^Se rT^sfory of
7/^:
(enr^/' Gsmoncf
TiXcJ(. ^ftatjkeray
ifi^
111 I
IriP H!
XMk SfTastrcition^ Gy
r
^
L
»/
~ri.
THE HISTORY OF
HENRY ESMOND, Esq.
Where the beautiful Maid of Honour was the light about which a thousand
beaux came and fluttered. — Page 386.
THE HISTORY OF
HENRY ESMOND, Esq.
A COLONEL IN THE SERVICE OF HER
MAJESTY QUEEN ANNE
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
"Servetur ad imum
Qiialis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet. "
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. H. ROBINSON
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD
1896
\All rights reserved]
' ^ LIBRARY
56 I di UNIVERSITY OF CAUFOUNU
^ { SAiNTA BARBAHA
To the Right Honourable
William l^ingham^ Lord aAshburton
DvCy 'Dear Lord,
The writer of a book which copies the tnanners
and language of Queen ^4niie's time, must not omit the
Dedication to the Tatron ; and I ask leave to inscribe these
volumes to your Lordship for the sake of the great kindness
and friendship luhich I owe to you and yours.
d^y volumes 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, 1 shall gratefully regard you ; and
shall not be the less ivelcotned in ^-Imerica because I am
Your obliged friend and servant,
IV. M. THACKERAY.
London, October i8, 1852.
PAGE
DEDICATION vii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
INTRODUCTION xvii
PREFACE xxix
BOOK I
The early youth of Henry Esmond^ up to the time of his
leaving Trinity College^ in Cambridge
CHAP.
I. AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF ESMOND OF CASTLEWOOD
HALL 7
II. RELATES HOW FRANCIS, FOURTH VISCOUNT, ARRIVES AT
CASTLEWOOD 1 3
III. WHITHER IN THE TIME OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT, I
HAD PRECEDED HIM, AS PAGE TO ISABELLA . . 22
ix
Contents
69
79
no
CHAP. FACE
IV. I AM PLACED UNDER A POPISH PRIEST, AND BRED TO
THAT RELIGION — VISCOUNTESS CASTLEWOOD . . 34
V. MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORA-
TION OF KING JAMES II 42
VI. THE ISSUE OF THE PLOTS — THE DEATH OF THOMAS, THIRD
VISCOUNT OF CASTLEWOOD : AND THE IMPRISONMENT
OF HIS VISCOUNTESS 54
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 CASTLE
WOOD
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 II8
XII. MY LORD MOHUN COMES AMONG US FOR NO GOOD . -132
XIII. MY LORD LEAVES US AND HIS EVIL BEHIND HIM . . I43
XIV. WE RIDE AFTER HIM TO LONDON I57
BOOK II
Contains Mr. Esino/id's military life and otJier matters
appertaining^ to the Esmond faniily
I. I AM IN PRISON, AND VISITED, BUT NOT CONSOLED THERE 1 77
II. I COME TO THE END OF MY CAPTIVITY, BUT NOT OF MY
TROUBLE 187
III. I TAKE THE QUEEN's PAY IN QUIN'S REGIMENT . . I97
IV. RECAPITULATIONS 2o8
V. I GO ON THE VIGO BAY EXPEDITION, TASTE SALT WATER
AND SMELL POWDER 215
VI. THE 29TH DECEMBER 227
VII. I AM MADE WELCOME AT WALCOTE 235
VIII. FAMILY TALK 246
IX. I MAKE THE CAMPAIGN OF I704. 254
Contents
CHAP.
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 I706 .
XIII. I MEET AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE IN FLANDERS, AND FIND
MY mother's grave AND MY OWN CRADLE THERE .
XIV. THE CAMPAIGN OF I707, I708 ......
XV. GENERAL WEBB WINS THE BATTLE OF WYNENDAEL .
XI
PAGE
264
287
316
BOOK III
Containi7ig the end of Mr. Esmoid's ach'entures
in Etigland
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 KEN
SINGTON
XI. OUR GUEST QUITS US AS NOT BEING HOSPITABLE ENOUGH
XII. A GREAT SCHEME, AND WHO BAULKED IT .
XIII. AUGUST 1ST, 1 714
345
360
375
395
406
421
429
441
452
467
482
493
SCO
Where the beautiful Maid of Honour was the light about which a
thousand beaux came and fluttered .... Fro7itispiece
PAGE
Heading to Contents ......... ix
Heading to List of Illustrations ....... xiii
Heading to Introduction ........ xvii
Heading to Preface ......... xxix
My Lady ^^iscountess lighted upon him ... in the book-room . 7
As the boy was yet in this attitude of humilit\- .... 9
A hanger-on of ordinaries . . . . . . . .13
While his nephew slunk by ........ 18
Where he always used to preach and sing hymns .... 22
Or on public days introducing her company to her . . . -31
The next moment the brute's heels were in the air . . . .34
I have often seen the poor wretch come out with red eyes . . 37
The Conspiracy .......... 42
Which he tore out indignantly ....... 47
With the exception of this good-natured Corporal Steele ... 54
Lord Castlewood's stories rose by degrees ..... 69
He had consolations in the country . . . . . -7'
xiv List of Illustrations
Her cruel words smote the poor boy ....
Nancy Sievewright .......
The happiest hours of young Esmond's life
Doctor Tusher ........
And Harry remembered all his life after how he saw his mistress at
the window ........
She received the young man with even more favour than she showed
to the elder .........
And, with a sort of groan, rose up, and went out
After dinner they played bowls ......
Beatrix ...........
" By G — , my lord, you shall !" .
And so my lord was carried to a surgeon ....
.Some things he said concerned Harry Esmond as much as thej
astonished him ........
But the Lady Castlewood went back from him
Here the fair Beatrix entered from the river ....
" For who would not speak well in such a cause ?" .
My Lady Viscountess ........
Tale-bearers from St. Germains ......
Father Holt
The only blood which Mr. Esmond drew in this shameful campaign
She gave him her hand ........
Calling his dogs about him .......
"The Duchess found him on his knees to Mistress 'Trix"
Miss Beatrix had brought out a new gown for that day's dinner
" And young Sir Wilmot Crawley, of Queen's Crawley, and Anthony
Henley, of Alresford, were at swords drawn aliout her "
Rushing up to the very guns of the enemy
" Gloriana at the Harpsich(jrd " .....
And be ready to hand her to her chair if she deigned to accept of hi
services .........
Dick, after reading of the verses, was fain to go oft .
There sat my young lord, having taken off his cuirass
Esmond came to this spot in one sunny evening of spring
" How in half-an-hour's time, and before a bottle was drunk, he had
completely succeeded in biting poor Pastnureau "
Lieutenant-General Webl) . . . ' .
List of Illustrations
" Permit me to hand it to your Grace " .
" Kneel down," says she : "we dub you our knight with this "
And was down to piquet with her c^entlewoman l^efore he had well
quitted the room ........
Here, as he lay nursing himself, ul^iquitous Mr. Holtz reappeared
A joint composition from himself and his wife, who could spell no
better than her young scapegrace of a husband .
" Your constant reader, Cymon Wyldoats " ....
Rushing to the looking-glass and examining the effect they produced
He . . . who had injured him and kept him dangling in his ante
chamber ..........
" Who the devil are ye, sir ? "' cries the Doctor ...
" Vanity ! " says she haughtily. " What is vanity in you, sir, is pro
priety in mc " .
The street-criers were already out with their l^roadsides .
Years ago, on that very bed, she had blessed him and called him her
knight ..........
Beatrix came out to them just as their talk was over
The Vicar of Castlewood vowed he could not see any resemblance in
the piece ..........
The Prince seized hold of the glass and drank the last drop of it
And preparing paste and turning rolling-pins in the housekeeper':
closet ..........
She swept out of the room with the air of an empress
"Has your lordship anything to say?" says the Prince, turning to
Frank Castlewood ........
The two worthies . . . were .scared by seeing Colonel Esmond gallop
by them ..........
The night before that he had passed in his boots at the Crown at
Hounslow .........
The whole assembly o! officers seemed to swim away before Esmond'
eyes as he read the paper ......
The talk was scarce over when Beatrix entered the room .
SMOND is the very
Thackeray, Thackeray
as he would have Hked
always to be, if he had not been obliged to grin through a
collar at the British pubhc in order to make the domestic pot
boil. It concentrates his love for the eighteenth century;
it gives that curious amalgam of "detachment" and senti-
ment which makes up his Weltanschauung. It combines the
two attitudes of modern man and country gentleman, which
make Thackeray such a characteristic product of the period in
our history when the hegemony was passing from the one to
the other. Above all, it gives in places perfect specimens of
Thackeray's style — that style that made the man.
Thackeray in his own day was regarded on the one hand,
and most frequently, as an ironical cynic; on the other, and
mainly by Charlotte Bronte, as a great moral teacher. It is
difficult to understand either opinion. Cynic ! Why, if there
ever was a man who was steeped in sentiment, and at times
xvii ^
xviii Introduction
even in sentimentality, it was Thackeray ; and as for his moral
teaching, it was manly enough, or rather, gentlemanly enough,
but it never glows — it never climbs the heights. He himself
owned that there was a bit of snobbery in his crusade against
snobs. Alone of almost all that he did, Esmond shows no
trace of this failing ; it is written in the grand manner, almost
without faltering from beginning to end. Its genre is of the
historic novel, but it is not altogether like the historic novel
of any one else. It is not romantic ; nor, for all its adven-
tures, is it entirely a novel of adventure. It is in some ways
realistic ; yet it is wanting in one of the main characteristics
of the realistic novel — absence of comment on what is going
on. Colonel Esmond, in writing out his memories of his life
before he left England, has a way of dropping into ironic
comment very similar to that in which Arthur Pendennis
has his say on what is passing about him in his life in
London.
It is, therefore, Thackeray as Chorus, speaking through
a Queen Anne mask, that makes Esmond sui generis. Even
when Colonel Esmond is not talking by way of comment,
he often introduces long speeches which are nothing else
than Thackerayan. These he puts in the mouth of his hero,
or of Lady Castlewood, or even at times allows to issue from
the ruby lips of Beatrix herself. This is undramatic, to say
the least, and a person taking up the book and coming across
one of these passages would despair of finding any action in
its pages. But he would be mistaken. Nowhere else in
Thackeray is there so much bustle of real life. An artist
can have no difficulty in finding subjects for his pencil.
Thomas, third Viscount Castlewood, defending his Jezebel
of a wife from the insults of the mob ; the search for treason-
able papers in the said Jezebel's bedroom ; the three duels
with Mohun, and the final crossing of swords with the elder
Pretender ; General AV' ebb and the Uuke of Marlborough
at the Lille dinner, — any and all of these have as much
Introduction xix
movement in them as Dumas at his best.* Yet these are
interspersed with passages which help the action on not at
all. The chapter on the Wits (the fifth of the Third Book)
is quite a hors (Tceuvre, and yet what a kitcat of Swift it gives !
That chapter has wandered away from the Lectures on the
English Humourists (delivered in 185 1, the year before Esmond
was published), and is only fitted into the frame of Esmond
by the announcement of Hamilton's death, dragged in at the
end. So, too, the Addison bits. Full of truth and life as
they are, they have absolutely nothing to do with the evolu-
tion of Henry Esmond's career, yet they help to produce
the atmosphere which is as necessary a part ^ a historic
novel as the fighting or the intrigue. The same defence can
scarcely be given for the military details of Marlborough's
campaigns, for these have even still less to do with the plot
of the story, and — fatal defect — are dull in themselves. Only
one scene out of these stands out and really has vital connec-
tion with the plot, and that is the rencontre with the Pretender
at the banks of the Canihe.
Truth to tell, there is no plot in Esmond till we reach the
Third Book, to which the two preceding ones are merely pro-
legomena. That is your difficulty with the autobiographic
novel : in form it is biography, and hence you have to deal
with periods of life which have little bearing upon the central
plot — if there is to be one. Thackeray is perhaps more
ingenious than usual in securing a separate interest for the
earlier stages of Esmond's career. The first two books, so
far as they have a common interest, deal with the mystery of
Esmond's birth, and so in some sort prepare the way for the
prominent position he takes in the intrigues of Book III. ; but
in themselves they are little more than a set of disconnected
* It is perhaps worth while remarking that Mr. Robinson, when de-
picting these and other scenes in the present edition, has endeavoured to
reproduce the actual features of Webb and Marlborough, and the other
historic personages, wherever they occur.
XX Introduction
episodes, the only artistic purpose of which is to bring out the
characters of the hero, of the woman who loved him, and of
the woman he loved.
Here we have indeed the crux of the book. It is part of
the novelist's stock-in-trade to place his hero in this position
of unstable equilibrium, but among English novels, so far as
I can recollect, only Estnond makes the two women between
whom the hero hesitates mother and daughter. To some
there is something repulsive and unnatural in the rivalry ; but
perhaps the real cause of objection is not so much in the rela-
tionship of the two heroines (if we may call them so), as in the
disparity of age between Esmond and Lady Castlewood. True,
Esmond is older than his age ; and his lady, from her country
breeding and tender purity, is younger than hers. If the scene
had been placed in the present day, there would not have been
so much incongruity in recording a match, which, after all, is
by no means infrequent in daily experience ; but it ill accords
with our notions of the historic novel, which, for one reason or
another, we require to be romantic in tone. We cannot, how-
ever much we try, associate any romance with such a union ;
but Es/nond alone, of all historic novels, does not claim to be
romantic. It is perhaps unfair to deny Thackeray the right of
choosing his tone.
It is perhaps in the character of Esmond himself that the
chief fault lies. " Esmond is a bit of a prig," said Thackeray
to Anthony TroUope, and Beatrix says something like it in
the book itself. We want our heroes in novels to be bright
and brave, but we do not want them faultless. Esmond is
brave, but he is Don Dismallo, and he is dangerously near
being faultless. One is tempted to like young Frank Castle-
wood better than Esmond ; and it is certainly unnatural, and
not too artistic, to make Esmond so uniformly superior to
his company. Whatever society he is in, he seizes and
exposes its weaknesses and failings. To a certain extent
this is justified by the fact that it is Colonel Esmond in his
Introduction xxi
old age writing of the times of his youth, but still more is it
due to the choice of the autobiographic form for the historic
novel in this instance. When he drops into " I's " and
" me's " Thackeray could not help putting his own comments
into the mouth of Henry Esmond, who is thereby made to
view life with the " detachment " of the professional novelist.
He tries to avoid it by a somewhat curious procedure. He
is perpetually confounding the persons in his narrative between
the first and the third when he is speaking of Esmond.
While at times be says "the Colonel" said this, or "Mr.
Esmond" did that, the titles of his chapters run, "I am in
prison," and very often the first person is used in comments.
A curious instance of this confusion occurs in perhaps the
best-known passage of the book — the visit of Esmond to
his mother's grave. It commences, "Esmond came to this
spot in one sunny evening of spring," and finishes, " I felt
as one who had been walking below the sea, and treading
amidst the bones of shipwrecks." In this particular instance
the change is by no means inartistic, for the statement of
fact is put in the third person, the expression of feeling in
the first. But in the rest of the book it indicates a vacillat-
ing attitude of the author towards his hero, which is not
without its effects on the impression he makes upon us. In
particular, the wit combats between Beatrix and Esmond, and
the passages of tenderness between her mother and him, lose
much of their convincing character by the adoption of the
third person for the conversations, with the interpolation of
the first person for the comments.
Beatrix is undoubtedly a good foil for Esmond. No one
can accuse her of being faultless, no one is less of a prig than
she. It is curious how definite an impression her character
makes on one, considering the few appearances she makes
in the story ; but she is drawn in bold outline from the first,
and from the day she sets her father and Lord Mohun by
the ears she plays consistently the part of Eris. Of the two
xxii Introduction
alternatives, " Ye cannot serve God and Mammon," she early
makes her choice and sticks to it. There is something of
tragic intensity in the pitiless way in which Thackeray draws
her relentless ambition. Yet with it all she charms, for she
is a woman. She could kindle at a heroism, as when she
is told of Esmond's great renunciation before the Duke of
Hamilton. She offers Esmond her cheek, though she knew
it would make the Duke furious ; but probably she knew
her power over him — the witch ! — and so we cannot put this
womanly touch down to any faltering in her purpose. There
can be no doubt that such a Beatrix might have grown old as
the Baroness Bernstein.
I am not sure that Lady Castlewood is not a greater
achievement in character-drawing than Beatrix herself We
are too apt, perhaps, to judge of the success of a character in a
novel by the simple test of whether we should like the person
described or not. That would place the drawing of fools or
villains at a discount, and where should we be without fools
or villains ? It does not follow, because any one would like
Beatrix better than her mother, that the drawing of the latter
is not a greater triumph of artistic skill. It was, at any rate,
a more difficult character to draw, because more complex.
She is to be described as wife, as mother, as widow, and as
lover — mistress we can scarcely call her, for almost to the last
page Beatrix holds that position. The explanation, perhaps, is
that Beatrix is a man's woman, while Lady Castlewood is a
woman's woman. Now, for the post of heroine we obviously
want the former kind of woman rather than the latter ; hence
Lady Castlewood, though really much more elaborately drawn
than her daughter, holds throughout the book a subordinate
position. Yet with what fine touches is her character built
up ! In her way she is the first New Woman in English
fiction. By what natural gradations does she become aware
of her superiority to her lout of a husband ! She is just the
sort of woman to love a prig, and the growth of her affection
Introduction xxiii
for Esmond is most subtly and naturally indicated. We could
have wished, perhaps^ that she had not confessed it so openly
on that Silvester-night, but in this absence of the higher reti-
cences she is perhaps still more markedly a prefigurement of
the New Woman. Then the hectic play of jealousy is admi-
rably described, and the theme of matre pulcra filia pulcrior
is played out in all its variations without our ever losing our re-
spect. She doubles the role of admiring mother and jealous
rival with consistent fidelity to each character. She is indeed
a triumph of Thackeray's art.
Esmond and the two ladies fill the stage throughout, but
many of the minor characters are drawn with equal firmness,
and often strut the stage with convincing life. Father Holt,
in particular, strikes one as an etching from life. He is
drawn, perhaps, with a touch of malice, and reminds us that
his portrait was painted at the time when England was in an
uproar about Papal Aggression. He goes to and fro upon the
earth with his semi-omniscience, and never devours any one.
He is what Jews call a Shlemihl, one who never succeeds in
what he attempts, yet it is not his own fault. So, too, Steele
is brought upon the stage as large as life, and quite as natural,
but even a feebler pen than Thackeray's would have made
something amusing out of Sir Richard's foibles. It was
natural, too, that Swift and Atterbury and Sl John should be
put in with firm touches, for Thackeray had lived with them
all his life, and had just been doing injustice to them in his
English Humourists.
But the chief success in portraiture among the minor char-
acters— if we may call him one — is the three-quarter-length of
the elder Pretender. His was a character after Thackeray's
own heart. There was a touch of the Republican in the author
of Vanity Fair ; he was never so well pleased as when he could
draw Louis the Fourteenth without his wig, or Queen Anne
blowzed at her stag-hunting. The Stuarts were a race of
Shlemihls. Except the Merry Monarch, they always succeeded
xxiv Introduction
in failing in what they undertook. The Divine Right of Kings
to govern wrongly never received a more convincing Nemesis,
and of all the Stuarts James the Third appears to have been
the most despicable. He was exactly one of Daudet's Rois e?i
Exile. One need not so much object to his harem, for the
first two Georges could not claim any superiority oyer him in
that regard ; but his tippling and his treachery, his want of
dignity and lack of character, were enough to have ruined the
most righteous of causes. One does not know if Thackeray
had any warrant in making him so personally attractive as the
Chevalier de St. George certainly appears in Esmond. He
has certainly succeeded in giving him just those qualities which
would attract the fidelity of his followers, and ruin their best-
laid schemes for his restoration. Beatrix and he are well
matched.
I have spoken above of the fidelity with which the wits of
the period are portrayed in Thackeray's pages. He had just
been studying them for his Lectures, but besides this it is clear
from his style that he had been studying them all his life. He
was, in a way, a Queen Anne man writing under Victoria. His
style, even outside his historic romances, has all the best
qualities of the Queen Anne period — perfect ease and lucidity,
a sure balance between the Saxon and Latin elements, together
with a not too obtrusive reminiscence of the classic studies of
boyhood.* All this we find in Addison, and Steele, and Swift,
and we find it again in Thackeray. He shared even in what
they lacked, if one can manage to do that. The imaginative
qualities of his style are poor, the epithets are conventional,
and the rhythm thin. But notwithstanding this, after the
ponderosities of the Johnsonian school men hailed Thackeray's
style as a model of perspicuity and grace.
But when Thackeray's admirers go further and indulge in
* The first edition of Esmond even adopted tlie long s's of the Queen
Anne printers. These have been omitted in the present reprint, which in
all else follow that edition.
Introduction xxv
raptures on the historic suitableness of the style for a romance
dealing with the Queen Anne period, they seem somewhat to
overstate their case. Though modelled on the Queen Anne
style, it is far too correct for an imitation. There was a touch
of the sloven about their style ; their sentences often do not
parse, and clear as their meaning is they often defy analysis in
the technical sense of the word. Thackeray was too much of
a scholar in English to follow them in this characteristic of
their style, and hence his imitation, by being in a sense better
than the original, fails to be an imitation. The following
sentence in the first chapter of Book III. is almost the only
one that fails to analyse, and thereby approaches the laxity
of the Queen Anne period : "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." The subject of the
preceding sentence is "the sentries of the two armies," and
cannot therefore be referred to by the mysterious "they" of
this sentence.
Thackeray himself rebukes his admirers in this regard by
offering them a specimen of what he could do when he was of
set purpose imitating the Queen Anne writers. In his pseudo-
Spectator he writes out a fair copy in this style, and one can see
that it is of a different tenor to the rest of the work. It has
its inaccuracies ("showing a very fine taste both in the tailor
and wearer ") ; yet even here his hand falters for a moment,
and when he would prophesy of the Baroness Bernstein
he drops into the rhythm and phraseology of his own
century : " '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."
xxvi Introduction
Had Thackeray The Virginians in mind when he wrote
Esfiio?id? The sentence just quoted would seem to indi-
cate his intention to draw Beatrix in her old age. It was a
favourite theme of his — the once wit and beauty, now old and
rich, as witness Miss Crawley, Lady Kew, and the Baroness
Bernstein. But this is the only time that he went back
and showed the character in the making. The three books,
Esmond, The Virginians, and Pendennis, give us a sort of
family history of the Esmond- Warringtons. (I suppose the
George Warrington of Fendennis is supposed to be the
grandson of the George of The Virginians.) It is indeed
an ingenious way of writing a family history, which shall,
technically, form a page out of the social history of Eng-
land. A German historian, Dahn, has done the thing on
an even larger scale, and written, in an innumerable series of
volumes, the history of a German family, from the time when
wild in wood they ran about as savages, up to (if I remember
rightly) the War of Liberation in 1811. But Thackeray knew
his limitations as well as his powers, and was wise in keeping
himself to the times he knew thoroughly. He has, at any
rate, almost entirely avoided the great pitfall of the historical
novelist, anachronism. I have only noticed a single one of
these in the whole book. Beatrix, in 17 14, could not have
understood Esmond's reference to the Glawrie of Peter
Wilkins which appeared in 1750. Yet even this inaccuracy
might conceivably be due to a lapse of Colonel Esmond's
memory, writing somewhere in the Fifties. So too, according
to one passage, " Mr. Esmond's commission was scarce three
years old when the accident befell King William," yet in the
amusing Anglo-French letter which the Jezebel of a vis-
countess writes to Esmond while in prison, there is a reference
to "la reine Anne." Again, Mohun is made to marry both
before and after Castlewood's death. But these slight dis-
crepancies, which are the only ones I have noticed, might be
put down to lapses of memory on the part of Colonel Esmond,
Introduction xxvii
instead of failure to make the "flats join" on the part of
Thackeray.*
But in reality the book is one huge anachronism of tone
and sentiment, if not of statement of fact. A man can no
more get out of his century than he can get out of his skin.
The sceptical and " detached " tone in which Colonel Esmond
reviews the events of his early life would have been impossible
for any one writing in the middle of the eighteenth century. The
Age of Reason may have had different ideals from those of the
former centuries, but it believed in its own, however thin and
unsubstantial they may have been. It was only in the middle
of this century that men began to doubt of all ideals, and so the
hesitancies and dubieties of Colonel Esmond about religious
and political ideals represent fairly enough perhaps Thackeray's
own attitude towards the deeper problems, but they would not
have been possible for a Colonel Esmond of the early part of
the eighteenth century.
It is this incongruity between the spirit of the age in which
he writes and the spirit of the one of which he writes that
perhaps is the principal and all-pervading blemish of Esmond.
After all, Thackeray was writing of an age when men still wore
swords at their sides. Burke had not yet had occasion to sign
the dirge of the age of chivalry, yet Thackeray wrote of this
period in the spirit of the age when Manchester ruled supreme
in England — of what we may call " the coal-scuttle-bonnet
period." There is something borne and bourgeois in Thackeray's
attitude towards both the present and the past. He is the
London cit judging of the world's affairs. He never kindles,
though he sometimes gushes. It is all this that has repelled
Mr. Henley, who judges Thackeray perhaps too harshly on
that account. But Mr. Henley, for so manly a man, often
takes very womanly prejudices, and Thackeray's attitude was
* The fact that there was a Duchess of Hamilton living at the time of
the Duke's death stands on a different footing. Tliat is a legitimate
author's license.
xxviii Introduction
perfectly justified when he dealt with his contemporaries at a
period which was pre-eminently bourgeois. He was one of the
products of the Reform Bill of 1832, but the England of his
time was also one of its products, and so he has full right to
speak for it.
Esmond is a proof that Thackeray was aware of his own
limitations and of those of his age. The very stir and bustle
of the events he narrates rouse him at times out of his middle-
class attitude. He fully rises to the occasion in the scene in
which Esmond's true position is explained to the Duke of
Hamilton. The crossing of swords of Esmond and the Pre-
tender is also dealt with in a manner worthy of his theme,
though here the Thackeray of The Newco7nes has his say,
and the Pretender finishes the scene with a touch w^orthy of
Florae.
But with all its inadequacies of handling and incongruity
of tone, Esmond remains one of the masterpieces of English
fiction. Most of its characters live, most of its incidents stand
out clearly in the memory. Of how many English novels can
one say the same ?
JOSEPH JACOBS.
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 Rappahannoc, 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 fore-
fathers 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.
XXX Preface
for long after the Restoration, our family received from their
Virginian estates.
My dear and honoured father, Colonel Henry Esmond,
whose history, written by himself, is contained in the accom-
panying volumes, 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 honour 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 be-
stowed 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
son's children, whether established here in our Republick 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 vouch-
safed to me in the birth of my two beloved boys. I
know the fatal differences which separated them in politicks
never disunited their hearts ; and, as I can love them both,
whether wearing the King's colours or the RepubUck'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
Preface xxxi
infancy in the practice and knowledge of Truth, and Love,
and Honour.
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 eye-
brows 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 extra-
ordinary 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 inde-
pendence.
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
XXX ii Preface
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 honoured 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 volumes 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 com-
mands, 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 splendour 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
Preface xxxiii
England and the purchased negroes, obeyed him with an
eagerness such as the most severe task-masters 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 f^ase with him, and brought down the most arrogant by
a grave satirick 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 gentle-
men 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
xxxiv Preface
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 Pre-
tender, 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 favourite 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
favourite, 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 third
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, Castle-
wood was so enraged against him that he asked leave to serve
as a volunteer, and join the Duke of Argyle's army in Scot-
land, which the Pretender never had the courage to face : and
thenceforth my lord was quite reconciled to the present reign-
ing family, from whom he hath even received promotion.
Preface xxxv
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.
BOOK I
THE EARLY YOUTH OF HENRY ESMOND, UP TO
THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING TRINITY
COLLEGE, IN CAMBRIDGE
THE HISTORY OF
HENRY ESMOND
BOOK THE FIRST
THE actors in the old tragedies, as we read, piped their
iambics to a tune, speaking from under a masl<, and
wearing stilts and a great head-dress. 'Twas thought
the dignity of the Tragick 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
musick : 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
4 The History of Henry Esmond
barber who shaved him, or Monsieur Fagon his surgeon?
I wonder shall History ever pull off her peF»ft'ig 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 Saint 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 heroick : 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 heir to that honour 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 honours, 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 for-
gave him), and where his second brother Edward, who had
Our most Religious King 5
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 hence-
forward, 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 him-
self 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 blas-
phemy to claim Olympus for such a wine-drabbled divinity
as that.
About the King's follower the Viscount Castlewood —
orphaned 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 huzza to it as it passes in its gilt coach : and would
do my little part with my neighbours on foot that they should
not gape with too much wonder, nor applaud too loudly. Is
6 The History of Henry Esmond
it the Lord Mayor going in state to mince-pies and the Man-
sion House? Is it poor Jack of Newgate's procession, with
the sheriff and javeHn-men, conducting him on his last journey
to Tyburn ? I look into my heart and think I am 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.
^ly Lady Viscountess lighted upon him
in the book-
CHAPTER I
AN ACCOUNT OF THE FA:\IILY 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 x\ntonio 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
8 The History of Henry Esmond
off to her house at Chelsea, near to London, the picture of
herself by Sir Peter Lely, in which her ladyship was repre-
sented 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 certl\ 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 gentle-
woman 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 ha,nd on his head, and saying
some words to him, which were so kind and said in a voice
IWorshiponmyKnees 9
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
rr
' V^ ^3^ ^
As the hoy was yet in this attitude of humility
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
lo The History of Henry Esmond
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 1 " 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 knee ; 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 7ia que nous" says the lady, looking
to her lord ; and the boy, who understood her, though doubt-
less 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 Castle-
wood 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 dependent ; no relative, though he bore the name and in-
herited 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 huzzaed when his carriage
approached and rolled into the court-yard of the hall,) no one
ever took any notice of young Harry Esmond, who sate un-
observed and alone in the book-room, until the afternoon of
that day, when his new friends found him.
My Lord is Forty-four Years Old ii
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 musick-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 beauti-
ful 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 land-
scape 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
12 The History of Henry Esmond
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 no dinner, nobody thinking of him in the
bustle which the house was in, during the preparations ante-
cedent 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 readily. 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 lord-
ship'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.
A hanger-on of ordinaries
CHAPTER II
RELATES HOW FRANCIS, FOURTH VISCOUNT, ARRIVES
AT CASTLEWOOD
'HP]
'IS 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 of Esmond, and Lord of Castle-
wood, 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 subse-
quently, 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
14 The History of Henry Esmond
sums of money to that unfortunate Prince ; and receiving
many wounds in the battles against the ImperiaHsts, 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 honour might aspire to, the daughter
of Thomas 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 de-
vised 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 con-
sent 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 posses-
sion 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
honours. He was succeeded by his eldest son, the before-
named George ; and left issue besides, Thomas, a colonel in the
A Viscountess out of Bruges 15
King's army, that afterward 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 Castle-
wood were sold and apportioned to the Commonwealth men ;
Castlew'ood 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 honour 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 strip-
ling, 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 this
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 con-
sider 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 behaviour. His friends rallied
i6 The History of Henry Esmond
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 dis-
covering that his promotion depended on the complaisance
of his elderly affianced bride. He and Churchill, who had
been cofidiscipuli 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 honour 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 afterward, his cousin whom he had refused.
By places, pensions, bounties from France, and gifts from
the King, whilst his daughter was in favour, Lord Castlewood,
w'ho had spent in the Royal service his youth and fortune, did
not retrieve the latter quite, and never cared to visit Castle-
wood, or repair it, since the death of his son, but managed to
keep a good house, and figure at Court, and to save a con-
siderable sum of ready money.
And now, his heir and nephew, Thomas Esmond, began
to bid for his uncle's favour. I'homas had served with the
Emperor, and with the Dutch, when King Charles was com-
pelled 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 ordi-
naries, 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
T. Esmond is Converted ly
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 ; ail the red and white in all the toy-shops of London
could not make a beauty of her — Mr. Killigrew called her the
Sibyl, 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 rumour 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 am-
bassador'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 difiiculty 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 his 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 fiy-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,
B
i8 The History of Henry Esmond
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 con-
stantly in attendance
on the child, and
experimenting on
his poor little body
with every conceiv-
able 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 1am-
'^ pooners 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 cor-
ruption.
The mother's natu-
ral pang at losing
this poor little child
must have been in-
creased when she
thought of her rival
Frank Esmond's
wife, who was a favourite of the whole Court, where my poor
Eady Castlewood was neglected, and who had one child, a
1 1 liilc his iiepheii) slunk by
We are Disgraced at Court 19
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 Castle-
wood, 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 favour, '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 de-
lighted to honour, and in which that ill-favoured 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 \\'arden of the Butteries
and Groom of the King's Posset, which the two last Lords
Castlewood had held so honourably, and which was now con-
ferred upon a fellow of yesterday, and a hanger-on of that
odious Dorchester creature, my Lord Bergamot.* "I never,"
* Lionel Tipton, created Baron Bergamot ann. i6S6, 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.
20 The History of Henry Esmond
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.
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 obedi-
ence, and so broke up her establishment at London ; she had
removed from Lincoln's-Inn- Fields to Chelsea, 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 Commonwealth men. A part of the mansion was re-
stored and furbished up with the plate, hangings, and furni-
ture 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, si.x horses to her carriage,
and servants armed and mounted, following it and preced-
ing it. But 'twas in the height of the No Popery cry ; the
folks in the village and the neighbouring 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 honourable Viscountess were afterwards in the
habit of designating her. The country was then in a great no-
popery fervour ; 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 favour at first in the county or village. By
far the greater part of the estate of (Castlewood had been con-
fiscated, and been parcelled out to Commonwealth men. One
or two of these old Cromw^ellian soldiers were still alive in the
Lady Jezebel 21
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 splendour 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 r)r. 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 rumour),
was looked upon as the real queen of the Castle, and mistress
of all it contained.
UV/c'/v he ahvays used to preach and sing hymns
CHAPTER III
WHITHER IN THE TIME OF THOjMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT,
I HAD PRECEDED HIM, AS PACIE TO ISABELLA
COMING up to London again some short time after this
retreat, the Lord Castlewood dispatched a retainer of
his to a Httle 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.
Tiiere he had a dear, dear friend, who died, and whom
I LEAVE Ealing 23
he called Aunt. She used to visit him in his dreams some-
times ; 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 some-
times. 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 step-
mother, 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 res-cue 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
24 The History of Henry Esmond
whimpered rather when the gentleman in black came for the
boy; and old Mr. Pastoureau, as he gave the child his bless-
ing, 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 pre-
tended to cry, Harry thought 'twas only a sham, and sprang
quite delighted upon the horse upon which the lacquey 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 lacquey 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 P-smond ; that my Lord Viscount
Castlewood was \\\s parrai?i ; 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.
" Cest hieti fa," he said to the priest, after eyeing the child,
and the gentleman in black shrugged his shoulders.
" Let Blaise take him out for a holyday," and out for a holy-
day 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
Father Holt catechises Me 25
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 armour, and the great lions and bears in
the moats — 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 gentle-
man ; Monsieur Blaise, and Harry on a pillion behind him,
and two or three men with pistols and 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 gentle-
man in the boy's favour, for next day Mr. Holt said Harry
should ride behind him, and not with the French lacquey ; 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-laugh-
ing ; and even caused his ^^^rand parrai?i 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 wdll 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.
26 The History of Henry Esmond
" '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 ISIr. 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 Doctor 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 grey
towers and vanes on them, and windows flaming in the sun-
shine ; 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 god-
papa, when the Frenchman said, " Pari? leu, 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
My Lady Viscountess 27
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 de-
scended 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 coloured glass, painted of
a thousand hues ; and here in state, by the fire, sate 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 intro-
duction— 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 sate 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-coloured 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 odour 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,
28 The History of Henry Esmond
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
honour, Master Henry Esmond," ]\Ir. 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 meiirs oh je 7?i'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 bratich 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 ;
I ASK Questions
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 Aladame 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. MadameTusher 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.
30 The History of Henry Esmond
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 ^neas, 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 parlours, above them the long musick-
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 ])art of his
duty, which was easy enough, from the groom of her ladyship's
Castlewood
31
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,
.iA\
^^^/^
#«^:l5^^*
/"fe^
im
.^
m^,
\ y
.#-
^:
Or on public days introducing her company to her
of whom there were a pretty many in the country and neigh-
bouring 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
32 The History of Henry Esmond
society it was curious to contrast the difference of behaviour
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 ecjual, 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, Harry Esmond had little diffi-
culty in recognising 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 cypher in the house, and entirely under his domineering
partner. A little fowling, a little hunting, a great deal of sleep,
and a long time 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 him-
self 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 treat-
ing 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
our 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
Magna est Veritas 33
join that wonderful brotherhood, which was present through-
out 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 neighbour, 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.
The next moment the brute' s heels tuere in the air
CHAPTER IV
I AM PLACED UNDER A POPISH PRIEST, AND BRED TO THAT
RELIGION — VISCOUNTESS CASTLEWOOD
HAD time enough been given and his childish inclina-
tions 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 bright-
ness of wit and good-humour that charmed all, by an authority
34
Mr. Holt is called away 35
which he knew how to assume, by a mystery and silence about
him which increased the childs 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 con-
stant 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 hbrary, and bewildered his little brains with the great
books he found there.
After a while the little lad grew accustomed to the loneli-
ness 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 gatehouse 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
Commonwealth men. 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-
36 The History of Henry Esmond
chainbn\ 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 subse-
quent kindness to him, these severities, which it must be
owned made his childhood very unhappy. She was but un-
happy 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 Ur. 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
1 PEEP INTO Prohibited Books
37
long ; one after another tried and failed at it. These and the
housekeeper, and Httle 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 lady-
ship 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 whip-
ping, 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 scape-
grace with a delightful
wicked comedy of Mr.
Shadwell's or Mr. Wycher-
ley's under his pillow.
These, when he took
any, were my lord's favour-
ite 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 ELsmond 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
/ have often seen the poor rvretch come
out -with red eyes
38 The History of Henry Esmond
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, sh^
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 neighbouring 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 cock-fight, 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 went 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
I AM ASSAILED BY THE MoB 39
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 in 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 scream-
ing blackguards ! How dare you attack children, and insult
women ? Fling another shot at that carriage, you sneaking
pigskin cobbler, and, by the Lord, Fll 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 Fm a magistrate of
40 The History of Henry Esmond
this county, I'll commit you." The fellow shrunk back, and
my lord retreated with all the honours 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 comphmented 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.
'1 here 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
King William LANDS 41
Chapel windows, but the village people turned out ; and even
old Sievewright, 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 Castle-
wood Hall.
A kingdom w^as 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.
The Conspiracy
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, Job Lockwood,
the porter's son, might go to the pond and see what fortune
had brought them. At daybreak Job was to awaken him, but
his own eagerness for the sport had served as a reveilkz 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
42
Father Holt pays a Visit 43
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 recognising
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
mantelpiece 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
44 The History of Henry Esmond
he usually kept locked, and from which he now took out two
or three dresses and perruques of different colours, a couple of
swords of a pretty make (Father Holt was an expert practi-
tioner 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 mantelpiece 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 cypher related
to politicks, 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-humoured 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
The Chaplain's Window 45
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 bookshelf;
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 fare-
well, 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 firm 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 this 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 after-
wards, 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
46 The History of Henry Esmond
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 indig-
nantly when they bid 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 friend-
ship between the lads, as propinquity and tolerable kindness
and good-humour on either side would be pretty sure to occa-
sion. Tom Tusher was sent off early, however, to a school
Tom Tusher
47
in London, whither his father took him and a volume of ser-
mons in the first year of the reign of King James ; and Tom
returned but once a year afterwards to Castlevvood for many
.i 1 - f' 1 M^ fflS 4^ ^1" •
4ti.(v i
Which he tore out indignantly
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
48 The History of Henry Esmond
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 iipon 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
gentlemen 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 tolera-
tion that Dutch monster made, or in a single word the per-
jured 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
Adversity makes Friends 49
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 7}ie 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 honoured me ! "
The publick 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 demeanour.
Father Holt came to the Hall constantly, but ofificiated no
longer openly as chaplain ; he was always fetching and carry-
ing : 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
D
50 The History of Henry Esmond
sudden reappearances, using sometimes the means of exit
which Father Holt had employed, though how often the litde
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 re-
marking that the priest's journeys were constant, and under-
standing 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 inde-
fatigable 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 Greys and
Dragoons, then quartered at Newbury, should declare for the
July 1690 51
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 vic-
tory 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 ofiicer 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 panick, the cow-boy coming
52 The History of Henry Esmond
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 grey 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 to 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 scared 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
IhaveaLetter 53
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 Ecossois
declared an hour too soon — General Ginckel was down upon
thfm. 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 upstairs to his mistress's apartment, where her gentle-
woman 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 manu-
script 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 toilette 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 Job 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. Job
had but two minutes the start of them, and ere he had well
told his story, the troop rode into our courtyard.
With the exception of this gpod-7iatured Corporal Steele
CHAPTER VI
THE ISSUE OK 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
f\ (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
The Soldiers at Castle wood 55
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, con-
fined to her bed with the rheumatism.
By this time the soldiers had reached Castlewood. Harry
Esmond saw them from the window of the tapestry parlour :
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 handsom.e kind man, and the lawyer
came through the ante-room, to the tapestry parlour, 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.
$6 The History of Henry Esmond
The curtains of her ladyship's room were down, and the
chamber dark, and she was in bed with a night-cap 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 non-juring 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 to 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, chatter-
ing 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,
" A^on, Jamais, Alonsimr Pofficier ! Jatuais ! 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
Venus RISES 57
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
authorised 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 ma}i 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
58 The History of Henry Esmond
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 handwriting — 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 ot
Esmond on my Lord Castlewood, and the heirs male of his
body ; his appointment as Lord Lieutenant of the County,
and Major-General.*
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,
* To liavo this rank of Marquis restored in the family had always been
my Lady Viscountess's aml)ili()n ; and her old maiden aunt, Barl)ara Top-
ham, the tjoldsmith's daughter, dying about this lime, and leaving all her
property to Lady Castlewood, I have heard thai 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 parisli church, and was
only appeased liy the Marquis's title which his exiled Majesty sent to him
in return for the ^^i 5,000 his faithful subject lent him.
They SEEK for Papers 59
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 kins-
man, to say that one Captain Holton had been with him
offering him large bribes to join you know zvho, 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 English-
man's, was to keep the country quiet, and the French out of
it : and, in fine, that he w^ould 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.
6o The History of Henry Esmond
"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 labouring 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.' O 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, Uick, come in here and construe."
A thick-set soldier, with a square good humoured 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 West-
bury.
" '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."
My Lady GOES TO Prison 6i
" 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 succour the miserable, and that's not your trade,
Mr. Sheepskin," said the trooper.
"You had better leave Dick the Scholar alone, Air. 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 fervour, 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 otifices 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 impli-
cated ; 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.
62 The History of Henry Esmond
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
parlour, 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 good-
ness 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 theolo-
gical 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 be-
gan to instance a number of saints of the Church, from the
Dick the Scholar 63
protomartyr downwards — "this one's fire went out under
him ; that one's oil cooled in the cauldron ; 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, wuth 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 cauldron, if it did not boil one day, boiled the next.
Howbeit, in our times, the Church has lost that questionable
advantage of respites. There was never 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 Doctor Cudworth's which
your priest was quoting from, and which suffered martyrdom
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 — Doctor Cudworth says, ' A good conscience is the
best looking-glass of heaven ' — and there's a serenity in my
friend's face which always reflects it — I wish you could see
him, Harry."
64 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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 seqiii."
" 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 hang-
ing 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 Lifeguards 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 West-
bury and Lieutenant Trant, who were always kind to the lad.
They remained for some weeks or months encamped in Castle-
wood, 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
The Dowager in Prison 65
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
Madame Francis Esmond, in m.arrying her cousin, had done
one of those irretrievable wrongs to Lady Castlewood. But
as she was now humiliated and in misfortune, Madame Francis
could allow a truce to her enmity, and could be kind, for a
while at least, to her husbands 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 Ciovernment 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. W^hat hap-
pened 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 apprehen-
sion of one or the other considerable, it was deemed advisable
that they should separate ; and the priest betook himself to
E
66 The History of Henry Esmond
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 fight
upon Thomas of Castlewood ! He who writes this must
speak in charity, though this lord did him and his two griev-
ous 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 com-
fort 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
arbour.
" 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 T don't care to repeat," Harry an.swered.
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
At the Boyne 67
man who had most Hkely stained his mother's honour 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 nniciim
filiuni suum dilectissimuin 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 soli-
tary condition : — how he had a father and no father ; a name-
less 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 deathbed 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
68 The History of Henry Esmond
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 sate
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, what-
ever it was, which was over him.
iMrd Castlewood' s stories rose by degrees
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 debetiir piieris reverefifia, 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 sensi-
bility above his years, and a great and praiseworthy discretion,
69
JO The History of Hknry Esmond
confided to Harry his love for a vintner's daughter, near to the
Toll Yard, 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 Castle-
wood, 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 Harry 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, be-
came 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 certt\ thought he, remembering the
lines out of the ^-Eneis 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
Mv Idol
71
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
He had cofisolations in the country
worship. To catch her glance ; to divine her errand and run
on it before she had spoken it ; to watch, follow, adore her
^2 The History of Henry Esmond
—became the business of his Hfe. 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 fore-
most, 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 his 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
abed, this fair young lady of Castlewood, her little daughter
at her knee, and her domesticks gathered round her, reading
the Morning Prayer of the English Church. Esmond long
A Priestess 73
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 ser-
vants 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 parlour ; 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 appeal-
ing 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 labours, futile perhaps, but in which they could not join
him. His dear mistress divined his thoughts with her usual
74 The History of Henry Esmond
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 every-
thing 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 per-
sisted 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 Orand 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 per-
sisted 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 ! vacucc sedes et inania arcana. And now, supposing
our lady to have a fine genius and a brilliant wit of her own,
Francis Viscount Castle wood 75
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 sub-
limity ; 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
favours from his patron to speak in any but a reverential
manner of his elders ; but the present writer has had descen-
dants 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 indif-
ference, 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 ac-
quaintances, 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-humoured 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 per-
fection— shooting at a mark and flying, breaking horses, riding
at the ring, pitching the quoit, playing at ail games with great
^6 The History of Henry Esmond
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 testi-
fied 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. (\Ve 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 colours, black, red, or grey, 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, " Fye, 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
I ENGAGE AT FlSTY-CUFFS "J"]
owned, even with regard to that other angel, his mistress, tliat
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 which
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 Castle-
wood 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 airs, 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, pro-
nounced 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 four-
teen years of age, with Bryan Hawkshaw, Sir John Hawk-
shaw's son, of Bramblebrook, who, advancing this opinion
that my lady was jealous, and henpecked my lord, put Harry
into 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 inter-
rupted 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 ! "
78 The History of Henry Esmond
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, Hawk-
shaw did not care to continue a fight with such a ferocious
opponent as this had been.
Her cruel words smote the pour boy
CHAPTER VHI
AFTER GOOD FORTUNE COMES EVIL
SINCE my Lady Mary Wortly 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 that the beautiful but the strongest were
79
8o The History of Henry Esmond
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 black-
smith'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 alehouse for men, which his wife kept ; and his
company sate 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 magnetick attraction which
draws people together from ever so far. I blush as I think
of poor Nancy now, in a red boddice and buxom purple
cheeks and a canvass 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 en-
chantress, 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
mist 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 in-
fection ; for the truth is, that Mr. Harry had been silting in
a back room for an hour that day, where Nancy Sievewright
was with a little brother who complained of headache, and was
A Panick
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 Win-
chester.
" 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 Simons lodges
with them — I can
never go into my read-
ing-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, / 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
Nancy Sievewright
82 The History of Henry Esmond
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 tem-
poral, 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 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 milk-
maid'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 embrace
one or the other alone. She would turn pale and red with
rage if she caught signs of intelligence or affection between
Esmond 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 sate at her embroidery, would utter
infantine sarcasms about the favour shown to her brother.
Beatrix 83
These, if spoken in the presence of Lord Castlewood, tickled
and amused his humour; 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 ver)' 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 parlour
drinking ale and punch with Jack and Tom than in his wife's
drawing-room; whither, if he came, he brought only too often
blood-shot 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 sate 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 sufiiciently (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
84 The History of Henry Esmond
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 per-
fected 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 alehouse ? '' 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 fire-
place— 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 alehouse, 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 honour of that young person is
perfectly unstained for me."
" Oh, of course, of course," says my lord, more and more
laughing and ti})sy. " Upon his honour. Doctor — Nancy
Sieve . . ."
"Take Mistress Beatri.x to bed," my lady cried at this
moment to Mrs. Tucker, her woman, who came in with her
A Woman's Way 85
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 alehouse 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 alehouse — let him go," cried my lady.
"Fm damned if he shall," said my lord. "I didn't think
you could be so damned 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-humour, 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
86 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Castle-
wood 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 Flngland, 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 alehouse, for your oitni reasons ; and that you sate 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 alehouse — 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 wolfs jaws, you know."
My lady looked at him with some surprise, and instantly
advancing to Henry Esmond, took his hand. " I beg your
B A D C O M P A N Y 87
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
parlour 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 lady-
ship busied herself with her 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 —
88 The History of Henry Esmond
quite a child ; and I should never have thought of treating you
otherwise until — until these d?rumstances 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 ow^e 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 curtsey, 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 re-
treating, 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 day-
light, 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 small-
pox, which spared the Hall no more than it did the cottage.
7"At' happiest hours of young Esmond'' s life
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
90 The History of Henry Esmond
protestations to my lady, when he visited her during her con-
valescence, 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 colour 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 colour. 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
Esmond 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 dumb stricken that he did not
even growl.
" He is mv 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.
QUOVE COLOR DeCENS?
91
" 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. ^V'e 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
it as highly as any reigning toast valued hers.
Doctor Tiisher
and esteemed
/g2^ The History of Henry Esmond
^^- 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 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
X he had not a single tear for her, and fell to composing an
j 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 sorrow-
ful 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 behaviour 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
Nancy's Tombstone 93
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 scared ; 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 an-
nounced 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 grey 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 mantelpiece,
94 The History of Henry Esmond
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, with 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 humour.
" D it!" he said, 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 Ann — 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.
V A S H T I 9 5
My lady's countenance, of which Harry Esmond was
accustomed to watch the changes, and with a soHcitous affec-
tion 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-humour 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 attach-
ment 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 in-
tensity 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, con
siders his 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
g6 The History of Henry Esmond
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 ^^none 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 behaviour seemed to upbraid him. When she had got to
master these, and to show an outwardly cheerful countenance
and behaviour, her husband's good-humour 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 forel:)oding glass had given her only too
true warning, that with 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
jury-mast, and steers as he best can with an oar. \Vhat
Love Bankrupt 97
happens if your roof falls in a tempest? After the first stun
of the calamity the sufTerer 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 effect of the loss, to put out small ventures of happiness ;
and hope for Uttle gains and returns, as a merchant on
'Change, itidocih's 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, so 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 learn-
ing with surprising quickness: the latter by fits and starts only,
and as suited her wayward humour. 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
G
98 The History of Henry Esmond
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 — pjidet hac 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 better 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 a farther 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 sus-
pecting that his superior was there, in the calm resigned lady,
cold of manner, with downcast eyes. When he was merry in
My Lady's Rival 99
his cups, he would make jokes about her coldness, and,
" Damn 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 laby-
rinth, 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 i'air 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 Castle-
wood 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 excel-
lencies 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 labours, 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 have read in books. What should I know about such
matters ? I have seen no woman save you and little Beatrix,
loo The History of Henry Esmond
and the parson's wife and my late mistress, and your ladyship's
women 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 publick 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 curtsey 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
Lillabullero ; 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 motlier'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 learned from her young tutor — and taught
him too. The happiest instinctive faculty was this lady's — a
My Mother Church ioi
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 critick 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 com-
rade, 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
I02 The History of Henry Esmond
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 text
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 favourite writers appeal-
ing 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 favour with my Lady Castlewood than the severer
volumes of our great English schoolmen.
In later life, at the University, Esmond reopened the con-
troversy, 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 fervour 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 ardour ; 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 Thos. Tusher was gone, a feeling of no small
I LOSE MY Place as Tutor 103
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, un-
observedly, 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 — O so bright and clear ! — O so longed after ! —
because they are out of reach ; as holiday musick from within-
side a prison wall — or sunshine seen through the bars ; more
prized because unattainable — more bright because of the con-
trast 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 de-
parture, was by a gaiety, 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 ^^2000
among her six nieces, the Dean's daughters ; and many a time
I04 The History of Henry Esmond
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 musick-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 spinet ; and, Frank, you shall have a little horse
from Hexton Fair ; and, Harry, you shall have five pound to
buy some books," said my lord, who was generous with his
own, and, indeed, with other folks' 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 P>ank 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 baulk your luck. Go
to Cambridge, boy ; and when Tusher dies you shall have the
Spret^ Injuria Form^ 105
living here, if you are not better provided by that time. We'll
furnish the dining-robm 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 pene-
trating 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 Trumplngton 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 curtsey, 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
io6 The History of Henry Esmond
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 midday 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 house-
less 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, honour, 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 Gcd, 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
My Lady's Knight 107
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. " Vou
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 im-
mediately 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 along-
side 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 grey
familiar towers, a pinnacle or two shining in the sun, the but-
tresses 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
io8 The History of Henry Esmond
his heart ; he waved her an adieu with his hat. The village
people had good-bye to say to him too. All knew that Master
And //arry rcmcmlhTcd all his life after Iiow lie .una /lis mislress at the uundoio
Harry was going to College, and most of them had a kind word
and a look of farewell. I do not sto[) to say what adventures
Castles in the Air 109
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.
She received the young man with even more favour than she shoxvcd to the elder
CHAPTER X
I GO TO CAMBRIDGE, AND DO BUT LITTLE GOOD THERE
MY 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 Chelsea, near London : the kind lady at Castlewood having
specially ordered that the young gentleman and the old should
pay a respectful visit in that ([uarter.
The Viscountess Dowager iii
Her ladyship the Viscountess Dowager occupied a handsome
new house in Chelsea, 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 recognising
in the parlour 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 hunt-
ress 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 recognised in the venerable
personage who gave an audience to Harry and his patron.
She received the young man with even more favour than
she showed to the elder, for she chose to carry on the con-
versation 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 behaviour. 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
112 The History of Henry Esmond
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, spend-
ing 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 Emmanuel 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 though tful-
ness 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 behaviour 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
A Foolish Boy i i 3
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 others' 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-humour ; 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 younger 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 pro-
nounced 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 ttfc
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
H
114 The History of Henry Esmond
appearance led them to believe ; and Don Dismallo, as he
was called, became presently a person of some little import-
ance 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 anticks, of
which he smiles now to think.
These follies caused many remonstrances on Tom Tusher's
part, who was always a friend of 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-humoured, obliging, and servile.
Harry had very liberal allowances, for his dear mistress of
Castlewood not only regularly supplied him, but the Dowager
at Chelsea 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 honour 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 behaviour, losing
Alma Mater 115
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 favour from any
one of them ; whereas Tom Tusher, who had no more turn for
poetry than a ploughboy, nevertheless, by a dogged persever-
ance 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 presently 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 sceptick, with Hobbs and Bayle. Whereas honest
Tom Tusher never permitted his mind to stray out of the pre-
scribed University path, accepted the Thirty-nine Articles with
all his heart, and would have signed and sworn te 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. Politicks ran high, too.
ii6 The History of Henry Esmond
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 politicks 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 holdjn each other's rooms,
where they debated on the state of the nation, crowned and
deposed kings, and toasted past and present heroes or 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
frolicks 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 behaviour, 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 pro-
fessor of a science scarce recognised 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 Condc, in which he had borne a
M. MOREAU 117
part ; and being familiar witli 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 favourite 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 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.
And, zoith a sort of groan, rose up, and went out
CHAPTER XI
I COME HOME FOR A HOLIDAY TO CASTLEWOOD, AND FIND
A SKELETON IN THE HOUSE
A
T 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
Home News 119
he had passed so many years, and beheld the kind famihar
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 answer-
ing 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 perruque like my Lord
Mohun ? " asked Miss Beatrix. " Aly 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
I20 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Bell-
minster'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.
Our Slaves 121
"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 sun-
shine, 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
honours, 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 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 neighbour. The husband (or it may be the wife)
lies when the visitor comes in, and wears a grin of reconcilia-
tion 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 ;
122 The History of Henry Esmond
lies in bidding little Jacky respect dear papa ; lies in assuring
grandpapa that she is perfectly happy. The servants lie^
wearing grave faces behind their master's chair, and pretend-
ing to be unconscious of the fighting; and so, from morning
till bed-time, 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 mono-
syllables 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 bed-fellow, who is
to minister to all his wishes, and is church-sworn to honour
and obey him, is his superior ; and that /?<-, 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 favour. After the illumination, when
the love-lamp is put out that anon we spoke of, and by the
common daylight you 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 honour 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 l)idding, and submits to
his humour, 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
Portraits in Little 123
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 out-
break 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 goodwill 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, ifi corpore vili, upon rusticks 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 anticks. 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
124 The History of Henry Esmond
quarrel brought on by her own giddiness) until she had won
back her mamma's favour, 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
frighted 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 hand-
somer 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 wath 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 quiver-
ing 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
Anno 1695 125
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 to see her heart aching whilst her face
wore a smile. 'Tis a hard task for women in hfe, 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 recognising 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
humour.
The year after the Revolution, and all through King
126 The History of Henry Esmond
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 honour 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 recognised 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 publick history now, and which ended in
the execution of Sir John and many more, who suffered man-
fully 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
1b URN MY Fingers 127
father-in-law from his throne ; and, secondly, for not being con-
stant 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, what-
ever 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 ques-
tions 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 favour 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
128 The History of Henry Esmond
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 re-
morse 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 to 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 sit-
ting 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
Ill Company 129
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 difiicult enough by the
strictest economy to keep the house as befitted one of his
lordship's rank, and the estate out of debt. i\nd 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 mothers' apron-strings the latest being not un-
commonly 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 indul-
gencies which her father gave her (it must be owned that
my lord, since these unhappy domestick 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 humour), 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
I
130 The History of Henry Esmond
mistress of the late King Charles — and to this house, whither,
indeed, a great part of the county gentry went, my lord in-
sisted 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 mortifi-
cation 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 1-ady Castlewood's face, it
was amusing to watch the behaviour of the two enemies : the
frigid i)atience of the younger lady, and the unconquerable
good humour of the elder — who would see no offence what-
ever 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 fresh-
ness, and Lady Sark sighed to think she had not been born
LadySark 131
a fair woman; and remarking Harry Esmond, with a fascinating
superannuated smile, she compHmented him on his wit, which
she said she could see from his eyes and forehead ; and vowed
that she never would have him at Sark until her daughter were
out of the way.
"^i3^
After dinner they played boiuls
CHAPTER XII
MY LORD MOHUN COMES AMONG US FOR NO GOOD
THERE had ridden along with this old Princess's caval-
cade two gentlemen : her son, my Lord Eirebrace, and
his friend my Lord Mohun, who both were greeted with
a great deal of cordiality by the hospitable Lord of Castlewood.
My Lord Eirebrace 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
MOHUN 133
the other was a person of a handsome presence, with the hel
air, and a bright, daring, warlike aspect, which, according to the
chronicle of those days, had already achieved for him the con-
quest of several beauties and toasts. He had fought and con-
quered 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
honours 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 the 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 Castle-
wood 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, Castle-
wood 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."
134 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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 curtsey, 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 Saint James's ; I put up my red
flag when my king comes.' I was the king, you see, she
meant. And 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
A Dialogue on \' i r t u e 135
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. I'hank 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, whtn we are together. 'Tis only when she is out of
sight with her abominable cold glances, that run through me,
that theyU 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.
136 The History of Henry Esmond
So a man dashes a fine vase down, and despises it for being
broken. It may be worthless — true ; but who had the keep-
ing of it, and who shattered it ?
Harry, who would have given his life to make his bene-
factress and her husband happy, bethought him, novv 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 de-
votion 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 (juite 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 dis-
paragement ? " 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 — )'oii?" 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 favour is graciously
restored to his handmaid ? He is weary of Covent Garden, is
What comes of lNTERFERiN(i 137
he, that he comes horn* 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 jou 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 sarcastick
tone. " Perhaps you too have learned to love drink, and to
hiccup over your wine or punch ; — which is your worship's
favourite liquor? Perhaps you too put up at the Rose on
your way through London, and have your acquaintances in
Covent Garden. My services to you, sir, to principal and
ambassador, to master and — and lacquey."
" 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
138 The History of Henry Esmond
remediable, and that each had at huart 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 musick 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-humour, 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 con-
ceived 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
neighbourhood — 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 j)leased when he went away ; and then they had
another bottle, and then they fell to cards, and then my
Dangerous Pastime 139
Lord Mohun came to her ladyship's drawing-room, leaving
his boon companion to sleep off his wine.
'Twas a point of honour 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
demeanour 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 re-
partee, 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 a 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 Uni-
versity 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
I40 The History of Henry Esmond
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 splendour ; but
crescent and brilliant, our young gentleman of the University,
6v>fc-ff^
Beatrix
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.
Beatrix 141
She had been a coquette from the earUest times ahiiost, trying
her freaks and jealousies, her wayward froHcks 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, cajole-
ments ; — 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
domesticks, or watched until she could win back her parents'
good graces, either by surprising them into laughter and
good-humour, or appeasing them by submission and artful
humility. She was scevo Iceta 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
heroick 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 phlegmatick
Thos. 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 art-
lessness, 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
142 The History of Henry Esmond
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 fellow-
ship 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 un-
happy 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 de-
pendants wear the one or the other party's colour; 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 lacqueys
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.
" By G — , my lord, you shall !"
CHAPTER XIII
MV LORD LEAVES US AND HIS EVIL BEHIND HIM
M
Y 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 honoured Harry Esmond with a visit at
his rooms; after which Doctor Montague, the Master of the
•43
144 The History of Henry Esmond
College, who had treated Harry somewhat haughtily, seeing
his familiarity with these great folks, and that my Lord Castle-
wood 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 noble-
man, ever so poor. At this Mrs. 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 humours 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, thouyh 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
T u Qu o Qu E ? 145
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 laugh-
ing, 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
K
146 The History of Henry Esmond
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
startedftUp and flung down his cards.
" Ask Lord Mohun what I said to him, Francis," her lady-
ship said, rising up with a scared face, but yet with a great
and touching dignity and candour 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 wiiat a saint you are."
My Lord Mohun was separated from his wife, and had had
many affairs of honour : 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.
Peace-making 147
"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 honour 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 iUness, 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 look at his swathed
limb so frank and comical, that the other, dashing his fist
across his forehead, was caught by that infectious good-humour,
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 trapesing orange-girl whom Esmond "
but here Mr. Esmond interrupted him, saying that these were
not affairs for him to know.
148 The History of Henry Esmond
My lord's gentleman came in to wait upon his master, who
was no sooner in his night-cap 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 into 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 expres-
sion 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 Alohun 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 in 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
TiMETE DaNAOS 149
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 favour.
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 gaily, said she
would speak to him presently, and that, for a few nights more
at least, he might be let to have his amusement.
" Lideed, 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-
humour : " he is not only the best player, but the kindest
player in the world."
" Madam, madam," Esmond cried, transported and pro-
voked. " Debts of honour 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 favourite 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."
I50 The History of Henry Esmond
" And, in God's name, what do you return him for this
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 remon-
strances 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 him-
self, 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 honour, 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
Mischief is Brooding 151
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 demeanour, 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 signs of distrust and smothered rage (as Harry
thought) which foreboded no good. On the point of honour
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 Shakespeare (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 humour his lordship had sent to Lady Castle-
wood, 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 honour 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-coloured Hano-
verian 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."
152 The History of Henry Esmond
" Indeed, Parson Frank," 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 con-
tinued, 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 perri-
wig and gone home in a night-cap. 15ut 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."
A D R n^ E 153
"What do you mean, sir?" cries my lord, turning round,
with a flush on his face.
" I mean," answers Harry in a sarcastick tone, " that your
gout is well — if ever you had it."
" Sir ! " cries 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 honour of my family that com-
missioned 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 honour of a noble
benefactor — the happiness of my dear mistress and her chil-
dren. 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 Frank," says my lord, with his reckless,
good-humoured 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 ? "
154 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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 im-
plore 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 scam-
pered 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 perriwig 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 I'^smond, who was,
indeed, but just come to himself, bethought him of a similar
accident which he had .seen on a ride from Newmarket to
M Y Lady in Terror
D D
Cambridge, and taking off a sleeve of my lord's coat, Harry,
with a penknife, opened a vein in 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, and 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.
AVhen 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 perriwig, 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, mammia,"' 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 perriwig in hand, walked
by my lord's bridle to the front gate, which lay half-a-mile
away.
156 The History of Henry Esmond
" Oh, my boy ! what a fright you have given me I " Lady
Castlevvood 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 honoured him), and she walked
into the house between him and her son, holding a hand of
each.
— \«
\\J'')^' , V ia'vn>, ' y) V \iC\n ^'AX\X'-
_ . Xl'W7 J- 'rail \riV\K'.U i%.a- -
^/^*
( ^, 1 jf \ m
-^^^r^il^r--
^4//fl' .w inv lord ~u>as carried to a surgeon
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
demeanour ; 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 of other persons, and seemed to avoid being
alone with him. Nor did he ride any distance with Lord
158 The History of Henry Esmond
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 downstairs 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 sur-
prised at the grim and stately manner in which his host re-
ceived 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.
\\'hen 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
meniento 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
plashing audibly. 'Tis strange how that scene, and the sound
of that fountain, remain fixed on the memory of a man who
EyesfullofCare 159
has beheld a hundred sights of splendour, 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 w'ent
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
sate 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 ordi-
narily 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 otifices (down even to listening to Doctor 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 corre-
spondence, 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-distress ; indeed,
you can hardly give a woman a greater pleasure than to bid
her pawn her diamonds for the man she loves : and I re-
member hearing Mr. Congreve say of my Lord Marlborough,
i6o The History of Henry Esmond
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 holyday 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 behaviour 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 humour.
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
loth of October, in the year 1700, they set forwards towards
London on horseback. The day before being Sunday, and
We ride to London i6i
the rain pouring tlown, 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, an 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
e.xpressed some surprise, as it was not customary to employ
lawyers, he said, in such transactions between men of honour ;
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 deceiv-
ing me, and that there is a (juarrel between the Lord Mohun
and you."
" Quarrel — pish ! We shall sup together this very night,
and drink a bottle. Every man is ill-humoured who loses
L
i62 The History of Henry Esmond
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 I 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 break-
fast 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 thunder-
ing voice — " you knew of this, and didn't 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 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
My Lord must not Fight Alone 163
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 devilries 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 suffer-
ing ? 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 honour
and your family's happiness, my lord ? " Esmond interposed
beseechingly.
" Psha ! — there shall be no question of my wife's honour,"
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 grey 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,"
164 The History of Henry Esmond
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,
indifferent 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 expostu-
lated 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 adver-
sary's sword is through you.''
" By George, Harry ! you ought to be the head of the
house," says my lord gloomily. " You had been better Lord
Castlewood than a lazy sot like me," he added, drawing his
hand across his eyes, and surveying his kinsman with very
kind, affectionate glances.
" Let us take our coats off and have half-an-hour's prac-
tice 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-
humouredly ; " 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
Col. Westbury 165
will be probably a difference over the cards — and then, (iod
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 villany, 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 — yo2t ? — 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 sate 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 Yiscount
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.
i66 The History of Henry Esmond
When we had drunk a couple of bottles of sack, a coach
was called, and the three gentlemen went to the Duke's Play-
house, 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 per-
formed the girl's part in the comedy. She was disguised
as a page, and came and stood before the gentlemen as they
sate 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 perriwig, 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 Mount-
ford ? 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 ahead, Lord Mohun's captain,
and Colonel Westbury, and Harry Esmond, walking behind
them. As they walked, W^estbury 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 command-
ments constantly, W^estbury said, and had fought one or two
duels already. And, in a lower tone, \\'cstbury 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
We go to Cards 167
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 called 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 I " 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 I " 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 I-ord 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,
i68 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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 the Lord Warwick in a breath. The
drawers go out of the room hastily. They tell the people
below of the quarrel upstairs.
" 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 honour of ex-
changing a pass or two ? " says Colonel Westbury, with a low
bow to my Lord of Warwick and Holland.
" It is an honour 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-do/.en of chairs were now called, and the six gentle-
men stepping into them, the word was privately given to the
A Meeting 169
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 publick
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 Fm 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 to come
into the field : and so my lord was carried to one Mr. Aimes,
I70 The History of Henry Esmond
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 deathbed con-
fession."
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 pro-
fession 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 ecclesiastick for w-hom 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 Cam-
bridge, 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 mouthy
A Deathbed Confession
171
My lord, hearing of Mr. Atterbury's arrival, and squeezing
Esmond's hand, asked to be alone with the priest ; and Esmond
Some things he said concerned Harry Esmond as much as they astonished him
left them there for this solemn interview. You may be
sure that his own prayers and grief accompanied that dying
172 The History of Henry Esmond
benefactor. My lord had said to him that which confounded
the young man — informed him of a secret which greatly con-
cerned 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 peni-
tent 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
publick ? 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 from 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 in 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 rej)resenting
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 mantelpiece : a burst
of tears came to his eyes. They were the first he had shed
as he sate 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 i)ringing 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 f)ale face and
wild appealing eyes that wore that awful fatal look of coming
Requiescat in Pace 173
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 mis-
tress himself with those dreadful news. Mr. Atterbury com-
plying 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 him-
self up.
BOOK II
CONTAINS MR. ESMOND's MILITARY LIFE AND
OTHER MATTERS APPERTAINING TO
THE ESMOND FAMILY
But the Lady Castletuood went back from him
BOOK THE SECOND
CHAPTER I
I AM IN PRISON, AND VISITED, BUT NOT CONSOLED THERE
T
HOSE may imagine, who have seen Death untimely
strike down persons revered and beloved, and know
how unavailing consolation is, what was Harry Esmond's
178 The History of Henry Esmond
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 deathbed. Were he to dis-
close it, as in equity and honour 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 honour? 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 confes-
sion. 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
In Torture 179
weak ; and advancing towards her, as the retiring keeper shut
the door upon him and his guest in that sad place, he put for-
ward 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 at him
with such a tragick 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, look-
ing 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."
"lake 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 our 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, 1 besought him to let you stay. And you pretended
i8o The History of Henry Esmond
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 ; O, 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.
O, 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 continu-
ance 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 sate 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
Love lies a-bleeding i8i
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 liga-
ture ; 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 re-
collection 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 sate 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 recog-
nised 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."
i82 The History of Henry Esmond
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, rny 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, else-
where : where Honour doth not follow us, but where Love
reigns perpetual."
'Tis needless to narrate 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
The Seconds also Tried 183
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 unsus-
pected, 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 West-
minster, according to their privilege, being brought from the
Tower with State processions and barges, and accompanied
by lieutenants and axemen, 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 honour 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 happiness and greatest lot in life ; how (if he were obsti-
nately 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 P.smond, as he
lay in prison, announcing that his patroness had conferred
upon him the living his reverend father had held for many
184 The History of Henry Esmond
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 pro-
pose 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 whole-
some 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 con-
summate 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, con-
gratulating his Reverence upon his appointment to the living
of Castlewood : sarcastically bidding him to follow in the foot-
steps 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 — here-
after 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
My Fellow-Prisoners 185
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 honour 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 com-
panion he was so moody and silent that the tw'o 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 cicatrised only — no time, tears, caresses, or
repentance can obliterate the scar. We are indocile to put up
i86 The History of Henry Esmond
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 noviciate, 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 war-
riors 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 recol-
lected 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 Neivs Letters were
full of them. The three gentlemen in Newgate were almost
as much crowded as the bishops in the Tower, or a high-
wayman 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.
! il
Here the fair Beatrix entered from the river
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 gentle-
man 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 Fusileers, and secretary to my Lord Cutts, that famous
187
i88 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Bur-
gundy and Champagne that the friends of the Colonels sent
in) ; and Harry, having no wish for their drink, or their con-
versation, 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-
humoured 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, impart-
ing 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 Princesses' 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 — 1 mind me of it now — at Lockit's. I
I GET NeM^S from my MiS TRESS I 89
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 but cards
for the duel.
" I do not like to use bad words of a nobleman," says
Westbury. " But if my 1-ord 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 ever he 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 publick rumour,
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 poetick rapture, compared to a
Niobe in tears, — to a Sigismunda, — to a weeping Belvidera,
was an object the most lovely and pathetick 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 vuiire pulc7-a 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
I90 The History of Henry Esmond
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. 1 he
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 pathetick, 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 rumour
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 frantick with
grief at the injustice done him, and contrasting it with a thou-
sand 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"
A CHILDISH Duel 191
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 execu-
tion, 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 Chelsea, 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 mimick 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 her-
self 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
ig2 The History of Henry Esmond
too often in a state to see double, and so checked, he resumed
the interrupted thread of his story. " As I spoke my business,"
" For u'/w luoiild not speak icell in such a cause f"
Mr. Steele said, "and narrated to your mistress what all
the world knows, and the other, side hath been eager to
Gallantry 193
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, 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 unsuspected guests that harbour 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
honour, 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
N
194 The History of Henry Esmond
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 hi)ii ? ' 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 hrst night, Harry."
Our Life in Newgate 195
The sentimental Captain concluded his sad tale, saying,
" Faiih, the beauty of Filia pulcrior drove pulcravi 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
gaiety 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 Hand-
cuff Inn — as Colonel Westbury called it. Our rooms were
the three in the gate over Newgate — on the second story look-
ing 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, spelHng was not an article of general
196 The History of Henry Esmond
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 au^y.
II di que vous avay voulew vous bastre avecque luy — que vous
estes plus fort que luy sur I'ayscrimme — quil'y a surtout certaine
Botte que vous scavay quil n'a jammay sceu pariay : et que e'en
eut ete fay de luy si vouseluy vous vous fussiay battews ansamb.
Aincy ce pauv Vicompte est mort. Mort et peutayt — 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. EUe
est furieuse cont vous, allans tous les jours chercher le 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'en chargeray. J'ay encor quelqu interay et
quelques escus de costay.
" La Veuve se raccommode avec Miladi Marlboro qui est
tout pui9ante 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 ViSCOMPTESSE 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 montli with
Frank, and just proclaimed at Saint Germains, King of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland.
Aly Lady Viscountess
CHAPTER III
1 TAKE THE QUEEN S PAY IX 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 Chelsea. Esmond thought the sun
had never shone so bright, nor the air felt so fresh and ex-
hilarating. 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 begin-
ning), Lambeth tower and palace, and that busy shining
scene of the Thames swarming with boats and barges, filled
197
ipS The History of Henry Esmond
his heart with pleasure and cheerfuhiess — 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 Chelsea, 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 honour, was
Sir Peter Lely's picture of the Honourable 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 favour 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, this 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, pre-
ceded 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 odours." 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 illumi-
nated 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
The Viscountess Marchioness 199
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 honour 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
goodwill 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 thoughts, 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.
200 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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 dishonour 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 bene-
factors, 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 con-
fession ! " 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.
1 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 nz^/fr 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 ;
What came ye out to Admire? 201
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 colours, 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 that '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 honoured 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
honour 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
202 The History of Henry Esmond
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 behaviour to him. But
she had taken him into favour 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 honour ; she supplied him not illiberally with money, which
he had no scruple in accepting from her, considering the re-
lationship 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 made 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 colours ; and one day had
the honour of finding himself appointed an ensign in Colonel
Quin's regiment of Fusiliers 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
Death of the King
203
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 gratu-
lation 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,
Tale-bearers from St. Cjermai?is
in that house to which Mr. Esmond belonged. His father's
w'idow 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
opponents over a quadrille-table or a dish of bohea. Her
ladyship's house swarmed with ecclesiasticks, in disguise and
out ; with tale-bearers from St. Germains ; and quidnuncs that
204 The History of Henry Esmond
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 authentick
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 well-nigh 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 testi-
mony, 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 honour, 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
Jacobites all 205
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 characterised 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 perriwig, and have forsworn swords, lace coats, and clocked
stockings. In the scholar's 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 w^ere 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 trea-
sures 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
'■ 12 TTOTTOL, biov dr] I'v <?eoi'S jSporoi aiTtoaiiraf
(^ Tj/nfuu yap (pacTL kuk fpLfifuai, 6t Oe Kai avTOi
atprjdiu araadaXL-qaiv inrep fiopov a\yt' exovaiv.
2o6 The History of Henry Esmond
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 melan-
choly story. Do the Fates deal more specially with kings
than with common men ? One is apt to imagine so, in con-
sidering the history of that royal race, in whose behalf so
much fidelity, so much valour, so much blood were desperately
and bootlessly expended.
The King dead then, the Princess Anne (ugly Anne Hyde's
daughter, our dowager at Chelsea 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 itj 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 Marl-
borough, 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 least 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 favour. Before Mr. Esmond left
England in the month of August, and being then at Ports-
mouth, 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 Ofiice 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
We are all set Free 207
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 Fusiliers 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 compli-
mentary letter from the Queen.
^u^--^/^
' -v.\,
Faf/ter Holt
CHAPTER IV
RECAPITULATIONS
'ROM 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,
"The Curse of Kings" 209
Mr. Esmond had been made to understand, so far, that his
mother was long since dead ; and so there could be no ques-
tion as regarded her or her honour, 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 con-
fession, 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 con-
spiracies by which the secret leaders of King James's party in
this country were ever endeavouring 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 honour-
able 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 dex-
terous plot-builders in the world, — there always comes a day
when the roused publick indignation kicks their flimsy edifice
down, and sends its cowardly enemies a-flying. Mr. Swift hath
o
2IO The History of Henry Esmond
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 un-
molested. 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, contend-
ing 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 madC; on Holt's part, to upset my Lord
Viscount's claim to his estate and title of Castlewood alto-
gether. 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 ecclesiastick 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 Llanders ; 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
Holt goes to Prison 211
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 Fenvvick'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 other's
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 in to 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 dishonoured, 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 ship-board
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 him-
self, Esmond had thought where those papers could be which
212 The History of Henry Esmond
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 publick. However,
Esmond cared not to seek the papers. His resolution being
taken ; his poor mother dead ; what matter to him that docu-
ments existed proving his right to a title which he was deter-
mined 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 honours which he was resolved to forego. Again,
as long as these titles were not forthcoming, Esmond's kins-
man, dear young Francis, was the honourable 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 earhest 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 eighty-seven 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
Ensign Esmond 213
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 gentle-
man 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 appear-
ance 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 colour worn
by the h^smonds." 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 perriwig, 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 v/hich 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
214 The History of Henry Esmond
wrong formerly, seemed inclined to repair it by the present
kindness of her behaviour : she embraced him copiously at
parting, wept plentifully, bade him write by every packet, and
gave him an inestimable relick, 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 school-
mistress, as many a poor fellow knows, that hath held his hand
out to her ferule, and whimpered over his lesson before her
awful chair.
The only blood which Mr. Esmond drew in this shameful campaign
CHAPTER V
I GO ON THE VIGO BAY EXPEDITION, TASTE SALT WATER
AND SMELL POWDER
T
HE first expedition in which Mr. Esmond had the honour
to be engaged, rather resembled one of the invasions pro-
jected by the redoubted Captain Avory, or Captain Kidd,
2i6 The History of Henry Esmond
than a war between crowned heads, carried on by generals of
rank and honour. On the ist 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 Col.
Quin's regiment of Fusiliers — 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, be-
ginning now for the first time, — occupied and excited the
young man. The many accidents, and the routine of ship-
board,— the military duty, — the new acquaintances, both of his
comrades in arms and of the officers of the fleet, served to
cheer and occupy liis 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 re-
vive 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
I AM NOT MADE FOR A PaRSON 21/
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 Cer-
vantes, 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 fortu-
nate 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 servi-
tude which was to continue all his life long. For, disguise it
as he might to himself, he had all along felt that to be Castle-
wood'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, exxept 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
2i8 The History of PIenry Esmond
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 in
England, '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 an-
nounced that, having served his former king with honour 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 officers, who 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 fights 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 who
now had the honour of translating for his Grace these harmless
WegotoVigo 219
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 St. 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 cam-
paign, 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 on
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
coffee-houses 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
220 The History of Henry Esmond
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 fabu-
lous 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 goodwill 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
Chelsea, and in greater favour 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 greatly edified at hearing of that story
of his rescue of the nun, and felt very little doubt but that her
King James's relick, 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
honour 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
favour, 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 exi)ressed himself eager
to serve under the most distinguished caj)tain in the world.
W H Y F O L K S OIJ A R R E L 2 2 1
Whilst his business was going on thus prosperously,
Esmond had his share of pleasure, too, and made his ap-
pearance 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 gaieties and pleasures of the town, his heart fondly re-
verted 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-six, 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 horseback. 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 spunging-house, or Dick in the Park, with his four mares
and plated harness, was exactly the same gentle, kindly, im-
provident, jovial Dick Steele : and yet Mr. Addison was per-
fectly riglit 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
222 The History of Henry Esmond
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 lo.st 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
A Pang of Jealousy 223
never hear of such a folly. Lady Marlborough had got her to
be a maid of honour 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
quahties of his father, the lacquey in black, and his accom-
plished 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, inofi Cousin, but let the horrid parson, with his great
square toes and hideous little green eyes, make love to her?
Cela (fest vu, mo7i 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 chattered 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 Harr}''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
enamoured 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
224 The History of Henry Esmond
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 excite-
ment 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 Chelsea 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 honour 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 ivorth
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.
I RIDE AT Midnight
22;,
Instead of going to dinner then at the Rose that night, Mr.
Esmond bade his servant pack a portmantua 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
Chelsea was distant from London, the roads bad, and infested
by foot-pads ; 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 Moti 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 Jerm)n, 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 school-
ing 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 inn 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
226 The HisioRY of Henry Esmond
The horses belonged to the post-house at Winchester.
Esmond mounted again, and rode on to the George ; whence
he walked, leaving his grumbling domestick at last happy with
a dinner, straight to the Cathedral. The organ was playing :
the winter's day was already growing grey, as he passed under
the street-arch into the Cathedral-yard, and made his way into
the ancient solemn edifice.
T
She gave him her hand
CHAPTER VI
THE 29TH DECEMBER
HERE was scarce a score of persons in the Cathedral
besides the Dean and some of his clergy, and the
choristers, young and old, that performed the beautiful
227
228 The History of Henry Esmond
evening prayer. But Dr. Tusher was one of the officiants,
and read from the eagle, in an authoritative voice, and a great
black perriwig ; and in the stalls, still in her black widow's
hood, sate 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 Vetiise — a pretty picture such as Vandyke
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 colour 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 musick 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 melan-
choly upon two persons who had 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 Uean
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. I'he 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 ecclesiasticks, 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
A Meeting 229
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 knew 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 past. 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 sate 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 perriwig. How
had Harry Esmond ever been for a moment jealous of this
fellow ?
230 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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 inco/umetn 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 Sep-
timius. My Lord Viscount, your Lordship remembers Septimi,
Gades aditiire })iecufii ? "
" There's an angle of earth that I love better than Gades,
Tusher," says Mr. Esmond. " 'Tis that one where your rever-
ence 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 honoured 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, shall I run home and bid Beatrix
put her ribbons on. Beatrix is a maid of honour, 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 had never 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 Castle-
wood : 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.
We walk Hand in Hand 231
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 favour went, Lady
Castlewood was very good to him. And should her mind
change," he added gaily, " as ladies' minds will, I am strong
enough to bear my own burthen, and make my way somehow.
Not by the sword very likely. Thousands have a better genius
for that than L 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 grey
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 frantick 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 your-
self, 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 deathbed,' Esmond said.
" Thank God for that legacy ! "
" Amen, amen ! dear Henry," says 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
232 The History of Henry Esmond
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 home
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
care-worn 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. ]\Iy 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 I "
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 ground, along with the idle titles engraven on your
cofiin ? But only true love lives after you, — follows your
memory with secret blessing, — or precede.s you, and intercedes
In Exsultatione metent 233
for you. A^o/i omtiis /iioriar, — 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," Air. 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 life 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 be-
ginning 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 sate by you. Ah !
234 The History of Henry Esmond
I prayed that I might die, but it would have been in sin, Henry.
O, 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.
r
Cal/!?ix his i/o^s about him
A
CHAPTER VII
I AM MADE WELCOME AT WALCOTE
S they came up to the house at Walcote, the windows from
within were Hghted up with friendly welcome ; the supper-
table was spread in the oak parlour ; it seemed as if
236 The History of Henry Esmond
forgiveness and love were awaiting the returning prodigal.
Two or three familiar faces of domesticks were on the look-
out at the porch — the old housekeeper was there, and young
I.ockwood 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 inde-
scribable. " 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 curtsey to the Captain, as she
called Esmond, and told my lord to " Have done, now."
" And here's Jack Lock wood. He'll make a famous
grenadier. Jack; and so shall I; we'll both list under you,
Cousin. As soon as I am 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 illumi-
nating 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 complete-
ness 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 play-house 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
FiLIA PULCRIOR 237
eyebrows and eyelashes, were dark : her hair curUng with rich
undulations, and waving over her shoulders ; but her com-
plexion 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 fiexibk,
and whose motion, whether rapid or slow, was always perfect
grace — agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen — now melting, now
imperious, now sarcastick, 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. " O, 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
w^ould 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 curtsey, 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 ihefilia pukrior.
" Right foot forward, toe turned out, so : now drop the
curtsey, 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
238 The History of Henry Esmond
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 blest his sleep with her
prayers.
Next morning the chaplain read prayers to the little house-
hold 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 when-
ever 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 grey, 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
Our FINE Apparel 239
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 dead 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 perriwig ! " cries my lord. " Mother, I am tired
of my own hair. When shall I have a perruke ? 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,
240 The History of Henry Esmond
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?" asks 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
sate on deck all night, and scribbled verses all day in your
table-book." 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 rumour 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 com])are 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
Her Eyes 241
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 enflame 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 controul, 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
Q
242 The History of Henry Esmond
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 P>ank was his mother's
darling and favourite. He ruled the whole household (always
excepting rebelHous 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 gaiety, the ring
of his laughter, and the delightful tone of his voice. Wherever
he went, he charmed and domineered. I think his old grand-
father, 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 Harry'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 [)urse, 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 sate 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 halberd down, burst out a-crying
like a woman, seizing him up as if he had been an infant,
A Marchioness 243
and carrying him out of the fire. I'his 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 at Chelsea by this and other names.) " Bland-
ford 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 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.
244 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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.
T/ie Duchess found him on his knees to Mistress ' Trix '
"Suppose I go to the army and am killed— every gentle-
man 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.
Beatrix's Stars 245
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 colour 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 laugh-
ter 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 1 703. 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 grey 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 difiiculty in finding out Mistress Beatrix's his-
tory from the simple talk of the boy.
Afiss Beatrix had bivi/j^lil out a )inu gouui for that day s dinner
CHAPTER VIII
FAMILY TAI,K
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 riglit, and all
246
My Lord's Affability 247
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'll 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 vie.
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? '
248 The History of Henry Esmond
" I mean to say that we are cousins by the mother's side,
though that's nothhig 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'll never mention this. Give me your honour,
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 honour, 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 to '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
/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.
A Promise of Marriage 249
'■'Oh, Viscount!' says he — 'Oh, my dearest Frank!' and he
flung 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 at 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 biode,' which you
know, Harry, isn't the way of spelling it), and vowing that he
would marry none other but the Honourable 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'm sure I didn't want it; and so I gave it him,
and we kissed at parting, and said, ' Good-bye, 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
rt?i 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. Law 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 Alresford, 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 honour of a dance with her. What a fool am I to
250 The History of Henry Esmond
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 ?
iX
■^
'^ i
1 '^^,
m^-
^''Ji ^-^.^-':
" And young Sir Wilinot Crawley, 0/ Queen's Crawley, and Anthony Henley,
of Alresford, were at swords drawn about her "
Say that I have merit ever so much, and won myself a name,
could she ever listen to me ? She must be my Lady Mar-
chioness, 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
1 A M T E M F r E D 2 5 I
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 l)e changed ; but no, I swore it over tlie 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 Chelsea," Esmond said,
as gaily as he could. " My aunt — she lets me call her aunt —
is my mistress now; I owe her my lieutenantcy and my laced
coat. She has taken me into high favour ; and my new-
general is to dine at Chelsea to-morrow — General Lumley,
madam — who has appointed me his aide-de-camp, and on whom
I must have the honour 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.''
252 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Chelsea missive, in the poor Dowager's usual French jargon,
permitted him a longer holiday than he said. '^ Je vous dontie,'
quoth her ladyship, ' oui Jour, pour vous fatigay parfaictetnent
de vos parens fatigaus'') — " 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."
" 1 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 favoured
suitor. You shall ask me to wear my Lady Marchioness's
favours 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 re-
morse afterwards. Oh ! Henry, she will make no man happy
I GO BACK TO London 253
who loves her. Go away, my son : leave her : love us always
and think kindly of us : and for nie, my dear, you know 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 peremp-
torily 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 devo-
tion, 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 dispatched thither with a flag : and as
for his mistress, 'twas difficult to say with what a feeling he
regarded her. 'Twas hapjjiness 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.
Rushing up to Ihc very guns of the cnoiiy
CHAPTER IX
M'
I MAKE THE CAMPAIGN OF 1704
R. ESMOND rode up to London then, where, if the
Uowager 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, (ieneral Lumley, who rcceiv'cd 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 lieutenantcy in Brigadier Webb's
regiment of Fusiliers, then with their colonel in Flanders ; but
=54
Marquis Blandford's Death 255
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 house-
hold 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 splendour 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 Maes-
land Sluys : thence his (jrace came immediately to the Hague,
256 The History of Henry Esmond
where he received the foreign ministers, general officers, and
other people of quality. The greatest honours were paid to
his Grace everywhere, — at the Hague, Utrecht, Ruremonde,
and Maestricht : the civic 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 com-
mand of General Churchill, near Bois-le-Duc. Every prepara-
tion was made for a long march ; and the army heard, with no
small elation, that it was the Commander-in-Chiefs 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 splendour, — 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 enter-
tained, (jidlingen, 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 auxili-
aries 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 ElectressT\alatine, the first King
Charles's sister.
At Mindelsheim, the famous Prince of Savoy came to visit
The Prince of Savoy 257
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 him 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 them-
selves by swimming. Our army entered Donauwort, which the
Bavarians evacuated ; and where 'twas said the Elector pur-
posed 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
u
258 The History of Henry Esmond
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 valour 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 huzza 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
We advance to Blenheim 259
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 politicks, 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 admira-
tion 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 frantick 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 ;
0
26o The History of Henry Esmond
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 cannon-
ading 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 midday 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 honour 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 dis-
position 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 Rowe commanding
at the extreme left of our line, marched upon Blenheim, ad-
vancing 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
I AM Wounded 261
bayonet when they reached the French pahsades. To these
Rowe 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 Rowe 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 re-
members 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
* My mistress before I went this campaign sent me John Lockwood
out of Walcote, who lialh ever since remained with me. — II. 1",.
262 The History of Henry Esmond
prisoners, or fled, or drowned, many of them, in the neigh-
bouring 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 rifling 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 perriwig, 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.
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 Wirtemburg's city of Stuttgard that
he made his way homewards, revisiting Heidelberg again,
whence he went to Mannheim, 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
Eur Y DICE 263
arms by the old Dowager of Chelsea, who vowed in her jargon
of French and English, that he had the air fioble, 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 counter-
manded 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 perriwig, 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.
" Ciloriana at the HarpsicJiord'
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. Yatches and
264
Brigadier Webb 265
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 ordi-
naries 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 lieutenantcy in the Fusi-
lier regiment, of which that celebrated ofificer, Brigadier John
Richmond Webb, was colonel, he had never joined the regi-
ment, 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 dif-
rerent 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 honour of first paying his re-
spects 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. Addi-
son's on the Blenheim Campaign, and, indeed, to be Hector
a la mode de Fans was a part of this gallant gentleman's am-
bition. 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-look-
ing. And, if Mr. Webb believed of himself what the world said
of him, and was deeply convinced of his own indisputable genius,
266 The History of Henry Esmond
beauty, and valour, who has a right to quarrel with him very
much ? This self-content of his kept him in general good-
humour, of which his friends and dependants got the benefit.
He came of a very ancient Wiltshire family, which he re-
spected 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 perriwig, 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 head-
quarters, and widen the difference which already existed there
between the great captain and one of the ablest and bravest
lieutenants he ever had.
His rancour 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 supe-
rior had pardoned ; and his Grace, whose spies were every-
where, 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
* 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.
The Duke's Levee 267
hath been so immensely lauded and decried as this great states-
man 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 hkely a private pique
of his own may be the cause of his ill-feeling.
On presenting himself at the Commander-in-ChiePs 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 lieu-
tenant who bore their name. A word of kindness or acknow-
ledgment, 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 pane-
gyrick? 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 infor-
mation 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 Chelsea was furious against this
neglect of her family, and had a great battle with Lady Marl-
borough (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 clamour, said
268 The History of Henry Esmond
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 amongst 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 N^e2vs Le tier he.{ore.
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 favourite
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 _p/^3ooo behind him, which he be-
queathed 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 neigh-
bourhood of the Court, bringing her children with her, and
here it was that T'-smond found his friends.
As for the young lord, his University career had ended
A Young Scapegrace 269
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 (juadrangle 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 "(iod save the King!" in the great court, so
that the master came out of his lodge at midnight, and dissi-
pated the riotous assembly.
This was my lord's crowning freak, and the Rev. Thomas
Tusher, domestick chaplain to the Right Honourable 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 South-
ampton, 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 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 publick 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 honour was toasted at every table and tavern ; and as for
270 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Anacreonticks as warmly as Bathyllus. Vou
may be sure that he accepted very complacently the town's
opinion of him, and acquiesced with that frankness and charm-
ing good-humour he always showed in the idea that he was
the prettiest fellow in all London.
The old Dowager at Chelsea, 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 Chelsea, found
himself quite superseded in her favour by her younger kins-
man. That 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, arwi 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 breed-
ing, 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 favourite, Shakespeare (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.
I RELAPSE INTO THE OLD FeVER 2/1
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 of maid of
honour, took her brother into instant favour. 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 blush-
ing 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 favour, that my young
lord's promotion was secure, and people crowded round the
favourite's favourite, who became vainer and gayer, and more
good-humoured than ever.
Meanwhile Madam Beatrix was making her conquests on
her own side, and amongst them was one j)oor 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 publick 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
2/2 The History of Henry Esmond
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 !
And be ready to hand her to her chair if she deigned to accept
of his sen'ices
His friend Dick Steele was at this time courting the young
lady, Mrs. Scurlock, whom he married ; she had a lodging
in Kensington Stjuare, hard by my Lady Castlewood's house
Abject Prostration 273
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 run-
ning 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 insuffer-
able. Esmond's verses to "Gloriana at the Harpsichord,"
to "Gloriana's Nosegay," to "Gloriana at Court," appeared
this year in the Observator. Have } ou never read them ?
They were thought pretty poems, and attributed by some
to Air. 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 w'hen frantick 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, whoever 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 sicken-
ing jealousy, can he recall ! Beatrix thought no more of him
than of the lacquey 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 fiame and his passion, his despair and rage, returning
again and again to the theme, pacing the room, tearing up the
s
274 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Chelsea. 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, folding 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.
Dick, after reading of the verses, was fain to go off
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 cere-
mony ; 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
275
276 The History of Henry Esmond
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 play-
ful 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 on one sunny afternoon, when by
chance Dick had a sober fit upon him, he and his friend were
making their way down Oermain 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 bookshop near to
St. James's Church. He was a fair, tall man, in a snuff-coloured
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 bookstall, 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 publick
manifestation of Steele's regard.
"My dearest Joe, v/here hast thou hidden thyself this age?"
cries the Captain, still holding both his friend's hands; "I have
been languishing for thee this fortnight."
Mr. Addison 277
"A fortnight is not an age, Dick," says the other, very
good-humouredly. (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 honour 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 apart-
ment, 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
278 The History of Henry Esmond
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 enthusiastick 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 Moselle ; 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, gaily 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.
The Portrait of Victory 279
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 bucolick 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 crackhng 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 sound 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 you 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 depar-
ture, and reeling away with his perriwig over his eyes.) "I
admire your art : the murder of the campaign is done to
military musick, 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
28o The History of Henry Esmond
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.
0 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 com-
position), Agamemnon is slain, or Medea's children destroyed,
away from the scene ; — the chorus occupying the stage and
singing of the action to pathetick musick. Something of this
1 attempt, my dear sir, in my humble way : 'tis a panegyrick
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 majcstick, not familiar,
or too near the vulgar truth. .SY paii'a licet : if Virgil could
invoke the divine Augustus, a humbler poet from the banks
of the I sis 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 indivi-
dual honour. When hath there been, since our Henrys' and
Ars Poetica 281
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 ; Icetatur 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 chief's selfishness and treachery), " there
were men at Blenheim as good as the leader, whom neither
knights nor senators applauded, nor voices plebeian or patrician
favoured, 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 ap-
peared to me as somewhat wearisome ; what had the poem
been, supposing the writer had chronicled the names of cap-
tains, 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 favour 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 re-
spects 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 super-
human. 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
poetick friend, he found this thought, struck out in the fervour
of conversation, improved and shaped into those famous lines,
282 The History of Henry Esmond
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-coloured
suit and plain tie-wig.
" How goes on the magtium 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 Sittwis, here ran the little river Nebel, hie
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 honour to introduce him to Mr. Boyle ; and Mr.
Esmond was but now depicting aliquo prcclia mixta mcro, when
you came in." In truth, the two gentlemen had been so en-
gaged 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 suit-
able rhyme for Webb, otherwise the brigadier 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 Esinond, 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
A Philosopher 283
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 dis-
engaged hand, and smiled and bowed out of the room, leaving
an odour 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 splendour ! 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 hard-
ship 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
284 The History of Henry Esmond
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 honour 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 master-
piece 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 huzzahed for Marlborough and
for Addison ; and, more than this, the party in power provided
for the meritorious poet, and Mr. Addison got the appointment
of Commissioner of Excise, which the famous Mr. Locke
vacated, and rose from this place to other dignities and
honours ; 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 it 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 where-
soever fate carried him. Mrs. Beatrix was away in attendance
on Her Majestyat Hampton Court, and kissed her fair finger-tips
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
1 Return to Flanders 285
speeches, had he intended to make any (and very Hkely 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 curtsey in
reply to his own dismal bow. She deigned to kiss her finger-
tips 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 Chelsea was not sorry to part with him
this time. " Mon cher, i^ous etes triste comvie iin sermon^'' she
did him the honour 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
favourite, and raffolc'd 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
286 The History of Henry Esmond
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.
There sat my young lord, having taken off his cuirass
CHAPTER XII
I GET A COMPANY IN THE CAMPAIGN OF I 706
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 Hnes
extending three miles or more, over the high ground behind
287
288 The History of Henry Esmond
the little Gheet river, and having on his left the little village
of Anderkirk or Autre-e'glise, 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 Mareschal 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 House-
hold, 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 no wise 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 irre-
sistible. Here, as at Blenheim, the Duke's charger was shot,
and 'twas thought for a moment he was dead. As he moimted
R A MILLIES 289
another, Binfield, his Master-of-the-Horse, kneehng 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 recognised the Prince-Duke, and calling out,
*' Marlborough, Marlborough ! " fired his pistol at him a bout-
portanf, and that a score more carbines and pistols were dis-
charged at him. Not one touched him : he rode through the
French Cuirassiers 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 gal-
lantry 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 panick ; 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 com-
pact and 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
r
290 The History of Henry Esmond
their soup-keltles, which are as mucii the paHadia of the
P>encli infantry as of the Grand Signor'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 honour would have him come too; but his honour 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 diffi-
culty, 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 ; 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 afive 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 waist-
coat 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 liis 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
A YOUNG Champion 291
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 />e^iV 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 ! tliere 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 Grand-
son, 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 »ievii-
nissejuvat, 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 tender-
ness, and tended so fondly a boy of eighteen, wait, my good
292 The History of Henry Esmond
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 notori-
ously at variance, and the former's friendship was in no wise
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 favour of the greater man. However, Mr. Esmond had
the good fortune to be mentioned very advantageously by
Major-General V/ebb 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 honour 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 some-
times, though gently and cautiously, of Beatrix. News came
from home of at least half-a-dozen grand matches that the
beautiful maid of honour was about to make. She was en-
gaged to an earl, our gentlemen 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 con-
duct, 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.
T'U^i
1 '
■'').. f .^.fe-*--
Esmond came to this spot in one sunny evening of spritig
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 splendour of the architecture (and
always entertaining a great tenderness and reverence for
the Mother Church, that hath been as wickedly persecuted in
293
294 The History of Henry Esmond
England as ever she herself presented in the days of her pros-
perity), Esmond saw kneeling at a side altar an officer in a
g^reen uniform coat, very deeply engaged in devotion. Some-
thing 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 ad-
vanced 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 stoi^,
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 to-
wards the altar to bow to it ere he (juitted 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 gar-
ment, black or white, shaven or bearded : " for the Austrian
officer was habited quite in the military manner, and had as
warlike a moustachio 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
Monsieur von Holtz 295
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 inaitre
d'arnies 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 cjuite. 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 South-
ampton, 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
296 The History of Henry Esmond
least sign of intelligence in his impenetrable grey eyes — how
well Harry remembered them and their look ! only crows' feet
were wrinkled round them —marks of black old Time, who
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
Herrenhausen and St. Germains 297
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 favour 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 transcen-
dent 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, exhibit-
ing 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 honour to be favourably mentioned in his com-
mander'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, and
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 Fusiliers were thrown
very much together. Esmond had no difficulty in finding out
(indeed, the other made no secret of it to him, being assured,
298 The History of Henry Esmond
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 dis-
covered 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 c^uarters, 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's 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 Chelsea, 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
Father Holt fi,atters Me 299
admiring expressions ; he said he was a iwhle ccEur, 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 these of the greatest
general ; that have brought nations on their knees to their
sacred banner, the Cross ; that have achieved glories and
palms incom])arably 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 moustachios, 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 in-
vincible ignorance, did not withdraw his affection from him,
but gave him his utmost confidence — as much, that is to
300 The History of Henry Esmond
say, as a priest can give : more than most do ; for he was
naturally garrulous, and too eager to speak.
Holt's friendshij) 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 con-
versations, 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,
MyEarlyHistory 301
son of E. Thomas, officer 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 Httle pupil at
Castlewood. •
"Your father's wound took a favourable 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 remit-
tance 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 dis-
closed 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 Virginia
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 gentle-
man 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
302 The History of Henry Esmond
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 (flit 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 laboured together at their vocation. Meanwhile your father
had publickly 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 recognised 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 rt- putable.
" 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
My good Pastoureau
103
presence, a very long habit of acquaintance with your father
to know when his lordship was 1 , — 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 humour— how in half-an-hour's time, and before a
" Hoio in /lalj-an-huur s lime, and before a bottle was drunk, he had completely
succeeded in biting poor Pastoureau "
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 honour that he had twice sent money to
304 The History of Henry Esmond
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 hi^ 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 their 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 de-
picted 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
My Mother's Resting-place 305
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 in 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 indi-
vidual story of love and grief. He fancied her, in tears and dark-
ness, 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
u
3o6 The History of Henry Esmond
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 ship
wrecks.
Lieutenaiit-Gcneral W 'ebb
CHAPTER XIV
THE CAMPAIGN OF I 707, I 708
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
307
3o8 The History of Henry Esmond
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 w^as now being built. And his Grace
had sufficient occupation fighting his enemies at home this
year, where it begun to be whispered that his favour 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 galhmt 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 ^^'ebb'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 Fusiliers," 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 valour 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
Before Oudenarde 309
from Dunkirk, and was to have invaded and conquered Scot-
land. But that ill wind which ever opposed all the projects
upon which the Prince ever embarked, -prevented the Cheva-
lier's invasion of Scotland, as 'tis known, and blew poor Mon-
sieur 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 Handers 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 grum-
bler, 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 will-
ingly, 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 Lamothe summoned Bruges ; and
these two great cities fell into the hands of the French without
firing a shot. A few days afterwards Lamothe 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 signalised his arrival at the
army by a great feast (my Lord Duke's entertainments were
both seldom and shabby): and I remember our General return-
ing from this dinner with the two Commanders-in-Chief; his
3IO The History of Henry Esmond
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 com-
mander 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
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.
Eate, 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 honourable
name for himself in the Gazette : and Captain Esmond's name
was sent in for promotion by his General, too, whose favourite
he was. It made his heart beat to think that certain eyes at
home, the brightest in the world, might read the page en
Castlewood is Hit 311
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 Lincoln-
shire 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 Oude-
narde the young Electoral Prince, then making his first cam-
paign, 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 com-
mander on their own side, they chose to neglect the counsels,
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 headquarters by a
special order of the Commander-in-Chief He came and
went, always favoured, 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 :
312 The History of Henry Esmond
he brought the compliments of the King of England to some
of our officers, the gentlemen of Webb's among the rest, for
their behaviour 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 favourite 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 Euroj^e 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 very 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 in-
creasing 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 valour performed in the
as.sault and the defence. The enmity of that 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 srjiiadrons, and drove his red battalions
An Expedition into France 313
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 )nort. Beaten off in
one (juarter, 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 phlegmatick 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 vigour, 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 divi-
sion 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
314 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Lamothe's army, which was sent
to intercept the convoy ; when 'tis certain that the Duke of
Berwick, De Lamothe'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 be
meant to sacrifice the little army which covered this convoy,
and to betray it as he had betrayed Tollemache at Brest ; as
Was he a Traitor? 315
he betrayed every friend he had, to further his own schemes
of avarice or ambition. But for the miraculous victory which
Esmond's (ieneral 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.
" Permit me to hand it to your Grace '
CHAPTER XV
GENERAL WERI! WINS THE BATTLE OF WYNENDAEL
BY the besiegers and besieged of Lille, some of the most
brilliant feats of valour were performed that ever illus-
trated 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 Luxem-
bourg and Tournefort, who, with a body of Horse and Dragoons,
carried powder into the town, of which the l)esieged 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
316
Wynendael 317
the dreadful errand they rode on, a part of them got into the
town with the succours of which the garrison was so much in
want. A French officer, Monsieur Dubois, performed an act
equally daring, and perfectly successful. The Uuke'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 waggons containing ammu-
nition of all sorts, and was escorted out of Ostend by 2000
infantry and 300 Horse. At the same time M. de Lamothe
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 Lamothe :
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 marchmg.
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. Lamothe
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, ad-
vancing in twelve lines, four of Foot and four of Horse, upon
the allied troops in the wood where we were posted. Their
3i8 The Hisi^ory of Henry Esmond
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 Lamothe might
have won a 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 night-
fall entirely foiled. With all the loss we had inflicted upon
him, the enemy was still three times stronger than we ; and it
could not l>e supposed that our General could pursue M. de
Lamothe, or do much more than hold our ground about the
wood, from which the Frenchman had in vain attempted to
dislodge us. Lamothe 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 Quartermaster-
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 I'^ench 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 over-
whelmed 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 disposi-
tion 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 headquarters, 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.
My General's Promotion 319
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 recom-
mend 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 headquarters with
my report."
In this report the Major-General was good enough to men-
tion Captain Esmond's name with particular favour ; and that
gentleman carried the despatch to headquarters 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, Vtelt-Mare-
schal Auverquerque's son, brought back also a complimentary
letter to his commander, who had seconded Mr. Webb in the
action with great valour 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 ac-
quainted me with the success of the action you had yesterday
in the afternoon against the body of troops commanded by
M. de Lamothe, 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 occa-
sions to own the service you have done in securing this
convoy. — Yours, &c., M."
" Two lines by that damned 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
320 The History of Henry Esmond
the oldest major-general. By , I believe he had been
better pleased if I had been beat."
The letter to the Dutch otificer 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 honours 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 1 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 honour 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 Marl-
borough 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 remark-
able anywhere : he wore, for the first time, the star of the
Order of Generosity, that his Prussian IVLajesty had sent to
him for his victory. His Highness the Prince of Savoy called
a toast to the concjueror 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
"Gazette" not always Truthful 321
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 char-
acter 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 heroick 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
loved 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 perrukes
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 volun-
teer I say, what's yonder?"
Mr. Webb, reading the Gazette, looked very strange —
slapped it down on the table — then sprung up in his place,
and began, — " 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 best 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
X
322 The History of Henry Esmond
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. Cardon-
nel, 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 favourite, Mr.
Cadogan.
There was no little talk and excitement occasioned by this
strange behaviour 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 behaviour, had the satisfaction of even
more angering the Commander-in-Chief, than he could have
done by any publick 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
Webb asks to go Home 323
to forego the honours of such a success and service, for the
benefit of Mr. Cadogan, or any other person.
" As soon as the mihtary 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 insubor-
dination to his superior ofificer, 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 per-
mission, 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
324 The History of Henry Esmond
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 headquarters, 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 reputa-
tion ; he had had another fatal duel in Spain ; he had married,
and forsaken his wife ; he was a gambler, a profligate, and de-
bauchee. He joined just before Oudenarde ; and, as Esmond
feared, as soon as Frank Castlewood heard of his arrival, P>ank
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.
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 Marl-
borough 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 presenta-
tion to my Lord Duke, the Duke turned his back upon my Grandfather ;
and said to the Duchess, who told my Lady Dowager at Chelsea, w ho after-
wards 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 W'eblj, whose side he
took against the more celebrated General. We have General Webb's
portrait now at Castlewood, Va.
Bloody Mohun 325
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. " Fll 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
326 The History of Henry Esmond
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
villainies — but who is one man to punish another? I declare
upon my honour 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.
" O Harry ! why didn't you kill the villain ? " young Castle-
wood 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 Chelsea 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'ed 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 Honourable Robert
Harley, Esquire, as he came out of the house walking between
them ; and was pleased to make many flattering observations re-
garding Mr. Esmond's behaviour during the three lastcampaigns.
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."
Mr. Harley and Mr. St. John 327
" 'Tis 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 humi-
liation 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. \\'ebb'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 favourite 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
328 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Chelsea, 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
domesticks 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 bombshell, which was bursting at a 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 Chelsea, 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,
* 'Tis not thus ivoinan loves: Col. E. halh owned to this folly for a
score of women besides. — R.
Why DO WE Fall IN Love 329
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 hath 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 Chelsea, 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 described ; who
wore a new suit on Sunday at Saint 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 honour to drink over
night with Mr. St. John at the Cocoa Tree, or at the Garter
with Mr. Walpole and Mr. Steele.
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
* And, indeed, so was his to them, a thousand thousand times more
charming, for where was his equal ? — R.
330 The History of Henry Esmond
so frantick 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 percep-
tiveness 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 ? \'ou 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 but 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 honours to-day are? I would have had a
little fame, that she might wear it in her hat. If I had any-
thing 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
Que voulez vous? Je l'aime 331
myself. I love her. You are a thousand times better : the
fondest, the fairest, the dearest of women. Sure, 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 Chelsea would say. /e raiine."
" 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 elder 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
332 The History of Henry Esmond
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 musick ?
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 Decem-
ber, 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 Chelsea,
too, whose chairman had just brought her ladyship from her
village to Kensington across the fields. After this honour, 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
A Feast at Kensington 333
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 kins-
women'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 enter-
tainment ; and the ladies were in gala dresses — my Lady of
Chelsea in her highest tour^ my Lady Viscountess out of black,
and looking fair and happy, a ravir ; and the Maid of Honour
attired with that splendour 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 ! " Lideed,
Esmond's dear mistress, blushing as he looked at her, with
her beautiful fair hair and an elegant dress, according to t\\itmode,
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 riband, 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
334 The History of Henry Esmond
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
' ' Kneel doion," says she : " we dub yon our knight zvith this "
added, with a wave of her hand ; and as Mr. Esmond duti-
fully 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.
Vive le Roy 335
" Dear Frank," says the other Viscountess, " how fond he
is of his mihtary 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 Honour. " 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 Chelsea, 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 ami 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. In-
deed, 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
336 The History of Henry Esmond
produce, to his beloved Prue, and beseeching her to remember
that there was a distiunsht officer ithe rex roob, who would over-
hear 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 trapesing
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 Chelsea 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 Honourable Henry St. John, Esquire,
the General's kinsman, who was charmed with the Lady Castle-
wood, even more than with her daughter ; there was one of the
greatest noblemen in the kingdom, the Scots Duke of Hamil-
ton, 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 parlour 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.
Pericles speaks of Aspasia 337
"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 hand-
some 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'vsy ! We all recognised 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 com-
mand, to behold her is an immediate check to loose behaviour,
and to love her is a liberal education.' "
" O indeed ! " says Mrs. Steele, who did not seem to under-
stand a word of what the gentleman was saying.
" W^ho 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 always thought that paper was Mr. Congreve's," cries
Mr. St. John, showing that he knew more about the subject
than he pretended to Mr. Steele, and who was the original Mr.
Bickerstaffe drew.
" Tom Boxer said so in his Observator. But Tom's oracle
is often making blunders," cries Steele.
" Mr. Boxer and my husband were friends once, and when
the Captain was ill with the fever no man could be kinder than
Mr. Boxer, who used to come to his bedside every day, and
Y
338 The History of Henry Esmond
actually brought Dr. Arbuthnot, who cured him," whispered
Mrs. Steele.
" Indeed, madam ? How very interesting," says Mr. St.
John.
" But when the Captain's last comedy came out, Mr. Boxer
took no notice of it — you know he is Mr. Congreve's man,
and won't ever give a word to the other house — and this made
my husband angry."
" O ! Mr. Boxer is Mr. Congreve's man ! " says Mr. St.
John.
" Mr. Congreve has wit enough of his own," cries out Mr.
Steele. "No one ever heard me grudge him or any other
man his share."
" 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."
"Law! I could tell you ever so much about 'em," con-
tinues 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 com-
panion.
"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."
Mr. Pope 339
" A shepherd should have a Httle 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 gef/us, and was always raving about some nonsense or other."
"Which of the Tatlers do you prefer, Mrs. Steele?" asked
]\Ir. 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 satirick compliments which Mr. St. John paid her.
All this while the Maid of Honour 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
sate 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
neighbour were presently in a very animated and close con-
versation. 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.
" /iestfatiguaut,'" whispers Mr. St. John, '' avec sa trompette
de IVynendLiel"
Captain Steele, who was not of our side, loyally gave the
340 The History of Henry Esmond
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 especi-
ally, 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 Chelsea,
and the town's-people had gone to bed, who had been drawn
A Bon Soir 341
into the square to gape at the unusual assemblage of chairs
and chariots, lacqueys 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 curtsey, sailed
off to bed.
" The day began so well, Henry, that I had 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 baulked 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 at 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 sub-
mitted, 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 Honour 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
342 The History of Henry Esmond
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'm 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 some-
thing. 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 w\as 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
And was dmcm to piquet with her gentlewoman before he had ivell
quitted the roofn
BOOK THE THIRD
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 honour 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
345
346 The History of Henry Esmond
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
maybe not worth the winning? Another risks his life (and
his honour, too, sometimes) against a bundle of bank-notes,
or a yard of blue riband, 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 deter-
mined 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 Dul-
cinea 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
* What indeed ? Psm. xci. 2, 3, y.^R. E.
My Mistress's secret good Works 347
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 ap-
prehension 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 gaiety 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 fervour, 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.
As for her ladyship at Chelsea, 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
neighbour at Chelsea, 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 Chelsea's house were
34'^ The History of Henry Esmond
of the Tory and High Church party. Madam Beatrix was
as frantick 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 accom-
plished, 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 despotick Prince, out of Germany, who happened
to be descended from King James the First, should take pos-
session 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 honour 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 Chelsea, 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
My Fortune 349
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 wath 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 Chelsea, and a sum of money lying at her merchant'.s.
Sir Josiah Child, which altogether would realise 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 Chelsea 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 publick securi-
ties, so as to realise the aforesaid annual income of ^300.
Having now something to leave, he made a will, and
dispatched 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
colours, but marched out again. He used to tell his boyish
wickednesses with admirable humour, and was the most charm-
ing 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
350 The History of Henry Esmond
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. /wouldn't marry
her, Harry, no, not if her eyes were twice as big. Til take my
fun. ril 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
Holtz at Bruxelles. What a man that is ! He knows every-
thing." 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
Malplaqjiet 351
desperately sacrifice thirty thousand brave Uves, 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 re-
markable 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
laboured ever since the disaster of Hochstedt ; and, fighting
now on the threshold of their country, they showed an heroick
ardour 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 con-
quests 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 civilisation, 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
352 The History of Henry Esmond
with their strange figures, bearded like the miscreant Turks
their neighbours, 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 Apostohc 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 heart-
rending, 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 woeful and dreary satyre.
Esmond's general added one more to the many marks of
honour 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
The tvv^o Colonels of Fusileers 353
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 behaviour 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 gaily 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
" F'ie." 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 dis-
covering the vine. Frank went off, then, to his pleasures at
z
354 The History of Henry Esmond
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. Holtz re-
appeared, and stopped a whole month at Mons, where he not
Here, as he lay niirsiiig himself, ubiquitous Mr. Holtz reappeared
only won over Colonel Esmond to the King's side in politicks
(that side being always held by the Esmond family) ; but
where he endeavoured to reopen the controversial (juestion
between the Churches once more, and to recall Esmond to that
religion in which, in his infancy, he had been baptized. Holtz
was a casuist, both dexterous and learned, and presented the
case between the English Church and his own in such a way,
Jus DiviNUM 35 5
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 pother, they
were welcome to hold as they chose. If Henry 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 frantick 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
356 The History of Henry Esmond
King, I am for Church and King, too ; but English Church
and EngHsh 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 ardour.
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 con-
tinually 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
Poor Teague 357
map the writer hath of these scenes of his youth, bears no
mark of this Httle stream), divided our piquets from the
enemy's. Our sentries talked across the stream, wlien 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 com-
rades 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 horse-
back, on the French side, appeared at some little distance,
and stopped as if eyeing 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, Vautre'' 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 Marl-
borough— 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,
358 The History of Henry Esmond
yonder ; he bids me to say that he saw some of your faces on
the nth 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 Castle-
wood, 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 huUa-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 endeavoured not very long
after to serve.
Frank pays his Homage 359
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 bare-headed 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 acknow-
ledged the rest of the story, and said : " From having been
out of favour 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."
fe^ \
iir
4 i
/a/1
^ Joinf compositio7i frotn himself and his wife, who could spell no
better than her young scapegrace of a husband
CHAPTER II
1 GO HOME, AND HARP ON THE OLD STRING
AFTER quitting Mons and the army, and as he was wait-
^ ing 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 vie,
360
A Letter from Frank 361
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 \\\\\joifi 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 lyno anyhow. Clotilda
sings, and plays on the Spinet bemilifuUy. 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 : under-
standing painting, musick, poetry, and perfect at cookery and
ptiddens. I horded 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 a?i
immence fortune : but are now in a pore ivay. Break this to
mother, who'll take anything from you. And write, and bid
Finch write a mediately. Hostel de I'Aigle Noire, Bruxelles,
Flanders."
So Frank had married a Roman Catholick lady, and an
heir was expected, and Mr. Esmond was to carry this intelli-
gence 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 Kensing-
ton to announce his arrival and visit the next morning. The
messenger brought back news that the Court was at \\'indsor,
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 com-
pany thither, and engaging in every conceivable frolick of town
pleasure. Whilst her mother, acting as the young lady's pro-
tectress 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 :
362 The History of Henry Esmond
and it was by this simple sign Esmond knew what her occu-
pation 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 soon were 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 deathbed 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
honour, and what I have to say won't, therefore, affect you so
Family Secrets 363
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 Castle-
wood."
" ' To my Frank ? ' says Lady Castlewood : ' I was in
hopes '
" ' To Viscount Castlewood, my dear. Viscount Castle-
wood, 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 Mar-
chioness ? ' 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 1 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 some-
thing 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), Francis 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
364 The History of Henry Esmond
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 favour —
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 the 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 ?aid, " she told me of what had
happened at my dear husband's deathbed") 'He doth not
Family Secrets 365
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 clergy-
man for whom the late lord had sent on his deathbed : 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 bed-
side," 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 deathbed, 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 ?
366 The History of Henry Esmond
"Dearest saint," says he — "purest soul, that has had so
much to suffer, that has blessed 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 com-
pared to that ? "
" Don't raise me," she said, in a wild way, to Esmond, who
would have Ufted 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 favour ; 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 Church
Catholick, 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, that was
no need why she should not welcome her as a daughter-in-
law ; and accordingly she writ to her new daughter a very
pretty, touching letter (as Esmond thought, who had cognis-
ance 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
My Mistress as Mother-in-law 367
and frugality, she had got the estate into a better condition
than ever it had been since the ParHamentary wars ; and my
lord was now master of a pretty, small income, not encum-
bered 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 know-
ing 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.
Hawever, 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 Vis-
countess, 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
Honour, 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
368 The History of Henry Esmond
had seen fit, "by the exhortations 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 re-
ceived into the bosom of that Church of which his sovereign,
many of his family, and the greater part of the civilised 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 lord-
ship'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, an-
nouncing that "a young Irish lord, the Viscount C — stlew — d,
just come to his majority, and who had served the last cam-
paigns, 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, " Castle-
wood 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. O, 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. O,
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 (^ourt, and who pays me com-
pliments there, the horrible man ; and if you want to know
what parsons are, you should see his behaviour, and hear him
talk of his own cloth. They're all the same, whether they're
Frank's Courtship 369
bishops or bonzes, or Indian fakirs. They try to domineer,
and they frighten us with kingdom-come ; and they wear a
sanctified air in pubhck, and expect us to go down on our
knees and ask their blessing ; and they intrigue, and they
grasp, and they backbite, and they sLinder 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 favour 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. O, 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 to 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 coaxinir, 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, ' O, my divine, my adored, my beloved Clotilda,
are you sorry to part with me?' ' O, my Francisco,' says she,
2 A
370 The History of Henry Esmond
' O, my lord ! ' and at this very instant mamma and a couple
of young brothers, with mustachios 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 rela-
tions 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.
Harvy, said he was a count ; and I believe he was a barber.
All Frenchmen are barbers — Fiddle-dee ! don't contradict
me — or else dancing-masters, or else priests ; " and so she
rattled on.
" Who was it taught yon to dance. Cousin Beatrix ? " says
the Colonel.
She laughed out the air of a minuet, and swept a low
curtsey, 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 wonderfuUest little shoes with
wonderful tall red heels ; Esmond pounced upon one as it
fell close beside him), and she put on the drollest little moiie,
and marched up and down the room holding Esmond's cane
by way of taper. Serious as her mood was, Lady Castle-
wood 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 opera-
tion, 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, " O you silly little mamma :
Bess and Queen Mary 371
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 hysterick 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 O ! " 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, Fm 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 provoking 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 musick, 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 politicks, 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
372 The History of Henry Esmond
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 tyran-
nise 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 princi-
pality 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 riband : 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 labour for ; give
me the charity of mine. What flatteries do you, Mr. St. John,
stoop to whisper in the ears of a queen's favourite ? What
Tu QuoQUE T,yi
nights of labour 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."
374 The History of Henry Esmond
"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.
" Yo7ir constant reader, Cymon Wyldoats"
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 humili-
ating cure, but one that is easy and almost specifick for the
375
376 The History of Henry Esmond
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 be-
haviour. 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 gentle-
man newly arrived in the town, that this incorrigible flirt
would set her nets and baits to draw in. If Esmond remon-
strated, 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 miser-
able, that would be the only comfort I should have in marry-
ing 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'm going to live in a lodging,
and turn the mutton at a string whilst your honour 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.
Wanted a Husband ij"]
" Worldliness — O 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
physick, and whip 'em, and put 'em to bed when they are
naughty. Shall 1 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 perriwig 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 counter-
part of this riband, 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
378 The History of Henry Esmond
Peterborow 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 honour to visit him ; and drank many a flask
of good claret at his lodging, whilst their entertainer, through
his wound, was kept to diet-drink and gruel. These gentle-
men were Whigs, and great admirers of my Lord Duke of
Marlborough ; and Esmond was entirely of the other party.
But their different views of politicks 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 Knights-
bridge, 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 litera-
ture for a relaxation, and composed his comedy, whereof the
prompter's copy lieth in my walnut escrutoire, 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 ex-
tinguished Esmond's farthing candle : and his name was never
JOCASTA 379
put to the piece, which was printed as by a Person of Quality.
Only nine copies were sold, though Mr. Dennis, the great
critick, 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 satyrick 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 satyre, 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 I, 1 7 12.
Mutato nomine de te F"abula narratur. — Horace.
Thyself the moral 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
380 The History of Henry Esmond
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 lady-
ship'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 Saint
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 in-
terested 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.
J
OCASTA 381
" 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 enquiries,
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 curtsey
perhaps, and Thalestris much such another look ; but the
glance and the curtsey 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 honour 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
382 The History of Henry Esmond
names and words when you came. Why should we say goold
and write gold, and call china chayny, 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.
" ' O, madam,' says he, '/ spell my na?jie 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 baulked 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,
"CEdipus."
"The Trumpet Coffee-House, Whitehall.
" Mr. Spectator, — 1 am a gentleman but little acquainted
with the town, though I have had an university education, and
passed some years serving my country abroad, where my name
is better known than in the coffee-houses 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
JOCASTA 383
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 at
her lodging, and received by her with a great deal of distinc-
tion, 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 WTetched 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 behaviour 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 ridicu-
lously 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
384 The History of Henry Esmond
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 thej'.' 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,
"CvMON 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 jc"
The above is a parable, whereof the writer will now ex-
pound the meaning. Jocasta was no other than Miss Esmond,
Maid of Honour 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 mali-
cious 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 honour 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
The old Subject 385
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 en-
couraged 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 hap-
pened to him more than once, the instant thought after the
honour 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 en-
chantress. Quit her ! He could no more quit her, as the
Cymon of his 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 handywork of fascination
and the web of coquetry with which she was wont to allure
and entertain them.
2 B
386 The History of Henry Esmond
Part of her coquetry may have come from her position
about the Court, where the beautiful Maid of Honour 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 behaviour 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 17 12, 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
hiislmndm^in, 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 be-
ginning 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
ASHBURNHAM MARRIES ELSEWHERE 387
lads; and in Esmond's eyes was ever perfectly lovely and
young.
Who knows how many were nearly made happy by pos-
sessing her, or, rather, how many were fortunate in escaping
this syren ? '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 Httle of her daughter's life and real
thoughts. How was she to apprehend what passed in Queens'
antechambers and at Court tables ? Mrs. Beatrix asserted
her own authority so resolutely that her mother quickly gave
in. The Maid of Honour 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 enquire.
I have told you before, that with all her kindness, and wit,
and generosity, and that sort of splendour 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
388 The History of Henry Esmond
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 appear-
ance 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, ac-
complished by books, by travel, by long command of the
best company, distinguished as a statesman, having been
ambassador in King William'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 favoured 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 conversa-
tion which grew out of it. Miss Beatrix at first was quite hit
(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 unfavourable. 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
A Bite 389
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. O, 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
honour," 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 panegyrick
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
390 The History of Henry Esmond
ladyship, saying as plain as eyes could speak to Mr. Esmond
— "There, sir: would not yoii 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 provok-
ing 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 — " O 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 : " O how good she is, Harry," Beatrix went
on to say. " O 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
Jealousy 391
horrid, dirty poor. She sits through the curate's sermons —
O those dreary sermons ! And you see, on a beaji dire ; but
good as they are, people Hke 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.
0 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 — (O, how could she ?
1 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 — O, 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. VVe 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 "
392 The History of Henry Esmond
"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. " Is it mamma your honour
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 sate 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 Virginia estate King Charles gave
our grandfather." (She gave a superb curtsey, as much as to
say, " Our grandfather, indeed ! Thank you, Mr. Bastard.")
A Lodge in the Wilderness 393
"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 honourable
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 Httle."
"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 curtsey on Mrs. 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 atni,'^ 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 ..."
394 The History of Henry Esmond
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 riband. He
gave Mr. Esmond just that gracious bow which he would have
given to a lacquey 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."
Rushing to the looking-glass and exa^niniiig the effect they produced
CHAPTER IV
BEATRIXS 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
395
396 The History of Henry Esmond
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 accom-
plishments 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
favourite 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, main-
tained 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
The Duke of Hamilton 397
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 recon-
ciliation 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 of Staffordshire.
When the Whigs went out of office in 1710^ the Queen
began to show his Grace the very greatest marks of her favour.
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 honour 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 ISIajesty, 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 17 12, 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 tragick 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 tother side of the jaws. I think
398 The History of Henry Esmond
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 com-
pany of Olympians are seated, and quaver out her last song
as a goddess : so when this portentous elevation was accom-
plished in the Esmond family, I am not sure that every one
of us did not treat the divine Beatrix with special honours ;
at least, the saucy little beauty carried her head with a toss
of supreme authority, and assumed a touchme-not air, which
all her friends very good-humouredly 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-humour, and
as jolly and careless as when they had sailed from South-
ampton ten years before for Vigo. " This bankruptcy," says
Tom, " has been hanging over my head these three years j
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 Eulham, 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 gaiety. " 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-humour, but
A Woman's Ambition 399
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 scaled 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 ts 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 honours 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 honour, 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 humour 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-humoured ; 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
400 The History of Henry Esmond
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? — -Uesdemona. You would, you little black-
eyed 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 I'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 Shakspeares, 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 flly
off like the pretty " Gawrie," whom the man in the story was
enamoured 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 LU try and make him
happy ; and when the King comes back, you may count on
Confessions 401
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 honours 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's a great wall between us.
My dear, kind, faithful, gloomy old cousin ! I can like you 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 curtsey, "we must have
no more talk except when mamma is by, as his Grace is with
2 c
402 The History of Henry Esmond
us; for he does not half like you, cousin, and is as jealous as
the black man in your favourite 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, after-
wards 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 neck-
lace 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 sur-
rounded, 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 Mrs. Beatrix, advancing to
him, and showing the diamonds on her breast.
Altercation 403
" 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 honour 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 hath 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 chuse 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 chuse 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 honourable 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 pos-
sible more haughty than before; "I would say not a word
404 The History of Henry Esmond
that should give him offence, and thank him for his kindness
to your ladyship's family. My Lord Mohun and I are con-
nected, 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 colour 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 honour 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 con-
tent to forego his name that my child may bear it, we love him
and honour 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 run-
ning 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 —
Reconciliation 405
lauding up to the skies her kinsman's behaviour. On his side
Mr. Esmond explained the reasons that seemed quite suffi-
ciently 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
favour of your friendship. To be allied to you, sir, must be
an honour 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 favour, 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, " O, 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 curtsey, 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."
ib4, t»;4 J' ■■■■"tfev
He . . . who had injured him and kept him dangling in his ante-chamber
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 advance-
ment 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
406
Disgrace of Marlborough Family 407
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 compli-
ments 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 honour, 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 trium-
phant of all was his dear old commander, General Webb, who
was now appointed Lieutenant-General of the Land Forces,
and received with particular honour 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 Marl-
borough.
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 publick money. Cadogan lost his
place of Lieutenant of the Tower. Marlborough's daughters
resigned their posts of ladies of the bed-chamber ; and so
complete was the Duke's disgrace, that his son-in-law. Lord
Bridgewater, was absolutely obliged to give up his lodging
at St. James's, and had his half-pension, as Master of the
Horse, taken away. But I think the lowest depth of Marl-
borough'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
4o8 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Honour, 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
honour ? " 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 philosophick 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 com-
miseration.
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 win-
ning side . besides, Mr. Esmond pleased himself by thinking
Party in England 409
that he writ Hke a gentleman if he did not ahvays 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
EngUshmen's hands in ages yet to come, Mr. Esmond saw
many, but at publick places chiefly ; never having a great
intimacy with any of them except with honest Dick Steele
and Mr. Addison, who parted company with Esmond, how-
ever, 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 conscien-
tious than he, it was not possible to find in publick life, and
one whose conversation was so various, easy, and delightful.
Writing now in my mature years, I own that I think Addi-
son's politicks 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 politicks, '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 lieu-
tenant 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 aristocratick party, and took a
Hanoverian king, or a French one, according as either pre-
vailed. 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
4IO The History of Henry Esmond
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 con-
sciences 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 under-
standing 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 dishonour. 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 discom-
forts, 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 antient 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 tem-
poral 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 think-
ing about his plate and his place, and what on earth should
Dr. Swift 411
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 publick places. There were
hundreds of men, wits, and pretty fellows frequenting the
theatres and coffee-houses of that day — whom "nunc pre-
scribere 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 humour 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 publick 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 an-
nounced him, bawling out his Reverence's name, whilst his
master below was as yet haggling with the chairman. I dis-
liked this Mr. Swift, and heart! 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,
412 The History of Henry Esmond
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 hfe, 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 suttler,
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 despe-
rately on the French lines, that he got his company ; and came
a captain out of the action, and had to marry the suttler's
daughter after all, who brought him his cancelled debt to her
father as poor Rogers'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 plough-share 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 particularising ?
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 ? O 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 Rappahannoc.
I TURN Writer 413
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 inter-
vened 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 beckon-
ing 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 com-
mand 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 publick 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 Fost-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 Mrs. 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
414 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Doctor Swift?" says the Doctor,
eyeing 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 ? "
" Whi.sters," 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 gun-
powder, and set the Thames on fire ? "
Mr. Swift turned quite red, almost purple. "I did not
intend any offence, sir," says he.
Dr. Swift
415
" I daresay, sir, you offended without meaning," says the
other drily.
"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 Honour's humble pardon if I have offended
your honour," says Esmond, in a tone of great humility.
" IV/w the devil are ye, sir?" cries the Doctor
" 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
4i6 The History of Henry Esmond
that when he makes an appointment with Doctor Swift he
had best keep it, do ye hear ? And keep a respectful tongue
in your head, sir, when you address a person Uke 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 I.each 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
Fost-Boy, and now took honest Mr. Leach's pay in place
of Her Majesty's. Esmond had seen this gentleman, and a
very ingenious, hard-working, 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 Honour of Her Majesty's ; and the airs of 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
A Dinner at General Webb's 417
the proud priest himself took no note, during that time of
his vanity and triumph.
'Twas but three days after the 15th of November 171 2,
(Esmond minds him well of the date,) that he went by invita-
tion 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 honour the feast had been given, upon his approach-
ing 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 ;
2 D
4i8 The History of Henry Esmond
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 perriwig 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 topick 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 Woudenberg, 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 Archbishoprick, and
Jonathan a — no, damme — Jonathan will take an Archbishop-
rick 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 plethorick Queen, and Defender of the Faith,
la bonne cause triomphera. A la santt^ 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.
A Toast 419
" 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 ! Righteous-
ness 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 Hunt-
ingdon, 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,
aye, as good ? God save the King ! and if the monarchy fails
us, God save the British Republick ! "
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 upstairs to the room we were dining in, and entered it
420 The History of Henry Esmond
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.
"JSio; Duke Hamilton is dead, he was murdered an hour
ago by Mohun and Macartney; they had a quarrel this morn-
ing, 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."
"O Beatrix, Beatrix,'' thought Esmond, "and here ends
my poor girl's ambition ! "
•^^r
" Vanity/" says she haughtily. " What is vanity iti you, sir, is
propriety in vie "
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
422 The History of Henry Esmond
very moment poor Beatrix had accepted the Duke's offer, she
began to assume the majestick 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 afterward 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 sepa-
rate from our consciousness ; shall follow it whithersoever that
shall go ; and are of their nature divine and immortal.
With the horrible news of this catastrophe, which was con-
firmed by the weeping domesticks 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 in-
teUigence 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 toy-shop — from goldsmith to laceman :
her taste was perfect, or at least the fond bridegroom had
thought so, and had given entire authority over all tradesmen.
Vanitas Vanitatum 423
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 toy-shop women, obsequious gold-
smiths 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 his 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 gold-
smith'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 deathbed. "'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."
" O 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
424 The History of Henry Esmond
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.
" O 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!" cries 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
The Duke's Death 425
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 rebel-
lious 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 men-
dicaments 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 tragick meeting twelve years back,
426 The History of Henry Esmond
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 a 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, 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.
Glories of our Birth and State 427
when Mr. Esmond happened to pass by. He drove the man
from under Beatrix's very window, whereof the casement had
The street-criers were already out with their broadsides
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 labourers trudging to their work in
428 The History of Henry Esmond
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.
^^:1^
F^arj a/<7, on that very bed, she had blessed him and called him her knigkt
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
429
430 The History of Henry Esmond
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 coura-
geously ; 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 majestick 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 panick the Whigs had, lest the
Queen should forsake their Hanoverian Prince, bound by oaths
and treatise 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 ^f the Whigs, were for
The Rival Princes 431
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 honour ? 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 suc-
cessive ministers she had, had private causes for their irresolu-
tion. 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,
432 The History of Henry Esmond
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 accomplish-
ment 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 publick under his own name and title, but frequent-
ing 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 morti-
fication, and find excuses for his kinsman's levity.
In the autumn of the year 17 13, 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.
Peace Proclaimed 433
The long-debated peace had been proclaimed this year at
the end of March; and P>ance 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 grey 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 musick, 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 sub-
mission 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
from the mysterious window.
2 E
434 The History of Henry Esmond
Esmond rose up before the dawn, passed into the next
room, where the air was heavy with the odour 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 fabrick 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 hked 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 wood-
work of the mantelpiece, 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
Ailesbury, 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's Crypt 435
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 wakefully, no doubt ; but neither asked the other how
the hours had been spent. There are things we divine with-
out 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
436 The History of Henry Esmond
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
\/.^
Beatrix came out to them just as their talk was over
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
majestick than in the year before ; her mother seemed the
youngest of the two. She never once spoke of her grief, Lady
Tom Tusher's Humility 437
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 visit-
ing 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 musick 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 de-
plored 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 sleep-
ing 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
43S The History of Henry Esmond
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 fought, 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 ? O, 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.
Beatrix tells her Mind 439
" Stay, Harry I " 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. O 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 com-
plaisance wearied me, and what would a lifetime be? My
thoughts were away when he was speaking ; and I was think-
ing, ' O 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, ' O 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. O, 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
440 The History of Henry Esmond
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 her-
self 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 rid 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.
The Vicar of Castlnvood vowed he could ?iot see any resemblance
in the piece
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
442 The History of Henry Esmond
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
Benedick, the married man, who appeared to be rather out of
humour with his matrimonial chain, and clogged with the ob-
stinate 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
majestick 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 affec-
tionate 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
Frank's Likeness to the Prince 443
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 the means in his power,
wearing fair brown perriwigs, such as the Prince wore, and
ribands and so forth of the Chevalier's colour.
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 consign-
ment of broadcloths, valuable laces from Malines, and letters
for his correspondent there.
Would you know how a prince, heroick from misfortunes,
and descended from a line of kings, whose race seemed to be
doomed like the Atrid^e 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 Ogle-
thorpe : 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 honours 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
444 The History of Henry Esmond
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 gaiety 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 skeptick 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 recognised 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."
At St. Germains 445
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 god-daughter, 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 favour. She knew that others of
that family had been of the only true Church too : " Your
father and your mother, Monsieur 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 effi-
cacious 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 splendour 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 17 14, very soon after which
time my Lady Castlewood and her daughter, and their kins-
man. 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
446 The History of Henry Esmond
Knightsbridge, nearer the town, and once more making his
appearance at all publick 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 honour in her ladyship's drawing-
room. His lordship was represented in his scarlet uniform
of Captain of the Guard, with a light-brown perriwig, 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. C'oUier, 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 perriwig ; 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 plough-boy, and that he must be mistaken ; and we
sent him home assured that the piece was an excellent like-
ness. As for my Lord Bolingbroke, who honoured her lady-
ship 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 honour to keep the secret, said that the ladies of the
house were enthusiastick 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 Castle-
wood 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 :
What our Plan was 447
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 master-pieces of Vandyck 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 service
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 favourite with Mrs. Masham, the Queen's chief
woman, partly, perhaps, on account of her 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 tragick air which her face now involuntarily wore, became
her better than her former smiles and archness.
All the old domesticks 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 lady-
ship's train of domesticks 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 loth of June 17 14, there came by Mr. Prior's mes-
senger from Paris a letter from my Lord Viscount Castlewood
448 The History of Henry Esmond
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 extravagancies ; 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 hus-
banded and improved so carefully during the time of her
guardianship.
His "Clotilda," Castlewood went on to say, "was still
delicate, and the 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 iSth 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 vis-
countess by the time of her lying-in." Then his lordship gave
some of the news of the town, sent his remembrance to kins-
folk, 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
publick 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 difificult 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
A Letter within a Letter 449
abroad (and travel to England) about our young nobility here.
Mademoiselle Meruel has been sent to the Fort I'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
feste. 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 Castleivood'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 hi?n ; 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 con-
spiring, 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
2 F
450 The History of Henry Esmond
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 should it be called a game, save perhaps with the
chief player, who was not more or less skeptical than most
publick men with whom he had acquaintance in that age.
(Is there ever a publick 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 with-
out 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 May-pole 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 comple-
tion ; 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 clod-pate 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 Jesuits' 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
A Knot of Conspirators 451
elder mistress thought that that Restoration was to be attri-
buted 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 honour ? 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.
I i7.^'^^\>iQ.-"^"^'"^^a
'- W"-
The Prince seized hold of the glass and drank the last drop of it
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 domesticks of the house.
The viscountess gave up her bed-chamber 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 apartment 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
Preparations for a Guest 453
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 honour 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 curtsey 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 sup-
posed 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
454 The History of Henry Esmond
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
And preparing paste and turniiig roUiiig-pins in the housekeeper s closet
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,
Frank and his Companion 455
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 domestick, dis-
mounted, 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 com-
panion, 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 pre-
sently 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 gaily, 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 Harry's discomfiture came out ; and
bursting into tears, with many expressions of fondness, friend-
ship, 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 F"rank 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,"
456 The History of Henry Esmond
Frank said : " I knew you were the best, and the bravest, and
the kindest of all men," (so the enthusiastick 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 favour of
his son. I abdicate the two-penny 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 inco-
herent 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 him something, to bid Castlewood
give his own life up 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 se'rieux,' 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 every-
thing. 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 PVank 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
We Ride from Rochester 457
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 night-
fall. Mr. Esmond's servant was left behind at Rochester, to
take care of the tired horses, whilst we had fresh beasts pro-
vided along the road. And galloping by the Prince's side,
the Colonel explained to the Prince of Wales what his move-
ments 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
woefully 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 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
* The managers were the Bishop, who cannot be hurt by having his
name mentioned, a very active and loyal non-Conformist divine, a lady in
the highest favour at Court, with whom Beatrix Esmond had communica-
tion, 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.
458 The History of Henry Esmond
Kensington, and the mistress of the house had that satisfac-
tion which her heart had yearned after for many years, once
more to embrace her son, who, on his side, with all his way-
wardness, ever retained a most tender affection for his parent.
She did not refrain from this expression of her feeling,
though the domesticks 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 suscepti-
bility of the two gentlemen forming his escort ; nor could either
help owning in his secret mind that they would have had his
behaviour otherwise, and that the laughter and the lightness,
not to say licence, which characterised 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
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 I'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 colours 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
splendour ; 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
"Baptiste, have a care" 459
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
bed-chamber. " 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, con-
tinuing 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 bed-chamber and the two rooms adjoining it, the
closet and the apartment which was to be called my lord's
parlour, 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 domesticks 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 Bap-
tiste 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
460 The History of Henry Esmond
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 honour of serving the King."
" I shall have the honour of waiting on His Royal High-
ness," 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 imme-
diately 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
Mr. Addison 461
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 foot-pad
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 prcelia
mixta mero, mixta mero," he repeated, with ever so slight a
touch of vierian 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 look-
ing 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 conse-
crate 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 laboured 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 ser\'ed his
462 The History of Henry Esmond
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 Mrs. 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 grey
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 domesticks
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 perriwig, ribands, and uniform of the Guard,
quite naturally addressed the gentleman as my Lord Castle-
wood, my Lady Viscountess's son.
The secretary of the night previous was now the viscount ;
the viscount wore the secretary's grey frock ; and John Lock-
wood 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 in-
differently well, and this caution was the more necessary
because the Prince himself scarce spoke our language like a
native of the island; and John Lock wood 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
Our Guest at Kensington 463
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 Castle-
wood's parlour 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 Castle-
wood 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 chamber-maid, 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 viaison 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.
464 The History of Henry Esmond
Ten times, perhaps, in the course of as many days, Mr.
Esmond had to warn the royal young adventurer of some im-
prudence 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 amoureiix, and Crispin is
angry, and Crispin has served, and Crispin has been a corporal,
has he? Tell him we will reward his valour with a pair of
colours, 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 ^ 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
Misantrope," (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 re-
ceived 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 inN^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
domesticks were informed. And Doctor A— — .* his physi-
cian, (I shall not mention his name, but he was physician to
* There can be very little doubt, that the Doctor mentioned liy my dear
father was the famous Dr. Arbuthnot. — R. E. W,
Beatrix speaks her Mind 465
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 demeanour, and one or
two hints she dropped, how deep her mortification was at find-
ing 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 in-
structress 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-humour, gaiety, 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, too, 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 Castle-
wood who told me of this conversation over their supper).
"Yes," cries she, with one of her laughs — I fancy I hear it
2 G
466 The History of Henry Esmond
now. Thirty years afterwards I hear that deUghtful musick.
" 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 curtsey, and drank a part of a glass
of wine in his honour.
"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 ? ^\''ere
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 humour
after hearing that story, and his grim face more black and
yellow than ever.
She swept out of the room with the air of an empress
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
467
468 The History of Henry Esmond
John Churchill, always ; and according as they could get help
from St. Germains or Hanover, they sent over proffers of alle-
giance 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 neigh-
bour also carried in his pocket. Think of the great Marl-
borough, 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, honours, 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. Which-
ever the King was, Harley's object was to reign over him ;
and to this end he supplanted the former famous favourite,
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
St. John against Harley 469
bravely in his fall, as he gallantly had supported him in his
better fortune.
Incomparably more brilliant, more splendid, eloquent, ac-
complished, than his rival, the great St. John could be as
selfish as Oxford was, and could act the double part as skil-
fully 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 Sache-
verel, 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-favourite, and creep up the back-
stair as silently as Oxford who supplanted Marlbopough, 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 publick 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 :
470 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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 irri-
tated 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 pre-
sentation of the young lord at Court, or that person who should
appear under his name ; and my Lord A^iscount's wound break-
ing out opportunely, he was kept conveniently in his chamber
until such time as his physician should 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 Honour, at Kensington, and my Lord Viscount (the real
or supposititious), who was an invalid atLadyCastlewood'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 Ken-
sington 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.
The Time was now Come 471
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 trans-
action, 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 par-
ticipators 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 humour, and the circumstances that
might arise during the interview, it was to be left to the dis-
cretion of those present at it, and to the Prince himself, whether
he should declare that it was the Queen's own brother, or the
472 The History of Henry Esmond
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 27 th day of
July, the Bishop of Rochester breakfasting with Lady Castle-
wood 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 th^at 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 bed-chamber, 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 Castle-
wood was labouring.
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 Castle-
wood 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 favourite 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 Viscou?it Castlctvood 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 favourite, and
the Maid of Honour, and her brother together ; Mrs. Beatrix
will present her brother, and then ! — and then, my Lord
The Meeting at Kensington 473
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 Honour, 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 Honour 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 Castle-
wood 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 favourite 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
474 The History of Henry Esmond
hand to kiss,' says her lady, and the Queen put out her hand,
which the Prince kissed, kneeUng 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 favourite 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 endeavoured
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 favourite 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 hysterick tears and laughter. 'Enough,
Three against One 475
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 in-
telligence ; '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 vvindow : 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."
476 The History of Henry Esmond
'■'■Eh! 771011 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 honour 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
The Last Sally 477
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 polite-
ness, such as 'tis to be hoped he hath always shown to women,*
his mistress stood by him 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 most 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 ot a devout Christian." — R. E. W.
4/8 The History of Henry Esmond
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 honour 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 Esmond, very
quiet; "he comes of a country where the pursuit of kings is
thought no dishonour 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
She Surrenders 479
Saint 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 honour ? "
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 ;
4^0 The History of Henry Esmond
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 honours 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.*
Having delivered this stab, Lady Esmond 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
* This remark shows how unjustly and contemptuously even the best
of men will sometimes ju(li;e of our sex. Lady Esmond had no intention
of triumjihing over her daughter ; but from a sense of duty alone pointed
out her cle[)lorable wrong. — R. E.
Proud Spirits 481
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 soli-
tude 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.
2 H
" Has your lordship anything to say ?" says the Prince, turning to Frank
Castlewood
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
A Ride to Hounslow 483
Hounslow Heath on the next day. And these two form-
ing the whole of Lady Castlewood's male domesticks, Mr.
Esmond's faithful John Lockwood came to wait on his mis-
tress 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 dark-
ness was over the house since the bright face of Beatrix had
been withdrawn from it. In the afternoon came a message
from the favourite to relieve us somewhat from this despond-
ency. "The Queen hath been much shaken," the note said;
" she is better now, and all things will go well. Let my Lord
Casthwood 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 forget-
fulness 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, cora?>i latronilms, 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
484 The History of Henry Esmond
ordered to ride behind the coach as far as Bagshot. The road
being open, and the other servant armed, it appeared she dis-
pensed with the escort of a second domestick ; 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 rnile 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 im-
portance 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 w-ell 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 lady-
ship's tea-table with her bright eyes ? "
Her ladyship said drily, that Beatrix was not at home that
News from the Palace
485
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 sur-
geon 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 ? " II
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 Castle-
wood, 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
The two worthies . . . were seared by seeing
Colonel Esmond gallop by thefn
486 The History of Henry Esmond
took a favourable 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 secre-
tary, 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 exiled
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
ecclesiasticks to recognise 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 favourable : 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 labour, both alacrity at seizing the in-
formation given him, and ingenuity and skill in turning
the phrases which were to go out signed by his name, here
exhibited a good-humour 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
The Prince his own Secretary 487
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 wvas 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 gaiety their doubt, or their grief, or their terror?
Our guest swallowed his supper very sulky; 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;
488 The History of Henry Esmond
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 beheve, 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 humour,
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.
" 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
■ In London we addressed the Prince as Royal Highness, invarial)]y ;
though the women persisted in giving him the title of King.
Le Prince se Fache 489
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 Honour cannot look at another face
without yours beginning to scowl. That which you do is un-
worthy. 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 Bastille 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 wdth rapid gesticulations 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 trembhng with anger. He was very thin and frail
from repeated illness and a life of pleasure. Either Castle-
wood 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 honour 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
490 The History of Henry Esmond
that others risk their Hves, 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 honour."
" Honour ! bah, sir, who ever thought of hurting your
honour ? " says the Prince, with a peevish air.
"We implore your Royal Highness, never to think of hurt-
ing 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 a 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 star-light
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 ^5000, 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 honour'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
Bishop of Rochester Prime Minister 491
his behalf. I wish j'ou 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 councillor 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 down-
fall of any favourite ; 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 honour.)
"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 tide, 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."
492 The History of Henry Esmond
" 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
leaveyou, 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.
The night before that he had passed in his boots at the Cro7vn at
Hotinslou'
CHAPTER XII
A GREAT SCHEME, AND WHO BAULKED IT
AS characters written with a secret ink come out with the
apphcation of fire, and disappear again and leave the
paper white, so soon as it is cool ; a hundred names of
men, high in repute and favouring 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
493
494 The History of Henry Esmond
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 imbeciHty 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 pro-
fessions 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 \V'hig 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
Our Doubts and Hesitations 495
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 estabUshing 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 2 9th-3oth July, the Colonel was engaged with gentlemen
of the military profession, w^hom '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 in-
telligence, 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, " noiv or nei'cr is the time.''''
Now or never was the time indeed. In spite of the ^Vhig
496 The History of Henry Es mond
Dukes, our side had still the majority in the Council, and
Esmond, to whom the message had been brought (the per-
sonage 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 Parlia-
ment, 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 at Kensing-
ton, 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 transac-
tion 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 Esmond'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
I RUN TO THE PrINCE's LoDGING 497
in his boots, at tlie 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. George
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,
2 I
498 The History of Henry Esmond
the Palace gate (round which the minister's 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.
"O 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 lighting ]\Iarlborough."
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 Castle-
wood, 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, " Gentle-
men, 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
A Silent Retreat
499
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
implicate any man. Some
Parliament had been invited
King's Arms at Kensington ;
bill and gone home.
been no writmgs, no paper to
few officers and Members of
over night to breakfast at the
and they had called for their
The whole assembly of officers seemed to swim away before Esmond' s eyes
as he read the paper
The talk teas scarce over when Beatrix entered the room
CHAPTER XIII
D
AUGUST 1ST, I 7 14
OES my mistress know of this ? " Esmond asked of
Frank, as tliey 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
Post Equitem sedet atra Cura 501
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 batiahs 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 Castle-
wood 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 Hexham 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
502 The History of Henry Esmond
Atterbury's sermons and Eikon Basilike : she was going to
read good books : she thought her pretty mamma would Hke
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 grey suit, with a light-brown
perriwig, just the colour 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 ahead 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
I HOLD Frank's Hand 503
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,
504 The History of Henry Esmond
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 honour,
— 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 well-nigh
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 honour 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
"Put out the light, and then" 505
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
lacquey had said, closed within.
"It may have been open, 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 well-nigh 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 jMarquis 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
jNIajesty, 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 king-
dom were assembled to accompany the Prince of Wales, who
might have been the acknowledged heir of the throne, or the
5o6 The History of Henry Esmond
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 giief-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 dishonour of our family."
"Dishonour! Morbleu, there has been no dishonour,"
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
honour 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 hath deigned to
commence some verses in honour, or dishonour, 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."
" Ma/cdiction /" 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,"
I BRING OUT Holt's Papers 507
says Esmond, preserving his grave tone, " I have some papers
there which I would gladly submit to you, and by your per-
mission 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 mantelpiece, 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 an 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 honour 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 grand-
father 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 honour 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 riband. 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 — Pm for the Elector of
5o8 The History of Henry Esmond
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 honour, that of
gentlemen. Favour 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 con-
ferred on him such an honour, 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
sw^ord-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 horses naturally bore me towards you. I found you a
Queen in your little Court, w^here you deigned to entertain
me. Present my homages to your Maids of Honour. I
sighed as you slept, under the window of your chamber, and
Farewell to Beatrix 509
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. IMademoiselle, 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.
5IO The History of Henry Esmond
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 crest-fallen
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 behaviour and their
reconciliation. The night seemed short enough ; and the
star-lit 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
I St 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 w-as 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
My crowning Happiness 511
the acclamations of the EngUsh people. The poor fellow had
forgot to huzzay or to take his hat off, until his neighbours in
the crowd remarked his want of loyalty, and cursed him for a
Jesuit in disguise, w^hen 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 re-appeared among us in America, very
old, and busy, and hopeful. I am not sure that he did not
assume the hatchet and moccassins there ; and, attired in a
blanket and war-paint, skulk about a Missionary amongst the
Indians. He lies buried in our neighbouring 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 musick, 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
vificit 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 Eruxelles, whither we retreated after the failure
of our plot — our Whig friends advising us to keep out of the
512 The History of Henry Esmond
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 circum-
stances brought about that event, which so prodigiously multi-
plied 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 a 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
Laus Domino 513
away from Europe and its troubles, on the beautiful banks of
the Potowmac, where we have built a new Castlewood, and
think with grateful hearts of our old home. In our trans-
atlantick 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.
THE END
2 K
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
PR
56/2
Al
/896
A A
001 423 276
A
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11