"Let's have in Dick the Scholar," cried Captain Westbury, laughing, and
he called to a trooper out of the window, "Ho, Dick, come in here and
construe."

A soldier, with a good-humoured face, came in at the summons, saluting
his officer.

"Tell us what is this, Dick Steele," says the lawyer.

"'Tis Latin," says Dick, glancing at it, and again saluting his officer,
"and from a sermon of Mr. Cudworth's," and he translated the words pretty
much as Henry Esmond had rendered them.

"What a young scholar you are," says the Captain to the boy.

"Depend on't, he knows more than he tells," says the lawyer. "I think we
will pack him off in the coach with the old lady."

"For construing a bit of Latin?" said the Captain, very good-naturedly.

"I would as lief go there as anywhere," Harry Esmond said, simply, "for
there is nobody to care for me."

There must have been something touching in the child's voice, or in this
description of his solitude, for the Captain looked at him very
good-naturedly, and the trooper called Steele put his hand kindly on the
lad's head, and said some words in the Latin language.

"What does he say?" says the lawyer.