e was even more proficient
than Scholar Dick. Hearing that he had learned them from a Jesuit, in the
praise of whom and whose goodness Harry was never tired of speaking,
Dick, rather to the boy's surprise, showed a great deal of theological
science, and knowledge of the points at issue between the Catholic and
Protestant churches; so that he and Harry would have hours of
controversy together, with which conversations the long days of the
trooper's stay at Castlewood were whiled away. Though the other troopers
were all gentlemen, they seemed ignorant and vulgar to Harry Esmond, with
the exception of this good-natured Corporal Steele, Scholar, although
Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant were always kind to the lad.

They remained for some months at Castlewood, and Harry learned from them,
from time to time, how Lady Isabella was being treated at Hexton Castle,
and the particulars of her confinement there. King William was disposed
to deal very leniently with the gentry who remained faithful to the old
king's cause; and no Prince usurping a crown as his enemies said he did,
ever caused less blood to be shed. As for women-conspirators, he kept
spies on the least dangerous, and locked up the others. Lady Castlewood
had the best rooms in Hexton Castle, and the gaoler's garden to walk in;
and though she repeatedly desired to be led out to execution like Mary
Queen of Scots, there never was any thought of taking her painted old
head off. She even found that some were friends in her misfortune, whom
she had, in her prosperity, considered as her worst enemies. Colonel
Francis Esmond, my lord's cousin and her ladyship's hearing of his
kinswoman's scrape, came to visit her in prison, offering any friendly
services which lay in his power. He brought, too, his lady and little
daughter, Beatrix, the latter a child of great beauty and many winning
ways, to whom the old viscountess took not a little liking, and who was
permitted after that to go often and visit the prisoner.

And now there befell an event by which Lady Isabella recovered her
liberty, and the house of Castlewood got a new owner, Colonel Francis
Esmond, and fatherless little Harry Esmond, the new and most kind
protector and friend, whom we met at the opening of this story. My Lord
of Castlewood was wounded at the battle of the Boyne, flying from which
field he lay for a while concealed in a marsh, and more from cold and
fever caught in the bogs than from the steel of t