nia wagered fifty hogsheads against five that he
would make her institute an order of knighthood, and won his wager.

The elder boy saw these freaks and oddities of his good mother's
disposition, and chafed and raged at them privately. From very early
days he revolted when flatteries and compliments were paid to the little
lady, and strove to expose them with his juvenile satire; so that
his mother would say gravely, "The Esmonds were always of a jealous
disposition, and my poor boy takes after my father and mother in this."
George hated Jack Firebrace and Tom Humbold, and all their like;
whereas Harry went out sporting with them, and fowling, and fishing, and
cock-fighting, and enjoyed all the fun of the country.

One winter, after their first tutor had been dismissed, Madam Esmond
took them to Williamsburg, for such education as the schools and college
there afforded, and there it was the fortune of the family to listen to
the preaching of the famous Mr. Whitfield, who had come into Virginia,
where the habits and preaching of the established clergy were not very
edifying. Unlike many of the neighbouring provinces, Virginia was a
Church of England colony: the clergymen were paid by the State and had
glebes allotted to them; and, there being no Church of England bishop as
yet in America, the colonists were obliged to import their divines from
the mother-country. Such as came were not, naturally, of the very best
or most eloquent kind of pastors. Noblemen's hangers-on, insolvent
parsons who had quarrelled with justice or the bailiff, brought their
stained cassocks into the colony in the hopes of finding a living there.
No wonder that Whitfield's great voice stirred those whom harmless Mr.
Broadbent, the Williamsburg chaplain, never could awaken. At first the
boys were as much excited as their mother by Mr. Whitfield: they sang
hymns, and listened to him with fervour, and, could he have remained
long enough among them, Harry and George had both worn black coats
probably instead of epaulettes. The simple boys communicated their
experiences to one another, and were on the daily and nightly look-out
for the sacred "call," in the hope or the possession of which such a
vast multitude of Protestant England was thrilling at the time.

But Mr. Whitfield could not stay always with the little congregation of
Williamsburg. His mission was to enlighten the whole benighted people of
the Church, and from the East to the West to trumpe