ee Castles" on the elm. The London road
stretched away towards the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hills
and peaks, behind which many a time Harry Esmond saw the same sun setting,
that he now looks on thousands of miles away across the great ocean--in a
new Castlewood by another stream, that bears, like the new country of
wandering Aeneas, the fond names of the land of his youth.

The Hall of Castlewood was built with two courts, whereof one only, the
fountain court, was now inhabited, the other having been battered down in
the Cromwellian wars. In the fountain court, still in good repair, was the
great hall, near to the kitchen and butteries. A dozen of living-rooms
looking to the north, and communicating with the little chapel that faced
eastwards and the buildings stretching from that to the main gate, and
with the hall (which looked to the west) into the court now dismantled.
This court had been the most magnificent of the two, until the protector's
cannon tore down one side of it before the place was taken and stormed.
The besiegers entered at the terrace under the clock-tower, slaying every
man of the garrison, and at their head my lord's brother, Francis Esmond.

The Restoration did not bring enough money to the Lord Castlewood to
restore this ruined part of his house; where were the morning parlours,
above them the long music-gallery, and before which stretched the
garden-terrace, where, however, the flowers grew again, which the boots of
the Roundheads had trodden in their assault, and which was restored
without much cost, and only a little care, by both ladies who succeeded
the second viscount in the government of this mansion. Round the
terrace-garden was a low wall with a wicket leading to the wooded height
beyond, that is called Cromwell's battery to this day.

Young Harry Esmond learned the domestic part of his duty, which was easy
enough, from the groom of her ladyship's chamber: serving the countess, as
the custom commonly was in his boyhood, as page, waiting at her chair,
bringing her scented water and the silver basin after dinner--sitting on
her carriage step on state occasions, or on public days introducing her
company to her. This was chiefly of the Catholic gentry, of whom there
were a pretty many in the country and neighbouring city; and who rode not
seldom to Castlewood to partake of the hospitalities there. In the second
year of their residence the company seemed especially to increase