by a brightness of wit and good humour that charmed all, by an authority
which he knew how to assume, by a mystery and silence about him which
increased the child's reverence for him, he won Harry's absolute fealty,
and would have kept it, doubtless, if schemes greater and more important
than a poor little boy's admission into orders had not called him away.

After being at home for a few months in tranquillity, my Lord Castlewood
and Lady Isabella left the country for London, taking Father Holt with
them: and his little pupil scarce ever shed more bitter tears in his life
than he did for nights after the first parting with his dear friend, as
he lay in the lonely chamber next to that which the Father used to
occupy. He and a few domestics were left as the only tenants of the great
house: and, though Harry sedulously did all the tasks which the Father
set him, he had many hours unoccupied, and read in the library, and
bewildered his little brain with the great books he found there.

After a while, however, the little lad grew accustomed to the loneliness
of the place; and in after days remembered this part of his life as a
period not unhappy. When the family was at London the whole of the
establishment travelled thither with the exception of the porter and his
wife and children. These had their lodging in the gate-house hard by.
with a door into the court. That with a window looking out on the green
was the Chaplain's room; and next to this was a small chamber where
Father Holt had his books, and Harry Esmond his sleeping-closet. The side
of the house facing the east had escaped the guns of the Cromwellians,
whose battery was on the height facing the western court; so that this
eastern end bore few marks of demolition, save in the chapel, where the
painted windows surviving Edward the Sixth had been broke by the
Commonwealthmen. When Father Holt was at Castlewood little Harry Esmond
acted as his familiar little servitor, beating his clothes, folding his