“You’ve told us very handsomely all your tale,” says I to Andrew, when he was ended, and dismissed the good fellow with a present, while my wife dried her tears, saying that one ought rather praise God for such confessors than weep over ’em. And indeed, the more we saw of our friends, the more we learned to admire them, and could not but wonder both at their constancy in the past and their cheerfulness in the present. I made it my custom to go down every day to the inn and pass some time with the viscount, when we were wont to discourse very agreeably touching our former life in East India, while my wife carried Madam Heliodora for an airing in the coach. But of his own past trials would my friend never tell me, seeming to look back upon ’em with such aversion as he would not name them save to thank God that delivered him out of them, though he showed himself always ready to commend the virtues of my lady his wife. But though we did endeavour very earnestly to win them to leave the inn, and to take up their abode for the present with us, they refused constantly to do this, and we saw neither of them at Ellswether, until one forenoon Madam Heliodora walked up from the town, attended only by Andrew, and signified that she was come for to ask a favour.
“Lend me, dear madam,” says she to Dorothy, “your elder child for a few hours, if you’ll be so good, for the viscount do affect the company of children to an extraordinary great degree, and ’twould lighten his hours of pain to divert himself with your little son.”
“Madam,” says Dorothy, albeit none too gladly, for she feared letting her babes out of her sight for an hour, “sure you have but to desire, and if it lie in our power, the thing shall be done. My Harry shall wait on your ladyship home.”
But, nevertheless, my wife watched her Harry (named for my honoured father) depart on Andrew’s shoulder with no small uneasiness, and could not be happy until she had him home again, bringing in his hand a great cake for his little brother. She desired much to learn how he had fared, but though she set him on the table and questioned him particularly, yet she gat nothing but to hear that the pretty lady had wept, and that in the house where she took him there was a sick gentleman that did keep comfits in a gold box in his pocket, and that had promised to make him a coach and horses out of pasteboard. But when she heard tell of Madam Heliodora’s weeping, my wife looked at me.
“Sure our Harry must be near the same age as her babe that died should be by now,” saith she, as if conscience-smitten. “Well, if Harry’s company can avail anything to comfort either of these excellent persons, he shall visit upon ’em every day.”
But Dorothy’s compassion wan’t long tasked, for shortly afterwards the viscount was found sufficiently recovered to continue his journey, and he went on with his wife to my old Lady Harmarthwaite’s dower-house in the county of Cheshire. And here, as it chanced, they were thrown among those that were busy planning to preserve the Protestant faith in these realms by changing the then king for another, and were thus led to take a very forward part in their schemes. Nay, when his majesty that now is was securely established on the English throne, though not recognised save in this kingdom, the viscount, being now somewhat restored to health, and receiving the command of one of the regiments of French exiles then forming for service in Ireland, gained by his military exploits in that country the fame that now deservedly attends his name. For both at the battle of Boyne Water, and in numberless small engagements, he did win the reputation of a most valiant and redoubted soldier, and one no less artful and seen in his dispositions and stratagems, than brave in fighting. Yet through it all was he in almost perpetual bodily anguish, so that those that saw him marvelled at his hardihood in thus despising pain, and esteemed him as Christian in his fortitude as he was skilled in the military art. Now the war being ended, he was granted a decent estate in Ireland, the confiscated property of a rebel that was fled, but not being content to retire thither and live in idleness, he carried his regiment to the Low Countries in the war that there brake out, and duly supported his majesty in those campaigns that did bring us little glory but much honour. But at the battle of Landen he was struck by a cannon-shot and entirely disabled, so as he could never again mount his horse, and Madam Heliodora, hastening to his side, brought him to England, and so, borne in a litter by short stages, to his Irish estate, where he lives still, a shining model of contentment in spite of much adversity, her ladyship likewise, after all the changes of her life, completely happy in him.
But with regard to that change in our rulers whereof I spake but a few lines back, I must (though this be no chronicle of public events, but only my own history) devote some mention to’t, for ’twas a matter of moment to me, producing, as it did, the only quarrel I have ever had with my wife, or rather difference, since it never grew to a quarrel. And the ground of this difference was no light one, since I was desirous to take sword and horse for the Prince of Orange, while as Dorothy was hot for King James.
“My dear,” says I to her, when we were speaking of the matter, “I have seen so much of Popery as I am determined never to support it here. Sure you’ll have heard from the French fugitives what should have armed you against it. Had King James followed his own religion in peace, I had never murmured, but when he shows himself desirous to thrust it upon us, we have a right to resist him.” In which I was coming much nearer to the politics of my old acquaintance Substitution Darrell than ever I had at one time thought likely, but we live and learn.
“Alas!” cried Dorothy, the tears running down her face, “that I should live to hear my husband, my dear Sir Harry’s own son, speak thus! Sure ’tis enough to disturb your father in his grave, sir. If God will, can’t He protect us Protestants without any help of ours? and if it ben’t His will to save us, let us suffer, but don’t let us sin in rebelling against the Lord’s anointed.”
“I will have no hand in bringing in Popery,” says I in a great heat.