a fancy to the young man, who was her
junior by several years (which circumstance she did not consider to be a
fault in him); but having paid his court, and being admitted to the
intimacy of the house, he suddenly flung up his suit, when it seemed to be
pretty prosperous, without giving a pretext for his behaviour. His friends
rallied him at what they laughingly chose to call his infidelity. Jack
Churchill, Frank Esmond's lieutenant in the royal regiment of foot guards,
getting the company which Esmond vacated, when he left the Court and went
to Tangier in a rage at discovering that his promotion depended on the
complaisance of his elderly affianced bride. He and Churchill, who had
been _condiscipuli_ at St. Paul's School, had words about this matter; and
Frank Esmond said to him with an oath, "Jack, your sister may be
so-and-so, but by Jove, my wife shan't!" and swords were drawn, and blood
drawn, too, until friends separated them on this quarrel. Few men were so
jealous about the point of honour in those days; and gentlemen of good
birth and lineage thought a royal blot was an ornament to their family
coat. Frank Esmond retired in the sulks, first to Tangier, whence he
returned after two years' service, settling on a small property he had of
his mother, near to Winchester, and became a country gentleman, and kept a
pack of beagles, and never came to Court again in King Charles's time. But
his uncle Castlewood was never reconciled to him; nor, for some time
afterwards, his cousin whom he had refused.

By places, pensions, bounties from France, and gifts from the king, whilst
his daughter was in favour, Lord Castlewood, who had spent in the royal
service his youth and fortune, did not retrieve the latter quite, and
never cared to visit Castlewood, or repair it, since the death of his son,
but managed to keep a good house, and figure at Court, and to save a
considerable sum of ready money.

And now, his heir and nephew, Thomas Esmond, began to bid for his uncle's
favour. Thomas had served with the emperor, and with the Dutch, when King
Charles was compelled to lend troops to the States, and against them, when
his Majesty made an alliance with the French king. In these campaigns
Thomas Esmond was more remarked for duelling, brawling, vice, and play,
than for any conspicuous gallantry in the field, and came back to England,
like many another English gentleman who has travelled, with a character by
no means improved by his