Thaddeus of Warsaw. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ passion; and lastly, I believe that I was dazzled by the picture which the young men about me drew of the campaign. I longed to be a soldier; they persuaded me; and I followed them to the field as I would have done to a ballroom, heedless of the consequences."

      "Yet," replied Thaddeus, smiling, "from the intrepidity with which you maintained your ground, when your arms were demanded, any one might have thought that your whole soul, as well as your body, was engaged in the cause."

      "To be sure," returned Somerset, "I was a blockhead to be there; but when there, I should have despised myself forever had I given up my honor to the ruffians who would have wrested my sword from me! But when you came, noble Sobieski, it was the fate of war, and I confided myself to a brave man."

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      THE BANKS OF THE VISTULA.

      Each succeeding morning not only brought fresh symptoms of recovery to the two invalids, but condensed the mutual admiration of the young men into a solid and ardent esteem.

      It is not the disposition of youthful minds to weigh for months and years the sterling value of those qualities which attract them. As soon as they see virtue, they respect it; as soon as they meet kindness, they believe it: and as soon as a union of both presents itself, they love it. Not having passed through the disappointments of a delusive world, they grasp for reality every pageant which appears. They have not yet admitted that cruel doctrine which, when it takes effect, creates and extends the misery it affects to cure. Whilst we give up our souls to suspicion, we gradually learn to deceive; whilst we repress the fervors of our own hearts, we freeze those which approach us; whilst we cautiously avoid occasions of receiving pain, at every remove we acquire an unconscious influence to inflict it on those who follow us. They, again, meet from our conduct and lips the lesson that destroys the expanding sensibilities of their nature; and thus the tormenting chain of deceived and deceiving characters may be lengthened to infinitude.

      About the latter end of the month, Sobieski received a summons to court, where a diet was to be held on the effect of the victory at Zielime, to consider of future proceedings. In the same packet his majesty enclosed a collar and investiture of the order of St. Stanislaus, as an acknowledgment of service to the young Thaddeus; and he accompanied it with a note from himself, expressing his commands that the young knight should return with the palatine and other generals, to receive thanks from the throne.

      Thaddeus, half wild with delight at the thoughts of so soon meeting his mother, ran to the tent of his British friend to communicate the tidings. Somerset participated in his pleasure, and with reciprocal warmth accepted the invitation to accompany him to Villanow.

      "I would follow you, my friend," said he, pressing the hand of

       Thaddeus, "all over the world."

      "Then I will take you to the most charming spot in it?" cried he. "Villanow is an Eden; and my mother, the dear angel, would make a desert so to me."

      "You speak so rapturously of your enchanted castle, Thaddeus," returned his friend, "I believe I shall consider my knight-errantry, in being fool enough to trust myself amidst a fray in which I had no business, as one of the wisest acts of my life!"

      "I consider it," replied Thaddeus, "as one of the most auspicious events in mine."

      Before the palatine quitted the camp, Somerset thought it proper to acquaint Mr. Loftus, who was yet at St. Petersburg, of the particulars of his late danger, and that he was going to Warsaw with his new friends, where he should remain for several weeks. He added, that as the court of Poland, through the intercession of the palatine, had generously given him his liberty, he should be able to see everything in that country worthy of investigation, and that he would write to him again, enclosing letters for England, soon after his arrival at the Polish capital.

      The weather continuing fine, in a few days the party left Zielime; and the palatine and Somerset, being so far restored from their wounds that they could walk, the one with a crutch and the other by the support of his friend's arm, they went through the journey with animation and pleasure. The benign wisdom of Sobieski, the intelligent enthusiasm of Thaddeus, and the playful vivacity of Somerset, mingling their different natures, produced such a beautiful union, that the minutes flew fast as their wishes. A week more carried them into the palatinate of Masovia, and soon afterwards within the walls of Villanow.

      Everything that presented itself to Mr. Somerset was new and fascinating. He saw in the domestic felicity of his friend scenes which reminded him of the social harmony of his own home. He beheld in the palace and retinue of Sobieski all the magnificence which bespoke the descendant of a great king, and a power which wanted nothing of royal grandeur but the crown, which he had the magnanimity to think and to declare was then placed upon a more worthy brow. Whilst Somerset venerated this true patriot, the high tone his mind acquired was not lowered by associating with characters nearer the common standard. The friends of Sobieski were men of tried probity—men who at all times preferred their country's welfare before their own peculiar interest. Mr. Somerset day after day listened with deep attention to these virtuous and energetic noblemen. He saw them full of fire and personal courage when the affairs of Poland were discussed; and he beheld with admiration their perfect forgetfulness of themselves in their passion for the general good. In these moments his heart bowed down before them, and all the pride of a Briton distended his breast when he thought that such men as these his ancestors were. He remembered how often their chivalric virtues used to occupy his reflections in the picture-gallery at Somerset Castle, and his doubts, when he compared what is with what was, that history had glossed over the actions of past centuries, or that a different order of men lived then from those which now inhabit the world. Thus, studying the sublime characters of Sobieski and his friends, and enjoying the endearing kindness of Thaddeus and his mother, did a fortnight pass away without his even recollecting the promise of writing to his governor. At the end of that period, he stole an hour from the countess's society, and enclosed in a short letter to Mr. Loftus the following epistle to his mother:—

      To LADY SOMERSET, SOMERSET CASTLE, LEICESTERSHIRE.

      "Many weeks ago, my dearest mother, I wrote a letter of seven sheets from the banks of the Neva, which, long ere this time, you and my dear father must have received. I attempted to give you some idea of the manners of Russia, and my vanity whispers that I succeeded tolerably well. The court of the famous Catharine and the attentions of the hospitable Count Brinicki were then the subjects of my pen.

      "But how shall I account for my being here? How shall I allay your surprise and displeasure on seeing that this letter is dated from Warsaw? I know that I have acted against the wish of my father in visiting one of the countries he proscribes. I know that I have disobeyed your commands in ever having at any period of my life taken up arms without an indispensable necessity; and I have nothing to allege in my defence. I fell in the way of temptation, and I yielded to it. I really cannot enumerate all the things which induced me to volunteer with my Russian friends; suffice it to say that I did so, and that we were defeated by the Poles at Zielime; and as Heaven has rather rewarded your prayers than punished my imprudence, I trust you will do the same, and pardon an indiscretion I vow never to repeat.

      "Notwithstanding all this, I must have lost my life through my folly, had I not been preserved, even in the moment when death was pending over me, by a young officer with whose family I now am. The very sound of their title will create your respect; for we of the patrician order have a strange tenacity in our belief that virtue is hereditary, and in this instance our creed is duly honored. Their patronymic is Sobieski; the family which bears it is the only remaining posterity СКАЧАТЬ