ounded him: but the mark is there,
and the wound is cicatrized only--no time, tears, caresses, or repentance,
can obliterate the scar. We are indocile to put up with grief, however.
_Reficimus rates quassas_: we tempt the ocean again and again, and try
upon new ventures. Esmond thought of his early time as a novitiate, and of
this past trial as an initiation before entering into life--as our young
Indians undergo tortures silently before they pass to the rank of warriors
in the tribe.

The officers, meanwhile, who were not let into the secret of the grief
which was gnawing at the side of their silent young friend, and being
accustomed to such transactions, in which one comrade or another was daily
paying the forfeit of the sword, did not of course bemoan themselves very
inconsolably about the fate of their late companion in arms. This one told
stories of former adventures of love, or war, or pleasure, in which poor
Frank Esmond had been engaged; t'other recollected how a constable had
been bilked, or a tavern-bully beaten: whilst my lord's poor widow was
sitting at his tomb worshipping him as an actual saint and spotless
hero--so the visitors said who had news of Lady Castlewood; and Westbury
and Macartney had pretty nearly had all the town to come and see them.

The duel, its fatal termination, the trial of the two peers and the three
commoners concerned, had caused the greatest excitement in the town. The
prints and News Letters were full of them. The three gentlemen in Newgate
were almost as much crowded as the bishops in the Tower, or a highwayman
before execution. We were allowed to live in the governor's house, as hath
been said, both before trial and after condemnation, waiting the king's
pleasure; nor was the real cause of the fatal quarrel known, so closely
had my lord and the two other persons who knew it kept the secret, but
every one imagined that the origin of the meeting was a gambling dispute.
Except fresh air, the prisoners had, upon payment, most things they could
desire. Interest was made that they should not mix with the vulgar
convicts, whose ribald choruses and loud laughter and curses could be
heard from their own part of the prison, where they and the miserable
debtors were confined pell-mell.

Chapter II. I Come To The End Of My Captivity, But Not Of My Trouble

Among the company which came to visit the two officers was an old
acquaintance of Harry Esmond; that gentleman of the Guards, na