The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER XIV.

  WE RIDE AFTER HIM TO LONDON.

  After a repose of a couple of days, the Lord Mohun was so far recoveredof his hurt as to be able to announce his departure for the nextmorning; when, accordingly, he took leave of Castlewood, proposing toride to London by easy stages, and lie two nights upon the road. Hishost treated him with a studied and ceremonious courtesy, certainlydifferent from my lord's usual frank and careless demeanor; but therewas no reason to suppose that the two lords parted otherwise than goodfriends, though Harry Esmond remarked that my Lord Viscount only sawhis guest in company with other persons, and seemed to avoid being alonewith him. Nor did he ride any distance with Lord Mohun, as his customwas with most of his friends, whom he was always eager to welcome andunwilling to lose; but contented himself, when his lordship's horseswere announced, and their owner appeared, booted for his journey, totake a courteous leave of the ladies of Castlewood, by following theLord Mohun down stairs to his horses, and by bowing and wishing hima good-day, in the court-yard. "I shall see you in London before verylong, Mohun," my lord said, with a smile, "when we will settle ouraccounts together."

  "Do not let them trouble you, Frank," said the other good-naturedly, andholding out his hand, looked rather surprised at the grim and statelymanner in which his host received his parting salutation; and so,followed by his people, he rode away.

  Harry Esmond was witness of the departure. It was very different to mylord's coming, for which great preparation had been made (the old houseputting on its best appearance to welcome its guest), and there wasa sadness and constraint about all persons that day, which filled Mr.Esmond with gloomy forebodings, and sad indefinite apprehensions. LordCastlewood stood at the door watching his guest and his people as theywent out under the arch of the outer gate. When he was there, Lord Mohunturned once more, my Lord Viscount slowly raised his beaver and bowed.His face wore a peculiar livid look, Harry thought. He cursed and kickedaway his dogs, which came jumping about him--then he walked up to thefountain in the centre of the court, and leaned against a pillar andlooked into the basin. As Esmond crossed over to his own room, late thechaplain's, on the other side of the court, and turned to enter in atthe low door, he saw Lady Castlewood looking through the curtains ofthe great window of the drawing-room overhead, at my lord as he stoodregarding the fountain. There was in the court a peculiar silencesomehow; and the scene remained long in Esmond's memory:--the sky brightoverhead; the buttresses of the building and the sun-dial casting shadowover the gilt memento mori inscribed underneath; the two dogs, a blackgreyhound and a spaniel nearly white, the one with his face up to thesun, and the other snuffing amongst the grass and stones, and my lordleaning over the fountain, which was bubbling audibly. 'Tis strange howthat scene, and the sound of that fountain, remain fixed on the memoryof a man who has beheld a hundred sights of splendor, and danger too, ofwhich he has kept no account.

  It was Lady Castlewood--she had been laughing all the morning, andespecially gay and lively before her husband and his guest--who as soonas the two gentlemen went together from her room, ran to Harry, theexpression of her countenance quite changed now, and with a face andeyes full of care, and said, "Follow them, Harry, I am sure somethinghas gone wrong." And so it was that Esmond was made an eavesdropper atthis lady's orders and retired to his own chamber, to give himself timein truth to try and compose a story which would soothe his mistress, forhe could not but have his own apprehension that some serious quarrel waspending between the two gentlemen.

  And now for several days the little company at Castlewood sat attable as of evenings: this care, though unnamed and invisible, beingnevertheless present alway, in the minds of at least three personsthere. My lord was exceeding gentle and kind. Whenever he quitted theroom, his wife's eyes followed him. He behaved to her with a kind ofmournful courtesy and kindness remarkable in one of his blunt ways andordinary rough manner. He called her by her Christian name often andfondly, was very soft and gentle with the children, especially with theboy, whom he did not love, and being lax about church generally, he wentthither and performed all the offices (down even to listening to Dr.Tusher's sermon) with great devotion.

  "He paces his room all night; what is it? Henry, find out what it is,"Lady Castlewood said constantly to her young dependant. "He has sentthree letters to London," she said, another day.

  "Indeed, madam, they were to a lawyer," Harry answered, who knew ofthese letters, and had seen a part of the correspondence, which relatedto a new loan my lord was raising; and when the young man remonstratedwith his patron, my lord said, "He was only raising money to pay off anold debt on the property, which must be discharged."

  Regarding the money, Lady Castlewood was not in the least anxious. Fewfond women feel money-distressed; indeed you can hardly give a womana greater pleasure than to bid her pawn her diamonds for the man sheloves; and I remember hearing Mr. Congreve say of my Lord Marlborough,that the reason why my lord was so successful with women as a young man,was because he took money of them. "There are few men who will make sucha sacrifice for them," says Mr. Congreve, who knew a part of the sexpretty well.

  Harry Esmond's vacation was just over, and, as hath been said, he waspreparing to return to the University for his last term before takinghis degree and entering into the Church. He had made up his mind forthis office, not indeed with that reverence which becomes a man about toenter upon a duty so holy, but with a worldly spirit of acquiescencein the prudence of adopting that profession for his calling. But hisreasoning was that he owed all to the family of Castlewood, and lovedbetter to be near them than anywhere else in the world; that he mightbe useful to his benefactors, who had the utmost confidence in him andaffection for him in return; that he might aid in bringing up the youngheir of the house and acting as his governor; that he might continue tobe his dear patron's and mistress's friend and adviser, who both werepleased to say that they should ever look upon him as such; and so, bymaking himself useful to those he loved best, he proposed to consolehimself for giving up of any schemes of ambition which he might have hadin his own bosom. Indeed, his mistress had told him that she would nothave him leave her; and whatever she commanded was will to him.

  The Lady Castlewood's mind was greatly relieved in the last few days ofthis well-remembered holiday time, by my lord's announcing one morning,after the post had brought him letters from London, in a careless tone,that the Lord Mohun was gone to Paris, and was about to make a greatjourney in Europe; and though Lord Castlewood's own gloom did not wearoff, or his behavior alter, yet this cause of anxiety being removed fromhis lady's mind, she began to be more hopeful and easy in her spirits,striving too, with all her heart, and by all the means of soothing inher power, to call back my lord's cheerfulness and dissipate his moodyhumor.

  He accounted for it himself, by saying that he was out of health; thathe wanted to see his physician; that he would go to London, and consultDoctor Cheyne. It was agreed that his lordship and Harry Esmond shouldmake the journey as far as London together; and of a Monday morning, the11th of October, in the year 1700, they set forwards towards London onhorseback. The day before being Sunday, and the rain pouring down, thefamily did not visit church; and at night my lord read the serviceto his family very finely, and with a peculiar sweetness andgravity--speaking the parting benediction, Harry thought, as solemnas ever he heard it. And he kissed and embraced his wife and childrenbefore they went to their own chambers with more fondness than he wasordinarily wont to show, and with a solemnity and feeling of which theythought in after days with no small comfort.

  They took horse the next morning (after adieux from the family as tenderas on the night previous), lay that night on the road, and enteredLondon at nightfall; my lord going to the "Trumpet," in the Cockpit,Whitehall, a house used by the military in his time as a young man, andaccustomed by his lordship ever since.

  An hour after my lord's arrival (which showed that his visit had beenarranged beforehand), my lord's man of business arrived from Gray's
Inn;and thinking that his patron might wish to be private with the lawyer,Esmond was for leaving them: but my lord said his business was short;introduced Mr. Esmond particularly to the lawyer, who had been engagedfor the family in the old lord's time; who said that he had paid themoney, as desired that day, to my Lord Mohun himself, at his lodgings inBow Street; that his lordship had expressed some surprise, as it was notcustomary to employ lawyers, he said, in such transactions between menof honor; but nevertheless, he had returned my Lord Viscount's note ofhand, which he held at his client's disposition.

  "I thought the Lord Mohun had been in Paris!" cried Mr. Esmond, in greatalarm and astonishment.

  "He is come back at my invitation," said my Lord Viscount. "We haveaccounts to settle together."

  "I pray heaven they are over, sir," says Esmond.

  "Oh, quite," replied the other, looking hard at the young man. "He wasrather troublesome about that money which I told you I had lost to himat play. And now 'tis paid, and we are quits on that score, and we shallmeet good friends again."

  "My lord," cried out Esmond, "I am sure you are deceiving me, and thatthere is a quarrel between the Lord Mohun and you."

  "Quarrel--pish! We shall sup together this very night, and drink abottle. Every man is ill-humored who loses such a sum as I have lost.But now 'tis paid, and my anger is gone with it."

  "Where shall we sup, sir?" says Harry.

  "WE! Let some gentlemen wait till they are asked," says my Lord Viscountwith a laugh. "You go to Duke Street, and see Mr. Betterton. You lovethe play, I know. Leave me to follow my own devices: and in the morningwe'll breakfast together, with what appetite we may, as the play says."

  "By G--! my lord, I will not leave you this night," says Harry Esmond."I think I know the cause of your dispute. I swear to you 'tis nothing.On the very day the accident befell Lord Mohun, I was speaking to himabout it. I know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry on hispart."

  "You know that nothing has passed but idle gallantry between Lord Mohunand my wife," says my lord, in a thundering voice--"you knew of this anddid not tell me?"

  "I knew more of it than my dear mistress did herself, sir--a thousandtimes more. How was she, who was as innocent as a child, to know whatwas the meaning of the covert addresses of a villain?"

  "A villain he is, you allow, and would have taken my wife away from me."

  "Sir, she is as pure as an angel," cried young Esmond.

  "Have I said a word against her?" shrieks out my lord. "Did I ever doubtthat she was pure? It would have been the last day of her life whenI did. Do you fancy I think that SHE would go astray? No, she hasn'tpassion enough for that. She neither sins nor forgives. I know hertemper--and now I've lost her, by heaven I love her ten thousand timesmore than ever I did--yes, when she was as young and as beautiful as anangel--when she smiled at me in her old father's house, and used to liein wait for me there as I came from hunting--when I used to fling myhead down on her little knees and cry like a child on her lap--and swearI would reform, and drink no more and play no more, and follow women nomore; when all the men of the Court used to be following her--when sheused to look with her child more beautiful, by George, than the Madonnain the Queen's Chapel. I am not good like her, I know it. Who is--byheaven, who is? I tired and wearied her, I know that very well. Icould not talk to her. You men of wit and books could do that, and Icouldn't--I felt I couldn't. Why, when you was but a boy of fifteen Icould hear you two together talking your poetry and your books till Iwas in such a rage that I was fit to strangle you. But you were always agood lad, Harry, and I loved you, you know I did. And I felt she didn'tbelong to me: and the children don't. And I besotted myself, and gambledand drank, and took to all sorts of deviltries out of despair and fury.And now comes this Mohun, and she likes him, I know she likes him."

  "Indeed, and on my soul, you are wrong, sir," Esmond cried.

  "She takes letters from him," cries my lord--"look here, Harry," and hepulled out a paper with a brown stain of blood upon it. "It fell fromhim that day he wasn't killed. One of the grooms picked it up from theground and gave it me. Here it is in their d--d comedy jargon. 'DivineGloriana--Why look so coldly on your slave who adores you? Have you nocompassion on the tortures you have seen me suffering? Do you vouchsafeno reply to billets that are written with the blood of my heart.' Shehad more letters from him."

  "But she answered none," cries Esmond.

  "That's not Mohun's fault," says my lord, "and I will be revenged onhim, as God's in heaven, I will."

  "For a light word or two, will you risk your lady's honor and yourfamily's happiness, my lord?" Esmond interposed beseechingly.

  "Psha--there shall be no question of my wife's honor," said my lord; "wecan quarrel on plenty of grounds beside. If I live, that villain will bepunished; if I fall, my family will be only the better: there will onlybe a spendthrift the less to keep in the world: and Frank has betterteaching than his father. My mind is made up, Harry Esmond, and whateverthe event is, I am easy about it. I leave my wife and you as guardiansto the children."

  Seeing that my lord was bent upon pursuing this quarrel, and that noentreaties would draw him from it, Harry Esmond (then of a hotter andmore impetuous nature than now, when care, and reflection, and grayhairs have calmed him) thought it was his duty to stand by his kind,generous patron, and said, "My lord, if you are determined upon war, youmust not go into it alone. 'Tis the duty of our house to stand by itschief; and I should neither forgive myself nor you if you did not callme, or I should be absent from you at a moment of danger."

  "Why, Harry, my poor boy, you are bred for a parson," says my lord,taking Esmond by the hand very kindly; "and it were a great pity thatyou should meddle in the matter."

  "Your lordship thought of being a churchman once," Harry answered, "andyour father's orders did not prevent him fighting at Castlewood againstthe Roundheads. Your enemies are mine, sir; I can use the foils, as youhave seen, indifferently well, and don't think I shall be afraid whenthe buttons are taken off 'em." And then Harry explained, with someblushes and hesitation (for the matter was delicate, and he feared lest,by having put himself forward in the quarrel, he might have offendedhis patron), how he had himself expostulated with the Lord Mohun, andproposed to measure swords with him if need were, and he could not begot to withdraw peaceably in this dispute. "And I should have beat him,sir," says Harry, laughing. "He never could parry that botte I broughtfrom Cambridge. Let us have half an hour of it, and rehearse--I canteach it your lordship: 'tis the most delicate point in the world, andif you miss it, your adversary's sword is through you."

  "By George, Harry, you ought to be the head of the house," says my lord,gloomily. "You had been a better Lord Castlewood than a lazy sot likeme," he added, drawing his hand across his eyes, and surveying hiskinsman with very kind and affectionate glances.

  "Let us take our coats off and have half an hour's practice beforenightfall," says Harry, after thankfully grasping his patron's manlyhand.

  "You are but a little bit of a lad," says my lord, good-humoredly;"but, in faith, I believe you could do for that fellow. No, my boy," hecontinued, "I'll have none of your feints and tricks of stabbing: I canuse my sword pretty well too, and will fight my own quarrel my own way."

  "But I shall be by to see fair play?" cries Harry.

  "Yes, God bless you--you shall be by."

  "When is it, sir?" says Harry, for he saw that the matter had beenarranged privately and beforehand by my lord.

  "'Tis arranged thus: I sent off a courier to Jack Westbury to say that Iwanted him specially. He knows for what, and will be here presently, anddrink part of that bottle of sack. Then we shall go to the theatre inDuke Street, where we shall meet Mohun; and then we shall all go sup atthe 'Rose' or the 'Greyhound.' Then we shall call for cards, andthere will be probably a difference over the cards--and then, God helpus!--either a wicked villain and traitor shall go out of the world, ora poor worthless devil, that doesn't care to remain in it. I am betteraway, Hal-
-my wife will be all the happier when I am gone," says mylord, with a groan, that tore the heart of Harry Esmond, so that hefairly broke into a sob over his patron's kind hand.

  "The business was talked over with Mohun before he left home--CastlewoodI mean"--my lord went on. "I took the letter in to him, which I hadread, and I charged him with his villainy, and he could make no denialof it, only he said that my wife was innocent."

  "And so she is; before heaven, my lord, she is!" cries Harry.

  "No doubt, no doubt. They always are," says my lord. "No doubt, when sheheard he was killed, she fainted from accident."

  "But, my lord, MY name is Harry," cried out Esmond, burning red. "Youtold my lady, 'Harry was killed!'"

  "Damnation! shall I fight you too?" shouts my lord in a fury. "Are you,you little serpent, warmed by my fire, going to sting--YOU?--No, my boy,you're an honest boy; you are a good boy." (And here he broke from rageinto tears even more cruel to see.) "You are an honest boy, and I loveyou; and, by heavens, I am so wretched that I don't care what sword itis that ends me. Stop, here's Jack Westbury. Well, Jack! Welcome, oldboy! This is my kinsman, Harry Esmond."

  "Who brought your bowls for you at Castlewood, sir?" says Harry, bowing;and the three gentlemen sat down and drank of that bottle of sack whichwas prepared for them.

  "Harry is number three," says my lord. "You needn't be afraid of him,Jack." And the Colonel gave a look, as much as to say, "Indeed, he don'tlook as if I need." And then my lord explained what he had only told byhints before. When he quarrelled with Lord Mohun he was indebted to hislordship in a sum of sixteen hundred pounds, for which Lord Mohun saidhe proposed to wait until my Lord Viscount should pay him. My lordhad raised the sixteen hundred pounds and sent them to Lord Mohun thatmorning, and before quitting home had put his affairs into order, andwas now quite ready to abide the issue of the quarrel.

  When we had drunk a couple of bottles of sack, a coach was called, andthe three gentlemen went to the Duke's Playhouse, as agreed. The playwas one of Mr. Wycherley's--"Love in a Wood."

  Harry Esmond has thought of that play ever since with a kind of terror,and of Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress who performed the girl's part inthe comedy. She was disguised as a page, and came and stood before thegentlemen as they sat on the stage, and looked over her shoulder witha pair of arch black eyes, and laughed at my lord, and asked what ailedthe gentleman from the country, and had he had bad news from Bullockfair?

  Between the acts of the play the gentlemen crossed over and conversedfreely. There were two of Lord Mohun's party, Captain Macartney, in amilitary habit, and a gentleman in a suit of blue velvet and silver in afair periwig, with a rich fall of point of Venice lace--my Lord the Earlof Warwick and Holland. My lord had a paper of oranges, which he ate andoffered to the actresses, joking with them. And Mrs. Bracegirdle, whenmy Lord Mohun said something rude, turned on him, and asked him what hedid there, and whether he and his friends had come to stab anybody else,as they did poor Will Mountford? My lord's dark face grew darker at thistaunt, and wore a mischievous, fatal look. They that saw it rememberedit, and said so afterward.

  When the play was ended the two parties joined company; and my LordCastlewood then proposed that they should go to a tavern and sup.Lockit's, the "Greyhound," in Charing Cross, was the house selected.All six marched together that way; the three lords going a-head, LordMohun's captain, and Colonel Westbury, and Harry Esmond, walking behindthem. As they walked, Westbury told Harry Esmond about his old friendDick the Scholar, who had got promotion, and was Cornet of the Guards,and had wrote a book called the "Christian Hero," and had all the Guardsto laugh at him for his pains, for the Christian Hero was breaking thecommandments constantly, Westbury said, and had fought one or two duelsalready. And, in a lower tone, Westbury besought young Mr. Esmond totake no part in the quarrel. "There was no need for more seconds thanone," said the Colonel, "and the Captain or Lord Warwick might easilywithdraw." But Harry said no; he was bent on going through with thebusiness. Indeed, he had a plan in his head, which, he thought, mightprevent my Lord Viscount from engaging.

  They went in at the bar of the tavern, and desired a private room andwine and cards, and when the drawer had brought these, they began todrink and call healths, and as long as the servants were in the roomappeared very friendly.

  Harry Esmond's plan was no other than to engage in talk with Lord Mohun,to insult him, and so get the first of the quarrel. So when cards wereproposed he offered to play. "Psha!" says my Lord Mohun (whether wishingto save Harry, or not choosing, to try the botte de Jesuite, it isnot to be known)--"Young gentlemen from college should not play thesestakes. You are too young."

  "Who dares say I am too young?" broke out Harry. "Is your lordshipafraid?"

  "Afraid!" cries out Mohun.

  But my good Lord Viscount saw the move--"I'll play you for ten moidores,Mohun," says he. "You silly boy, we don't play for groats here as youdo at Cambridge." And Harry, who had no such sum in his pocket (for hishalf-year's salary was always pretty well spent before it was due), fellback with rage and vexation in his heart that he had not money enough tostake.

  "I'll stake the young gentleman a crown," says the Lord Mohun's captain.

  "I thought crowns were rather scarce with the gentlemen of the army,"says Harry.

  "Do they birch at College?" says the Captain.

  "They birch fools," says Harry, "and they cane bullies, and they flingpuppies into the water."

  "Faith, then, there's some escapes drowning," says the Captain, who wasan Irishman; and all the gentlemen began to laugh, and made poor Harryonly more angry.

  My Lord Mohun presently snuffed a candle. It was when the drawersbrought in fresh bottles and glasses and were in the room on which myLord Viscount said--"The Deuce take you, Mohun, how damned awkward youare. Light the candle, you drawer."

  "Damned awkward is a damned awkward expression, my lord," says theother. "Town gentlemen don't use such words--or ask pardon if they do."

  "I'm a country gentleman," says my Lord Viscount.

  "I see it by your manner," says my Lord Mohun. "No man shall say damnedawkward to me."

  "I fling the words in your face, my lord," says the other; "shall I sendthe cards too?"

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen! before the servants?" cry out Colonel Westburyand my Lord Warwick in a breath. The drawers go out of the room hastily.They tell the people below of the quarrel up stairs.

  "Enough has been said," says Colonel Westbury. "Will your lordships meetto-morrow morning?"

  "Will my Lord Castlewood withdraw his words?" asks the Earl of Warwick.

  "My Lord Castlewood will be ---- first," says Colonel Westbury.

  "Then we have nothing for it. Take notice, gentlemen, there have beenoutrageous words--reparation asked and refused."

  "And refused," says my Lord Castlewood, putting on his hat. "Where shallthe meeting be? and when?"

  "Since my Lord refuses me satisfaction, which I deeply regret, there isno time so good as now," says my Lord Mohun. "Let us have chairs and goto Leicester Field."

  "Are your lordship and I to have the honor of exchanging a pass or two?"says Colonel Westbury, with a low bow to my Lord of Warwick and Holland.

  "It is an honor for me," says my lord, with a profound congee, "to bematched with a gentleman who has been at Mons and Namur."

  "Will your Reverence permit me to give you a lesson?" says the Captain.

  "Nay, nay, gentlemen, two on a side are plenty," says Harry's patron."Spare the boy, Captain Macartney," and he shook Harry's hand--for thelast time, save one, in his life.

  At the bar of the tavern all the gentlemen stopped, and my Lord Viscountsaid, laughing, to the barwoman, that those cards set people sadlya-quarrelling; but that the dispute was over now, and the parties wereall going away to my Lord Mohun's house, in Bow Street, to drink abottle more before going to bed.

  A half-dozen of chairs were now called, and the six gentlemen steppinginto them, the word was privately given to the chairme
n to go toLeicester Field, where the gentlemen were set down opposite the"Standard Tavern." It was midnight, and the town was abed by this time,and only a few lights in the windows of the houses; but the night wasbright enough for the unhappy purpose which the disputants came about;and so all six entered into that fatal square, the chairmen standingwithout the railing and keeping the gate, lest any persons shoulddisturb the meeting.

  All that happened there hath been matter of public notoriety, and isrecorded, for warning to lawless men, in the annals of our country.After being engaged for not more than a couple of minutes, as HarryEsmond thought (though being occupied at the time with his ownadversary's point, which was active, he may not have taken a good noteof time), a cry from the chairmen without, who were smoking their pipes,and leaning over the railings of the field as they watched the dimcombat within, announced that some catastrophe had happened, whichcaused Esmond to drop his sword and look round, at which moment hisenemy wounded him in the right hand. But the young man did not heedthis hurt much, and ran up to the place where he saw his dear master wasdown.

  My Lord Mohun was standing over him.

  "Are you much hurt, Frank?" he asked in a hollow voice.

  "I believe I am a dead man," my lord said from the ground.

  "No, no, not so," says the other; "and I call God to witness, FrankEsmond, that I would have asked your pardon, had you but given me achance. In--in the first cause of our falling out, I swear that no onewas to blame but me, and--and that my lady--"

  "Hush!" says my poor Lord Viscount, lifting himself on his elbow andspeaking faintly. "'Twas a dispute about the cards--the cursed cards.Harry my boy, are you wounded, too? God help thee! I loved thee, Harry,and thou must watch over my little Frank--and--and carry this littleheart to my wife."

  And here my dear lord felt in his breast for a locket he wore there,and, in the act, fell back fainting.

  We were all at this terrified, thinking him dead; but Esmond and ColonelWestbury bade the chairmen come into the field; and so my lord wascarried to one Mr. Aimes, a surgeon, in Long Acre, who kept a bath, andthere the house was wakened up, and the victim of this quarrel carriedin.

  My Lord Viscount was put to bed, and his wound looked to by the surgeon,who seemed both kind and skilful. When he had looked to my lord, hebandaged up Harry Esmond's hand (who, from loss of blood, had faintedtoo, in the house, and may have been some time unconscious); and whenthe young man came to himself, you may be sure he eagerly asked whatnews there were of his dear patron; on which the surgeon carried himto the room where the Lord Castlewood lay; who had already sent for apriest; and desired earnestly, they said, to speak with his kinsman. Hewas lying on a bed, very pale and ghastly, with that fixed, fatal lookin his eyes, which betokens death; and faintly beckoning all the otherpersons away from him with his hand, and crying out "Only Harry Esmond,"the hand fell powerless down on the coverlet, as Harry came forward, andknelt down and kissed it.

  "Thou art all but a priest, Harry," my Lord Viscount gasped out, with afaint smile, and pressure of his cold hand. "Are they all gone? Let memake thee a death-bed confession."

  And with sacred Death waiting, as it were, at the bed-foot, as an awfulwitness of his words, the poor dying soul gasped out his last wishesin respect of his family;--his humble profession of contrition for hisfaults;--and his charity towards the world he was leaving. Some thingshe said concerned Harry Esmond as much as they astonished him. Andmy Lord Viscount, sinking visibly, was in the midst of these strangeconfessions, when the ecclesiastic for whom my lord had sent, Mr.Atterbury, arrived.

  This gentleman had reached to no great church dignity as yet, butwas only preacher at St. Bride's, drawing all the town thither by hiseloquent sermons. He was godson to my lord, who had been pupil to hisfather; had paid a visit to Castlewood from Oxford more than once; andit was by his advice, I think, that Harry Esmond was sent to Cambridge,rather than to Oxford, of which place Mr. Atterbury, though adistinguished member, spoke but ill.

  Our messenger found the good priest already at his books at five o'clockin the morning, and he followed the man eagerly to the house where mypoor Lord Viscount lay--Esmond watching him, and taking his dying wordsfrom his mouth.

  My lord, hearing of Mr. Atterbury's arrival, and squeezing Esmond'shand, asked to be alone with the priest; and Esmond left them there forthis solemn interview. You may be sure that his own prayers and griefaccompanied that dying benefactor. My lord had said to him that whichconfounded the young man--informed him of a secret which greatlyconcerned him. Indeed, after hearing it, he had had good cause for doubtand dismay; for mental anguish as well as resolution. While the colloquybetween Mr. Atterbury and his dying penitent took place within, animmense contest of perplexity was agitating Lord Castlewood's youngcompanion.

  At the end of an hour--it may be more--Mr. Atterbury came out of theroom, looking very hard at Esmond, and holding a paper.

  "He is on the brink of God's awful judgment," the priest whispered. "Hehas made his breast clean to me. He forgives and believes, and makesrestitution. Shall it be in public? Shall we call a witness to sign it?"

  "God knows," sobbed out the young man, "my dearest lord has only done mekindness all his life."

  The priest put the paper into Esmond's hand. He looked at it. It swambefore his eyes.

  "'Tis a confession," he said.

  "'Tis as you please," said Mr. Atterbury.

  There was a fire in the room where the cloths were drying for the baths,and there lay a heap in a corner saturated with the blood of my dearlord's body. Esmond went to the fire, and threw the paper into it. 'Twasa great chimney with glazed Dutch tiles. How we remember such trifles atsuch awful moments!--the scrap of the book that we have read in a greatgrief--the taste of that last dish that we have eaten before a duel, orsome such supreme meeting or parting. On the Dutch tiles at the Bagniowas a rude picture representing Jacob in hairy gloves, cheating Isaac ofEsau's birthright. The burning paper lighted it up.

  "'Tis only a confession, Mr. Atterbury," said the young man. He leanedhis head against the mantel-piece: a burst of tears came to his eyes.They were the first he had shed as he sat by his lord, scared by thiscalamity, and more yet by what the poor dying gentleman had told him,and shocked to think that he should be the agent of bringing this doublemisfortune on those he loved best.

  "Let us go to him," said Mr. Esmond. And accordingly they went into thenext chamber, where by this time, the dawn had broke, which showed mylord's poor pale face and wild appealing eyes, that wore that awfulfatal look of coming dissolution. The surgeon was with him. He went intothe chamber as Atterbury came out thence. My Lord Viscount turned roundhis sick eyes towards Esmond. It choked the other to hear that rattle inhis throat.

  "My Lord Viscount," says Mr. Atterbury, "Mr. Esmond wants no witnesses,and hath burned the paper."

  "My dearest master!" Esmond said, kneeling down, and taking his hand andkissing it.

  My Lord Viscount sprang up in his bed, and flung his arms round Esmond."God bl--bless--" was all he said. The blood rushed from his mouth,deluging the young man. My dearest lord was no more. He was gone with ablessing on his lips, and love and repentance and kindness in his manlyheart.

  "Benedicti benedicentes," says Mr. Atterbury, and the young man,kneeling at the bedside, groaned out an "Amen."

  "Who shall take the news to her?" was Mr. Esmond's next thought. Andon this he besought Mr. Atterbury to bear the tidings to Castlewood.He could not face his mistress himself with those dreadful news. Mr.Atterbury complying kindly, Esmond writ a hasty note on his table-bookto my lord's man, bidding him get the horses for Mr. Atterbury, and ridewith him, and send Esmond's own valise to the Gatehouse prison, whitherhe resolved to go and give himself up.

  BOOK II.

  CONTAINS MR. ESMOND'S MILITARY LIFE, AND OTHER MATTERS APPERTAINING TOTHE ESMOND FAMILY.