Boys and Girls From Thackeray | Page 3

laughed,
not knowing why--but because he was happy, no doubt--as everyone
seemed to be there.
Presently, however, as the sun was setting, the little heir was sent
howling to bed, while the more fortunate little Trix was promised to sit
up for supper that night--"and you will come too, kinsman, won't you?"
she said.
Harry Esmond blushed: "I--I have supper with Mrs. Worksop," says he.

But the new Viscount Castlewood refused to hear of that, and said,
"Thou shalt sup with us, Harry, to-night! Shan't refuse a lady, shall he,
Trix?"--and Harry enjoyed the unexpected pleasure of an evening meal
with the new lord of Castlewood and his gracious family.
Later, when Harry got to his little chamber, it was with a heart full of
surprise and gratitude towards the new friends whom this happy day
had brought him. The next morning he was up and watching long
before the house was astir, longing to see that fair lady and her children
again; and only fearful lest their welcome of the past night should in
any way be withdrawn or altered. But presently little Beatrix came out
into the garden, and her mother followed, who greeted Harry as kindly
as before and listened while he told her the histories of the house,
which he had been taught in the old lord's time, and to which she
listened with great interest; and then he told her, with respect to the
night before, that he understood French and thanked her for her
protection.
"Do you?" says she, with a blush; "then, sir, you shall teach me and
Beatrix."
And she asked him many more questions regarding himself, to which
she received brief replies, the substance of which was afterward
amplified into certain facts concerning the past of the orphan boy,
which it is well to note here and now.
It seemed that in former days, in a little cottage in the village of Ealing,
near to London, for some time had dwelt an old French refugee, by
name Mr. Pastoureau, one of those whom the persecution of the
Huguenots by the French king had brought over to England. With this
old man lived a little lad, who went by the name of Henry Thomas, but
who was no other than Henry Esmond. He remembered to have lived in
another place a short time before, near to London, too, amongst looms
and spinning wheels, and a great deal of psalm-singing and
church-going, and a whole colony of Frenchmen.
There he had a dear, dear friend, who died, and whom he called Aunt.
She used to visit him in his dreams sometimes; and her face, though it

was homely, was a thousand times dearer to him than that of Mrs.
Pastoureau, Bon Papa Pastoureau's new wife, who came to live with
him after aunt went away. And there, at Spittlefields, as it used to be
called, lived Uncle George, who was a weaver, too, but used to tell
Harry that he was a little gentleman, and that his father was a captain,
and his mother an angel.
When he said so, Bon Papa used to look up from the loom, where he
was embroidering beautiful silk flowers, and shake his head. He had a
little room where he always used to preach and sing hymns out of his
great old nose. Little Harry did not like the preaching; he liked better
the fine stories which aunt used to tell him. Bon Papa's new wife never
told him pretty stories; she quarrelled with Uncle George, and he went
away.
After this, Harry's Bon Papa, and his wife and two children of her own
that she had brought with her, came to live at Ealing. The new wife
gave her children the best of everything, and Harry many a whipping,
he knew not why. So he was very glad when a gentleman dressed in
black, on horseback, with a mounted servant behind him, came to fetch
him away from Ealing. The unjust stepmother gave him plenty to eat
before he went away, and did not beat him once, but told the children to
keep their hands off him. One was a girl, and Harry never could bear to
strike a girl; and the other was a boy, whom he could easily have beat,
but he always cried out, when Mrs. Pastoureau came sailing to the
rescue with arms like a flail. She only washed Harry's face the day he
went away; nor ever so much as once boxed his ears. She whimpered
rather when the gentleman in black came for the boy, and pretended to
cry; but Harry thought it was only a sham, and sprung quite delighted
upon the horse upon which the lackey helped him. This lackey was a
Frenchman; his name was Blaise. The child