e page being
charred by the fire, and asked of the lawyer--"Shall I go on, sir?"

The lawyer said, "This boy is deeper than he seems: who knows that he is
not laughing at us?"

"Let's have in Dick the Scholar," cried Captain Westbury, laughing, and
he called to a trooper out of the window, "Ho, Dick, come in here and
construe."

A soldier, with a good-humoured face, came in at the summons, saluting
his officer.

"Tell us what is this, Dick Steele," says the lawyer.

"'Tis Latin," says Dick, glancing at it, and again saluting his officer,
"and from a sermon of Mr. Cudworth's," and he translated the words pretty
much as Henry Esmond had rendered them.

"What a young scholar you are," says the Captain to the boy.

"Depend on't, he knows more than he tells," says the lawyer. "I think we
will pack him off in the coach with the old lady."

"For construing a bit of Latin?" said the Captain, very good-naturedly.

"I would as lief go there as anywhere," Harry Esmond said, simply, "for
there is nobody to care for me."

There must have been something touching in the child's voice, or in this
description of his solitude, for the Captain looked at him very
good-naturedly, and the trooper called Steele put his hand kindly on the
lad's head, and said some words in the Latin language.

"What does he say?" says the lawyer.

"I said I was not ignorant of misfortune myself, and had learned to
succor the miserable, and that's not your trade, Mr. Sheepskin," said
the trooper.

"You had better leave Dick the Scholar alone, Mr. Corbett!" the Captain
said. And Harry Esmond, always touched by a kind face and a kind word,
felt very grateful to this good-natured champion.

The horses were by this time harnessed to the coach; and my Lady Isabella
was consigned to that vehicle and sent off to Hexton, with her woman and
the man-of-law to bear her company, a couple of troopers riding on either
side of the coach. And Harry was left behind at the Hall, belonging, as
it were, to nobody, and quite alone in the world. The Captain and a guard
of men remained in possession there; and the soldiers, who were very
good-natured and kind, ate my lord's mutton and drank his wine, and made
themselves comfortable, as they well might do in such pleasant quarters.

After the departure of the countess, Dick the Scholar took Harry Esmond
under his special protection, and would talk to him both of French and
Latin, in which tongues the lad found that h