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 huzza at a cockfight, 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 went 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 postilion 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 [pg 044] said, and stooped to pick up another; the crowd had gathered quite between the horses and in the inn door by this time, and the coach was brought to a dead standstill. 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 potato-thrower'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, “Huzza, 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 d——d psalm-singing cobbler, as sure as I'm a magistrate of this county I'll commit you!” The fellow shrunk 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, huzzaing 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 [pg 045] 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. One of them jeered him for his black eye, which was swelled by the potato, and another 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 stanch 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 Sievewright, 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 away. 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.
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.
[pg 046]
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 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, Job Lockwood, the porter's son, might go to the pond and see what fortune had brought them. At daybreak Job was to awaken him, but his own eagerness for the sport had served as a réveille 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 recognizing
