Mr. Esmond’s commission was scarce three weeks old when that accident befell King William which ended the life of the greatest, the wisest, the bravest, and most clement sovereign whom England ever knew.  ’Twas the fashion of the hostile party to assail this great prince’s reputation during his life; but the joy which they and all his enemies in Europe showed at his death, is a proof of the terror in which they held him.  Young as Esmond was, he was wise enough (and generous enough too, let it be said) to scorn that indecency of gratulation which broke out amongst the followers of King James in London, upon the death of this illustrious prince, this invincible warrior, this wise and moderate statesman.  Loyalty to the exiled king’s family was traditional, as has been said, in that house to which Mr. Esmond belonged.  His father’s widow had all her hopes, sympathies, recollections, prejudices, engaged on King James’s side; and was certainly as noisy a conspirator as ever asserted the King’s rights, or abused his opponent’s, over a quadrille table or a dish of bohea.  Her ladyship’s house swarmed with ecclesiastics, in disguise and out; with tale-bearers from St. Germains; and quidnuncs that knew the last news from Versailles; nay, the exact force and number of the next expedition which the French king was to send from Dunkirk, and which was to swallow up the Prince of Orange, his army and his court.  She had received the Duke of Berwick when he landed here in ’96.  She kept the glass he drank from, vowing she never would use it till she drank King James the Third’s health in it on his Majesty’s return; she had tokens from the Queen, and relics of the saint who, if the story was true, had not always been a saint as far as she and many others were concerned.  She believed in the miracles wrought at his tomb, and had a hundred authentic stories of wondrous cures effected by the blessed king’s rosaries, the medals which he wore, the locks of his hair, or what not.  Esmond remembered a score of marvellous tales which the credulous old woman told him.  There was the Bishop of Autun, that was healed of a malady he had for forty years, and which left him after he said mass for the repose of the king’s soul.  There was M. Marais, a surgeon in Auvergne, who had a palsy in both his legs, which was cured through the king’s intercession.  There was Philip Pitet, of the Benedictines, who had a suffocating cough, which wellnigh killed him, but he besought relief of heaven through the merits and intercession of the blessed king, and he straightway felt a profuse sweat breaking out all over him, and was recovered perfectly.  And there was the wife of Mons. Lepervier, dancing-master to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, who was entirely eased of a rheumatism by the king’s intercession, of which miracle there could be no doubt, for her surgeon and his apprentice had given their testimony, under oath, that they did not in any way contribute to the cure.  Of these tales, and a thousand like them, Mr. Esmond believed as much as he chose.  His kinswoman’s greater faith had swallow for them all.