His friends rallied him at what they laughingly chose to call his
infidelity; Jack Churchill, Frank Esmond's lieutenant in the Royal
Regiment of Foot-guards, getting the company which Esmond vacated, when
he left the Court and went to Tangier in a rage at discovering that his
promotion depended on the complaisance of his elderly affianced bride.
He and Churchill, who had been condiscipuli at St. Paul's School, had
words about this matter; and Frank Esmond said to him with an oath,
"Jack, your sister may be so-and-so, but by Jove my wife shan't!" and
swords were drawn, and blood drawn too, until friends separated them on
this quarrel. Few men were so jealous about the point of honor in those
days; and gentlemen of good birth and lineage thought a royal blot was
an ornament to their family coat. Frank Esmond retired in the sulks,
first to Tangier, whence he returned after two years' service, settling
on a small property he had of his mother, near to Winchester, and became
a country gentleman, and kept a pack of beagles, and never came to
Court again in King Charles's time. But his uncle Castlewood was never
reconciled to him; nor, for some time afterwards, his cousin whom he had
refused.

By places, pensions, bounties from France, and gifts from the King,
whilst his daughter was in favor, Lord Castlewood, who had spent in the
Royal service his youth and fortune, did not retrieve the latter quite,
and never cared to visit Castlewood, or repair it, since the death of
his son, but managed to keep a good house, and figure at Court, and to
save a considerable sum of ready money.

And now, his heir and nephew, Thomas Esmond, began to bid for his
uncle's favor. Thomas had served with the Emperor, and with the Dutch,
when King Charles was compelled to lend troops to the States; and
against them, when his Majesty made an alliance with the French King. In