"Rachel, you're a good woman!" exclaimed my lord, with an oath, seizing my lady's hand. "I wish you joy!" he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the shoulder. "I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy, and when Tusher dies you shall have the living here, if you are not better provided by that time. We'll furnish the dining-room and buy the horses another year. I'll give thee a nag out of the stables; take any one except my hack and the bay gelding and the coach horses; and God speed thee, my boy!" "Have the sorrel, Harry; 'tis a good one. Father says 'tis the best in the stable," said little Frank, clapping his hands and jumping up. "Let's come and see him in the stable." And Harry Esmond in his delight and eagerness was for leaving the room that instant to arrange about his journey. The Lady Castlewood looked after him with sad penetrating glances. "He wishes to be gone already, my lord," said she to her husband. The young man hung back abashed. "Indeed, I would stay forever if your ladyship bade me," he said. "And thou wouldst be a fool for thy pains," said my lord. "Tut, tut, man. Go and see the world. Sow thy wild oats; and take the best luck that fate sends thee. I wish I were a boy again, that I might go to college and taste the Thumpington ale." "Indeed, you are best away," said my lady, laughing, as she put her hand on the boy's head for a moment. "You shall stay in no such dull place. You shall go to college and distinguish yourself as becomes your name. That is how you shall please me best; and--and if my children want you, or I want you, you shall come to us; and I know we may count on you." "May Heaven forsake me if you may not!" Harry said, getting up from his knee. "And my knight longs for a dragon this instant that he may fight," said my lady, laughing; which speech made Harry Esmond start, and turn red; for indeed the very thought was in his mind, that he would like that some chance should immediately happen whereby he might show his devotion. And it pleased him to think that his lady had called him "her knight," and often and often he recalled this to his mind, and prayed that he might be her true knight, too. My lady's bed-chamber window looked out over the country, and you could see from it the purple hills beyond Castlewood village, the green common betwixt that and the Hall, and the old bridge which crossed over the river. When Harry Esmond went away to Cambridge, little Frank ran alongside his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a moment, and looked back at the house where the best part of his life had been passed.