ith, ask Dick himself," cried Captain Westbury.

"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. Corbet," the Captain
said. And Harry Esmond, always touched by a kind face and kind word,
felt very grateful to this good-natured champion.

The horses were by this time harnessed to the coach; and the Countess
and Victoire came down and were put into the vehicle. This woman, who
quarrelled with Harry Esmond all day, was melted at parting with him,
and called him "dear angel," and "poor infant," and a hundred other
names.

The Viscountess, giving him her lean hand to kiss, bade him always be
faithful to the house of Esmond. "If evil should happen to my lord,"
says she, "his SUCCESSOR, I trust, will be found, and give you
protection. Situated as I am, they will not dare wreak their vengeance
on me NOW." And she kissed a medal she wore with great fervor, and
Henry Esmond knew not in the least what her meaning was; but hath since
learned that, old as she was, she was for ever expecting, by the good
offices of saints and relics, to have an heir to the title of Esmond.

Harry Esmond was too young to have been introduced into the secrets
of politics in which his patrons were implicated; for they put but few
questions to the boy (who was little of stature, and looked much younger
than his age), and such questions as they put he answered cautiously
enough, and professing even more ignorance than he had, for which his
examiners willingly enough gave him credit. He did not say a word about
the window or the cupboard over the fireplace; and these secrets quite
escaped the eyes of the searchers.

So then my lady was consigned to her coach, 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.

The captains had their dinner served in my lord's tapestry parlor, and
poor little Harry thought his duty was to wait upon Captain Westbury's
chair, as his custom had been t