"Indeed, madam, I would," says he.

"Would what?" asked Miss Beatrix.

"What you meant when you looked at me in that provoking way," answers Esmond.

"What a confessor!" cries Beatrix, with a laugh.

"What is it Henry would like, my dear?" asks her mother, the kind soul, who was always thinking what we would like, and how she could please us.

The girl runs up to her—"Oh, you silly kind mamma," she says, kissing her again, "that's what Harry would like;" and she broke out into a great joyful laugh: and Lady Castlewood blushed as bashful as a maid of sixteen.

"Look at her, Harry," whispers Beatrix, running up, and speaking in her sweet low tones. "Doesn't the blush become her? Isn't she pretty? She looks younger than I am: and I am sure she is a hundred million thousand times better."

Esmond's kind mistress left the room, carrying her blushes away with her.

"If we girls at Court could grow such roses as that," continues Beatrix, with her laugh, "what wouldn't we do to preserve 'em? We'd clip their stalks and put 'em in salt and water. But those flowers don't bloom at Hampton Court and Windsor, Henry." She paused for a minute, and the smile fading away from her April face, gave place to a menacing shower of tears: "Oh, how good she is, Harry," Beatrix went on to say. "Oh, what a saint she is! Her goodness frightens me. I'm not fit to live with her. I should be better, I think, if she were not so perfect. She has had a great sorrow in her life, and a great secret; and repented of it. It could not have been my father's death. She talks freely about that; nor could she have loved him very much—though who knows what we women do love, and why?"

"What, and why, indeed," says Mr. Esmond.

"No one knows," Beatrix went on, without noticing this interruption except by a look, "what my mother's life is. She hath been at early prayer this morning: she passes hours in her closet; if you were to follow her thither, you would find her at prayers now. She tends the poor of the place—the horrid dirty poor! She sits through the curate's sermons—oh, those dreary sermons! And you see, on a beau dire; but good as they are, people like her are not fit to commune with us of the world. There is always, as it were, a third person present, even when I and my mother are alone. She can't be frank with me quite; who is always thinking of the next world, and of her guardian angel, perhaps that's in company. Oh, Harry, I'm jealous of that guardian angel!" here broke out Mistress Beatrix. "It's horrid, I know; but my mother's life is all for Heaven, and mine—all for earth. We can never be friends quite; and then, she cares more for Frank's little finger than she does for me—I know she does: and she loves you, sir, a great deal too much; and I hate you for it. I would have had her all to myself; but she wouldn't. In my childhood, it was my father she loved—(Oh, how could she? I remember him kind and handsome, but so stupid, and not being able to speak after drinking wine). And then, it was Frank; and now, it is Heaven and the clergyman. How I would have loved her! From a child I used to be in a rage that she loved anybody but me; but she loved you all better—all, I know she did. And now, she talks of the blessed consolation of religion. Dear soul! she thinks she is happier for believing, as she must, that we are all of us wicked and miserable sinners; and this world is only a pied a terre for the good, where they stay for a night, as we do, coming from Walcote, at that great, dreary, uncomfortable Hounslow inn, in those horrid beds. Oh, do you remember those horrid beds?—and the chariot comes and fetches them to Heaven the next morning."

"Hush, Beatrix," says Mr. Esmond.

"Hush, indeed. You are a hypocrite, too, Henry, with your grave airs and your glum face. We are all hypocrites. Oh dear me! We are all alone, alone, alone," says poor Beatrix, her fair breast heaving with a sigh.

"It was I that writ every line of that paper, my dear," says Mr. Esmond. "You are not so worldly as you think yourself, Beatrix, and better than we believe you. The good we have in us we doubt of; and the happiness that's to our hand we throw away. You bend your ambition on a great marriage and establishment—and why? You'll tire of them when you win them; and be no happier with a coronet on your coach——"

"Than riding pillion with Lubin to market," says Beatrix. "Thank you, Lubin!"

"I'm a dismal shepherd, to be sure," answers Esmond, with a blush; "and require a nymph that can tuck my bed-clothes up, and make me water-gruel. Well, Tom Lockwood can do that. He took me out of the fire upon his shoulders, and nursed me through my illness as love will scarce ever do. Only good wages, and a hope of my clothes, and the contents of my portmanteau. How long was it that Jacob served an apprenticeship for Rachel?"

"For mamma?" says Beatrix. "Is it mamma your honour wants, and that I should have the happiness of calling you papa?"

Esmond blushed again. "I spoke of a Rachel that a shepherd courted five thousand years ago; when shepherds were longer lived than now. And my meaning was, that since I saw you first after our separation—a child you were then——"

"And I put on my best stockings to captivate you, I remember, sir."

"You have had my heart ever since then, such as it was; and such as you were, I cared for no other woman. What little reputation I have won, it was that you might be pleased with it: and, indeed, it is not much; and I think a hundred fools in the army have got and deserved quite as much. Was there something in the air of that dismal old Castlewood that made us all gloomy, and dissatisfied, and lonely under its ruined old roof? We were all so, even when together and united, as it seemed, following our separate schemes, each as we sat round the table."

"Dear, dreary old place!" cries Beatrix. "Mamma hath never had the heart to go back thither since we left it, when—never mind how many years ago," and she flung back her curls, and looked over her fair shoulder at the mirror superbly, as if she said, "Time, I defy you."

"Yes," says Esmond, who had the art, as she owned, of divining many of her thoughts. "You can afford to look in the glass still; and only be pleased by the truth it tells you. As for me, do you know what my scheme is? I think of asking Frank to give me the Virginia estate King Charles gave our grandfather." (She gave a superb curtsy, as much as to say, "Our grandfather, indeed! Thank you, Mr. Bastard.") "Yes, I know you are thinking of my bar-sinister, and so am I. A man cannot get over it in this country; unless, indeed, he wears it across a king's arms, when 'tis a highly honourable coat: and I am thinking of retiring into the plantations, and building myself a wigwam in the woods, and perhaps, if I want company, suiting myself with a squaw. We will send your ladyship furs over for the winter; and, when you are old, we'll provide you with tobacco. I am not quite clever enough, or not rogue enough—I know not which—for the Old World. I may make a place for myself in the new, which is not so full; and found a family there. When you are a mother yourself, and a great lady, perhaps I shall send you over from the plantation some day a little barbarian that is half Esmond half Mohock, and you will be kind to him for his father's sake, who was, after all, your kinsman; and whom you loved a little."

"What folly you are talking, Harry!" says Miss Beatrix, looking with her great eyes.

"'Tis sober earnest," says Esmond. And, indeed, the scheme had been dwelling a good deal in his mind for some time past, and especially since his return home, when he found how hopeless, and even degrading to himself, his passion was. "No," says he, then, "I have tried half a dozen times now. I can bear being away from you well enough; but being with you is intolerable" (another low curtsy on Mrs. Beatrix's part), "and I will go. I have enough to buy axes and guns for my men, and beads and blankets for the savages; and I'll go and live amongst them."

"Mon ami," she says, quite kindly, and taking Esmond's hand, with an air of great compassion. "You can't think that in our position anything more than our present friendship is possible. You are our elder brother—as such we view you, pitying your misfortune, not rebuking you with it. Why, you are old enough and grave enough to be our father. I always thought you a hundred years old, Harry, with your solemn face and grave air. I feel as a sister to you, and can no more. Isn't that enough, sir?" And she put her face quite close to his—who knows with what intention?

"It's too much," says Esmond, turning away. "I can't bear this life, and shall leave it. I shall stay, I think, to see you married, and then freight a ship, and call it the Beatrix, and bid you all——"

Here the servant, flinging the door open, announced his grace the Duke of Hamilton, and Esmond started back with something like an imprecation on his lips, as the nobleman entered, looking splendid in his star and green ribbon. He gave Mr. Esmond just that gracious bow which he would have given to a lackey who fetched him a chair or took his hat, and seated himself by Miss Beatrix, as the poor colonel went out of the room with a hang-dog look.

Esmond's mistress was in the lower room as he passed downstairs. She often met him as he was coming away from Beatrix; and she beckoned him into the apartment.

"Has she told you, Harry?" Lady Castlewood said.

"She has been very frank—very," says Esmond.

"But—but about what is going to happen?"

"What is going to happen?" says he, his heart beating.

"His grace the Duke of Hamilton has proposed to her," says my lady. "He made his offer yesterday. They will marry as soon as his mourning is over; and you have heard his grace is appointed ambassador to Paris; and the ambassadress goes with him."



Chapter IV. Beatrix's New Suitor

The gentleman whom Beatrix had selected was, to be sure, twenty years older than the colonel, with whom she quarrelled for being too old; but this one was but a nameless adventurer, and the other the greatest duke in Scotland, with pretensions even to a still higher title. My Lord Duke of Hamilton had, indeed, every merit belonging to a gentleman, and he had had the time to mature his accomplishments fully, being upwards of fifty years old when Madam Beatrix selected him for a bridegroom. Duke Hamilton, then Earl of Arran, had been educated at the famous Scottish University of Glasgow, and, coming to London, became a great favourite of Charles the Second, who made him a lord of his bedchamber, and afterwards appointed him ambassador to the French king, under whom the earl served two campaigns as his Majesty's aide de camp; and he was absent on this service when King Charles died.

King James continued my lord's promotion—made him master of the wardrobe, and colonel of the Royal Regiment of Horse; and his lordship adhered firmly to King James, being of the small company that never quitted that unfortunate monarch till his departure out of England; and then it was, in 1688, namely, that he made the friendship with Colonel Francis Esmond, that had always been, more or less, maintained in the two families.

The earl professed a great admiration for King William always, but never could give him his allegiance; and was engaged in more than one of the plots in the late great king's reign, which always ended in the plotters' discomfiture, and generally in their pardon, by the magnanimity of the king. Lord Arran was twice prisoner in the Tower during this reign, undauntedly saying, when offered his release, upon parole not to engage against King William, that he would not give his word, because "he was sure he could not keep it"; but, nevertheless, he was both times discharged without any trial; and the king bore this noble enemy so little malice, that when his mother, the Duchess of Hamilton, of her own right, resigned her claim on her husband's death, the earl was, by patent signed at Loo, 1690, created Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Clydesdale, and Earl of Arran, with precedency from the original creation. His grace took the oaths and his seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1700: was famous there for his patriotism and eloquence, especially in the debates about the Union Bill, which Duke Hamilton opposed with all his strength, though he would not go the length of the Scottish gentry, who were for resisting it by force of arms. 'Twas said he withdrew his opposition all of a sudden, and in consequence of letters from the king at St. Germains, who entreated him on his allegiance not to thwart the queen, his sister, in this measure; and the duke, being always bent upon effecting the king's return to his kingdom through a reconciliation between his Majesty and Queen Anne, and quite averse to his landing with arms and French troops, held aloof, and kept out of Scotland during the time when the Chevalier de St. George's descent from Dunkirk was projected, passing his time in England in his great estate of Staffordshire.

When the Whigs went out of office in 1710, the queen began to show his grace the very greatest marks of her favour. He was created Duke of Brandon and Baron of Dutton in England; having the Thistle already originally bestowed on him by King James the Second, his grace was now promoted to the honour of the Garter—a distinction so great and illustrious, that no subject hath ever borne them hitherto together. When this objection was made to her Majesty, she was pleased to say, "Such a subject as the Duke of Hamilton has a pre-eminent claim to every mark of distinction which a crowned head can confer. I will henceforth wear both orders myself."

At the Chapter held at Windsor in October, 1712, the duke and other knights, including Lord-Treasurer, the new-created Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, were installed; and a few days afterwards his grace was appointed Ambassador-Extraordinary to France, and his equipages, plate, and liveries commanded, of the most sumptuous kind, not only for his excellency the ambassador, but for her excellency the ambassadress, who was to accompany him. Her arms were already quartered on the coach panels, and her brother was to hasten over on the appointed day to give her away.

His lordship was a widower, having married, in 1698, Elizabeth, daughter of Digby, Lord Gerard, by which marriage great estates came into the Hamilton family; and out of these estates came, in part, that tragic quarrel which ended the duke's career.

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From the loss of a tooth to that of a mistress there's no pang that is not bearable. The apprehension is much more cruel than the certainty; and we make up our mind to the misfortune when 'tis irremediable, part with the tormentor, and mumble our crust on t'other side of the jaws. I think Colonel Esmond was relieved when a ducal coach-and-six came and whisked his charmer away out of his reach, and placed her in a higher sphere. As you have seen the nymph in the opera-machine go up to the clouds at the end of the piece where Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, and all the divine company of Olympians are seated, and quaver out her last song as a goddess: so when this portentous elevation was accomplished in the Esmond family, I am not sure that every one of us did not treat the divine Beatrix with special honours; at least, the saucy little beauty carried her head with a toss of supreme authority, and assumed a touch-me-not air, which all her friends very good-humouredly bowed to.

An old army acquaintance of Colonel Esmond's, honest Tom Trett, who had sold his company, married a wife, and turned merchant in the city, was dreadfully gloomy for a long time, though living in a fine house on the river, and carrying on a great trade to all appearance. At length Esmond saw his friend's name in the Gazette as a bankrupt; and a week after this circumstance my bankrupt walks into Mr. Esmond's lodging with a face perfectly radiant with good humour, and as jolly and careless as when they had sailed from Southampton ten years before for Vigo. "This bankruptcy," says Tom, "has been hanging over my head these three years; the thought hath prevented my sleeping, and I have looked at poor Polly's head on t'other pillow, and then towards my razor on the table, and thought to put an end to myself, and so give my woes the slip. But now we are bankrupts: Tom Trett pays as many shillings in the pound as he can; his wife has a little cottage at Fulham, and her fortune secured to herself. I am afraid neither of bailiff nor of creditor; and for the last six nights have slept easy." So it was that when Fortune shook her wings and left him, honest Tom cuddled himself up in his ragged virtue, and fell asleep.

Esmond did not tell his friend how much his story applied to Esmond too; but he laughed at it, and used it; and having fairly struck his docket in this love transaction, determined to put a cheerful face on his bankruptcy. Perhaps Beatrix was a little offended at his gaiety. "Is this the way, sir, that you receive the announcement of your misfortune," says she, "and do you come smiling before me as if you were glad to be rid of me?"

Esmond would not be put off from his good humour, but told her the story of Tom Trett and his bankruptcy. "I have been hankering after the grapes on the wall," says he, "and lost my temper because they were beyond my reach; was there any wonder? They're gone now, and another has them—a taller man than your humble servant has won them." And the colonel made his cousin a low bow.

"A taller man, cousin Esmond!" says she. "A man of spirit would have scaled the wall, sir, and seized them! A man of courage would have fought for 'em, not gaped for 'em."

"A duke has but to gape and they drop into his mouth," says Esmond, with another low bow.

"Yes, sir," says she, "a duke is a taller man than you. And why should I not be grateful to one such as his grace, who gives me his heart and his great name? It is a great gift he honours me with; I know 'tis a bargain between us; and I accept it, and will do my utmost to perform my part of it. 'Tis no question of sighing and philandering between a nobleman of his grace's age and a girl who hath little of that softness in her nature. Why should I not own that I am ambitious, Harry Esmond; and if it be no sin in a man to covet honour, why should a woman too not desire it? Shall I be frank with you, Harry, and say that if you had not been down on your knees, and so humble, you might have fared better with me? A woman of my spirit, cousin, is to be won by gallantry, and not by sighs and rueful faces. All the time you are worshipping and singing hymns to me, I know very well I am no goddess, and grow weary of the incense. So would you have been weary of the goddess too—when she was called Mrs. Esmond, and got out of humour because she had not pin-money enough, and was forced to go about in an old gown. Eh! cousin, a goddess in a mob-cap, that has to make her husband's gruel, ceases to be divine—I am sure of it. I should have been sulky and scolded; and of all the proud wretches in the world Mr. Esmond is the proudest, let me tell him that. You never fall into a passion; but you never forgive, I think. Had you been a great man, you might have been good humoured; but being nobody, sir, you are too great a man for me; and I'm afraid of you, cousin—there; and I won't worship you, and you'll never be happy except with a woman who will. Why, after I belonged to you, and after one of my tantrums, you would have put the pillow over my head some night, and smothered me, as the black man does the woman in the play that you're so fond of. What's the creature's name?—Desdemona. You would, you little black-eyed Othello!"

"I think I should, Beatrix," says the colonel.

"And I want no such ending. I intend to live to be a hundred, and to go to ten thousand routs and balls, and to play cards every night of my life till the year eighteen hundred. And I like to be the first of my company, sir; and I like flattery and compliments, and you give me none; and I like to be made to laugh, sir, and who's to laugh at your dismal face, I should like to know; and I like a coach-and-six or a coach-and-eight; and I like diamonds, and a new gown every week; and people to say—'That's the duchess—How well her grace looks—Make way for Madame l'Ambassadrice d'Angleterre—Call her excellency's people'—that's what I like. And as for you, you want a woman to bring your slippers and cap, and to sit at your feet, and cry, 'O caro! O bravo!' whilst you read your Shakespeares, and Miltons, and stuff. Mamma would have been the wife for you, had you been a little older, though you look ten years older than she does—you do, you glum-faced, blue-bearded, little old man! You might have sat, like Darby and Joan, and flattered each other; and billed and cooed like a pair of old pigeons on a perch. I want my wings and to use them, sir." And she spread out her beautiful arms, as if indeed she could fly off like the pretty "Gawrie", whom the man in the story was enamoured of.

"And what will your Peter Wilkins say to your flight?" says Esmond, who never admired this fair creature more than when she rebelled and laughed at him.

"A duchess knows her place," says she, with a laugh. "Why, I have a son already made for me, and thirty years old (my Lord Arran), and four daughters. How they will scold, and what a rage they will be in, when I come to take the head of the table! But I give them only a month to be angry; at the end of that time they shall love me every one, and so shall Lord Arran, and so shall all his grace's Scots vassals and followers in the Highlands. I'm bent on it; and, when I take a thing in my head, 'tis done. His grace is the greatest gentleman in Europe, and I'll try and make him happy; and, when the king comes back, you may count on my protection, Cousin Esmond—for come back the king will and shall: and I'll bring him back from Versailles, if he comes under my hoop."

"I hope the world will make you happy, Beatrix," says Esmond, with a sigh. "You'll be Beatrix till you are my lady duchess—will you not? I shall then make your grace my very lowest bow."

"None of these sighs and this satire, cousin," she says. "I take his grace's great bounty thankfully—yes, thankfully; and will wear his honours becomingly. I do not say he hath touched my heart; but he has my gratitude, obedience, admiration—I have told him that, and no more; and with that his noble heart is content. I have told him all—even the story of that poor creature that I was engaged to—and that I could not love; and I gladly gave his word back to him, and jumped for joy to get back my own. I am twenty-five years old."

"Twenty-six, my dear," says Esmond.

"Twenty-five, sir—I choose to be twenty-five; and, in eight years, no man hath ever touched my heart. Yes—you did once, for a little, Harry, when you came back after Lille, and engaging with that murderer, Mohun, and saving Frank's life. I thought I could like you; and mamma begged me hard, on her knees, and I did—for a day. But the old chill came over me, Henry, and the old fear of you and your melancholy; and I was glad when you went away, and engaged with my Lord Ashburnham, that I might hear no more of you, that's the truth. You are too good for me somehow. I could not make you happy, and should break my heart in trying, and not being able to love you. But if you had asked me when we gave you the sword, you might have had me, sir, and we both should have been miserable by this time. I talked with that silly lord all night just to vex you and mamma, and I succeeded, didn't I? How frankly we can talk of these things! It seems a thousand years ago: and, though we are here sitting in the same room, there's a great wall between us. My dear, kind, faithful, gloomy old cousin! I can like you now, and admire you too, sir, and say that you are brave, and very kind, and very true, and a fine gentleman for all—for all your little mishap at your birth," says she, wagging her arch head.

"And now, sir," says she, with a curtsy, "we must have no more talk except when mamma is by, as his grace is with us; for he does not half like you, cousin, and is as jealous as the black man in your favourite play."

Though the very kindness of the words stabbed Mr. Esmond with the keenest pang, he did not show his sense of the wound by any look of his (as Beatrix, indeed, afterwards owned to him), but said, with a perfect command of himself and an easy smile, "The interview must not end yet, my dear, until I have had my last word. Stay, here comes your mother" (indeed she came in here with her sweet anxious face, and Esmond, going up, kissed her hand respectfully). "My dear lady may hear, too, the last words, which are no secrets, and are only a parting benediction accompanying a present for your marriage from an old gentleman your guardian; for I feel as if I was the guardian of all the family, and an old, old fellow that is fit to be the grandfather of you all; and in this character let me make my lady duchess her wedding present. They are the diamonds my father's widow left me. I had thought Beatrix might have had them a year ago; but they are good enough for a duchess, though not bright enough for the handsomest woman in the world." And he took the case out of his pocket in which the jewels were, and presented them to his cousin.

She gave a cry of delight, for the stones were indeed very handsome, and of great value; and the next minute the necklace was where Belinda's cross is in Mr. Pope's admirable poem, and glittering on the whitest and most perfectly-shaped neck in all England.

The girl's delight at receiving these trinkets was so great, that after rushing to the looking-glass and examining the effect they produced upon that fair neck which they surrounded, Beatrix was running back with her arms extended, and was perhaps for paying her cousin with a price, that he would have liked no doubt to receive from those beautiful rosy lips of hers, but at this moment the door opened, and his grace the bridegroom elect was announced.

He looked very black upon Mr. Esmond, to whom he made a very low bow indeed, and kissed the hand of each lady in his most ceremonious manner. He had come in his chair from the palace hard by, and wore his two stars of the Garter and the Thistle.

"Look, my lord duke," says Mrs. Beatrix, advancing to him, and showing the diamonds on her breast.

"Diamonds," says his grace. "Hm! they seem pretty."

"They are a present on my marriage," says Beatrix.

"From her Majesty?" asks the duke. "The queen is very good."

"From my cousin Henry—from our cousin Henry"—cry both the ladies in a breath.

"I have not the honour of knowing the gentleman. I thought that my Lord Castlewood had no brother: and that on your ladyship's side there were no nephews."

"From our cousin, Colonel Henry Esmond, my lord," says Beatrix, taking the colonel's hand very bravely—"who was left guardian to us by our father, and who has a hundred times shown his love and friendship for our family."

"The Duchess of Hamilton receives no diamonds but from her husband, madam," says the duke—"may I pray you to restore these to Mr. Esmond?"

"Beatrix Esmond may receive a present from our kinsman and benefactor, my lord duke," says Lady Castlewood, with an air of great dignity. "She is my daughter yet: and if her mother sanctions the gift—no one else hath the right to question it."

"Kinsman and benefactor!" says the duke. "I know of no kinsman: and I do not choose that my wife should have for benefactor a——"

"My lord," says Colonel Esmond.

"I am not here to bandy words," says his grace: "frankly I tell you that your visits to this house are too frequent, and that I choose no presents for the Duchess of Hamilton from gentlemen that bear a name they have no right to."

"My lord!" breaks out Lady Castlewood, "Mr. Esmond hath the best right to that name of any man in the world: and 'tis as old and as honourable as your grace's."

My lord duke smiled, and looked as if Lady Castlewood was mad, that was so talking to him.

"If I called him benefactor," said my mistress, "it is because he has been so to us—yes, the noblest, the truest, the bravest, the dearest of benefactors. He would have saved my husband's life from Mohun's sword. He did save my boy's, and defended him from that villain. Are those no benefits?"

"I ask Colonel Esmond's pardon," says his grace, if possible more haughty than before; "I would say not a word that should give him offence, and thank him for his kindness to your ladyship's family. My Lord Mohun and I are connected, you know, by marriage—though neither by blood nor friendship; but I must repeat what I said, that my wife can receive no presents from Colonel Esmond."

"My daughter may receive presents from the Head of our House: my daughter may thankfully take kindness from her father's, her mother's, her brother's dearest friend; and be grateful for one more benefit besides the thousand we owe him," cries Lady Esmond. "What is a string of diamond stones compared to that affection he hath given us—our dearest preserver and benefactor? We owe him not only Frank's life, but our all—yes, our all," says my mistress, with a heightened colour and a trembling voice. "The title we bear is his, if he would claim it. 'Tis we who have no right to our name: not he that's too great for it. He sacrificed his name at my dying lord's bedside—sacrificed it to my orphan children; gave up rank and honour because he loved us so nobly. His father was Viscount of Castlewood and Marquis of Esmond before him; and he is his father's lawful son and true heir, and we are the recipients of his bounty, and he the chief of a house that's as old as your own. And if he is content to forgo his name that my child may bear it, we love him and honour him and bless him under whatever name he bears"—and here the fond and affectionate creature would have knelt to Esmond again, but that he prevented her; and Beatrix, running up to her with a pale face and a cry of alarm, embraced her and said, "Mother, what is this?"

"'Tis a family secret, my lord duke," says Colonel Esmond: "poor Beatrix knew nothing of it: nor did my lady till a year ago. And I have as good a right to resign my title as your grace's mother to abdicate hers to you."

"I should have told everything to the Duke of Hamilton," said my mistress, "had his grace applied to me for my daughter's hand, and not to Beatrix. I should have spoken with you this very day in private, my lord, had not your words brought about this sudden explanation—and now 'tis fit Beatrix should hear it; and know, as I would have all the world know, what we owe to our kinsman and patron."

And then in her touching way, and having hold of her daughter's hand, and speaking to her rather than my lord duke, Lady Castlewood told the story which you know already—lauding up to the skies her kinsman's behaviour. On his side Mr. Esmond explained the reasons that seemed quite sufficiently cogent with him, why the succession in the family, as at present it stood, should not be disturbed; and he should remain, as he was, Colonel Esmond.

"And Marquis of Esmond, my lord," says his grace, with a low bow. "Permit me to ask your lordship's pardon for words that were uttered in ignorance; and to beg for the favour of your friendship. To be allied to you, sir, must be an honour under whatever name you are known" (so his grace was pleased to say): "and in return for the splendid present you make my wife, your kinswoman, I hope you will please to command any service that James Douglas can perform. I shall never be easy until I repay you a part of my obligations at least; and ere very long, and with the mission her Majesty hath given me," says the duke, "that may perhaps be in my power. I shall esteem it as a favour, my lord, if Colonel Esmond will give away the bride."

"And if he will take the usual payment in advance, he is welcome," says Beatrix, stepping up to him; and as Esmond kissed her, she whispered, "Oh, why didn't I know you before?"

My lord duke was as hot as a flame at this salute, but said never a word: Beatrix made him a proud curtsy, and the two ladies quitted the room together.

"When does your excellency go for Paris?" asks Colonel Esmond.

"As soon after the ceremony as may be," his grace answered. "'Tis fixed for the first of December: it cannot be sooner. The equipage will not be ready till then. The queen intends the embassy should be very grand—and I have law business to settle. That ill-omened Mohun has come, or is coming, to London again: we are in a lawsuit about my late Lord Gerard's property; and he hath sent to me to meet him."



Chapter V. Mohun Appears For The Last Time In This History

Besides my Lord Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who, for family reasons, had kindly promised his protection and patronage to Colonel Esmond, he had other great friends in power now, both able and willing to assist him, and he might, with such allies, look forward to as fortunate advancement in civil life at home as he had got rapid promotion abroad. His grace was magnanimous enough to offer to take Mr. Esmond as secretary on his Paris embassy, but no doubt he intended that proposal should be rejected; at any rate, Esmond could not bear the thoughts of attending his mistress farther than the church-door after her marriage, and so declined that offer which his generous rival made him.

Other gentlemen, in power, were liberal at least of compliments and promises to Colonel Esmond. Mr. Harley, now become my Lord Oxford and Mortimer, and installed Knight of the Garter on the same day as his grace of Hamilton had received the same honour, sent to the colonel to say that a seat in Parliament should be at his disposal presently, and Mr. St. John held out many flattering hopes of advancement to the colonel when he should enter the House. Esmond's friends were all successful, and the most successful and triumphant of all was his dear old commander, General Webb, who was now appointed Lieutenant-General of the Land Forces, and received with particular honour by the ministry, by the queen, and the people out of doors, who huzza'd the brave chief when they used to see him in his chariot, going to the House or to the Drawing-room, or hobbling on foot to his coach from St. Stephen's upon his glorious old crutch and stick, and cheered him as loud as they had ever done Marlborough.

That great duke was utterly disgraced; and honest old Webb dated all his grace's misfortunes from Wynendael, and vowed that Fate served the traitor right. Duchess Sarah had also gone to ruin; she had been forced to give up her keys, and her places, and her pensions:—"Ah, ah!" says Webb, "she would have locked up three millions of French crowns with her keys had I but been knocked on the head, but I stopped that convoy at Wynendael." Our enemy Cardonnel was turned out of the House of Commons (along with Mr. Walpole) for malversation of public money. Cadogan lost his place of Lieutenant of the Tower. Marlborough's daughters resigned their posts of ladies of the bedchamber; and so complete was the duke's disgrace, that his son-in-law, Lord Bridgewater, was absolutely obliged to give up his lodging at St. James's, and had his half-pension, as Master of the Horse, taken away. But I think the lowest depth of Marlborough's fall was when he humbly sent to ask General Webb when he might wait upon him; he who had commanded the stout old general, who had injured him and sneered at him, who had kept him dangling in his antechamber, who could not even after his great service condescend to write him a letter in his own hand. The nation was as eager for peace, as ever it had been hot for war. The Prince of Savoy came amongst us, had his audience of the queen, and got his famous Sword of Honour, and strove with all his force to form a Whig party together, to bring over the young Prince of Hanover—to do anything which might prolong the war, and consummate the ruin of the old sovereign whom he hated so implacably. But the nation was tired of the struggle; so completely wearied of it that not even our defeat at Denain could rouse us into any anger, though such an action so lost two years before, would have set all England in a fury. 'Twas easy to see that the great Marlborough was not with the army. Eugene was obliged to fall back in a rage, and forgo the dazzling revenge of his life. 'Twas in vain the duke's side asked, "Would we suffer our arms to be insulted? Would we not send back the only champion who could repair our honour?" The nation had had its bellyful of fighting; nor could taunts or outcries goad up our Britons any more.

For a statesman, that was always prating of liberty, and had the grandest philosophic maxims in his mouth, it must be owned that Mr. St. John sometimes rather acted like a Turkish than a Greek philosopher, and especially fell foul of one unfortunate set of men, the men of letters, with a tyranny a little extraordinary in a man who professed to respect their calling so much. The literary controversy at this time was very bitter, the Government side was the winning one, the popular one, and I think might have been the merciful one. 'Twas natural that the Opposition should be peevish and cry out; some men did so from their hearts, admiring the Duke of Marlborough's prodigious talents, and deploring the disgrace of the greatest general the world ever knew: 'twas the stomach that caused other patriots to grumble, and such men cried out because they were poor, and paid to do so. Against these my Lord Bolingbroke never showed the slightest mercy, whipping a dozen into prison or into the pillory without the least commiseration.

From having been a man of arms Mr. Esmond had now come to be a man of letters, but on a safer side than that in which the above-cited poor fellows ventured their liberties and ears. There was no danger on ours, which was the winning side; besides, Mr. Esmond pleased himself by thinking that he writ like a gentleman if he did not always succeed as a wit.

Of the famous wits of that age, who have rendered Queen Anne's reign illustrious, and whose works will be in all Englishmen's hands in ages yet to come, Mr. Esmond saw many, but at public places chiefly; never having a great intimacy with any of them, except with honest Dick Steele and Mr. Addison, who parted company with Esmond, however, when that gentleman became a declared Tory, and lived on close terms with the leading persons of that party. Addison kept himself to a few friends, and very rarely opened himself except in their company. A man more upright and conscientious than he, it was not possible to find in public life, and one whose conversation was so various, easy, and delightful. Writing now in my mature years, I own that I think Addison's politics were the right, and were my time to come over again, I would be a Whig in England and not a Tory; but with people that take a side in politics, 'tis men rather than principles that commonly bind them. A kindness or a slight puts a man under one flag or the other, and he marches with it to the end of the campaign. Esmond's master in war was injured by Marlborough, and hated him: and the lieutenant fought the quarrels of his leader. Webb coming to London was used as a weapon by Marlborough's enemies (and true steel he was, that honest chief); nor was his aide de camp, Mr. Esmond, an unfaithful or unworthy partisan. 'Tis strange here, and on a foreign soil, and in a land that is independent in all but the name (for that the North American colonies shall remain dependants on yonder little island for twenty years more, I never can think), to remember how the nation at home seemed to give itself up to the domination of one or other aristocratic party, and took a Hanoverian king, or a French one, according as either prevailed. And while the Tories, the October Club gentlemen, the High Church parsons that held by the Church of England, were for having a Papist king, for whom many of their Scottish and English leaders, firm churchmen all, laid down their lives with admirable loyalty and devotion; they were governed by men who had notoriously no religion at all, but used it as they would use any opinion for the purpose of forwarding their own ambition. The Whigs, on the other hand, who professed attachment to religion and liberty too, were compelled to send to Holland or Hanover for a monarch around whom they could rally. A strange series of compromises is that English history; compromise of principle, compromise of party, compromise of worship! The lovers of English freedom and independence submitted their religious consciences to an Act of Parliament; could not consolidate their liberty without sending to Zell or the Hague for a king to live under; and could not find amongst the proudest people in the world a man speaking their own language, and understanding their laws, to govern them. The Tory and High Church patriots were ready to die in defence of a Papist family that had sold us to France; the great Whig nobles, the sturdy Republican recusants who had cut off Charles Stuart's head for treason, were fain to accept a king whose title came to him through a royal grandmother, whose own royal grandmother's head had fallen under Queen Bess's hatchet. And our proud English nobles sent to a petty German town for a monarch to come and reign in London; and our prelates kissed the ugly hands of his Dutch mistresses, and thought it no dishonour. In England you can but belong to one party or t'other, and you take the house you live in with all its encumbrances, its retainers, its antique discomforts, and ruins even; you patch up, but you never build up anew. Will we of the New World submit much longer, even nominally, to this ancient British superstition? There are signs of the times which make me think that ere long we shall care as little about King George here, and peers temporal and peers spiritual, as we do for King Canute or the Druids.

This chapter began about the wits, my grandson may say, and hath wandered very far from their company. The pleasantest of the wits I knew were the Doctors Garth and Arbuthnot, and Mr. Gay, the author of Trivia, the most charming kind soul that ever laughed at a joke or cracked a bottle. Mr. Prior I saw, and he was the earthen pot swimming with the pots of brass down the stream, and always and justly frightened lest he should break in the voyage. I met him both at London and Paris, where he was performing piteous congees to the Duke of Shrewsbury, not having courage to support the dignity which his undeniable genius and talent had won him, and writing coaxing letters to Secretary St. John, and thinking about his plate and his place, and what on earth should become of him should his party go out. The famous Mr. Congreve I saw a dozen of times at Button's, a splendid wreck of a man, magnificently attired, and though gouty, and almost blind, bearing a brave face against fortune.

The great Mr. Pope (of whose prodigious genius I have no words to express my admiration) was quite a puny lad at this time, appearing seldom in public places. There were hundreds of men, wits, and pretty fellows frequenting the theatres and coffee-houses of that day—whom nunc prescribere longum est. Indeed I think the most brilliant of that sort I ever saw was not till fifteen years afterwards, when I paid my last visit in England, and met young Harry Fielding, son of the Fielding that served in Spain and afterwards in Flanders with us, and who for fun and humour seemed to top them all. As for the famous Dr. Swift, I can say of him, "vidi tantum." He was in London all these years up to the death of the queen; and in a hundred public places where I saw him, but no more; he never missed Court of a Sunday, where once or twice he was pointed out to your grandfather. He would have sought me out eagerly enough had I been a great man with a title to my name, or a star on my coat. At Court the doctor had no eyes but for the very greatest. Lord Treasurer and St. John used to call him Jonathan, and they paid him with this cheap coin for the service they took of him. He writ their lampoons, fought their enemies, flogged and bullied in their service, and it must be owned with a consummate skill and fierceness. 'Tis said he hath lost his intellect now, and forgotten his wrongs and his rage against mankind. I have always thought of him and of Marlborough as the two greatest men of that age. I have read his books (who doth not know them?) here in our calm woods, and imagine a giant to myself as I think of him, a lonely fallen Prometheus, groaning as the vulture tears him. Prometheus I saw, but when first I ever had any words with him, the giant stepped out of a sedan-chair in the Poultry, whither he had come with a tipsy Irish servant parading before him, who announced him, bawling out his reverence's name, whilst his master below was as yet haggling with the chairman. I disliked this Mr. Swift, and heard many a story about him, of his conduct to men, and his words to women. He could flatter the great as much as he could bully the weak; and Mr. Esmond, being younger and hotter in that day than now, was determined, should he ever meet this dragon, not to run away from his teeth and his fire.

Men have all sorts of motives which carry them onwards in life, and are driven into acts of desperation, or it may be of distinction, from a hundred different causes. There was one comrade of Esmond's, an honest little Irish lieutenant of Handyside's, who owed so much money to a camp sutler, that he began to make love to the man's daughter, intending to pay his debt that way; and at the battle of Malplaquet, flying away from the debt and lady too, he rushed so desperately on the French lines, that he got his company; and came a captain out of the action, and had to marry the sutler's daughter after all, who brought him his cancelled debt to her father as poor Rogers's fortune. To run out of the reach of bill and marriage, he ran on the enemy's pikes; and as these did not kill him he was thrown back upon t'other horn of his dilemma. Our great duke at the same battle was fighting, not the French, but the Tories in England; and risking his life and the army's, not for his country but for his pay and places; and for fear of his wife at home, that only being in life whom he dreaded. I have asked about men in my own company (new drafts of poor country boys were perpetually coming over to us during the wars, and brought from the ploughshare to the sword), and found that a half of them under the flags were driven thither on account of a woman: one fellow was jilted by his mistress and took the shilling in despair; another jilted the girl, and fled from her and the parish to the tents where the law could not disturb him. Why go on particularizing? What can the sons of Adam and Eve expect, but to continue in that course of love and trouble their father and mother set out on? O my grandson! I am drawing nigh to the end of that period of my history, when I was acquainted with the great world of England and Europe, my years are past the Hebrew poet's limit, and I say unto thee, all my troubles and joys too, for that matter, have come from a woman; as thine will when thy destined course begins. 'Twas a woman that made a soldier of me, that set me intriguing afterwards; I believe I would have spun smocks for her had she so bidden me; what strength I had in my head I would have given her; hath not every man in his degree had his Omphale and Delilah? Mine befooled me on the banks of the Thames, and in dear old England; thou mayest find thine own by Rappahannoc.

To please that woman then I tried to distinguish myself as a soldier, and afterwards as a wit and a politician; as to please another I would have put on a black cassock and a pair of bands, and had done so but that a superior fate intervened to defeat that project. And I say, I think the world is like Captain Esmond's company I spoke of anon; and, could you see every man's career in life, you would find a woman clogging him; or clinging round his march and stopping him; or cheering him and goading him; or beckoning him out of her chariot, so that he goes up to her, and leaves the race to be run without him; or bringing him the apple, and saying "Eat"; or fetching him the daggers and whispering "Kill! yonder lies Duncan, and a crown, and an opportunity".

Your grandfather fought with more effect as a politician than as a wit; and having private animosities and grievances of his own and his general's against the great duke in command of the army, and more information on military matters than most writers, who had never seen beyond the fire of a tobacco-pipe at Wills's, he was enabled to do good service for that cause which he embarked in, and for Mr. St. John and his party. But he disdained the abuse in which some of the Tory writers indulged; for instance, Dr. Swift, who actually chose to doubt the Duke of Marlborough's courage, and was pleased to hint that his grace's military capacity was doubtful: nor were Esmond's performances worse for the effect they were intended to produce (though no doubt they could not injure the Duke of Marlborough nearly so much in the public eyes as the malignant attacks of Swift did, which were carefully directed so as to blacken and degrade him), because they were writ openly and fairly by Mr. Esmond, who made no disguise of them, who was now out of the army, and who never attacked the prodigious courage and talents, only the selfishness and rapacity, of the chief.

The colonel then, having writ a paper for one of the Tory journals, called the Post-Boy (a letter upon Bouchain, that the town talked about for two whole days, when the appearance of an Italian singer supplied a fresh subject for conversation), and having business at the Exchange, where Mrs. Beatrix wanted a pair of gloves or a fan very likely, Esmond went to correct his paper, and was sitting at the printer's, when the famous Dr. Swift came in, his Irish fellow with him that used to walk before his chair, and bawled out his master's name with great dignity.

Mr. Esmond was waiting for the printer too, whose wife had gone to the tavern to fetch him, and was meantime engaged in drawing a picture of a soldier on horseback for a dirty little pretty boy of the printer's wife, whom she had left behind her.

"I presume you are the editor of the Post-Boy, sir?" says the doctor, in a grating voice that had an Irish twang; and he looked at the colonel from under his two bushy eyebrows with a pair of very clear blue eyes. His complexion was muddy, his figure rather fat, his chin double. He wore a shabby cassock, and a shabby hat over his black wig, and he pulled out a great gold watch, at which he looks very fierce.

"I am but a contributor, Dr. Swift," says Esmond, with the little boy still on his knee. He was sitting with his back in the window, so that the doctor could not see him.

"Who told you I was Dr. Swift?" says the doctor, eyeing the other very haughtily.

"Your reverence's valet bawled out your name," says the colonel. "I should judge you brought him from Ireland."

"And pray, sir, what right have you to judge whether my servant came from Ireland or no? I want to speak with your employer, Mr. Leach. I'll thank ye go fetch him."

"Where's your papa, Tommy?" asks the colonel of the child, a smutty little wretch in a frock.

Instead of answering, the child begins to cry; the doctor's appearance had no doubt frightened the poor little imp.

"Send that squalling little brat about his business, and do what I bid ye, sir," says the doctor.

"I must finish the picture first for Tommy," says the colonel, laughing. "Here, Tommy, will you have your Pandour with whiskers or without?"

"Whisters," says Tommy, quite intent on the picture.

"Who the devil are ye, sir?" cries the doctor; "are ye a printer's man or are ye not?" he pronounced it like naught.

"Your reverence needn't raise the devil to ask who I am," says Colonel Esmond. "Did you ever hear of Dr. Faustus, little Tommy? or Friar Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and set the Thames on fire?"

Mr. Swift turned quite red, almost purple. "I did not intend any offence, sir," says he.

"I daresay, sir, you offended without meaning," says the other drily.

"Who are ye, sir? Do you know who I am, sir? You are one of the pack of Grub-Street scribblers that my friend Mr. Secretary hath laid by the heels. How dare ye, sir, speak to me in this tone?" cries the doctor, in a great fume.

"I beg your honour's humble pardon if I have offended your honour," says Esmond, in a tone of great humility. "Rather than be sent to the Compter, or be put in the pillory, there's nothing I wouldn't do. But Mrs. Leach, the printer's lady, told me to mind Tommy whilst she went for her husband to the tavern, and I daren't leave the child lest he should fall into the fire; but if your reverence will hold him——"

"I take the little beast!" says the doctor, starting back. "I am engaged to your betters, fellow. Tell Mr. Leach that when he makes an appointment with Dr. Swift he had best keep it, do ye hear? And keep a respectful tongue in your head, sir, when you address a person like me."

"I'm but a poor broken-down soldier," says the colonel, "and I've seen better days, though I am forced now to turn my hand to writing. We can't help our fate, sir."

"You're the person that Mr. Leach hath spoken to me of, I presume. Have the goodness to speak civilly when you are spoken to—and tell Leach to call at my lodgings in Bury Street, and bring the papers with him to-night at ten o'clock. And the next time you see me, you'll know me, and be civil, Mr. Kemp."

Poor Kemp, who had been a lieutenant at the beginning of the war, and fallen into misfortune, was the writer of the Post-Boy, and now took honest Mr. Leach's pay in place of her Majesty's. Esmond had seen this gentleman, and a very ingenious, hard-working honest fellow he was, toiling to give bread to a great family, and watching up many a long winter night to keep the wolf from his door. And Mr. St. John, who had liberty always on his tongue, had just sent a dozen of the Opposition writers into prison, and one actually into the pillory, for what he called libels, but libels not half so violent as those writ on our side. With regard to this very piece of tyranny, Esmond had remonstrated strongly with the secretary, who laughed and said, the rascals were served quite right; and told Esmond a joke of Swift's regarding the matter. Nay, more, this Irishman, when St. John was about to pardon a poor wretch condemned to death for rape, absolutely prevented the secretary from exercising this act of good nature, and boasted that he had had the man hanged; and great as the doctor's genius might be, and splendid his ability, Esmond for one would affect no love for him, and never desired to make his acquaintance. The doctor was at Court every Sunday assiduously enough, a place the colonel frequented but rarely, though he had a great inducement to go there in the person of a fair maid of honour of her Majesty's; and the airs and patronage Mr. Swift gave himself, forgetting gentlemen of his country whom he knew perfectly, his loud talk at once insolent and servile, nay, perhaps his very intimacy with lord treasurer and the secretary, who indulged all his freaks and called him Jonathan, you may be sure, were remarked by many a person of whom the proud priest himself took no note, during that time of his vanity and triumph.

'Twas but three days after the 15th of November, 1712 (Esmond minds him well of the date), that he went by invitation to dine with his general, the foot of whose table he used to take on these festive occasions, as he had done at many a board, hard and plentiful, during the campaign. This was a great feast, and of the latter sort; the honest old gentleman loved to treat his friends splendidly: his grace of Ormonde, before he joined his army as generalissimo, my Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, one of her Majesty's secretaries of state, my Lord Orkney, that had served with us abroad, being of the party. His grace of Hamilton, master of the ordnance, and in whose honour the feast had been given, upon his approaching departure as ambassador to Paris, had sent an excuse to General Webb at two o'clock, but an hour before the dinner: nothing but the most immediate business, his grace said, should have prevented him having the pleasure of drinking a parting glass to the health of General Webb. His absence disappointed Esmond's old chief, who suffered much from his wounds besides; and though the company was grand, it was rather gloomy. St. John came last, and brought a friend with him:—"I'm sure," says my general, bowing very politely, "my table hath always a place for Dr. Swift."

Mr. Esmond went up to the doctor with a bow and a smile:—"I gave Dr. Swift's message," says he, "to the printer: I hope he brought your pamphlet to your lodgings in time." Indeed poor Leach had come to his house very soon after the doctor left it, being brought away rather tipsy from the tavern by his thrifty wife; and he talked of cousin Swift in a maudlin way, though of course Mr. Esmond did not allude to this relationship. The doctor scowled, blushed, and was much confused, and said scarce a word during the whole of dinner. A very little stone will sometimes knock down these Goliaths of wit; and this one was often discomfited when met by a man of any spirit; he took his place sulkily, put water in his wine that the others drank plentifully, and scarce said a word.

The talk was about the affairs of the day, or rather about persons than affairs: my Lady Marlborough's fury, her daughters in old clothes and mob-caps looking out from their windows and seeing the company pass to the Drawing-room; the gentleman-usher's horror when the Prince of Savoy was introduced to her Majesty in a tie-wig, no man out of a full-bottomed periwig ever having kissed the royal hand before; about the Mohawks and the damage they were doing, rushing through the town, killing and murdering. Some one said the ill-omened face of Mohun had been seen at the theatre the night before, and Macartney and Meredith with him. Meant to be a feast, the meeting, in spite of drink, and talk, was as dismal as a funeral. Every topic started subsided into gloom. His grace of Ormonde went away because the conversation got upon Denain, where we had been defeated in the last campaign. Esmond's general was affected at the allusion to this action too, for his comrade of Wynendael, the Count of Nassau-Woudenberg, had been slain there. Mr. Swift, when Esmond pledged him, said he drank no wine, and took his hat from the peg and went away, beckoning my Lord Bolingbroke to follow him; but the other bade him take his chariot and save his coach-hire, he had to speak with Colonel Esmond; and when the rest of the company withdrew to cards, these two remained behind in the dark.

Bolingbroke always spoke freely when he had drunk freely. His enemies could get any secret out of him in that condition; women were even employed to ply him, and take his words down. I have heard that my Lord Stair, three years after, when the secretary fled to France and became the pretender's minister, got all the information he wanted by putting female spies over St. John in his cups. He spoke freely now:—"Jonathan knows nothing of this for certain, though he suspects it, and by George, Webb will take an archbishopric, and Jonathan a—no, damme—Jonathan will take an archbishopric from James, I warrant me, gladly enough. Your duke hath the string of the whole matter in his hand," the secretary went on. "We have that which will force Marlborough to keep his distance, and he goes out of London in a fortnight. Prior hath his business; he left me this morning, and mark me, Harry, should fate carry off our august, our beloved, our most gouty and plethoric queen, and defender of the faith, la bonne cause triomphera. A la sante de la bonne cause! Everything good comes from France. Wine comes from France; give us another bumper to the bonne cause." We drank it together.

"Will the bonne cause turn Protestant?" asked Mr. Esmond.

"No, hang it," says the other, "he'll defend our faith as in duty bound, but he'll stick by his own. The Hind and the Panther shall run in the same car, by Jove. Righteousness and peace shall kiss each other; and we'll have Father Massillon to walk down the aisle of St. Paul's, cheek by jowl, with Dr. Sacheverel. Give us more wine; here's a health to the bonne cause, kneeling—damme, let's drink it kneeling." He was quite flushed and wild with wine as he was talking.

"And suppose," says Esmond, who always had this gloomy apprehension, "the bonne cause should give us up to the French, as his father and uncle did before him?"

"Give us up to the French!" starts up Bolingbroke; "is there any English gentleman that fears that? You who have seen Blenheim and Ramillies, afraid of the French! Your ancestors and mine, and brave old Webb's yonder, have met them in a hundred fields, and our children will be ready to do the like. Who's he that wishes for more men from England? My cousin Westmoreland? Give us up to the French, pshaw!"

"His uncle did," says Mr. Esmond.

"And what happened to his grandfather?" broke out St. John, filling out another bumper. "Here's to the greatest monarch England ever saw; here's to the Englishman that made a kingdom of her. Our great king came from Huntingdon, not Hanover; our fathers didn't look for a Dutchman to rule us. Let him come and we'll keep him, and we'll show him Whitehall. If he's a traitor let us have him here to deal with him; and then there are spirits here as great as any that have gone before. There are men here that can look at danger in the face and not be frightened at it. Traitor, treason! what names are these to scare you and me? Are all Oliver's men dead, or his glorious name forgotten in fifty years? Are there no men equal to him, think you, as good—aye, as good? God save the king! and, if the monarchy fails us, God save the British republic!"

He filled another great bumper, and tossed it up and drained it wildly, just as the noise of rapid carriage-wheels approaching was stopped at our door, and after a hurried knock and a moment's interval, Mr. Swift came into the hall, ran upstairs to the room we were dining in, and entered it with a perturbed face. St. John, excited with drink, was making some wild quotation out of Macbeth, but Swift stopped him.

"Drink no more, my lord, for God's sake," says he, "I come with the most dreadful news."

"Is the queen dead?" cries out Bolingbroke, seizing on a water-glass.

"No, Duke Hamilton is dead, he was murdered an hour ago by Mohun and Macartney; they had a quarrel this morning; they gave him not so much time as to write a letter. He went for a couple of his friends, and he is dead, and Mohun, too, the bloody villain, who was set on him. They fought in Hyde Park just before sunset; the duke killed Mohun, and Macartney came up and stabbed him, and the dog is fled. I have your chariot below; send to every part of the country and apprehend that villain; come to the duke's house and see if any life be left in him."

"O Beatrix, Beatrix," thought Esmond, "and here ends my poor girl's ambition!"



Chapter VI. Poor Beatrix

There had been no need to urge upon Esmond the necessity of a separation between him and Beatrix: Fate had done that completely; and I think from the very moment poor Beatrix had accepted the duke's offer, she began to assume the majestic air of a duchess, nay, queen elect, and to carry herself as one sacred and removed from us common people. Her mother and kinsman both fell into her ways, the latter scornfully perhaps, and uttering his usual gibes at her vanity and his own. There was a certain charm about this girl of which neither Colonel Esmond nor his fond mistress could forgo the fascination; in spite of her faults and her pride and wilfulness, they were forced to love her; and, indeed, might be set down as the two chief flatterers of the brilliant creature's court.

Who, in the course of his life, hath not been so bewitched, and worshipped some idol or another? Years after this passion hath been dead and buried, along with a thousand other worldly cares and ambitions, he who felt it can recall it out of its grave, and admire, almost as fondly as he did in his youth, that lovely queenly creature. I invoke that beautiful spirit from the shades and love her still; or rather I should say such a past is always present to a man; such a passion once felt forms a part of his whole being, and cannot be separated from it; it becomes a portion of the man of to-day, just as any great faith or conviction, the discovery of poetry, the awakening of religion, ever afterward influence him; just as the wound I had at Blenheim, and of which I wear the scar, hath become part of my frame and influenced my whole body, nay spirit, subsequently, though 'twas got and healed forty years ago. Parting and forgetting! What faithful heart can do these? Our great thoughts, our great affections, the Truths of our life, never leave us. Surely, they cannot separate from our consciousness; shall follow it whithersoever that shall go; and are of their nature divine and immortal.

With the horrible news of this catastrophe, which was confirmed by the weeping domestics at the duke's own door, Esmond rode homewards as quick as his lazy coach would carry him, devising all the time how he should break the intelligence to the person most concerned in it; and if a satire upon human vanity could be needed, that poor soul afforded it in the altered company and occupations in which Esmond found her. For days before, her chariot had been rolling the street from mercer to toyshop—from goldsmith to laceman: her taste was perfect, or at least the fond bridegroom had thought so, and had given entire authority over all tradesmen, and for all the plate, furniture, and equipages, with which his grace the ambassador wished to adorn his splendid mission. She must have her picture by Kneller, a duchess not being complete without a portrait, and a noble one he made, and actually sketched in, on a cushion, a coronet which she was about to wear. She vowed she would wear it at King James the Third's coronation, and never a princess in the land would have become ermine better. Esmond found the antechamber crowded with milliners and toyshop women, obsequious goldsmiths with jewels, salvers, and tankards; and mercer's men with hangings, and velvets, and brocades. My lady duchess elect was giving audience to one famous silversmith from Exeter "Change," who brought with him a great chased salver, of which he was pointing out the beauties as Colonel Esmond entered. "Come," says she, "cousin, and admire the taste of this pretty thing." I think Mars and Venus were lying in the golden bower, that one gilt Cupid carried off the war-god's casque—another his sword—another his great buckler, upon which my Lord Duke Hamilton's arms with ours were to be engraved—and a fourth was kneeling down to the reclining goddess with the ducal coronet in his hands, God help us! The next time Mr. Esmond saw that piece of plate, the arms were changed, the ducal coronet had been replaced by a viscount's; it formed part of the fortune of the thrifty goldsmith's own daughter, when she married my Lord Viscount Squanderfield two years after.

"Isn't this a beautiful piece?" says Beatrix, examining it, and she pointed out the arch graces of the Cupids, and the fine carving of the languid prostrate Mars. Esmond sickened as he thought of the warrior dead in his chamber, his servants and children weeping around him; and of this smiling creature attiring herself, as it were, for that nuptial death-bed. "'Tis a pretty piece of vanity," says he, looking gloomily at the beautiful creature: there were flambeaux in the room lighting up the brilliant mistress of it. She lifted up the great gold salver with her fair arms.

"Vanity!" says she haughtily. "What is vanity in you, sir, is propriety in me. You ask a Jewish price for it, Mr. Graves; but have it I will, if only to spite Mr. Esmond."

"O Beatrix, lay it down!" says Mr. Esmond. "Herodias! you know not what you carry in the charger."

She dropped it with a clang; the eager goldsmith running to seize his fallen ware. The lady's face caught the fright from Esmond's pale countenance, and her eyes shone out like beacons of alarm:—"What is it, Henry?" says she, running to him, and seizing both his hands. "What do you mean by your pale face and gloomy tones?"

"Come away, come away!" says Esmond, leading her: she clung frightened to him, and he supported her upon his heart, bidding the scared goldsmith leave them. The man went into the next apartment, staring with surprise, and hugging his precious charger.

"O my Beatrix, my sister!" says Esmond, still holding in his arms the pallid and affrighted creature, "you have the greatest courage of any woman in the world; prepare to show it now, for you have a dreadful trial to bear."

She sprang away from the friend who would have protected her:—"Hath he left me?" says she. "We had words this morning: he was very gloomy, and I angered him: but he dared not, he dared not!" As she spoke a burning blush flushed over her whole face and bosom. Esmond saw it reflected in the glass by which she stood, with clenched hands, pressing her swelling heart.

"He has left you," says Esmond, wondering that rage rather than sorrow was in her looks.

"And he is alive," cries Beatrix, "and you bring me this commission! He has left me, and you haven't dared to avenge me! You, that pretend to be the champion of our house, have let me suffer this insult! Where is Castlewood? I will go to my brother."

"The duke is not alive, Beatrix," said Esmond.

She looked at her cousin wildly, and fell back to the wall as though shot in the breast:—"And you come here, and—and—you killed him?"

"No; thank Heaven," her kinsman said, "the blood of that noble heart doth not stain my sword! In its last hour it was faithful to thee, Beatrix Esmond. Vain and cruel woman! kneel and thank the awful Heaven which awards life and death, and chastises pride, that the noble Hamilton died true to you; at least that 'twas not your quarrel, or your pride, or your wicked vanity, that drove him to his fate. He died by the bloody sword which already had drank your own father's blood. O woman, O sister! to that sad field where two corpses are lying—for the murderer died too by the hand of the man he slew—can you bring no mourners but your revenge and your vanity? God help and pardon thee, Beatrix, as He brings this awful punishment to your hard and rebellious heart."

Esmond had scarce done speaking, when his mistress came in. The colloquy between him and Beatrix had lasted but a few minutes, during which time Esmond's servant had carried the disastrous news through the household. The army of Vanity Fair, waiting without, gathered up all their fripperies and fled aghast. Tender Lady Castlewood had been in talk above with Dean Atterbury, the pious creature's almoner and director; and the dean had entered with her as a physician whose place was at a sick-bed. Beatrix's mother looked at Esmond and ran towards her daughter, with a pale face and open heart and hands, all kindness and pity. But Beatrix passed her by, nor would she have any of the medicaments of the spiritual physician. "I am best in my own room and by myself," she said. Her eyes were quite dry; nor did Esmond ever see them otherwise, save once, in respect to that grief. She gave him a cold hand as she went out: "Thank you, brother," she said, in a low voice, and with a simplicity more touching than tears; "all you have said is true and kind, and I will go away and ask pardon." The three others remained behind, and talked over the dreadful story. It affected Dr. Atterbury more even than us, as it seemed. The death of Mohun, her husband's murderer, was more awful to my mistress than even the duke's unhappy end. Esmond gave at length what particulars he knew of their quarrel, and the cause of it. The two noblemen had long been at war with respect to the Lord Gerard's property, whose two daughters my lord duke and Mohun had married. They had met by appointment that day at the lawyer's in Lincoln's Inn Fields; had words which, though they appeared very trifling to those who heard them, were not so to men exasperated by long and previous enmity. Mohun asked my lord duke where he could see his grace's friends, and within an hour had sent two of his own to arrange this deadly duel. It was pursued with such fierceness, and sprung from so trifling a cause, that all men agreed at the time that there was a party, of which these three notorious brawlers were but agents, who desired to take Duke Hamilton's life away. They fought three on a side, as in that tragic meeting twelve years back, which hath been recounted already, and in which Mohun performed his second murder. They rushed in, and closed upon each other at once without any feints or crossing of swords even, and stabbed one at the other desperately, each receiving many wounds; and Mohun having his death-wound, and my lord duke lying by him, Macartney came up and stabbed his grace as he lay on the ground, and gave him the blow of which he died. Colonel Macartney denied this, of which the horror and indignation of the whole kingdom would nevertheless have him guilty, and fled the country, whither he never returned.

What was the real cause of the Duke Hamilton's death—a paltry quarrel that might easily have been made up, and with a ruffian so low, base, profligate, and degraded with former crimes and repeated murders, that a man of such a renown and princely rank as my lord duke might have disdained to sully his sword with the blood of such a villain. But his spirit was so high that those who wished his death knew that his courage was like his charity, and never turned any man away; and he died by the hands of Mohun, and the other two cut-throats that were set on him. The queen's ambassador to Paris died, the loyal and devoted servant of the House of Stuart, and a royal prince of Scotland himself, and carrying the confidence, the repentance of Queen Anne along with his own open devotion, and the goodwill of millions in the country more, to the queen's exiled brother and sovereign.

That party to which Lord Mohun belonged had the benefit of his service, and now were well rid of such a ruffian. He, and Meredith, and Macartney, were the Duke of Marlborough's men; and the two colonels had been broke but the year before for drinking perdition to the Tories. His grace was a Whig now and a Hanoverian, and as eager for war as Prince Eugene himself. I say not that he was privy to Duke Hamilton's death, I say that his party profited by it; and that three desperate and bloody instruments were found to effect that murder.

As Esmond and the dean walked away from Kensington discoursing of this tragedy, and how fatal it was to the cause which they both had at heart; the street-criers were already out with their broadsides, shouting through the town the full, true, and horrible account of the death of Lord Mohun and Duke Hamilton in a duel. A fellow had got to Kensington, and was crying it in the square there at very early morning, when Mr. Esmond happened to pass by. He drove the man from under Beatrix's very window, whereof the casement had been set open. The sun was shining though 'twas November: he had seen the market-carts rolling into London, the guard relieved at the Palace, the labourers trudging to their work in the gardens between Kensington and the City—the wandering merchants and hawkers filling the air with their cries. The world was going to its business again, although dukes lay dead and ladies mourned for them; and kings, very likely, lost their chances. So night and day pass away, and to-morrow comes, and our place knows us not. Esmond thought of the courier, now galloping on the north road to inform him, who was Earl of Arran yesterday, that he was Duke of Hamilton to-day, and of a thousand great schemes, hopes, ambitions, that were alive in the gallant heart, beating a few hours since, and now in a little dust quiescent.



Chapter VII. I Visit Castlewood Once More

Thus, for a third time, Beatrix's ambitious hopes were circumvented, and she might well believe that a special malignant fate watched and pursued her, tearing her prize out of her hand just as she seemed to grasp it, and leaving her with only rage and grief for her portion. Whatever her feelings might have been of anger or of sorrow (and I fear me that the former emotion was that which most tore her heart), she would take no confidant, as people of softer natures would have done under such a calamity; her mother and her kinsman knew that she would disdain their pity, and that to offer it would be but to infuriate the cruel wound which fortune had inflicted. We knew that her pride was awfully humbled and punished by this sudden and terrible blow; she wanted no teaching of ours to point out the sad moral of her story. Her fond mother could give but her prayers, and her kinsman his faithful friendship and patience to the unhappy stricken creature; and it was only by hints, and a word or two uttered months afterwards, that Beatrix showed she understood their silent commiseration, and on her part was secretly thankful for their forbearance. The people about the Court said there was that in her manner which frightened away scoffing and condolence: she was above their triumph and their pity, and acted her part in that dreadful tragedy greatly and courageously; so that those who liked her least were yet forced to admire her. We, who watched her after her disaster, could not but respect the indomitable courage and majestic calm with which she bore it. "I would rather see her tears than her pride," her mother said, who was accustomed to bear her sorrows in a very different way, and to receive them as the stroke of God, with an awful submission and meekness. But Beatrix's nature was different to that tender parent's; she seemed to accept her grief, and to defy it; nor would she allow it (I believe not even in private, and in her own chamber) to extort from her the confession of even a tear of humiliation or a cry of pain. Friends and children of our race, who come after me, in which way will you bear your trials? I know one that prays God will give you love rather than pride, and that the Eye all-seeing shall find you in the humble place. Not that we should judge proud spirits otherwise than charitably. 'Tis nature hath fashioned some for ambition and dominion, as it hath formed others for obedience and gentle submission. The leopard follows his nature as the lamb does, and acts after leopard law; she can neither help her beauty, nor her courage, nor her cruelty; nor a single spot on her shining coat; nor the conquering spirit which impels her; nor the shot which brings her down.

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During that well-founded panic the Whigs had, lest the queen should forsake their Hanoverian prince, bound by oaths and treaties as she was to him, and recall her brother, who was allied to her by yet stronger ties of nature and duty; the Prince of Savoy, and the boldest of that party of the Whigs, were for bringing the young Duke of Cambridge over, in spite of the queen and the outcry of her Tory servants, arguing that the electoral prince, a peer and prince of the blood-royal of this realm too, and in the line of succession to the crown, had a right to sit in the Parliament whereof he was a member, and to dwell in the country which he one day was to govern. Nothing but the strongest ill will expressed by the queen, and the people about her, and menaces of the royal resentment, should this scheme be persisted in, prevented it from being carried into effect.

The boldest on our side were, in like manner, for having our prince into the country. The undoubted inheritor of the right divine; the feelings of more than half the nation, of almost all the clergy, of the gentry of England and Scotland with him; entirely innocent of the crime for which his father suffered—brave, young, handsome, unfortunate—who in England would dare to molest the prince should he come among us, and fling himself upon British generosity, hospitality, and honour? An invader with an army of Frenchmen behind him, Englishmen of spirit would resist to the death, and drive back to the shores whence he came; but a prince, alone, armed with his right only, and relying on the loyalty of his people, was sure, many of his friends argued, of welcome, at least of safety, among us. The hand of his sister the queen, of the people his subjects, never could be raised to do him a wrong. But the queen was timid by nature, and the successive ministers she had, had private causes for their irresolution. The bolder and honester men, who had at heart the illustrious young exile's cause, had no scheme of interest of their own to prevent them from seeing the right done, and, provided only he came as an Englishman, were ready to venture their all to welcome and defend him.

St. John and Harley both had kind words in plenty for the prince's adherents, and gave him endless promises of future support; but hints and promises were all they could be got to give; and some of his friends were for measures much bolder, more efficacious, and more open. With a party of these, some of whom are yet alive, and some whose names Mr. Esmond has no right to mention, he found himself engaged the year after that miserable death of Duke Hamilton, which deprived the prince of his most courageous ally in this country. Dean Atterbury was one of the friends whom Esmond may mention, as the brave bishop is now beyond exile and persecution, and to him, and one or two more, the colonel opened himself of a scheme of his own, that, backed by a little resolution on the prince's part, could not fail of bringing about the accomplishment of their dearest wishes.

My young Lord Viscount Castlewood had not come to England to keep his majority, and had now been absent from the country for several years. The year when his sister was to be married and Duke Hamilton died, my lord was kept at Bruxelles by his wife's lying-in. The gentle Clotilda could not bear her husband out of her sight; perhaps she mistrusted the young scapegrace should he ever get loose from her leading-strings; and she kept him by her side to nurse the baby and administer posset to the gossips. Many a laugh poor Beatrix had had about Frank's uxoriousness: his mother would have gone to Clotilda when her time was coming, but that the mother-in-law was already in possession, and the negotiations for poor Beatrix's marriage were begun. A few months after the horrid catastrophe in Hyde Park, my mistress and her daughter retired to Castlewood, where my lord, it was expected, would soon join them. But, to say truth, their quiet household was little to his taste; he could be got to come to Walcote but once after his first campaign; and then the young rogue spent more than half his time in London, not appearing at Court, or in public under his own name and title, but frequenting plays, bagnios, and the very worst company, under the name of Captain Esmond (whereby his innocent kinsman got more than once into trouble); and so under various pretexts, and in pursuit of all sorts of pleasures, until he plunged into the lawful one of marriage, Frank Castlewood had remained away from this country, and was unknown, save amongst the gentlemen of the army, with whom he had served abroad. The fond heart of his mother was pained by this long absence. 'Twas all that Henry Esmond could do to soothe her natural mortification, and find excuses for his kinsman's levity.

In the autumn of the year 1713, Lord Castlewood thought of returning home. His first child had been a daughter; Clotilda was in the way of gratifying his lordship with a second, and the pious youth thought that, by bringing his wife to his ancestral home, by prayers to St. Philip of Castlewood, and what not, Heaven might be induced to bless him with a son this time, for whose coming the expectant mamma was very anxious.