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The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. - A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne by William Makepeace Thackeray
page 56 of 601 (09%)
A kingdom was changing hands whilst my lord and lady were away. King
James was flying, the Dutchmen were coming; awful stories about them and
the Prince of Orange used old Mrs. Worksop to tell to the idle little
page.

He liked the solitude of the great house very well; he had all the
play-books to read, and no Father Holt to whip him, and a hundred
childish pursuits and pastimes, without doors and within, which made
this time very pleasant.




CHAPTER V.

MY SUPERIORS ARE ENGAGED IN PLOTS FOR THE RESTORATION OF KING JAMES II.


Not having been able to sleep, for thinking of some lines for eels which
he had placed the night before, the lad was lying in his little bed,
waiting for the hour when the gate would be open, and he and his
comrade, John Lockwood, the porter's son, might go to the pond and see
what fortune had brought them. At daybreak John was to awaken him, but
his own eagerness for the sport had served as a reveillez long since--so
long, that it seemed to him as if the day never would come.

It might have been four o'clock when he heard the door of the opposite
chamber, the Chaplain's room, open, and the voice of a man coughing in
the passage. Harry jumped up, thinking for certain it was a robber, or
hoping perhaps for a ghost, and, flinging open his own door, saw before
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