The horses were by this time harnessed to the coach; and my Lady Isabella was consigned to that vehicle and sent off to Hexton, with her woman and the man-of-law to bear her company, a couple of troopers riding on either side of the coach. And Harry was left behind at the Hall, belonging, as it were, to nobody, and quite alone in the world. The Captain and a guard of men remained in possession there; and the soldiers, who were very good-natured and kind, ate my lord's mutton and drank his wine, and made themselves comfortable, as they well might do in such pleasant quarters. After the departure of the countess, Dick the Scholar took Harry Esmond under his special protection, and would talk to him both of French and Latin, in which tongues the lad found that he was even more proficient than Scholar Dick. Hearing that he had learned them from a Jesuit, in the praise of whom and whose goodness Harry was never tired of speaking, Dick, rather to the boy's surprise, showed a great deal of theological science, and knowledge of the points at issue between the Catholic and Protestant churches; so that he and Harry would have hours of controversy together, with which conversations the long days of the trooper's stay at Castlewood were whiled away. Though the other troopers were all gentlemen, they seemed ignorant and vulgar to Harry Esmond, with the exception of this good-natured Corporal Steele, Scholar, although Captain Westbury and Lieutenant Trant were always kind to the lad. They remained for some months at Castlewood, and Harry learned from them, from time to time, how Lady Isabella was being treated at Hexton Castle, and the particulars of her confinement there. King William was disposed to deal very leniently with the gentry who remained faithful to the old king's cause; and no Prince usurping a crown as his enemies said he did, ever caused less blood to be shed. As for women-conspirators, he kept spies on the least dangerous, and locked up the others. Lady Castlewood had the best rooms in Hexton Castle, and the gaoler's garden to walk in; and though she repeatedly desired to be led out to execution like Mary Queen of Scots, there never was any thought of taking her painted old head off. She even found that some were friends in her misfortune, whom she had, in her prosperity, considered as her worst enemies. Colonel Francis Esmond, my lord's cousin and her ladyship's hearing of his kinswoman's scrape, came to visit her in prison, offering any friendly services which lay in his power. He brought, too, his lady and little daughter, Beatrix, the latter a child of great beauty and many winning ways, to whom the old viscountess took not a little liking, and who was permitted after that to go often and visit the prisoner.