Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges. William Makepeace Thackeray

subservience: he laughed and joked, and drank his bottle, and swore when he was angry, much too familiarly for any one pretending to sublimity; and did his best to destroy the ceremonial with which his wife chose to surround him. And it required no great conceit on young Esmond's part to see that his own brains were better than his patron's, who, indeed, never assumed any airs of superiority over the lad, or over any dependant of his, save when he was displeased, in which case he would express his mind, in oaths, very freely; and who, on the contrary, perhaps, spoiled “Parson Harry”, as he called young Esmond, by constantly praising his parts, and admiring his boyish stock of learning.

      It may seem ungracious in one who has received a hundred favours from his patron to speak in any but a reverential manner of his elders; but the present writer has had descendants of his own, whom he has brought up with as little as possible of the servility at present exacted by parents from children (under which mask of duty there often lurks indifference, contempt, or rebellion): and as he would have his grandsons believe or represent him to be not an inch taller than Nature has made him: so, with regard to his past acquaintances, he would speak without anger, but with truth, as far as he knows it, neither extenuating nor setting down aught in malice.

      So long, then, as the world moved according to Lord Castlewood's wishes, he was good-humoured enough; of a temper naturally sprightly and easy, liking to joke, especially with his inferiors, and charmed to receive the tribute of their laughter. All exercises of the body he could perform to perfection—shooting at a mark and flying, breaking horses, riding at the ring, pitching the quoit, playing at all games with great skill. And not only did he do these things well, but he thought he did them to perfection; hence he was often tricked about horses, which he pretended to know better than any jockey; was made to play at ball and billiards by sharpers who took his money; and came back from London wofully poorer each time than he went, as the state of his affairs testified, when the sudden accident came by which his career was brought to an end.

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      He was fond of the parade of dress, and passed as many hours daily at his toilette as an elderly coquette. A tenth part of his day was spent in the brushing of his teeth and the oiling of his hair, which was curling and brown, and which he did not like to conceal under a periwig, such as almost everybody of that time wore (we have the liberty of our hair back now, but powder and pomatum along with it. When, I wonder, will these monstrous poll-taxes of our age be withdrawn, and men allowed to carry their colours, black, red, or grey, as nature made them?) And, as he liked her to be well dressed, his lady spared no pains in that matter to please him; indeed, she would dress her head or cut it off if he had bidden her.

      It was a wonder to young Esmond, serving as page to my lord and lady, to hear, day after day, to such company as came, the same boisterous stories told by my lord, at which his lady never failed to smile or hold down her head, and Doctor Tusher to burst out laughing at the proper point, or cry, “Fie, my lord, remember my cloth,” but with such a faint show of resistance, that it only provoked my lord further. Lord Castlewood's stories rose by degrees, and became stronger after the ale at dinner and the bottle afterwards; my lady always taking flight after the very first glass to Church and King, and leaving the gentlemen to drink the rest of the toasts by themselves.

      And, as Harry Esmond was her page, he also was called from duty at this time. “My lord has lived in the army and with soldiers,” she would say to the lad, “amongst whom great licence is allowed. You have had a different nurture, and I trust these things will change as you grow older; not that any fault attaches to my lord, who is one of the best and most religious men in this kingdom.” And very likely she believed so. 'Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

      And as Esmond has taken truth for his motto, it must be owned, even with regard to that other angel, his mistress, that she had a fault of character, which flawed her perfections. With the other sex perfectly tolerant and kindly, of her own she was invariably jealous, and a proof that she had this vice is, that though she would acknowledge a thousand faults that she had not, to this which she had she could never be got to own. But if there came a woman with even a semblance of beauty to Castlewood, she was so sure [pg 078] to find out some wrong in her, that my lord, laughing in his jolly way, would often joke with her concerning her foible. Comely servant-maids might come for hire, but none were taken at Castlewood. The housekeeper was old; my lady's own waiting-woman squinted, and was marked with the small-pox; the housemaids and scullion were ordinary country wenches, to whom Lady Castlewood was kind, as her nature made her to everybody almost; but as soon as ever she had to do with a pretty woman, she was cold, retiring, and haughty. The country ladies found this fault in her; and though the men all admired her, their wives and daughters complained of her coldness and airs, and said that Castlewood was pleasanter in Lady Jezebel's time (as the dowager was called) than at present. Some few were of my mistress's side. Old Lady Blenkinsop Jointure, who had been at Court in King James the First's time, always took her side; and so did old Mistress Crookshank, Bishop Crookshank's daughter, of Hexton, who, with some more of their like, pronounced my lady an angel; but the pretty women were not of this mind; and the opinion of the country was, that my lord was tied to his wife's apron-strings, and that she ruled over him.

      The second fight which Harry Esmond had, was at fourteen years of age, with Bryan Hawkshaw, Sir John Hawkshaw's son, of Bramblebrook, who advancing this opinion, that my lady was jealous, and henpecked my lord, put Harry into such a fury, that Harry fell on him, and with such rage, that the other boy, who was two years older, and by far bigger than he, had by far the worst of the assault, until it was interrupted by Doctor Tusher walking out of the dinner room.

      Bryan Hawkshaw got up, bleeding at the nose, having, indeed, been surprised, as many a stronger man might have been, by the fury of the assault upon him.

      “You little bastard beggar!” he said, “I'll murder you for this!”

      And indeed he was big enough.

      “Bastard or not,” said the other, grinding his teeth, “I have a couple of swords, and if you like to meet me, as a man, on the terrace to-night——”

      And here the doctor coming up, the colloquy of the young champions ended. Very likely, big as he was, Hawkshaw did not care to continue a fight with such a ferocious opponent as this had been.

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Chapter VIII. After Good Fortune Comes Evil

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      Since my Lady Mary Wortley Montagu brought home the custom of inoculation from Turkey (a perilous practice many deem it, and only a useless rushing into the jaws of danger), I think the severity of the small-pox, that dreadful scourge of the world, has somewhat been abated in our part of it; and remembering in my time hundreds of the young and beautiful who have been carried to the grave, or have only risen from their pillows frightfully scarred and disfigured by this malady. Many a sweet face hath left its roses on the bed, on which this dreadful and withering blight has laid them. In my early days this pestilence would enter a village and destroy half its inhabitants: at its approach it may well be imagined not only the beautiful but the strongest were alarmed, and those fled who could. One day in the year 1694 (I have good reason to remember it), Doctor Tusher ran into Castlewood House, with a face of consternation, saying that the malady had made its appearance at the blacksmith's house in the village, and that one of the maids there was down in the small-pox.

      The blacksmith, beside his forge and irons for horses, had an alehouse for men, which his wife kept, and his company sat on benches before the inn door, looking at the smithy while they drank their beer. Now, there was a pretty girl at this inn, the landlord's men called Nancy Sievewright, a bouncing fresh-looking lass, whose face was as red as the hollyhocks over the pales of the garden behind the inn. At this time Harry Esmond was a lad of sixteen, and somehow in his walks and rambles it often happened that he fell in with Nancy Sievewright's bonny face; if he did not want something done at the blacksmith's he would go and drink ale at the “Three Castles”, or find some pretext for seeing this poor Nancy. Poor thing, Harry meant or imagined no harm; and she, no doubt, as