When Doctor Tusher brought the news that the small-pox was at the “Three Castles,” whither a tramper, it was said, had brought the malady, Henry Esmond’s first thought was of alarm for poor Nancy, and then of shame and disquiet for the Castlewood family, lest he might have brought this infection; for the truth is that Mr. Harry had been sitting in a back room for an hour that day, where Nancy Sievewright was with a little brother who complained of headache, and was lying stupefied and crying, either in a chair by the corner of the fire, or in Nancy’s lap, or on mine.

Little Lady Beatrix screamed out at Dr. Tusher’s news; and my lord cried out, “God bless me!” He was a brave man, and not afraid of death in any shape but this.  He was very proud of his pink complexion and fair hair—­but the idea of death by small-pox scared him beyond all other ends.  “We will take the children and ride away to-morrow to Walcote:”  this was my lord’s small house, inherited from his mother, near to Winchester.

“That is the best refuge in case the disease spreads,” said Dr. Tusher.  “’Tis awful to think of it beginning at the ale-house; half the people of the village have visited that to-day, or the blacksmith’s, which is the same thing.  My clerk Nahum lodges with them—­I can never go into my reading-desk and have that fellow so near me.  I won’t have that man near me.”

“If a parishioner dying in the small-pox sent to you, would you not go?” asked my lady, looking up from her frame of work, with her calm blue eyes.

“By the Lord, I wouldn’t,” said my lord.

“We are not in a popish country; and a sick man doth not absolutely need absolution and confession,” said the Doctor. “’Tis true they are a comfort and a help to him when attainable, and to be administered with hope of good.  But in a case where the life of a parish priest in the midst of his flock is highly valuable to them, he is not called upon to risk it (and therewith the lives, future prospects, and temporal, even spiritual welfare of his own family) for the sake of a single person, who is not very likely in a condition even to understand the religious message whereof the priest is the bringer—­being uneducated, and likewise stupefied or delirious by disease.  If your ladyship or his lordship, my excellent good friend and patron, were to take it . . .”

“God forbid!” cried my lord.

“Amen,” continued Dr. Tusher.  “Amen to that prayer, my very good lord! for your sake I would lay my life down”—­and, to judge from the alarmed look of the Doctor’s purple face, you would have thought that that sacrifice was about to be called for instantly.