he had many hours unoccupied, and read in the library, and bewildered
his little brains with the great books he found there.

After a while, 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--who
was, moreover, brewer, gardener, and woodman--and his wife and children.
These had their lodging in the gate-house hard by, with a door into the
court; and a window looking out on the green was the Chaplain's room;
and next to this 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. In Father Holt's
time little Harry Esmond acted as his familiar and faithful little
servitor; beating his clothes, folding his vestments, fetching his
water from the well long before daylight, ready to run anywhere for the
service of his beloved priest. When the Father was away, he locked his
private chamber; but the room where the books were was left to little
Harry, who, but for the society of this gentleman, was little less
solitary when Lord Castlewood was at home.

The French wit saith that a hero is none to his valet-de-chambre, and
it required less quick eyes than my lady's little page was naturally
endowed with, to see that she had many qualities by no means heroic,
however much Mrs. Tusher might flatter and coax her. When Father Holt
was not by, who exercised an entire authority over the pair, my lord
and my lady quarrelled and abused each other so as to make the servants