a time, and when he was able to bear motion, they put my lord upon a groom's horse, and gave the other to Esmond, the men walking on each side of my lord, to [pg 147] support him, if need were, and worthy Doctor Tusher with them. Little Frank and Harry rode together at a foot pace.
When we rode together home, the boy said: “We met mamma, who was walking on the terrace with the doctor, and papa frightened her, and told her you were dead——”
“That I was dead?” asks Harry.
“Yes. Papa says: ‘Here's poor Harry killed, my dear;’ on which mamma gives a great scream; and oh, Harry! she drops down; and I thought she was dead, too. And you never saw such a way as papa was in: he swore one of his great oaths: and he turned quite pale; and then he began to laugh somehow, and he told the doctor to take his horse, and me to follow him; and we left him. And I looked back, and saw him dashing water out of the fountain on to mamma. Oh, she was so frightened!”
Musing upon this curious history—for my Lord Mohun's name was Henry too, and they called each other Frank and Harry often—and not a little disturbed and anxious, Esmond rode home. His dear lady was on the terrace still, one of her women with her, and my lord no longer there. There are steps and a little door thence down into the road. My lord passed, looking very ghastly, with a handkerchief over his head, and without his hat and periwig, which a groom carried, but his politeness did not desert him, and he made a bow to the lady above.
“Thank Heaven you are safe,” she said.
“And so is Harry, too, mamma,” says little Frank—“huzzay!”
Harry Esmond got off the horse to run to his mistress, as did little Frank, and one of the grooms took charge of the two beasts, while the other, hat and periwig in hand, walked by my lord's bridle to the front gate, which lay half a mile away.
“Oh, my boy! what a fright you have given me!” Lady Castlewood said, when Harry Esmond came up, greeting him with one of her shining looks, and a voice of tender welcome; and she was so kind as to kiss the young man ('twas the second time she had so honoured him), and she walked into the house between him and her son, holding a hand of each.
[pg 148]
Chapter XIV. We Ride After Him To London
After a repose of a couple of days, the Lord Mohun was so far recovered of his hurt as to be able to announce his departure for the next morning; when, accordingly, he took leave of Castlewood, proposing to ride to London by easy stages, and lie two nights upon the road. His host treated him with a studied and ceremonious courtesy, certainly different from my lord's usual frank and careless demeanour; but there was no reason to suppose that the two lords parted otherwise than good friends, though Harry Esmond remarked that my lord viscount only saw his guest in company with other persons, and seemed to avoid being alone with him. Nor did he ride any distance with Lord Mohun, as his custom was with most of his friends, whom he was always eager to welcome and unwilling to lose; but contented himself, when his lordship's horses were announced, and their owner appeared booted for his journey, to take a courteous leave of the ladies of Castlewood, by following the Lord Mohun downstairs to his horses, and by bowing and wishing him a good day, in the courtyard. “I shall see you in London before very long, Mohun,” my lord said, with, a smile; “when we will settle our accounts together.”
“Do not let them trouble you, Frank,” said the other good-naturedly, and, holding out his hand, looked rather surprised at the grim and stately manner 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 my lord's coming, for which great preparation had been made (the old house putting on its best appearance to welcome its guest), and there was a sadness and constraint about all persons that day, which filled Mr. Esmond with gloomy forebodings, and sad indefinite apprehensions. Lord Castlewood stood at the door watching his guest and his people as they went out under the arch of the outer gate. When he was there, Lord Mohun turned once more, my lord viscount slowly raised his beaver [pg 149] and bowed. His face wore a peculiar livid look, Harry thought. He cursed and kicked away his dogs, which came jumping about him—then he walked up to the fountain in the centre of the court, and leaned against a pillar and looked into the basin. As Esmond crossed over to his own room, late the chaplain's, on the other side of the court, and turned to enter in at the low door, he saw Lady Castlewood looking through the curtains of the great window of the drawing-room overhead, at my lord as he stood regarding the fountain. There was in the court a peculiar silence somehow; and the scene remained long in Esmond's memory;—the sky bright overhead; the buttresses of the building and the sundial casting shadow over the gilt memento mori inscribed underneath; the two dogs, a black greyhound and a spaniel nearly white, the one with his face up to the sun, and the other snuffing amongst the grass and stones, and my lord leaning over the fountain, which was plashing audibly. 'Tis strange how that scene and the sound of that fountain remain fixed on the memory of a man who has beheld a hundred sights of splendour, and danger too, of which he has kept no account.
It was Lady Castlewood, she had been laughing all the morning, and especially gay and lively before her husband and his guest, who, as soon as the two gentlemen went together from her room, ran to Harry, the expression of her countenance quite changed now, and with a face and eyes full of care, and said, “Follow them, Harry, I am sure something has gone wrong.” And so it was that Esmond was made an eavesdropper at this lady's orders: and retired to his own chamber, to give himself time in truth to try and compose a story which would soothe his mistress, for he could not but have his own apprehension that some serious quarrel was pending between the two gentlemen.
And now for several days the little company at Castlewood sat at table as of evenings: this care, though unnamed and invisible, being nevertheless present alway, in the minds of at least three persons there. My lord was exceeding gentle and kind. Whenever he quitted the room, his wife's eyes followed him. He behaved to her with a kind of mournful courtesy and kindness remarkable in one of his blunt ways and ordinary rough manner. He called her by her Christian name often and fondly, was very soft and gentle with the children, especially with the boy, whom he did not [pg 150] love, and being lax about church generally, he went thither and performed all the offices (down even to listening to Doctor 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 sent three letters to London,” she said, another day.
“Indeed, madam, they were to a lawyer,” Harry answered, who knew of these letters, and had seen a part of the correspondence, which related to a new loan my lord was raising; and when the young man remonstrated with his patron, my lord said, “He was only raising money to pay off an old debt on the property, which must be discharged.”
Regarding the money, Lady Castlewood was not in the least anxious. Few fond women feel money-distressed; indeed you can hardly give a woman a greater pleasure than to bid her pawn her diamonds for the man she loves; 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 such a sacrifice for them,” says Mr. Congreve, who knew a part of the sex pretty well.
Harry Esmond's vacation was just over, and, as hath been said, he was preparing to return to the University for his last term before taking his degree and entering into the Church. He had made up his mind for this office, not indeed with that reverence which becomes a man about to enter upon a duty so holy, but with a worldly spirit of acquiescence in the prudence
