seek
the papers. His resolution being taken; his poor mother dead; what matter
to him that documents existed proving his right to a title which he was
determined not to claim, and of which he vowed never to deprive that
family which he loved best in the world? Perhaps he took a greater pride
out of his sacrifice than he would have had in those honours which he was
resolved to forgo. Again, as long as these titles were not forthcoming,
Esmond's kinsman, dear young Francis, was the honourable and undisputed
owner of the Castlewood estate and title. The mere word of a Jesuit could
not overset Frank's right of occupancy, and so Esmond's mind felt actually
at ease to think the papers were missing, and in their absence his dear
mistress and her son the lawful lady and lord of Castlewood.

Very soon after his liberation, Mr. Esmond made it his business to ride to
that village of Ealing where he had passed his earliest years in this
country, and to see if his old guardians were still alive and inhabitants
of that place. But the only relic which he found of old Monsieur
Pastoureau was a stone in the churchyard, which told that Athanasius
Pastoureau, a native of Flanders, lay there buried, aged 87 years. The old
man's cottage, which Esmond perfectly recollected, and the garden (where
in his childhood he had passed many hours of play and reverie, and had
many a beating from his termagant of a foster-mother), were now in the
occupation of quite a different family; and it was with difficulty that he
could learn in the village what had come of Pastoureau's widow and
children. The clerk of the parish recollected her--the old man was scarce
altered in the fourteen years that had passed since last Esmond set eyes
on him. It appeared she had pretty soon consoled herself after the death
of her old husband, whom she ruled over, by taking a new one younger than
herself, who spent her money and ill-treated her and her children. The
girl died; one of the boys 'listed; the other had gone apprentice. Old Mr.
Rogers, the clerk, said he had heard that Mrs. Pastoureau was dead too.
She and her husband had left Ealing this seven year; and so Mr. Esmond's
hopes of gaining any information regarding his parentage from this family,
were brought to an end. He gave the old clerk a crown-piece for his news,
smiling to think of the time when he and his little playfellows had slunk
out of the churchyard, or hidden behind the gravestones, at the approach
of