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 murder of their father? The wretch who did the deed has not even a punishment. Conscience! what conscience has he, who can enter the house of a friend, whisper falsehood and insult to a woman that never harmed him, and stab the kind heart that trusted him? My Lord-my Lord Wretch's, my Lord Villain's, my Lord Murderer's peers meet to try him, and they dismiss him with a word or two of reproof, and send him into the world again, to pursue women with lust and falsehood, and to murder unsuspecting guests that 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 Lord Mohun's sword. Your poor young kinsman, Harry Esmond, hath told me that he tried to draw the quarrel on himself.' "Are you come from him?' asked the lady (so Mr. Steele went on), rising up with a great severity and stateliness. 'I thought you had come from the Princess. I saw Mr. Esmond in his prison, and bade him farewell. He brought misery into my house. He never should have entered it.' "Madam, madam, he is not to blame,' I interposed," continued Mr. Steele. "Do I blame him to you, sir?' asked the widow. 'If 'tis he who sent you, say that I have taken counsel, where'-she spoke with a very pallid cheek now, and a break in her voice-where all who ask may have it;-and that it bids me to part from him, and to see him no more. We met in the prison for the last time-at least for years to come. It may be, in years hence, when-when our knees and our tears and our contrition have changed our sinful hearts, sir, and wrought our pardon, we may meet again-but not now. After what has passed, I could not bear to see him. I wish him well, sir; but I wish him farewell too; and if he has thatthat 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 "The lady shook her head," continued my kind scholar. hearts of young men, Mr. Steele, are not so made,' she said. 'Mr. Esmond will find other-other friends. The mistress of this house has relented very much towards the late lord's son,' she added with a blush, and has promised me, that is, has promised that she will care for his fortune. Whilst I live in it, after the horrid, horrid deed which has passed, Castlewood must never be a home to him— never. Nor would I have him write to me-except-no—I would have him never write to me, nor see him more. Give him, if you will, my parting Hush! not a word of this before my daughter.' "Here the fair Beatrix entered from the river, with her cheeks flushing with health, and looking only the more lovely and fresh for the mourning habiliments which she wore. And my Lady Viscountess said "Beatrix, this is Mr. Steele, gentleman-usher to the Prince's Highness. When does your new comedy appear, Mr. Steele?' I hope thou wilt be out of prison for the first night, Harry." The sentimental Captain concluded his sad tale, saying, “Faith, the beauty of filia pulcrior drove pulcram matrem out of my head! and yet as I came down the river, and thought about the pair, the pallid dignity and exquisite grace of the matron had the uppermost, and I thought her even more noble than the virgin!" The party of prisoners lived very well in Newgate, and with comforts very different to those which were awarded to the poor wretches there (his insensibility to their misery, their 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 "Handcuff Inn "-as Colonel Westbury called it. Our rooms were the three in the gate over Newgate-on the second storey looking up Newgate Street towards Cheapside and Paul's Church. And we had leave to walk on the roof, and could see thence Smithfield and the Bluecoat Boys' School, Gardens, and the Chartreux, where, as Harry Esmond remembered, Dick the Scholar and his friend Tom Tusher had had their schooling. Harry could never have paid his share of that prodigious heavy reckoning which my landlord brought to his guests once a week: for he had but three pieces in his pockets that fatal night before the duel, when the gentlemen were at cards, and offered to play five. But whilst he was yet ill at the Gatehouse, after Lady Castlewood had visited him there, and before his trial, there came one in an orange-tawny coat and blue lace, the livery which the Esmonds always wore, and brought a sealed packet for Mr. Esmond, which contained twenty guineas, and a note saying that a counsel had been appointed for him, and that more money would be forthcoming whenever he needed it. 'Twas a queer letter from the scholar as she was, or as she called herself: the Dowager Viscountess Castlewood, written in the strange barbarous French which she and many other fine ladies of that time-witness her Grace of Portsmouth-employed. Indeed, spelling was not an article of general commodity in the world then, and my Lord Marlborough's letters can show that he, for one, had but a little share of this part of grammar: "MONG COUSSIN," my Lady Viscountess Dowager wrote, "je scay que vous vous etes bravement batew et grievement bléssay-du costé de feu M. le Vicomte. M. le Compte de Varique ne se playt qua parlay de vous: M. de Moon aucy. Il di que vous avay voulew vous bastre avecque luy-que vous estes plus fort que luy fur l'ayscrimme-quil'y a surtout certaine Botte que vous scavay quil n'a jammay sceu pariay: et que c'en eut été fay de luy si vouseluy vous vous fussiay battews ansamb. Ainey ce pauv Vicompte est mort. Mort et peutayt-Mon coussin, mon coussin jay dans la tayste que vous n'estes quung pety Monst-angey que les Esmonds ong tousjours esté. La veuve est chay moy. J'ay recuilly cet' pauve famme. Elle est furieuse cont vous, allans tous les jours chercher ley Roy (d'icy) démandant à 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 défaire de song pety Monste (Hélas je craing quil ne soy trotar!) je m'en chargeray. J'ay encor quelqu interay et quelques escus de costay. Miladi Marlboro qui est tout "La Veuve se raccommode avec puiçante avecque la Princesse Anne. 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 à cause des méchansetés du monde, may pre du moy vous aurez logement. ISABELLE, VISCOMTESSE D'ESMOND." Marchioness of Esmond this lady sometimes called herself, in virtue of that patent which had been given by the late King James to Harry Esmond's father; and in this state she had her train carried by a knight's wife, a cup and cover of assay to drink from, and fringed cloth. He who was of the same age as little Francis, whom we shall henceforth call Viscount Castlewood here, was H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, born in the same year and month with Frank, and just proclaimed, at Saint Germains, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. CHAPTER III I TAKE THE QUEEN'S PAY IN QUIN'S REGIMENT HE fellow in the orange-tawny livery with blue lace and facings was in waiting when Esmond came out of prison, and, taking the young gentleman's slender baggage, led the way out of that odious Newgate, and by Fleet Conduit, down to the Thames, where a pair of oars was called, and they went up the river to Chelsey. Esmond thought the sun had never shone so bright; nor the air felt so fresh and exhilarating. Temple Garden, as they rowed by, looked like the garden of Eden to him, and the aspect of the quays, wharves, and buildings by the river, Somerset House, and Westminster (where the splendid new bridge was just beginning), Lambeth tower and palace, and that busy shining scene of the Thames swarming with boats and barges, filled his heart with pleasure and cheerfulness-as well such a beautiful scene might to one who had been a prisoner so long, and with so many dark thoughts deepening the gloom of his captivity. They rowed up at length to the pretty village of Chelsey, where the nobility have many handsome country houses; and so came to my Lady Viscountess's house, a cheerful new house in the row facing the river, with a handsome garden behind it, and a pleasant look-out both towards Surrey and Kensington, where stands the noble ancient palace of the Lord Warwick, Harry's reconciled adversary. Here in her Ladyship's saloon, the young man saw again some of those pictures which had been at Castlewood, and which she had removed thence on the death of her lord, Harry's father. Specially, and in the place of 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 |