he quarrelled with Uncle George, and he went away.

After this, Harry's Bon Papa, and his wife and two children of her own
that she had brought with her, came to live at Ealing. The new wife gave
her children the best of everything, and Harry many a whipping, he knew
not why. So he was very glad when a gentleman dressed in black, on
horseback, with a mounted servant behind him, came to fetch him away from
Ealing. The unjust stepmother gave him plenty to eat before he went away,
and did not beat him once, but told the children to keep their hands off
him. One was a girl, and Harry never could bear to strike a girl; and the
other was a boy, whom he could easily have beat, but he always cried out,
when Mrs. Pastoureau came sailing to the rescue with arms like a flail.
She only washed Harry's face the day he went away; nor ever so much as
once boxed his ears. She whimpered rather when the gentleman in black
came for the boy, and pretended to cry; but Harry thought it was only a
sham, and sprung quite delighted upon the horse upon which the lackey
helped him. This lackey was a Frenchman; his name was Blaise. The child
could talk to him in his own language perfectly well. He knew it better
than English, indeed, having lived hitherto among French people, and
being called the Little Frenchman by other boys on Ealing Green.

The lackey was very talkative and informed the boy that the gentleman
riding before him was my lord's chaplain, Father Holt; that he was now to
be called Master Harry Esmond; that my Lord Viscount Castlewood was his
patron; that he was to live at the great house of Castlewood, in the
province of ----shire, where he would see Madame the Viscountess, who was
a grand lady, and that he was to be educated for the priesthood. And so,
seated on a cloth before Blaise's saddle, Harry Esmond was brought to
London, and to a fine square called Covent Garden, near to which his
patron lodged.

Mr. Holt, the priest, took the child by the hand and brought him to this
grand languid nobleman, who sat in a great cap and flowered
morning-gown, sucking oranges. He patted Harry on the head and gave him
an orange, and directed Blaise to take him out for a holiday; and out
for a holiday the boy and the valet went. Harry went jumping along; he
was glad enough to go.

He remembered to his life's end the delights of those days. He was taken
to see a play, in a house a thousand times greater and finer than the
booth at Ealing Fair;