forge beside it, and the sign of the “Three Castles” on the elm.  The London road stretched away towards the rising sun, and to the west were swelling hills and peaks, behind which many a time Harry Esmond saw the same sun setting, that he now looks on thousands of miles away across the great ocean—­in a new Castlewood, by another stream, that bears, like the new country of wandering AEneas, the fond names of the land of his youth.

The Hall of Castlewood was built with two courts, whereof one only, the fountain-court, was now inhabited, the other having been battered down in the Cromwellian wars.  In the fountain-court, still in good repair, was the great hall, near to the kitchen and butteries.  A dozen of living-rooms looking to the north, and communicating with the little chapel that faced eastwards and the buildings stretching from that to the main gate, and with the hall (which looked to the west) into the court now dismantled.  This court had been the most magnificent of the two, until the Protector’s cannon tore down one side of it before the place was taken and stormed.  The besiegers entered at the terrace under the clock-tower, slaying every man of the garrison, and at their head my lord’s brother, Francis Esmond.

The Restoration did not bring enough money to the Lord Castlewood to restore this ruined part of his house; where were the morning parlors, above them the long music-gallery, and before which stretched the garden-terrace, where, however, the flowers grew again which the boots of the Roundheads had trodden in their assault, and which was restored without much cost, and only a little care, by both ladies who succeeded the second viscount in the government of this mansion.  Round the terrace-garden was a low wall with a wicket leading to the wooded height beyond, that is called Cromwell’s Battery to this day.

Young Harry Esmond learned the domestic part of his duty, which was easy enough, from the groom of her ladyship’s chamber:  serving the Countess, as the custom commonly was in his boyhood, as page, waiting at her chair, bringing her scented water and the silver basin after dinner—­sitting on her carriage-step on state occasions, or on public days introducing her company to her.  This was chiefly of the Catholic gentry, of whom there were a pretty many in the country and neighboring city; and who rode not seldom to Castlewood to partake of the hospitalities there.  In the second year of their residence, the company seemed especially to increase.  My lord and my lady were seldom without visitors, in whose society it was curious to contrast the difference of behavior between Father Holt, the director of the family, and Doctor Tusher, the rector of the parish—­Mr. Holt moving amongst the very highest as quite their equal, and as commanding them all; while poor Doctor Tusher, whose position was indeed a difficult one, having been chaplain once to the Hall, and still to the Protestant servants there, seemed more like an usher than an equal, and always rose to go away after the first course.