faithfully to the last.  She would have him be dressed, she said, as became his father’s son, and paid cheerfully for his five-pound beaver, his black buckled periwig, and his fine holland shirts, and his swords, and his pistols, mounted with silver.  Since the day he was born, poor Harry had never looked such a fine gentleman:  his liberal step-mother filled his purse with guineas, too, some of which Captain Steele and a few choice spirits helped Harry to spend in an entertainment which Dick ordered (and, indeed, would have paid for, but that he had no money when the reckoning was called for; nor would the landlord give him any more credit) at the “Garter,” over against the gate of the Palace, in Pall Mall.

The old Viscountess, indeed, if she had done Esmond any wrong formerly, seemed inclined to repair it by the present kindness of her behavior:  she embraced him copiously at parting, wept plentifully, bade him write by every packet, and gave him an inestimable relic, which she besought him to wear round his neck—­a medal, blessed by I know not what pope, and worn by his late sacred Majesty King James.  So Esmond arrived at his regiment with a better equipage than most young officers could afford.  He was older than most of his seniors, and had a further advantage which belonged but to very few of the army gentlemen in his day—­many of whom could do little more than write their names—­that he had read much, both at home and at the University, was master of two or three languages, and had that further education which neither books nor years will give, but which some men get from the silent teaching of adversity.  She is a great schoolmistress, as many a poor fellow knows, that hath held his hand out to her ferule, and whimpered over his lesson before her awful chair.

CHAPTER V.

I go on the Vigo bay expedition, taste salt-water and smell powder.

The first expedition in which Mr. Esmond had the honor to be engaged, rather resembled one of the invasions projected by the redoubted Captain Avory or Captain Kidd, than a war between crowned heads, carried on by generals of rank and honor.  On the 1st day of July, 1702, a great fleet, of a hundred and fifty sail, set sail from Spithead, under the command of Admiral Shovell, having on board 12,000 troops, with his Grace the Duke of Ormond as the Capt.-General of the expedition.  One of these 12,000 heroes having never been to sea before, or, at least, only once in his infancy, when he made the voyage to England from that unknown country where he was born—­one of those 12,000—­the junior ensign of Colonel Quin’s regiment of Fusileers—­was in a quite unheroic state of corporal prostration a few hours after sailing; and an enemy, had he boarded the ship, would have had easy work of him.  From Portsmouth we put into Plymouth, and took in fresh