“'Tis arranged thus: I sent off a courier to Jack Westbury to say that I wanted him specially. He knows for what, and will be here presently, and drink part of that bottle of sack. Then we shall go to the theatre in Duke Street, where we shall meet Mohun; and then we shall all go sup at the ‘Rose’ or the ‘Greyhound’. Then we shall call for cards, and there will be probably a difference over the cards—and then, God help us!—either a wicked villain and traitor shall go out of the world, or a poor worthless devil, that doesn't care to remain in it. I am better away, Hal—my wife will be all the happier when I am gone,” says my lord, with a groan, that tore the heart of Harry Esmond so that he fairly broke into a sob over his patron's kind hand.
“The business was talked over with Mohun before he left home—Castlewood I mean”—my lord went on. “I took the letter in to him, which I had read, and I charged him with his villany, and he could make no denial of it, only he said that my wife was innocent.”
“And so she is; before Heaven, my lord, she is!” cries Harry.
“No doubt, no doubt. They always are,” says my lord. “No doubt, when she heard he was killed, she fainted from accident.”
“But, my lord, my name is Harry,” cried out Esmond, burning red. “You told my lady, ‘Harry was killed!’ ”
“Damnation! shall I fight you too?” shouts my lord, in a fury. “Are you, you little serpent, warmed by my fire, going to sting—you?—No, my boy, you're an honest boy; you are a good boy.” (And here he broke from rage into tears even more cruel to see.) “You are an honest boy, and I love you; and, by Heavens, I am so wretched that I don't care what sword it is that ends me. Stop, here's Jack Westbury. Well, Jack! Welcome, old boy! This is my kinsman, Harry Esmond.”
“Who brought your bowls for you at Castlewood, sir,” says Harry, bowing; and the three gentlemen sat down and drank of that bottle of sack which was prepared for them.
“Harry is number three,” says my lord. “You needn't be afraid of him, Jack.” And the colonel gave a look, as much as to say, “Indeed, he don't look as if I need.” And then my lord explained what he had only told by hints before. When he quarrelled with Lord Mohun he was indebted to his lordship in a sum of sixteen hundred pounds, for which Lord Mohun said he proposed to wait until my lord viscount should pay him. My lord had raised the sixteen hundred pounds and sent them to Lord Mohun that morning, and before quitting home had put his affairs into order, and was now quite ready to abide the issue of the quarrel.
When we had drunk a couple of bottles of sack, a coach was called, and the three gentlemen went to the Duke's Playhouse, as agreed. The play was one of Mr. Wycherley's—Love in a Wood.
Harry Esmond has thought of that play ever since with a kind of terror, and of Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress who performed the girl's part in the comedy. She was disguised as a page, and came and stood before the gentlemen as they sat on the stage, and looked over her shoulder with a pair of arch black eyes, and laughed at my lord, and asked what ailed the gentlemen from the country, and had he had bad news from Bullock Fair?