CHAPTER V.
MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF KING JAMES II.
Not having been able to sleep, for thinking of some lines for eels whichhe 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 hiscomrade, John Lockwood, the porter's son, might go to the pond and seewhat fortune had brought them. At daybreak John was to awaken him, buthis own eagerness for the sport had served as a reveillez long since--solong, 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 oppositechamber, the Chaplain's room, open, and the voice of a man coughing inthe passage. Harry jumped up, thinking for certain it was a robber, orhoping perhaps for a ghost, and, flinging open his own door, saw beforehim the Chaplain's door open, and a light inside, and a figure standingin the doorway, in the midst of a great smoke which issued from theroom.
"Who's there?" cried out the boy, who was of a good spirit.
"Silentium!" whispered the other; "'tis I, my boy!" and, holding hishand out, Harry had no difficulty in recognizing his master and friend,Father Holt. A curtain was over the window of the Chaplain's room thatlooked to the court, and Harry saw that the smoke came from a greatflame of papers which were burning in a brazier when he entered theChaplain's room. After giving a hasty greeting and blessing to the lad,who was charmed to see his tutor, the Father continued the burning ofhis papers, drawing them from a cupboard over the mantel-piece wall,which Harry had never seen before.
Father Holt laughed, seeing the lad's attention fixed at once on thishole. "That is right, Harry," he said; "faithful little famuli, see alland 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 youhave to do is to hold your tongue. Let us burn these papers, and saynothing to anybody. Should you like to read them?"
Harry Esmond blushed, and held down his head; he HAD looked as the factwas, and without thinking, at the paper before him; and though he hadseen it, could not understand a word of it, the letters being quiteclear enough, but quite without meaning. They burned the papers, beatingdown the ashes in a brazier, so that scarce any traces of them remained.
Harry had been accustomed to see Father Holt in more dresses than one;it not being safe, or worth the danger, for Popish ecclesiastics to weartheir proper dress; and he was, in consequence, in no wise astonishedthat the priest should now appear before him in a riding-dress, withlarge buff leather boots, and a feather to his hat, plain, but such asgentlemen wore.
"You know the secret of the cupboard," said he, laughing, "and must beprepared for other mysteries;" and he opened--but not a secret cupboardthis time--only a wardrobe, which he usually kept locked, and from whichhe now took out two or three dresses and perruques of different colors,and a couple of swords of a pretty make (Father Holt was an expertpractitioner with the small-sword, and every day, whilst he was at home,he and his pupil practised this exercise, in which the lad became a verygreat proficient), a military coat and cloak, and a farmer's smock,and placed them in the large hole over the mantel-piece from which thepapers had been taken.
"If they miss the cupboard," he said, "they will not find these; ifthey find them, they'll tell no tales, except that Father Holt wore moresuits of clothes than one. All Jesuits do. You know what deceivers weare, Harry."
Harry was alarmed at the notion that his friend was about to leave him;but "No," the priest said, "I may very likely come back with my lordin a few days. We are to be tolerated; we are not to be persecuted. Butthey may take a fancy to pay a visit at Castlewood ere our return; and,as gentlemen of my cloth are suspected, they might choose to examinemy papers, which concern nobody--at least not them." And to this day,whether the papers in cipher related to politics, or to the affairs ofthat mysterious society whereof Father Holt was a member, his pupil,Harry Esmond, remains in entire ignorance.
The rest of his goods, his small wardrobe, &c. Holt left untouched onhis shelves and in his cupboard, taking down--with a laugh, however--andflinging into the brazier, where he only half burned them, sometheological treatises which he had been writing against the Englishdivines. "And now," said he, "Henry, my son, you may testify, with asafe conscience, that you saw me burning Latin sermons the last time Iwas here before I went away to London; and it will be daybreak directly,and I must be away before Lockwood is stirring."
"Will not Lockwood let you out, sir?" Esmond asked. Holt laughed; hewas never more gay or good-humored than when in the midst of action ordanger.
"Lockwood knows nothing of my being here, mind you," he said; "nor wouldyou, you little wretch! had you slept better. You must forget that Ihave been here; and now farewell. Close the door, and go to your ownroom, and don't come out till--stay, why should you not know one secretmore? I know you will never betray me."
In the Chaplain's room were two windows; the one looking into the courtfacing westwards to the fountain; the other, a small casement stronglybarred, and looking on to the green in front of the Hall. This windowwas too high to reach from the ground; but, mounting on a buffet whichstood beneath it, Father Holt showed me how, by pressing on the baseof the window, the whole framework of lead, glass, and iron stanchionsdescended into a cavity worked below, from which it could be drawn andrestored to its usual place from without; a broken pane being purposelyopen to admit the hand which was to work upon the spring of the machine.
"When I am gone," Father Holt said, "you may push away the buffet, sothat no one may fancy that an exit has been made that way; lock thedoor; place the key--where shall we put the key?--under 'Chrysostom' onthe book-shelf; and if any ask for it, say I keep it there, and told youwhere to find it, if you had need to go to my room. The descent is easydown the wall into the ditch; and so, once more farewell, until I seethee again, my dear son." And with this the intrepid Father mountedthe buffet with great agility and briskness, stepped across the window,lifting up the bars and framework again from the other side, and onlyleaving room for Harry Esmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his handbefore the casement closed, the bars fixing as firmly as ever,seemingly, in the stone arch overhead. When Father Holt next arrived atCastlewood, it was by the public gate on horseback; and he never so muchas alluded to the existence of the private issue to Harry, except whenhe had need of a private messenger from within, for which end, no doubt,he had instructed his young pupil in the means of quitting the Hall.
Esmond, young as he was, would have died sooner than betray his friendand master, as Mr. Holt well knew; for he had tried the boy more thanonce, putting temptations in his way, to see whether he would yield tothem and confess afterwards, or whether he would resist them, as he didsometimes, or whether he would lie, which he never did. Holt instructingthe boy on this point, however, that if to keep silence is not to lie,as it certainly is not, yet silence is, after all, equivalent to anegation--and therefore a downright No, in the interest of justiceor your friend, and in reply to a question that may be prejudicial toeither, is not criminal, but, on the contrary, praiseworthy; and aslawful a way as the other of eluding a wrongful demand. For instance(says he), suppose a good citizen, who had seen his Majesty take refugethere, had been asked, "Is King Charles up that oak-tree?" his dutywould have been not to say, Yes--so that the Cromwellians should seizethe king and murder him like his father--but No; his Majesty beingprivate in the tree, and therefore not to be seen there by loyaleyes: all which instruction, in religion and morals, as well as in therudiments of the tongues and sciences, the boy took eagerly and withgratitude from his tutor. When, then, Holt was gone, and told Harry notto see him, it was as if he had never been. And he had this answer patwhen he came to be questioned a few days after.
The Prince of Orange was then at Salisbury, as young Esmond learned fromseeing Doctor Tusher in his best cassock (though the roads weremuddy, and he never was known to wear his silk, only his st
uff one,a-horseback), with a great orange cockade in his broad-leafed hat, andNahum, his clerk, ornamented with a like decoration. The Doctor waswalking up and down in front of his parsonage, when little Esmond sawhim, and heard him say he was going to pay his duty to his Highnessthe Prince, as he mounted his pad and rode away with Nahum behind. Thevillage people had orange cockades too, and his friend the blacksmith'slaughing daughter pinned one into Harry's old hat, which he tore outindignantly when they bade him to cry "God save the Prince of Orange andthe Protestant religion!" but the people only laughed, for they likedthe boy in the village, where his solitary condition moved the generalpity, and where he found friendly welcomes and faces in many houses.Father Holt had many friends there too, for he not only would fight theblacksmith at theology, never losing his temper, but laughing the wholetime in his pleasant way; but he cured him of an ague with quinquina,and was always ready with a kind word for any man that asked it, so thatthey said in the village 'twas a pity the two were Papists.
The Director and the Vicar of Castlewood agreed very well; indeed, theformer was a perfectly-bred gentleman, and it was the latter's businessto agree with everybody. Doctor Tusher and the lady's-maid, his spouse,had a boy who was about the age of little Esmond; and there was such afriendship between the lads, as propinquity and tolerable kindness andgood-humor on either side would be pretty sure to occasion. Tom Tusherwas sent off early, however, to a school in London, whither his fathertook him and a volume of sermons, in the first year of the reign of KingJames; and Tom returned but once, a year afterwards, to Castlewood formany years of his scholastic and collegiate life. Thus there was lessdanger to Tom of a perversion of his faith by the Director, who scarceever saw him, than there was to Harry, who constantly was in the Vicar'scompany; but as long as Harry's religion was his Majesty's, and mylord's, and my lady's, the Doctor said gravely, it should not be forhim to disturb or disquiet him: it was far from him to say that hisMajesty's Church was not a branch of the Catholic Church; upon whichFather Holt used, according to his custom, to laugh, and say that theHoly Church throughout all the world, and the noble Army of Martyrs,were very much obliged to the Doctor.
It was while Dr. Tusher was away at Salisbury that there came a troopof dragoons with orange scarfs, and quartered in Castlewood, and someof them came up to the Hall, where they took possession, robbing nothinghowever beyond the hen-house and the beer-cellar: and only insistingupon going through the house and looking for papers. The first room theyasked to look at was Father Holt's room, of which Harry Esmond broughtthe key, and they opened the drawers and the cupboards, and tossed overthe papers and clothes--but found nothing except his books and clothes,and the vestments in a box by themselves, with which the dragoonsmade merry, to Harry Esmond's horror. And to the questions which thegentleman put to Harry, he replied that Father Holt was a very kind manto him, and a very learned man, and Harry supposed would tell him noneof his secrets if he had any. He was about eleven years old at thistime, and looked as innocent as boys of his age.
The family were away more than six months, and when they returnedthey were in the deepest state of dejection, for King James had beenbanished, the Prince of Orange was on the throne, and the direstpersecutions of those of the Catholic faith were apprehended by mylady, who said she did not believe that there was a word of truth in thepromises of toleration that Dutch monster made, or in a single word theperjured wretch said. My lord and lady were in a manner prisoners intheir own house; so her ladyship gave the little page to know, who wasby this time growing of an age to understand what was passing about him,and something of the characters of the people he lived with.
"We are prisoners," says she; "in everything but chains, we areprisoners. Let them come, let them consign me to dungeons, or strike offmy head from this poor little throat" (and she clasped it in her longfingers). "The blood of the Esmonds will always flow freely for theirkings. We are not like the Churchills--the Judases, who kiss theirmaster and betray him. We know how to suffer, how even to forgive in theroyal cause" (no doubt it was to that fatal business of losing the placeof Groom of the Posset to which her ladyship alluded, as she did halfa dozen times in the day). "Let the tyrant of Orange bring his rack andhis odious Dutch tortures--the beast! the wretch! I spit upon him anddefy him. Cheerfully will I lay this head upon the block; cheerfullywill I accompany my lord to the scaffold: we will cry 'God saveKing James!' with our dying breath, and smile in the face of theexecutioner." And she told her page, a hundred times at least, of theparticulars of the last interview which she had with his Majesty.
"I flung myself before my liege's feet," she said, "at Salisbury.I devoted myself--my husband--my house, to his cause. Perhaps heremembered old times, when Isabella Esmond was young and fair; perhapshe recalled the day when 'twas not I that knelt--at least he spoke to mewith a voice that reminded ME of days gone by. 'Egad!' said his Majesty,'you should go to the Prince of Orange; if you want anything.' 'No,sire,' I replied, 'I would not kneel to a Usurper; the Esmond that wouldhave served your Majesty will never be groom to a traitor's posset.' Theroyal exile smiled, even in the midst of his misfortune; he deigned toraise me with words of consolation. The Viscount, my husband, himself,could not be angry at the august salute with which he honored me!"
The public misfortune had the effect of making my lord and his ladybetter friends than they ever had been since their courtship. Mylord Viscount had shown both loyalty and spirit, when these were rarequalities in the dispirited party about the King; and the praise he gotelevated him not a little in his wife's good opinion, and perhaps in hisown. He wakened up from the listless and supine life which he had beenleading; was always riding to and fro in consultation with this friendor that of the King's; the page of course knowing little of his doings,but remarking only his greater cheerfulness and altered demeanor.
Father Holt came to the Hall constantly, but officiated no longer openlyas chaplain; he was always fetching and carrying: strangers, militaryand ecclesiastic (Harry knew the latter, though they came in all sortsof disguises), were continually arriving and departing. My lord madelong absences and sudden reappearances, using sometimes the means ofexit which Father Holt had employed, though how often the little windowin the Chaplain's room let in or let out my lord and his friends, Harrycould not tell. He stoutly kept his promise to the Father of not prying,and if at midnight from his little room he heard noises of personsstirring in the next chamber, he turned round to the wall, and hid hiscuriosity under his pillow until it fell asleep. Of course he couldnot help remarking that the priest's journeys were constant, andunderstanding by a hundred signs that some active though secret businessemployed him: what this was may pretty well be guessed by what soonhappened to my lord.
No garrison or watch was put into Castlewood when my lord came back, buta Guard was in the village; and one or other of them was always on theGreen keeping a look-out on our great gate, and those who went out andin. Lockwood said that at night especially every person who came in orwent out was watched by the outlying sentries. 'Twas lucky that we hada gate which their Worships knew nothing about. My lord and Father Holtmust have made constant journeys at night: once or twice little Harryacted as their messenger and discreet little aide-de-camp. He remembershe was bidden to go into the village with his fishing-rod, enter certainhouses, ask for a drink of water, and tell the good man, "There would bea horse-market at Newbury next Thursday," and so carry the same messageon to the next house on his list.
He did not know what the message meant at the time, nor what washappening: which may as well, however, for clearness' sake, be explainedhere. The Prince of Orange being gone to Ireland, where the King wasready to meet him with a great army, it was determined that a greatrising of his Majesty's party should take place in this country; and mylord was to head the force in our county. Of late he had taken a greaterlead in affairs than before, having the indefatigable Mr. Holt at hiselbow, and my Lady Viscountess strongly urging him on; and my LordSark being in the Tower a prisoner, and Sir Wil
mot Crawley, of Queen'sCrawley, having gone over to the Prince of Orange's side--my lord becamethe most considerable person in our part of the county for the affairsof the King.
It was arranged that the regiment of Scots Grays and Dragoons, thenquartered at Newbury, should declare for the King on a certain day, whenlikewise the gentry affected to his Majesty's cause were to come in withtheir tenants and adherents to Newbury, march upon the Dutch troopsat Reading under Ginckel; and, these overthrown, and their indomitablelittle master away in Ireland, 'twas thought that our side might move onLondon itself, and a confident victory was predicted for the King.
As these great matters were in agitation, my lord lost his listlessmanner and seemed to gain health; my lady did not scold him, Mr. Holtcame to and fro, busy always; and little Harry longed to have been a fewinches taller, that he might draw a sword in this good cause.
One day, it must have been about the month of July, 1690, my lord, ina great horseman's coat, under which Harry could see the shining of asteel breastplate he had on, called little Harry to him, put the hairoff the child's forehead, and kissed him, and bade God bless him in suchan affectionate way as he never had used before. Father Holt blessed himtoo, and then they took leave of my Lady Viscountess, who came from herapartment with a pocket-handkerchief to her eyes, and her gentlewomanand 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 horseexercise."
"We kiss my Lady Marchioness's hand," says Mr. Holt.
"My lord, God speed you!" she said, stepping up and embracing my lord ina grand manner. "Mr. Holt, I ask your blessing:" and she knelt down forthat, whilst Mrs. Tusher tossed her head up.
Mr. Holt gave the same benediction to the little page, who went downand held my lord's stirrups for him to mount; there were two servantswaiting there too--and they rode out of Castlewood gate.
As they crossed the bridge, Harry could see an officer in scarlet rideup touching his hat, and address my lord.
The party stopped, and came to some parley or discussion, whichpresently ended, my lord putting his horse into a canter after takingoff his hat and making a bow to the officer, who rode alongside him stepfor step: the trooper accompanying him falling back, and riding with mylord's two men. They cantered over the Green, and behind the elms (mylord waving his hand, Harry thought), and so they disappeared. Thatevening we had a great panic, the cow-boy coming at milking-time ridingone 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 goodcause before closing his eyes.
It was quite in the gray of the morning when the porter's bell rang, andold Lockwood, waking up, let in one of my lord's servants, who had gonewith him in the morning, and who returned with a melancholy story. Theofficer who rode up to my lord had, it appeared, said to him, that itwas his duty to inform his lordship that he was not under arrest, butunder surveillance, and to request him not to ride abroad that day.
My lord replied that riding was good for his health, that if the Captainchose to accompany him he was welcome; and it was then that he made abow, and they cantered away together.
When he came on to Wansey Down, my lord all of a sudden pulled up, andthe party came to a halt at the cross-way.
"Sir," says he to the officer, "we are four to two; will you be so kindas to take that road, and leave me 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 momentFather Holt, drawing a pistol, shot the officer through the head. It wasdone, and the man dead in an instant of time. The orderly, gazing at theofficer, looked seared for a moment, and galloped away for his life.
"Fire! fire!" cries out Father Holt, sending another shot after thetrooper, but the two servants were too much surprised to use theirpieces, and my lord calling to them to hold their hands, the fellow gotaway.
"Mr. Holt, qui pensait a tout," says Blaise, "gets off his horse,examines the pockets of the dead officer for papers, gives his money tous two, and says, 'The wine is drawn, M. le Marquis,'--why did he sayMarquis 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 toWhitefoot, and she trotted home. We rode on towards Newbury; we heardfiring towards midday: at two o'clock a horseman comes up to us as wewere giving our cattle water at an inn--and says, 'All is done! TheEcossais 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,' saysmy lord.
"'Blaise,' says Mr. Holt, writing two lines on his table-book, one formy 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 onlysaid, "Burn the papers in the cupboard, burn this. You know nothingabout anything." Harry read this, ran up stairs to his mistress'sapartment, where her gentlewoman slept near to the door, made her bringa light and wake my lady, into whose hands he gave the paper. She was awonderful object to look at in her night attire, nor had Harry ever seenthe like.
As soon as she had the paper in her hand, Harry stepped back to theChaplain's room, opened the secret cupboard over the fireplace, burnedall the papers in it, and, as he had seen the priest do before, tookdown one of his reverence's manuscript sermons, and half burnt thatin the brazier. By the time the papers were quite destroyed it wasdaylight. Harry ran back to his mistress again. Her gentlewoman usheredhim again into her ladyship's chamber; she told him (from behind hernuptial curtains) to bid the coach be got ready, and that she would rideaway anon.
But the mysteries of her ladyship's toilet were as awfully long on thisday as on any other, and, long after the coach was ready, my lady wasstill attiring herself. And just as the Viscountess stepped forth fromher room, ready for departure, young John Lockwood comes running upfrom the village with news that a lawyer, three officers, and twenty orfour-and-twenty soldiers, were marching thence upon the house. John hadbut two minutes the start of them, and, ere he had well told his story,the troop rode into our court-yard.
The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne Page 8