pity, and where he found friendly welcomes and faces in many houses.
Father Holt had many friends there too, for he not only would fight the
blacksmith at theology, never losing his temper, but laughing the whole
time in his pleasant way; but he cured him of an ague with quinquina,
and was always ready with a kind word for any man that asked it, so that
they said in the village 'twas a pity the two were Papists.

The Director and the Vicar of Castlewood agreed very well; indeed, the
former was a perfectly-bred gentleman, and it was the latter's business
to agree with everybody. Doctor Tusher and the lady's-maid, his spouse,
had a boy who was about the age of little Esmond; and there was such a
friendship between the lads, as propinquity and tolerable kindness and
good-humor on either side would be pretty sure to occasion. Tom Tusher
was sent off early, however, to a school in London, whither his father
took him and a volume of sermons, in the first year of the reign of King
James; and Tom returned but once, a year afterwards, to Castlewood for
many years of his scholastic and collegiate life. Thus there was less
danger to Tom of a perversion of his faith by the Director, who scarce
ever saw him, than there was to Harry, who constantly was in the Vicar's
company; but as long as Harry's religion was his Majesty's, and my
lord's, and my lady's, the Doctor said gravely, it should not be for
him to disturb or disquiet him: it was far from him to say that his
Majesty's Church was not a branch of the Catholic Church; upon which
Father Holt used, according to his custom, to laugh, and say that the
Holy Church throughout all the world, and the noble Army of Martyrs,
were very much obliged to the Doctor.

It was while Dr. Tusher was away at Salisbury that there came a troop
of dragoons with orange scarfs, and quartered in Castlewood, and some
of them came up to the Hall, where they took possession, robbing nothing
however beyond the hen-house and the beer-cellar: and only insisting
upon going through the house and looking for papers. The first room they
asked to look at was Father Holt's room, of which Harry Esmond brought
the key, and they opened the drawers and the cupboards, and tossed over
the papers and clothes--but found nothing except his books and clothes,
and the vestments in a box by themselves, with which the dragoons
made merry, to Harry Esmond's horror. And to the questions which the
gentleman put to Harry, he replie