. 'Tis for mortals such as
these that nations suffer, that parties struggle, that warriors fight and
bleed. A year afterwards gallant heads were falling, and Nithsdale in
escape, and Derwentwater on the scaffold; whilst the heedless ingrate, for
whom they risked and lost all, was tippling with his seraglio of
mistresses in his _petite maison_ of Chaillot.

Blushing to be forced to bear such an errand, Esmond had to go to the
prince and warn him that the girl whom his highness was bribing, was John
Lockwood's sweetheart, an honest resolute man, who had served in six
campaigns, and feared nothing, and who knew that the person, calling
himself Lord Castlewood, was not his young master: and the colonel
besought the prince to consider what the effect of a single man's jealousy
might be, and to think of other designs he had in hand, more important
than the seduction of a waiting-maid, and the humiliation of a brave man.
Ten times, perhaps, in the course of as many days, Mr. Esmond had to warn
the royal young adventurer of some imprudence or some freedom. He received
these remonstrances very testily, save perhaps in this affair of poor
Lockwood's, when he deigned to burst out a-laughing, and said, "What! the
_soubrette_ has peached to the _amoureux_, and Crispin is angry, and
Crispin has served, and Crispin has been a corporal, has he? Tell him we
will reward his valour with a pair of colours, and recompense his
fidelity."

Colonel Esmond ventured to utter some other words of entreaty, but the
prince, stamping imperiously, cried out, "_Assez, milord: je m'ennuye a la
preche_; I am not come to London to go to the sermon." And he complained
afterwards to Castlewood, that "_le petit jaune, le noir colonel, le
Marquis Misanthrope_" (by which facetious names his royal highness was
pleased to designate Colonel Esmond), "fatigued him with his grand airs
and virtuous homilies."

The Bishop of Rochester, and other gentlemen engaged in the transaction
which had brought the prince over, waited upon his royal highness,
constantly asking for my Lord Castlewood on their arrival at Kensington,
and being openly conducted to his royal highness in that character, who
received them either in my lady's drawing-room below, or above in his own
apartment; and all implored him to quit the house as little as possible,
and to wait there till the signal should be given for him to appear. The
ladies entertained him at cards, over which amusement he spe