Thaddeus of Warsaw Part 13

"William! William!" cried his sister, pulling him by the arm, "the gentleman will not hurt you."

The boy again lifted up his head. Thaddeus threw back his long sable cloak, and taking off his cap, whose hea.r.s.e-like plumes he thought might have terrified the child, he laid it on the ground, and again stretching forth his arms, called the boy to approach him. Little William now looked steadfastly in his face, and then on the cap, which he had laid beside him; whilst he grasped his grandmother's ap.r.o.n with one hand, he held out the other, half a.s.sured, towards the count. Thaddeus took it, and pressing it softly, pulled him gently to him, and placed him on his knee. "My little fellow," said he, kissing him, "you are not frightened now?"

"No," said the child; "I see you are not the ugly black man who takes away naughty boys. The ugly black man has a black face, and snakes on his head; but these are pretty curls!" added he, laughing, and putting his little fingers through the thick auburn hair which hung in neglected ma.s.ses over the forehead of the count.

"I am ashamed that your honor should sit in a kitchen," said the old lady; "but I have not a fire in any other room."

"Yes," said her granddaughter, who was about twelve years old; "grandmother has a nice first-floor up stairs, but because we have no lodgers, there be no fire there."

"Be silent, Nanny Robson," said the dame; "your pertness teases the gentleman."

"O, not at all," cried Thaddeus; "I ought to thank her, for she informs me you have lodgings to let; will you allow me to engage them!"

"You, sir!" cried Mrs. Robson, thunderstruck; "for what purpose?

Surely so n.o.ble a gentleman would not live in such a place as this?"

"I would, Mrs. Robson: I know not where I could live with more comfort; and where comfort is, my good madam, what signifies the costliness or plainness of the dwelling?"

"Well, sir, if you be indeed serious; but I cannot think you are; you are certainly making a joke of me for my boldness in asking you into my poor house."

"Upon my honor, I am not, Mrs. Robson. I will gladly be your lodger if you will admit me; and to convince you that I am in earnest, my portmanteau shall this moment be brought here."

"Well, sir," resumed she, "I shall be honored in having you in my house; but I have no room for any one but yourself, not even for a servant."

"I have no servant."

"Then I will wait on him, grandmother," cried the little Nanny; "do let the gentleman have them; I am sure he looks honest."

The woman colored at this last observation of the child, and proceeded:

"Then, sir, if you should not disdain the rooms when you see them, I shall be too happy in having so good a gentleman under my roof.

Pardon my boldness, sir; but may I ask? I think by your dress you are a foreigner?"

"I am," replied Thaddeus, the radiance which played over his features contracting into a glow; "if you have no objection to take a stranger within your doors, from this hour I shall consider your house my home?"

"As your honor pleases," said Mrs. Robson; "my terms are half-a- guinea a week; and I will tend on you as though you were my own son!

for I cannot forget, excellent young gentleman, the way in which we first met."

"Then I will leave you for the present;" returned he, rising, and putting down the little William, who had been amusing himself with examining the silver points of the star of St. Stanislaus which the count wore on his breast. "In the meanwhile," said he, "my pretty friend," stooping to the child, "let this bit of silver," was just mounting to his tongue, as he put his hand into his pocket to take out half-a-crown; but he recollected that his necessities would no longer admit of such gifts, and drawing his hand back with a deep and bitter sigh, he touched the boy's cheek with his lips, and added, "let this kiss remind you of your new friend."

This was the first time the generous spirit of Sobieski had been restrained; and he suffered a pang, for the poignancy of which he could not account. His had been a life accustomed to acts of munificence. His grandfather's palace was the asylum of the unhappy-- his grandfather's purse a treasury for the unfortunate. The soul of Thaddeus did not degenerate from his n.o.ble relative: his generosity, begun in inclination, was nurtured by reflection, and strengthened with a daily exercise which had rendered it a habit of his nature.

Want never appeared before him without exciting a sympathetic emotion in his heart, which never rested until he had administered every comfort in the power of wealth to bestow. His compa.s.sion and his purse were the substance and shadow of each other. The poor of his country thronged from every part of the kingdom to receive pity and relief at his hands. With those houseless wanderers he peopled the new villages his grandfather had erected in the midst of lands which in former times were the haunts of wild beasts. Thaddeus partic.i.p.ated in the happiness of his grateful tenants, and many were the old men whose eyes he had closed in thankfulness and peace. These honest peasants, even in their dying moments, wished to give up that life in his arms which he had rescued from misery. He visited their cottage; he smoothed their pillow; he joined in their prayers; and when their last sigh came to his ear, he raised the weeping family from the dust, and cheered them with pious exhortations and his kindest a.s.surances of protection. How often has the countess clasped her beloved son to her breast, when, after a scene like this, he has returned home, the tears of the dying man and his children yet wet upon his hand! how often has she strained him to her heart, whilst floods of rapture have poured from her own eyes! Heir to the first fortune in Poland, he scarcely knew the means by which he bestowed all these benefits; and with a soul as bounteous to others as Heaven had been munificent to him, wherever he moved he shed smiles and gifts around him. How frequently he had said to the palatine, when his carriage-wheels were chased by the thankful mult.i.tude, "O my father! how can I ever be sufficiently grateful to G.o.d for the happiness he hath allotted to me in making me the dispenser of so many blessings! The grat.i.tude of these people overpowers and humbles me in my own eyes; what have I done to be so eminently favored of Heaven? I tremble when I ask myself the question." "You may tremble, my dear boy," replied his grandfather, "for indeed the trial is a severe one. Prosperity, like adversity, is an ordeal of conduct. Two roads are before the rich man--vanity or virtue; you have chosen the latter, and the best; and may Heaven ever hold you in it! May Heaven ever keep your heart generous and pure! Go on, my dear Thaddeus, as you have commenced, and you will find that your Creator hath bestowed wealth upon you not for what you have done, but as the means of evincing how well you would prove yourself his faithful steward."

This _was_ the fortune of Thaddeus; and _now_, he who had scattered thousands without counting them drew back his hand with something like horror at his own injustice, when he was going to give away one little piece of silver, which he might want in a day or two, to defray some indispensible debt.

"Mrs. Robson," said he, as he replaced his cap upon his head, "I shall return before it is dark."

"Very well, sir," and opening the door, he went out into the lane.

Ignorant of the town, and thanking Providence for having prepared him an asylum, he directed his course towards Charing Cross. He looked about him with deepened sadness; the wet and plashy state of the streets gave to every object so comfortless an appearance, he could scarcely believe himself to be in that London of which he had read with so much delight. Where were the magnificent buildings he expected to see in the emporium of the world? Where that cleanliness, and those tokens of greatness and splendor, which had been the admiration and boast of travellers? He could nowhere discover them; all seemed parts of a dark, gloomy, common-looking city.

Hardly heeding whither he went, he approached the Horse-Guards; a view of the Park, as it appears through the wide porch, promised him less unpleasantness than the dirty pavement, and he turned in, taking his way along the Bird-Cage Walk. [Footnote: The young readers of these few preceding pages will not recognize this description of St.

Martin's Lane, Charing Cross, and St. James's Park, in 1794, in what they now see there in 1844. St. Martin's n.o.ble church was then the centre of the east side of a long, narrow, and somewhat dirty lane of mean houses, particularly in the end below the church. Charing Cross, with its adjoining streets, showed nothing better than plain tradesmen's shops; and it was not till we saw the Admiralty, and entered the Horse-Guards, that anything presented itself worthy the great name of London. The Park is almost completely altered. The lower part of the lane has totally disappeared; also its adjunct, the King's Mews, where now stands the royal National Gallery, while the church of St. Martin's rears its majestic portico and spire, no longer obscured by its former adjacent common buildings; and the grand naval pillar lately erected to the memory of Britain's hero, Nelson, occupies the centre of the new quadrangle now called Trafalgar Square.]

The trees, stripped of their leaves, stood naked, and dripping with melten snow. The season was in unison with the count's fate. He was taking the bitter wind for his repast, and quenching his thirst with the rain that fell on his pale and feverish lips. He felt the cutting blast enter his soul, and shutting his eyelids to repel the tears which were rising from his heart, he walked faster; but in spite of himself, their drops mingled with the wet that trickled from his cap upon his face. One melancholy thought introduced another, until his bewildered mind lived over again, in memory, every calamity which had reduced him from happiness to all this lonely misery. Two or three heavy convulsive sighs followed these reflections; and quickening his pace, he walked several times quite round the Park. The rain ceased.

But not marking time, and hardly observing the people who pa.s.sed, he threw himself down upon one of the benches, and sat in a musing posture, with his eyes fixed on the opposite tree.

A sound of voices approaching roused him. Turning his eyes, he saw the speakers were two young men, and by their dress he judged they must belong to the regiment of a sentinel who was patrolling at the end of the Mall.

"By heavens! Barrington," cried one, "it is the best shaped boot I ever beheld! I have a good mind to ask him whether it be English make."

"And if it be," replied the other, "you must ask him who shaped his legs, that you may send yours to be mended."

"Who the devil can see my legs through that boot?"

"Oh, if to veil them be your reason, pray ask him immediately."

"And so I will, for I think the boot perfection."

At these words, he was making towards Sobieski with two or three long strides, when his companion pulled him back.

"Surely, Harwold, you will not be so ridiculous? He appears to be a foreigner of rank, and may take offence, and give you the length of his foot!"

"Curse him and rank too; he is some paltry emigrant, I warrant! I care nothing about his foot or his legs, but I should like to know who made his boots!"

While he spoke he would have dragged his companion along with him, but Barrington broke from his arm; and the fool, who now thought himself dared to it, strode up close to the chair, and bowed to Thaddeus, who (hardly crediting that he could be the subject of this dialogue) returned the salutation with a cold bend of his head.

Harwold looked a little confounded at this haughty demeanor; and, once in his life, blus.h.i.+ng at his own insolence, he roared out, as if in defiance of shame.

"Pray, sir, where did you get your boots?"

"Where I got my sword, sir," replied Thaddeus, calmly; and rising from his seat, he darted his eyes disdainfully on the c.o.xcomb, and walked slowly down the Mall. Surprised and shocked at such behavior in a British officer, while he moved away he distinctly heard Barrington laughing aloud, and ridiculing the astonished and set-down air of his impudent a.s.sociate.

This incident did not so much ruffle the temper of Thaddeus as it amazed and perplexed him.

"Is this a specimen," though he, "of a nation which on the Continent is venerated for courage, manliness, and generosity? Well, I find I have much to learn. I must go through the ills of life to estimate myself thoroughly; and I must study mankind in themselves, and not in reports of them, to have a true knowledge of what they are."

This strange rencontre was of service to him, by diverting his mind from the intense contemplation of his situation; and as the dusk drew on, he turned his steps towards the Hummums.

On entering the coffee-room, he was met by the obsequious Jenkins, who, being told by Thaddeus that he wanted his baggage and a carnage, went for the things himself, and sent a boy for a coach.

A man dressed in black was standing by the chimney, and seemed to be eyeing Thaddeus, as he walked up and down the room, with great attention. Just as he had taken another turn, and so drew nearer the fireplace, this person accosted him rather abruptly--

"Pray, sir, is there any news stirring abroad? You seem, sir, to come from abroad."

"None that I know of, sir."

"Bless me, that's strange! I thought, sir, you came from abroad, sir; from the Continent, from Poland, sir? at least the waiter said so, sir."