, as you see, and keeps
me in a way hardly befitting a peer of these realms; for I have but a pair
of horses, a governor, and a man that is valet and groom. But when I am of
age, these things will be set right, Harry. Our house will be as it should
be. You'll always come to Castlewood, won't you? You shall always have
your two rooms in the court kept for you; and if anybody slights you, d----
them! let them have a care of _me_. I shall marry early--'Trix will be a
duchess by that time, most likely; for a cannon-ball may knock over his
grace any day, you know."

"How?" says Harry.

"Hush, my dear!" says my lord viscount. "You are of the family--you are
faithful to us, by George, and I tell you everything. Blandford will marry
her--or ----" and here he put his little hand on his sword--"you understand
the rest. Blandford knows which of us two is the best weapon. At
small-sword, or back-sword, or sword and dagger, if he likes: I can beat
him. I have tried him, Harry; and begad, he knows I am a man not to be
trifled with."

"But you do not mean," says Harry, concealing his laughter, but not his
wonder, "that you can force my Lord Blandford, the son of the first man of
this kingdom, to marry your sister at sword's point?"

"I mean to say that we are cousins by the mother's side, though that's
nothing to boast of. I mean to say that an Esmond is as good as a
Churchill; and when the king comes back, the Marquis of Esmond's sister
may be a match for any nobleman's daughter in the kingdom. There are but
two marquises in all England, William Herbert, Marquis of Powis, and
Francis James, Marquis of Esmond; and hark you, Harry, now swear you'll
never mention this. Give me your honour as a gentleman, for you _are_ a
gentleman, though you are a----"

"Well, well," says Harry, a little impatient.

"Well, then, when after my late viscount's misfortune, my mother went up
with us to London, to ask for justice against you all (as for Mohun, I'll
have his blood, as sure as my name is Francis Viscount Esmond), we went to
stay with our cousin my Lady Marlborough, with whom we had quarrelled for
ever so long. But when misfortune came, she stood by her blood:--so did the
dowager viscountess stand by her blood,--so did you. Well, sir, whilst my
mother was petitioning the late Prince of Orange--for I will never call him
king--and while you were in prison, we lived at my Lord Marlborough's
house, who was only a little there, being away with