ight lead a
quiet life. But she tried to poison me, because she was jealous of a Jew
girl. There was your aunt, for aunt she is--aunt Jezebel, a pretty
life your father led with HER! and here's my lady. When I saw her on a
pillion, riding behind the Dean her father, she looked and was such a
baby, that a sixpenny doll might have pleased her. And now you see what
she is--hands off, highty-tighty, high and mighty, an empress couldn't
be grander. Pass us the tankard, Harry my boy. A mug of beer and a toast
at morn, says my host. A toast and a mug of beer at noon, says my dear.
D--n it, Polly loves a mug of ale, too, and laced with brandy, by Jove!"
Indeed, I suppose they drank it together; for my lord was often thick
in his speech at mid-day dinner; and at night at supper, speechless
altogether.

Harry Esmond's departure resolved upon, it seemed as if the Lady
Castlewood, too, rejoiced to lose him; for more than once, when the
lad, ashamed perhaps at his own secret eagerness to go away (at any
rate stricken with sadness at the idea of leaving those from whom he
had received so many proofs of love and kindness inestimable), tried to
express to his mistress his sense of gratitude to her, and his sorrow at
quitting those who had so sheltered and tended a nameless and houseless
orphan, Lady Castlewood cut short his protests of love and his
lamentations, and would hear of no grief, but only look forward to
Harry's fame and prospects in life. "Our little legacy will keep you
for four years like a gentleman. Heaven's Providence, your own genius,
industry, honor, must do the rest for you. Castlewood will always be a
home for you; and these children, whom you have taught and loved, will
not forget to love you. And, Harry," said she (and this was the only
time when she spoke with a tear in her eye, or a tremor in her voice),
"it may happen in the course of nature that I shall be called away
from them: and their father--and--and they will need true friends and
protectors. Promise me that you will be true to them--as--as I think I
have been to you--and a mother's fond prayer and blessing go with you."

"So help me God, madam, I will," said Harry Esmond, falling on his
knees, and kissing the hand of his dearest mistress. "If you will have
me stay now, I will. What matters whether or no I make my way in life,
or whether a poor bastard dies as unknown as he is now? 'Tis enough
that I have your love and kindness surely; and to make you h