Boys and Girls From Thackeray | Page 6

The Father said, "Yes, he was."
"But Saint Peter was married, for we heard only last Sunday that his
wife's mother lay sick of a fever." On which the Father again laughed,
and said he would understand this too better soon, and talked of other
things, and took away Harry Esmond, and showed him the great old
house which he had come to inhabit.
It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which were
rooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at evening
made a great cawing. At the foot of a hill was a river, with a steep
ancient bridge crossing it; and beyond that a large pleasant green flat,
where the village of Castlewood stood, with the church in the midst, the
parsonage hard by it, the inn with the blacksmith's forge beside it, and
the sign of the "Three Castles" on the elm. The London road stretched
away towards the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hills and
peaks, behind which many a time Harry Esmond saw the same sun
setting in after years.
The Hall of Castlewood was built with two courts, whereof one only,
the fountain-court, was now inhabited, the other having been battered
down in the Cromwellian wars. In the fountain-court, still in good
repair, was the great hall, near to the kitchen and butteries. A dozen of
living-rooms looked to the north, and communicated with the little
chapel that faced eastwards, and the buildings stretching from that to
the main gate, and with the hall (which looked to the west) into the
court, now dismantled. This court had been the more magnificent of the
two until the Protector's cannon tore down one side of it before the
place was taken and stormed. The besiegers entered at the terrace under
the clock-tower, slaying every man of the garrison, and at their head,
my lord's brother, Francis Esmond.
The Restoration did not bring enough money to the Lord Castlewood to
restore this ruined part of his house, where were the morning parlours,
and above them the long music-gallery. Before this stretched the
garden-terrace, where the flowers grew again which the boots of the

Roundheads had trodden in their assault, and which was restored
without much cost, and only a little care, by both ladies who succeeded
the second viscount in the government of this mansion. Round the
terrace-garden was a low wall with a wicket leading to a wooded height
beyond, that is called Cromwell's Battery to this day.
Young Harry Esmond soon learned the domestic part of his duty, which
was easy enough, from the groom of her ladyship's chamber: serving
the Countess, as the custom commonly was in his boyhood, as page,
waiting at her chair, bringing her scented water and the silver basin
after dinner--sitting on her carriage-step on state occasions, or on public
days introducing her company to her. This was chiefly of the Catholic
gentry, of whom there were a pretty many in the country and
neighbouring city, and who rode not seldom to Castlewood to partake
of the hospitalities there. In the second year of their residence, the
company seemed especially to increase. My lord and my lady were
seldom without visitors.
Also there came in these times to Father Holt many private visitors,
whom, after a little, Henry Esmond had no difficulty in recognising as
priests of the Father's order, whatever their dresses (and they adopted
all sorts) might be. They were closeted with the Father constantly, and
often came and rode away without paying their respects to my lord and
lady.
Father Holt began speedily to be so much occupied with these meetings
as rather to neglect the education of the little lad who so gladly put
himself under the kind priest's orders. At first they read much and
regularly, both in Latin and French; the Father not neglecting in
anything to impress his faith upon his pupil, but not forcing him
violently, and treating him with a delicacy and kindness which
surprised and attached the child, always more easily won by these
methods than by any severe exercise of authority. And his delight in
their walks was to tell Harry of the glories of his order, of the Jesuits,
an order founded by Ignatius Loyola, whose members were intimately
associated with intrigues of church and state. He told Harry of its
martyrs and heroes, of its brethren converting the heathen by myriads,

traversing the desert, facing the stake, ruling the courts and councils, or
braving the tortures of kings; so that Henry Esmond thought that to
belong to the Jesuits was the bravest end of ambition; the greatest
career here, and in heaven the surest reward; and began to long for the
day, not only when he should enter