Nothing could have more seasonably happened to confirm the good opinion
which the colonel entertained of Ferdinand's principles. His intentions
towards the boy grew every day more and more warm; and, immediately after
the peace of Passarowitz, he retired to his own house at Presburg, and
presented young Fathom to his lady, not only as the son of a person to
whom he owed his life, but also as a lad who merited his peculiar
protection and regard by his own personal virtue. The Countess, who was
an Hungarian, received him with great kindness and affability, and her
son was ravished with the prospect of enjoying such a companion. In
short, fortune seemed to have provided for him an asylum, in which he
might be safely trained up, and suitably prepared for more important
scenes of life than any of his ancestors had ever known.
He was not, in all respects, entertained on the footing of his young
master; yet he shared in all his education and amusements, as one whom
the old gentleman was fully determined to qualify for the station of an
officer in the service; and, if he did not eat with the Count, he was
every day regaled with choice bits from his table; holding, as it were, a
middle place between the rank of a relation and favourite domestic.
Although his patron maintained a tutor in the house, to superintend the
conduct of his heir, he committed the charge of his learning to the
instructions of a public school; where he imagined the boy would imbibe a
laudable spirit of emulation among his fellows, which could not fail of
turning out to the advantage of his education. Ferdinand was entered in
the same academy; and the two lads proceeded equally in the paths of
erudition; a mutual friendship and intimacy soon ensued, and,
notwithstanding the levity and caprice commonly discernible in the
behaviour of such boys, very few or rather no quarrels happened in the
course of their communication. Yet their dispositions were altogether
different, and their talents unlike. Nay, this dissimilarity was the
very bond of their union; because it prevented that jealousy and
rivalship which often interrupts the harmony of two warm contemporaries.
The young Count made extraordinary progress in the exercises of the
school, though he seemed to take very little pains in the cultivation of
his studies; and became a perfect hero in all the athletic diversions of
his fellow-scholars; but, at the same time, exhibited such a bashful
appearance and uncouth address, that his mother despaired of ever seeing
him improved into any degree of polite behaviour. On the other hand,
Fathom, who was in point of learning a mere dunce, became, even in his
childhood, remarkable among the ladies for his genteel deportment and
vivacity; they admired the proficiency he made under the directions of
his dancing-master, the air with which he performed his obeisance at his
entrance and exit; and were charmed with the agreeable assurance and
lively sallies of his conversation; while they expressed the utmost
concern and disgust at the boorish demeanour of his companion, whose
extorted bows resembled the pawings of a mule, who hung his head in
silence like a detected sheep-stealer, who sat in company under the most
awkward expressions of constraint, and whose discourse never exceeded the
simple monosyllables of negation and assent.
In vain did all the females of the family propose to him young Fathom, as
a pattern and reproach. He remained unaltered by all their efforts and
expostulations, and allowed our adventurer to enjoy the triumph of his
praise, while he himself was conscious of his own superiority in those
qualifications which seemed of more real importance than the mere
exteriors and forms of life. His present ambition was not to make a
figure at his father's table, but to eclipse his rivals at school, and to
acquire an influence and authority among these confederates.
Nevertheless, Fathom might possibly have fallen under his displeasure or
contempt, had not that pliant genius found means to retain his friendship
by seasonable compliances and submission; for the sole study, or at least
the chief aim of Ferdinand, was to make himself necessary and agreeable
to those on whom his dependence was placed. His talent was in this
particular suited to his inclination; he seemed to have inherited it from
his mother's womb; and, without all doubt, would have raised upon it a
most admirable superstructure of fortune and applause, had not it been
inseparably yoked with a most insidious principle of self-love, that grew
up with him from the cradle, and left no room in his heart for the least
particle of social virtue. This last, however, he knew so well how to
counterfeit, by means of a large share of ductility and dissimulation,
that, surely, he was calculated by nature to dupe even the most cautious,
and gratify his appetites, by levying contributions on all mankind.
So little are the common instructors of youth qualified to judge the
capacities of those who are under their tutelage and care, that Fathom,
by dint of his insinuating arts, made shift to pass upon the schoolmaster
as a lad of quick parts, in despite of a natural inaptitude to retain his
lessons, which all his industry could never overcome. In order to
remedy, or rather to cloak this defect in his understanding, he had
always recourse to the friendship of the young Count, who freely
permitted him to transcribe his exercises, until a small accident
happened, which had well-nigh put a stop to these instances of his
generosity.--The adventure, inconsiderable as it is, we shall record, as
the first overt act of Ferdinand's true character, as well as an
illustration of the opinion we have advanced touching the blind and
injudicious decisions of a right pedagogue.
Among other tasks imposed by the pedant upon the form to which our two
companions belonged, they were one evening ordered to translate a chapter
of Caesar's Commentaries. Accordingly the young Count went to work, and
performed the undertaking with great elegance and despatch. Fathom,
having spent the night in more effeminate amusements, was next morning so
much hurried for want of time, that in his transcription he neglected to
insert a few variations from the text, these being the terms on which he
was allowed to use it; so that it was verbatim a copy of the original.
As those exercises were always delivered in a heap, subscribed with the
several names of the boys to whom they belonged, the schoolmaster chanced
to peruse the version of Ferdinand, before he looked into any of the
rest, and could not help bestowing upon it particular marks of
approbation. The next that fell under his examination was that of the
young Count, when he immediately perceived the sameness, and, far from
imputing it to the true cause, upbraided him with having copied the
exercise of our adventurer, and insisted upon chastising him upon the
spot for his want of application.
Had not the young gentleman thought his honour was concerned, he would
have submitted to the punishment without murmuring; but he inherited,
from his parents, the pride of two fierce nations, and, being overwhelmed
with reproaches for that which he imagined ought to have redounded to his
glory, he could not brook the indignity, and boldly affirmed, that he
himself was the original, to whom Ferdinand was beholden for his
performance. The schoolmaster, nettled to find himself mistaken in his
judgment, resolved that the Count should have no cause to exult in the
discovery he had made, and, like a true flogger, actually whipped him for
having allowed Fathom to copy his exercise. Nay, in the hope of
vindicating his own penetration, he took an opportunity of questioning
Ferdinand in private concerning the circumstances of the translation, and
our hero, perceiving his drift, gave him such artful and ambiguous
answers, as persuaded him that the young Count had acted the part of a
plagiary, and that the other had been restrained from doing himself
justice, by the consideration of his own dependence.
This profound director did not fail, in honour of his own discernment, to
whisper about the misrepresentation, as an instance of the young Count's
insolence, and Fathom's humility and good sense. The story was
circulated among the servants, especially the maids belonging to the
family, whose favour our hero had acquired by his engaging behaviour; and
at length it reached the ears of his patron, who, incensed at his son's
presumption and inhospitality, called him to a severe account, when the
young gentleman absolutely denied the truth of the allegation, and
appealed to the evidence of Fathom himself. Our adventurer was
accordingly summoned by the father, and encouraged to declare the truth,
with an assurance of his constant protection; upon which Ferdinand very
wisely fell upon his knees, and, while the tears gushed from his eyes,
acquitted the young Count of the imputation, and expressed his
apprehension, that the report had been spread by some of his enemies, who
wanted to prejudice him in the opinion of his patron.
The old gentleman was not satisfied of his son's integrity by this
declaration; being naturally of a generous disposition, highly
prepossessed in favour of the poor orphan, and chagrined at the
unpromising appearance of his heir, he suspected that Fathom was overawed
by the fear of giving offence, and that, notwithstanding what he had
said, the case really stood as it had been represented. In this
persuasion, he earnestly exhorted his son to resist and combat with any
impulse he might feel within himself, tending to selfishness, fraud, or
imposition; to encourage every sentiment of candour and benevolence, and
to behave with moderation and affability to all his fellow-creatures. He
laid upon him strong injunctions, not without a mixture of threats, to
consider Fathom as the object of his peculiar regard; to respect him as
the son of the Count's preserver, as a Briton, a stranger, and, above
all, an helpless orphan, to whom the rights of hospitality were doubly
due.
Such admonitions were not lost upon the youth, who, under the rough husk
of his personal exhibition, possessed a large share of generous
sensibility. Without any formal professions to his father, he resolved
to govern himself according to his remonstrances; and, far from
conceiving the least spark of animosity against Fathom, he looked upon
the poor boy as the innocent cause of his disgrace, and redoubled his
kindness towards him, that his honour might never again be called
in question, upon the same subject. Nothing is more liable to
misconstruction than an act of uncommon generosity; one half of the world
mistake the motive, from want of ideas to conceive an instance of
beneficence that soars so high above the level of their own sentiments;
and the rest suspect it of something sinister or selfish, from the
suggestions of their own sordid and vicious inclinations. The young
Count subjected himself to such misinterpretation, among those who
observed the increased warmth of civility and complaisance in his
behaviour to Ferdinand. They ascribed it to his desire of still
profiting by our adventurer's superior talents, by which alone they
supposed him enabled to maintain any degree of reputation at school; or
to the fear of being convicted by him of some misdemeanour of which he
knew himself guilty. These suspicions were not effaced by the conduct of
Ferdinand, who, when examined on the subject, managed his answers in such
a manner, as confirmed their conjectures, while he pretended to refute
them, and at the same time acquired to himself credit for his
extraordinary discretion and self-denial.
If he exhibited such a proof of sagacity in the twelfth year of his age,
what might not be expected from his finesse in the maturity of his
faculties and experience? Thus secured in the good graces of the whole
family, he saw the days of his puerility glide along in the most
agreeable elapse of caresses and amusement. He never fairly plunged into
the stream of school-education, but, by floating on the surface, imbibed
a small tincture of those different sciences which his master pretended
to teach. In short, he resembled those vagrant swallows that skim along
the level of some pool or river, without venturing to wet one feather in
their wings, except in the accidental pursuit of an inconsiderable fly.
Yet, though his capacity or inclination was unsuited for studies of this
kind, he did not fail to manifest a perfect genius in the acquisition of
other more profitable arts. Over and above the accomplishments of
address, for which he hath been already celebrated, he excelled all his
fellows in his dexterity at fives and billiards; was altogether
unrivalled in his skill at draughts and backgammon; began, even at these
years, to understand the moves and schemes of chess; and made himself a
mere adept in the mystery of cards, which he learned in the course of his
assiduities and attention to the females of the house.