Also there came in these times to Father Holt many private visitors, whom, after a little, Henry Esmond had little difficulty in recognizing as ecclesiastics of the Father’s persuasion, whatever their dresses (and they adopted all) might be.  These were closeted with the Father constantly, and often came and rode away without paying their devoirs to my lord and lady—­to the lady and lord rather—­his lordship being little more than a cipher in the house, and entirely under his domineering partner.  A little fowling, a little hunting, a great deal of sleep, and a long dine at cards and table, carried through one day after another with his lordship.  When meetings took place in this second year, which often would happen with closed doors, the page found my lord’s sheet of paper scribbled over with dogs and horses, and ’twas said he had much ado to keep himself awake at these councils:  the Countess ruling over them, and he acting as little more than her secretary.

Father Holt began speedily to be so much occupied with these meetings as rather to neglect the education of the little lad who so gladly put himself under the kind priest’s orders.  At first they read much and regularly, both in Latin and French; the Father not neglecting in anything to impress his faith upon his pupil, but not forcing him violently, and treating him with a delicacy and kindness which surprised and attached the child, always more easily won by these methods than by any severe exercise of authority.  And his delight in their walks was to tell Harry of the glories of his order, of its martyrs and heroes, of its Brethren converting the heathen by myriads, traversing the desert, facing the stake, ruling the courts and councils, or braving the tortures of kings; so that Harry Esmond thought that to belong to the Jesuits was the greatest prize of life and bravest end of ambition; the greatest career here, and in heaven the surest reward; and began to long for the day, not only when he should enter into the one church and receive his first communion, but when he might join that wonderful brotherhood, which was present throughout all the world, and which numbered the wisest, the bravest, the highest born, the most eloquent of men among its members.  Father Holt bade him keep his views secret, and to hide them as a great treasure which would escape him if it was revealed; and, proud of this confidence and secret vested in him, the lad became fondly attached to the master who initiated him into a mystery so wonderful and awful.  And when little Tom Tusher, his neighbor, came from school for his holiday, and said how he, too, was to be bred up for an English priest, and would get what he called an exhibition from his school, and then a college scholarship and fellowship, and then a good living—­it tasked young Harry Esmond’s powers of reticence not to say to his young companion, “Church! priesthood! fat living!  My dear Tommy, do you call yours a church and a priesthood?