In after life, did Esmond find the words true which his fond mistress spoke from her sad heart?  Warning he had:  but I doubt others had warning before his time, and since:  and he benefited by it as most men do.

My young Lord Viscount was exceeding sorry when he heard that Harry could not come to the cock-match with him, and must go to London, but no doubt my lord consoled himself when the Hampshire cocks won the match; and he saw every one of the battles, and crowed properly over the conquered Sussex gentlemen.

As Esmond rode towards town his servant, coming up to him, informed him with a grin, that Mistress Beatrix had brought out a new gown and blue stockings for that day’s dinner, in which she intended to appear, and had flown into a rage and given her maid a slap on the face soon after she heard he was going away.  Mistress Beatrix’s woman, the fellow said, came down to the servants’ hall crying, and with the mark of a blow still on her cheek:  but Esmond peremptorily ordered him to fall back and be silent, and rode on with thoughts enough of his own to occupy him—­some sad ones, some inexpressibly dear and pleasant.

His mistress, from whom he had been a year separated, was his dearest mistress again.  The family from which he had been parted, and which he loved with the fondest devotion, was his family once more.  If Beatrix’s beauty shone upon him, it was with a friendly lustre, and he could regard it with much such a delight as he brought away after seeing the beautiful pictures of the smiling Madonnas in the convent at Cadiz, when he was despatched thither with a flag; and as for his mistress, ’twas difficult to say with what a feeling he regarded her.  ’Twas happiness to have seen her; ’twas no great pang to part; a filial tenderness, a love that was at once respect and protection, filled his mind as he thought of her; and near her or far from her, and from that day until now, and from now till death is past and beyond it, he prays that sacred flame may ever burn.

CHAPTER IX.

I make the campaign of 1704.

Mr. Esmond rode up to London then, where, if the Dowager had been angry at the abrupt leave of absence he took, she was mightily pleased at his speedy return.

He went immediately and paid his court to his new general, General Lumley, who received him graciously, having known his father, and also, he was pleased to say, having had the very best accounts of Mr. Esmond from the officer whose aide-de-camp he had been at Vigo.  During this winter Mr. Esmond was gazetted to a lieutenancy in Brigadier Webb’s regiment of Fusileers, then with their colonel in Flanders; but being now attached to the suite of Mr. Lumley, Esmond did not join his own regiment until more than a year afterwards, and after his return from the campaign of Blenheim, which was fought the next year.  The campaign began very early, our troops marching out