t
had been during the first year of his lordship's coming to the title.
There were more horses in the stable and more servants in the hall, and
many more guests coming and going now than formerly, when it was found
difficult enough by the strictest economy to keep the house as befitted
one of his lordship's rank, and the estate out of debt. And it did not
require very much penetration to find, that many of the new acquaintances
at Castlewood were not agreeable to the lady there: not that she ever
treated them or any mortal with anything but courtesy; but they were
persons who could not be welcome to her; and whose society a lady so
refined and reserved could scarce desire for her children. There came
fuddling squires from the country round, who bawled their songs under her
windows and drank themselves tipsy with my lord's punch and ale: there
came officers from Hexton, in whose company our little lord was made to
hear talk and to drink, and swear too in a way that made the delicate lady
tremble for her son. Esmond tried to console her by saying what he knew of
his college experience; that with this sort of company and conversation a
man must fall in sooner or later in his course through the world: and it
mattered very little whether he heard it at twelve years old or twenty--the
youths who quitted mother's apron-strings the latest being not uncommonly
the wildest rakes. But it was about her daughter that Lady Castlewood was
the most anxious, and the danger which she thought menaced the little
Beatrix from the indulgences which her father gave her (it must be owned
that my lord, since these unhappy domestic differences especially, was at
once violent in his language to the children when angry, as he was too
familiar, not to say coarse, when he was in a good humour), and from the
company into which the careless lord brought the child.

Not very far off from Castlewood is Sark Castle, where the Marchioness of
Sark lived, who was known to have been a mistress of the late King
Charles--and to this house, whither indeed a great part of the country
gentry went, my lord insisted upon going, not only himself, but on taking
his little daughter and son to play with the children there. The children
were nothing loath, for the house was splendid, and the welcome kind
enough. But my lady, justly no doubt, thought that the children of such a
mother as that noted Lady Sark had been, could be no good company for her
two; and spoke her mi