Harry Esmond thanked him, and was grateful.  But what could Corporal Steele do for him? take him to ride a spare horse, and be servant to the troop?  Though there might be a bar in Harry Esmond’s shield, it was a noble one.  The counsel of the two friends was, that little Harry should stay where he was, and abide his fortune:  so Esmond stayed on at Castlewood, awaiting with no small anxiety the fate, whatever it was, which was over him.

CHAPTER VII.

I am left at Castlewood an orphan, and find most kind protectors there.

During the stay of the soldiers in Castlewood, honest Dick the Scholar was the constant companion of the lonely little orphan lad Harry Esmond:  and they read together, and they played bowls together, and when the other troopers or their officers, who were free-spoken over their cups, (as was the way of that day, when neither men nor women were over-nice,) talked unbecomingly of their amours and gallantries before the child, Dick, who very likely was setting the whole company laughing, would stop their jokes with a maxima debetur pueris reverentia, and once offered to lug out against another trooper called Hulking Tom, who wanted to ask Harry Esmond a ribald question.

Also, Dick seeing that the child had, as he said, a sensibility above his years, and a great and praiseworthy discretion, confided to Harry his love for a vintner’s daughter, near to the Tollyard, Westminster, whom Dick addressed as Saccharissa in many verses of his composition, and without whom he said it would be impossible that he could continue to live.  He vowed this a thousand times in a day, though Harry smiled to see the love-lorn swain had his health and appetite as well as the most heart-whole trooper in the regiment:  and he swore Harry to secrecy too, which vow the lad religiously kept, until he found that officers and privates were all taken into Dick’s confidence, and had the benefit of his verses.  And it must be owned likewise that, while Dick was sighing after Saccharissa in London, he had consolations in the country; for there came a wench out of Castlewood village who had washed his linen, and who cried sadly when she heard he was gone:  and without paying her bill too, which Harry Esmond took upon himself to discharge by giving the girl a silver pocket-piece, which Scholar Dick had presented to him, when, with many embraces and prayers for his prosperity, Dick parted from him, the garrison of Castlewood being ordered away.  Dick the Scholar said he would never forget his young friend, nor indeed did he:  and Harry was sorry when the kind soldiers vacated Castlewood, looking forward with no small anxiety (for care and solitude had made him thoughtful beyond his years) to his fate when the new lord and lady of the house came to live there.  He had lived to be past twelve years old now; and had never had a friend, save this wild trooper, perhaps, and Father Holt; and had a fond and affectionate heart, tender to weakness, that would fain attach itself to somebody, and did not seem at rest until it had found a friend who would take charge of it.