Evil

Since my Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought home the custom of inoculation
from Turkey (a perilous practice many deem it, and only a useless rushing
into the jaws of danger), I think the severity of the small-pox, that
dreadful scourge of the world, has somewhat been abated in our part of it;
and remembering in my time hundreds of the young and beautiful who have
been carried to the grave, or have only risen from their pillows
frightfully scarred and disfigured by this malady. Many a sweet face hath
left its roses on the bed, on which this dreadful and withering blight has
laid them. In my early days this pestilence would enter a village and
destroy half its inhabitants: at its approach it may well be imagined not
only the beautiful but the strongest were alarmed, and those fled who
could. One day in the year 1694 (I have good reason to remember it),
Doctor Tusher ran into Castlewood House, with a face of consternation,
saying that the malady had made its appearance at the blacksmith's house
in the village, and that one of the maids there was down in the small-pox.

The blacksmith, beside his forge and irons for horses, had an alehouse for
men, which his wife kept, and his company sat on benches before the inn
door, looking at the smithy while they drank their beer. Now, there was a
pretty girl at this inn, the landlord's men called Nancy Sievewright, a
bouncing fresh-looking lass, whose face was as red as the hollyhocks over
the pales of the garden behind the inn. At this time Harry Esmond was a
lad of sixteen, and somehow in his walks and rambles it often happened
that he fell in with Nancy Sievewright's bonny face; if he did not want
something done at the blacksmith's he would go and drink ale at the "Three
Castles", or find some pretext for seeing this poor Nancy. Poor thing,
Harry meant or imagined no harm; and she, no doubt, as little, but the
truth is they were always meeting--in the lanes, or by the brook, or at the
garden-palings, or about Castlewood: it was, "Lord, Mr. Henry!" and "How
do you do, Nancy?" many and many a time in the week. 'Tis surprising the
magnetic attraction which draws people together from ever so far. I blush
as I think of poor Nancy now, in a red bodice and buxom purple cheeks and
a canvas petticoat; and that I devised schemes, and set traps, and made
speeches in my heart, which I seldom had courage to say when in presence
of that humble enchantress, who knew nothing beyond milking