ick said, "I ever knew. I
remember I went into the room where his body lay, and my mother sat
weeping beside it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a-beating the
coffin, and calling papa; on which my mother caught me in her arms, and
told me in a flood of tears papa could not hear me, and would play with me
no more, for they were going to put him under ground, whence he could
never come to us again. And this," said Dick kindly, "has made me pity all
children ever since; and caused me to love thee, my poor fatherless,
motherless lad. And if ever thou wantest a friend, thou shalt have one in
Richard Steele."

Harry Esmond thanked him, and was grateful. But what could Corporal Steele
do for him? take him to ride a spare horse, and be servant to the troop?
Though there might be a bar in Harry Esmond's shield, it was a noble one.
The counsel of the two friends was, that little Harry should stay where he
was, and abide his fortune: so Esmond stayed on at Castlewood, awaiting
with no small anxiety the fate, whatever it was, which was over him.

Chapter VII. I Am Left At Castlewood An Orphan, And Find Most Kind
Protectors There

During the stay of the soldiers in Castlewood, honest Dick the Scholar was
the constant companion of the lonely little orphan lad Harry Esmond: and
they read together, and they played bowls together, and when the other
troopers or their officers, who were free-spoken over their cups (as was
the way of that day, when neither men nor women were over-nice), talked
unbecomingly of their amours and gallantries before the child, Dick, who
very likely was setting the whole company laughing, would stop their jokes
with a _maxima debetur pueris reverentia_, and once offered to lug out
against another trooper called Hulking Tom, who wanted to ask Harry Esmond
a ribald question.

Also, Dick seeing that the child had, as he said, a sensibility above his
years, and a great and praiseworthy discretion, confided to Harry his love
for a vintner's daughter, near to the Tollyard, Westminster, whom Dick
addressed as Saccharissa in many verses of his composition, and without
whom he said it would be impossible that he could continue to live. He
vowed this a thousand times in a day, though Harry smiled to see the
lovelorn swain had his health and appetite as well as the most heart-whole
trooper in the regiment: and he swore Harry to secrecy too, which vow the
lad religiously kept, until he found that officers