quit London.”
+
+“What morning's business?” asked Colonel Esmond, not knowing what had
+been arranged, though in fact the stroke next in importance to that of
+bringing the Prince, and of having him acknowledged by the Queen,
+was now being performed at the very moment we three were conversing
+together.
+
+The Court-lady with whom our plan was concerted, and who was a chief
+agent in it, the Court physician, and the Bishop of Rochester, who
+were the other two most active participators in our plan, had held many
+councils in our house at Kensington and elsewhere, as to the means best
+to be adopted for presenting our young adventurer to his sister the
+Queen. The simple and easy plan proposed by Colonel Esmond had been
+agreed to by all parties, which was that on some rather private day,
+when there were not many persons about the Court, the Prince should
+appear there as my Lord Castlewood, should be greeted by his sister in
+waiting, and led by that other lady into the closet of the Queen. And
+according to her Majesty's health or humor, and the circumstances that
+might arise during the interview, it was to be left to the discretion
+of those present at it, and to the Prince himself, whether he should
+declare that it was the Queen's own brother, or the brother of Beatrix
+Esmond, who kissed her Royal hand. And this plan being determined on,
+we were all waiting in very much anxiety for the day and signal of
+execution.
+
+Two mornings after that supper, it being the 27th day of July, the
+Bishop of Rochester breakfasting with Lady Castlewood and her family,
+and the meal scarce over, Doctor A.'s coach drove up to our house at
+Kensington, and the Doctor appeared amongst the party there, enlivening
+a rather gloomy company; for the mother and daughter had had words in
+the morning in respect to the transactions of that supper, and other
+adventures perhaps, and on the day succeeding. Beatrix's haughty spirit
+brooked remonstrances from no superior, much less from her mother, the
+gentlest of creatures, whom the girl commanded rather than obeyed. And
+feeling she was wrong, and that by a thousand coquetries (which she
+could no more help exercising on every man that came near her, than the
+sun can help shining on great and small) she had provoked the Prince's
+dangerous admiration, and allured him to the expression of it, she was
+only the more wilful and imperious the more she felt her error.
+
+To this party, the Prince being served with chocolate in his bedchamber,
+where he lay late, sleeping away the fumes of his wine, the Doctor came,
+and by the urgent and startling nature of his news, dissipated instantly
+that private and minor unpleasantry under which the family of Castlewood
+was laboring.
+
+He asked for the guest; the guest was above in his own apartment: he
+bade Monsieur Baptiste go up to his master instantly, and requested that
+MY LORD VISCOUNT CASTLEWOOD would straightway put his uniform on, and
+come away in the Doctor's coach now at the door.
+
+He then informed Madam Beatrix what her part of the comedy was to
+be:--“In half an hour,” says he, “her Majesty and her favorite lady
+will take the air in the Cedar-walk behind the new Banqueting-house. Her
+Majesty will be drawn in a garden-chair, Madam Beatrix Esmond and HER
+BROTHER, MY LORD VISCOUNT CASTLEWOOD, will be walking in the private
+garden, (here is Lady Masham's key,) and will come unawares upon the
+Royal party. The man that draws the chair will retire, and leave the
+Queen, the favorite, and the maid of honor and her brother together;
+Mistress Beatrix will present her brother, and then!--and then, my Lord
+Bishop will pray for the result of the interview, and his Scots clerk
+will say Amen! Quick, put on your hood, Madam Beatrix; why doth not his
+Majesty come down? Such another chance may not present itself for months
+again.”
+
+The Prince was late and lazy, and indeed had all but lost that chance
+through his indolence. The Queen was actually about to leave the garden
+just when the party reached it; the Doctor, the Bishop, the maid of
+honor and her brother went off together in the physician's coach,
+and had been gone half an hour when Colonel Esmond came to Kensington
+Square.
+
+The news of this errand, on which Beatrix was gone, of course for a
+moment put all thoughts of private jealousy out of Colonel Esmond's
+head. In half an hour more the coach returned; the Bishop descended from
+it first, and gave his arm to Beatrix, who now came out. His lordship
+went back into the carriage again, and the maid of honor entered the
+house alone. We were all gazing at her from the upper window, trying to
+read from her countenance the result of the interview from which she had
+just come.
+
+She came into the drawing-room in a great tremor and very pale; she
+asked for a glass of water as her mother went to meet her, and after
+drinking that and putting off her hood, she began to speak--“We may all
+hope for the best,” says she; “it has cost the Queen a fit. Her Majesty
+was in her chair in the Cedar-walk, accompanied only by Lady ----, when
+we entered by the private wicket from the west side of the garden, and
+turned towards her, the Doctor following us. They waited in a side
+walk hidden by the shrubs, as we advanced towards the chair. My heart
+throbbed so I scarce could speak; but my Prince whispered, 'Courage,
+Beatrix,' and marched on with a steady step. His face was a little
+flushed, but he was not afraid of the danger. He who fought so bravely
+at Malplaquet fears nothing.” Esmond and Castlewood looked at each other
+at this compliment, neither liking the sound of it.
+
+“The Prince uncovered,” Beatrix continued, “and I saw the Queen turning
+round to Lady Masham, as if asking who these two were. Her Majesty
+looked very pale and ill, and then flushed up; the favorite made us a
+signal to advance, and I went up, leading my Prince by the hand, quite
+close to the chair: 'Your Majesty will give my Lord Viscount your hand
+to kiss,' says her lady, and the Queen put out her hand, which the
+Prince kissed, kneeling on his knee, he who should kneel to no mortal
+man or woman.
+
+“'You have been long from England, my lord,' says the Queen: 'why were
+you not here to give a home to your mother and sister?'
+
+“'I am come, Madam, to stay now, if the Queen desires me,' says the
+Prince, with another low bow.
+
+“'You have taken a foreign wife, my lord, and a foreign religion; was
+not that of England good enough for you?'
+
+“'In returning to my father's church,' says the Prince, 'I do not love
+my mother the less, nor am I the less faithful servant of your majesty.'
+
+“Here,” says Beatrix, “the favorite gave me a little signal with her
+hand to fall back, which I did, though I died to hear what should pass;
+and whispered something to the Queen, which made her Majesty start and
+utter one or two words in a hurried manner, looking towards the Prince,
+and catching hold with her hand of the arm of her chair. He advanced
+still nearer towards it; he began to speak very rapidly; I caught the
+words, 'Father, blessing, forgiveness,'--and then presently the Prince
+fell on his knees; took from his breast a paper he had there, handed it
+to the Queen, who, as soon as she saw it, flung up both her arms with
+a scream, and took away that hand nearest the Prince, and which he
+endeavored to kiss. He went on speaking with great animation of gesture,
+now clasping his hands together on his heart, now opening them as though
+to say: 'I am here, your brother, in your power.' Lady Masham ran round
+on the other side of the chair, kneeling too, and speaking with great
+energy. She clasped the Queen's hand on her side, and picked up the
+paper her Majesty had let fall. The Prince rose and made a further
+speech as though he would go; the favorite on the other hand urging her
+mistress, and then, running back to the Prince, brought him back once
+more close to the chair. Again he knelt down and took the Queen's hand,
+which she did not withdraw, kissing it a hundred times; my lady all the
+time, with sobs and supplications, speaking over the chair. This while
+the Queen sat with a stupefied look, crumpling the paper with one hand,
+as my Prince embraced the other; then of a sudden she uttered several
+piercing shrieks, and burst into a great fit of hysteric tears and
+laughter. 'Enough, enough, sir, for this time,' I heard Lady Masham
+say: and the chairman, who had withdrawn round the Banqueting-room, came
+back, alarmed by the cries. 'Quick,' says Lady Masham, 'get some help,'
+and I ran towards the Doctor, who, with the Bishop of Rochester, came up
+instantly. Lady Masham whispered the Prince he might hope for the very
+best; and to be ready to-morrow; and he hath gone away to the Bishop
+of Rochester's house, to meet several of his friends there. And so the
+great stroke is struck,” says Beatrix, going down on her knees, and
+clasping her hands. “God save the King: God save the King!”
+
+Beatrix's tale told, and the young lady herself calmed somewhat of
+her agitation, we asked with regard to the Prince, who was absent with
+Bishop Atterbury, and were informed that 'twas likely he might remain
+abroad the whole day. Beatrix's three kinsfolk looked at one another at
+this intelligence: 'twas clear the same thought was passing through the
+minds of all.
+
+But who should begin to break the news? Monsieur Baptiste, that is Frank
+Castlewood, turned very red, and looked towards Esmond; the Colonel
+bit his lips, and fairly beat a retreat into the window: it was Lady
+Castlewood that opened upon Beatrix with the news which we knew would do
+anything but please her.
+
+“We are glad,” says she, taking her daughter's hand, and speaking in a
+gentle voice, “that the guest is away.”
+
+Beatrix drew back in an instant, looking round her at us three, and
+as if divining a danger. “Why glad?” says she, her breast beginning to
+heave; “are you so soon tired of him?”
+
+“We think one of us is devilishly too fond of him,” cries out Frank
+Castlewood.
+
+“And which is it--you, my lord, or is it mamma, who is jealous because
+he drinks my health? or is it the head of the family” (here she turned
+with an imperious look towards Colonel Esmond), “who has taken of late
+to preach the King sermons?”
+
+“We do not say you are too free with his Majesty.”
+
+“I thank you, madam,” says Beatrix, with a toss of the head and a
+curtsey.
+
+But her mother continued, with very great calmness and dignity--“At
+least we have not said so, though we might, were it possible for a
+mother to say such words to her own daughter, your father's daughter.”
+
+“Eh? mon pere,” breaks out Beatrix, “was no better than other persons'
+fathers.” And again she looked towards the Colonel.
+
+We all felt a shock as she uttered those two or three French words; her
+manner was exactly imitated from that of our foreign guest.
+
+“You had not learned to speak French a month ago, Beatrix,” says her
+mother, sadly, “nor to speak ill of your father.”
+
+Beatrix, no doubt, saw that slip she had made in her flurry, for she
+blushed crimson: “I have learnt to honor the King,” says she, drawing
+up, “and 'twere as well that others suspected neither his Majesty nor
+me.”
+
+“If you respected your mother a little more,” Frank said, “Trix, you
+would do yourself no hurt.”
+
+“I am no child,” says she, turning round on him; “we have lived very
+well these five years without the benefit of your advice or example, and
+I intend to take neither now. Why does not the head of the house speak?”
+ she went on; “he rules everything here. When his chaplain has done
+singing the psalms, will his lordship deliver the sermon? I am tired of
+the psalms.” The Prince had used almost the very same words in regard to
+Colonel Esmond that the imprudent girl repeated in her wrath.
+
+“You show yourself a very apt scholar, madam,” says the Colonel;
+and, turning to his mistress, “Did your guest use these words in your
+ladyship's hearing, or was it to Beatrix in private that he was pleased
+to impart his opinion regarding my tiresome sermon?”
+
+“Have you seen him alone?” cries my lord, starting up with an oath: “by
+God, have you seen him alone?”
+
+“Were he here, you wouldn't dare so to insult me; no, you would not
+dare!” cries Frank's sister. “Keep your oaths, my lord, for your wife;
+we are not used here to such language. Till you came, there used to be
+kindness between me and mamma, and I cared for her when you never did,
+when you were away for years with your horses and your mistress, and
+your Popish wife.”
+
+“By ---,” says my lord, rapping out another oath, “Clotilda is an angel;
+how dare you say a word against Clotilda?”
+
+Colonel Esmond could not refrain from a smile, to see how easy Frank's
+attack was drawn off by that feint:--“I fancy Clotilda is not the
+subject in hand,” says Mr. Esmond, rather scornfully; “her ladyship is
+at Paris, a hundred leagues off, preparing baby-linen. It is about my
+Lord Castlewood's sister, and not his wife, the question is.”
+
+“He is not my Lord Castlewood,” says Beatrix, “and he knows he is not;
+he is Colonel Francis Esmond's son, and no more, and he wears a false
+title; and he lives on another man's land, and he knows it.” Here was
+another desperate sally of the poor beleaguered garrison, and an alerte
+in another quarter. “Again, I beg your pardon,” says Esmond. “If there
+are no proofs of my claim, I have no claim. If my father acknowledged
+no heir, yours was his lawful successor, and my Lord Castlewood hath
+as good a right to his rank and small estate as any man in England. But
+that again is not the question, as you know very well; let us bring our
+talk back to it, as you will have me meddle in it. And I will give
+you frankly my opinion, that a house where a Prince lies all day, who
+respects no woman, is no house for a young unmarried lady; that you were
+better in the country than here; that he is here on a great end, from
+which no folly should divert him; and that having nobly done your part
+of this morning, Beatrix, you should retire off the scene awhile, and
+leave it to the other actors of the play.”
+
+As the Colonel spoke with a perfect calmness and politeness, such as
+'tis to be hoped he hath always shown to women,* his mistress stood by
+him on one side of the table, and Frank Castlewood on the other, hemming
+in poor Beatrix, that was behind it, and, as it were, surrounding her
+with our approaches.
+
+     * My dear father saith quite truly, that his manner towards
+     our sex was uniformly courteous.  From my infancy upwards,
+     he treated me with an extreme gentleness, as though I was a
+     little lady.  I can scarce remember (though I tried him
+     often) ever hearing a rough word from him, nor was he less
+     grave and kind in his manner to the humblest negresses on
+     his estate.  He was familiar with no one except my mother,
+     and it was delightful to witness up to the very last days
+     the confidence between them.  He was obeyed eagerly by all
+     under him; and my mother and all her household lived in a
+     constant emulation to please him, and quite a terror lest in
+     any way they should offend him.  He was the humblest man
+     with all this; the least exacting, the more easily
+     contented; and Mr. Benson, our minister at Castlewood, who
+     attended him at the last, ever said--“I know not what
+     Colonel Esmond's doctrine was, but his life and death were
+     those of a devout Christian.”--R. E. W.
+
+Having twice sallied out and been beaten back, she now, as I expected,
+tried the ultima ratio of women, and had recourse to tears. Her
+beautiful eyes filled with them; I never could bear in her, nor in any
+woman, that expression of pain:--“I am alone,” sobbed she; “you are
+three against me--my brother, my mother, and you. What have I done, that
+you should speak and look so unkindly at me? Is it my fault that the
+Prince should, as you say, admire me? Did I bring him here? Did I do
+aught but what you bade me, in making him welcome? Did you not tell me
+that our duty was to die for him? Did you not teach me, mother, night
+and morning to pray for the King, before even ourselves? What would you
+have of me, cousin, for you are the chief of the conspiracy against me;
+I know you are, sir, and that my mother and brother are acting but as
+you bid them; whither would you have me go?”
+
+“I would but remove from the Prince,” says Esmond, gravely, “a dangerous
+temptation; heaven forbid I should say you would yield; I would only
+have him free of it. Your honor needs no guardian, please God, but his
+imprudence doth. He is so far removed from all women by his rank, that
+his pursuit of them cannot but be unlawful. We would remove the dearest
+and fairest of our family from the chance of that insult, and that is
+why we would have you go, dear Beatrix.”
+
+“Harry speaks like a book,” says Frank, with one of his oaths, “and, by
+---, every word he saith is true. You can't help being handsome, Trix;
+no more can the Prince help following you. My counsel is that you go out
+of harm's way; for, by the Lord, were the Prince to play any tricks with
+you, King as he is, or is to be, Harry Esmond and I would have justice
+of him.”
+
+“Are not two such champions enough to guard me?” says Beatrix, something
+sorrowfully; “sure, with you two watching, no evil could happen to me.”
+
+“In faith, I think not, Beatrix,” says Colonel Esmond; “nor if the
+Prince knew us would he try.”
+
+“But does he know you?” interposed Lady Castlewood, very quiet: “he
+comes of a country where the pursuit of kings is thought no dishonor
+to a woman. Let us go, dearest Beatrix. Shall we go to Walcote or to
+Castlewood? We are best away from the city; and when the Prince is
+acknowledged, and our champions have restored him, and he hath his own
+house at St. James's or Windsor, we can come back to ours here. Do you
+not think so, Harry and Frank?”
+
+Frank and Harry thought with her, you may be sure.
+
+“We will go, then,” says Beatrix, turning a little pale; “Lady Masham is
+to give me warning to-night how her Majesty is, and to-morrow--”
+
+“I think we had best go to-day, my dear,” says my Lady Castlewood; “we
+might have the coach and sleep at Hounslow, and reach home to-morrow.
+'Tis twelve o'clock; bid the coach, cousin, be ready at one.”
+
+“For shame!” burst out Beatrix, in a passion of tears and mortification.
+“You disgrace me by your cruel precautions; my own mother is the first
+to suspect me, and would take me away as my gaoler. I will not go with
+you, mother; I will go as no one's prisoner. If I wanted to deceive, do
+you think I could find no means of evading you? My family suspects me.
+As those mistrust me that ought to love me most, let me leave them; I
+will go, but I will go alone: to Castlewood, be it. I have been unhappy
+there and lonely enough; let me go back, but spare me at least the
+humiliation of setting a watch over my misery, which is a trial I can't
+bear. Let me go when you will, but alone, or not at all. You three can
+stay and triumph over my unhappiness, and I will bear it as I have borne
+it before. Let my gaoler-in-chief go order the coach that is to take me
+away. I thank you, Henry Esmond, for your share in the conspiracy. All
+my life long I'll thank you, and remember you, and you, brother, and
+you, mother, how shall I show my gratitude to you for your careful
+defence of my honor?”
+
+She swept out of the room with the air of an empress, flinging glances
+of defiance at us all, and leaving us conquerors of the field, but
+scared, and almost ashamed of our victory. It did indeed seem hard and
+cruel that we three should have conspired the banishment and humiliation
+of that fair creature. We looked at each other in silence: 'twas not the
+first stroke by many of our actions in that unlucky time, which, being
+done, we wished undone. We agreed it was best she should go alone,
+speaking stealthily to one another, and under our breaths, like persons
+engaged in an act they felt ashamed in doing.
+
+In a half-hour, it might be, after our talk she came back, her
+countenance wearing the same defiant air which it had borne when
+she left us. She held a shagreen-case in her hand; Esmond knew it as
+containing his diamonds which he had given to her for her marriage with
+Duke Hamilton, and which she had worn so splendidly on the inauspicious
+night of the Prince's arrival. “I have brought back,” says she, “to
+the Marquis of Esmond the present he deigned to make me in days when he
+trusted me better than now. I will never accept a benefit or a kindness
+from Henry Esmond more, and I give back these family diamonds, which
+belonged to one king's mistress, to the gentleman that suspected I would
+be another. Have you been upon your message of coach-caller, my Lord
+Marquis? Will you send your valet to see that I do not run away?” We
+were right, yet, by her manner, she had put us all in the wrong; we
+were conquerors, yet the honors of the day seemed to be with the poor
+oppressed girl.
+
+That luckless box containing the stones had first been ornamented with
+a baron's coronet, when Beatrix was engaged to the young gentleman from
+whom she parted, and afterwards the gilt crown of a duchess figured
+on the cover, which also poor Beatrix was destined never to wear. Lady
+Castlewood opened the case mechanically and scarce thinking what she
+did; and behold, besides the diamonds, Esmond's present, there lay in
+the box the enamelled miniature of the late Duke, which Beatrix had laid
+aside with her mourning when the King came into the house; and which the
+poor heedless thing very likely had forgotten.
+
+“Do you leave this, too, Beatrix?” says her mother, taking the miniature
+out, and with a cruelty she did not very often show; but there are some
+moments when the tenderest women are cruel, and some triumphs which
+angels can't forego.*
+
+     * This remark shows how unjustly and contemptuously even the
+     best of men will sometimes judge of our sex.  Lady
+     Castlewood had no intention of triumphing over her daughter;
+     but from a sense of duty alone pointed out her deplorable
+     wrong.--H. E.
+
+Having delivered this stab, Lady Castlewood was frightened at the effect
+of her blow. It went to poor Beatrix's heart: she flushed up and passed
+a handkerchief across her eyes, and kissed the miniature, and put it
+into her bosom:--“I had forgot it,” says she; “my injury made me forget
+my grief: my mother has recalled both to me. Farewell, mother; I think I
+never can forgive you; something hath broke between us that no tears
+nor years can repair. I always said I was alone; you never loved me,
+never--and were jealous of me from the time I sat on my father's knee.
+Let me go away, the sooner the better: I can bear to be with you no
+more.”
+
+“Go, child,” says her mother, still very stern; “go and bend your
+proud knees and ask forgiveness; go, pray in solitude for humility and
+repentance. 'Tis not your reproaches that make me unhappy, 'tis your
+hard heart, my poor Beatrix; may God soften it, and teach you one day to
+feel for your mother.”
+
+If my mistress was cruel, at least she never could be got to own as
+much. Her haughtiness quite overtopped Beatrix's; and, if the girl had a
+proud spirit, I very much fear it came to her by inheritance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+OUR GUEST QUITS US AS NOT BEING HOSPITABLE ENOUGH.
+
+
+Beatrix's departure took place within an hour, her maid going with her
+in the post-chaise, and a man armed on the coach-box to prevent any
+danger of the road. Esmond and Frank thought of escorting the carriage,
+but she indignantly refused their company, and another man was sent to
+follow the coach, and not to leave it till it had passed over Hounslow
+Heath on the next day. And these two forming the whole of Lady
+Castlewood's male domestics, Mr. Esmond's faithful John Lockwood came
+to wait on his mistress during their absence, though he would have
+preferred to escort Mrs. Lucy, his sweetheart, on her journey into the
+country.
+
+We had a gloomy and silent meal; it seemed as if a darkness was over the
+house, since the bright face of Beatrix had been withdrawn from it. In
+the afternoon came a message from the favorite to relieve us somewhat
+from this despondency. “The Queen hath been much shaken,” the note said;
+“she is better now, and all things will go well. Let MY LORD CASTLEWOOD
+be ready against we send for him.”
+
+At night there came a second billet: “There hath been a great battle in
+Council; Lord Treasurer hath broke his staff, and hath fallen never to
+rise again; no successor is appointed. Lord B----receives a great Whig
+company to-night at Golden Square. If he is trimming, others are true;
+the Queen hath no more fits, but is a-bed now, and more quiet. Be ready
+against morning, when I still hope all will be well.”
+
+The Prince came home shortly after the messenger who bore this billet
+had left the house. His Royal Highness was so much the better for the
+Bishop's liquor, that to talk affairs to him now was of little service.
+He was helped to the Royal bed; he called Castlewood familiarly by his
+own name; he quite forgot the part upon the acting of which his crown,
+his safety, depended. 'Twas lucky that my Lady Castlewood's servants
+were out of the way, and only those heard him who would not betray
+him. He inquired after the adorable Beatrix, with a royal hiccup in his
+voice; he was easily got to bed, and in a minute or two plunged in that
+deep slumber and forgetfulness with which Bacchus rewards the votaries
+of that god. We wished Beatrix had been there to see him in his cups. We
+regretted, perhaps, that she was gone.
+
+One of the party at Kensington Square was fool enough to ride to
+Hounslow that night, coram latronibus, and to the inn which the family
+used ordinarily in their journeys out of London. Esmond desired my
+landlord not to acquaint Madam Beatrix with his coming, and had the grim
+satisfaction of passing by the door of the chamber where she lay with
+her maid, and of watching her chariot set forth in the early morning. He
+saw her smile and slip money into the man's hand who was ordered to ride
+behind the coach as far as Bagshot. The road being open, and the other
+servant armed, it appeared she dispensed with the escort of a second
+domestic; and this fellow, bidding his young mistress adieu with many
+bows, went and took a pot of ale in the kitchen, and returned in company
+with his brother servant, John Coachman, and his horses, back to London.
+
+They were not a mile out of Hounslow when the two worthies stopped for
+more drink, and here they were scared by seeing Colonel Esmond gallop by
+them. The man said in reply to Colonel Esmond's stern question, that his
+young mistress had sent her duty; only that, no other message: she had
+had a very good night, and would reach Castlewood by nightfall. The
+Colonel had no time for further colloquy, and galloped on swiftly to
+London, having business of great importance there, as my reader very
+well knoweth. The thought of Beatrix riding away from the danger soothed
+his mind not a little. His horse was at Kensington Square (honest Dapple
+knew the way thither well enough) before the tipsy guest of last night
+was awake and sober.
+
+The account of the previous evening was known all over the town early
+next day. A violent altercation had taken place before the Queen in
+the Council Chamber; and all the coffee-houses had their version of the
+quarrel. The news brought my Lord Bishop early to Kensington Square,
+where he awaited the waking of his Royal master above stairs, and spoke
+confidently of having him proclaimed as Prince of Wales and heir to
+the throne before that day was over. The Bishop had entertained on the
+previous afternoon certain of the most influential gentlemen of the
+true British party. His Royal highness had charmed all, both Scots and
+English, Papists and Churchmen: “Even Quakers,” says he, “were at our
+meeting; and, if the stranger took a little too much British punch and
+ale, he will soon grow more accustomed to those liquors; and my Lord
+Castlewood,” says the Bishop with a laugh, “must bear the cruel charge
+of having been for once in his life a little tipsy. He toasted your
+lovely sister a dozen times, at which we all laughed,” says the Bishop,
+“admiring so much fraternal affection.--Where is that charming nymph,
+and why doth she not adorn your ladyship's tea-table with her bright
+eyes?”
+
+Her ladyship said, dryly, that Beatrix was not at home that morning;
+my Lord Bishop was too busy with great affairs to trouble himself much
+about the presence or absence of any lady, however beautiful.
+
+We were yet at table when Dr. A---- came from the Palace with a look of
+great alarm; the shocks the Queen had had the day before had acted on
+her severely; he had been sent for, and had ordered her to be blooded.
+The surgeon of Long Acre had come to cup the Queen, and her Majesty was
+now more easy and breathed more freely. What made us start at the name
+of Mr. Ayme? “Il faut etre aimable pour etre aime,” says the merry
+Doctor; Esmond pulled his sleeve, and bade him hush. It was to Ayme's
+house, after his fatal duel, that my dear Lord Castlewood, Frank's
+father, had been carried to die.
+
+No second visit could be paid to the Queen on that day at any rate; and
+when our guest above gave his signal that he was awake, the Doctor, the
+Bishop, and Colonel Esmond waited upon the Prince's levee, and
+brought him their news, cheerful or dubious. The Doctor had to go away
+presently, but promised to keep the Prince constantly acquainted with
+what was taking place at the Palace hard by. His counsel was, and the
+Bishop's, that as soon as ever the Queen's malady took a favorable turn,
+the Prince should be introduced to her bedside; the Council summoned;
+the guard at Kensington and St. James's, of which two regiments were to
+be entirely relied on, and one known not to be hostile, would declare
+for the Prince, as the Queen would before the Lords of her Council,
+designating him as the heir to her throne.
+
+With locked doors, and Colonel Esmond acting as secretary, the Prince
+and his Lordship of Rochester passed many hours of this day, composing
+Proclamations and Addresses to the Country, to the Scots, to the Clergy,
+to the People of London and England; announcing the arrival of the exile
+descendant of three sovereigns, and his acknowledgment by his sister as
+heir to the throne. Every safeguard for their liberties, the Church and
+People could ask, was promised to them. The Bishop could answer for the
+adhesion of very many prelates, who besought of their flocks and brother
+ecclesiastics to recognize the sacred right of the future sovereign, and
+to purge the country of the sin of rebellion.
+
+During the composition of these papers, more messengers than one came
+from the Palace regarding the state of the august patient there lying.
+At mid-day she was somewhat better; at evening the torpor again seized
+her, and she wandered in her mind. At night Dr. A---- was with us again,
+with a report rather more favorable: no instant danger at any rate was
+apprehended. In the course of the last two years her Majesty had had
+many attacks similar, but more severe.
+
+By this time we had finished a half-dozen of Proclamations, (the wording
+of them so as to offend no parties, and not to give umbrage to Whigs or
+Dissenters, required very great caution,) and the young Prince, who had
+indeed shown, during a long day's labor, both alacrity at seizing the
+information given him, and ingenuity and skill in turning the phrases
+which were to go out signed by his name, here exhibited a good-humor and
+thoughtfulness that ought to be set down to his credit.
+
+“Were these papers to be mislaid,” says he, “or our scheme to come to
+mishap, my Lord Esmond's writing would bring him to a place where I
+heartily hope never to see him; and so, by your leave, I will copy the
+papers myself, though I am not very strong in spelling; and if they are
+found they will implicate none but the person they most concern;” and
+so, having carefully copied the Proclamations out, the Prince burned
+those in Colonel Esmond's handwriting: “And now, and now, gentlemen,”
+ says he, “let us go to supper, and drink a glass with the ladies. My
+Lord Esmond, you will sup with us to-night; you have given us of late
+too little of your company.”
+
+The Prince's meals were commonly served in the chamber which had been
+Beatrix's bedroom, adjoining that in which he slept. And the dutiful
+practice of his entertainers was to wait until their Royal guest bade
+them take their places at table before they sat down to partake of the
+meal. On this night, as you may suppose, only Frank Castlewood and his
+mother were in waiting when the supper was announced to receive the
+Prince; who had passed the whole of the day in his own apartment, with
+the Bishop as his Minister of State, and Colonel Esmond officiating as
+Secretary of his Council.
+
+The Prince's countenance wore an expression by no means pleasant; when
+looking towards the little company assembled, and waiting for him, he
+did not see Beatrix's bright face there as usual to greet him. He asked
+Lady Esmond for his fair introducer of yesterday: her ladyship only cast
+her eyes down, and said quietly, Beatrix could not be of the supper that
+night; nor did she show the least sign of confusion, whereas Castlewood
+turned red, and Esmond was no less embarrassed. I think women have an
+instinct of dissimulation; they know by nature how to disguise their
+emotions far better than the most consummate male courtiers can do. Is
+not the better part of the life of many of them spent in hiding their
+feelings, in cajoling their tyrants, in masking over with fond smiles
+and artful gayety, their doubt, or their grief, or their terror?
+
+Our guest swallowed his supper very sulkily; it was not till the second
+bottle his Highness began to rally. When Lady Castlewood asked leave to
+depart, he sent a message to Beatrix, hoping she would be present at the
+next day's dinner, and applied himself to drink, and to talk afterwards,
+for which there was subject in plenty.
+
+The next day, we heard from our informer at Kensington that the Queen
+was somewhat better, and had been up for an hour, though she was not
+well enough yet to receive any visitor.
+
+At dinner a single cover was laid for his Royal Highness; and the two
+gentlemen alone waited on him. We had had a consultation in the morning
+with Lady Castlewood, in which it had been determined that, should his
+Highness ask further questions about Beatrix, he should be answered by
+the gentlemen of the house.
+
+He was evidently disturbed and uneasy, looking towards the door
+constantly, as if expecting some one. There came, however, nobody,
+except honest John Lockwood, when he knocked with a dish, which those
+within took from him; so the meals were always arranged, and I believe
+the council in the kitchen were of opinion that my young lord had
+brought over a priest, who had converted us all into Papists, and that
+Papists were like Jews, eating together, and not choosing to take their
+meals in the sight of Christians.
+
+The Prince tried to cover his displeasure; he was but a clumsy
+dissembler at that time, and when out of humor could with difficulty
+keep a serene countenance; and having made some foolish attempts at
+trivial talk, he came to his point presently, and in as easy a manner
+as he could, saying to Lord Castlewood, he hoped, he requested, his
+lordship's mother and sister would be of the supper that night. As
+the time hung heavy on him, and he must not go abroad, would not Miss
+Beatrix hold him company at a game of cards?
+
+At this, looking up at Esmond, and taking the signal from him, Lord
+Castlewood informed his Royal Highness* that his sister Beatrix was not
+at Kensington; and that her family had thought it best she should quit
+the town.
+
+     * In London we addressed the Prince as Royal Highness
+     invariably, though the women persisted in giving him the
+     title of King.
+
+“Not at Kensington!” says he; “is she ill? she was well yesterday;
+wherefore should she quit the town? Is it at your orders, my lord, or
+Colonel Esmond's, who seems the master of this house?”
+
+“Not of this, sir,” says Frank very nobly, “only of our house in the
+country, which he hath given to us. This is my mother's house, and
+Walcote is my father's, and the Marquis of Esmond knows he hath but to
+give his word, and I return his to him.”
+
+“The Marquis of Esmond!--the Marquis of Esmond,” says the Prince,
+tossing off a glass, “meddles too much with my affairs, and presumes
+on the service he hath done me. If you want to carry your suit with
+Beatrix, my lord, by blocking her up in gaol, let me tell you that is
+not the way to win a woman.”
+
+“I was not aware, sir, that I had spoken of my suit to Madam Beatrix to
+your Royal Highness.”
+
+“Bah, bah, Monsieur! we need not be a conjurer to see that. It makes
+itself seen at all moments. You are jealous, my lord, and the maid of
+honor cannot look at another face without yours beginning to scowl. That
+which you do is unworthy, Monsieur; is inhospitable--is, is lache, yes,
+lache:” (he spoke rapidly in French, his rage carrying him away with each
+phrase:) “I come to your house; I risk my life; I pass it in ennui; I
+repose myself on your fidelity; I have no company but your lordship's
+sermons or the conversations of that adorable young lady, and you take
+her from me, and you, you rest! Merci, Monsieur! I shall thank you
+when I have the means; I shall know to recompense a devotion a little
+importunate, my lord--a little importunate. For a month past your airs
+of protector have annoyed me beyond measure. You deign to offer me the
+crown, and bid me take it on my knees like King John--eh! I know my
+history, Monsieur, and mock myself of frowning barons. I admire your
+mistress, and you send her to a Bastile of the Province; I enter your
+house, and you mistrust me. I will leave it, Monsieur; from to-night I
+will leave it. I have other friends whose loyalty will not be so ready
+to question mine. If I have garters to give away, 'tis to noblemen who
+are not so ready to think evil. Bring me a coach and let me quit this
+place, or let the fair Beatrix return to it. I will not have your
+hospitality at the expense of the freedom of that fair creature.”
+
+This harangue was uttered with rapid gesticulation such as the French
+use, and in the language of that nation. The Prince striding up and down
+the room; his face flushed, and his hands trembling with anger. He was
+very thin and frail from repeated illness and a life of pleasure. Either
+Castlewood or Esmond could have broke him across their knee, and in
+half a minute's struggle put an end to him; and here he was insulting
+us both, and scarce deigning to hide from the two, whose honor it most
+concerned, the passion he felt for the young lady of our family. My Lord
+Castlewood replied to the Prince's tirade very nobly and simply.
+
+“Sir,” says he, “your Royal Highness is pleased to forget that others
+risk their lives, and for your cause. Very few Englishmen, please God,
+would dare to lay hands on your sacred person, though none would ever
+think of respecting ours. Our family's lives are at your service, and
+everything we have except our honor.”
+
+“Honor! bah, sir, who ever thought of hurting your honor?” says the
+Prince with a peevish air.
+
+“We implore your Royal Highness never to think of hurting it,” says Lord
+Castlewood with a low bow. The night being warm, the windows were open
+both towards the Gardens and the Square. Colonel Esmond heard through
+the closed door the voice of the watchman calling the hour, in the
+square on the other side. He opened the door communicating with the
+Prince's room; Martin, the servant that had rode with Beatrix to
+Hounslow, was just going out of the chamber as Esmond entered it, and
+when the fellow was gone, and the watchman again sang his cry of “Past
+ten o'clock, and a starlight night,” Esmond spoke to the Prince in a low
+voice, and said--“Your Royal Highness hears that man.”
+
+“Apres, Monsieur?” says the Prince.
+
+“I have but to beckon him from the window, and send him fifty yards, and
+he returns with a guard of men, and I deliver up to him the body of the
+person calling himself James the Third, for whose capture Parliament
+hath offered a reward of 500L., as your Royal Highness saw on our ride
+from Rochester. I have but to say the word, and, by the heaven that made
+me, I would say it if I thought the Prince, for his honor's sake, would
+not desist from insulting ours. But the first gentleman of England knows
+his duty too well to forget himself with the humblest, or peril his
+crown for a deed that were shameful if it were done.”
+
+“Has your lordship anything to say,” says the Prince, turning to Frank
+Castlewood, and quite pale with anger; “any threat or any insult, with
+which you would like to end this agreeable night's entertainment?”
+
+“I follow the head of our house,” says Castlewood, bowing gravely. “At
+what time shall it please the Prince that we should wait upon him in the
+morning?”
+
+“You will wait on the Bishop of Rochester early, you will bid him bring
+his coach hither; and prepare an apartment for me in his own house, or
+in a place of safety. The King will reward you handsomely, never fear,
+for all you have done in his behalf. I wish you a good night, and
+shall go to bed, unless it pleases the Marquis of Esmond to call his
+colleague, the watchman, and that I should pass the night with the
+Kensington guard. Fare you well, be sure I will remember you. My Lord
+Castlewood, I can go to bed to-night without need of a chamberlain.” And
+the Prince dismissed us with a grim bow, locking one door as he spoke,
+that into the supping-room, and the other through which we passed, after
+us. It led into the small chamber which Frank Castlewood or MONSIEUR
+BAPTISTE occupied, and by which Martin entered when Colonel Esmond but
+now saw him in the chamber.
+
+At an early hour next morning the Bishop arrived, and was closeted for
+some time with his master in his own apartment, where the Prince laid
+open to his counsellor the wrongs which, according to his version, he
+had received from the gentlemen of the Esmond family. The worthy prelate
+came out from the conference with an air of great satisfaction; he was a
+man full of resources, and of a most assured fidelity, and possessed of
+genius, and a hundred good qualities; but captious and of a most jealous
+temper, that could not help exulting at the downfall of any favorite;
+and he was pleased in spite of himself to hear that the Esmond Ministry
+was at an end.
+
+“I have soothed your guest,” says he, coming out to the two gentlemen
+and the widow; who had been made acquainted with somewhat of the dispute
+of the night before. (By the version we gave her, the Prince was only
+made to exhibit anger because we doubted of his intentions in respect
+to Beatrix; and to leave us, because we questioned his honor.) “But I
+think, all things considered, 'tis as well he should leave this house;
+and then, my Lady Castlewood,” says the Bishop, “my pretty Beatrix may
+come back to it.”
+
+“She is quite as well at home at Castlewood,” Esmond's mistress said,
+“till everything is over.”
+
+“You shall have your title, Esmond, that I promise you,” says the
+good Bishop, assuming the airs of a Prime Minister. “The Prince hath
+expressed himself most nobly in regard of the little difference of last
+night, and I promise you he hath listened to my sermon, as well as to
+that of other folks,” says the Doctor, archly; “he hath every great and
+generous quality, with perhaps a weakness for the sex which belongs to
+his family, and hath been known in scores of popular sovereigns from
+King David downwards.”
+
+“My lord, my lord!” breaks out Lady Esmond, “the levity with which
+you speak of such conduct towards our sex shocks me, and what you call
+weakness I call deplorable sin.”
+
+“Sin it is, my dear creature,” says the Bishop, with a shrug, taking
+snuff; “but consider what a sinner King Solomon was, and in spite of a
+thousand of wives too.”
+
+“Enough of this, my lord,” says Lady Castlewood, with a fine blush, and
+walked out of the room very stately.
+
+The Prince entered it presently with a smile on his face, and if he felt
+any offence against us on the previous night, at present exhibited none.
+He offered a hand to each gentleman with great courtesy. “If all your
+bishops preach so well as Doctor Atterbury.” says he, “I don't know,
+gentlemen, what may happen to me. I spoke very hastily, my lords, last
+night, and ask pardon of both of you. But I must not stay any longer,”
+ says he, “giving umbrage to good friends, or keeping pretty girls away
+from their homes. My Lord Bishop hath found a safe place for me, hard
+by at a curate's house, whom the Bishop can trust, and whose wife is so
+ugly as to be beyond all danger; we will decamp into those new quarters,
+and I leave you, thanking you for a hundred kindnesses here. Where is
+my hostess, that I may bid her farewell; to welcome her in a house of my
+own, soon, I trust, where my friends shall have no cause to quarrel with
+me.”
+
+Lady Castlewood arrived presently, blushing with great grace, and tears
+filling her eyes as the Prince graciously saluted her. She looked so
+charming and young, that the doctor, in his bantering way, could not
+help speaking of her beauty to the Prince; whose compliment made her
+blush, and look more charming still.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A GREAT SCHEME, AND WHO BALKED IT.
+
+
+As characters written with a secret ink come out with the application
+of fire, and disappear again and leave the paper white, as soon as it is
+cool; a hundred names of men, high in repute and favoring the Prince's
+cause, that were writ in our private lists, would have been visible
+enough on the great roll of the conspiracy, had it ever been laid open
+under the sun. What crowds would have pressed forward, and subscribed
+their names and protested their loyalty, when the danger was over! What
+a number of Whigs, now high in place and creatures of the all-powerful
+Minister, scorned Mr. Walpole then! If ever a match was gained by the
+manliness and decision of a few at a moment of danger; if ever one was
+lost by the treachery and imbecility of those that had the cards in
+their hands, and might have played them, it was in that momentous game
+which was enacted in the next three days, and of which the noblest crown
+in the world was the stake.
+
+From the conduct of my Lord Bolingbroke, those who were interested
+in the scheme we had in hand, saw pretty well that he was not to be
+trusted. Should the Prince prevail, it was his lordship's gracious
+intention to declare for him: should the Hanoverian party bring in their
+sovereign, who more ready to go on his knee, and cry, “God Save King
+George?” And he betrayed the one Prince and the other; but exactly at
+the wrong time. When he should have struck for King James, he faltered
+and coquetted with the Whigs; and having committed himself by the most
+monstrous professions of devotion, which the Elector rightly scorned,
+he proved the justness of their contempt for him by flying and taking
+renegade service with St. Germains, just when he should have kept
+aloof: and that Court despised him, as the manly and resolute men who
+established the Elector in England had before done. He signed his own
+name to every accusation of insincerity his enemies made against him;
+and the King and the Pretender alike could show proofs of St. John's
+treachery under his own hand and seal.
+
+Our friends kept a pretty close watch upon his motions, as on those of
+the brave and hearty Whig party, that made little concealment of theirs.
+They would have in the Elector, and used every means in their power to
+effect their end. My Lord Marlborough was now with them. His expulsion
+from power by the Tories had thrown that great captain at once on the
+Whig side. We heard he was coming from Antwerp; and, in fact, on the day
+of the Queen's death, he once more landed on English shore. A great part
+of the army was always with their illustrious leader; even the Tories
+in it were indignant at the injustice of the persecution which the Whig
+officers were made to undergo. The chiefs of these were in London, and
+at the head of them one of the most intrepid men in the world, the Scots
+Duke of Argyle, whose conduct on the second day after that to which I
+have now brought down my history, ended, as such honesty and bravery
+deserved to end, by establishing the present Royal race on the English
+throne.
+
+Meanwhile there was no slight difference of opinion amongst the
+councillors surrounding the Prince, as to the plan his Highness should
+pursue. His female Minister at Court, fancying she saw some amelioration
+in the Queen, was for waiting a few days, or hours it might be, until
+he could be brought to her bedside, and acknowledged as her heir. Mr.
+Esmond was for having him march thither, escorted by a couple of troops
+of Horse Guards, and openly presenting himself to the Council. During
+the whole of the night of the 29th-30th July, the Colonel was engaged
+with gentlemen of the military profession, whom 'tis needless here to
+name; suffice it to say that several of them had exceeding high rank in
+the army, and one of them in especial was a General, who, when he heard
+the Duke of Marlborough was coming on the other side, waved his crutch
+over his head with a huzzah, at the idea that he should march out and
+engage him. Of the three Secretaries of State, we knew that one was
+devoted to us. The Governor of the Tower was ours; the two companies
+on duty at Kensington barrack were safe; and we had intelligence, very
+speedy and accurate, of all that took place at the Palace within.
+
+At noon, on the 30th of July, a message came to the Prince's friends
+that the Committee of Council was sitting at Kensington Palace, their
+Graces of Ormonde and Shrewsbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury and
+the three Secretaries of State, being there assembled. In an hour
+afterwards, hurried news was brought that the two great Whig Dukes,
+Argyle and Somerset, had broke into the Council-chamber without a
+summons, and taken their seat at table. After holding a debate there,
+the whole party proceeded to the chamber of the Queen, who was lying in
+great weakness, but still sensible, and the Lords recommended his Grace
+of Shrewsbury as the fittest person to take the vacant place of Lord
+Treasurer; her Majesty gave him the staff, as all know. “And now,” writ
+my messenger from Court, “NOW OR NEVER IS THE TIME.”
+
+Now or never was the time indeed. In spite of the Whig Dukes, our side
+had still the majority in the Council, and Esmond, to whom the message
+had been brought, (the personage at Court not being aware that the
+Prince had quitted his lodging in Kensington Square,) and Esmond's
+gallant young aide-de-camp, Frank Castlewood, putting on sword and
+uniform, took a brief leave of their dear lady, who embraced and blessed
+them both, and went to her chamber to pray for the issue of the great
+event which was then pending.
+
+Castlewood sped to the barrack to give warning to the captain of the
+Guard there; and then went to the “King's Arms” tavern at Kensington,
+where our friends were assembled, having come by parties of twos
+and threes, riding or in coaches, and were got together in the upper
+chamber, fifty-three of them; their servants, who had been instructed to
+bring arms likewise, being below in the garden of the tavern, where they
+were served with drink. Out of this garden is a little door that leads
+into the road of the Palace, and through this it was arranged that
+masters and servants were to march; when that signal was given, and that
+Personage appeared, for whom all were waiting. There was in our company
+the famous officer next in command to the Captain-General of the Forces,
+his Grace the Duke of Ormonde, who was within at the Council. There
+were with him two more lieutenant-generals, nine major-generals and
+brigadiers, seven colonels, eleven Peers of Parliament, and twenty-one
+members of the House of Commons. The Guard was with us within and
+without the Palace: the Queen was with us; the Council (save the two
+Whig Dukes, that must have succumbed); the day was our own, and with a
+beating heart Esmond walked rapidly to the Mall of Kensington, where
+he had parted with the Prince on the night before. For three nights
+the Colonel had not been to bed: the last had been passed summoning the
+Prince's friends together, of whom the great majority had no sort of
+inkling of the transaction pending until they were told that he was
+actually on the spot, and were summoned to strike the blow. The night
+before and after the altercation with the Prince, my gentleman, having
+suspicions of his Royal Highness, and fearing lest he should be minded
+to give us the slip, and fly off after his fugitive beauty, had spent,
+if the truth must be told, at the “Greyhound” tavern, over against my
+Lady Castlewood's house in Kensington Square, with an eye on the door,
+lest the Prince should escape from it. The night before that he had
+passed in his boots at the “Crown” at Hounslow, where he must watch
+forsooth all night, in order to get one moment's glimpse of Beatrix in
+the morning. And fate had decreed that he was to have a fourth night's
+ride and wakefulness before his business was ended.
+
+He ran to the curate's house in Kensington Mall, and asked for Mr.
+Bates, the name the Prince went by. The curate's wife said Mr. Bates had
+gone abroad very early in the morning in his boots, saying he was going
+to the Bishop of Rochester's house at Chelsey. But the Bishop had been
+at Kensington himself two hours ago to seek for Mr. Bates, and had
+returned in his coach to his own house, when he heard that the gentleman
+was gone thither to seek him.
+
+This absence was most unpropitious, for an hour's delay might cost a
+kingdom; Esmond had nothing for it but to hasten to the “King's Arms,”
+ and tell the gentlemen there assembled that Mr. George (as we called the
+Prince there) was not at home, but that Esmond would go fetch him; and
+taking a General's coach that happened to be there, Esmond drove across
+the country to Chelsey, to the Bishop's house there.
+
+The porter said two gentlemen were with his lordship, and Esmond ran
+past this sentry up to the locked door of the Bishop's study, at which
+he rattled, and was admitted presently. Of the Bishop's guests one was a
+brother prelate, and the other the Abbe G----.
+
+“Where is Mr. George?” says Mr. Esmond; “now is the time.” The Bishop
+looked scared: “I went to his lodging,” he said, “and they told me he
+was come hither. I returned as quick as coach would carry me; and he
+hath not been here.”
+
+The Colonel burst out with an oath; that was all he could say to their
+reverences; ran down the stairs again, and bidding the coachman, an old
+friend and fellow-campaigner, drive as if he was charging the French
+with his master at Wynendael--they were back at Kensington in half an
+hour.
+
+Again Esmond went to the curate's house. Mr. Bates had not returned. The
+Colonel had to go with this blank errand to the gentlemen at the “King's
+Arms,” that were grown very impatient by this time.
+
+Out of the window of the tavern, and looking over the garden wall, you
+can see the green before Kensington Palace, the Palace gate (round which
+the Ministers' coaches were standing), and the barrack building. As
+we were looking out from this window in gloomy discourse, we heard
+presently trumpets blowing, and some of us ran to the window of the
+front-room, looking into the High Street of Kensington, and saw a
+regiment of Horse coming.
+
+“It's Ormonde's Guards,” says one.
+
+“No, by God, it's Argyle's old regiment!” says my General, clapping down
+his crutch.
+
+It was, indeed, Argyle's regiment that was brought from Westminster,
+and that took the place of the regiment at Kensington on which we could
+rely.
+
+“Oh, Harry!” says one of the generals there present, “you were born
+under an unlucky star; I begin to think that there's no Mr. George, nor
+Mr. Dragon either. 'Tis not the peerage I care for, for our name is so
+ancient and famous, that merely to be called Lord Lydiard would do me no
+good; but 'tis the chance you promised me of fighting Marlborough.”
+
+As we were talking, Castlewood entered the room with a disturbed air.
+
+“What news, Frank?” says the Colonel. “Is Mr. George coming at last?”
+
+“Damn him, look here!” says Castlewood, holding out a paper. “I found
+it in the book--the what you call it, 'Eikum Basilikum,'--that villain
+Martin put it there--he said his young mistress bade him. It was
+directed to me, but it was meant for him I know, and I broke the seal
+and read it.”
+
+The whole assembly of officers seemed to swim away before Esmond's eyes
+as he read the paper; all that was written on it was:--“Beatrix Esmond
+is sent away to prison, to Castlewood, where she will pray for happier
+days.”
+
+“Can you guess where he is?” says Castlewood.
+
+“Yes,” says Colonel Esmond. He knew full well, Frank knew full well: our
+instinct told whither that traitor had fled.
+
+He had courage to turn to the company and say, “Gentlemen, I fear
+very much that Mr. George will not be here to-day; something hath
+happened--and--and--I very much fear some accident may befall him, which
+must keep him out of the way. Having had your noon's draught, you had
+best pay the reckoning and go home; there can be no game where there is
+no one to play it.”
+
+Some of the gentlemen went away without a word, others called to pay
+their duty to her Majesty and ask for her health. The little army
+disappeared into the darkness out of which it had been called; there had
+been no writings, no paper to implicate any man. Some few officers and
+Members of Parliament had been invited over night to breakfast at the
+“King's Arms,” at Kensington; and they had called for their bill and
+gone home.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+AUGUST 1ST, 1714.
+
+
+“Does my mistress know of this?” Esmond asked of Frank, as they walked
+along.
+
+“My mother found the letter in the book, on the toilet-table. She had
+writ it ere she had left home,” Frank said. “Mother met her on the
+stairs, with her hand upon the door, trying to enter, and never left her
+after that till she went away. He did not think of looking at it there,
+nor had Martin the chance of telling him. I believe the poor devil meant
+no harm, though I half killed him; he thought 'twas to Beatrix's brother
+he was bringing the letter.”
+
+Frank never said a word of reproach to me for having brought the villain
+amongst us. As we knocked at the door I said, “When will the horses be
+ready?” Frank pointed with his cane, they were turning the street that
+moment.
+
+We went up and bade adieu to our mistress; she was in a dreadful state
+of agitation by this time, and that Bishop was with her whose company
+she was so fond of.
+
+“Did you tell him, my lord,” says Esmond, “that Beatrix was at
+Castlewood?” The Bishop blushed and stammered: “Well,” says he,
+“I . . .”
+
+“You served the villain right,” broke out Mr. Esmond, “and he has lost a
+crown by what you told him.”
+
+My mistress turned quite white, “Henry, Henry,” says she, “do not kill
+him.”
+
+“It may not be too late,” says Esmond; “he may not have gone to
+Castlewood; pray God, it is not too late.” The Bishop was breaking
+out with some banale phrases about loyalty, and the sacredness of the
+Sovereign's person; but Esmond sternly bade him hold his tongue, burn
+all papers, and take care of Lady Castlewood; and in five minutes he
+and Frank were in the saddle, John Lockwood behind them, riding towards
+Castlewood at a rapid pace.
+
+We were just got to Alton, when who should meet us but old Lockwood, the
+porter from Castlewood, John's father, walking by the side of the Hexton
+flying-coach, who slept the night at Alton. Lockwood said his young
+mistress had arrived at home on Wednesday night, and this morning,
+Friday, had despatched him with a packet for my lady at Kensington,
+saying the letter was of great importance.
+
+We took the freedom to break it, while Lockwood stared with wonder,
+and cried out his “Lord bless me's,” and “Who'd a thought it's,” at the
+sight of his young lord, whom he had not seen these seven years.
+
+The packet from Beatrix contained no news of importance at all. It was
+written in a jocular strain, affecting to make light of her captivity.
+She asked whether she might have leave to visit Mrs. Tusher, or to walk
+beyond the court and the garden wall. She gave news of the peacocks,
+and a fawn she had there. She bade her mother send her certain gowns
+and smocks by old Lockwood; she sent her duty to a certain Person, if
+certain other persons permitted her to take such a freedom; how that,
+as she was not able to play cards with him, she hoped he would read good
+books, such as Doctor Atterbury's sermons and “Eikon Basilike:” she was
+going to read good books; she thought her pretty mamma would like to
+know she was not crying her eyes out.
+
+“Who is in the house besides you, Lockwood?” says the Colonel.
+
+“There be the laundry-maid, and the kitchen-maid, Madam Beatrix's maid,
+the man from London, and that be all; and he sleepeth in my lodge away
+from the maids,” says old Lockwood.
+
+Esmond scribbled a line with a pencil on the note, giving it to the old
+man, and bidding him go on to his lady. We knew why Beatrix had been
+so dutiful on a sudden, and why she spoke of “Eikon Basilike.” She writ
+this letter to put the Prince on the scent, and the porter out of the
+way.
+
+“We have a fine moonlight night for riding on,” says Esmond; “Frank, we
+may reach Castlewood in time yet.” All the way along they made inquiries
+at the post-houses, when a tall young gentleman in a gray suit, with a
+light brown periwig, just the color of my lord's, had been seen to pass.
+He had set off at six that morning, and we at three in the afternoon. He
+rode almost as quickly as we had done; he was seven hours a-head of us
+still when we reached the last stage.
+
+We rode over Castlewood Downs before the breaking of dawn. We passed the
+very spot where the car was upset fourteen years since, and Mohun lay.
+The village was not up yet, nor the forge lighted, as we rode through
+it, passing by the elms, where the rooks were still roosting, and by
+the church, and over the bridge. We got off our horses at the bridge and
+walked up to the gate.
+
+“If she is safe,” says Frank, trembling, and his honest eyes filling
+with tears, “a silver statue to Our Lady!” He was going to rattle at
+the great iron knocker on the oak gate; but Esmond stopped his kinsman's
+hand. He had his own fears, his own hopes, his own despairs and griefs,
+too; but he spoke not a word of these to his companion, or showed any
+signs of emotion.
+
+He went and tapped at the little window at the porter's lodge, gently,
+but repeatedly, until the man came to the bars.
+
+“Who's there?” says he, looking out; it was the servant from Kensington.
+
+“My Lord Castlewood and Colonel Esmond,” we said, from below. “Open the
+gate and let us in without any noise.”
+
+“My Lord Castlewood?” says the other; “my lord's here, and in bed.”
+
+“Open, d--n you,” says Castlewood, with a curse.
+
+“I shall open to no one,” says the man, shutting the glass window as
+Frank drew a pistol. He would have fired at the porter, but Esmond again
+held his hand.
+
+“There are more ways than one,” says he, “of entering such a great house
+as this.” Frank grumbled that the west gate was half a mile round. “But
+I know of a way that's not a hundred yards off,” says Mr. Esmond; and
+leading his kinsman close along the wall, and by the shrubs which had
+now grown thick on what had been an old moat about the house, they came
+to the buttress, at the side of which the little window was, which was
+Father Holt's private door. Esmond climbed up to this easily, broke a
+pane that had been mended, and touched the spring inside, and the two
+gentlemen passed in that way, treading as lightly as they could; and so
+going through the passage into the court, over which the dawn was now
+reddening, and where the fountain plashed in the silence.
+
+They sped instantly to the porter's lodge, where the fellow had not
+fastened his door that led into the court; and pistol in hand came
+upon the terrified wretch, and bade him be silent. Then they asked
+him (Esmond's head reeled, and he almost fell as he spoke) when Lord
+Castlewood had arrived? He said on the previous evening, about eight of
+the clock.--“And what then?”--His lordship supped with his sister.--“Did
+the man wait?” Yes, he and my lady's maid both waited: the other
+servants made the supper; and there was no wine, and they could give
+his lordship but milk, at which he grumbled; and--and Madam Beatrix kept
+Miss Lucy always in the room with her. And there being a bed across
+the court in the Chaplain's room, she had arranged my lord was to sleep
+there. Madam Beatrix had come down stairs laughing with the maids, and
+had locked herself in, and my lord had stood for a while talking to her
+through the door, and she laughing at him. And then he paced the court
+awhile, and she came again to the upper window; and my lord implored her
+to come down and walk in the room; but she would not, and laughed at him
+again, and shut the window; and so my lord, uttering what seemed curses,
+but in a foreign language, went to the Chaplain's room to bed.
+
+“Was this all!”--“All,” the man swore upon his honor; all as he hoped
+to be saved.--“Stop, there was one thing more. My lord, on arriving, and
+once or twice during supper, did kiss his sister, as was natural, and
+she kissed him.” At this Esmond ground his teeth with rage, and wellnigh
+throttled the amazed miscreant who was speaking, whereas Castlewood,
+seizing hold of his cousin's hand, burst into a great fit of laughter.
+
+“If it amuses thee,” says Esmond in French, “that your sister should be
+exchanging of kisses with a stranger, I fear poor Beatrix will give thee
+plenty of sport.”--Esmond darkly thought, how Hamilton, Ashburnham, had
+before been masters of those roses that the young Prince's lips were now
+feeding on. He sickened at that notion. Her cheek was desecrated, her
+beauty tarnished; shame and honor stood between it and him. The love
+was dead within him; had she a crown to bring him with her love, he felt
+that both would degrade him.
+
+But this wrath against Beatrix did not lessen the angry feelings of the
+Colonel against the man who had been the occasion if not the cause of
+the evil. Frank sat down on a stone bench in the court-yard, and fairly
+fell asleep, while Esmond paced up and down the court, debating what
+should ensue. What mattered how much or how little had passed between
+the Prince and the poor faithless girl? They were arrived in time
+perhaps to rescue her person, but not her mind; had she not instigated
+the young Prince to come to her; suborned servants, dismissed others,
+so that she might communicate with him? The treacherous heart within her
+had surrendered, though the place was safe; and it was to win this that
+he had given a life's struggle and devotion; this, that she was ready to
+give away for the bribe of a coronet or a wink of the Prince's eye.
+
+When he had thought his thoughts out he shook up poor Frank from his
+sleep, who rose yawning, and said he had been dreaming of Clotilda.
+“You must back me,” says Esmond, “in what I am going to do. I have been
+thinking that yonder scoundrel may have been instructed to tell that
+story, and that the whole of it may be a lie; if it be, we shall find it
+out from the gentleman who is asleep yonder. See if the door leading to
+my lady's rooms,” (so we called the rooms at the north-west angle of the
+house,) “see if the door is barred as he saith.” We tried; it was indeed
+as the lackey had said, closed within.
+
+“It may have been opened and shut afterwards,” says poor Esmond; “the
+foundress of our family let our ancestor in in that way.”
+
+“What will you do, Harry, if--if what that fellow saith should turn out
+untrue?” The young man looked scared and frightened into his kinsman's
+face; I dare say it wore no very pleasant expression.
+
+“Let us first go see whether the two stories agree,” says Esmond; and
+went in at the passage and opened the door into what had been his own
+chamber now for wellnigh five-and-twenty years. A candle was still
+burning, and the Prince asleep dressed on the bed--Esmond did not care
+for making a noise. The Prince started up in his bed, seeing two men
+in his chamber. “Qui est la” says he, and took a pistol from under his
+pillow.
+
+“It is the Marquis of Esmond,” says the Colonel, “come to welcome his
+Majesty to his house of Castlewood, and to report of what hath happened
+in London. Pursuant to the King's orders, I passed the night before
+last, after leaving his Majesty, in waiting upon the friends of the
+King. It is a pity that his Majesty's desire to see the country and to
+visit our poor house should have caused the King to quit London without
+notice yesterday, when the opportunity happened which in all human
+probability may not occur again; and had the King not chosen to ride to
+Castlewood, the Prince of Wales might have slept at St. James's.”
+
+“'Sdeath! gentlemen,” says the Prince, starting off his bed, whereon he
+was lying in his clothes, “the Doctor was with me yesterday morning, and
+after watching by my sister all night, told me I might not hope to see
+the Queen.”
+
+“It would have been otherwise,” says Esmond with another bow; “as, by
+this time, the Queen may be dead in spite of the Doctor. The Council
+was met, a new Treasurer was appointed, the troops were devoted to the
+King's cause; and fifty loyal gentlemen of the greatest names of this
+kingdom were assembled to accompany the Prince of Wales, who might have
+been the acknowledged heir of the throne, or the possessor of it by this
+time, had your Majesty not chosen to take the air. We were ready; there
+was only one person that failed us, your Majesty's gracious--”
+
+“Morbleu, Monsieur, you give me too much Majesty,” said the Prince, who
+had now risen up and seemed to be looking to one of us to help him to
+his coat. But neither stirred.
+
+“We shall take care,” says Esmond, “not much oftener to offend in that
+particular.”
+
+“What mean you, my lord?” says the Prince, and muttered something about
+a guet-a-pens, which Esmond caught up.
+
+“The snare, Sir,” said he, “was not of our laying; it is not we that
+invited you. We came to avenge, and not to compass, the dishonor of our
+family.”
+
+“Dishonor! Morbleu, there has been no dishonor,” says the Prince,
+turning scarlet, “only a little harmless playing.”
+
+“That was meant to end seriously.”
+
+“I swear,” the Prince broke out impetuously, “upon the honor of a
+gentleman, my lords--”
+
+“That we arrived in time. No wrong hath been done, Frank,” says Colonel
+Esmond, turning round to young Castlewood, who stood at the door as the
+talk was going on. “See! here is a paper whereon his Majesty has deigned
+to commence some verses in honor, or dishonor, of Beatrix. Here is
+'Madame' and 'Flamme,' 'Cruelle' and 'Rebelle,' and 'Amour' and 'Jour'
+in the Royal writing and spelling. Had the Gracious lover been happy,
+he had not passed his time in sighing.” In fact, and actually as he was
+speaking, Esmond cast his eyes down towards the table, and saw a paper
+on which my young Prince had been scrawling a madrigal, that was to
+finish his charmer on the morrow.
+
+“Sir,” says the Prince, burning with rage (he had assumed his Royal coat
+unassisted by this time), “did I come here to receive insults?”
+
+“To confer them, may it please your Majesty,” says the Colonel, with a
+very low bow, “and the gentlemen of our family are come to thank you.”
+
+“Malediction!” says the young man, tears starting into his eyes with
+helpless rage and mortification. “What will you with me, gentlemen?”
+
+“If your Majesty will please to enter the next apartment,” says Esmond,
+preserving his grave tone, “I have some papers there which I would
+gladly submit to you, and by your permission I will lead the way;”
+ and, taking the taper up, and backing before the Prince with very great
+ceremony, Mr. Esmond passed into the little Chaplain's room, through
+which we had just entered into the house:--“Please to set a chair for
+his Majesty, Frank,” says the Colonel to his companion, who wondered
+almost as much at this scene, and was as much puzzled by it, as the
+other actor in it. Then going to the crypt over the mantel-piece, the
+Colonel opened it, and drew thence the papers which so long had lain
+there.
+
+“Here, may it please your Majesty,” says he, “is the Patent of Marquis
+sent over by your Royal Father at St. Germains to Viscount Castlewood,
+my father: here is the witnessed certificate of my father's marriage
+to my mother, and of my birth and christening; I was christened of that
+religion of which your sainted sire gave all through life so shining
+example. These are my titles, dear Frank, and this what I do with them:
+here go Baptism and Marriage, and here the Marquisate and the August
+Sign-Manual, with which your predecessor was pleased to honor our race.”
+ And as Esmond spoke he set the papers burning in the brazier. “You will
+please, sir, to remember,” he continued, “that our family hath ruined
+itself by fidelity to yours: that my grandfather spent his estate, and
+gave his blood and his son to die for your service; that my dear lord's
+grandfather (for lord you are now, Frank, by right and title too) died
+for the same cause; that my poor kinswoman, my father's second wife,
+after giving away her honor to your wicked perjured race, sent all her
+wealth to the King; and got in return, that precious title that lies in
+ashes, and this inestimable yard of blue ribbon. I lay this at your feet
+and stamp upon it: I draw this sword, and break it and deny you; and,
+had you completed the wrong you designed us, by heaven I would have
+driven it through your heart, and no more pardoned you than your father
+pardoned Monmouth. Frank will do the same, won't you, cousin?”
+
+Frank, who had been looking on with a stupid air at the papers, as they
+flamed in the old brazier, took out his sword and broke it, holding his
+head down:--“I go with my cousin,” says he, giving Esmond a grasp of
+the hand. “Marquis or not, by ---, I stand by him any day. I beg your
+Majesty's pardon for swearing; that is--that is--I'm for the Elector of
+Hanover. It's all your Majesty's own fault. The Queen's dead most likely
+by this time. And you might have been King if you hadn't come dangling
+after Trix.”
+
+“Thus to lose a crown,” says the young Prince, starting up, and speaking
+French in his eager way; “to lose the loveliest woman in the world; to
+lose the loyalty of such hearts as yours, is not this, my lords, enough
+of humiliation?--Marquis, if I go on my knees will you pardon me?--No,
+I can't do that, but I can offer you reparation, that of honor, that
+of gentlemen. Favor me by crossing the sword with mine: yours is
+broke--see, yonder in the armoire are two;” and the Prince took them out
+as eager as a boy, and held them towards Esmond:--“Ah! you will? Merci,
+monsieur, merci!”
+
+Extremely touched by this immense mark of condescension and repentance
+for wrong done, Colonel Esmond bowed down so low as almost to kiss the
+gracious young hand that conferred on him such an honor, and took his
+guard in silence. The swords were no sooner met, than Castlewood knocked
+up Esmond's with the blade of his own, which he had broke off short at
+the shell; and the Colonel falling back a step dropped his point with
+another very low bow, and declared himself perfectly satisfied.
+
+“Eh bien, Vicomte!” says the young Prince, who was a boy, and a French
+boy, “il ne nous reste qu'une chose a faire:” he placed his sword upon
+the table, and the fingers of his two hands upon his breast:--“We have
+one more thing to do,” says he; “you do not divine it?” He stretched out
+his arms:--“Embrassons nous!”
+
+The talk was scarce over when Beatrix entered the room:--What came she
+to seek there? She started and turned pale at the sight of her
+brother and kinsman, drawn swords, broken sword-blades, and papers yet
+smouldering in the brazier.
+
+“Charming Beatrix,” says the Prince, with a blush which became him very
+well, “these lords have come a-horseback from London, where my sister
+lies in a despaired state, and where her successor makes himself
+desired. Pardon me for my escapade of last evening. I had been so long a
+prisoner, that I seized the occasion of a promenade on horseback, and my
+horse naturally bore me towards you. I found you a Queen in your little
+court, where you deigned to entertain me. Present my homages to your
+maids of honor. I sighed as you slept, under the window of your chamber,
+and then retired to seek rest in my own. It was there that these
+gentlemen agreeably roused me. Yes, milords, for that is a happy day
+that makes a Prince acquainted, at whatever cost to his vanity, with
+such a noble heart as that of the Marquis of Esmond. Mademoiselle,
+may we take your coach to town? I saw it in the hangar, and this poor
+Marquis must be dropping with sleep.”
+
+“Will it please the King to breakfast before he goes?” was all Beatrix
+could say. The roses had shuddered out of her cheeks; her eyes were
+glaring; she looked quite old. She came up to Esmond and hissed out a
+word or two:--“If I did not love you before, cousin,” says she, “think
+how I love you now.” If words could stab, no doubt she would have killed
+Esmond; she looked at him as if she could.
+
+But her keen words gave no wound to Mr. Esmond; his heart was too hard.
+As he looked at her, he wondered that he could ever have loved her.
+His love of ten years was over; it fell down dead on the spot, at
+the Kensington Tavern, where Frank brought him the note out of “Eikon
+Basilike.” The Prince blushed and bowed low, as she gazed at him, and
+quitted the chamber. I have never seen her from that day.
+
+Horses were fetched and put to the chariot presently. My lord rode
+outside, and as for Esmond he was so tired that he was no sooner in the
+carriage than he fell asleep, and never woke till night, as the coach
+came into Alton.
+
+As we drove to the “Bell” Inn comes a mitred coach with our old friend
+Lockwood beside the coachman. My Lady Castlewood and the Bishop were
+inside; she gave a little scream when she saw us. The two coaches
+entered the inn almost together; the landlord and people coming out with
+lights to welcome the visitors.
+
+We in our coach sprang out of it, as soon as ever we saw the dear lady,
+and above all, the Doctor in his cassock. What was the news? Was there
+yet time? Was the Queen alive? These questions were put hurriedly, as
+Boniface stood waiting before his noble guests to bow them up the stair.
+
+“Is she safe?” was what Lady Castlewood whispered in a flutter to
+Esmond.
+
+“All's well, thank God,” says he, as the fond lady took his hand
+and kissed it, and called him her preserver and her dear. SHE wasn't
+thinking of Queens and crowns.
+
+The Bishop's news was reassuring: at least all was not lost; the Queen
+yet breathed, or was alive when they left London, six hours since. (“It
+was Lady Castlewood who insisted on coming,” the Doctor said.) Argyle
+had marched up regiments from Portsmouth, and sent abroad for more; the
+Whigs were on the alert, a pest on them, (I am not sure but the Bishop
+swore as he spoke,) and so too were our people. And all might be saved,
+if only the Prince could be at London in time. We called for horses,
+instantly to return to London. We never went up poor crestfallen
+Boniface's stairs, but into our coaches again. The Prince and his Prime
+Minister in one, Esmond in the other, with only his dear mistress as a
+companion.
+
+Castlewood galloped forwards on horseback to gather the Prince's friends
+and warn them of his coming. We travelled through the night. Esmond
+discoursing to his mistress of the events of the last twenty-four hours;
+of Castlewood's ride and his; of the Prince's generous behavior and
+their reconciliation. The night seemed short enough; and the starlit
+hours passed away serenely in that fond company.
+
+So we came along the road; the Bishop's coach heading ours; and, with
+some delays in procuring horses, we got to Hammersmith about four
+o'clock on Sunday morning, the first of August, and half an hour after,
+it being then bright day, we rode by my Lady Warwick's house, and so
+down the street of Kensington.
+
+Early as the hour was, there was a bustle in the street and many people
+moving to and fro. Round the gate leading to the Palace, where the
+guard is, there was especially a great crowd. And the coach ahead of us
+stopped, and the Bishop's man got down to know what the concourse meant?
+
+There presently came from out of the gate--Horse Guards with their
+trumpets, and a company of heralds with their tabards. The trumpets
+blew, and the herald-at-arms came forward and proclaimed GEORGE, by the
+Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of
+the Faith. And the people shouted God save the King!
+
+Among the crowd shouting and waving their hats, I caught sight of one
+sad face, which I had known all my life, and seen under many disguises.
+It was no other than poor Mr. Holt's, who had slipped over to England
+to witness the triumph of the good cause; and now beheld its enemies
+victorious, amidst the acclamations of the English people. The poor
+fellow had forgot to huzzah or to take his hat off, until his neighbors
+in the crowd remarked his want of loyalty, and cursed him for a Jesuit
+in disguise, when he ruefully uncovered and began to cheer. Sure he
+was the most unlucky of men: he never played a game but he lost it; or
+engaged in a conspiracy but 'twas certain to end in defeat. I saw him in
+Flanders after this, whence he went to Rome to the head-quarters of his
+Order; and actually reappeared among us in America, very old, and
+busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not assume the hatchet and
+moccasins there; and, attired in a blanket and war-paint, skulk about
+a missionary amongst the Indians. He lies buried in our neighboring
+province of Maryland now, with a cross over him, and a mound of earth
+above him; under which that unquiet spirit is for ever at peace.
+
+
+With the sound of King George's trumpets, all the vain hopes of the weak
+and foolish young Pretender were blown away; and with that music, too, I
+may say, the drama of my own life was ended. That happiness, which hath
+subsequently crowned it, cannot be written in words; 'tis of its nature
+sacred and secret, and not to be spoken of, though the heart be ever so
+full of thankfulness, save to Heaven and the One Ear alone--to one fond
+being, the truest and tenderest and purest wife ever man was blessed
+with. As I think of the immense happiness which was in store for me, and
+of the depth and intensity of that love which, for so many years, hath
+blessed me, I own to a transport of wonder and gratitude for such a
+boon--nay, am thankful to have been endowed with a heart capable of
+feeling and knowing the immense beauty and value of the gift which God
+hath bestowed upon me. Sure, love vincit omnia; is immeasurably above
+all ambition, more precious than wealth, more noble than name. He knows
+not life who knows not that: he hath not felt the highest faculty of
+the soul who hath not enjoyed it. In the name of my wife I write the
+completion of hope, and the summit of happiness. To have such a love is
+the one blessing, in comparison of which all earthly joy is of no value;
+and to think of her, is to praise God.
+
+It was at Bruxelles, whither we retreated after the failure of our
+plot--our Whig friends advising us to keep out of the way--that the
+great joy of my life was bestowed upon me, and that my dear mistress
+became my wife. We had been so accustomed to an extreme intimacy and
+confidence, and had lived so long and tenderly together, that we
+might have gone on to the end without thinking of a closer tie; but
+circumstances brought about that event which so prodigiously multiplied
+my happiness and hers (for which I humbly thank Heaven), although a
+calamity befell us, which, I blush to think, hath occurred more than
+once in our house. I know not what infatuation of ambition urged the
+beautiful and wayward woman, whose name hath occupied so many of these
+pages, and who was served by me with ten years of such constant fidelity
+and passion; but ever after that day at Castlewood, when we rescued her,
+she persisted in holding all her family as her enemies, and left us, and
+escaped to France, to what a fate I disdain to tell. Nor was her son's
+house a home for my dear mistress; my poor Frank was weak, as perhaps
+all our race hath been, and led by women. Those around him were
+imperious, and in a terror of his mother's influence over him, lest
+he should recant, and deny the creed which he had adopted by their
+persuasion. The difference of their religion separated the son and the
+mother: my dearest mistress felt that she was severed from her children
+and alone in the world--alone but for one constant servant on whose
+fidelity, praised be Heaven, she could count. 'Twas after a scene of
+ignoble quarrel on the part of Frank's wife and mother (for the poor lad
+had been made to marry the whole of that German family with whom he had
+connected himself), that I found my mistress one day in tears, and then
+besought her to confide herself to the care and devotion of one who,
+by God's help, would never forsake her. And then the tender matron, as
+beautiful in her Autumn, and as pure as virgins in their spring, with
+blushes of love and “eyes of meek surrender,” yielded to my respectful
+importunity, and consented to share my home. Let the last words I write
+thank her, and bless her who hath blessed it.
+
+By the kindness of Mr. Addison, all danger of prosecution, and every
+obstacle against our return to England, was removed; and my son Frank's
+gallantry in Scotland made his peace with the King's government. But we
+two cared no longer to live in England: and Frank formally and joyfully
+yielded over to us the possession of that estate which we now occupy,
+far away from Europe and its troubles, on the beautiful banks of the
+Potomac, where we have built a new Castlewood, and think with grateful
+hearts of our old home. In our Transatlantic country we have a season,
+the calmest and most delightful of the year, which we call the Indian
+summer: I often say the autumn of our life resembles that happy and
+serene weather, and am thankful for its rest and its sweet sunshine.
+Heaven hath blessed us with a child, which each parent loves for her
+resemblance to the other. Our diamonds are turned into ploughs and axes
+for our plantations; and into negroes, the happiest and merriest, I
+think, in all this country: and the only jewel by which my wife sets
+any store, and from which she hath never parted, is that gold button she
+took from my arm on the day when she visited me in prison, and which she
+wore ever after, as she told me, on the tenderest heart in the world.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 2511 ***