"You must never sing that song any more: do you hear, little mannikin?" says my Lord Viscount, holding up a finger.

"But we will try and teach you a better, Harry," Mr. Holt said; and the child answered, for he was a docile child, and of an affectionate nature, "that he loved pretty songs, and would try and learn anything the gentleman would tell him." That day he so pleased the gentlemen by his talk, that they had him to dine with them at the inn, and encouraged him in his prattle; and Monsieur Blaise, with whom he rode and dined the day before, waited upon him now.

""Tis well, 'tis well!" said Blaise, that night (in his own language) when they lay again at an inn. "We are a little lord here; we are a little lord now we shall see what we are when we come to Castlewood, where my Lady is."

"When shall we come to Castlewood, Monsieur Blaise?" says Harry.

"Parbleu! my Lord does not press himself," Blaise says, with a grin; and, indeed, it seemed as if his Lordship was not in a great hurry, for he spent three days on that journey, which Harry Esmond hath often since ridden in a dozen hours. For the last two of the days Harry rode with the priest, who was so kind to him, that the child had grown to be quite fond and familiar with him by the journey's end, and had scarce a thought in his little heart which by that time he had not confided to his new friend.

At length, on the third day, at evening, they came to a village standing on a green with elms round it, very pretty to look at; and the people there all took off their hats, and made curtseys to my Lord Viscount, who bowed to them all languidly; and there was one portly person that wore a cassock and a broad-leafed hat, who bowed lower than any one--and with this one both my Lord and Mr. Holt had a few words. "This, Harry, is Castlewood church," says Mr. Holt, "and this is the pillar thereof, learned Doctor Tusher. Take off your hat, sirrah, and salute 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 sunshine; and a great army of rooks, wheeling over their heads, made for the woods behind the house, as Harry saw; and Mr. Holt told him that they lived at Castlewood too.

They came to the house, and passed under an arch into a courtyard, with a fountain in the centre, where many men came and held my Lord's stirrup as he descended, and paid great respect to

Mr. Holt likewise. And the child thought that the servants looked at him curiously, and smiled to one another--and he recalled what Blaise had said to him when they were in London, and Harry had spoken about his godpapa, when the Frenchman said, "Parbleu, one sees well that my Lord is your godfather;" words whereof the poor lad did not know the meaning then, though he apprehended the truth in a very short time afterwards, and learned it, and thought of it with no small feeling of shame.

Taking Harry by the hand as soon as they were both descended from their horses, Mr. Holt led him across the court, and under a low door to rooms on a level with the ground; one of which Father Holt said was to be the boy's chamber, the other on the other side of the passage being the Father's own; and as soon as the little man's face was washed, and the Father's own dress arranged, Harry's guide took him once more to the door by which my Lord had entered the hall, and up a stair, and through an ante-room to my Lady's drawing-room-an apartment than which Harry thought he had never seen anything more grand-no, not in the Tower of London which he had just visited. Indeed, the chamber was richly ornamented in the manner of Queen Elizabeth's time, with great stained windows at either end, and hangings of tapestry, which the sun shining through the 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 curlsborrowed curls-so that no wonder little Harry Esmond was scared when he was first presented to her-the kind priest acting as master of the ceremonies at that solemn introduction and he stared at her with eyes almost as great as her own, as he had stared at the player-woman who acted the wicked tragedy-queen, when the players came down to Ealing Fair. She 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 snuffbox 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 tortoiseshell stick, little Fury barking at her heels.

Mrs. Tusher, the parson's wife, was with my Lady. She had been waiting-woman to her Ladyship in the late Lord's time, and, having her soul in that business, took naturally to it when the Viscountess of Castlewood returned to inhabit her father's house.

"I present to your Ladyship your kinsman and little page of honour, Master Henry Esmond," Mr. Holt said, bowing lowly, with a sort of comical humility. "Make a pretty bow to my Lady, Monsieur; and then another little bow, not so low, to Madame Tusher-the fair priestess of Castlewood."

"Where I have lived and hope to die, sir," says Madame Tusher, giving a hard glance at the brat, and then at my Lady.

Upon her the boy's whole attention was for a time directed. He could not keep his great eyes off from her. Since the Empress of Ealing, he had seen nothing so awful.

"Does my appearance please you, little page?" asked the lady. "He would be very hard to please if it didn't," cried Madame Tusher.

"Have done, you silly Maria," said Lady Castlewood.

"Where I'm attached, I'm attached, Madame-and I'd die rather than not say so."

"Je meurs où je m'attache," Mr. Holt said with a polite grin. "The ivy says so in the picture, and clings to the oak like a fond parasite as it is."

Parricide, sir!" cries Mrs. Tusher.

"Hush, Tusher-you are always bickering with Father Holt," cried my Lady. "Come and kiss my hand, child ;" and the oak held out a branch to little Harry Esmond, who took and dutifully kissed the lean old hand, upon the gnarled knuckles of which there glittered a hundred rings.

"To kiss that hand would make many a pretty fellow happy!" cried Mrs. Tusher; on which my Lady crying out Go, you foolish Tusher!" and tapping her with her great fan, Tusher ran forward to seize her hand and kiss it. Fury arose and barked furiously at Tusher; and Father Holt looked on at this queer scene, with arch, grave glances.

The awe exhibited by the little boy perhaps pleased the lady on whom this artless flattery was bestowed; for having gone down on his knee (as Father Holt had directed him, and the mode then was) and performed his obeisance, she said, "Page Esmond, my groom of the chamber will inform you what your duties are, when you wait upon my Lord and me; and good Father Holt will instruct you as becomes a gentleman of our name. You will pay him obedience in everything, and I pray you may grow to be as learned and as good as your tutor."

The lady seemed to have the greatest reverence for Mr. Holt, and to be more afraid of him than of anything else in the world. If she was ever so angry, a word or look from Father Holt made her calm indeed he had a vast power of subjecting those who came near him; and, among the rest, his new pupil gave himself up with an entire confidence and attachment to the good Father, and became his willing slave almost from the first moment he saw him.

He put his small hand into the Father's as he walked away from his first presentation to his mistress, and asked many questions in his artless childless way. "Who is that other woman?" he "She is fat and round; she is more pretty than my Lady

asked. Castlewood."

"She is Madame Tusher, the parson's wife of Castlewood. She has a son of your age, but bigger than you."

"Why does she like so to kiss my Lady's hand? It is not good to kiss."

"Tastes are different, little man. Madame Tusher is attached to my Lady, having been her waiting-woman before she was married, in the old lord's time. She married Doctor Tusher the chaplain. The English household divines often marry the waiting-women.' You will not marry the Frenchwoman, will you? I saw her laughing with Blaise in the buttery."

66

"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 the fever." On which the Father again laughed, and said he would understand this too better soon, and talked of other things, and took away Harry Esmond, and showed him the great old house which he had come to inhabit.

It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which were rooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at evening made a great cawing. At the foot of the hill was a river, with a steep ancient bridge crossing it; and beyond that a large pleasant green flat, where the village of Castlewood stood, and stands, with the church in the midst, the parsonage hard by it, the inn with the blacksmith's forge beside it, and the sign of the "Three Castles" on the elm. The London road stretched away towards

the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hills and peaks, behind which many a time Harry Esmond saw the same sun setting, that he now looks on thousands of miles away across the great ocean-in a new Castlewood, by another stream, that bears, like the new country of wandering Eneas, 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. 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 clocktower, slaying every man of the garrison, and at their head my Lord's brother, Francis Esmond.

This

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 music-gallery, and before which stretched the garden-terrace, where, however, the flowers grew again which the boots of the Roundheads had trodden in their assault, and which was restored without much cost, and only a little care, by both ladies who succeeded the second viscount in the government of this mansion. Round the terrace garden was a low wall with a wicket leading to the wooded height beyond, that is called Cromwell's Battery to this day.

This

Young Harry Esmond learned the domestic part of his duty, which was easy enough, from the groom of her Ladyship's chamber: serving the Countess, as the custom commonly was in his boyhood, as page, waiting at her chair, bringing her scented water and the silver basin after dinner-sitting on her carriage-step on state occasions, or on public days introducing her company to her. was chiefly of the Catholic gentry, of whom there were a pretty many in the country and neighbouring city; and who rode not seldom to Castlewood to partake of the hospitalities there. In the second year of their residence, the company seemed especially to increase. My Lord and my Lady were seldom without visitors, in whose society it was curious to contrast the difference of 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