Part 14 (2/2)
”What do you mean, sir?” cries my lord, turning round, with a flush on his face.
”I mean,” answers Harry, in a sarcastic tone, ”that your gout is well--if ever you had it.”
”Sir!” cried my lord, getting hot.
”And to tell the truth I believe your lords.h.i.+p has no more gout than I have. At any rate, change of air will do you good, my Lord Mohun. And I mean fairly that you had better go from Castlewood.”
”And were you appointed to give me this message?” cries the Lord Mohun.
”Did Frank Esmond commission you?”
”No one did. 'Twas the honor of my family that commissioned me.”
”And you are prepared to answer this?” cries the other, furiously las.h.i.+ng his horses.
”Quite, my lord: your lords.h.i.+p will upset the carriage if you whip so hotly.”
”By George, you have a brave spirit!” my lord cried out, bursting into a laugh. ”I suppose 'tis that infernal botte de Jesuite that makes you so bold,” he added.
”'Tis the peace of the family I love best in the world,” Harry Esmond said warmly--”'tis the honor of a n.o.ble benefactor--the happiness of my dear mistress and her children. I owe them everything in life, my lord; and would lay it down for any one of them. What brings you here to disturb this quiet household? What keeps you lingering month after month in the country? What makes you feign illness, and invent pretexts for delay? Is it to win my poor patron's money? Be generous, my lord, and spare his weakness for the sake of his wife and children. Is it to practise upon the simple heart of a virtuous lady? You might as well storm the Tower single-handed. But you may blemish her name by light comments on it, or by lawless pursuits--and I don't deny that 'tis in your power to make her unhappy. Spare these innocent people, and leave them.”
”By the Lord, I believe thou hast an eye to the pretty Puritan thyself, Master Harry,” says my lord, with his reckless, good-humored laugh, and as if he had been listening with interest to the pa.s.sionate appeal of the young man. ”Whisper, Harry. Art thou in love with her thyself? Hath tipsy Frank Esmond come by the way of all flesh?”
”My lord, my lord,” cried Harry, his face flus.h.i.+ng and his eyes filling as he spoke, ”I never had a mother, but I love this lady as one. I wors.h.i.+p her as a devotee wors.h.i.+ps a saint. To hear her name spoken lightly seems blasphemy to me. Would you dare think of your own mother so, or suffer any one so to speak of her? It is a horror to me to fancy that any man should think of her impurely. I implore you, I beseech you, to leave her. Danger will come out of it.”
”Danger, psha!” says my lord, giving a cut to the horses, which at this minute--for we were got on to the Downs--fairly ran off into a gallop that no pulling could stop. The rein broke in Lord Mohun's hands, and the furious beasts scampered madly forwards, the carriage swaying to and fro, and the persons within it holding on to the sides as best they might, until seeing a great ravine before them, where an upset was inevitable, the two gentlemen leapt for their lives, each out of his side of the chaise. Harry Esmond was quit for a fall on the gra.s.s, which was so severe that it stunned him for a minute; but he got up presently very sick, and bleeding at the nose, but with no other hurt. The Lord Mohun was not so fortunate; he fell on his head against a stone, and lay on the ground, dead to all appearance.
This misadventure happened as the gentlemen were on their return homewards; and my Lord Castlewood, with his son and daughter, who were going out for a ride, met the ponies as they were galloping with the car behind, the broken traces entangling their heels, and my lord's people turned and stopped them. It was young Frank who spied out Lord Mohun's scarlet coat as he lay on the ground, and the party made up to that unfortunate gentleman and Esmond, who was now standing over him. His large periwig and feathered hat had fallen off, and he was bleeding profusely from a wound on the forehead, and looking, and being, indeed, a corpse.
”Great G.o.d! he's dead!” says my lord. ”Ride, some one: fetch a doctor--stay. I'll go home and bring back Tusher; he knows surgery,” and my lord, with his son after him, galloped away.
They were scarce gone when Harry Esmond, who was indeed but just come to himself, bethought him of a similar accident which he had seen on a ride from Newmarket to Cambridge, and taking off a sleeve of my lord's coat, Harry, with a penknife, opened a vein of his arm, and was greatly relieved, after a moment, to see the blood flow. He was near half an hour before he came to himself, by which time Doctor Tusher and little Frank arrived, and found my lord not a corpse indeed, but as pale as one.
After a time, when he was able to bear motion, they put my lord upon a groom's horse, and gave the other to Esmond, the men walking on each side of my lord, to support him, if need were, and worthy Doctor Tusher with them. Little Frank and Harry rode together at a foot pace.
When we rode together home, the boy said: ”We met mamma, who was walking on the terrace with the doctor, and papa frightened her, and told her you were dead ...”
”That I was dead!” asks Harry.
”Yes. Papa says: 'Here's poor Harry killed, my dear;' on which mamma gives a great scream; and oh, Harry! she drops down; and I thought she was dead too. And you never saw such a way as papa was in: he swore one of his great oaths: and he turned quite pale; and then he began to laugh somehow, and he told the Doctor to take his horse, and me to follow him; and we left him. And I looked back, and saw him das.h.i.+ng water out of the fountain on to mamma. Oh, she was so frightened!”
Musing upon this curious history--for my Lord Mohun's name was Henry too, and they called each other Frank and Harry often--and not a little disturbed and anxious, Esmond rode home. His dear lady was on the terrace still, one of her women with her, and my lord no longer there.
There are steps and a little door thence down into the road. My lord pa.s.sed, looking very ghastly, with a handkerchief over his head, and without his hat and periwig, which a groom carried, but his politeness did not desert him, and he made a bow to the lady above.
”Thank heaven, you are safe,” she said.
”And so is Harry too, mamma,” says little Frank,--”huzzay!”
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