see in the revered Tusher’s pulpit, or at her son’s table, the man who was answerable for the father’s life; that her ladyship bade him to say that she prayed for her kinsman’s repentance and his worldly happiness; that he was free to command her aid for any scheme of life which he might propose to himself; but that on this side of the grave she would see him no more.  And Tusher, for his own part, added that Harry should have his prayers as a friend of his youth, and commended him whilst he was in prison to read certain works of theology, which his Reverence pronounced to be very wholesome for sinners in his lamentable condition.

And this was the return for a life of devotion—­this the end of years of affectionate intercourse and passionate fidelity!  Harry would have died for his patron, and was held as little better than his murderer:  he had sacrificed, she did not know how much, for his mistress, and she threw him aside; he had endowed her family with all they had, and she talked about giving him alms as to a menial!  The grief for his patron’s loss; the pains of his own present position, and doubts as to the future:  all these were forgotten under the sense of the consummate outrage which he had to endure, and overpowered by the superior pang of that torture.

He writ back a letter to Mr. Tusher from his prison, congratulating his Reverence upon his appointment to the living of Castlewood:  sarcastically bidding him to follow in the footsteps of his admirable father, whose gown had descended upon him; thanking her ladyship for her offer of alms, which he said he should trust not to need; and beseeching her to remember that, if ever her determination should change towards him, he would be ready to give her proofs of a fidelity which had never wavered, and which ought never to have been questioned by that house.  “And if we meet no more, or only as strangers in this world,” Mr. Esmond concluded, “a sentence against the cruelty and injustice of which I disdain to appeal; hereafter she will know who was faithful to her, and whether she had any cause to suspect the love and devotion of her kinsman and servant.”

After the sending of this letter, the poor young fellow’s mind was more at ease than it had been previously.  The blow had been struck, and he had borne it.  His cruel goddess had shaken her wings and fled:  and left him alone and friendless, but virtute sua.  And he had to bear him up, at once the sense of his right and the feeling of his wrongs, his honor and his misfortune.  As I have seen men waking and running to arms at a sudden trumpet, before emergency a manly heart leaps up resolute; meets the threatening danger with undaunted countenance; and, whether conquered or conquering, faces it always.  Ah! no man knows his strength or his weakness, till occasion proves them.  If there be some thoughts and actions of his life from the memory of which a man shrinks with shame, sure there are some which he may be proud to own and remember; forgiven injuries, conquered temptations (now and then) and difficulties vanquished by endurance.