And it was after this, and from the very great love and tenderness which had grown up in this little household, rather than from the exhortations of Dean Armstrong (though these had no small weight with him), that Harry came to be quite of the religion of his house and his dear mistress, of which he has ever since been a professing member.  As for Dr. Tusher’s boasts that he was the cause of this conversion—­even in these young days Mr. Esmond had such a contempt for the Doctor, that had Tusher bade him believe anything (which he did not—­never meddling at all), Harry would that instant have questioned the truth on’t.

My lady seldom drank wine; but on certain days of the year, such as birthdays (poor Harry had never a one) and anniversaries, she took a little; and this day, the 29th December, was one.  At the end, then, of this year, ’96, it might have been a fortnight after Mr. Holt’s last visit, Lord Castlewood being still very gloomy in mind, and sitting at table—­my lady bidding a servant bring her a glass of wine, and looking at her husband with one of her sweet smiles, said—­

“My lord, will you not fill a bumper too, and let me call a toast?”

“What is it, Rachel?” says he, holding out his empty glass to be filled.

“’Tis the 29th of December,” says my lady, with her fond look of gratitude:  “and my toast is, ’Harry—­and God bless him, who saved my boy’s life!’”

My lord looked at Harry hard, and drank the glass, but clapped it down on the table in a moment, and, with a sort of groan, rose up, and went out of the room.  What was the matter?  We all knew that some great grief was over him.

Whether my lord’s prudence had made him richer, or legacies had fallen to him, which enabled him to support a greater establishment than that frugal one which had been too much for his small means, Harry Esmond knew not; but the house of Castlewood was now on a scale much more costly than it had been during the first years of his lordship’s coming to the title.  There were more horses in the stable and more servants in the hall, and many more guests coming and going now than formerly, when it was found difficult enough by the strictest economy to keep the house as befitted one of his lordship’s rank, and the estate out of debt.  And it did not require very much penetration to find that many of the new acquaintances at Castlewood were not agreeable to the lady there:  not that she ever treated them or any mortal with anything but courtesy; but they were persons who could not be welcome to her; and whose society a lady so refined and reserved could scarce desire for her children.  There came fuddling squires from the country round, who bawled their songs under her windows and drank themselves tipsy with my lord’s punch and ale:  there came officers from Hexton, in whose company our little lord was made to hear talk and to drink, and swear too, in a way that made the delicate lady tremble for her son.