disguises are fair."

"Yes," broke in Esmond, "all disguises are fair, you say; and all
uniforms, say I, black or red,--a black cockade or a white one--or a
laced hat, or a sombrero, with a tonsure under it. I cannot believe that
St. Francis Xavier sailed over the sea in a cloak, or raised the dead--I
tried, and very nearly did once, but cannot. Suffer me to do the right,
and to hope for the best in my own way."

Esmond wished to cut short the good Father's theology, and succeeded;
and the other, sighing over his pupil's invincible ignorance, did not
withdraw his affection from him, but gave him his utmost confidence--as
much, that is to say, as a priest can give: more than most do; for he
was naturally garrulous, and too eager to speak.

Holt's friendship encouraged Captain Esmond to ask, what he long wished
to know, and none could tell him, some history of the poor mother
whom he had often imagined in his dreams, and whom he never knew. He
described to Holt those circumstances which are already put down in the
first part of this story--the promise he had made to his dear lord, and
that dying friend's confession; and he besought Mr. Holt to tell him
what he knew regarding the poor woman from whom he had been taken.

"She was of this very town," Holt said, and took Esmond to see the
street where her father lived, and where, as he believed, she was born.
"In 1676, when your father came hither in the retinue of the late king,
then Duke of York, and banished hither in disgrace, Captain Thomas
Esmond became acquainted with your mother, pursued her, and made a
victim of her; he hath told me in many subsequent conversations, which
I felt bound to keep private then, that she was a woman of great virtue
and tenderness, and in all respects a most fond, faithful creature. He
called himself Captain Thomas, having good reason to be ashamed of
his conduct towards her, and hath spoken to me many times with sincere
remorse for that, as with fond love for her many amiable qualities, he
owned to having treated her very ill: and that at this time his life was
one of profligacy, gambling, and poverty. She became with child of
you; was cursed by her own parents at that discovery; though she never
upbraided, except by her involuntary tears, and the misery depicted on
her countenance, the author of her wretchedness and ruin.

"Thomas Esmond--Captain Thomas, as he was called--became engaged in a
gaming-house brawl, of which the consequen