Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges

  Chapter V. My Superiors Are Engaged In Plots For The Restoration Of KingJames II

  Not having been able to sleep, for thinking of some lines for eels whichhe had placed the night before, the lad was lying in his little bed,waiting for the hour when the gate would be open, and he and his comrade,Job Lockwood, the porter's son, might go to the pond and see what fortunehad brought them. At daybreak Job was to awaken him, but his own eagernessfor the sport had served as a reveille long since--so long, that it seemedto him as if the day never would come.

  It might have been four o'clock when he heard the door of the oppositechamber, the chaplain's room, open, and the voice of a man coughing in thepassage. Harry jumped up, thinking for certain it was a robber, or hopingperhaps for a ghost, and, flinging open his own door, saw before him thechaplain's door open, and a light inside, and a figure standing in thedoorway, in the midst of a great smoke which issued from the room.

  "Who's there?" cried out the boy, who was of a good spirit.

  "_Silentium!_" whispered the other; "'tis I, my boy!" and, holding hishand out, Harry had no difficulty in recognizing his master and friend,Father Holt. A curtain was over the window of the chaplain's room thatlooked to the court, and Harry saw that the smoke came from a great flameof papers which were burning in a brazier when he entered the chaplain'sroom. After giving a hasty greeting and blessing to the lad, who wascharmed to see his tutor, the father continued the burning of his papers,drawing them from a cupboard over the mantelpiece wall, which Harry hadnever seen before.

  Father Holt laughed, seeing the lad's attention fixed at once on thishole. "That is right, Harry," he said; "faithful little famuli see all andsay nothing. You are faithful, I know."

  "I know I would go to the stake for you," said Harry.

  "I don't want your head," said the father, patting it kindly; "all youhave to do is to hold your tongue. Let us burn these papers, and saynothing to anybody. Should you like to read them?"

  Harry Esmond blushed, and held down his head; he _had_ looked as the factwas, and without thinking, at the paper before him; and though he had seenit, could not understand a word of it, the letters being quite clearenough, but quite without meaning. They burned the papers, beating downthe ashes in a brazier, so that scarce any traces of them remained.

  Harry had been accustomed to see Father Holt in more dresses than one; itnot being safe, or worth the danger, for Popish ecclesiastics to weartheir proper dress; and he was, in consequence, in no wise astonished thatthe priest should now appear before him in a riding dress, with large buffleather boots, and a feather to his hat, plain, but such as gentlemenwore.

  "You know the secret of the cupboard," said he, laughing, "and must beprepared for other mysteries;" and he opened--but not a secret cupboardthis time--only a wardrobe, which he usually kept locked, and from which henow took out two or three dresses and perukes of different colours, and acouple of swords of a pretty make (Father Holt was an expert practitionerwith the small sword, and every day, whilst he was at home, he and hispupil practised this exercise, in which the lad became a very greatproficient), a military coat and cloak, and a farmer's smock, and placedthem in the large hole over the mantelpiece from which the papers had beentaken.

  "If they miss the cupboard," he said, "they will not find these; if theyfind them, they'll tell no tales, except that Father Holt wore more suitsof clothes than one. All Jesuits do. You know what deceivers we are,Harry."

  Harry was alarmed at the notion that his friend was about to leave him;but "No", the priest said; "I may very likely come back with my lord in afew days. We are to be tolerated; we are not to be persecuted. But theymay take a fancy to pay a visit at Castlewood ere our return; and, asgentlemen of my cloth are suspected, they might choose to examine mypapers, which concern nobody--at least, not them." And to this day, whetherthe papers in cipher related to politics, or to the affairs of thatmysterious society whereof Father Holt was a member, his pupil, HarryEsmond, remains in entire ignorance.

  The rest of his goods, his small wardrobe, &c., Holt left untouched on hisshelves and in his cupboard, taking down--with a laugh, however--andflinging into the brazier, where he only half burned them, sometheological treatises which he had been writing against the Englishdivines. "And now," said he, "Henry, my son, you may testify, with a safeconscience, that you saw me burning Latin sermons the last time I was herebefore I went away to London; and it will be daybreak directly, and I mustbe away before Lockwood is stirring."

  "Will not Lockwood let you out, sir?" Esmond asked. Holt laughed; he wasnever more gay or good-humoured than when in the midst of action ordanger.

  "Lockwood knows nothing of my being here, mind you," he said; "nor wouldyou, you little wretch, had you slept better. You must forget that I havebeen here; and now farewell. Close the door, and go to your own room, anddon't come out till--stay, why should you not know one secret more? I knowyou will never betray me."

  In the chaplain's room were two windows; the one looking into the courtfacing westwards to the fountain; the other, a small casement stronglybarred, and looking on to the green in front of the Hall. This window wastoo high to reach from the ground; but, mounting on a buffet which stoodbeneath it, Father Holt showed me how, by pressing on the base of thewindow, the whole framework of lead, glass, and iron stanchions, descendedinto a cavity worked below, from which it could be drawn and restored toits usual place from without; a broken pane being purposely open to admitthe hand which was to work upon the spring of the machine.

  "When I am gone," Father Holt said, "you may push away the buffet, so thatno one may fancy that an exit has been made that way; lock the door; placethe key--where shall we put the key?--under _Chrysostom_ on the book-shelf;and if any ask for it, say I keep it there, and told you where to find it,if you had need to go to my room. The descent is easy down the wall intothe ditch; and so, once more farewell, until I see thee again, my dearson." And with this the intrepid father mounted the buffet with greatagility and briskness, stepped across the window, lifting up the bars andframework again from the other side, and only leaving room for HarryEsmond to stand on tiptoe and kiss his hand before the casement closed,the bars fixing as firm as ever seemingly in the stone arch overhead. WhenFather Holt next arrived at Castlewood, it was by the public gate onhorseback; and he never so much as alluded to the existence of the privateissue to Harry, except when he had need of a private messenger fromwithin, for which end, no doubt, he had instructed his young pupil in themeans of quitting the Hall.

  Esmond, young as he was, would have died sooner than betray his friend andmaster, as Mr. Holt well knew; for he had tried the boy more than once,putting temptations in his way, to see whether he would yield to them andconfess afterwards, or whether he would resist them, as he did sometimes,or whether he would lie, which he never did. Holt instructing the boy onthis point, however, that if to keep silence is not to lie, as itcertainly is not, yet silence is, after all, equivalent to a negation--andtherefore a downright No, in the interest of justice or your friend, andin reply to a question that may be prejudicial to either, is not criminal,but, on the contrary, praiseworthy; and as lawful a way as the other ofeluding a wrongful demand. For instance (says he), suppose a good citizen,who had seen his Majesty take refuge there, had been asked, "Is KingCharles up that oak-tree?" His duty would have been not to say, Yes--sothat the Cromwellians should seize the king and murder him like hisfather--but No; his Majesty being private in the tree, and therefore not tobe seen there by loyal eyes: all which instruction, in religion andmorals, as well as in the rudiments of the tongues and sciences, the boytook eagerly and with gratitude from his tutor. When, then, Holt was gone,and told Harry not to see him, it was as if he had never been. And he hadthis answer pat when he came to be questioned a few days after.

  The Prince of Orange was then at Salisbury, as young Esmond learned fromseeing Doctor Tusher in his best cassock (though the roads were muddy, andhe never was known to wear his silk, only his stuff one, a-horseback),
with a great orange cockade in his broad-leafed hat, and Nahum, his clerk,ornamented with a like decoration. The doctor was walking up and down, infront of his parsonage, when little Esmond saw him, and heard him say hewas going to pay his duty to his highness the prince, as he mounted hispad and rode away with Nahum behind. The village people had orangecockades too, and his friend the blacksmith's laughing daughter pinned oneinto Harry's old hat, which he tore out indignantly when they bid him tocry, "God save the Prince of Orange and the Protestant religion!" but thepeople only laughed, for they liked the boy in the village, where hissolitary condition moved the general pity, and where he found friendlywelcomes and faces in many houses. Father Holt had many friends there too,for he not only would fight the blacksmith at theology, never losing histemper, but laughing the whole time in his pleasant way, but he cured himof an ague with quinquina, and was always ready with a kind word for anyman that asked it, so that they said in the village 'twas a pity the twowere Papists.

  The director and the Vicar of Castlewood agreed very well; indeed, theformer was a perfectly bred gentleman, and it was the latter's business toagree with everybody. Doctor Tusher and the lady's maid, his spouse, had aboy who was about the age of little Esmond; and there was such afriendship between the lads, as propinquity and tolerable kindness andgood humour on either side would be pretty sure to occasion. Tom Tusherwas sent off early however to a school in London, whither his father tookhim and a volume of sermons in the first year of the reign of King James;and Tom returned but once, a year afterwards, to Castlewood for many yearsof his scholastic and collegiate life. Thus there was less danger to Tomof a perversion of his faith by the director, who scarce ever saw him,than there was to Harry, who constantly was in the vicar's company; but aslong as Harry's religion was his Majesty's, and my lord's, and my lady's,the doctor said gravely, it should not be for him to disturb or disquiethim: it was far from him to say that his Majesty's Church was not a branchof the Catholic Church; upon which Father Holt used, according to hiscustom, to laugh and say, that the Holy Church throughout all the world,and the noble army of martyrs, were very much obliged to the doctor.

  It was while Dr. Tusher was away at Salisbury that there came a troop ofdragoons with orange scarfs, and quartered in Castlewood, and some of themcame up to the Hall, where they took possession, robbing nothing howeverbeyond the hen-house and the beer-cellar; and only insisting upon goingthrough the house and looking for papers. The first room they asked tolook at was Father Holt's room, of which Harry Esmond brought the key, andthey opened the drawers and the cupboards, and tossed over the papers andclothes--but found nothing except his books and clothes, and the vestmentsin a box by themselves, with which the dragoons made merry, to HarryEsmond's horror. And to the questions which the gentleman put to Harry, hereplied, that Father Holt was a very kind man to him, and a very learnedman, and Harry supposed would tell him none of his secrets if he had any.He was about eleven years old at this time, and looked as innocent as boysof his age.

  The family were away more than six months, and when they returned theywere in the deepest state of dejection, for King James had been banished,the Prince of Orange was on the throne, and the direst persecutions ofthose of the Catholic faith were apprehended by my lady, who said she didnot believe that there was a word of truth in the promises of tolerationthat Dutch monster made, or in a single word the perjured wretch said. Mylord and lady were in a manner prisoners in their own house; so herladyship gave the little page to know, who was by this time growing of anage to understand what was passing about him, and something of thecharacters of the people he lived with.

  "We are prisoners," says she; "in everything but chains, we are prisoners.Let them come, let them consign me to dungeons, or strike off my head fromthis poor little throat" (and she clasped it in her long fingers). "Theblood of the Esmonds will always flow freely for their kings. We are notlike the Churchills--the Judases, who kiss their master and betray him. Weknow how to suffer, how even to forgive in the royal cause" (no doubt itwas to that fatal business of losing the place of Groom of the Posset towhich her ladyship alluded, as she did half a dozen times in the day)."Let the tyrant of Orange bring his rack and his odious Dutch tortures--thebeast! the wretch! I spit upon him and defy him. Cheerfully will I laythis head upon the block; cheerfully will I accompany my lord to thescaffold: we will cry, 'God save King James!' with our dying breath, andsmile in the face of the executioner." And she told her page a hundredtimes at least of the particulars of the last interview which she had withhis Majesty.

  "I flung myself before my liege's feet," she said, "at Salisbury. Idevoted myself--my husband--my house, to his cause. Perhaps he rememberedold times, when Isabella Esmond was young and fair; perhaps he recalledthe day when 'twas not _I_ that knelt--at least he spoke to me with a voicethat reminded _me_ of days gone by. 'Egad!' said his Majesty, 'you shouldgo to the Prince of Orange, if you want anything.' 'No, sire,' I replied,'I would not kneel to a usurper; the Esmond that would have served yourMajesty will never be groom to a traitor's posset.' The royal exilesmiled, even in the midst of his misfortune; he deigned to raise me withwords of consolation. The viscount, my husband, himself, could not beangry at the august salute with which he honoured me!"

  The public misfortune had the effect of making my lord and his lady betterfriends than they ever had been since their courtship. My lord viscounthad shown both loyalty and spirit, when these were rare qualities in thedispirited party about the king; and the praise he got elevated him not alittle in his wife's good opinion, and perhaps in his own. He wakened upfrom the listless and supine life which he had been leading; was alwaysriding to and fro in consultation with this friend or that of the king's;the page of course knowing little of his doings, but remarking only hisgreater cheerfulness and altered demeanour.

  Father Holt came to the Hall constantly, but officiated no longer openlyas chaplain; he was always fetching and carrying: strangers, military andecclesiastic (Harry knew the latter though they came in all sorts ofdisguises), were continually arriving and departing. My lord made longabsences and sudden reappearances, using sometimes the means of exit whichFather Holt had employed, though how often the little window in thechaplain's room let in or let out my lord and his friends, Harry could nottell. He stoutly kept his promise to the father of not prying, and if atmidnight from his little room he heard noises of persons stirring in thenext chamber, he turned round to the wall and hid his curiosity under hispillow until it fell asleep. Of course he could not help remarking thatthe priest's journeys were constant, and understanding by a hundred signsthat some active though secret business employed him: what this was maypretty well be guessed by what soon happened to my lord.

  No garrison or watch was put into Castlewood when my lord came back, but aguard was in the village; and one or other of them was always on the Greenkeeping a look-out on our great gate, and those who went out and in.Lockwood said that at night especially every person who came in or wentout was watched by the outlying sentries. 'Twas lucky that we had a gatewhich their worships knew nothing about. My lord and Father Holt must havemade constant journeys at night: once or twice little Harry acted as theirmessenger and discreet little aide de camp. He remembers he was bidden togo into the village with his fishing-rod, enter certain houses, ask for adrink of water, and tell the good man, "There would be a horse-market atNewbury next Thursday," and so carry the same message on to the next houseon his list.

  He did not know what the message meant at the time, nor what washappening: which may as well, however, for clearness' sake, be explainedhere. The Prince of Orange being gone to Ireland, where the king was readyto meet him with a great army, it was determined that a great rising ofhis Majesty's party should take place in this country: and my lord was tohead the force in our county. Of late he had taken a greater lead inaffairs than before, having the indefatigable Mr. Holt at his elbow, andmy lady viscountess strongly urging him on; and my Lord Sark being in theTower a prisoner, and Sir Wilmot Crawley, of Q
ueen's Crawley, having goneover to the Prince of Orange's side--my lord became the most considerableperson in our part of the county for the affairs of the king.

  It was arranged that the regiment of Scots Greys and Dragoons, thenquartered at Newbury, should declare for the king on a certain day, whenlikewise the gentry affected to his Majesty's cause were to come in withtheir tenants and adherents to Newbury, march upon the Dutch troops atReading under Ginckel; and, these overthrown, and their indomitable littlemaster away in Ireland, 'twas thought that our side might move on Londonitself, and a confident victory was predicted for the king.

  As these great matters were in agitation, my lord lost his listless mannerand seemed to gain health; my lady did not scold him, Mr. Holt came to andfro, busy always; and little Harry longed to have been a few inchestaller, that he might draw a sword in this good cause.

  One day, it must have been about the month of July, 1690, my lord, in agreat horseman's coat, under which Harry could see the shining of a steelbreastplate he had on, called little Harry to him, put the hair off thechild's forehead, and kissed him, and bade God bless him in such anaffectionate way as he never had used before. Father Holt blessed him too,and then they took leave of my lady viscountess, who came from herapartment with a pocket-handkerchief to her eyes, and her gentlewoman andMrs. Tusher supporting her.

  "You are going to--to ride," says she. "Oh, that I might come too!--but inmy situation I am forbidden horse exercise."

  "We kiss my lady marchioness's hand," says Mr. Holt.

  "My lord, God speed you!" she said, stepping up and embracing my lord in agrand manner. "Mr. Holt, I ask your blessing:" and she knelt down forthat, whilst Mrs. Tusher tossed her head up.

  Mr. Holt gave the same benediction to the little page, who went down andheld my lord's stirrups for him to mount; there were two servants waitingthere too--and they rode out of Castlewood gate.

  As they crossed the bridge Harry could see an officer in scarlet ride uptouching his hat, and address my lord.

  The party stopped, and came to some parley or discussion, which presentlyended, my lord putting his horse into a canter after taking off his hatand making a bow to the officer who rode alongside him step for step: thetrooper accompanying him, falling back, and riding with my lord's two men.They cantered over the Green, and behind the elms (my lord waving hishand, Harry thought), and so they disappeared.

  That evening we had a great panic, the cow-boy coming at milking-timeriding one of our horses, which he had found grazing at the outer parkwall.

  All night my lady viscountess was in a very quiet and subdued mood. Shescarce found fault with anybody; she played at cards for six hours; littlepage Esmond went to sleep. He prayed for my lord and the good cause beforeclosing his eyes.

  It was quite in the grey of the morning when the porter's bell rang, andold Lockwood waking up, let in one of my lord's servants, who had gonewith him in the morning, and who returned with a melancholy story.

  The officer who rode up to my lord had, it appeared, said to him, that itwas his duty to inform his lordship that he was not under arrest, butunder surveillance, and to request him not to ride abroad that day.

  My lord replied that riding was good for his health, that if the captainchose to accompany him he was welcome, and it was then that he made a bow,and they cantered away together.

  When he came on to Wansey Down, my lord all of a sudden pulled up, and theparty came to a halt at the crossway.

  "Sir" says he to the officer, "we are four to two; will you be so kind asto take that road, and leave me to go mine?"

  "Your road is mine, my lord," says the officer.

  "Then," says my lord, but he had no time to say more, for the officer,drawing a pistol, snapped it at his lordship; as at the same moment FatherHolt, drawing a pistol, shot the officer through the head.

  It was done, and the man dead in an instant of time. The orderly, gazingat the officer, looked scared for a moment, and galloped away for hislife.

  "Fire! fire!" cries out Father Holt, sending another shot after thetrooper, but the two servants were too much surprised to use their pieces,and my lord calling to them to hold their hands, the fellow got away.

  "Mr. Holt, _qui pensoit a tout_," says Blaise, "gets off his horse,examines the pockets of the dead officer for papers, gives his money to ustwo, and says, 'The wine is drawn, monsieur le marquis,'--why did he saymarquis to monsieur le vicomte?--'we must drink it.'

  "The poor gentleman's horse was a better one than that I rode," Blaisecontinues; "Mr. Holt bids me get on him, and so I gave a cut to Whitefoot,and she trotted home. We rode on towards Newbury; we heard firing towardsmidday: at two o'clock a horseman comes up to us as we were giving ourcattle water at an inn--and says, All is done. The Ecossois declared anhour too soon--General Ginckel was down upon them. The whole thing was atan end.

  " 'And we've shot an officer on duty, and let his orderly escape,' says mylord.

  " 'Blaise,' says Mr. Holt, writing two lines on his table-book, one for mylady, and one for you, Master Harry; 'you must go back to Castlewood, anddeliver these,' and behold me."

  And he gave Harry the two papers. He read that to himself, which onlysaid, "Burn the papers in the cupboard, burn this. You know nothing aboutanything." Harry read this, ran upstairs to his mistress's apartment,where her gentlewoman slept near to the door, made her bring a light andwake my lady, into whose hands he gave the paper. She was a wonderfulobject to look at in her night attire, nor had Harry ever seen the like.

  As soon as she had the paper in her hand, Harry stepped back to thechaplain's room, opened the secret cupboard over the fireplace, burned allthe papers in it, and, as he had seen the priest do before, took down oneof his reverence's manuscript sermons, and half burnt that in the brazier.By the time the papers were quite destroyed it was daylight. Harry ranback to his mistress again. Her gentlewoman ushered him again into herladyship's chamber; she told him (from behind her nuptial curtains) to bidthe coach be got ready, and that she would ride away anon.

  But the mysteries of her ladyship's toilet were as awfully long on thisday as on any other, and, long after the coach was ready, my lady wasstill attiring herself. And just as the viscountess stepped forth from herroom, ready for departure, young Job Lockwood comes running up from thevillage with news that a lawyer, three officers, and twenty orfour-and-twenty soldiers, were marching thence upon the house. Job had buttwo minutes the start of them, and, ere he had well told his story, thetroop rode into our courtyard.