After a time, when he was able to bear motion, they put my lord upon a groom’s horse, and gave the other to Esmond, the men walking on each side of my lord, to support him, if need were, and worthy Doctor Tusher with them.  Little Frank and Harry rode together at a foot pace.

When we rode together home, the boy said:  “We met mamma, who was walking on the terrace with the doctor, and papa frightened her, and told her you were dead . . .”

“That I was dead!” asks Harry.

“Yes.  Papa says:  ‘Here’s poor Harry killed, my dear;’ on which mamma gives a great scream; and oh, Harry! she drops down; and I thought she was dead too.  And you never saw such a way as papa was in:  he swore one of his great oaths:  and he turned quite pale; and then he began to laugh somehow, and he told the Doctor to take his horse, and me to follow him; and we left him.  And I looked back, and saw him dashing water out of the fountain on to mamma.  Oh, she was so frightened!”

Musing upon this curious history—­for my Lord Mohun’s name was Henry too, and they called each other Frank and Harry often—­and not a little disturbed and anxious, Esmond rode home.  His dear lady was on the terrace still, one of her women with her, and my lord no longer there.  There are steps and a little door thence down into the road.  My lord passed, looking very ghastly, with a handkerchief over his head, and without his hat and periwig, which a groom carried, but his politeness did not desert him, and he made a bow to the lady above.

“Thank heaven, you are safe,” she said.

“And so is Harry too, mamma,” says little Frank,—­“huzzay!”

Harry Esmond got off the horse to run to his mistress, as did little Frank, and one of the grooms took charge of the two beasts, while the other, hat and periwig in hand, walked by my lord’s bridle to the front gate, which lay half a mile away.

“Oh, my boy! what a fright you have given me!” Lady Castlewood said, when Harry Esmond came up, greeting him with one of her shining looks, and a voice of tender welcome; and she was so kind as to kiss the young man (’twas the second time she had so honored him), and she walked into the house between him and her son, holding a hand of each.

CHAPTER XIV.

We ride after him to London.

After a repose of a couple of days, the Lord Mohun was so far recovered of his hurt as to be able to announce his departure for the next morning; when, accordingly, he took leave of Castlewood, proposing to ride to London by easy stages, and lie two nights upon the road.  His host treated him with a studied and ceremonious courtesy, certainly different from my lord’s usual frank and careless demeanor; but there was no reason to suppose that the two lords parted otherwise than good friends, though Harry Esmond remarked that my Lord Viscount only saw his guest