Being one day in the Church of St. Gudule, at Brussels, admiring the antique splendour of the architecture (and always entertaining a great tenderness and reverence for the Mother Church, that hath been as wickedly persecuted in England as ever she herself persecuted in the days of her prosperity), Esmond saw kneeling at a side altar, an officer in a green uniform coat, very deeply engaged in devotion. Something familiar in the figure and posture of the kneeling man struck Captain Esmond, even before he saw the [pg 267] officer's face. As he rose up, putting away into his pocket a little black breviary, such as priests use, Esmond beheld a countenance so like that of his friend and tutor of early days, Father Holt, that he broke out into an exclamation of astonishment and advanced a step towards the gentleman, who was making his way out of church. The German officer too looked surprised when he saw Esmond, and his face from being pale grew suddenly red. By this mark of recognition, the Englishman knew that he could not be mistaken; and though the other did not stop, but on the contrary rather hastily walked away towards the door, Esmond pursued him and faced him once more, as the officer helping himself to holy water, turned mechanically towards the altar to bow to it ere he quitted the sacred edifice.
“My father!” says Esmond in English.
“Silence! I do not understand. I do not speak English,” says the other in Latin.
Esmond smiled at this sign of confusion, and replied in the same language. “I should know my father in any garment, black or white, shaven or bearded,” for the Austrian officer was habited quite in the military manner, and had as warlike a moustachio as any Pandour.
He laughed—we were on the church steps by this time, passing through the crowd of beggars that usually is there holding up little trinkets for sale and whining for alms. “You speak Latin,” says he, “in the English way, Harry Esmond; you have forsaken the old true Roman tongue you once knew.” His tone was very frank, and friendly quite; the kind voice of fifteen years back; he gave Esmond his hand as he spoke.
“Others have changed their coats too, my father,” says Esmond, glancing at his friend's military decoration.
“Hush! I am Mr. or Captain von Holtz, in the Bavarian Elector's service, and on a mission to his highness the Prince of Savoy. You can keep a secret I know from old times.”
“Captain von Holtz,” says Esmond, “I am your very humble servant.”
“And you, too, have changed your coat,” continues the other, in his laughing way; “I have heard of you at Cambridge and afterwards: we have friends everywhere; and I am told that Mr. Esmond at Cambridge was as good a [pg 268] fencer as he was a bad theologian.” (So, thinks Esmond, my old maitre d'armes was a Jesuit as they said.)
“Perhaps you are right,” says the other, reading his thoughts quite as he used to do in old days: “you were all but killed at Hochstedt of a wound in the left side. You were before that at Vigo, aide de camp to the Duke of Ormonde. You got your company the other day after Ramillies; your general and the prince-duke are not friends; he is of the Webbs of Lydiard Tregoze, in the county of York, a relation of my Lord St. John. Your cousin, Monsieur de Castlewood, served his first campaign this year in the Guard; yes, I do know a few things as you see.”