The History of Henry Esmond, Esq Part 6

"Mr. Holt said they were sermons," Harry said, "and bade me to burn them;" which indeed was true of those papers.

"Sermons indeed--it's treason, I would lay a wager," cries the lawyer.

"Egad! it's Greek to me," says Captain Westbury. "Can you read it, little boy?"

"Yes, sir, a little," Harry said.

"Then read, and read in English, sir, on your peril," said the lawyer.

And Harry began to translate:--

"Hath not one of your own writers said, 'The children of Adam are now laboring as much as he himself ever did, about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, shaking the boughs thereof, and seeking the fruit, being for the most part unmindful of the tree of life.' Oh blind generation! 'tis this tree of knowledge to which the serpent has led you"--and here the boy was obliged to stop, the rest of the page being charred by the fire: and asked of the lawyer--"Shall I go on, sir?"

The lawyer said--"This boy is deeper than he seems: who knows that he is not laughing at us?"

"Let's have in d.i.c.k the Scholar," cried Captain Westbury, laughing: and he called to a trooper out of the window--"Ho, d.i.c.k, come in here and construe."

A thick-set soldier, with a square good-humored face, came in at the summons, saluting his officer.

"Tell us what is this, d.i.c.k," says the lawyer.

"My name is Steele, sir," says the soldier. "I may be d.i.c.k for my friends, but I don't name gentlemen of your cloth amongst them."

"Well then, Steele."

"Mr. Steele, sir, if you please. When you address a gentleman of his Majesty's Horse Guards, be pleased not to be so familiar."

"I didn't know, sir," said the lawyer.

"How should you? I take it you are not accustomed to meet with gentlemen," says the trooper.

"Hold thy prate, and read that bit of paper," says Westbury.

"'Tis Latin," says d.i.c.k, glancing at it, and again saluting his officer, "and from a sermon of Mr. Cudworth's," and he translated the words pretty much as Henry Esmond had rendered them.

"What a young scholar you are," says the Captain to the boy.

"Depend on't, he knows more than he tells," says the lawyer. "I think we will pack him off in the coach with old Jezebel."

"For construing a bit of Latin?" said the Captain, very good-naturedly.

"I would as lief go there as anywhere," Harry Esmond said, simply, "for there is n.o.body 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 d.i.c.k himself," cried Captain Westbury.

"I said I was not ignorant of misfortune myself, and had learned to succor the miserable, and that's not YOUR trade, Mr. Sheepskin," said the trooper.

"You had better leave d.i.c.k the Scholar alone, Mr. Corbet," the Captain said. And Harry Esmond, always touched by a kind face and kind word, felt very grateful to this good-natured champion.

The horses were by this time harnessed to the coach; and the Countess and Victoire came down and were put into the vehicle. This woman, who quarrelled with Harry Esmond all day, was melted at parting with him, and called him "dear angel," and "poor infant," and a hundred other names.

The Viscountess, giving him her lean hand to kiss, bade him always be faithful to the house of Esmond. "If evil should happen to my lord,"

says she, "his SUCCESSOR, I trust, will be found, and give you protection. Situated as I am, they will not dare wreak their vengeance on me NOW." And she kissed a medal she wore with great fervor, and Henry Esmond knew not in the least what her meaning was; but hath since learned that, old as she was, she was for ever expecting, by the good offices of saints and relics, to have an heir to the t.i.tle of Esmond.

Harry Esmond was too young to have been introduced into the secrets of politics in which his patrons were implicated; for they put but few questions to the boy (who was little of stature, and looked much younger than his age), and such questions as they put he answered cautiously enough, and professing even more ignorance than he had, for which his examiners willingly enough gave him credit. He did not say a word about the window or the cupboard over the fireplace; and these secrets quite escaped the eyes of the searchers.

So then my lady was consigned to her coach, and sent off to Hexton, with her woman and the man of law to bear her company, a couple of troopers riding on either side of the coach. And Harry was left behind at the Hall, belonging as it were to n.o.body, and quite alone in the world.

The captain and a guard of men remained in possession there; and the soldiers, who were very good-natured and kind, ate my lord's mutton and drank his wine, and made themselves comfortable, as they well might do in such pleasant quarters.

The captains had their dinner served in my lord's tapestry parlor, and poor little Harry thought his duty was to wait upon Captain Westbury's chair, as his custom had been to serve his lord when he sat there.

After the departure of the Countess, d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k. Hearing that he had learned them from a Jesuit, in the praise of whom and whose goodness Harry was never tired of speaking, d.i.c.k, rather to the boy's surprise, who began to have an early shrewdness, like many children bred up alone, showed a great deal of theological science, and knowledge of the points at issue between the two churches; so that he and Harry would have hours of controversy together, in which the boy was certainly worsted by the arguments of this singular trooper. "I am no common soldier," d.i.c.k would say, and indeed it was easy to see by his learning, breeding, and many accomplishments, that he was not. "I am of one of the most ancient families in the empire; I have had my education at a famous school, and a famous university; I learned my first rudiments of Latin near to Smithfield, in London, where the martyrs were roasted."

"You hanged as many of ours," interposed Harry; "and, for the matter of persecution, Father Holt told me that a young gentleman of Edinburgh, eighteen years of age, student at the college there, was hanged for heresy only last year, though he recanted, and solemnly asked pardon for his errors."

"Faith! there has been too much persecution on both sides: but 'twas you taught us."

"Nay, 'twas the Pagans began it," cried the lad, and began to instance a number of saints of the Church, from the proto-martyr downwards--"this one's fire went out under him: that one's oil cooled in the caldron: at a third holy head the executioner chopped three times and it would not come off. Show us martyrs in YOUR church for whom such miracles have been done."

"Nay," says the trooper gravely, "the miracles of the first three centuries belong to my Church as well as yours, Master Papist," and then added, with something of a smile upon his countenance, and a queer look at Harry--"And yet, my little catechiser, I have sometimes thought about those miracles, that there was not much good in them, since the victim's head always finished by coming off at the third or fourth chop, and the caldron, if it did not boil one day, boiled the next. Howbeit, in our times, the Church has lost that questionable advantage of respites.

There never was a shower to put out Ridley's fire, nor an angel to turn the edge of Campion's axe. The rack tore the limbs of Southwell the Jesuit and Sympson the Protestant alike. For faith, everywhere mult.i.tudes die willingly enough. I have read in Monsieur Rycaut's 'History of the Turks,' of thousands of Mahomet's followers rus.h.i.+ng upon death in battle as upon certain Paradise; and in the great Mogul's dominions people fling themselves by hundreds under the cars of the idols annually, and the widows burn themselves on their husbands'

bodies, as 'tis well known. 'Tis not the dying for a faith that's so hard, Master Harry--every man of every nation has done that--'tis the living up to it that is difficult, as I know to my cost," he added with a sigh. "And ah!" he added, "my poor lad, I am not strong enough to convince thee by my life--though to die for my religion would give me the greatest of joys--but I had a dear friend in Magdalen College in Oxford; I wish Joe Addison were here to convince thee, as he quickly could--for I think he's a match for the whole College of Jesuits; and what's more, in his life too. In that very sermon of Dr. Cudworth's which your priest was quoting from, and which suffered martydom in the brazier,"--d.i.c.k added with a smile, "I had a thought of wearing the black coat (but was ashamed of my life, you see, and took to this sorry red one); I have often thought of Joe Addison--Dr. Cudworth says, 'A good conscience is the best looking-gla.s.s of heaven'--and there's serenity in my friend's face which always reflects it--I wish you could see him, Harry."

"Did he do you a great deal of good?" asked the lad, simply.

"He might have done," said the other--"at least he taught me to see and approve better things. 'Tis my own fault, deteriora sequi."

"You seem very good," the boy said.

"I'm not what I seem, alas!" answered the trooper--and indeed, as it turned out, poor d.i.c.k told the truth--for that very night, at supper in the hall, where the gentlemen of the troop took their repasts, and pa.s.sed most part of their days dicing and smoking of tobacco, and singing and cursing, over the Castlewood ale--Harry Esmond found d.i.c.k the Scholar in a woful state of drunkenness. He hiccupped out a sermon and his laughing companions bade him sing a hymn, on which d.i.c.k, swearing he would run the scoundrel through the body who insulted his religion, made for his sword, which was hanging on the wall, and fell down flat on the floor under it, saying to Harry, who ran forward to help him, "Ah, little Papist, I wish Joseph Addison was here!"

Though the troopers of the King's Life-Guards were all gentlemen, yet the rest of the gentlemen seemed ignorant and vulgar boors to Harry Esmond, with the exception of this good-natured Corporal Steele the Scholar, and Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant, who were always kind to the lad. They remained for some weeks or months encamped in Castlewood, and Harry learned from them, from time to time, how the lady at Hexton Castle was treated, and the particulars of her confinement there. 'Tis known that King William was disposed to deal very leniently with the gentry who remained faithful to the old King's cause; and no prince usurping a crown, as his enemies said he did, (righteously taking it, as I think now,) ever caused less blood to be shed. As for women-conspirators, he kept spies on the least dangerous, and locked up the others. Lady Castlewood had the best rooms in Hexton Castle, and the gaoler's garden to walk in; and though she repeatedly desired to be led out to execution, like Mary Queen of Scots, there never was any thought of taking her painted old head off, or any desire to do aught but keep her person in security.

And it appeared she found that some were friends in her misfortune, whom she had, in her prosperity, considered as her worst enemies. Colonel Francis Esmond, my lord's cousin and her ladys.h.i.+p'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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 ladys.h.i.+p and the child's mother there was little more love than formerly. There are some injuries which women never forgive one another; and Madam Francis Esmond, in marrying her cousin, had done one of those irretrievable wrongs to Lady Castlewood. But as she was now humiliated, and in misfortune, Madam Francis could allow a truce to her enmity, and could be kind for a while, at least, to her husband's discarded mistress. So the little Beatrix, her daughter, was permitted often to go and visit the imprisoned Viscountess, who, in so far as the child and its father were concerned, got to abate in her anger towards that branch of the Castlewood family. And the letters of Colonel Esmond coming to light, as has been said, and his conduct being known to the King's council, the Colonel was put in a better position with the existing government than he had ever before been; any suspicions regarding his loyalty were entirely done away; and so he was enabled to be of more service to his kinswoman than he could otherwise have been.

And now there befell an event by which this lady recovered her liberty, and the house of Castlewood got a new owner, and fatherless little Harry Esmond a new and most kind protector and friend. Whatever that secret was which Harry was to hear from my lord, the boy never heard it; for that night when Father Holt arrived, and carried my lord away with him, was the last on which Harry ever saw his patron. What happened to my lord may be briefly told here. Having found the horses at the place where they were lying, my lord and Father Holt rode together to Chatteris, where they had temporary refuge with one of the Father's penitents in that city; but the pursuit being hot for them, and the reward for the apprehension of one or the other considerable, it was deemed advisable that they should separate; and the priest betook himself to other places of retreat known to him, whilst my lord pa.s.sed 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 t.i.tle of Marquis, gave him a regiment, and promised him further promotion. But t.i.tles or promotion were not to benefit him now. My lord was wounded at the fatal battle of the Boyne, flying from which field (long after his master had set him an example) he lay for a while concealed in the marshy country near to the town of Trim, and more from catarrh and fever caught in the bogs than from the steel of the enemy in the battle, sank and died. May the earth lie light upon Thomas of Castlewood! He who writes this must speak in charity, though this lord did him and his two grievous wrongs: for one of these he would have made amends, perhaps, had life been spared him; but the other lay beyond his power to repair, though 'tis to be hoped that a greater Power than a priest has absolved him of it. He got the comfort of this absolution, too, such as it was: a priest of Trim writing a letter to my lady to inform her of this calamity.

But in those days letters were slow of travelling, and our priest's took two months or more on its journey from Ireland to England: where, when it did arrive, it did not find my lady at her own house; she was at the King's house of Hexton Castle when the letter came to Castlewood, but it was opened for all that by the officer in command there.

Harry Esmond well remembered the receipt of this letter, which Lockwood brought in as Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant were on the green playing at bowls, young Esmond looking on at the sport, or reading his book in the arbor.

"Here's news for Frank Esmond," says Captain Westbury; "Harry, did you ever see Colonel Esmond?" And Captain Westbury looked very hard at the boy as he spoke.

Harry said he had seen him but once when he was at Hexton, at the ball there.