Part 6 (1/2)
”Mr. Holt said they were sermons,” Harry said, ”and bade me to burn them;” which indeed was true of those papers.
”Sermons indeed--it's treason, I would lay a wager,” cries the lawyer.
”Egad! it's Greek to me,” says Captain Westbury. ”Can you read it, little boy?”
”Yes, sir, a little,” Harry said.
”Then read, and read in English, sir, on your peril,” said the lawyer.
And Harry began to translate:--
”Hath not one of your own writers said, 'The children of Adam are now laboring as much as he himself ever did, about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, shaking the boughs thereof, and seeking the fruit, being for the most part unmindful of the tree of life.' Oh blind generation! 'tis this tree of knowledge to which the serpent has led you”--and here the boy was obliged to stop, the rest of the page being charred by the fire: and asked of the lawyer--”Shall I go on, sir?”
The lawyer said--”This boy is deeper than he seems: who knows that he is not laughing at us?”
”Let's have in d.i.c.k the Scholar,” cried Captain Westbury, laughing: and he called to a trooper out of the window--”Ho, d.i.c.k, come in here and construe.”
A thick-set soldier, with a square good-humored face, came in at the summons, saluting his officer.
”Tell us what is this, d.i.c.k,” says the lawyer.
”My name is Steele, sir,” says the soldier. ”I may be d.i.c.k for my friends, but I don't name gentlemen of your cloth amongst them.”
”Well then, Steele.”
”Mr. Steele, sir, if you please. When you address a gentleman of his Majesty's Horse Guards, be pleased not to be so familiar.”
”I didn't know, sir,” said the lawyer.
”How should you? I take it you are not accustomed to meet with gentlemen,” says the trooper.
”Hold thy prate, and read that bit of paper,” says Westbury.
”'Tis Latin,” says d.i.c.k, 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 old Jezebel.”
”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 n.o.body 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 tongue.
”What does he say?” says the lawyer.
”Faith, ask d.i.c.k himself,” cried Captain Westbury.
”I said I was not ignorant of misfortune myself, and had learned to succor the miserable, and that's not YOUR trade, Mr. Sheepskin,” said the trooper.
”You had better leave d.i.c.k the Scholar alone, Mr. Corbet,” the Captain said. And Harry Esmond, always touched by a kind face and kind word, felt very grateful to this good-natured champion.