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.

Great public events were happening at this time, of which the simple
young page took little count. But one day, before the family went to
London, riding into the neighbouring town on the step of my lady's
coach, his lordship and she and Father Holt being inside, a great mob
of people came hooting and jeering round the coach, bawling out, "The
Bishops forever!" "Down with the Pope!" "No Popery! no Popery!" so that
my lord began to laugh, my lady's eyes to roll with anger, for she was
as bold as a lioness, and feared nobody; whilst Mr. Holt, as Esmond saw
from his place on the step, sank back with rather an alarmed face,
crying out to her ladyship, "For God's sake, madam, do not speak or look
out of window; sit still." But she did not obey this prudent injunction
of the Father; she thrust her head out of the coach window, and screamed
out to the coachman, "Flog your way through them, the brutes, James, and
use your whip!"

James the coachman was more afraid of his mistress than of the mob,
probably, for he whipped on his horses as he was bidden, and the post-boy
that rode with the first pair gave a cut of his thong over the shoulders
of one fellow who put his hand out towards the leading horse's rein.

It was a market-day, and the country-people were all assembled with
their baskets of poultry, eggs, and such things; the postilion had no
sooner lashed the man who would have taken hold of his horse, but a
great cabbage came whirling like a bombshell into the carriage, at
which my lord laughed more, for it knocked my lady's fan out of her