under Marlborough; he had married a
foreign lady, and most lamentably adopted her religion. At one time he
had been a Jacobite (for loyalty to the sovereign was ever hereditary
in the Esmond family), but had received some slight or injury from the
Prince, which had caused him to rally to King George's side. He had,
on his second marriage, renounced the errors of Popery which he had
temporarily embraced, and returned to the Established Church again. He
had, from his constant support of the King and the Minister of the time
being, been rewarded by his Majesty George II., and died an English
peer. An earl's coronet now figured on the hatchment which hung over
Castlewood gate--and there was an end of the jolly gentleman. Between
Colonel Esmond, who had become his stepfather, and his lordship there
had ever been a brief but affectionate correspondence--on the Colonel's
part especially, who loved his stepson, and had a hundred stories to
tell about him to his grandchildren. Madam Esmond, however, said she
could see nothing in her half-brother. He was dull, except when he drank
too much wine, and that, to be sure, was every day at dinner. Then
he was boisterous, and his conversation not pleasant. He was
good-looking--yes--a fine tall stout animal; she had rather her boys
should follow a different model. In spite of the grandfather's encomium
of the late lord, the boys had no very great respect for their kinsman's
memory. The lads and their mother were staunch Jacobites, though having
every respect for his present Majesty; but right was right, and nothing
could make their hearts swerve from their allegiance to the descendants
of the martyr Charles.

With a beating heart Harry Warrington walked from the inn towards
the house where his grandsire's youth had been passed. The little
village-green of Castlewood slopes down towards the river, which is
spanned by an old bridge of a single broad arch, and from this the
ground rises gradually towards the house, grey with many gables and
buttresses, and backed by a darkling wood. An old man sate at the wicket
on a stone bench in front of the great arched entrance to the house,
over which the earl's hatchment was hanging. An old dog was crouched at
the man's feet. Immediately above the ancient sentry at the gate was an
open casement with some homely flowers in the window, from behind which
good-humoured girls' faces were peeping. They were watching the young
traveller dressed in black as