thought that our side might move on London itself, and a confident victory 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 June 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 officer 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 panic, the cowboy coming 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 crossway.

"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 à 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 so I gave a cut to Whitefoot, and she trotted home. We rode on towards Newbury; we heard firing towards mid-day: 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 Ecossais declared an hour too soon-General Ginckel was down upon them.' 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 gentlewoman slept near to

the door, made her bring a light and wake my Lady, into whose She was a wonderful object to look at

hands he gave the paper.

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 manuscript 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 toilet 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 John 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. John had but two minutes the start of them, and, ere he had well told his story, the troop rode into our courtyard.

CHAPTER VI

THE ISSUE OF THE PLOTS-THE DEATH OF THOMAS, THIRD VISCOUNT OF CASTLEWOOD; AND THE IMPRISONMENT OF HIS VISCOUNTESS

A

T first my Lady was for dying like Mary, Queen of Scots (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 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, confined 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 handsome 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 goodnatured 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!
y?"

"Yesterday night."

"With Father Holt?"

"With Mr. Holt."

"And which way did they travel?" asks the lawyer.

66

"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.

The curtains of her Ladyship's room were down, and the chamber dark, and she was in bed with a nightcap 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 nonjuring 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 Maryand 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, chattering 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.