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+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
+be 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, be 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.
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., by W. M. Thackeray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.
+
+Author: W. M. Thackeray
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2511]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+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 of The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., by
+W. M. Thackeray
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., by William Makepeace Thackeray
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
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+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
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+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
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+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., by W. M. Thackeray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.
+
+Author: W. M. Thackeray
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2511]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ.
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      A COLONEL IN THE SERVICE OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ANNE WRITTEN BY HIMSELF<br /><br />
+      By William Makepeace Thackeray
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Boston, Estes and Lauriat, Publishers
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE WILLIAM BINGHAM, LORD ASHBURTON. <br />
+      MY DEAR LORD,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your obliged friend and servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. M. THACKERAY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LONDON, October 18, 1852.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a href="#linktablecontents"><big><b>TABLE OF CONTENTS</b></big></a>
+      <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      PREFACE.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE ESMONDS OF VIRGINIA.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it is since I knew him entirely&mdash;for during my mother's life he
+      never quite opened himself to me&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;Were your
+      father, Madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to go into the woods, the Indians would elect
+      him Sachem;&rdquo; and his lordship was pleased to call me Pocahontas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not see our other relative, Bishop Tusher's lady, of whom so much is
+      said in my papa's memoirs&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;No wonder she became a favorite, for
+      the King likes them old and ugly, as his father did before him.&rdquo; On which
+      papa said&mdash;&ldquo;All women were alike; that there was never one so
+      beautiful as that one; and that we could forgive her everything but her
+      beauty.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the first Mrs. Tusher lying sixty miles
+      off at Castlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      RACHEL ESMOND WARRINGTON. CASTLEWOOD, VIRGINIA,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      November 3, 1778.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="linktablecontents" id="linktablecontents"></a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0002"> <big><b>THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND.</b></big>
+        </a><br /><br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> <b>BOOK I &nbsp;&nbsp; THE
+        EARLY YOUTH OF HENRY ESMOND</b> </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0001">
+        CHAPTER I. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a><br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005">
+        CHAPTER V. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a><br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010">
+        CHAPTER X. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. </a><br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a> <br /><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0034"> <b>BOOK III. &nbsp;&nbsp;THE END OF MR. ESMOND'S
+        ADVENTURES IN ENGLAND</b> </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0030">
+        CHAPTER I. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER II. </a><br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER III. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER IV. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0034">
+        CHAPTER V. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER VI. </a><br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER VII. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER VIII. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER IX. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0039">
+        CHAPTER X. </a><br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XI. </a><br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XII. </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND.
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK I
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE EARLY YOUTH OF HENRY ESMOND, UP TO THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING TRINITY
+      COLLEGE, IN CAMBRIDGE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;on which the exile's unpaid drink is scored up&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About the King's follower, the Viscount Castlewood&mdash;orphan of his
+      son, ruined by his fidelity, bearing many wounds and marks of bravery, old
+      and in exile&mdash;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.
+      &ldquo;And I shall be deservedly hanged,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF ESMOND OF CASTLEWOOD HALL.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She stretched out her hand&mdash;indeed when was it that that hand would
+      not stretch out to do an act of kindness, or to protect grief and
+      ill-fortune? &ldquo;And this is our kinsman,&rdquo; she said &ldquo;and what is your name,
+      kinsman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Henry Esmond,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name is Henry Esmond, sure enough, my lady,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So this is the little priest&rdquo; says my lord, looking down at the lad;
+      &ldquo;welcome, kinsman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is saying his prayers to mamma,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Le pauvre enfant, il n'a que nous,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he shan't want for friends here,&rdquo; says my lord in a kind voice,
+      &ldquo;shall he, little Trix?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When my lord and lady were going away thence, the little girl, still
+      holding her kinsman by the hand, bade him to come too. &ldquo;Thou wilt always
+      forsake an old friend for a new one, Trix,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If thou canst not be happy here,&rdquo; says my lord, looking round at the
+      scene, &ldquo;thou art hard to please, Rachel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am happy where you are,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but we were happiest of all at
+      Walcote Forest.&rdquo; Then my lord began to describe what was before them to
+      his wife, and what indeed little Harry knew better than he&mdash;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. &ldquo;I was but two years old then,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;but take
+      forty-six from ninety, and how old shall I be, kinsman Harry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thirty,&rdquo; says his wife, with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A great deal too old for you, Rachel,&rdquo; answers my lord, looking fondly
+      down at her. Indeed she seemed to be a girl, and was at that time scarce
+      twenty years old.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know, Frank, I will do anything to please you,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;and I
+      promise you I will grow older every day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mustn't call papa, Frank; you must call papa my lord now,&rdquo; 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&mdash;but because he was happy, no doubt&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;and you will come too, kinsman, won't you?&rdquo; she
+      said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harry Esmond blushed: &ldquo;I&mdash;I have supper with Mrs. Worksop,&rdquo; says he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D&mdash;n it,&rdquo; says my lord, &ldquo;thou shalt sup with us, Harry, to-night!
+      Shan't refuse a lady, shall he, Trix?&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No dinner! poor dear child!&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;The King,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you?&rdquo; says she, with a blush; &ldquo;then, sir, you shall teach me and
+      Beatrix.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      RELATES HOW FRANCIS, FOURTH VISCOUNT, ARRIVES AT CASTLEWOOD.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      '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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Jack, your sister may be
+      so-and-so, but by Jove my wife shan't!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;Mr. Killigrew called her
+      the Sybil, the death's-head put up at the King's feast as a memento mori,
+      &amp;c.&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;to his twopenny ordinary in Bell
+      Yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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;* &ldquo;I never,&rdquo; said my
+      lady, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Lady Isabel! lord-a-mercy, it's Lady Jezebel!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;If she were to take them off,&rdquo; my Lady Sark said, &ldquo;Tom Esmond,
+      her husband, would run away with them and pawn them.&rdquo; 'Twas another
+      calumny. My Lady Sark was also an exile from Court, and there had been war
+      between the two ladies before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WHITHER IN THE TIME OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT, I HAD PRECEDED HIM AS PAGE
+      TO ISABELLA.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When he said so, Bon Papa used to look up from the loom, where he was
+      embroidering beautiful silk flowers, and say, &ldquo;Angel! she belongs to the
+      Babylonish scarlet woman.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;that he was now to be called Master Harry Esmond&mdash;that
+      my Lord Viscount Castlewood was his parrain&mdash;that he was to live at
+      the great house of Castlewood, in the province of &mdash;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;C'est bien ca,&rdquo; he said to the priest after eying the child, and the
+      gentleman in black shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let Blaise take him out for a holiday,&rdquo; and out for a holiday the boy and
+      the valet went. Harry went jumping along; he was glad enough to go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;all
+      under company of Monsieur Blaise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must never sing that song any more: do you hear, little mannikin?&rdquo;
+       says my Lord Viscount, holding up a finger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But we will try and teach you a better, Harry,&rdquo; Mr. Holt said; and the
+      child answered, for he was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature,
+      &ldquo;That he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the
+      gentleman would tell him.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis well, 'tis well!&rdquo; said Blaise, that night (in his own language) when
+      they lay again at an inn. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When shall we come to Castlewood, Monsieur Blaise?&rdquo; says Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Parbleu! my lord does not press himself,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;and
+      with this one both my lord and Mr. Holt had a few words. &ldquo;This, Harry, is
+      Castlewood church,&rdquo; says Mr. Holt, &ldquo;and this is the pillar thereof,
+      learned Doctor Tusher. Take off your hat, sirrah, and salute Dr. Tusher!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come up to supper, Doctor,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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, &ldquo;Parbleu, one sees well that my lord is your godfather;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;an apartment than which Harry
+      thought he had never seen anything more grand&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;borrowed curls&mdash;so
+      that no wonder little Harry Esmond was scared when he was first presented
+      to her&mdash;the kind priest acting as master of the ceremonies at that
+      solemn introduction&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I present to your ladyship your kinsman and little page of honor, Master
+      Henry Esmond,&rdquo; Mr. Holt said, bowing lowly, with a sort of comical
+      humility. &ldquo;Make a pretty bow to my lady, Monsieur; and then another little
+      bow, not so low, to Madame Tusher&mdash;the fair priestess of Castlewood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where I have lived and hope to die, sir,&rdquo; says Madame Tusher, giving a
+      hard glance at the brat, and then at my lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does my appearance please you, little page?&rdquo; asked the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would be very hard to please if it didn't,&rdquo; cried Madame Tusher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have done, you silly Maria,&rdquo; said Lady Castlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where I'm attached, I'm attached, Madame&mdash;and I'd die rather than
+      not say so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Je meurs ou je m'attache,&rdquo; Mr. Holt said with a polite grin. &ldquo;The ivy
+      says so in the picture, and clings to the oak like a fond parasite as it
+      is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Parricide, sir!&rdquo; cries Mrs. Tusher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, Tusher&mdash;you are always bickering with Father Holt,&rdquo; cried my
+      lady. &ldquo;Come and kiss my hand, child;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To kiss that hand would make many a pretty fellow happy!&rdquo; cried Mrs.
+      Tusher: on which my lady crying out, &ldquo;Go, you foolish Tusher!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Who is that other woman?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;She is fat and round;
+      she is more pretty than my Lady Castlewood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is Madame Tusher, the parson's wife of Castlewood. She has a son of
+      your age, but bigger than you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does she like so to kiss my lady's hand. It is not good to kiss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not marry the French woman, will you? I saw her laughing with
+      Blaise in the buttery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I belong to a church that is older and better than the English church,&rdquo;
+       Mr. Holt said (making a sign whereof Esmond did not then understand the
+      meaning, across his breast and forehead); &ldquo;in our church the clergy do not
+      marry. You will understand these things better soon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was not Saint Peter the head of your church?&mdash;Dr. Rabbits of Ealing
+      told us so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Father said, &ldquo;Yes, he was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Saint Peter was married, for we heard only last Sunday that his
+      wife's mother lay sick of a fever.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Three Castles&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;to
+      the lady and lord rather&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;it tasked young
+      Harry Esmond's powers of reticence not to say to his young companion,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I AM PLACED UNDER A POPISH PRIEST AND BRED TO THAT RELIGION.&mdash;VISCOUNTESS
+      CASTLEWOOD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;who was,
+      moreover, brewer, gardener, and woodman&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;'twas rather a dangerous post to play with her
+      ladyship&mdash;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 &ldquo;News
+      Letter&rdquo; or the &ldquo;Grand Cyrus.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a point whereof the boy, young as he was,
+      was very well assured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;The Bishops for ever!&rdquo; &ldquo;Down with the Pope!&rdquo; &ldquo;No
+      Popery! no Popery! Jezebel, Jezebel!&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;For
+      God's sake, madam, do not speak or look out of window; sit still.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Flog your way
+      through them, the brutes, James, and use your whip!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The mob answered with a roaring jeer of laughter, and fresh cries of
+      &ldquo;Jezebel! Jezebel!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Heaven's sake be still!&rdquo; says Mr. Holt; &ldquo;we are not ten paces from
+      the 'Bell' archway, where they can shut the gates on us, and keep out this
+      canaille.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Ah! you d&mdash;- little yelling Popish bastard,&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hulking coward!&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of the mob cried, &ldquo;Huzzah, my lord!&rdquo; for they knew him, and the
+      saddler's man was a known bruiser, near twice as big as my lord Viscount.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Make way there,&rdquo; says he (he spoke in a high shrill voice, but with a
+      great air of authority). &ldquo;Make way, and let her ladyship's carriage pass.&rdquo;
+       The men that were between the coach and the gate of the &ldquo;Bell&rdquo; actually
+      did make way, and the horses went in, my lord walking after them with his
+      hat on his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he was going in at the gate, through which the coach had just rolled,
+      another cry begins, of &ldquo;No Popery&mdash;no Papists!&rdquo; My lord turns round
+      and faces them once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God save the King!&rdquo; says he at the highest pitch of his voice. &ldquo;Who dares
+      abuse the King's religion? You, you d&mdash;d psalm-singing cobbler, as
+      sure as I'm a magistrate of this county I'll commit you!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Bell;&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Bell,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF KING JAMES II.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;so
+      long, that it seemed to him as if the day never would come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's there?&rdquo; cried out the boy, who was of a good spirit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silentium!&rdquo; whispered the other; &ldquo;'tis I, my boy!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Father Holt laughed, seeing the lad's attention fixed at once on this
+      hole. &ldquo;That is right, Harry,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;faithful little famuli, see all
+      and say nothing. You are faithful, I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know I would go to the stake for you,&rdquo; said Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want your head,&rdquo; said the Father, patting it kindly; &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know the secret of the cupboard,&rdquo; said he, laughing, &ldquo;and must be
+      prepared for other mysteries;&rdquo; and he opened&mdash;but not a secret
+      cupboard this time&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they miss the cupboard,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harry was alarmed at the notion that his friend was about to leave him;
+      but &ldquo;No,&rdquo; the priest said, &ldquo;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&mdash;at least not them.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rest of his goods, his small wardrobe, &amp;c. Holt left untouched on
+      his shelves and in his cupboard, taking down&mdash;with a laugh, however&mdash;and
+      flinging into the brazier, where he only half burned them, some
+      theological treatises which he had been writing against the English
+      divines. &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will not Lockwood let you out, sir?&rdquo; Esmond asked. Holt laughed; he was
+      never more gay or good-humored than when in the midst of action or danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lockwood knows nothing of my being here, mind you,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;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&mdash;stay, why should you not know one secret more? I
+      know you will never betray me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I am gone,&rdquo; Father Holt said, &ldquo;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&mdash;where shall we put the key?&mdash;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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, &ldquo;Is King
+      Charles up that oak-tree?&rdquo; his duty would have been not to say, Yes&mdash;so
+      that the Cromwellians should seize the king and murder him like his father&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;God save the Prince of Orange and the Protestant religion!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are prisoners,&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;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&rdquo; (and she clasped it in her long fingers). &ldquo;The
+      blood of the Esmonds will always flow freely for their kings. We are not
+      like the Churchills&mdash;the Judases, who kiss their master and betray
+      him. We know how to suffer, how even to forgive in the royal cause&rdquo; (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). &ldquo;Let the tyrant of Orange bring his rack and his odious Dutch
+      tortures&mdash;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.&rdquo; And she told
+      her page, a hundred times at least, of the particulars of the last
+      interview which she had with his Majesty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I flung myself before my liege's feet,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;at Salisbury. I
+      devoted myself&mdash;my husband&mdash;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&mdash;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;There would be a horse-market at
+      Newbury next Thursday,&rdquo; and so carry the same message on to the next house
+      on his list.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;my lord became the most
+      considerable person in our part of the county for the affairs of the King.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;You are going to&mdash;to ride,&rdquo; says she.
+      &ldquo;Oh, that I might come too&mdash;but in my situation I am forbidden horse
+      exercise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We kiss my Lady Marchioness's hand,&rdquo; says Mr. Holt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, God speed you!&rdquo; she said, stepping up and embracing my lord in a
+      grand manner. &ldquo;Mr. Holt, I ask your blessing:&rdquo; and she knelt down for
+      that, whilst Mrs. Tusher tossed her head up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;and they rode out of Castlewood gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As they crossed the bridge, Harry could see an officer in scarlet ride up
+      touching his hat, and address my lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says he to the officer, &ldquo;we are four to two; will you be so kind as
+      to take that road, and leave me go mine?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your road is mine, my lord,&rdquo; says the officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then&mdash;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fire! fire!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Holt, qui pensait a tout,&rdquo; says Blaise, &ldquo;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,'&mdash;why did he say Marquis to
+      M. le Vicomte?&mdash;'we must drink it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor gentleman's horse was a better one than that I rode,&rdquo; Blaise
+      continues; &ldquo;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&mdash;and says, 'All is done! The Ecossais declared
+      an hour too soon&mdash;General Ginckel was down upon them.' The whole
+      thing was at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'And we've shot an officer on duty, and let his orderly escape,' says my
+      lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he gave Harry the two papers. He read that to himself, which only
+      said, &ldquo;Burn the papers in the cupboard, burn this. You know nothing about
+      anything.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE ISSUE OF THE PLOTS.&mdash;THE DEATH OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT OF
+      CASTLEWOOD; AND THE IMPRISONMENT OF HIS VISCOUNTESS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;They will find Isabel of Castlewood is equal to her fate.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell your mistress, little man,&rdquo; says the Captain, kindly, &ldquo;that we must
+      speak to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mistress is ill a-bed,&rdquo; said the page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What complaint has she?&rdquo; asked the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The boy said, &ldquo;The rheumatism!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Rheumatism! that's a sad complaint,&rdquo; continues the good-natured Captain;
+      &ldquo;and the coach is in the yard to fetch the Doctor, I suppose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; says the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And how long has her ladyship been ill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know,&rdquo; says the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When did my lord go away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yesterday night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Father Holt?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With Mr. Holt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And which way did they travel?&rdquo; asks the lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They travelled without me,&rdquo; says the page.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must see Lady Castlewood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have orders that nobody goes in to her ladyship&mdash;she is sick,&rdquo;
+       says the page; but at this moment Victoire came out. &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; says she;
+      and, as if not knowing that any one was near, &ldquo;What's this noise?&rdquo; says
+      she. &ldquo;Is this gentleman the Doctor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stuff! we must see Lady Castlewood,&rdquo; says the lawyer, pushing by.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that the Doctor?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no use with this deception, madam,&rdquo; Captain Westbury said (for
+      so he was named). &ldquo;My duty is to arrest the person of Thomas, Viscount
+      Castlewood, a nonjuring peer&mdash;of Robert Tusher, Vicar of Castlewood&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, sir, that I have the rheumatism, and cannot move,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
+       Captain Westbury said. &ldquo;Your woman will show me where I am to look;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before one of the cupboards Victoire flung herself down, stretching out
+      her arms, and, with a piercing shriek, cried, &ldquo;Non, jamais, monsieur
+      l'officier! Jamais! I will rather die than let you see this wardrobe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;not papers regarding the conspiracy&mdash;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, &ldquo;Is it your commission to insult ladies as well as to
+      arrest gentlemen, Captain?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These articles are only dangerous when worn by your ladyship,&rdquo; the
+      Captain said, with a low bow, and a mock grin of politeness. &ldquo;I have found
+      nothing which concerns the Government as yet&mdash;only the weapons with
+      which beauty is authorized to kill,&rdquo; says he, pointing to a wig with his
+      sword-tip. &ldquo;We must now proceed to search the rest of the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not going to leave that wretch in the room with me,&rdquo; cried my
+      lady, pointing to the soldier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can I do, madam? Somebody you must have to smooth your pillow and
+      bring your medicine&mdash;permit me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; screamed out my lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, if you are too ill to leave the bed,&rdquo; the Captain then said,
+      rather sternly, &ldquo;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 * * *.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here it was her ladyship's turn to shriek, for the Captain, with his fist
+      shaking the pillows and bolsters, at last came to &ldquo;burn&rdquo; as they say in
+      the play of forfeits, and wrenching away one of the pillows, said, &ldquo;Look!
+      did not I tell you so? Here is a pillow stuffed with paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Some villain has betrayed us,&rdquo; cried out my lady, sitting up in the bed,
+      showing herself full dressed under her night-rail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;and the japan-box?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir! you don't strike a MAN when he is down,&rdquo; said my lady, with some
+      dignity: &ldquo;can you not spare a woman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your ladyship must please to rise, and let me search the bed,&rdquo; said the
+      Captain; &ldquo;there is no more time to lose in bandying talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a list of gentlemen of the county in Father Holt's hand writing&mdash;Mr.
+      Freeman's (King James's) friends&mdash;a similar paper being found among
+      those of Sir John Fenwick and Mr. Coplestone, who suffered death for this
+      conspiracy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are these?&rdquo; says one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They're written in a foreign language,&rdquo; says the lawyer. &ldquo;What are you
+      laughing at, little whelp?&rdquo; adds he, turning round as he saw the boy
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Holt said they were sermons,&rdquo; Harry said, &ldquo;and bade me to burn them;&rdquo;
+       which indeed was true of those papers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sermons indeed&mdash;it's treason, I would lay a wager,&rdquo; cries the
+      lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Egad! it's Greek to me,&rdquo; says Captain Westbury. &ldquo;Can you read it, little
+      boy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir, a little,&rdquo; Harry said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then read, and read in English, sir, on your peril,&rdquo; said the lawyer. And
+      Harry began to translate:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&rdquo;&mdash;and
+      here the boy was obliged to stop, the rest of the page being charred by
+      the fire: and asked of the lawyer&mdash;&ldquo;Shall I go on, sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The lawyer said&mdash;&ldquo;This boy is deeper than he seems: who knows that he
+      is not laughing at us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let's have in Dick the Scholar,&rdquo; cried Captain Westbury, laughing: and he
+      called to a trooper out of the window&mdash;&ldquo;Ho, Dick, come in here and
+      construe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A thick-set soldier, with a square good-humored face, came in at the
+      summons, saluting his officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell us what is this, Dick,&rdquo; says the lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is Steele, sir,&rdquo; says the soldier. &ldquo;I may be Dick for my friends,
+      but I don't name gentlemen of your cloth amongst them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well then, Steele.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Steele, sir, if you please. When you address a gentleman of his
+      Majesty's Horse Guards, be pleased not to be so familiar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I didn't know, sir,&rdquo; said the lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should you? I take it you are not accustomed to meet with gentlemen,&rdquo;
+       says the trooper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold thy prate, and read that bit of paper,&rdquo; says Westbury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis Latin,&rdquo; says Dick, glancing at it, and again saluting his officer,
+      &ldquo;and from a sermon of Mr. Cudworth's,&rdquo; and he translated the words pretty
+      much as Henry Esmond had rendered them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a young scholar you are,&rdquo; says the Captain to the boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Depend on't, he knows more than he tells,&rdquo; says the lawyer. &ldquo;I think we
+      will pack him off in the coach with old Jezebel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For construing a bit of Latin?&rdquo; said the Captain, very good-naturedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would as lief go there as anywhere,&rdquo; Harry Esmond said, simply, &ldquo;for
+      there is nobody to care for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There must have been something touching in the child's voice, or in this
+      description of his solitude&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he say?&rdquo; says the lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, ask Dick himself,&rdquo; cried Captain Westbury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said I was not ignorant of misfortune myself, and had learned to succor
+      the miserable, and that's not YOUR trade, Mr. Sheepskin,&rdquo; said the
+      trooper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better leave Dick the Scholar alone, Mr. Corbet,&rdquo; the Captain
+      said. And Harry Esmond, always touched by a kind face and kind word, felt
+      very grateful to this good-natured champion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;dear angel,&rdquo; and &ldquo;poor infant,&rdquo; and a hundred other names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Viscountess, giving him her lean hand to kiss, bade him always be
+      faithful to the house of Esmond. &ldquo;If evil should happen to my lord,&rdquo; says
+      she, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I am no common soldier,&rdquo; Dick would say, and indeed it was easy
+      to see by his learning, breeding, and many accomplishments, that he was
+      not. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hanged as many of ours,&rdquo; interposed Harry; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith! there has been too much persecution on both sides: but 'twas you
+      taught us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, 'twas the Pagans began it,&rdquo; cried the lad, and began to instance a
+      number of saints of the Church, from the proto-martyr downwards&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay,&rdquo; says the trooper gravely, &ldquo;the miracles of the first three
+      centuries belong to my Church as well as yours, Master Papist,&rdquo; and then
+      added, with something of a smile upon his countenance, and a queer look at
+      Harry&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;every man of
+      every nation has done that&mdash;'tis the living up to it that is
+      difficult, as I know to my cost,&rdquo; he added with a sigh. &ldquo;And ah!&rdquo; he
+      added, &ldquo;my poor lad, I am not strong enough to convince thee by my life&mdash;though
+      to die for my religion would give me the greatest of joys&mdash;but I had
+      a dear friend in Magdalen College in Oxford; I wish Joe Addison were here
+      to convince thee, as he quickly could&mdash;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,&rdquo;&mdash;Dick added with a smile, &ldquo;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&mdash;Dr.
+      Cudworth says, 'A good conscience is the best looking-glass of heaven'&mdash;and
+      there's serenity in my friend's face which always reflects it&mdash;I wish
+      you could see him, Harry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he do you a great deal of good?&rdquo; asked the lad, simply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He might have done,&rdquo; said the other&mdash;&ldquo;at least he taught me to see
+      and approve better things. 'Tis my own fault, deteriora sequi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem very good,&rdquo; the boy said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm not what I seem, alas!&rdquo; answered the trooper&mdash;and indeed, as it
+      turned out, poor Dick told the truth&mdash;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&mdash;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, &ldquo;Ah, little
+      Papist, I wish Joseph Addison was here!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here's news for Frank Esmond,&rdquo; says Captain Westbury; &ldquo;Harry, did you
+      ever see Colonel Esmond?&rdquo; And Captain Westbury looked very hard at the boy
+      as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harry said he had seen him but once when he was at Hexton, at the ball
+      there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did he say anything?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He said what I don't care to repeat,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you love my Lord Castlewood?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wait until I know my mother, sir, to say,&rdquo; the boy answered, his eyes
+      filling with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something has happened to Lord Castlewood,&rdquo; Captain Westbury said in a
+      very grave tone&mdash;&ldquo;something which must happen to us all. He is dead
+      of a wound received at the Boyne, fighting for King James.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad my lord fought for the right cause,&rdquo; the boy said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was better to meet death on the field like a man, than face it on
+      Tower-hill, as some of them may,&rdquo; continued Mr. Westbury. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+      &ldquo;That was the first sensation of grief,&rdquo; Dick said, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said Dick kindly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I AM LEFT AT CASTLEWOOD AN ORPHAN, AND FIND MOST KIND PROTECTORS THERE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;as what fond
+      woman does not?&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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;&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and what follows? They live
+      together, and they dine together, and they say &ldquo;my dear&rdquo; and &ldquo;my love&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Parson
+      Harry,&rdquo; as he called young Esmond, by constantly praising his parts and
+      admiring his boyish stock of learning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,
+      &ldquo;Fie, my lord, remember my cloth!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, as Harry Esmond was her page, he also was called from duty at this
+      time. &ldquo;My lord has lived in the army and with soldiers,&rdquo; she would say to
+      the lad, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; And very likely she believed so. 'Tis strange what a
+      man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You little bastard beggar!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I'll murder you for this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And indeed he was big enough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bastard or not,&rdquo; said the other, grinding his teeth, &ldquo;I have a couple of
+      swords, and if you like to meet me, as a man, on the terrace to-night&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      AFTER GOOD FORTUNE COMES EVIL.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Three Castles,&rdquo; 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&mdash;in the lanes, or by the brook,
+      or at the garden-palings, or about Castlewood: it was, &ldquo;Lord, Mr. Henry!&rdquo;
+       and &ldquo;how do you do, Nancy?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Doctor Tusher brought the news that the small-pox was at the &ldquo;Three
+      Castles,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Little Lady Beatrix screamed out at Dr. Tusher's news; and my lord cried
+      out, &ldquo;God bless me!&rdquo; 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&mdash;but
+      the idea of death by small-pox scared him beyond all other ends. &ldquo;We will
+      take the children and ride away to-morrow to Walcote:&rdquo; this was my lord's
+      small house, inherited from his mother, near to Winchester.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is the best refuge in case the disease spreads,&rdquo; said Dr. Tusher.
+      &ldquo;'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&mdash;I can never go into my
+      reading-desk and have that fellow so near me. I WON'T have that man near
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If a parishioner dying in the small-pox sent to you, would you not go?&rdquo;
+       asked my lady, looking up from her frame of work, with her calm blue eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the Lord, I wouldn't,&rdquo; said my lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are not in a popish country; and a sick man doth not absolutely need
+      absolution and confession,&rdquo; said the Doctor. &ldquo;'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&mdash;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 . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God forbid!&rdquo; cried my lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen,&rdquo; continued Dr. Tusher. &ldquo;Amen to that prayer, my very good lord! for
+      your sake I would lay my life down&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;and he filled this and emptied
+      it too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, then, the news was brought that the little boy at the &ldquo;Three
+      Castles&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;saying in the French language to Lady
+      Castlewood, with whom the young lad had read much, and whom he had
+      perfected in this tongue&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where you took my son afterwards,&rdquo; Lady Castlewood said, very angry, and
+      turning red. &ldquo;I thank you, sir, for giving him such company. Beatrix,&rdquo; she
+      said in English, &ldquo;I forbid you to touch Mr. Esmond. Come away, child&mdash;come
+      to your room. Come to your room&mdash;I wish your Reverence good-night&mdash;and
+      you, sir, had you not better go back to your friends at the ale-house?&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hey-day!&rdquo; says my lord, who was standing by the fireplace&mdash;indeed he
+      was in the position to which he generally came by that hour of the evening&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;Damme, Lady Castlewood, you look dev'lish handsome in a
+      passion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My lord burst out, with a laugh and an oath&mdash;&ldquo;You young slyboots,
+      you've been at Nancy Sievewright. D&mdash;- the young hypocrite, who'd
+      have thought it in him? I say, Tusher, he's been after&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough, my lord,&rdquo; said my lady, &ldquo;don't insult me with this talk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon my word,&rdquo; said poor Harry, ready to cry with shame and
+      mortification, &ldquo;the honor of that young person is perfectly unstained for
+      me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, of course, of course,&rdquo; says my lord, more and more laughing and
+      tipsy. &ldquo;Upon his HONOR, Doctor&mdash;Nancy Sieve&mdash; . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take Mistress Beatrix to bed,&rdquo; my lady cried at this moment to Mrs.
+      Tucker her woman, who came in with her ladyship's tea. &ldquo;Put her into my
+      room&mdash;no, into yours,&rdquo; she added quickly. &ldquo;Go, my child: go, I say:
+      not a word!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For once her mother took little heed of her sobbing, and continued to
+      speak eagerly&mdash;&ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;this young man&mdash;your
+      dependant&mdash;told me just now in French&mdash;he was ashamed to speak
+      in his own language&mdash;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&mdash;yes, reeking from it&mdash;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&mdash;killed our child. Why was
+      he brought in to disgrace our house? Why is he here? Let him go&mdash;let
+      him go, I say, to-night, and pollute the place no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot help my birth, madam,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;nor my other misfortune. And as
+      for your boy, if&mdash;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;&rdquo;
+       and, sinking down on his knee, Harry Esmond took the rough hand of his
+      benefactor and kissed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He wants to go to the ale-house&mdash;let him go,&rdquo; cried my lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm d&mdash;d if he shall,&rdquo; said my lord. &ldquo;I didn't think you could be so
+      d&mdash;d ungrateful, Rachel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with a
+      rapid glance at Harry Esmond,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was always so,&rdquo; my lord said; &ldquo;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&mdash;- it, look at the maids&mdash;just look at the
+      maids in the house&rdquo; (my lord pronounced all the words together&mdash;just-look-at-the-maze-in-the-house:
+      jever-see-such-maze?) &ldquo;You wouldn't take a wife out of Castlewood now,
+      would you, Doctor?&rdquo; and my lord burst out laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Doctor, who had been looking at my Lord Castlewood from under his
+      eyelids, said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; said young Esmond, bursting out indignantly, &ldquo;she told me that you
+      yourself were a horrid old man, and had offered to kiss her in the dairy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For shame, Henry,&rdquo; cried Doctor Tusher, turning as red as a turkey-cock,
+      while my lord continued to roar with laughter. &ldquo;If you listen to the
+      falsehoods of an abandoned girl&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is as honest as any woman in England, and as pure for me,&rdquo; cried out
+      Henry, &ldquo;and, as kind, and as good. For shame on you to malign her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Far be it from me to do so,&rdquo; cried the Doctor. &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is all very true, sir,&rdquo; said Lady Esmond, looking at the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis to be feared that he may have brought the infection with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From the ale-house&mdash;yes,&rdquo; said my lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D&mdash;- it, I forgot when I collared you, boy,&rdquo; cried my lord, stepping
+      back. &ldquo;Keep off, Harry my boy; there's no good in running into the wolf's
+      jaws, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My lady looked at him with some surprise, and instantly advancing to Henry
+      Esmond, took his hand. &ldquo;I beg your pardon, Henry,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;I spoke very
+      unkindly. I have no right to interfere with you&mdash;with your&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My lord broke out into an oath. &ldquo;Can't you leave the boy alone, my lady?&rdquo;
+       She looked a little red, and faintly pressed the lad's hand as she dropped
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no use, my lord,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;Frank was on his knee as he was
+      making pictures, and was running constantly from Henry to me. The evil is
+      done, if any.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not with me, damme,&rdquo; cried my lord. &ldquo;I've been smoking,&rdquo;&mdash;and he
+      lighted his pipe again with a coal&mdash;&ldquo;and it keeps off infection; and
+      as the disease is in the village&mdash;plague take it&mdash;I would have
+      you leave it. We'll go to-morrow to Walcote, my lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no fear,&rdquo; said my lady; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't run the risk,&rdquo; said my lord; &ldquo;I'm as bold as any man, but I'll
+      not bear that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take Beatrix with you and go,&rdquo; said my lady. &ldquo;For us the mischief is
+      done; and Tucker can wait upon us, who has had the disease.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You take care to choose 'em ugly enough,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sorry,&rdquo; she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice,&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;quite a child; and I should
+      never have thought of treating you otherwise until&mdash;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,)&mdash;and&mdash;and I wish you a
+      good-night, Mr. Esmond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had brought the contagion with him from the &ldquo;Three Castles&rdquo; sure
+      enough, and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the hall
+      no more than it did the cottage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I HAVE THE SMALL-POX, AND PREPARE TO LEAVE CASTLEWOOD.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;It was a Providence, for which we all
+      ought to be thankful,&rdquo; Doctor Tusher said, &ldquo;that my lady and her son were
+      spared, while Death carried off the poor domestics of the house;&rdquo; and
+      rebuked Harry for asking, in his simple way, For which we ought to be
+      thankful&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the lad broke out
+      and said, &ldquo;It IS worse and my mistress is not near so handsome as she
+      was;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is MY bear, and I will not have him baited, Doctor,&rdquo; my lady said,
+      patting her hand kindly on the boy's head, as he was still kneeling at her
+      feet. &ldquo;How your hair has come off! And mine, too,&rdquo; she added with another
+      sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for myself that I cared,&rdquo; my lady said to Harry, when the
+      parson had taken his leave; &ldquo;but AM I very much changed? Alas! I fear 'tis
+      too true.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the world,
+      I think,&rdquo; the lad said; and indeed he thought and thinks so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will my lord think so when he comes back?&rdquo; the lady asked with a sigh,
+      and another look at her Venice glass. &ldquo;Suppose he should think as you do,
+      sir, that I am hideous&mdash;yes, you said hideous&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; said Mr. Esmond, &ldquo;Ahasuerus was the Grand Turk, and to change was
+      the manner of his country, and according to his law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are all Grand Turks for that matter,&rdquo; said my lady, &ldquo;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&mdash;is it, my angel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;The Lord
+      gave and took away,&rdquo; he said; and he knew what His servant's duty was. He
+      wanted for nothing&mdash;less now than ever before, as there were fewer
+      mouths to feed. He wished her ladyship and Master Esmond good morning&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;was her reign, too, over? A minute
+      would say. My lord came riding over the bridge&mdash;he could be seen from
+      the great window, clad in scarlet, and mounted on his gray hackney&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;her son in her hand&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, Harry, boy!&rdquo; my lord said, good-naturedly, &ldquo;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&mdash;ho, ho!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fie! how yellow you look,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;and there are one, two, red holes
+      in your face;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My lord laughed again, in high good-humor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D&mdash;- it!&rdquo; said he, with one of his usual oaths, &ldquo;the little slut
+      sees everything. She saw the Dowager's paint t'other day, and asked her
+      why she wore that red stuff&mdash;didn't you, Trix? and the Tower; and St.
+      James's; and the play; and the Prince George, and the Princess Anne&mdash;didn't
+      you, Trix?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are both very fat, and smelt of brandy,&rdquo; the child said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Papa roared with laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brandy!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;And how do you know, Miss Pert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because your lordship smells of it after supper, when I embrace you
+      before you go to bed,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now for my lady,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;exceptions
+      to men&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a couple of years after that calamity had befallen which had robbed
+      Lady Castlewood of a little&mdash;a very little&mdash;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&mdash;pudet haec opprobria
+      dicere nobis)&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;my lady in her
+      place over against him&mdash;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, &ldquo;D&mdash;-
+      it, now my lady is gone, we will have t'other bottle,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twas after Jason left her, no doubt,&rdquo; 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), &ldquo;that Medea became a learned woman and a great
+      enchantress.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she could conjure the stars out of heaven,&rdquo; the young tutor added,
+      &ldquo;but she could not bring Jason back again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean?&rdquo; asked my lady, very angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed I mean nothing,&rdquo; said the other, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The men who wrote your books,&rdquo; says my lady, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And is there no slavery in a convent?&rdquo; says Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least if women are slaves there, no one sees them,&rdquo; answered the lady.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; And with a curtsy and a smile she would end this sort of
+      colloquy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Indeed &ldquo;Mr. Tutor,&rdquo; 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&mdash;when these could
+      be got from Esmond's indolent patron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;not Harry Esmond's, who could
+      scarce distinguish between &ldquo;Green Sleeves&rdquo; and &ldquo;Lillibullero;&rdquo; 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&mdash;the two golden heads over the page&mdash;the child's little
+      hand, and the mother's beating the time, with their voices rising and
+      falling in unison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if the children were careless, 'twas a wonder how eagerly the mother
+      learnt from her young tutor&mdash;and taught him too. The happiest
+      instinctive faculty was this lady's&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;oh so bright and clear!&mdash;oh so longed after!&mdash;because
+      they are out of reach; as holiday music from withinside a prison wall&mdash;or
+      sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because unattainable&mdash;more
+      bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence
+      there is no escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;For who knows,&rdquo; said the lady, &ldquo;what
+      may happen, and whether we may be able to keep such a learned tutor long?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When my lord heard of the news, he also did not make any very long face.
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said my
+      lord, who was generous with his own, and indeed with other folk's money.
+      &ldquo;I wish your aunt would die once a year, Rachel; we could spend your
+      money, and all your sisters', too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have but one aunt&mdash;and&mdash;and I have another use for the money,
+      my lord,&rdquo; says my lady, turning very red.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Another use, my dear; and what do you know about money?&rdquo; cries my lord.
+      &ldquo;And what the devil is there that I don't give you which you want!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I intend to give this money&mdash;can't you fancy how, my lord?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My lord swore one of his large oaths that he did not know in the least
+      what she meant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college. Cousin Harry,&rdquo; says my
+      lady, &ldquo;you mustn't stay longer in this dull place, but make a name to
+      yourself, and for us too, Harry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D&mdash;n it, Harry's well enough here,&rdquo; says my lord, for a moment
+      looking rather sulky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is Harry going away? You don't mean to say you will go away?&rdquo; cry out
+      Frank and Beatrix at one breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he will come back: and this will always be his home,&rdquo; cries my lady,
+      with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness: &ldquo;and his scholars will always
+      love him; won't they?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By G-d, Rachel, you're a good woman!&rdquo; says my lord, seizing my lady's
+      hand, at which she blushed very much, and shrank back, putting her
+      children before her. &ldquo;I wish you joy, my kinsman,&rdquo; he continued, giving
+      Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have the sorrel, Harry; 'tis a good one. Father says 'tis the best in the
+      stable,&rdquo; says little Frank, clapping his hands, and jumping up. &ldquo;Let's
+      come and see him in the stable.&rdquo; And the other, in his delight and
+      eagerness, was for leaving the room that instant to arrange about his
+      journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lady Castlewood looked after him with sad penetrating glances. &ldquo;He
+      wishes to be gone already, my lord,&rdquo; said she to her husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man hung back abashed. &ldquo;Indeed, I would stay for ever, if your
+      ladyship bade me,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And thou wouldst be a fool for thy pains, kinsman,&rdquo; said my lord. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ours, indeed, is but a dull home,&rdquo; cries my lady, with a little of
+      sadness and, maybe, of satire, in her voice: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Curse me, Rachel, if I know now whether thou art in earnest or not,&rdquo; said
+      my lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In earnest, my lord!&rdquo; says she, still clinging by one of her children.
+      &ldquo;Is there much subject here for joke?&rdquo; And she made him a grand curtsy,
+      and, giving a stately look to Harry Esmond, which seemed to say,
+      &ldquo;Remember; you understand me, though he does not,&rdquo; she left the room with
+      her children.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since she found out that confounded Hexton business,&rdquo; my lord said&mdash;&ldquo;and
+      be hanged to them that told her!&mdash;she has not been the same woman.
+      She, who used to be as humble as a milkmaid, is as proud as a princess,&rdquo;
+       says my lord. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;n it, Polly
+      loves a mug of ale, too, and laced with brandy, by Jove!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said she (and this was the only time when she spoke
+      with a tear in her eye, or a tremor in her voice), &ldquo;it may happen in the
+      course of nature that I shall be called away from them: and their father&mdash;and&mdash;and
+      they will need true friends and protectors. Promise me that you will be
+      true to them&mdash;as&mdash;as I think I have been to you&mdash;and a
+      mother's fond prayer and blessing go with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So help me God, madam, I will,&rdquo; said Harry Esmond, falling on his knees,
+      and kissing the hand of his dearest mistress. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Happy!&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;but indeed I ought to be, with my children, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not happy!&rdquo; cried Esmond (for he knew what her life was, though he and
+      his mistress never spoke a word concerning it). &ldquo;If not happiness, it may
+      be ease. Let me stay and work for you&mdash;let me stay and be your
+      servant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, you are best away,&rdquo; said my lady, laughing, as she put her hand
+      on the boy's head for a moment. &ldquo;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&mdash;and if my children want you, or I
+      want you, you shall come to us; and I know we may count on you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May heaven forsake me if you may not!&rdquo; Harry said, getting up from his
+      knee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my knight longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;her knight,&rdquo; and
+      often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed that he might be
+      her true knight, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I GO TO CAMBRIDGE, AND DO BUT LITTLE GOOD THERE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;'Twas the
+      only one fit for polite conversation,&rdquo; she condescended to say, &ldquo;and
+      suitable to persons of high breeding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Greyhound,&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;at least Harry
+      thought so&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Amen!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I COME HOME FOR A HOLIDAY TO CASTLEWOOD, AND FIND A SKELETON IN THE HOUSE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has got a moustache!&rdquo; cries out Master Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why does he not wear a peruke like my Lord Mohun?&rdquo; asked Miss Beatrix.
+      &ldquo;My lord says that nobody wears their own hair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe you will have to occupy your old chamber,&rdquo; says my lady. &ldquo;I
+      hope the housekeeper has got it ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, mamma, you have been there ten times these three days yourself!&rdquo;
+       exclaims Frank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she cut some flowers which you planted in my garden&mdash;do you
+      remember, ever so many years ago? when I was quite a little girl,&rdquo; cries
+      out Miss Beatrix, on tiptoe. &ldquo;And mamma put them in your window.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I remember when you grew well after you were ill that you used to like
+      roses,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;And you are not to be a page any longer, but a gentleman and
+      kinsman, and to walk with papa and mamma,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;I don't think papa is fond of mamma,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shouldn't say that papa is not fond of mamma,&rdquo; said the boy, at this
+      confession. &ldquo;Mamma never said so; and mamma forbade you to say it, Miss
+      Beatrix.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      '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?&mdash;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&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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!&mdash;who is to love what is base and
+      unlovely? Respect!&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;(indeed, 'twas on the day after
+      New Year's Day, and an excess of mince-pie)&mdash;and said with some of
+      his usual oaths&mdash;&ldquo;D&mdash;n it, Harry Esmond&mdash;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&mdash;women are&mdash;all
+      the same, Harry, all jilts in their hearts. Stick to college&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was my lord's custom to fling out many jokes of this nature, in
+      presence of his wife and children, at meals&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;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&mdash;the standard of virtue did not fit him much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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, &ldquo;Poor children&mdash;poor
+      children!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My lady, with a laugh of cruel bitterness said, &ldquo;I suppose the person at
+      Hexton has been ill, or has scolded him&rdquo; (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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the
+      little boy, being a child in a petticoat, trotting about&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;never meddling at all), Harry
+      would that instant have questioned the truth on't.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;my lady bidding a servant bring her a glass of wine, and
+      looking at her husband with one of her sweet smiles, said&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, will you not fill a bumper too, and let me call a toast?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Rachel?&rdquo; says he, holding out his empty glass to be filled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis the 29th of December,&rdquo; says my lady, with her fond look of
+      gratitude: &ldquo;and my toast is, 'Harry&mdash;and God bless him, who saved my
+      boy's life!'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;and the lady was not only
+      forced to give in, for the other's will was law&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;that her own family had been brought
+      up as well as those cherubs. She had never seen such a complexion as dear
+      Beatrix's&mdash;though to be sure she had a right to it from father and
+      mother&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MY LORD MOHUN COMES AMONG US FOR NO GOOD.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; Lady Castlewood said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Psha! your ladyship does not know the world,&rdquo; said her husband; &ldquo;and you
+      have always been as squeamish as when you were a miss of fifteen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You found no fault when I was a miss at fifteen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; said my lord,
+      slapping the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, Francis, I never thought otherwise,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he broke out, storming, and his
+      face growing red as he clenched his fists and went on. &ldquo;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&mdash;d
+      airs; and, I'll swear, tells Frank and Beaty that papa's a reprobate, and
+      that they ought to despise me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed and indeed, sir, I never heard her say a word but of respect
+      regarding you,&rdquo; Harry Esmond interposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;ever since
+      you all of you had the small-pox: and she never forgave me for going
+      away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, my lord, though 'twas hard to forgive, I think my mistress
+      forgave it,&rdquo; Harry Esmond said; &ldquo;and remember how eagerly she watched your
+      lordship's return, and how sadly she turned away when she saw your cold
+      looks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damme!&rdquo; cries out my lord; &ldquo;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&mdash;but not useless danger&mdash;no, no. Thank you for
+      nothing. And&mdash;you nod your head, and I know very well, Parson Harry,
+      what you mean. There was the&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, sir, I do not,&rdquo; says Harry, with a smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;How well men preach,&rdquo; thought
+      the young man, &ldquo;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!&rdquo; Harry's heart was pained within him, to watch the struggles and
+      pangs that tore the breast of this kind, manly friend and protector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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&mdash;all jades and heartless. So a man
+      dashes a fine vase down, and despises it for being broken. It may be
+      worthless&mdash;true: but who had the keeping of it, and who shattered it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you ever heard me utter a word in my lord's disparagement?&rdquo; she
+      asked hastily, hissing out her words, and stamping her foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, no,&rdquo; Esmond said, looking down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you come to me as his ambassador&mdash;YOU?&rdquo; she continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would sooner see peace between you than anything else in the world,&rdquo;
+       Harry answered, &ldquo;and would go of any embassy that had that end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So YOU are my lord's go-between?&rdquo; she went on, not regarding this speech.
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's good authority for it, surely,&rdquo; said Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;who leaves our company for that of frequenters of taverns
+      and bagnios&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be a proud embassy, and a happy embassy too, could I bring you
+      and my lord together,&rdquo; Esmond replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; Lady Castlewood
+      continued, still in a sarcastic tone. &ldquo;Perhaps you too have learned to
+      love drink, and to hiccup over your wine or punch;&mdash;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&mdash;and lackey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great heavens! madam,&rdquo; cried Harry. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What wrong?&rdquo; she said, looking at Esmond with wild eyes. &ldquo;Well, none&mdash;none
+      that you know of, Harry, or could help. Why did you bring back the
+      small-pox,&rdquo; she added, after a pause, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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!)&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;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 &ldquo;pish,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 &ldquo;bright
+      particular star,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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;&mdash;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 &ldquo;malicious joy&rdquo; a great poet
+      of our own has written so nobly&mdash;who, famous and heroic as he was,
+      was not strong enough to resist the torture of women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;(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)&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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)&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MY LORD LEAVES US AND HIS EVIL BEHIND HIM.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And when I am a parson,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond, &ldquo;will you give me no custard,
+      Beatrix?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&mdash;you are different,&rdquo; Beatrix answered. &ldquo;You are of our blood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father was a parson, as you call him,&rdquo; said my lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But mine is a peer of Ireland,&rdquo; says Mistress Beatrix, tossing her head.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And she tossed out of the room, being in one of her flighty humors then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But men promise more than they are able to perform in marriage,&rdquo; said my
+      lady, with a sigh. &ldquo;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&mdash;through the door last night, and&mdash;and before,&rdquo; said my
+      lady, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I could help you, madam,&rdquo; said Harry Esmond, sighing, and wishing
+      that unavailingly, and for the thousandth time in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who can? Only God,&rdquo; said Lady Esmond&mdash;&ldquo;only God, in whose hands we
+      are.&rdquo; And so it is, and for his rule over his family, and for his conduct
+      to wife and children&mdash;subjects over whom his power is monarchical&mdash;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&mdash;life almost. He is free to punish, to make happy or
+      unhappy&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;When thou art old enough,
+      thou shalt marry Lord Mohun,&rdquo; Beatrix's father would say: on which the
+      girl would pout and say, &ldquo;I would rather marry Tom Tusher.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;I think my lord would rather marry mamma
+      than marry me; and is waiting till you die to ask her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;I am sure
+      I meant no wrong; I am sure mamma talks a great deal more to Harry Esmond
+      than she does to papa&mdash;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;D&mdash;n!&rdquo; cried out my Lord Castlewood, out of all patience. &ldquo;Go out of
+      the room, you little viper!&rdquo; and he started up and flung down his cards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask Lord Mohun what I said to him, Francis,&rdquo; her ladyship said, rising up
+      with a scared face, but yet with a great and touching dignity and candor
+      in her look and voice. &ldquo;Come away with me, Beatrix.&rdquo; Beatrix sprung up
+      too; she was in tears now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest mamma, what have I done?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Sure I meant no harm.&rdquo; And
+      she clung to her mother, and the pair went out sobbing together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will tell you what your wife said to me, Frank,&rdquo; my Lord Mohun cried.
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, it was, Mohun,&rdquo; says my lord in a dry hard voice. &ldquo;Of course
+      you are a model of a man: and the world knows what a saint you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Mohun was separated from his wife, and had had many affairs of
+      honor: of which women as usual had been the cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no saint, though your wife is&mdash;and I can answer for my actions
+      as other people must for their words,&rdquo; said my Lord Mohun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By G&mdash;, my lord, you shall,&rdquo; cried the other, starting up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have another little account to settle first, my lord,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Gracious heavens!&rdquo; he
+      said, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Faith, Frank, a man with a gouty toe can't run after other men's wives,&rdquo;
+       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, &ldquo;&mdash;&mdash; it, Harry, I believe thee,&rdquo; and so
+      this quarrel was over, and the two gentlemen, at swords drawn but just
+      now, dropped their points, and shook hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beati pacifici. &ldquo;Go, bring my lady back,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Thank you, and God bless you, my dear brother Harry,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis time for me to go to roost. I will have my gruel a-bed,&rdquo; said my
+      Lord Mohun: and limped off comically on Harry Esmond's arm. &ldquo;By George,
+      that woman is a pearl!&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and 'tis only a pig that wouldn't value
+      her. Have you seen the vulgar traipsing orange-girl whom Esmond&rdquo;&mdash;but
+      here Mr. Esmond interrupted him, saying, that these were not affairs for
+      him to know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You heard what Mohun said, parson?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That my lady was a saint?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;as if
+      willing by his present extreme confidence to make up for any past mistrust
+      which his jealousy had shown&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, madam,&rdquo; said Harry, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know he is,&rdquo; says my lady, still with exceeding good-humor; &ldquo;he is not
+      only the best player, but the kindest player in the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, madam!&rdquo; Esmond cried, transported and provoked. &ldquo;Debts of honor
+      must be paid some time or other; and my master will be ruined if he goes
+      on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harry, shall I tell you a secret?&rdquo; my lady replied, with kindness and
+      pleasure still in her eyes. &ldquo;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&mdash;(and
+      herein lies my secret)&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And in God's name, what do you return him for the sacrifice?&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;How, in
+      heaven's name, are you to pay him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pay him! With a mother's blessing and a wife's prayers!&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;And this is the good meddlers get of
+      interfering,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You honor me by giving me your confidence, Mr. Henry Esmond,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; 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&mdash;&ldquo;my lord, I studied medicine at
+      Cambridge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, Parson Harry,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;and are you going to take out a diploma:
+      and cure your fellow-students of the&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of the gout,&rdquo; says Harry, interrupting him, and looking him hard in the
+      face; &ldquo;I know a good deal about the gout.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you may never have it. 'Tis an infernal disease,&rdquo; says my lord,
+      &ldquo;and its twinges are diabolical. Ah!&rdquo; and he made a dreadful wry face, as
+      if he just felt a twinge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship would be much better if you took off all that flannel&mdash;it
+      only serves to inflame the toe,&rdquo; Harry continued, looking his man full in
+      the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! it only serves to inflame the toe, does it?&rdquo; says the other, with an
+      innocent air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you took off that flannel, and flung that absurd slipper away, and
+      wore a boot,&rdquo; continues Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You recommend me boots, Mr. Esmond?&rdquo; asks my lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, boots and spurs. I saw your lordship three days ago run down the
+      gallery fast enough,&rdquo; Harry goes on. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Sdeath, sir, you dare not say that I don't play fair?&rdquo; cries my lord,
+      whipping his horses, which went away at a gallop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are cool when my lord is drunk,&rdquo; Harry continued; &ldquo;your lordship gets
+      the better of my patron. I have watched you as I looked up from my books.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You young Argus!&rdquo; says Lord Mohun, who liked Harry Esmond&mdash;and for
+      whose company and wit, and a certain daring manner, Harry had a great
+      liking too&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;always
+      would.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are playing awful stakes, my lord, in my patron's house,&rdquo; Harry said,
+      &ldquo;and more games than are on the cards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you mean, sir?&rdquo; cries my lord, turning round, with a flush on his
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; answers Harry, in a sarcastic tone, &ldquo;that your gout is well&mdash;if
+      ever you had it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; cried my lord, getting hot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And were you appointed to give me this message?&rdquo; cries the Lord Mohun.
+      &ldquo;Did Frank Esmond commission you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one did. 'Twas the honor of my family that commissioned me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you are prepared to answer this?&rdquo; cries the other, furiously lashing
+      his horses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quite, my lord: your lordship will upset the carriage if you whip so
+      hotly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George, you have a brave spirit!&rdquo; my lord cried out, bursting into a
+      laugh. &ldquo;I suppose 'tis that infernal botte de Jesuite that makes you so
+      bold,&rdquo; he added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis the peace of the family I love best in the world,&rdquo; Harry Esmond said
+      warmly&mdash;&ldquo;'tis the honor of a noble benefactor&mdash;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&mdash;and I don't deny that 'tis in your power to make
+      her unhappy. Spare these innocent people, and leave them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By the Lord, I believe thou hast an eye to the pretty Puritan thyself,
+      Master Harry,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Whisper, Harry. Art thou in love with her thyself? Hath tipsy
+      Frank Esmond come by the way of all flesh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, my lord,&rdquo; cried Harry, his face flushing and his eyes filling as
+      he spoke, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Danger, psha!&rdquo; says my lord, giving a cut to the horses, which at this
+      minute&mdash;for we were got on to the Downs&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Great God! he's dead!&rdquo; says my lord. &ldquo;Ride, some one: fetch a doctor&mdash;stay.
+      I'll go home and bring back Tusher; he knows surgery,&rdquo; and my lord, with
+      his son after him, galloped away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we rode together home, the boy said: &ldquo;We met mamma, who was walking
+      on the terrace with the doctor, and papa frightened her, and told her you
+      were dead . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I was dead!&rdquo; asks Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Musing upon this curious history&mdash;for my Lord Mohun's name was Henry
+      too, and they called each other Frank and Harry often&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank heaven, you are safe,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so is Harry too, mamma,&rdquo; says little Frank,&mdash;&ldquo;huzzay!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my boy! what a fright you have given me!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      WE RIDE AFTER HIM TO LONDON.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I
+      shall see you in London before very long, Mohun,&rdquo; my lord said, with a
+      smile, &ldquo;when we will settle our accounts together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not let them trouble you, Frank,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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:&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was Lady Castlewood&mdash;she had been laughing all the morning, and
+      especially gay and lively before her husband and his guest&mdash;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, &ldquo;Follow them, Harry, I am sure something has gone
+      wrong.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He paces his room all night; what is it? Henry, find out what it is,&rdquo;
+       Lady Castlewood said constantly to her young dependant. &ldquo;He has sent three
+      letters to London,&rdquo; she said, another day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, madam, they were to a lawyer,&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;He was only raising money to pay off an old debt on
+      the property, which must be discharged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;There are few men who will make such a
+      sacrifice for them,&rdquo; says Mr. Congreve, who knew a part of the sex pretty
+      well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Trumpet,&rdquo; in the Cockpit, Whitehall, a
+      house used by the military in his time as a young man, and accustomed by
+      his lordship ever since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought the Lord Mohun had been in Paris!&rdquo; cried Mr. Esmond, in great
+      alarm and astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is come back at my invitation,&rdquo; said my Lord Viscount. &ldquo;We have
+      accounts to settle together.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I pray heaven they are over, sir,&rdquo; says Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, quite,&rdquo; replied the other, looking hard at the young man. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord,&rdquo; cried out Esmond, &ldquo;I am sure you are deceiving me, and that
+      there is a quarrel between the Lord Mohun and you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quarrel&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where shall we sup, sir?&rdquo; says Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WE! Let some gentlemen wait till they are asked,&rdquo; says my Lord Viscount
+      with a laugh. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By G&mdash;! my lord, I will not leave you this night,&rdquo; says Harry
+      Esmond. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry between Lord Mohun
+      and my wife,&rdquo; says my lord, in a thundering voice&mdash;&ldquo;you knew of this
+      and did not tell me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew more of it than my dear mistress did herself, sir&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A villain he is, you allow, and would have taken my wife away from me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, she is as pure as an angel,&rdquo; cried young Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I said a word against her?&rdquo; shrieks out my lord. &ldquo;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&mdash;and
+      now I've lost her, by heaven I love her ten thousand times more than ever
+      I did&mdash;yes, when she was as young and as beautiful as an angel&mdash;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&mdash;when I used to fling my head down on
+      her little knees and cry like a child on her lap&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, and on my soul, you are wrong, sir,&rdquo; Esmond cried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She takes letters from him,&rdquo; cries my lord&mdash;&ldquo;look here, Harry,&rdquo; and
+      he pulled out a paper with a brown stain of blood upon it. &ldquo;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&mdash;d comedy jargon.
+      'Divine Gloriana&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But she answered none,&rdquo; cries Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not Mohun's fault,&rdquo; says my lord, &ldquo;and I will be revenged on him,
+      as God's in heaven, I will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a light word or two, will you risk your lady's honor and your
+      family's happiness, my lord?&rdquo; Esmond interposed beseechingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Psha&mdash;there shall be no question of my wife's honor,&rdquo; said my lord;
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Harry, my poor boy, you are bred for a parson,&rdquo; says my lord, taking
+      Esmond by the hand very kindly; &ldquo;and it were a great pity that you should
+      meddle in the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your lordship thought of being a churchman once,&rdquo; Harry answered, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;And I should have beat him, sir,&rdquo; says Harry,
+      laughing. &ldquo;He never could parry that botte I brought from Cambridge. Let
+      us have half an hour of it, and rehearse&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By George, Harry, you ought to be the head of the house,&rdquo; says my lord,
+      gloomily. &ldquo;You had been a better Lord Castlewood than a lazy sot like me,&rdquo;
+       he added, drawing his hand across his eyes, and surveying his kinsman with
+      very kind and affectionate glances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us take our coats off and have half an hour's practice before
+      nightfall,&rdquo; says Harry, after thankfully grasping his patron's manly hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are but a little bit of a lad,&rdquo; says my lord, good-humoredly; &ldquo;but,
+      in faith, I believe you could do for that fellow. No, my boy,&rdquo; he
+      continued, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I shall be by to see fair play?&rdquo; cries Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, God bless you&mdash;you shall be by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When is it, sir?&rdquo; says Harry, for he saw that the matter had been
+      arranged privately and beforehand by my lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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&mdash;and then, God help us!&mdash;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&mdash;my
+      wife will be all the happier when I am gone,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The business was talked over with Mohun before he left home&mdash;Castlewood
+      I mean&rdquo;&mdash;my lord went on. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so she is; before heaven, my lord, she is!&rdquo; cries Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt, no doubt. They always are,&rdquo; says my lord. &ldquo;No doubt, when she
+      heard he was killed, she fainted from accident.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my lord, MY name is Harry,&rdquo; cried out Esmond, burning red. &ldquo;You told
+      my lady, 'Harry was killed!'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damnation! shall I fight you too?&rdquo; shouts my lord in a fury. &ldquo;Are you,
+      you little serpent, warmed by my fire, going to sting&mdash;YOU?&mdash;No,
+      my boy, you're an honest boy; you are a good boy.&rdquo; (And here he broke from
+      rage into tears even more cruel to see.) &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who brought your bowls for you at Castlewood, sir?&rdquo; says Harry, bowing;
+      and the three gentlemen sat down and drank of that bottle of sack which
+      was prepared for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harry is number three,&rdquo; says my lord. &ldquo;You needn't be afraid of him,
+      Jack.&rdquo; And the Colonel gave a look, as much as to say, &ldquo;Indeed, he don't
+      look as if I need.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;Love in a Wood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Greyhound,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Christian Hero,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;There was no need for more seconds than one,&rdquo; said the Colonel,
+      &ldquo;and the Captain or Lord Warwick might easily withdraw.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Psha!&rdquo; says my Lord Mohun (whether wishing
+      to save Harry, or not choosing, to try the botte de Jesuite, it is not to
+      be known)&mdash;&ldquo;Young gentlemen from college should not play these
+      stakes. You are too young.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who dares say I am too young?&rdquo; broke out Harry. &ldquo;Is your lordship
+      afraid?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid!&rdquo; cries out Mohun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But my good Lord Viscount saw the move&mdash;&ldquo;I'll play you for ten
+      moidores, Mohun,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;You silly boy, we don't play for groats here
+      as you do at Cambridge.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll stake the young gentleman a crown,&rdquo; says the Lord Mohun's captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought crowns were rather scarce with the gentlemen of the army,&rdquo; says
+      Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do they birch at College?&rdquo; says the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They birch fools,&rdquo; says Harry, &ldquo;and they cane bullies, and they fling
+      puppies into the water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith, then, there's some escapes drowning,&rdquo; says the Captain, who was an
+      Irishman; and all the gentlemen began to laugh, and made poor Harry only
+      more angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;The Deuce take you, Mohun, how damned awkward you
+      are. Light the candle, you drawer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damned awkward is a damned awkward expression, my lord,&rdquo; says the other.
+      &ldquo;Town gentlemen don't use such words&mdash;or ask pardon if they do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a country gentleman,&rdquo; says my Lord Viscount.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see it by your manner,&rdquo; says my Lord Mohun. &ldquo;No man shall say damned
+      awkward to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fling the words in your face, my lord,&rdquo; says the other; &ldquo;shall I send
+      the cards too?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen, gentlemen! before the servants?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough has been said,&rdquo; says Colonel Westbury. &ldquo;Will your lordships meet
+      to-morrow morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will my Lord Castlewood withdraw his words?&rdquo; asks the Earl of Warwick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord Castlewood will be &mdash;&mdash; first,&rdquo; says Colonel Westbury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we have nothing for it. Take notice, gentlemen, there have been
+      outrageous words&mdash;reparation asked and refused.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And refused,&rdquo; says my Lord Castlewood, putting on his hat. &ldquo;Where shall
+      the meeting be? and when?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Since my Lord refuses me satisfaction, which I deeply regret, there is no
+      time so good as now,&rdquo; says my Lord Mohun. &ldquo;Let us have chairs and go to
+      Leicester Field.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are your lordship and I to have the honor of exchanging a pass or two?&rdquo;
+       says Colonel Westbury, with a low bow to my Lord of Warwick and Holland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is an honor for me,&rdquo; says my lord, with a profound congee, &ldquo;to be
+      matched with a gentleman who has been at Mons and Namur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will your Reverence permit me to give you a lesson?&rdquo; says the Captain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nay, nay, gentlemen, two on a side are plenty,&rdquo; says Harry's patron.
+      &ldquo;Spare the boy, Captain Macartney,&rdquo; and he shook Harry's hand&mdash;for
+      the last time, save one, in his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Standard Tavern.&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Mohun was standing over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you much hurt, Frank?&rdquo; he asked in a hollow voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe I am a dead man,&rdquo; my lord said from the ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, not so,&rdquo; says the other; &ldquo;and I call God to witness, Frank
+      Esmond, that I would have asked your pardon, had you but given me a
+      chance. In&mdash;in the first cause of our falling out, I swear that no
+      one was to blame but me, and&mdash;and that my lady&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; says my poor Lord Viscount, lifting himself on his elbow and
+      speaking faintly. &ldquo;'Twas a dispute about the cards&mdash;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&mdash;and&mdash;and carry this
+      little heart to my wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And here my dear lord felt in his breast for a locket he wore there, and,
+      in the act, fell back fainting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Only Harry Esmond,&rdquo; the hand fell powerless
+      down on the coverlet, as Harry came forward, and knelt down and kissed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art all but a priest, Harry,&rdquo; my Lord Viscount gasped out, with a
+      faint smile, and pressure of his cold hand. &ldquo;Are they all gone? Let me
+      make thee a death-bed confession.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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;&mdash;his humble profession of contrition for his
+      faults;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;Esmond watching him, and taking his dying words
+      from his mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of an hour&mdash;it may be more&mdash;Mr. Atterbury came out of
+      the room, looking very hard at Esmond, and holding a paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is on the brink of God's awful judgment,&rdquo; the priest whispered. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God knows,&rdquo; sobbed out the young man, &ldquo;my dearest lord has only done me
+      kindness all his life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest put the paper into Esmond's hand. He looked at it. It swam
+      before his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a confession,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis as you please,&rdquo; said Mr. Atterbury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!&mdash;the scrap of the book that we have read in a
+      great grief&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis only a confession, Mr. Atterbury,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go to him,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord Viscount,&rdquo; says Mr. Atterbury, &ldquo;Mr. Esmond wants no witnesses,
+      and hath burned the paper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dearest master!&rdquo; Esmond said, kneeling down, and taking his hand and
+      kissing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Viscount sprang up in his bed, and flung his arms round Esmond.
+      &ldquo;God bl&mdash;bless&mdash;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Benedicti benedicentes,&rdquo; says Mr. Atterbury, and the young man, kneeling
+      at the bedside, groaned out an &ldquo;Amen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who shall take the news to her?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK II.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      CONTAINS MR. ESMOND'S MILITARY LIFE, AND OTHER MATTERS APPERTAINING TO THE
+      ESMOND FAMILY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I AM IN PRISON, AND VISITED, BUT NOT CONSOLED THERE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was denied by my own blood,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And with this consoling thought he went away to give himself up at the
+      prison, after kissing the cold lips of his benefactor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this, Mr. Esmond,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;is where I see you; and 'tis to this
+      you have brought me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come to console me in my calamity, madam,&rdquo; said he (though, in
+      truth, he scarce knew how to address her, his emotions at beholding her so
+      overpowered him).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not to reproach me,&rdquo; he continued after a pause. &ldquo;My grief is sufficient
+      as it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take back your hand&mdash;do not touch me with it!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Look!
+      there's blood on it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish they had taken it all,&rdquo; said Esmond; &ldquo;if you are unkind to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is my husband?&rdquo; she broke out. &ldquo;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&mdash;you
+      that vowed devotion and gratitude, and I believed you&mdash;yes, I
+      believed you&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;and you made our house wretched, and my husband's
+      heart went from me: and I lost him through you&mdash;I lost him&mdash;the
+      husband of my youth, I say. I worshipped him: you know I worshipped him&mdash;and
+      he was changed to me. He was no more my Francis of old&mdash;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&mdash;yes,
+      and weak and alone&mdash;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&mdash;and
+      it came, I knew it would. Why did you not die when you had the small-pox&mdash;and
+      I came myself and watched you, and you didn't know me in your delirium&mdash;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&mdash;my wicked
+      jealous heart. Oh, I am punished&mdash;awfully punished! My husband lies
+      in his blood&mdash;murdered for defending me, my kind, kind, generous lord&mdash;and
+      you were by, and you let him die, Henry!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;this good angel whom he had loved and worshipped&mdash;stood
+      before him, pursuing him with keen words and aspect malign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish I were in my lord's place,&rdquo; he groaned out. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Henry,&rdquo; said she&mdash;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&mdash;and thinking,
+      &ldquo;Suppose I were to end now, who would grieve for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;The lady had bound it round his arm when he fainted,
+      and before she called for help,&rdquo; the keeper's wife said. &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;a wrong indeed, but one followed by remorse, and
+      occasioned by almost irresistible temptation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond took his handkerchief when his nurse left him, and very likely
+      kissed it, and looked at the bauble embroidered in the corner. &ldquo;It has
+      cost thee grief enough,&rdquo; he thought, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And this was the return for a life of devotion&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;And if we meet no more, or
+      only as strangers in this world,&rdquo; Mr. Esmond concluded, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;as our young Indians undergo tortures silently before they pass
+      to the rank of warriors in the tribe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I COME TO THE END OF MY CAPTIVITY, BUT NOT OF MY TROUBLE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dick came up and kissed Esmond on both cheeks, imparting a strong perfume
+      of burnt sack along with his caress to the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish we could have tried and proved it, Mr. Steele,&rdquo; says Esmond,
+      thinking of his dead benefactor, and his eyes filling with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith,&rdquo; says Westbury, &ldquo;the little scholar was the first to begin the
+      quarrel&mdash;I mind me of it now&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twas a quarrel about play&mdash;on my word, about play,&rdquo; Harry said. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond, resolved never to acknowledge that
+      there had ever been any other cause but cards for the duel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not like to use bad words of a nobleman,&rdquo; says Westbury; &ldquo;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,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;to
+      a Sigismunda&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;for, indeed, the speaker's own heart
+      was half broke as he uttered them&mdash;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&mdash;Steele told him&mdash;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. &ldquo;I would as lief,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;And I
+      think I spoke well, my poor boy,&rdquo; says Mr. Steele; &ldquo;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&mdash;'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'&mdash;(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)&mdash;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you come to tell me about the dimples on my lady's hand?&rdquo; broke out
+      Mr. Esmond, sadly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A lovely creature in affliction seems always doubly beautiful to me,&rdquo;
+       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. &ldquo;As
+      I spoke my business,&rdquo; Mr. Steele said, &ldquo;and narrated to your mistress what
+      all the world knows, and the other side hath been eager to acknowledge&mdash;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&mdash;I have
+      never seen such a violet, Harry&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      wicked godless world, that takes the blood of the innocent, and lets the
+      guilty go free.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As the afflicted lady spoke in this strain, sir,&rdquo; Mr. Steele continued,
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;my Lord
+      Murderer&mdash;(I will never name him)&mdash;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&mdash;he never shall be. He,
+      too, robbed the throne from the king his father&mdash;the true king&mdash;and
+      he has gone unpunished, as the great do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I then thought to speak for you,&rdquo; Mr. Steele continued, &ldquo;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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Madam, madam, he is not to blame,' I interposed,&rdquo; continued Mr. Steele.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Do I blame him to you, sir?' asked the widow. 'If 'tis he who sent you,
+      say that I have taken counsel, where'&mdash;she spoke with a very pallid
+      cheek now, and a break in her voice&mdash;'where all who ask may have it;&mdash;and
+      that it bids me to part from him, and to see him no more. We met in the
+      prison for the last time&mdash;at least for years to come. It may be, in
+      years hence, when&mdash;when our knees and our tears and our contrition
+      have changed our sinful hearts, sir, and wrought our pardon, we may meet
+      again&mdash;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&mdash;that regard towards us which he speaks of, I beseech him to
+      prove it by obeying me in this.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'I shall break the young man's heart, madam, by this hard sentence,'&rdquo; Mr.
+      Steele said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The lady shook her head,&rdquo; continued my kind scholar. &ldquo;'The hearts of
+      young men, Mr. Steele, are not so made,' she said. 'Mr. Esmond will find
+      other&mdash;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&mdash;never. Nor would I have him
+      write to me&mdash;except&mdash;no&mdash;I would have him never write to
+      me, nor see him more. Give him, if you will, my parting&mdash;Hush! not a
+      word of this before my daughter.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sentimental Captain concluded his sad tale, saying, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Handcuff Inn&rdquo;&mdash;as Colonel Westbury called it.
+      Our rooms were the three in the gate over Newgate&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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&mdash;witness
+      her Grace of Portsmouth&mdash;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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MONG COUSSIN,&rdquo; my Lady Viscountess Dowager wrote, &ldquo;je scay que vous vous
+      etes bravement batew et grievement blessay&mdash;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&mdash;que
+      vous estes plus fort que luy fur l'ayscrimme&mdash;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&mdash;Mon coussin, mon coussin!
+      jay dans la tayste que vous n'estes quung pety Monst&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;ISABELLE VICOMTESSE D'ESMOND&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I TAKE THE QUEEN'S PAY IN QUIN'S REGIMENT.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;then,
+      behold, the Viscountess herself &ldquo;dropping odors.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;remembering
+      old times when that trembling hand made him tremble. &ldquo;Marchioness,&rdquo; says
+      he, bowing, and on one knee, &ldquo;is it only the hand I may have the honor of
+      saluting?&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Welcome, cousin,&rdquo; in
+      a frightened voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;Welcome, nephew, at least, madam, it should
+      be,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A great wrong has been done to me and to you, and to my
+      poor mother, who is no more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I declare before heaven that I was guiltless of it,&rdquo; she cried out,
+      giving up her cause at once. &ldquo;It was your wicked father who&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who brought this dishonor on our family,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The wretch! he had it in confession! he had it in confession!&rdquo; cried out
+      the Dowager Lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so. He learned it elsewhere as well as in confession,&rdquo; Mr. Esmond
+      answered. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mais vous etes un noble jeune homme!&rdquo; breaks out my lady, speaking, as
+      usual with her when she was agitated, in the French language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Noblesse oblige,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond, making her a low bow. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can there be in that little prude of a woman that makes men so
+      raffoler about her?&rdquo; cries out my Lady Dowager. &ldquo;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&mdash;was there anything? About yourself, I do not ask you to answer
+      questions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Esmond blushed up. &ldquo;My lady's virtue is like that of a saint in
+      heaven, madam,&rdquo; he cried out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh!&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, I loved and honored her before all the world,&rdquo; Esmond answered.
+      &ldquo;I take no shame in that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And she has shut her door on you&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;no,
+      'twas my Lord Ormond that played the fiddles, and his Majesty did me the
+      honor of dancing all night with me.&mdash;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&mdash;fair and stupid. You were an
+      ugly little wretch when you came to Castlewood&mdash;you were all eyes,
+      like a young crow. We intended you should be a priest. That awful Father
+      Holt&mdash;how he used to frighten me when I was ill! I have a comfortable
+      director now&mdash;the Abbe Douillette&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;of the adherents of King James
+      of course&mdash;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,&mdash;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,&mdash;a restless wish to see men and the world,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;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?&rdquo; says the Dowager: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      RECAPITULATIONS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;priests and
+      women for the most part&mdash;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&mdash;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, &ldquo;Change kings with us and we will
+      fight it over again.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;And would to God I had done it,&rdquo; the poor lord
+      said. &ldquo;I would not be here now, wounded to death, a miserable, stricken
+      man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had a sore temptation,&rdquo; said my poor lord. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Red,&rdquo; says she, tossing up her old head, &ldquo;hath
+      always been the color worn by the Esmonds.&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Garter,&rdquo; over against the gate of the Palace, in
+      Pall Mall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;many of
+      whom could do little more than write their names&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I GO ON THE VIGO BAY EXPEDITION, TASTE SALT-WATER AND SMELL POWDER.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;one of those 12,000&mdash;the junior ensign of Colonel Quin's
+      regiment of Fusileers&mdash;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&mdash;and under water, too,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the campaign, if not very glorious, was very pleasant. New sights of
+      nature, by sea and land&mdash;a life of action, beginning now for the
+      first time&mdash;occupied and excited the young man. The many accidents,
+      and the routine of shipboard&mdash;the military duty&mdash;the new
+      acquaintances, both of his comrades in arms, and of the officers of the
+      fleet&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;such as he had never felt before&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      &ldquo;Torbay,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;of two fair women, whom he had been used to adore
+      almost, and emptied his glass with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;in our friends' misfortunes there's something
+      secretly pleasant to us;&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;precious uses&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &amp;c.) with the elder Lady Castlewood; and Mistress
+      Beatrix was allowed to be a beauty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;(she never would
+      call him Lord Blandford; his father was Lord Churchill&mdash;the King,
+      whom he betrayed, had made him Lord Churchill, and he was Lord Churchill
+      still)&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, Tusher!&rdquo; cried Mr. Esmond, feeling a strange pang of rage and
+      astonishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;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,&rdquo;
+       cries my lady. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;they've nothing
+      else to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Rose,&rdquo; and go to the playhouse
+      afterward, Esmond was as pleased as another to take his share of the
+      bottle and the play.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of going to dinner then at the &ldquo;Rose&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My lord's little house of Walcote&mdash;which he inhabited before he took
+      his title and occupied the house of Castlewood&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The horses belonged to the post-house at Winchester. Esmond mounted again
+      and rode on to the &ldquo;George;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE 29TH DECEMBER.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Look,
+      mother!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young Castlewood came clambering over the stalls before the clergy were
+      fairly gone, and running up to Esmond, eagerly embraced him. &ldquo;My dear,
+      dearest old Harry!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Esmond could hardly say more than a &ldquo;God bless you, my boy,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was kind of you to come back to us, Henry,&rdquo; Lady Esmond said. &ldquo;I
+      thought you might come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We read of the fleet coming to Portsmouth. Why did you not come from
+      Portsmouth?&rdquo; Frank asked, or my Lord Viscount, as he now must be called.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had but to ask, and you know I would be here,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;no
+      voice so sweet as that of his beloved mistress, who had been sister,
+      mother, goddess to him during his youth&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here comes Squaretoes,&rdquo; says Frank. &ldquo;Here's Tusher.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give us thy hand, Tom Tusher,&rdquo; he said. The chaplain made him a very low
+      and stately bow. &ldquo;I am charmed to see Captain Esmond,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's an angle of earth that I love better than Gades, Tusher,&rdquo; says
+      Mr. Esmond. &ldquo;'Tis that one where your reverence hath a parsonage, and
+      where our youth was brought up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A house that has so many sacred recollections to me,&rdquo; says Mr. Tusher
+      (and Harry remembered how Tom's father used to flog him there)&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Harry's coming home to supper. Huzzay! huzzay!&rdquo; cries my lord.
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your heart was never in the Church, Harry,&rdquo; 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.) &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I asked no better than to stay near you always,&rdquo; said Mr. Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;has she not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond said, &ldquo;Yes. As far as present favor went, Lady Castlewood was very
+      good to him. And should her mind change,&rdquo; he added gayly, &ldquo;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!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now we are drawing near to home,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I knew you would
+      come, Harry, if&mdash;if it was but to forgive me for having spoken
+      unjustly to you after that horrid&mdash;horrid misfortune. I was half
+      frantic with grief then when I saw you. And I know now&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He gave me his blessing on his death-bed,&rdquo; Esmond said. &ldquo;Thank God for
+      that legacy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen, amen! dear Henry,&rdquo; said the lady, pressing his arm. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had spared me many a bitter night, had you told me sooner,&rdquo; Mr.
+      Esmond said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it, I know it,&rdquo; she answered, in a tone of such sweet humility, as
+      made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to reproach her. &ldquo;I know
+      how wicked my heart has been; and I have suffered too, my dear. I
+      confessed to Mr. Atterbury&mdash;I must not tell any more. He&mdash;I said
+      I would not write to you or go to you&mdash;and it was better even that
+      having parted, we should part. But I knew you would come back&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what day it is?&rdquo; she continued. &ldquo;It is the 29th of December&mdash;it
+      is your birthday! But last year we did not drink it&mdash;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&mdash;now you are come again, bringing your
+      sheaves with you, my dear.&rdquo; She burst into a wild flood of weeping as she
+      spoke; she laughed and sobbed on the young man's heart, crying out wildly,
+      &ldquo;bringing your sheaves with you&mdash;your sheaves with you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;not in vain has he lived&mdash;hard and
+      thankless should he be to think so&mdash;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&mdash;follows
+      your memory with secret blessing&mdash;or precedes you, and intercedes for
+      you. Non omnis moriar&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If&mdash;if 'tis so, dear lady,&rdquo; Mr. Esmond said, &ldquo;why should I ever
+      leave you? If God hath given me this great boon&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And my children&mdash;and my duty&mdash;and my good father, Henry?&rdquo; she
+      broke out. &ldquo;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&mdash;it scares me. They
+      will come and visit me; and you will, sometimes, Henry&mdash;yes,
+      sometimes, as now, in the Holy Advent season, when I have seen and blessed
+      you once more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would leave all to follow you,&rdquo; said Mr. Esmond; &ldquo;and can you not be as
+      generous for me, dear lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, boy!&rdquo; she said, and it was with a mother's sweet plaintive tone and
+      look that she spoke. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;and now&mdash;now
+      my duty is here, by my children whilst they need me, and by my poor old
+      father, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And not by me?&rdquo; Henry said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; she said again, and raised her hand up to his lip. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;both&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think the angels are not all in heaven,&rdquo; Mr. Esmond said. And as a
+      brother folds a sister to his heart; and as a mother cleaves to her son's
+      breast&mdash;so for a few moments Esmond's beloved mistress came to him
+      and blessed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I AM MADE WELCOME AT WALCOTE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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. &ldquo;Welcome,&rdquo; 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&mdash;she
+      took a hand of her son who was in the hall waiting his mother&mdash;she
+      did not quit Esmond's arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Welcome, Harry!&rdquo; my young lord echoed after her. &ldquo;Here, we are all come
+      to say so. Here's old Pincot, hasn't she grown handsome?&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Have done, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;every gentleman goes to the army. Look! who comes
+      here&mdash;ho, ho!&rdquo; he burst into a laugh. &ldquo;'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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;the light
+      falling indeed upon the scarlet ribbon which she wore, and upon the most
+      brilliant white neck in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen,&mdash;now
+      melting, now imperious, now sarcastic&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So she came holding her dress with one fair rounded arm, and her taper
+      before her, tripping down the stair to greet Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She hath put on her scarlet stockings and white shoes,&rdquo; says my lord,
+      still laughing. &ldquo;Oh, my fine mistress! is this the way you set your cap at
+      the Captain?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am grown too big! Welcome, cousin Harry,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;N'est-ce pas?&rdquo; says my lady, in a low, sweet voice, still hanging on his
+      arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; cries my lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, you stupid child!&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Oh,
+      Harry, we're so, SO glad you're come!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are woodcocks for supper,&rdquo; says my lord. &ldquo;Huzzay! It was such a
+      hungry sermon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is the 29th of December; and our Harry has come home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Huzzay, old Pincot!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;This might have been my
+      life,&rdquo; he was thinking; &ldquo;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&mdash;until the destined lover comes and
+      takes away pretty Beatrix&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Beatrix remarked these signs of indisposition in her mother and
+      deplored them. &ldquo;I am an old woman,&rdquo; says my lady, with a kind smile; &ldquo;I
+      cannot hope to look as young as you do, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll never look as good as you do if she lives till she's a hundred,&rdquo;
+       says my lord, taking his mother by the waist, and kissing her hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I look very wicked, cousin?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm like your looking-glass,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and that can't flatter you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He means that you are always looking at him, my dear,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Harry is very good to look at,&rdquo; says my lady, with her fond eyes
+      regarding the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If 'tis good to see a happy face,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;you see that.&rdquo; My lady said,
+      &ldquo;Amen,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Harry, how fine we look in our scarlet and silver, and our black
+      periwig,&rdquo; cries my lord. &ldquo;Mother, I am tired of my own hair. When shall I
+      have a peruke? Where did you get your steenkirk, Harry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's some of my Lady Dowager's lace,&rdquo; says Harry; &ldquo;she gave me this and a
+      number of other fine things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lady Dowager isn't such a bad woman,&rdquo; my lord continued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's not so&mdash;so red as she's painted,&rdquo; says Miss Beatrix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Her brother broke into a laugh. &ldquo;I'll tell her you said so; by the Lord,
+      Trix, I will,&rdquo; he cries out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She'll know that you hadn't the wit to say it, my lord,&rdquo; says Miss
+      Beatrix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We won't quarrel the first day Harry's here, will we, mother?&rdquo; said the
+      young lord. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will the Captain choose a dish?&rdquo; asked Mistress Beatrix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I say, Harry,&rdquo; my lord goes on, &ldquo;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&mdash;do you love cock-fighting, Harry?&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what will you do, Beatrix, to amuse our kinsman?&rdquo; asks my lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll listen to him,&rdquo; says Beatrix. &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;'Tis not while they are at home,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and in their mother's
+      nest, I fear for them&mdash;'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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There's not a princess in Europe to compare with her,&rdquo; says Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In beauty? No, perhaps not,&rdquo; answered my lady. &ldquo;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&mdash;you writ pretty
+      lines when you were but a boy&mdash;you thought Beatrix was a pretty
+      subject for verse, did not you, Harry?&rdquo; (The gentleman could only blush
+      for a reply.) &ldquo;And so she is&mdash;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.&rdquo; And, looking at him
+      keenly with hers, the fair widow left him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so it is&mdash;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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Marchioness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marchioness!&rdquo; says Harry, not without a pang of wonder, for he was
+      curious and jealous already.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense, my lord,&rdquo; says Beatrix, with a toss of her head. My Lady
+      Viscountess looked up for a moment at Esmond, and cast her eyes down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Marchioness of Blandford,&rdquo; says Frank. &ldquo;Don't you know&mdash;hath not
+      Rouge Dragon told you?&rdquo; (My lord used to call the Dowager of Chelsey by
+      this and other names.) &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish Mr. Tusher would whip you too,&rdquo; says Beatrix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My lady only said: &ldquo;I hope you will tell none of these silly stories
+      elsewhere than at home, Francis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis true, on my word,&rdquo; continues Frank: &ldquo;look at Harry scowling, mother,
+      and see how Beatrix blushes as red as the silver-clocked stockings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we had best leave the gentlemen to their wine and their talk,&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lady Castlewood again looked at Esmond, as she stooped down and kissed
+      Frank. &ldquo;Do not tell those silly stories, child,&rdquo; she said: &ldquo;do not drink
+      much wine, sir; Harry never loved to drink wine.&rdquo; And she went away, too,
+      in her black robes, looking back on the young man with her fair, fond
+      face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Egad! it's true,&rdquo; says Frank, sipping his wine with the air of a lord.
+      &ldquo;What think you of this Lisbon&mdash;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&mdash;the
+      'Rose,' Captain Hawkins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, I came home in that ship,&rdquo; says Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it brought home a good fellow and good wine,&rdquo; says my lord. &ldquo;I say,
+      Harry, I wish thou hadst not that cursed bar sinister.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And why not the bar sinister?&rdquo; asks the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose I go to the army and am killed&mdash;every gentleman goes to the
+      army&mdash;who is to take care of the women? Trix will never stop at home;
+      mother's in love with you,&mdash;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,&mdash;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&mdash;! 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,&mdash;no man can help that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of these brilliant orbs no doubt made him think of other
+      luminaries. &ldquo;And so her eyes have already done execution,&rdquo; thought Esmond&mdash;&ldquo;on
+      whom?&mdash;who can tell me?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      FAMILY TALK.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know my place, Harry,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I'm not proud&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;! I'll stand by you. You shall
+      never want a friend, Harry, while Francis James Viscount Castlewood has a
+      shilling. It's now 1703&mdash;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&mdash;- them! let them have a
+      care of ME. I shall marry early&mdash;Trix will be a duchess by that time,
+      most likely; for a cannon ball may knock over his grace any day, you
+      know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; says Harry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, my dear!&rdquo; says my Lord Viscount. &ldquo;You are of the family&mdash;you
+      are faithful to us, by George, and I tell you everything. Blandford will
+      marry her&mdash;or&rdquo;&mdash;and here he put his little hand on his sword&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you do not mean,&rdquo; says Harry, concealing his laughter, but not his
+      wonder, &ldquo;that you can force my Lord Blandford, the son of the first man of
+      this kingdom, to marry your sister at sword's point?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&mdash;now swear you
+      will never mention this. Give me your honor as a gentleman, for you ARE a
+      gentleman, though you are a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well?&rdquo; says Harry, a little impatient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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)&mdash;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:&mdash;so did the Dowager Viscountess stand by her blood,&mdash;so
+      did you. Well, sir, whilst my mother was petitioning the late Prince of
+      Orange&mdash;for I will never call him king&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Harry again made a vow of secrecy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;he kissed her behind a door&mdash;he
+      did though,&mdash;and the Duchess caught him, and she banged such a box of
+      the ear both at Trix and Blandford&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Marquis,' says I, when he had opened it and helped me in, 'you know I
+      wear a sword,' for I had brought it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Oh, viscount,' says he&mdash;'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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'But I'll wait twenty years, if she'll have me,' says he. 'I'll never
+      marry&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A locket of her hair?&rdquo; cries Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;'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),&mdash;he knows I wear a sword, Harry.
+      Come along, and let's go see the cocking-match at Winchester.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;. . . . But I say,&rdquo; he added, laughing, after a pause, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;So the
+      bright eyes have been already shining on another,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;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!&mdash;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!&rdquo; (here he fell to thinking with a passionate grief of the vow
+      which he had made to his poor dying lord.) &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And then came a fiercer pang of temptation. &ldquo;A word from me,&rdquo; Harry
+      thought, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Are you going so soon?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;it was
+      that which had her marriage ring on&mdash;and kissed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is best that it should be so, dearest lady,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I knew you were going, at breakfast. I&mdash;I thought you might stay.
+      What has happened? Why can't you remain longer with us? What has Frank
+      told you&mdash;you were talking together late last night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had but three days' leave from Chelsey,&rdquo; Esmond said, as gayly as he
+      could. &ldquo;My aunt&mdash;she lets me call her aunt&mdash;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&mdash;General
+      Lumley, madam&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My lady glanced at the letter, and put it down with a smile that was
+      somewhat contemptuous. &ldquo;I have no need to read the letter,&rdquo; says she&mdash;(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. &ldquo;Je vous
+      donne,&rdquo; quoth her ladyship, &ldquo;oui jour, pour vous fatigay parfaictement de
+      vos parens fatigans&rdquo;)&mdash;&ldquo;I have no need to read the letter,&rdquo; says she.
+      &ldquo;What was it Frank told you last night?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me little I did not know,&rdquo; Mr. Esmond answered. &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I did, Harry,&rdquo; said she; &ldquo;I thought of it; and think of it. I would
+      sooner call you my son than the greatest prince in Europe&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know them,&rdquo; said Mr. Esmond, interrupting her with a smile. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! Harry, Harry, it is none of these follies that frighten me,&rdquo; cried
+      out Lady Castlewood. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;some sad
+      ones, some inexpressibly dear and pleasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I MAKE THE CAMPAIGN OF 1704.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;which of late o'er pale Britannia past&rdquo; (as Mr. Addison
+      sang of it), and in which scores of our greatest ships and 15,000 of our
+      seamen went down.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;rushing
+      up to the very guns of the enemy, and being slaughtered before their works&mdash;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 &ldquo;Te Deum&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;you pretty maidens, that come tumbling down the stairs
+      when the fife and drum call you, and huzzah for the British Grenadiers&mdash;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;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;(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)&mdash;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)&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here was a village that the Frenchmen had burned, the wood being, in fact,
+      a better shelter and easier of guard than any village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * My mistress, before I went this campaign, sent me John
+     Lockwood out of Walcote, who hath ever since remained with
+     me.&mdash;H. E.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Te Deum&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      AN OLD STORY ABOUT A FOOL AND A WOMAN.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;We were gentlemen, Esmond,&rdquo; he
+      used to say, &ldquo;when the Churchills were horse-boys.&rdquo; 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). &ldquo;I am taller than Churchill,&rdquo; he would say,
+      surveying himself in the glass, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bastards!&rdquo; says the Viscountess, in a fury. &ldquo;There are bastards among the
+      Churchills, as your Grace knows, and the Duke of Berwick is provided for
+      well enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; says the Duchess, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond's friend, Dick Steele, who was in waiting on the Prince, heard the
+      controversy between the ladies at court. &ldquo;And faith,&rdquo; says Dick, &ldquo;I think,
+      Harry, thy kinswoman had the worst of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;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&mdash;- J-m-s,&rdquo; was printed in half a
+      dozen places, with a note stating that &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;God save the King!&rdquo; in the great court, so that the
+      master came out of his lodge at midnight, and dissipated the riotous
+      assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;How had the dear young fellow got such beauty?&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;Not from
+      his father&mdash;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.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;The lad looks good things,&rdquo;
+       Mr. Steele used to say; &ldquo;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&rdquo; (though, indeed, Dick bore his very kindly, and
+      plenty of it, too), &ldquo;like this incomparable young man. When he is sober he
+      is delightful; and when tipsy, perfectly irresistible.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;He was my
+      boy's friend,&rdquo; she said, through her sobs. &ldquo;My Blandford might have been
+      like him.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;King's Arms,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Gloriana at the Harpsichord,&rdquo; to &ldquo;Gloriana's Nosegay,&rdquo;
+       to &ldquo;Gloriana at Court,&rdquo; appeared this year in the Observator.&mdash;Have
+      you never read them? They were thought pretty poems, and attributed by
+      some to Mr. Prior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This passion did not escape&mdash;how should it?&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, after talking to Beatrix's mother, his dear, fond, constant
+      mistress&mdash;for hours&mdash;for all day long&mdash;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. &ldquo;Oh, pardon me, pardon me, my dearest
+      and kindest,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I am in hell, and you are the angel that brings me
+      a drop of water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am your mother, you are my son, and I love you always,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE FAMOUS MR. JOSEPH ADDISON.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;half a dozen in a night sometimes&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;for Dick was always
+      hugging and bussing his friends&mdash;but the other stepped back with a
+      flush on his pale face, seeming to decline this public manifestation of
+      Steele's regard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dearest Joe, where hast thou hidden thyself this age?&rdquo; cries the
+      Captain, still holding both his friend's hands; &ldquo;I have been languishing
+      for thee this fortnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fortnight is not an age, Dick,&rdquo; says the other, very good-humoredly.
+      (He had light blue eyes, extraordinary bright, and a face perfectly
+      regular and handsome, like a tinted statue.) &ldquo;And I have been hiding
+      myself&mdash;where do you think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! not across the water, my dear Joe?&rdquo; says Steele, with a look of
+      great alarm: &ldquo;thou knowest I have always&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; says his friend, interrupting him with a smile: &ldquo;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&mdash;at my own lodgings, whither I am
+      going to smoke a pipe now and drink a glass of sack: will your honor
+      come?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harry Esmond, come hither,&rdquo; cries out Dick. &ldquo;Thou hast heard me talk over
+      and over again of my dearest Joe, my guardian angel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond, with a bow, &ldquo;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?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is Captain Esmond who was at Blenheim,&rdquo; says Steele.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lieutenant Esmond,&rdquo; says the other, with a low bow, &ldquo;at Mr. Addison's
+      service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard of you,&rdquo; says Mr. Addison, with a smile; as, indeed,
+      everybody about town had heard that unlucky story about Esmond's dowager
+      aunt and the Duchess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were going to the 'George' to take a bottle before the play,&rdquo; says
+      Steele: &ldquo;wilt thou be one, Joe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall get credit with my landlady,&rdquo; says he, with a smile, &ldquo;when she
+      sees two such fine gentlemen as you come up my stair.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;My wine is better than my meat,&rdquo; says Mr. Addison; &ldquo;my Lord
+      Halifax sent me the Burgundy.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond smiled at the enthusiasm of Addison's friend. &ldquo;You are like the
+      German Burghers,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And drunk the great chiefs health afterward, did not they?&rdquo; says Captain
+      Steele, gayly filling up a bumper;&mdash;he never was tardy at that sort
+      of acknowledgment of a friend's merit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Duke, since you will have me act his Grace's part,&rdquo; says Mr.
+      Addison, with a smile, and something of a blush, &ldquo;pledged his friends in
+      return. Most Serene Elector of Covent Garden, I drink to your Highness's
+      health,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;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;&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I admire the license of your poets,&rdquo; 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.) &ldquo;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?&rdquo;&mdash;(by this time, perhaps, the wine had
+      warmed Mr. Esmond's head too,)&mdash;&ldquo;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&mdash;ugly and horrible, not beautiful
+      and serene. Oh, sir, had you made the campaign, believe me, you never
+      would have sung it so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      During this little outbreak, Mr. Addison was listening, smoking out of his
+      long pipe, and smiling very placidly. &ldquo;What would you have?&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;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;&mdash;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,&rdquo; Mr. Addison
+      went on, &ldquo;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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                      &ldquo;'Rheni pacator et Istri
+     Omnis in hoc uno variis discordia cessit
+     Ordinibus; laetatur eques, plauditque senator,
+     Votaque patricio certant plebeia favori.'&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There were as brave men on that field,&rdquo; 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)&mdash;&ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To sing the gallant souls of heroes sent to Hades!&rdquo; says Mr. Addison,
+      with a smile. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Campaign.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How goes on the magnum opus, Mr. Addison?&rdquo; says the Court gentleman on
+      looking down at the papers that were on the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We were but now over it,&rdquo; says Addison (the greatest courtier in the land
+      could not have a more splendid politeness, or greater dignity of manner).
+      &ldquo;Here is the plan,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;And
+      for you, you are but a lieutenant,&rdquo; says Addison, &ldquo;and the Muse can't
+      occupy herself with any gentleman under the rank of a field officer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     &ldquo;Inspired repulsed battalions to engage,
+     And taught the doubtful battle where to rage,&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      he read with great animation, looking at Esmond, as much as to say, &ldquo;You
+      know where that simile came from&mdash;from our talk, and our bottle of
+      Burgundy, the other day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Not a word more, my dear sir,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;Trust me with the
+      papers&mdash;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does not the chamber look quite dark?&rdquo; says Addison, surveying it, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;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,'&rdquo; says he, smiling, and blowing a cloud out of
+      his pipe. &ldquo;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&mdash;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,&rdquo; says Mr. Addison,
+      shaking the ash out of his pipe. &ldquo;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?&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Campaign,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Toy.&rdquo; The Dowager at Chelsey was not sorry to part with
+      him this time. &ldquo;Mon cher, vous etes triste comme un sermon,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I can't make
+      out Beatrix,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;she cares for none of us&mdash;she only thinks
+      about herself; she is never happy unless she is quarrelling; but as for my
+      mother&mdash;my mother, Harry, is an angel.&rdquo; 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.
+      &ldquo;But Lord bless thee!&rdquo; the boy said; &ldquo;I may do what I like, and I know she
+      will love me all the same;&rdquo; and so, indeed, he did what he liked.
+      Everybody spoiled him, and his grave kinsman as much as the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I GET A COMPANY IN THE CAMPAIGN OF 1706.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;Marlborough, Marlborough!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Over the hills
+      and far away;&rdquo; and Esmond heard Frank's fresh voice, soaring, as it were,
+      over the songs of the rest of the young men&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; As Esmond embraced his young
+      pupil now, 'twas with the feeling of quite religious thankfulness and an
+      almost paternal pleasure that he beheld him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Round his neck was a star with a striped ribbon, that was made of small
+      brilliants and might be worth a hundred crowns. &ldquo;Look,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;won't
+      that be a pretty present for mother?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who gave you the Order?&rdquo; says Harry, saluting the gentleman: &ldquo;did you win
+      it in battle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won it,&rdquo; cried the other, &ldquo;with my sword and my spear. There was a
+      mousquetaire that had it round his neck&mdash;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;&rdquo; and he
+      pulled at his little moustache and bade a servant bring a supper to
+      Captain Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      I MEET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IN FLANDERS, AND FIND MY MOTHER'S GRAVE AND MY
+      OWN CRADLE THERE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Father!&rdquo; says Esmond in English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Silence! I do not understand. I do not speak English,&rdquo; says the other in
+      Latin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond smiled at this sign of confusion, and replied in the same language&mdash;&ldquo;I
+      should know my Father in any garment, black or white, shaven or bearded;&rdquo;
+       for the Austrian officer was habited quite in the military manner, and had
+      as warlike a mustachio as any Pandour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laughed&mdash;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. &ldquo;You speak Latin,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;in the English
+      way, Harry Esmond; you have forsaken the old true Roman tongue you once
+      knew.&rdquo; His tone was very frank, and friendly quite; the kind voice of
+      fifteen years back; he gave Esmond his hand as he spoke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Others have changed their coats too, my Father,&rdquo; says Esmond, glancing at
+      his friend's military decoration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain von Holtz,&rdquo; says Esmond, &ldquo;I am your very humble servant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, too, have changed your coat,&rdquo; continues the other in his
+      laughing way; &ldquo;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.&rdquo; (So, thinks Esmond, my old maitre
+      d'armes was a Jesuit, as they said.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you are right,&rdquo; says the other, reading his thoughts quite as he
+      used to do in old days; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Esmond laughed in his turn. &ldquo;You have indeed a curious knowledge,&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; continues Father Holt, or Captain von Holtz, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Amen!&rdquo; says Esmond, laughing; &ldquo;and I hope to see your Eminence no longer
+      in jack-boots, but red stockings, at Whitehall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are always with us&mdash;I know that&mdash;I heard of that when you
+      were at Cambridge; so was the late lord; so is the young viscount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so was my father before me,&rdquo; said Mr. Esmond, looking calmly at the
+      other, who did not, however, show the least sign of intelligence in his
+      impenetrable gray eyes&mdash;how well Harry remembered them and their
+      look! only crows' feet were wrinkled round them&mdash;marks of black old
+      Time had settled there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you, mon capitaine, where have you been?&rdquo; says Esmond, turning away
+      the conversation from this dangerous ground, where neither chose to
+      engage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may have been in Pekin,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;or I may have been in Paraguay&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;My business,&rdquo; said he&mdash;&ldquo;and I tell you,
+      both because I can trust you and your keen eyes have already discovered it&mdash;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&mdash;and you know who says so, wherever he may be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The family at Castlewood have done far more for me than my own ever did,&rdquo;
+       Esmond said. &ldquo;I would give my life for them. Why should I grudge the only
+      benefit that 'tis in my power to confer on them?&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;meaning his own society of Jesus, which numbers (says
+      he) in its troops the greatest heroes the world ever knew;&mdash;warriors
+      brave enough to dare or endure anything, to encounter any odds, to die any
+      death&mdash;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&mdash;crowns of immortal light, and seats in the high
+      places of heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond was thankful for his old friend's good opinion, however little he
+      might share the Jesuit-father's enthusiasm. &ldquo;I have thought of that
+      question, too,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;dear Father,&rdquo; and he took the other's hand&mdash;&ldquo;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,&rdquo; Esmond added, with a smile, &ldquo;a priest in
+      full orders, and with a pair of mustachios, and a Bavarian uniform?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son,&rdquo; says Father Holt, turning red, &ldquo;in the cause of religion and
+      loyalty all disguises are fair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; broke in Esmond, &ldquo;all disguises are fair, you say; and all
+      uniforms, say I, black or red,&mdash;a black cockade or a white one&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was of this very town,&rdquo; Holt said, and took Esmond to see the street
+      where her father lived, and where, as he believed, she was born. &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thomas Esmond&mdash;Captain Thomas, as he was called&mdash;became engaged
+      in a gaming-house brawl, of which the consequence was a duel, and a wound
+      so severe that he never&mdash;his surgeon said&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father's wound took a favorable turn&mdash;perhaps his conscience
+      was eased by the right he had done&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;Gertrude Esmond&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;,&mdash;telling the truth or no.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He told me with rueful remorse when he was ill&mdash;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&mdash;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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father,&rdquo; Mr. Holt went on to say, &ldquo;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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE CAMPAIGN OF 1707, 1708.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I think if I had had Galway's place, and my
+      Fusileers,&rdquo; says our General, &ldquo;we would not have laid down our arms, even
+      to our old colonel, as Galway did;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;Now,&rdquo; says my general, slapping the table, with an oath,
+      &ldquo;he must fight; and when he is forced to it, d&mdash;- it, no man in
+      Europe can stand up against Jack Churchill.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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:
+      &ldquo;And if he did not dare to break it up at home,&rdquo; our gallant old chief
+      used to say, &ldquo;he was determined to destroy it before the enemy;&rdquo; so that
+      poor Major Proudfoot was put into a post of danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the Duke of Berwick had but been in the army, the fate of the day
+      would have been very different,&rdquo; was all that poor Mr. von Holtz could
+      say; &ldquo;and you would have seen that the hero of Almanza was fit to measure
+      swords with the conqueror of Blenheim.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; says Holtz (and some folks were very willing to listen to him), &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;our calm Duke forced into action. The
+      Prince was an army in himself against the French; the energy of his
+      hatred, prodigious, indefatigable&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      GENERAL WEBB WINS THE BATTLE OF WYNENDAEL.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will be at Roncq time enough to lick my Lord Duke's trenchers at
+      supper,&rdquo; says Mr. Webb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our own men lay out in the woods of Wynendael that night, and our General
+      had his supper in the little castle there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I was Cadogan, I would have a peerage for this day's work,&rdquo; General
+      Webb said; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;he was riding with his suite on the road to Menin as
+      Esmond came up with him&mdash;gave a cheer, and he thanked them, and
+      opened the despatch with rather a flushed, eager face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He slapped it down on his boot in a rage after he had read it. &ldquo;'Tis not
+      even writ with his own hand. Read it out, Esmond.&rdquo; And Esmond read it out:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;SIR,&mdash;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.&mdash;Yours, &amp;c., M.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two lines by that d&mdash;d Cardonnel, and no more, for the taking of
+      Lille&mdash;for beating five times our number&mdash;for an action as
+      brilliant as the best he ever fought,&rdquo; says poor Mr. Webb.
+      &ldquo;Lieutenant-General! That's not his doing. I was the oldest major-general.
+      By &mdash;&mdash;, I believe he had been better pleased if I had been
+      beat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter to the Dutch officer was in French, and longer and more
+      complimentary than that to Mr. Webb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And this is the man,&rdquo; he broke out, &ldquo;that's gorged with gold&mdash;that's
+      covered with titles and honors that we won for him&mdash;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.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Oh, by the Lord!&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I know what I had rather have
+      than a peerage!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what is that, sir?&rdquo; some of them asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir!&rdquo; interposes one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;Le vainqueur
+      de Wynendael; son armee et sa victoire,&rdquo; adding, &ldquo;qui nous font diner a
+      Lille aujourd'huy&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like Hector, handsome, and like Paris, brave!&rdquo; whispers Frank Castlewood.
+      &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this very time, and just after our General had made his acknowledgment,
+      some one brought in an English Gazette&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here it is&mdash;Action of Wynendael&mdash;here you are, General,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He came hobbling back, and blushing at his feat: &ldquo;I thought he'd like it,
+      Harry,&rdquo; the young fellow whispered. &ldquo;Didn't I like to read my name after
+      Ramillies, in the London Gazette?&mdash;Viscount Castlewood serving a
+      volunteer&mdash;I say, what's yonder?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Webb, reading the Gazette, looked very strange&mdash;slapped it down
+      on the table&mdash;then sprang up in his place, and began to&mdash;&ldquo;Will
+      your Highness please to&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His Grace the Duke of Marlborough here jumped up too&mdash;&ldquo;There's some
+      mistake, my dear General Webb.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Grace had better rectify it,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stay,&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Permit me to hand it to your Grace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Duke looked very black. &ldquo;Take it,&rdquo; says he, to his Master of the
+      Horse, who was waiting behind him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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
+     &mdash;&ldquo;Tom Esmond's bastard has been to my levee: he has the
+     hang-dog look of his rogue of a father&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Twas curious to look at the two&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;He had long been anxious
+      to meet my Lord Mohun.&rdquo; The other only bowed, and moved away from him. I
+      do him justice, he wished to have no quarrel with the lad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond put himself between them at table. &ldquo;D&mdash;- it,&rdquo; says Frank, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you go away, my lord?&rdquo; Mr. Esmond said to him, imploring him to quit
+      the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, by G&mdash;,&rdquo; says my Lord Mohun. &ldquo;I'll not go away for any man;&rdquo; he
+      was quite flushed with wine by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't bear any more of this,&rdquo; says my Lord Mohun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nor can I, my lord,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond, starting up. &ldquo;The story my Lord
+      Mohun has told respecting General Webb is false, gentlemen&mdash;false, I
+      repeat,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Harry! why didn't you kill the villain?&rdquo; young Castlewood asked. &ldquo;I
+      can't walk without a crutch: but I could have met him on horseback with
+      sword and pistol.&rdquo; But Harry Esmond said, &ldquo;'Twas best to have no man's
+      life on one's conscience, not even that villain's.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Campaign.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Twas as great an achievement as the victory of Blenheim itself,&rdquo; Mr.
+      Harley said, who was famous as a judge and patron of letters, and so,
+      perhaps, it may be&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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 &ldquo;Cocoa-Tree,&rdquo; or at the &ldquo;Garter&rdquo; with Mr. Walpole and Mr.
+      Steele.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 'Tis not thus WOMAN LOVES: Col. E. hath owned to this
+     folly for a SCORE OF WOMEN besides.&mdash;R.
+
+     ** And, indeed, so was his to them, a thousand thousand
+     times more charming, for where was his equal?&mdash;R.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis not for want of being asked,&rdquo; Lady Castlewood said, looking into
+      Esmond's heart, as she could, with that perceptiveness affection gives.
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; my lady added, fondly. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; says Esmond, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish she would have you,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are such a treasure,&rdquo; Esmond's mistress was pleased to say, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; she added, with a sly laugh, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; She smiled as she spoke, and looked like an angel that was only on
+      earth on a visit. &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;I laugh to see you, sir,&rdquo; she
+      says; &ldquo;when you come, it seems as if you never were away.&rdquo; One may put her
+      words down, and remember them, but how describe her sweet tones, sweeter
+      than music!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;that the duty aforesaid would keep him at
+      Bruxelles, and that Cousin Harry would tell all the news.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Cousin Henry, all our
+      family have met; and we thank you, cousin, for your noble conduct towards
+      the head of our house.&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;Cousin Harry,&rdquo; said both
+      the other ladies, in a little chorus, &ldquo;we thank you for your noble
+      conduct;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tables of the dining-room were laid for a great entertainment; and the
+      ladies were in gala dresses&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, 'tis a gala day with us,&rdquo; says she, glancing down to the star
+      complacently, &ldquo;and we have our orders on. Does not mamma look charming?
+      'Twas I dressed her!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;What is this?&rdquo;
+       says the Captain, going up to look at this pretty piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Beatrix advanced towards it. &ldquo;Kneel down,&rdquo; says she: &ldquo;we dub you our
+      knight with this&rdquo;&mdash;and she waved the sword over his head. &ldquo;My Lady
+      Dowager hath given the sword; and I give the ribbon, and mamma hath sewn
+      on the fringe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Put the sword on him, Beatrix,&rdquo; says her mother. &ldquo;You are our knight,
+      Harry&mdash;our true knight. Take a mother's thanks and prayers for
+      defending her son, my dear, dear friend.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We had a letter from dearest Frank,&rdquo; his mother said, &ldquo;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&mdash;that wretch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I adopt you from this day,&rdquo; says the Dowager, &ldquo;and I wish I was
+      richer, for your sake, son Esmond,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Frank,&rdquo; says the other viscountess, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the campaign permit us,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am never afraid when he is with you,&rdquo; cries the boy's mother. &ldquo;I am
+      sure my Henry will always defend him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there will be a peace before next year; we know it for certain,&rdquo;
+       cries the Maid of Honor. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the Princess Anne will send for somebody,&rdquo; says my Lady of Chelsey,
+      taking out her medal and kissing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you see the King at Oudenarde, Harry?&rdquo; his mistress asked. She was a
+      staunch Jacobite, and would no more have thought of denying her king than
+      her God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw the young Hanoverian only,&rdquo; Harry said. &ldquo;The Chevalier de St.
+      George&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The King, sir, the King!&rdquo; said the ladies and Miss Beatrix; and she
+      clapped her pretty hands, and cried, &ldquo;Vive le Roy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain and Mrs. Steele, who were the first to arrive, had driven to
+      Kensington from their country-house, the Hovel at Hampton Wick. &ldquo;Not from
+      our mansion in Bloomsbury Square,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning, the unhappy victim awoke to a headache, and consciousness,
+      and the dialogue of the night was resumed. &ldquo;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:&rdquo; and so the dispute went on&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a party of Tories!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. St. John made his special compliments to Mrs. Steele, and so charmed
+      her that she declared she would have Steele a Tory too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Or will you have me a Whig?&rdquo; says Mr. St. John. &ldquo;I think, madam, you
+      could convert a man to anything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Mr. St. John ever comes to Bloomsbury Square I will teach him what I
+      know,&rdquo; says Mrs. Steele, dropping her handsome eyes. &ldquo;Do you know
+      Bloomsbury Square?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; says Mr. St. John. &ldquo;'Tis
+      rus in urbe. You have gardens all the way to Hampstead, and palaces round
+      about you&mdash;Southampton House and Montague House.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where you wretches go and fight duels,&rdquo; cries Mrs. Steele.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of which the ladies are the cause!&rdquo; says her entertainer. &ldquo;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.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed!&rdquo; says Mrs. Steele, who did not seem to understand a word of
+      what the gentleman was saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who could fail to be accomplished under such a mistress?&rdquo; says Mr. St.
+      John, still gallant and bowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mistress! upon my word, sir!&rdquo; cries the lady. &ldquo;If you mean me, sir, I
+      would have you know that I am the Captain's wife.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sure we all know it,&rdquo; answers Mr. St. John, keeping his countenance very
+      gravely; and Steele broke in saying, &ldquo;'Twas not about Mrs. Steele I writ
+      that paper&mdash;though I am sure she is worthy of any compliment I can
+      pay her&mdash;but of the Lady Elizabeth Hastings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear Mr. Addison is equally famous as a wit and a poet,&rdquo; says Mr. St.
+      John. &ldquo;Is it true that his hand is to be found in your 'Tatler,' Mr.
+      Steele?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whether 'tis the sublime or the humorous, no man can come near him,&rdquo;
+       cries Steele.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fig, Dick, for your Mr. Addison!&rdquo; cries out his lady: &ldquo;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&mdash;a black man for me.&rdquo; (All the black men at table
+      applauded, and made Mrs. Steele a bow for this compliment.) &ldquo;As for this
+      Mr. Addison,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed&mdash;a patch at the elbow! You interest me,&rdquo; says Mr. St. John.
+      &ldquo;'Tis charming to hear of one man of letters from the charming wife of
+      another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;La, I could tell you ever so much about 'em,&rdquo; continues the voluble lady.
+      &ldquo;What do you think the Captain has got now?&mdash;a little hunchback
+      fellow&mdash;a little hop-o'-my-thumb creature that he calls a poet&mdash;a
+      little Popish brat!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, there are two in the room,&rdquo; whispers her companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I call him Popish because his name is Pope,&rdquo; says the lady. &ldquo;'Tis
+      only my joking way. And this little dwarf of a fellow has wrote a pastoral
+      poem&mdash;all about shepherds and shepherdesses, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A shepherd should have a little crook,&rdquo; says my mistress, laughing from
+      her end of the table: on which Mrs. Steele said, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Which of the 'Tatlers' do you prefer, Mrs. Steele?&rdquo; asked Mr. St. John.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never read but one, and think it all a pack of rubbish, sir,&rdquo; says the
+      lady. &ldquo;Such stuff about Bickerstaffe, and Distaff, and Quarterstaff, as it
+      all is! There's the Captain going on still with the Burgundy&mdash;I know
+      he'll be tipsy before he stops&mdash;Captain Steele!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I drink to your eyes, my dear,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Pity
+      me,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;and may he get the command the bravest officer in
+      the world deserves.&rdquo; Mr. Webb thanked the company, complimented his
+      aide-de-camp, and fought his famous battle over again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Il est fatiguant,&rdquo; whispers Mr. St. John, &ldquo;avec sa trompette de
+      Wynendael.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Captain Steele, who was not of our side, loyally gave the health of the
+      Duke of Marlborough, the greatest general of the age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I drink to the greatest general with all my heart,&rdquo; says Mr. Webb; &ldquo;there
+      can be no gainsaying that character of him. My glass goes to the General,
+      and not to the Duke, Mr. Steele.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a pity there is a Duchess of Hamilton,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Campaign,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The day began so well, Henry, that I hoped it might have ended better,&rdquo;
+       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:&mdash;&ldquo;She would have me,&rdquo; thought he, &ldquo;had I but a name to give
+      her. But for my promise to her father, I might have my rank and my
+      mistress too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;Give
+      me joy, my dearest Colonel; I am the happiest of men.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The happiest of men needs no dearest colonel to give him joy,&rdquo; says Mr.
+      Esmond. &ldquo;What is the cause of this supreme felicity?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haven't you heard?&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;Don't you know? I thought the family told
+      you everything: the adorable Beatrix hath promised to be mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; cries out Mr. Esmond, who had spent happy hours with Beatrix that
+      very morning&mdash;had writ verses for her, that she had sung at the
+      harpsichord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;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&mdash;and&mdash;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&mdash;a dozen
+      bottles&mdash;and drink the health of the finest woman in England.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      BOOK III.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      CONTAINING THE END OF MR. ESMOND'S ADVENTURES IN ENGLAND.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I COME TO AN END OF MY BATTLES AND BRUISES.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * What indeed?  Psm. xci. 2, 3, 7.&mdash;R. E.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Tierce
+      to a king,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lady Castlewood had left everything to Colonel Esmond, &ldquo;as a reparation
+      for the wrong done to him;&rdquo; '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, &amp;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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. &ldquo;If Prince Eugene goes to London,&rdquo; says Frank, &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;of Captain Holt at Bruxelles. What a man that is! He knows
+      everything.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;humble or of high rank&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;D&mdash;n
+      you, why don't you cheer?&rdquo; But the men had no heart for that: not one of
+      them but was thinking, &ldquo;Where's my comrade?&mdash;where's my brother that
+      fought by me, or my dear captain that led me yesterday?&rdquo; 'Twas the most
+      gloomy pageant I ever looked on; and the &ldquo;Te Deum&rdquo; sung by our chaplains,
+      the most woful and dreary satire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,&mdash;&ldquo;Corporal John's
+      as fond of me,&rdquo; he used to say, &ldquo;as King David was of General Uriah; and
+      so he always gives me the post of danger.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Fie.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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,
+      &ldquo;God save King James!&rdquo; when Queen Anne went the way of kings and
+      commoners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear, Colonel, you are no better than a republican at heart,&rdquo; says the
+      priest with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am an Englishman,&rdquo; says Harry, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;It's the King's third campaign, and
+      it's mine,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;his money&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From his way of saying &ldquo;Royal Cravat,&rdquo; 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&mdash;a deserter probably&mdash;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 &ldquo;God bless&mdash;that is, Dieu benisse votre
+      honor,&rdquo; that would infallibly have sent him to the provost-marshal had he
+      been on our side of the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Look, look!&rdquo; says the Royal Cravat, with great agitation,
+      &ldquo;pas lui, that's he; not him, l'autre,&rdquo; and pointed to the distant officer
+      on a chestnut horse, with a cuirass shining in the sun, and over it a
+      broad blue ribbon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please to take Mr. Hamilton's services to my Lord Marlborough&mdash;my
+      Lord Duke,&rdquo; says the gentleman in English: and, looking to see that the
+      party were not hostilely disposed, he added, with a smile, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Bedad,&rdquo; says Roger Sterne,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; And Roger made another remark in his
+      wild way, in which there was sense as well as absurdity&mdash;&ldquo;If that
+      young gentleman,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;From having
+      been out of favor with Corporal John,&rdquo; as he called the Duke, &ldquo;before his
+      Grace warned him not to commit those follies, and smiled on him cordially
+      ever after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he was so kind to me,&rdquo; Frank writ, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I GO HOME, AND HARP ON THE OLD STRING.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young scapegrace, being one-and-twenty years old, and being anxious to
+      sow his &ldquo;wild otes,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;P.S.,&rdquo; the
+      young gentleman wrote: &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;and
+      within it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a sweet sad smile she took his hand and kissed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How ill you have been: how weak you look, my dear Henry,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am come back to be nursed by my family,&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;If Frank had not
+      taken care of me after my wound, very likely I should have gone
+      altogether.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Frank, good Frank!&rdquo; says his mother. &ldquo;You'll always be kind to him,
+      my lord,&rdquo; she went on. &ldquo;The poor child never knew he was doing you a
+      wrong.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord!&rdquo; cries out Colonel Esmond. &ldquo;What do you mean, dear lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no lady,&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;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&mdash;that is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who told you this tale, dearest lady?&rdquo; asked the Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you not had the letter I writ you? I writ to you at Mons directly I
+      heard it,&rdquo; says Lady Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And from whom?&rdquo; again asked Colonel Esmond&mdash;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. &ldquo;'Twas very malicious
+      of the Dowager,&rdquo; Lady Esmond said, &ldquo;to have had it so long, and to have
+      kept the truth from me.&rdquo; &ldquo;Cousin Rachel,&rdquo; she said,&mdash;and Esmond's
+      mistress could not forbear smiling as she told the story&mdash;&ldquo;Cousin
+      Rachel,&rdquo; cries the Dowager, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To my Frank?&rdquo; says Lady Castlewood; &ldquo;I was in hopes&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;for I am Marchioness of Esmond before God and man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And have you left poor Harry nothing, dear Marchioness?&rdquo; 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). &ldquo;And have you left
+      poor Harry nothing?&rdquo; asks my dear lady: &ldquo;for you know, Henry,&rdquo; she says
+      with her sweet smile, &ldquo;I used always to pity Esau&mdash;and I think I am
+      on his side&mdash;though papa tried very hard to convince me the other
+      way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Harry!&rdquo; says the old lady. &ldquo;So you want something left to poor
+      Harry: he,&mdash;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&mdash;and his
+      eldest son will be, by courtesy, styled Earl of Castlewood&mdash;he! he!
+      What do you think of that, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gracious mercy! how long have you known this?&rdquo; cries the other lady
+      (thinking perhaps that the old Marchioness was wandering in her wits).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband, before he was converted, was a wicked wretch,&rdquo; the sick
+      sinner continued. &ldquo;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&mdash;a poor girl&mdash;a poor innocent young
+      thing&mdash;I say,&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;though she was past forty, you know, Harry,
+      when she married: and as for being innocent&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she went on, &ldquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should I be disappointed&mdash;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&mdash;urging
+      all his friends to obtain my release, and using all his credit in my favor&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As for Colonel Esmond, he knew the truth already.&rdquo; (&ldquo;And then, Harry,&rdquo; my
+      mistress said, &ldquo;she told me of what had happened at my dear husband's
+      death-bed&rdquo;). &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And can my dearest lady doubt what that will be?&rdquo; says the Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It rests with you, Harry, as the head of our house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was settled twelve years since, by my dear lord's bedside,&rdquo; says
+      Colonel Esmond. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dearest saint,&rdquo; says he&mdash;&ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't raise me,&rdquo; she said, in a wild way, to Esmond, who would have
+      lifted her. &ldquo;Let me kneel&mdash;let me kneel, and&mdash;and&mdash;worship
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Castlewood
+      knew very well,&rdquo; so she wrote to her son, &ldquo;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:&rdquo; and she besought him
+      to come quickly to England, to settle down in his family house of
+      Castlewood (&ldquo;It is his family house,&rdquo; says she, to Colonel Esmond, &ldquo;though
+      only his own house by your forbearance&rdquo;) 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.
+      &ldquo;But in saving my son's fortune,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;I fear I have lost a great
+      part of my hold on him.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;by the exhortation of Mr.
+      Holt, the influence of his Clotilda, and the blessing of heaven and the
+      saints,&rdquo; says my lord, demurely, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;a young Irish lord, the
+      Viscount C-stlew&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Lady Castlewood was as much cast down by this news as Miss Beatrix was
+      indignant at it. &ldquo;So,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;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!&rdquo; says Mistress
+      Beatrix, clapping her hands together; &ldquo;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?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I made that onslaught on the priests,&rdquo; says Miss Beatrix, afterwards, &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;so; he catches her in his arms&mdash;no,
+      sir, keep your distance, cousin, if you please&mdash;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&mdash;Fiddledee! don't contradict me&mdash;or
+      else dancing-masters, or else priests.&rdquo; And so she rattled on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was it taught YOU to dance, Cousin Beatrix?&rdquo; says the Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;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!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having finished her march, she put out her foot for her slipper. The
+      Colonel knelt down: &ldquo;If you will be Pope I will turn Papist,&rdquo; says he; and
+      her Holiness gave him gracious leave to kiss the little stockinged foot
+      before he put the slipper on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;Oh, you silly
+      little mamma: your feet are quite as pretty as mine,&rdquo; says she: &ldquo;they are,
+      cousin, though she hides 'em; but the shoemaker will tell you that he
+      makes for both off the same last.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are taller than I am, dearest,&rdquo; says her mother, blushing over her
+      whole sweet face&mdash;&ldquo;and&mdash;and it is your hand, my dear, and not
+      your foot he wants you to give him;&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But oh!&rdquo; cries my mistress, recovering herself after this scene, and
+      returning to her usual sad tone, &ldquo;'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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Asking pardon for what?&rdquo; says saucy Mrs. Beatrix&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, Beatrix! Do not jest with sacred things, and remember of what
+      parentage you come,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;the most abject and devoted wretch, sure, that ever
+      drivelled at a woman's knees&mdash;was this unlucky gentleman; who bound
+      his good sense, and reason, and independence, hand and foot, and submitted
+      them to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Granted, I am a fool,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+       (Mr. Esmond often rode to Windsor, and especially, of later days, with the
+      secretary.) &ldquo;What hours will you pass on your gouty feet&mdash;and how
+      humbly will you kneel down to present a despatch&mdash;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am Diogenes,&rdquo; says Esmond, laughing, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If your charmer holds out,&rdquo; says St. John, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; he added; &ldquo;only, for my part, I find the game won't run long
+      enough. They knock under too soon&mdash;that's the fault I find with 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The game which you pursue is in the habit of being caught, and used to
+      being pulled down,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Dulcinea del Toboso is peerless, eh?&rdquo; says the other. &ldquo;Well, honest
+      Harry, go and attack windmills&mdash;perhaps thou art not more mad than
+      other people,&rdquo; St. John added, with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A PAPER OUT OF THE &ldquo;SPECTATOR.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;she,
+      simple, fond, and charming&mdash;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&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At least you own to your worldliness, my poor Trix,&rdquo; says her mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;well, don't let your ladyship be frightened&mdash;had I worn a
+      sword and periwig instead of this mantle and commode to which nature has
+      condemned me&mdash;(though 'tis a pretty stuff, too&mdash;Cousin Esmond!
+      you will go to the Exchange to-morrow, and get the exact counterpart of
+      this ribbon, sir; do you hear?)&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;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?&mdash;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&mdash;Pompey, sir, go and give a
+      dish of chocolate to Colonel Graveairs,&mdash;and a parrot and a spaniel,
+      and I must have a husband. Cupid, you hear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Iss, Missis!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Iss, Missis!&rdquo; says Beatrix, imitating the child. &ldquo;And if husband not
+      come, Pompey must go fetch one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;no wonder that upon paying such a penalty her fond judge
+      pardoned her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;The Faithful Fool, a
+      Comedy, as it was performed by her Majesty's Servants.&rdquo; '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 &ldquo;Cato&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                        &ldquo;SPECTATOR.
+
+     &ldquo;No. 341.                    &ldquo;Tuesday, April 1, 1712.
+
+     Mutato nomine de te Fabula narratur.&mdash;HORACE.
+     Thyself the morain of the fable see.&mdash;CREECH.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;though from under
+      his fringed eyelids it was evident he was casting glances of respectful
+      rapture towards Jocasta&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said, 'the waters had agreed with her but indifferently.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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&mdash;and&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'And&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;OEDIPUS.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;THE TRUMPET COFFEE-HOUSE, WHITEHALL.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MR. SPECTATOR,&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;CYMON WYLDOATS.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Cymon&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Spectator&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For though enough hath been said about this love-business already&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;What will SHE say of it?&rdquo; &ldquo;Will this
+      distinction or the idea of this peril elate her or touch her, so as to be
+      better inclined towards me?&rdquo; He could no more help this passionate
+      fidelity of temper than he could help the eyes he saw with&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Should you like the Duke for a cousin?&rdquo; says Mr. Secretary St. John,
+      whispering to Colonel Esmond in French; &ldquo;it appears that the widower
+      consoles himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;smoke&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How stupid your friend Mr. Steele becomes!&rdquo; cries Miss Beatrix. &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrix. Beatrix!&rdquo; says her mother, &ldquo;speak gravely of grave things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mamma thinks the Church Catechism came from heaven, I believe,&rdquo; says
+      Beatrix, with a laugh, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I gave you the Queen's name,&rdquo; says her mother blushing. &ldquo;And a very
+      pretty name it is,&rdquo; said somebody else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beatrix went on reading&mdash;&ldquo;Spell my name with a Y&mdash;why, you
+      wretch,&rdquo; says she, turning round to Colonel Esmond, &ldquo;you have been telling
+      my story to Mr. Steele&mdash;or stop&mdash;you have written the paper
+      yourself to turn me into ridicule. For shame, sir!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Poor Mr. Esmond felt rather frightened, and told a truth, which was
+      nevertheless an entire falsehood. &ldquo;Upon my honor,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I have not
+      even read the Spectator of this morning.&rdquo; Nor had he, for that was not the
+      Spectator, but a sham newspaper put in its place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She went on reading: her face rather flushed as she read. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she says,
+      &ldquo;I think you couldn't have written it. I think it must have been Mr.
+      Steele when he was drunk&mdash;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrix!&rdquo; cries the Lady Castlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;well now&mdash;I
+      won't go on. Yes, I will, unless you kiss me.&rdquo; 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&mdash;&ldquo;There, sir: would not YOU like to play the very same
+      pleasant game?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed, madam, I would,&rdquo; says he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would what?&rdquo; asked Miss Beatrix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What you meant when you looked at me in that provoking way,&rdquo; answers
+      Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a confessor!&rdquo; cries Beatrix, with a laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it Henry would like, my dear?&rdquo; asks her mother, the kind soul,
+      who was always thinking what we would like, and how she could please us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl runs up to her&mdash;&ldquo;Oh, you silly kind mamma,&rdquo; she says,
+      kissing her again, &ldquo;that's what Harry would like;&rdquo; and she broke out into
+      a great joyful laugh; and Lady Castlewood blushed as bashful as a maid of
+      sixteen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at her, Harry,&rdquo; whispers Beatrix, running up, and speaking in her
+      sweet low tones. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond's kind mistress left the room, carrying her blushes away with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If we girls at Court could grow such roses as that,&rdquo; continues Beatrix,
+      with her laugh, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; She paused for a minute, and the smile
+      fading away from her April face, gave place to a menacing shower of tears;
+      &ldquo;Oh, how good she is, Harry,&rdquo; Beatrix went on to say. &ldquo;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&mdash;though who knows what we women do love, and
+      why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, and why, indeed,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one knows,&rdquo; Beatrix went on, without noticing this interruption except
+      by a look, &ldquo;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&mdash;the horrid dirty poor! She sits through the curate's sermons&mdash;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!&rdquo; here broke out Mistress
+      Beatrix. &ldquo;It's horrid, I know; but my mother's life is all for heaven, and
+      mine&mdash;all for earth. We can never be friends quite; and then, she
+      cares more for Frank's little finger than she does for me&mdash;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&mdash;(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&mdash;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&mdash;oh,
+      do you remember those horrid beds?&mdash;and the chariot comes and fetches
+      them to heaven the next morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, Beatrix,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; says poor Beatrix, her fair breast heaving with a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was I that writ every line of that paper, my dear,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond.
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;and why? You'll tire of them when you win them; and be
+      no happier with a coronet on your coach&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Than riding pillion with Lubin to market,&rdquo; says Beatrix. &ldquo;Thank you,
+      Lubin!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm a dismal shepherd, to be sure,&rdquo; answers Esmond, with a blush; &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For mamma?&rdquo; says Beatrix. &ldquo;It is mamma your honor wants, and that I
+      should have the happiness of calling you papa?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond blushed again. &ldquo;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&mdash;a child
+      you were then . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I put on my best stockings to captivate you, I remember, sir . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear, dreary old place!&rdquo; cries Beatrix. &ldquo;Mamma hath never had the heart
+      to go back thither since we left it, when&mdash;never mind how many years
+      ago.&rdquo; And she flung back her curls, and looked over her fair shoulder at
+      the mirror superbly, as if she said, &ldquo;Time, I defy you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; says Esmond, who had the art, as she owned, of divining many of her
+      thoughts. &ldquo;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&mdash;I know not which&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What folly you are talking, Harry,&rdquo; says Miss Beatrix, looking with her
+      great eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis sober earnest,&rdquo; 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. &ldquo;No,&rdquo; says he, then: &ldquo;I have tried half a dozen
+      times now. I can bear being away from you well enough; but being with you
+      is intolerable&rdquo; (another low curtsy on Mistress Beatrix's part), &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mon ami,&rdquo; she says quite kindly, and taking Esmond's hand, with an air of
+      great compassion, &ldquo;you can't think that in our position anything more than
+      our present friendship is possible. You are our elder brother&mdash;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?&rdquo; And she put her
+      face quite close to his&mdash;who knows with what intention?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's too much,&rdquo; says Esmond, turning away. &ldquo;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 . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has she told you, Harry?&rdquo; Lady Castlewood said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She has been very frank&mdash;very,&rdquo; says Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;but about what is going to happen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is going to happen?&rdquo; says he, his heart beating.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His Grace the Duke of Hamilton has proposed to her,&rdquo; says my lady. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BEATRIX'S NEW SUITOR.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      King James continued my lord's promotion&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;he was
+      sure he could not keep it;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;This bankruptcy,&rdquo;
+       says Tom, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; So it was that when Fortune shook her wings and left him, honest
+      Tom cuddled himself up in his ragged virtue, and fell asleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Is this
+      the way, sir, that you receive the announcement of your misfortune,&rdquo; says
+      she, &ldquo;and do you come smiling before me as if you were glad to be rid of
+      me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond would not be put off from his good-humor, but told her the story of
+      Tom Trett and his bankruptcy. &ldquo;I have been hankering after the grapes on
+      the wall,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;and lost my temper because they were beyond my reach;
+      was there any wonder? They're gone now, and another has them&mdash;a
+      taller man than your humble servant has won them.&rdquo; And the Colonel made
+      his cousin a low bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A taller man, Cousin Esmond!&rdquo; says she. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A Duke has but to gape and they drop into his mouth,&rdquo; says Esmond, with
+      another low bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, sir,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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?&mdash;Desdemona. You would, you little black-dyed Othello!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I should, Beatrix,&rdquo; says the Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;'That's the
+      Duchess&mdash;How well her Grace looks&mdash;Make way for Madame
+      l'Ambassadrice d'Angleterre&mdash;Call her Excellency's people'&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo; And she spread out her beautiful arms, as if indeed she
+      could fly off like the pretty &ldquo;Gawrie,&rdquo; whom the man in the story was
+      enamored of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what will your Peter Wilkins say to your flight?&rdquo; says Esmond, who
+      never admired this fair creature more than when she rebelled and laughed
+      at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A duchess knows her place,&rdquo; says she, with a laugh. &ldquo;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&mdash;for come back the King will and shall; and I'll bring
+      him back from Versailles, if he comes under my hoop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope the world will make you happy, Beatrix,&rdquo; says Esmond, with a sigh.
+      &ldquo;You'll be Beatrix till you are my Lady Duchess&mdash;will you not? I
+      shall then make your Grace my very lowest bow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None of these sighs and this satire, cousin,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I take his
+      Grace's great bounty thankfully&mdash;yes, thankfully; and will wear his
+      honors becomingly. I do not say he hath touched my heart; but he has my
+      gratitude, obedience, admiration&mdash;I have told him that, and no more;
+      and with that his noble heart is content. I have told him all&mdash;even
+      the story of that poor creature that I was engaged to&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty-six, my dear,&rdquo; says Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Twenty-five, sir&mdash;I choose to be twenty-five; and in eight years no
+      man hath ever touched my heart. Yes&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;for all your little mishap at your birth,&rdquo; says she, wagging
+      her arch head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, sir,&rdquo; says she, with a curtsy, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;The interview must not end yet, my
+      dear, until I have had my last word. Stay, here comes your mother&rdquo; (indeed
+      she came in here with her sweet anxious face, and Esmond going up kissed
+      her hand respectfully). &ldquo;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.&rdquo; And he took the case out of his pocket in which the
+      jewels were, and presented them to his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look, my Lord Duke,&rdquo; says Mistress Beatrix, advancing to him, and showing
+      the diamonds on her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Diamonds,&rdquo; says his Grace. &ldquo;Hm! they seem pretty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are a present on my marriage,&rdquo; says Beatrix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From her Majesty?&rdquo; asks the Duke. &ldquo;The Queen is very good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From my cousin Henry&mdash;from our cousin Henry&rdquo;&mdash;cry both the
+      ladies in a breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From our cousin, Colonel Henry Esmond, my lord,&rdquo; says Beatrix, taking the
+      Colonel's hand very bravely,&mdash;&ldquo;who was left guardian to us by our
+      father, and who has a hundred times shown his love and friendship for our
+      family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duchess of Hamilton receives no diamonds but from her husband,
+      madam,&rdquo; says the Duke&mdash;&ldquo;may I pray you to restore these to Mr.
+      Esmond?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrix Esmond may receive a present from our kinsman and benefactor, my
+      Lord Duke,&rdquo; says Lady Castlewood, with an air of great dignity. &ldquo;She is my
+      daughter yet: and if her mother sanctions the gift&mdash;no one else hath
+      the right to question it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Kinsman and benefactor!&rdquo; says the Duke. &ldquo;I know of no kinsman: and I do
+      not choose that my wife should have for benefactor a&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord!&rdquo; says Colonel Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not here to bandy words,&rdquo; says his Grace: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord!&rdquo; breaks out Lady Castlewood, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My Lord Duke smiled, and looked as if Lady Castlewood was mad, that was so
+      talking to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I called him benefactor,&rdquo; said my mistress, &ldquo;it is because he has been
+      so to us&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ask Colonel Esmond's pardon,&rdquo; says his Grace, if possible more haughty
+      than before. &ldquo;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&mdash;though neither by blood nor
+      friendship; but I must repeat what I said, that my wife can receive no
+      presents from Colonel Esmond.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; cries Lady Esmond. &ldquo;What is a string of diamond
+      stones compared to that affection he hath given us&mdash;our dearest
+      preserver and benefactor? We owe him not only Frank's life, but our all&mdash;yes,
+      our all,&rdquo; says my mistress, with a heightened color and a trembling voice.
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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&rdquo;&mdash;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, &ldquo;Mother, what is this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a family secret, my Lord Duke,&rdquo; says Colonel Esmond: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have told everything to the Duke of Hamilton,&rdquo; said my mistress,
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Marquis of Esmond, my lord,&rdquo; says his Grace, with a low bow. &ldquo;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&rdquo; (so his Grace was
+      pleased to say); &ldquo;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,&rdquo; says the Duke, &ldquo;that may perhaps be in my power. I shall
+      esteem it as a favor, my lord, if Colonel Esmond will give away the
+      bride.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And if he will take the usual payment in advance, he is welcome,&rdquo; says
+      Beatrix, stepping up to him; and, as Esmond kissed her, she whispered,
+      &ldquo;Oh, why didn't I know you before?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When does your Excellency go for Paris?&rdquo; asks Colonel Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As soon after the ceremony as may be,&rdquo; his Grace answered. &ldquo;'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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MOHUN APPEARS FOR THE LAST TIME IN THIS HISTORY.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;Ah, ah!&rdquo; says Webb,
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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, &ldquo;Would we suffer our arms to be insulted? Would we not
+      send back the only champion who could repair our honor?&rdquo; The nation had
+      had its bellyful of fighting; nor could taunts or outcries goad up our
+      Britons any more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Trivia,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;whom &ldquo;nunc
+      perscribere longum est.&rdquo; 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,
+      &ldquo;Vidi tantum.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Eat;&rdquo; or fetching him the daggers and whispering &ldquo;Kill! yonder
+      lies Duncan, and a crown, and an opportunity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Wills's,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I presume you are the editor of the Post-Boy, sir?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am but a contributor, Doctor Swift,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who told you I was Dr. Swift?&rdquo; says the Doctor, eying the other very
+      haughtily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Reverence's valet bawled out your name,&rdquo; says the Colonel. &ldquo;I should
+      judge you brought him from Ireland?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where's your papa, Tommy?&rdquo; asks the Colonel of the child, a smutty little
+      wretch in a frock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of answering, the child begins to cry; the Doctor's appearance had
+      no doubt frightened the poor little imp.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send that squalling little brat about his business, and do what I bid ye,
+      sir,&rdquo; says the Doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must finish, the picture first for Tommy,&rdquo; says the Colonel, laughing.
+      &ldquo;Here, Tommy, will you have your Pandour with whiskers or without?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whisters,&rdquo; says Tommy, quite intent on the picture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who the devil are ye, sir?&rdquo; cries the Doctor; &ldquo;are ye a printer's man or
+      are ye not?&rdquo; he pronounced it like NAUGHT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your reverence needn't raise the devil to ask who I am,&rdquo; says Colonel
+      Esmond. &ldquo;Did you ever hear of Doctor Faustus, little Tommy? or Friar
+      Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and set the Thames on fire?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Swift turned quite red, almost purple. &ldquo;I did not intend any offence,
+      sir,&rdquo; says he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dare say, sir, you offended without meaning,&rdquo; says the other, dryly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo; cries the Doctor, in a
+      great fume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your honor's humble pardon if I have offended your honor,&rdquo; says
+      Esmond in a tone of great humility. &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I take the little beast!&rdquo; says the Doctor, starting back. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm but a poor broken-down soldier,&rdquo; says the Colonel, &ldquo;and I've seen
+      better days, though I am forced now to turn my hand to writing. We can't
+      help our fate, sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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: &ldquo;I'm sure,&rdquo; says my General,
+      bowing very politely, &ldquo;my table hath always a place for Dr. Swift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Esmond went up to the Doctor with a bow and a smile:&mdash;&ldquo;I gave Dr.
+      Swift's message,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;to the printer: I hope he brought your
+      pamphlet to your lodgings in time.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;he had to speak with Colonel
+      Esmond; and when the rest of the company withdrew to cards, these two
+      remained behind in the dark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;Jonathan
+      knows nothing of this for certain, though he suspects it, and by George,
+      Webb will take an Archbishopric, and Jonathan a&mdash;no,&mdash;damme&mdash;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,&rdquo; the Secretary went
+      on. &ldquo;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.&rdquo; We drank it together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will the bonne cause turn Protestant?&rdquo; asked Mr. Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, hang it,&rdquo; says the other, &ldquo;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&mdash;damme, let's drink it kneeling.&rdquo; He was quite
+      flushed and wild with wine as he was talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And suppose,&rdquo; says Esmond, who always had this gloomy apprehension, &ldquo;the
+      bonne cause should give us up to the French, as his father and uncle did
+      before him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give us up to the French!&rdquo; starts up Bolingbroke; &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His uncle did,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what happened to his grandfather?&rdquo; broke out St. John, filling out
+      another bumper. &ldquo;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&mdash;ay, as good? God save the King!
+      and, if the monarchy fails us, God save the British Republic!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drink no more, my lord, for God's sake!&rdquo; says he. &ldquo;I come with the most
+      dreadful news.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is the Queen dead?&rdquo; cries out Bolingbroke, seizing on a water-glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Beatrix, Beatrix,&rdquo; thought Esmond, &ldquo;and here ends my poor girl's
+      ambition!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      POOR BEATRIX.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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. &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;cousin, and
+      admire the taste of this pretty thing.&rdquo; I think Mars and Venus were lying
+      in the golden bower, that one gilt Cupid carried off the war-god's casque&mdash;another
+      his sword&mdash;another his great buckler, upon which my Lord Duke
+      Hamilton's arms with ours were to be engraved&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Isn't this a beautiful piece?&rdquo; 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.
+      &ldquo;'Tis a pretty piece of vanity,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vanity!&rdquo; says she, haughtily. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Beatrix, lay it down!&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond. &ldquo;Herodias! you know not what
+      you carry in the charger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;What is
+      it, Henry!&rdquo; says she, running to him, and seizing both his hands. &ldquo;What do
+      you mean by your pale face and gloomy tones?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come away, come away!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, my Beatrix, my sister!&rdquo; says Esmond, still holding in his arms the
+      pallid and affrighted creature, &ldquo;you have the greatest courage of any
+      woman in the world; prepare to show it now, for you have a dreadful trial
+      to bear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She sprang away from the friend who would have protected her:&mdash;&ldquo;Hath
+      he left me?&rdquo; says she. &ldquo;We had words this morning: he was very gloomy, and
+      I angered him: but he dared not, he dared not!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has left you,&rdquo; says Esmond, wondering that rage rather than sorrow was
+      in her looks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he is alive,&rdquo; cried Beatrix, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Duke is not alive, Beatrix,&rdquo; said Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at her cousin wildly, and fell back to the wall as though shot
+      in the breast:&mdash;&ldquo;And you come here, and&mdash;and&mdash;you killed
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; thank heaven!&rdquo; her kinsman said. &ldquo;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&mdash;for the murderer died too
+      by the hand of the man he slew&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I
+      am best in my own room and by myself,&rdquo; 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: &ldquo;Thank you, brother,&rdquo; she
+      said, in a low voice, and with a simplicity more touching than tears; &ldquo;all
+      you have said is true and kind, and I will go away and ask pardon.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was the real cause of the Duke Hamilton's death?&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I VISIT CASTLEWOOD ONCE MORE.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I would
+      rather see her tears than her pride,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;brave, young, handsome, unfortunate&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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? &ldquo;I looked into your room,&rdquo; was all she said; &ldquo;the bed was
+      vacant, the little old bed! I knew I should find you here.&rdquo; And tender and
+      blushing faintly with a benediction in her eyes, the gentle creature
+      kissed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made us one of her grand curtsies smiling, and called us &ldquo;the young
+      people.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had best take these with you, Harry,&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;I have no need of
+      diamonds any more.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond said the stones were his no longer, and strove to turn off that
+      proffered restoration with a laugh: &ldquo;Of what good,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will give them to your wife, cousin,&rdquo; says she. &ldquo;My cousin, your wife
+      has a lovely complexion and shape.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Beatrix,&rdquo; Esmond burst out, the old fire flaming out as it would at
+      times, &ldquo;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!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A price for your constancy, my lord!&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;such a preux chevalier
+      wants to be paid. Oh fie, cousin!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Again,&rdquo; Esmond spoke out, &ldquo;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&mdash;what he who is dead
+      desired most&mdash;will that soften you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it, Henry?&rdquo; says she, her face lighting up; &ldquo;what mean you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask no questions,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going out of the country?&rdquo; says Beatrix, in some agitation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, to-morrow,&rdquo; says Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To Lorraine, cousin?&rdquo; says Beatrix, laying her hand on his arm; 'twas the
+      hand on which she wore the Duke's bracelet. &ldquo;Stay, Harry!&rdquo; continued she,
+      with a tone that had more despondency in it than she was accustomed to
+      show. &ldquo;Hear a last word. I do love you. I do admire you&mdash;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&mdash;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&mdash;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?&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell. Farewell, brother.&rdquo; She gave him her cheek as a brotherly
+      privilege. The cheek was as cold as marble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      I TRAVEL TO FRANCE AND BRING HOME A PORTRAIT OF RIGAUD.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;No doubt he should come by his name if ever greater people
+      came by theirs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;Your father and your
+      mother, M. le Marquis,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;with a gratuity&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His &ldquo;Clotilda,&rdquo; Castlewood went on to say, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;(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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;(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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;(The Lord Castlewood) has had the affair of the plate made up, and
+      departs for England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thine ever &mdash;&mdash;.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;God save King
+      James!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Ah, Harry,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE ORIGINAL OF THE PORTRAIT COMES TO ENGLAND.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      '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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Eikon Basilike&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &amp;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;My man will see to the horses,
+      Baptiste,&rdquo; says Colonel Esmond: &ldquo;do you understand English?&rdquo; &ldquo;Very
+      leetle!&rdquo; &ldquo;So, follow my lord and wait upon him at dinner in his own room.&rdquo;
+       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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;I had as lief he
+      had shot me, cousin,&rdquo; Frank said: &ldquo;I knew you were the best, and the
+      bravest, and the kindest of all men&rdquo; (so the enthusiastic young fellow
+      went on); &ldquo;but I never thought I owed you what I do, and can scarce bear
+      the weight of the obligation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I stand in the place of your father,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond, kindly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The K&mdash;-, HE laughed,&rdquo; Frank said, pointing to the door where the
+      sleeper was, and speaking in a low tone. &ldquo;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&rdquo; (here Castlewood laughed himself)&mdash;&ldquo;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,&rdquo; says Frank, with a demure look;
+      &ldquo;you may smile, but I am not the wild fellow I was; no, no, I have been
+      taught better,&rdquo; says Castlewood devoutly, making a sign on his breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thou art my dear brave boy,&rdquo; says Colonel Esmond, touched at the young
+      fellow's simplicity, &ldquo;and there will be a noble gentleman at Castlewood so
+      long as my Frank is there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;Eh,
+      La-Fleur, un verre d'eau!&rdquo; His Majesty came out yawning:&mdash;&ldquo;A pest,&rdquo;
+       says he, &ldquo;upon your English ale, 'tis so strong that, ma foi, it hath
+      turned my head.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;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?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again Colonel Esmond was obliged to cry out, &ldquo;Baptiste,&rdquo; in a loud
+      imperious voice, &ldquo;have a care to the valise;&rdquo; 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:&mdash;&ldquo;A
+      Prince that will wear a crown must wear a mask,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond in
+      French.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah peste! I see how it is,&rdquo; says Monsieur Baptiste, continuing the talk
+      in French. &ldquo;The Great Serious is seriously&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;alarmed for Monsieur
+      Baptiste,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;Madam,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;my mother will thank your
+      ladyship for your hospitality to her son; for you, madam,&rdquo; turning to
+      Beatrix, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Esmond looked at Beatrix, blazing with her jewels on her beautiful neck.
+      &ldquo;I have kept my word,&rdquo; says he: &ldquo;And I mine,&rdquo; says Beatrix, looking down
+      on the diamonds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were I the Mogul Emperor,&rdquo; says the Colonel, &ldquo;you should have all that
+      were dug out of Golconda.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These are a great deal too good for me,&rdquo; says Beatrix, dropping her head
+      on her beautiful breast,&mdash;&ldquo;so are you all, all!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;Which of you will
+      take it?&rdquo; says he.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The head of our house,&rdquo; says Lady Castlewood, taking her son's hand, and
+      looking towards Colonel Esmond with a bow and a great tremor of the voice;
+      &ldquo;the Marquis of Esmond will have the honor of serving the King.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have the honor of waiting on his Royal Highness,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I drink to my hostess and her family,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;What
+      cheer, brother?&rdquo; says Addison, laughing: &ldquo;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?&mdash;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,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Campaign&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done the deed,&rdquo; thought he, sleepless, and looking out into the
+      night; &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I warrant,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;that, with the English beef and beer,
+      his lordship will soon get back the proper use of his mouth;&rdquo; and, to do
+      his new lordship justice, he took to beer and beef very kindly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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
+      &ldquo;sister,&rdquo; and her ladyship &ldquo;mother,&rdquo; or &ldquo;madam&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The guests had not been three days in the house when poor Jack Lockwood
+      came with a rueful countenance to his master, and said: &ldquo;My Lord&mdash;that
+      is the gentleman&mdash;has been tampering with Mrs. Lucy (Jack's
+      sweetheart), and given her guineas and a kiss.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Esmond ventured to utter some other words of entreaty, but the
+      Prince, stamping imperiously, cried out, &ldquo;Assez, milord: je m'ennuye a la
+      preche; I am not come to London to go to the sermon.&rdquo; And he complained
+      afterwards to Castlewood, that &ldquo;le petit jaune, le noir Colonel, le
+      Marquis Misanthrope&rdquo; (by which facetious names his Royal Highness was
+      pleased to designate Colonel Esmond), &ldquo;fatigued him with his grand airs
+      and virtuous homilies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Colonel Noir&rdquo; 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&mdash;&mdash;,*
+      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: &ldquo;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.&rdquo; &ldquo;Rather than lose those,&rdquo; says the Prince, &ldquo;he shall be made
+      Archbishop and Colonel of the Guard&rdquo; (it was Frank Castlewood who told me
+      of this conversation over their supper).
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * There can be very little doubt that the Doctor mentioned
+     by my dear father was the famous Dr. Arbuthnot.&mdash;R. E. W.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; cries she, with one of her laughs&mdash;I fancy I hear it now.
+      Thirty years afterwards I hear that delightful music. &ldquo;Yes, he shall be
+      Archbishop of Esmond and Marquis of Canterbury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what will your ladyship be?&rdquo; says the Prince; &ldquo;you have but to choose
+      your place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I,&rdquo; says Beatrix, &ldquo;will be mother of the maids to the Queen of his
+      Majesty King James the Third&mdash;Vive le Roy!&rdquo; and she made him a great
+      curtsy, and drank a part of a glass of wine in his honor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince seized hold of the glass and drank the last drop of it,&rdquo;
+       Castlewood said, &ldquo;and my mother, looking very anxious, rose up and asked
+      leave to retire. But that Trix is my mother's daughter, Harry,&rdquo; Frank
+      continued, &ldquo;I don't know what a horrid fear I should have of her. I wish&mdash;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&mdash;before
+      George I would; but I wish the end of this were come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;he knew it. What cared he, in his
+      heart, who was King? Were not his very sympathies and secret convictions
+      on the other side&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      WE ENTERTAIN A VERY DISTINGUISHED GUEST AT KENSINGTON.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Rogues' Opera,&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;This, my lords, is my brother;
+      here is my father's heir, and mine after me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;to pay his court to his cousin
+      the Queen, the Elector said;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;I think Beatrix had best be anywhere but here,&rdquo;&mdash;Lady
+      Castlewood said:&mdash;&ldquo;I thank you, Frank, I have thought so, too;&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One sees that you think with us, Henry,&rdquo; says the viscountess, with ever
+      so little of sarcasm in her tone: &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What morning's business?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then informed Madam Beatrix what her part of the comedy was to be:&mdash;&ldquo;In
+      half an hour,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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!&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&ldquo;We may all hope
+      for the best,&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;it has cost the Queen a fit. Her Majesty was in
+      her chair in the Cedar-walk, accompanied only by Lady &mdash;&mdash;, 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.&rdquo; Esmond and Castlewood looked at each other at this compliment,
+      neither liking the sound of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Prince uncovered,&rdquo; Beatrix continued, &ldquo;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'I am come, Madam, to stay now, if the Queen desires me,' says the
+      Prince, with another low bow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'You have taken a foreign wife, my lord, and a foreign religion; was not
+      that of England good enough for you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here,&rdquo; says Beatrix, &ldquo;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,'&mdash;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,&rdquo;
+       says Beatrix, going down on her knees, and clasping her hands. &ldquo;God save
+      the King: God save the King!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are glad,&rdquo; says she, taking her daughter's hand, and speaking in a
+      gentle voice, &ldquo;that the guest is away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Beatrix drew back in an instant, looking round her at us three, and as if
+      divining a danger. &ldquo;Why glad?&rdquo; says she, her breast beginning to heave;
+      &ldquo;are you so soon tired of him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We think one of us is devilishly too fond of him,&rdquo; cries out Frank
+      Castlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And which is it&mdash;you, my lord, or is it mamma, who is jealous
+      because he drinks my health? or is it the head of the family&rdquo; (here she
+      turned with an imperious look towards Colonel Esmond), &ldquo;who has taken of
+      late to preach the King sermons?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We do not say you are too free with his Majesty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thank you, madam,&rdquo; says Beatrix, with a toss of the head and a curtsey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But her mother continued, with very great calmness and dignity&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh? mon pere,&rdquo; breaks out Beatrix, &ldquo;was no better than other persons'
+      fathers.&rdquo; And again she looked towards the Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had not learned to speak French a month ago, Beatrix,&rdquo; says her
+      mother, sadly, &ldquo;nor to speak ill of your father.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Beatrix, no doubt, saw that slip she had made in her flurry, for she
+      blushed crimson: &ldquo;I have learnt to honor the King,&rdquo; says she, drawing up,
+      &ldquo;and 'twere as well that others suspected neither his Majesty nor me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you respected your mother a little more,&rdquo; Frank said, &ldquo;Trix, you would
+      do yourself no hurt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no child,&rdquo; says she, turning round on him; &ldquo;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?&rdquo; she
+      went on; &ldquo;he rules everything here. When his chaplain has done singing the
+      psalms, will his lordship deliver the sermon? I am tired of the psalms.&rdquo;
+       The Prince had used almost the very same words in regard to Colonel Esmond
+      that the imprudent girl repeated in her wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You show yourself a very apt scholar, madam,&rdquo; says the Colonel; and,
+      turning to his mistress, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen him alone?&rdquo; cries my lord, starting up with an oath: &ldquo;by
+      God, have you seen him alone?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were he here, you wouldn't dare so to insult me; no, you would not dare!&rdquo;
+       cries Frank's sister. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By &mdash;-,&rdquo; says my lord, rapping out another oath, &ldquo;Clotilda is an
+      angel; how dare you say a word against Clotilda?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Esmond could not refrain from a smile, to see how easy Frank's
+      attack was drawn off by that feint:&mdash;&ldquo;I fancy Clotilda is not the
+      subject in hand,&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond, rather scornfully; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not my Lord Castlewood,&rdquo; says Beatrix, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; Here was another
+      desperate sally of the poor beleaguered garrison, and an alerte in another
+      quarter. &ldquo;Again, I beg your pardon,&rdquo; says Esmond. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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&mdash;&ldquo;I know not what
+     Colonel Esmond's doctrine was, but his life and death were
+     those of a devout Christian.&rdquo;&mdash;R. E. W.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;I am alone,&rdquo; sobbed she; &ldquo;you are three against
+      me&mdash;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would but remove from the Prince,&rdquo; says Esmond, gravely, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Harry speaks like a book,&rdquo; says Frank, with one of his oaths, &ldquo;and, by
+      &mdash;-, 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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are not two such champions enough to guard me?&rdquo; says Beatrix, something
+      sorrowfully; &ldquo;sure, with you two watching, no evil could happen to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In faith, I think not, Beatrix,&rdquo; says Colonel Esmond; &ldquo;nor if the Prince
+      knew us would he try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But does he know you?&rdquo; interposed Lady Castlewood, very quiet: &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frank and Harry thought with her, you may be sure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will go, then,&rdquo; says Beatrix, turning a little pale; &ldquo;Lady Masham is
+      to give me warning to-night how her Majesty is, and to-morrow&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think we had best go to-day, my dear,&rdquo; says my Lady Castlewood; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For shame!&rdquo; burst out Beatrix, in a passion of tears and mortification.
+      &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;I have brought back,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;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?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you leave this, too, Beatrix?&rdquo; 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.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * 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.&mdash;H. E.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;I had forgot it,&rdquo; says she; &ldquo;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go, child,&rdquo; says her mother, still very stern; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      OUR GUEST QUITS US AS NOT BEING HOSPITABLE ENOUGH.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;The Queen hath been much shaken,&rdquo; the note said; &ldquo;she
+      is better now, and all things will go well. Let MY LORD CASTLEWOOD be
+      ready against we send for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At night there came a second billet: &ldquo;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&mdash;&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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: &ldquo;Even Quakers,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; says the Bishop
+      with a laugh, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; says the Bishop, &ldquo;admiring so much fraternal affection.&mdash;Where
+      is that charming nymph, and why doth she not adorn your ladyship's
+      tea-table with her bright eyes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were yet at table when Dr. A&mdash;&mdash; 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? &ldquo;Il faut etre aimable pour etre aime,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&mdash; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Were these papers to be mislaid,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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;&rdquo; and so,
+      having carefully copied the Proclamations out, the Prince burned those in
+      Colonel Esmond's handwriting: &ldquo;And now, and now, gentlemen,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In London we addressed the Prince as Royal Highness
+     invariably, though the women persisted in giving him the
+     title of King.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at Kensington!&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not of this, sir,&rdquo; says Frank very nobly, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Marquis of Esmond!&mdash;the Marquis of Esmond,&rdquo; says the Prince,
+      tossing off a glass, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was not aware, sir, that I had spoken of my suit to Madam Beatrix to
+      your Royal Highness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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&mdash;is, is lache,
+      yes, lache:&rdquo; (he spoke rapidly in French, his rage carrying him away with
+      each phrase:) &ldquo;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&mdash;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&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Honor! bah, sir, who ever thought of hurting your honor?&rdquo; says the Prince
+      with a peevish air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We implore your Royal Highness never to think of hurting it,&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Past ten o'clock, and a starlight
+      night,&rdquo; Esmond spoke to the Prince in a low voice, and said&mdash;&ldquo;Your
+      Royal Highness hears that man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Apres, Monsieur?&rdquo; says the Prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has your lordship anything to say,&rdquo; says the Prince, turning to Frank
+      Castlewood, and quite pale with anger; &ldquo;any threat or any insult, with
+      which you would like to end this agreeable night's entertainment?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I follow the head of our house,&rdquo; says Castlewood, bowing gravely. &ldquo;At
+      what time shall it please the Prince that we should wait upon him in the
+      morning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have soothed your guest,&rdquo; 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.) &ldquo;But I think, all
+      things considered, 'tis as well he should leave this house; and then, my
+      Lady Castlewood,&rdquo; says the Bishop, &ldquo;my pretty Beatrix may come back to
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is quite as well at home at Castlewood,&rdquo; Esmond's mistress said,
+      &ldquo;till everything is over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall have your title, Esmond, that I promise you,&rdquo; says the good
+      Bishop, assuming the airs of a Prime Minister. &ldquo;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,&rdquo; says the Doctor, archly; &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord, my lord!&rdquo; breaks out Lady Esmond, &ldquo;the levity with which you
+      speak of such conduct towards our sex shocks me, and what you call
+      weakness I call deplorable sin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sin it is, my dear creature,&rdquo; says the Bishop, with a shrug, taking
+      snuff; &ldquo;but consider what a sinner King Solomon was, and in spite of a
+      thousand of wives too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough of this, my lord,&rdquo; says Lady Castlewood, with a fine blush, and
+      walked out of the room very stately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;If all your
+      bishops preach so well as Doctor Atterbury.&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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,&rdquo;
+       says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A GREAT SCHEME, AND WHO BALKED IT.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, &ldquo;God Save King George?&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; writ my messenger from Court,
+      &ldquo;NOW OR NEVER IS THE TIME.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Castlewood sped to the barrack to give warning to the captain of the Guard
+      there; and then went to the &ldquo;King's Arms&rdquo; 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 &ldquo;Greyhound&rdquo;
+       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 &ldquo;Crown&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This absence was most unpropitious, for an hour's delay might cost a
+      kingdom; Esmond had nothing for it but to hasten to the &ldquo;King's Arms,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;&mdash;.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is Mr. George?&rdquo; says Mr. Esmond; &ldquo;now is the time.&rdquo; The Bishop
+      looked scared: &ldquo;I went to his lodging,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and they told me he was
+      come hither. I returned as quick as coach would carry me; and he hath not
+      been here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;they were back at Kensington in half an
+      hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;King's
+      Arms,&rdquo; that were grown very impatient by this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's Ormonde's Guards,&rdquo; says one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, by God, it's Argyle's old regiment!&rdquo; says my General, clapping down
+      his crutch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Harry!&rdquo; says one of the generals there present, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As we were talking, Castlewood entered the room with a disturbed air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What news, Frank?&rdquo; says the Colonel. &ldquo;Is Mr. George coming at last?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Damn him, look here!&rdquo; says Castlewood, holding out a paper. &ldquo;I found it
+      in the book&mdash;the what you call it, 'Eikum Basilikum,'&mdash;that
+      villain Martin put it there&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;Beatrix Esmond
+      is sent away to prison, to Castlewood, where she will pray for happier
+      days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you guess where he is?&rdquo; says Castlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; says Colonel Esmond. He knew full well, Frank knew full well: our
+      instinct told whither that traitor had fled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had courage to turn to the company and say, &ldquo;Gentlemen, I fear very
+      much that Mr. George will not be here to-day; something hath happened&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;King's Arms,&rdquo;
+       at Kensington; and they had called for their bill and gone home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      AUGUST 1ST, 1714.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does my mistress know of this?&rdquo; Esmond asked of Frank, as they walked
+      along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother found the letter in the book, on the toilet-table. She had writ
+      it ere she had left home,&rdquo; Frank said. &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Frank never said a word of reproach to me for having brought the villain
+      amongst us. As we knocked at the door I said, &ldquo;When will the horses be
+      ready?&rdquo; Frank pointed with his cane, they were turning the street that
+      moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you tell him, my lord,&rdquo; says Esmond, &ldquo;that Beatrix was at
+      Castlewood?&rdquo; The Bishop blushed and stammered: &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;I . . .&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You served the villain right,&rdquo; broke out Mr. Esmond, &ldquo;and he has lost a
+      crown by what you told him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My mistress turned quite white, &ldquo;Henry, Henry,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;do not kill
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may not be too late,&rdquo; says Esmond; &ldquo;he may not have gone to
+      Castlewood; pray God, it is not too late.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We took the freedom to break it, while Lockwood stared with wonder, and
+      cried out his &ldquo;Lord bless me's,&rdquo; and &ldquo;Who'd a thought it's,&rdquo; at the sight
+      of his young lord, whom he had not seen these seven years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Eikon Basilike:&rdquo; she was going to read
+      good books; she thought her pretty mamma would like to know she was not
+      crying her eyes out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is in the house besides you, Lockwood?&rdquo; says the Colonel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;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,&rdquo; says old Lockwood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Eikon Basilike.&rdquo; She writ this
+      letter to put the Prince on the scent, and the porter out of the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have a fine moonlight night for riding on,&rdquo; says Esmond; &ldquo;Frank, we
+      may reach Castlewood in time yet.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she is safe,&rdquo; says Frank, trembling, and his honest eyes filling with
+      tears, &ldquo;a silver statue to Our Lady!&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He went and tapped at the little window at the porter's lodge, gently, but
+      repeatedly, until the man came to the bars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who's there?&rdquo; says he, looking out; it was the servant from Kensington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord Castlewood and Colonel Esmond,&rdquo; we said, from below. &ldquo;Open the
+      gate and let us in without any noise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My Lord Castlewood?&rdquo; says the other; &ldquo;my lord's here, and in bed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Open, d&mdash;n you,&rdquo; says Castlewood, with a curse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall open to no one,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are more ways than one,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;of entering such a great house
+      as this.&rdquo; Frank grumbled that the west gate was half a mile round. &ldquo;But I
+      know of a way that's not a hundred yards off,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.&mdash;&ldquo;And what then?&rdquo;&mdash;His lordship supped with his
+      sister.&mdash;&ldquo;Did the man wait?&rdquo; 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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was this all!&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;All,&rdquo; the man swore upon his honor; all as he hoped
+      to be saved.&mdash;&ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it amuses thee,&rdquo; says Esmond in French, &ldquo;that your sister should be
+      exchanging of kisses with a stranger, I fear poor Beatrix will give thee
+      plenty of sport.&rdquo;&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. &ldquo;You
+      must back me,&rdquo; says Esmond, &ldquo;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,&rdquo; (so we called the rooms at the north-west angle of the
+      house,) &ldquo;see if the door is barred as he saith.&rdquo; We tried; it was indeed
+      as the lackey had said, closed within.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may have been opened and shut afterwards,&rdquo; says poor Esmond; &ldquo;the
+      foundress of our family let our ancestor in in that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What will you do, Harry, if&mdash;if what that fellow saith should turn
+      out untrue?&rdquo; The young man looked scared and frightened into his kinsman's
+      face; I dare say it wore no very pleasant expression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us first go see whether the two stories agree,&rdquo; 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&mdash;Esmond did not care for making
+      a noise. The Prince started up in his bed, seeing two men in his chamber.
+      &ldquo;Qui est la&rdquo; says he, and took a pistol from under his pillow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the Marquis of Esmond,&rdquo; says the Colonel, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Sdeath! gentlemen,&rdquo; says the Prince, starting off his bed, whereon he
+      was lying in his clothes, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would have been otherwise,&rdquo; says Esmond with another bow; &ldquo;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&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morbleu, Monsieur, you give me too much Majesty,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall take care,&rdquo; says Esmond, &ldquo;not much oftener to offend in that
+      particular.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What mean you, my lord?&rdquo; says the Prince, and muttered something about a
+      guet-a-pens, which Esmond caught up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The snare, Sir,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dishonor! Morbleu, there has been no dishonor,&rdquo; says the Prince, turning
+      scarlet, &ldquo;only a little harmless playing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That was meant to end seriously.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear,&rdquo; the Prince broke out impetuously, &ldquo;upon the honor of a
+      gentleman, my lords&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That we arrived in time. No wrong hath been done, Frank,&rdquo; says Colonel
+      Esmond, turning round to young Castlewood, who stood at the door as the
+      talk was going on. &ldquo;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.&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; says the Prince, burning with rage (he had assumed his Royal coat
+      unassisted by this time), &ldquo;did I come here to receive insults?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To confer them, may it please your Majesty,&rdquo; says the Colonel, with a
+      very low bow, &ldquo;and the gentlemen of our family are come to thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Malediction!&rdquo; says the young man, tears starting into his eyes with
+      helpless rage and mortification. &ldquo;What will you with me, gentlemen?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If your Majesty will please to enter the next apartment,&rdquo; says Esmond,
+      preserving his grave tone, &ldquo;I have some papers there which I would gladly
+      submit to you, and by your permission I will lead the way;&rdquo; 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:&mdash;&ldquo;Please to set a chair for his Majesty,
+      Frank,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, may it please your Majesty,&rdquo; says he, &ldquo;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.&rdquo; And as Esmond spoke
+      he set the papers burning in the brazier. &ldquo;You will please, sir, to
+      remember,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;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?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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:&mdash;&ldquo;I go with my cousin,&rdquo; says he, giving Esmond a grasp of
+      the hand. &ldquo;Marquis or not, by &mdash;-, I stand by him any day. I beg your
+      Majesty's pardon for swearing; that is&mdash;that is&mdash;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thus to lose a crown,&rdquo; says the young Prince, starting up, and speaking
+      French in his eager way; &ldquo;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?&mdash;Marquis, if I go on my knees will you pardon me?&mdash;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&mdash;see,
+      yonder in the armoire are two;&rdquo; and the Prince took them out as eager as a
+      boy, and held them towards Esmond:&mdash;&ldquo;Ah! you will? Merci, monsieur,
+      merci!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh bien, Vicomte!&rdquo; says the young Prince, who was a boy, and a French
+      boy, &ldquo;il ne nous reste qu'une chose a faire:&rdquo; he placed his sword upon the
+      table, and the fingers of his two hands upon his breast:&mdash;&ldquo;We have
+      one more thing to do,&rdquo; says he; &ldquo;you do not divine it?&rdquo; He stretched out
+      his arms:&mdash;&ldquo;Embrassons nous!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The talk was scarce over when Beatrix entered the room:&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Charming Beatrix,&rdquo; says the Prince, with a blush which became him very
+      well, &ldquo;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.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will it please the King to breakfast before he goes?&rdquo; 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:&mdash;&ldquo;If I did not love you before, cousin,&rdquo; says she, &ldquo;think how
+      I love you now.&rdquo; If words could stab, no doubt she would have killed
+      Esmond; she looked at him as if she could.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 &ldquo;Eikon Basilike.&rdquo; The
+      Prince blushed and bowed low, as she gazed at him, and quitted the
+      chamber. I have never seen her from that day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we drove to the &ldquo;Bell&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is she safe?&rdquo; was what Lady Castlewood whispered in a flutter to Esmond.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All's well, thank God,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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. (&ldquo;It was
+      Lady Castlewood who insisted on coming,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There presently came from out of the gate&mdash;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!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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&mdash;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&mdash;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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was at Bruxelles, whither we retreated after the failure of our plot&mdash;our
+      Whig friends advising us to keep out of the way&mdash;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&mdash;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 &ldquo;eyes of meek surrender,&rdquo; 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+  </body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., by W. M. Thackeray
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The History of Henry Esmond, Esq.
+
+Author: W. M. Thackeray
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2006 [EBook #2511]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF HENRY ESMOND, ESQ. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+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 of The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., by 
+W. M. Thackeray
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