"I belong to a church that is older and better than the English church,"
Mr. Holt said (making a sign, whereof Esmond did not then understand the
meaning, across his breast and forehead); "in our church the clergy do
not marry. You will understand these things better soon."

"Was not Saint Peter the head of your church?--Dr. Rabbits of Ealing
told us so."

The Father said, "Yes, he was."

"But Saint Peter was married, for we heard only last Sunday that his
wife's mother lay sick of a fever." On which the Father again laughed,
and said he would understand this too better soon, and talked of other
things, and took away Harry Esmond, and showed him the great old house
which he had come to inhabit.

It stood on a rising green hill, with woods behind it, in which were
rooks' nests, where the birds at morning and returning home at evening
made a great cawing. At the foot of a hill was a river, with a steep
ancient bridge crossing it; and beyond that a large pleasant green flat,
where the village of Castlewood stood, with the church in the midst, the
parsonage hard by it, the inn with the blacksmith's 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 in
after years.

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