h, or the natural
melancholy of his disposition, Esmond came to live very much by himself
during his stay at the University, having neither ambition enough to
distinguish himself in the college career, nor caring to mingle with the
mere pleasures and boyish frolics of the students, who were, for the most
part, two or three years younger than he. He fancied that the gentlemen of
the common-room of his college slighted him on account of his birth, and
hence kept aloof from their society. It may be that he made the ill will,
which he imagined came from them, by his own behaviour, which, as he looks
back on it in after-life, he now sees was morose and haughty. At any rate,
he was as tenderly grateful for kindness as he was susceptible of slight
and wrong; and, lonely as he was generally, yet had one or two very warm
friendships for his companions of those days.

One of these was a queer gentleman that resided in the University, though
he was no member of it, and was the professor of a science scarce
recognized in the common course of college education. This was a French
refugee officer, who had been driven out of his native country at the time
of the Protestant persecutions there, and who came to Cambridge, where he
taught the science of the small-sword, and set up a saloon-of-arms. Though
he declared himself a Protestant, 'twas said Mr. Moreau was a Jesuit in
disguise; indeed, he brought very strong recommendations to the Tory
party, which was pretty strong in that University, and very likely was one
of the many agents whom King James had in this country. Esmond found this
gentleman's conversation very much more agreeable, and to his taste, than
the talk of the college divines in the common-room; he never wearied of
Moreau's stories of the wars of Turenne and Conde, in which he had borne a
part; and being familiar with the French tongue from his youth, and in a
place where but few spoke it, his company became very agreeable to the
brave old professor of arms, whose favourite pupil he was, and who made
Mr. Esmond a very tolerable proficient in the noble science of _escrime_.

At the next term Esmond was to take his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and
afterwards, in proper season, to assume the cassock and bands which his
fond mistress would have him wear. Tom Tusher himself was a parson and a
fellow of his college by this time; and Harry felt that he would very
gladly cede his right to the living of Castlewood to Tom, and that h