own two
children, gave him supper enough the night before he went away, and plenty
in the morning. She did not beat him once, and told the children to keep
their hands off him. One was a girl, and Harry never could bear to strike
a girl; and the other was a boy, whom he could easily have beat, but he
always cried out, when Mrs. Pastoureau came sailing to the rescue with
arms like a flail. She only washed Harry's face the day he went away; nor
ever so much as once boxed his ears. She whimpered rather when the
gentleman in black came for the boy; and old Mr. Pastoureau, as he gave
the child his blessing, scowled over his shoulder at the strange
gentleman, and grumbled out something about Babylon and the scarlet lady.
He was grown quite old, like a child almost. Mrs. Pastoureau used to wipe
his nose as she did to the children. She was a great, big, handsome young
woman; but, though she pretended to cry, Harry thought 'twas only a sham,
and sprung quite delighted upon the horse upon which the lackey helped
him.

He was a Frenchman; his name was Blaise. The child could talk to him in
his own language perfectly well: he knew it better than English indeed:
having lived hitherto chiefly among French people: and being called the
little Frenchman by other boys on Ealing Green. He soon learnt to speak
English perfectly, and to forget some of his French: children forget
easily. Some earlier and fainter recollections the child had, of a
different country; and a town with tall white houses; and a ship. But
these were quite indistinct in the boy's mind, as indeed the memory of
Ealing soon became, at least of much that he suffered there.

The lackey before whom he rode was very lively and voluble, and informed
the boy that the gentleman riding before him was my lord's chaplain,
Father Holt--that he was now to be called Master Harry Esmond--that my Lord
Viscount Castlewood was his _parrain_--that he was to live at the great
house of Castlewood, in the province of ----shire, where he would see madame
the viscountess, who was a grand lady. And so, seated on a cloth before
Blaise's saddle, Harry Esmond was brought to London, and to a fine square
called Covent Garden, near to which his patron lodged.

Mr. Holt the priest took the child by the hand, and brought him to this
nobleman, a grand languid nobleman in a great cap and flowered
morning-gown, sucking oranges. He patted Harry on the head and gave him an
orange.

"_C'est bien ca_," h