Note N — LXIII. THE RECONCILIATION.[N]

From "The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., a Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne. Written by himself."

The late Lord Castlewood had been killed in a duel, and young Esmond, who had lived in his house as a dependant (reputed to have been illegitimately related to a former Viscount of Castlewood), devotedly attending him at his death-bed, received from the dying man confession and proof that he, the supposed obscure orphan, was the true inheritor, and in justice ought to have been the possessor, of the Castlewood titles and estates. But Esmond, for the love he had borne his patron, and from devotion to Lady Castlewood, who had much befriended him, immediately destroyed the proofs which were given him of his honorable parentage, and ever afterwards kept his claim a secret. After the duel, while Esmond was in prison, Lady Castlewood visited him, and in the wildness of her grief for her murdered husband, reproached her loyal kinsman for not having saved her lord's life, or avenged his death. In the estrangement which these reproaches occasioned, Esmond sought his fortune abroad in war; but subsequently, desiring to learn of the welfare of his mistress and her family, whose happiness he prized more than his own, he returned to England, and went to Winchester, near which was Walcote, Lady Castlewood's home. The family were attending service in the cathedral, and there the reconciliation took place.—Esmond had formerly been promised the living of Walcote, but the vacancy occurring while the estrangement continued. Lady Castlewood had given it to one Mr. Tusher.