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 Doctor 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 gentlemen whom Harry Esmond could recollect in his time. They could not bear that genteel service very long; one after another tried and failed at it. These and the housekeeper, and little Harry Esmond, had a table of their own. Poor ladies! their life was far harder than the page's. He was sound asleep, tucked up in his little bed, whilst they were sitting by her Ladyship reading her to sleep, with the "News Letter," or the "Grand Cyrus." My Lady used to have boxes of new plays from London, and Harry was forbidden, under the pain of a whipping, to look into them. I am afraid he deserved the penalty pretty often, and got it sometimes. Father Holt applied it twice or thrice, when he caught the young scapegrace with a delightful wicked comedy of Mr. Shadwell's or Mr. Wycherley's under his pillow.

These, when he took any, were my Lord's favourite reading. But he was averse to much study, and, as his little page fancied, to much occupation of any sort.

It always seemed to young Harry Esmond that my Lord treated him with more kindness when his lady was not present, and Lord Castlewood would take the lad sometimes on his little journeys a-hunting or a-birding; he loved to play at cards and tric-trac with him, which games the boy learned to pleasure his lord and was growing to like him better daily, showing a special pleasure if Father Holt gave a good report of him, patting him on the head, and promising that he would provide for the boy. However, in my Lady's presence, my Lord showed no such marks of kindness, and affected to treat the lad roughly, and rebuked him sharply for little faults, for which he in a manner asked pardon of young Esmond when they were private, saying if he did not speak roughly, she would, and his tongue was not such a bad one as his lady's a point whereof the boy, young as he was, was very well assured.

Great public events were happening all this while, of which the simple young page took little count. But one day, riding into the 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 postboy that rode with the first pair (my Lady always rode with her coach-and-six) gave a cut of his thong over the shoulders of one fellow who put his hand out towards the leading horse's rein.

It was a market-day, and the country people were all assembled with their baskets of poultry, eggs, and such things; the postillion had no sooner lashed the man who would have taken hold of his horse, but a great cabbage came whirling like a bombshell into the carriage, at which my Lord laughed more, for it knocked my Lady's fan out of her hand, and plumped into Father Holt's stomach. Then came a shower of carrots and potatoes.

"For Heaven's sake be still!" says Mr. Holt; we are not ten paces from the 'Bell' archway, where they can shut the gates on us, and keep out this canaille."

The little page was outside the coach on the step, and a fellow in the crowd aimed a potato at him, and hit him in the eye, at which the poor little wretch set up a shout; the man laughed, a great big saddler's apprentice of the town. "Ah! you d- little yelling

Popish bastard," he said, and stooped to pick up another; the crowd had gathered quite between the horses and the inn door by this time, and the coach was brought to a dead stand-still. My Lord jumped as briskly as a boy out of the door on his side of the

coach, squeezing little Harry behind it; had hold of the potatothrower's collar in an instant, and the next moment the brute's heels were in the air, and he fell on the stones with a thump.

"You hulking coward!" says he; "you pack of screaming blackguards! how dare you attack children, and insult women? Fling another shot at that carriage, you sneaking pigskin cobbler, and by the Lord I'll send my rapier through you!"

Some of the mob cried, "Huzzah, my Lord!" for they knew. him, and the saddler's man was a known bruiser, near twice as big as my Lord Viscount.

"Make way there," says he (he spoke in a high shrill voice, but with a great air of authority). "Make way, and let her Ladyship's

carriage pass." The men that were between the coach and the gate of the "Bell" actually did make way, and the horses went in, my Lord walking after them with his hat on his head.

As he was going in at the gate, through which the coach had just rolled, another cry begins, of "No Popery-no Papists!" My Lord turns round and faces them once more.

"God save the King!" says he at the highest pitch of his voice. "Who dares abuse the King's religion? You, you dsinging cobbler, as sure as I'm a magistrate of this county I'll commit -d psalmyou!" The fellow shrank 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 complimented him and my Lady, who was mighty grand. Harry remembers her train borne up by her gentlewoman. There was an assembly and ball at the great room at the "Bell," and other young gentlemen of the county families looked on as he did. for his black eye, which was swelled by the potato, and another One of them jeered him called him a bastard, on which he and Harry fell to fisticuffs. My Lord's cousin, Colonel Esmond of Walcote, was there, and separated the two lads- -a great tall gentleman, with a handsome good-natured face. The boy did not know how nearly in after-life he should be

allied to Colonel Esmond, and how much kindness he should have to owe him.

There was little love between the two families. My Lady used not to spare Colonel Esmond in talking of him, for reasons which have been hinted already; but about which, at his tender age, Henry Esmond could be expected to know nothing.

Very soon afterwards, my Lord and Lady went to London with Mr. Holt, leaving, however, the page behind them. The little man had the great house of Castlewood to himself; or between him and the housekeeper, Mrs. Worksop, an old lady who was a kinswoman of the family in some distant way, and a Protestant, but a staunch Tory and king's-man, as all the Esmonds were. He used to go to school to Dr. Tusher when he was at home, though the Doctor was much occupied too. There was a great stir and commotion everywhere, even in the little quiet village of Castlewood, whither a party of people came from the town, who would have broken Castlewood Chapel windows, but the village people turned out, and even old Sieveright, the republican blacksmith, along with them for my Lady, though she was a Papist, and had many odd ways, was kind to the tenantry, and there was always a plenty of beef, and blankets, and medicine for the poor at Castlewood Hall. A kingdom was changing hands whilst my Lord and Lady were 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.

away.

:

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.

G

CHAPTER V

MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF KING JAMES THE SECOND

N

OT having been able to sleep, for thinking of some lines for eels which he had placed the night before, the lad was lying in his little bed, waiting for the hour when the gate would be open, and he and his comrade, John Lockwood, the porter's son, might go to the pond and see what fortune had brought them. At daybreak, John was to awaken him, but his own eagerness for the sport had served as a réveillez long since-so long, that it seemed to him as if the day never would come.

It might have been four o'clock when he heard the door of the opposite chamber, the. Chaplain's room, open, and the voice of a man coughing in the passage. Harry jumped up, thinking for certain it was a robber, or hoping perhaps for a ghost, and, flinging open his own door, saw before him the Chaplain's door open, and a light inside, and a figure standing in the doorway, in the midst of a great smoke which issued from the room.

"Who's there?" cried out the boy, who was of a good spirit. "Silentium!" whispered the other; "tis I, my boy!" and, holding his hand out, Harry had no difficulty in 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?"