THE EXILE'S LODGINGS.
Meanwhile the homeless Sobieski was cordially received by his humble
landlady. He certainly never stood in more need of kindness. A slow
fever, which had been gradually creeping over him since he quitted
Poland, soon settled on his nerves, and reduced him to such weakness,
that he possessed neither strength nor spirits to stir abroad.
Mrs. Robson was sincerely grieved at this illness of her guest. Her
own son, the father of the orphans she protected, had died of
consumption, and any appearance of that cruel disorder was a certain
call upon her compassion.
Thaddeus gave himself up to her management. He had no money for
medical assistance, and to please her he took what little medicines
she prepared. According to her advice, he remained for several days
shut up in his chamber, with a large fire, and the shutters closed,
to exclude the smallest portion of that air which the good woman
thought had already stricken him with death.
But all would not do; her patient became worse and worse. Frightened
at the symptoms, Mrs. Robson begged leave to send for the kind
apothecary who had attended her deceased son. In this instance only
she found the count obstinate, no arguments, nor even tears, could
move him to assent. When she stood weeping, and holding his burning
hand, his answer was constantly the same.
"My excellent Mrs. Robson, do not grieve on my account; I am not in
the danger you think; I shall do very well with your assistance."
"No, no; I see death in your eyes. Can I feel this hand and see that
hectic cheek without beholding your grave, as it were, opening before
me?"
She was not much mistaken; for during the night after this debate
Thaddeus grew so delirious that, no longer able to subdue her
terrors, she sent for the apothecary to come instantly to her house.
"Oh, doctor!" cried she, while he ascended the stairs, "I have the
best young gentleman ever the sun shone on dying in that room! He
would not let me send for you; and now he is raving like a mad
creature."
Mr. Vincent entered the count's humble apartment, and undrew the
curtains of the bed. Exhausted by delirium, Thaddeus had sunk
senseless on his pillow. At this sight, supposing him dead, Mrs.
Robson uttered a shriek, which was echoed by the cries of the little
William, who stood near his grandmother.
"Hush! my good woman," said the doctor; "the gentleman is not dead.
Leave the room till you have recovered yourself, and I will engage
that you shall see him alive when you return."
Blessing these words she quitted the room with her grandson.
On entering the chamber, Mr. Vincent had felt that its hot and
stifling atmosphere must augment the fever of his patient; and before
he attempted to disturb him from the temporary rest of insensibility,
he opened the window-shutters and also the room-door wide enough to
admit the air from the adjoining apartment. Pulling the heavy clothes
from the count's bosom he raised his head on his arm and poured some
drops into his mouth. Sobieski opened his eyes and uttered a few
incoherent words; but he did not rave, he only wandered, and appeared
to know that he did so, for he several times stopped in the midst of
some confused speech, and laying his hand on his forehead, strove to
recollect himself.
Mrs. Robson soon after re-entered the room, and wept out her thanks
to the apothecary, whom she revered as almost a worker of miracles.
"I must bleed him, Mrs. Robson," continued he; "and for that purpose
shall go home for my assistant and lancets; but in the meanwhile I
charge you to let every thing remain in the state I have left it. The
heat alone would have given a fever to a man in health."
When the apothecary returned, he saw that his commands had been
strictly obeyed; and finding that the change of atmosphere had
wrought the expected alteration in his patient, he took his arm
without difficulty and bled him. At the end of the operation Thaddeus
again fainted.
"Poor gentleman!" cried Mr. Vincent, binding up the arm. "Look here,
Tom," (pointing to the scars, on the count's shoulder and
breast;) "see what terrible cuts have been here! This has not been
playing at soldiers! Who is your lodger, Mrs. Robson?"
"His name is Constantine, Mr. Vincent; but for Heaven's sake recover
him from that swoon."
Mr. Vincent poured more drops into his mouth; and a minute afterwards
he opened his eyes, divested of their feverish glare, but still dull
and heavy. He spoke to Mrs. Robson by her name, which gave her such
delight, that she caught his hands to her lips and burst again into
tears. The action was so abrupt and violent, that it made him feel
the stiffness of his arm. Casting his eyes towards the surgeon's, he
conjectured what had been his state, and what the consequence.
"Come, Mrs. Robson," said the apothecary, "you must not disturb the
gentleman. How do you find yourself, sir?"
As the deed could not be recalled, Thaddeus thanked the doctor for
the service he had received, and said a few kind and grateful words
to his good hostess.
Mr. Vincent was glad to see so promising an issue to his proceedings,
and soon after retired with his assistant and Mrs. Robson, to give
further directions.
On entering the parlor, she threw herself into a chair and broke into
a paroxysm of lamentations.
"My good woman, what is all this about?" inquired the doctor. "Is not
my patient better?"
"Yes," cried she, drying her eyes; "but the whole scene puts me so in
mind of the last moments of my poor misguided son, that the very
sight of it goes through my heart like a knife. Oh! had my boy been
as good as that dear gentleman, had he been as well prepared to die,
I think I would scarcely have grieved! Yet Heaven spare Mr.
Constantine. Will he live?"
"I hope so, Mrs. Robson. His fever is high; but he is young, and with
extreme care we may preserve him."
"The Lord grant it!" cried she, "for he is the best gentleman I ever
beheld. He has been above a week with me; and till this night, in
which he lost his senses, though hardly able to breath or see, he has
read out of books which he brought with him; and good books too: for
it was but yesterday morning that I saw the dear soul sitting by the
fire with a book on the table, which he had been studying for an
hour. As I was dusting about, I saw him lay his head down on it, and
put his hand to his temples. 'Alas!, sir,' said I, 'you tease your
brains with these books of learning when you ought to be taking
rest.' No, Mrs. Robson,' returned he, with a sweet smile, 'it is this
book which brings me rest. I may amuse myself with others, but this
alone contains perfect beauty, perfect wisdom, and perfect peace. It
is the only infallible soother of human sorrows.' He closed it, and
put it on the chimney-piece; and when I looked at it afterwards, I
found it was the Bible. Can you wonder that I should love so
excellent a gentleman?"
"You have given a strange account of him," replied Vincent. "I hope
he is not a twaddler; [Footnote: A term of derision, forty years ago,
amongst unthinking persons, when speaking of eminently religious
people.] if so, I shall despair of his cure, and think his delirium
had another cause besides fever."
"I don't understand you, sir. He is a Christian, and as good a
reasonable, sweet-tempered gentleman as ever came into a house. Alas!
I believe he is most likely a papist; though they say papists don't
read the Bible, but worship images."
"Why, what reason have you to suppose that? He's an Englishman, is he
not?"
"No, he is an emigrant."
"An emigrant! Oh, ho!" cried Mr. Vincent, with a contemptuous twirl
of his lip. "What, a poor Frenchman! Good Lord! how this town is
overrun with these fellows!"
"No, doctor," exclaimed Mrs. Robson, greatly hurt at this scorn to
her lodger, whom she really loved; "whatever he be, he is not poor,
for he has a power of fine things; he has got a watch all over
diamonds, and diamond rings, and diamond pictures without number. So,
doctor, you need not fear you are attending him for charity; no, I
would sell my gown first."
"Nay, don't be offended, Mrs. Robson; I meant no offence," returned
he, much mollified by this explanation; "but, really, when we see the
bread that should feed our children and our own poor eaten up by a
parcel of lazy French drones--all _Sans Culottes_ [The democratic
rabble were commonly so called at that early period of the French
Revolution; and certainly some of their demagogues did cross the
Channel at times, counterfeiting themselves to be loyal emigrants,
while assiduously disseminating their destructive principles wherever
they could find an entrance.] in disguise, for aught we know, who
cover our land, and destroy its produce like a swarm of filthy
locusts--we should be fools not to murmur. But Mr.----, Mr.----, what
do you call him, Mrs. Robson? is a different sort of body."
"Mr. Constantine," replied she, "and indeed he is; and no doubt, when
you recover him, he will pay you as though he were in his own
country."
This last assertion banished all remaining suspicion from the mind of
the apothecary; and, after giving the good woman what orders he
thought requisite, he returned home, promising to call again in the
evening.
Mrs. Robson went up stairs to the count's chamber with other
sentiments to her sapient doctor than those with which she came down.
She well recollected the substance of his discourse, and she gathered
from it that, however clever he might be in his profession, he was a
hard-hearted man, who would rather see a fellow-creature perish than
administer relief to him without a reward. She had paid him to the
uttermost farthing for her poor son.
But here Mrs. Robson was mistaken. She did him justice in esteeming
his medical abilities, which were great. He had made medicine the
study of his life, and not allowing any other occupation to disturb
his attention, he became master of that science, but remained
ignorant of every other with which it had no connection. He was the
father of a family, and, in the usual acceptation of the term, a very
good sort of a man. He preferred his country to every other, because
it was his country; he loved his wife and his children; he was kind
to the poor, to whom he gave his advice gratis, and letters to the
dispensary for drugs; and when he had any broken victuals to spare,
he desired that they might be divided amongst them; but he seldom
caught his maid obeying this part of his commands without
reprimanding her for her extravagance, in giving away what ought to
be eaten in the kitchen: "in these times, it was a shame to waste a
crumb, and the careless hussy would come to want for thinking so
lightly of other people's property."
Thus, like many in the world, he was a loyal citizen by habit, an
affectionate father from nature, and a man of charity because he now
and then felt pity, and now and then heard it preached from the
pulpit. He was exhorted to be pious, and to pour wine and oil into
the wounds of his neighbor; but it never once struck him that piety
extended further than going to church, mumbling his prayers and
forgetting the sermon, through most of which he generally slept; and
his commentaries on the good Samaritan were not more extensive, for
it was so difficult to make him comprehend who was his neighbor, that
the subject of the argument might have been sick, dead and buried
before he could be persuaded that he or she had any claims on his
care. Indeed, his "chanty began at home;" and it was so fond of its
residence, that it stopped there. To have been born on the other side
of the British Channel, spread an ocean between every poor foreigner
and Mr. Vincent's purse which the swiftest wings of chanty could
never cross. "He saw no reason," he said, "for feeding the natural
enemies of our country. Would any man be mad enough to take the meat
from his children's mouths and throw it to a swarm of wolves just
landed on the coast?" "These wolves" were his favorite metaphor when
he spoke of the unhappy French, or of any other penniless strangers
that came in his way.
After this explanation, it may appear paradoxical to mention an
inconsistency in the mind of Mr. Vincent which never permitted him to
discover the above Cainish mark of outlawry upon a wealthy visitor,
of whatever country. In fact, it was with him as with many: riches
were a splendid and thick robe that concealed all blemishes; take it
away, and probably the poor stripped wretch would be treated worse
than a criminal.
That his new patient possessed some property was sufficient to ensure
the respect and medical skill of Mr. Vincent; and when he entered his
own house, he told his wife he had found "a very good job at Mrs.
Robson's, in the illness of her lodger--a foreigner of some sort," he
said, "who, by her account, had feathered his nest well in the spoils
of battle (like Moore's honest Irishman) with jewels and gold." So
much for the accuracy of most quotations adopted according to the
convenience of the speaker.
When the Count Sobieski quitted the Hummums, on the evening in which
he brought away his baggage, he was so disconcerted by the
impertinence of the man who accosted him there, that he determined
not to expose himself to a similar insult by retaining a title which
might subject him to the curiosity of the insolent and insensible;
and, therefore, when Mrs. Robson asked him how she should address
him, as he was averse to assume a feigned name, he merely said Mr.
Constantine.
Under that unobtrusive character, he hoped in time to accommodate his
feelings to the change of fortune which Providence had allotted to
him. He must forget his nobility, his pride, and his sensibility; he
must earn his subsistence. But by what means? He was ignorant of
business; and he knew not how to turn his accomplishments to account.
Such were his meditations, until illness and delirium deprived him of
them and of reason together.
At the expiration of a week, in which Mr. Vincent attended his
patient very regularly, Sobieski was able to remove into the front
room; but uneasiness about the debts he had so unintentionally
incurred retarded his recovery, and made his hours pass away in
cheerless musings on his poor means of repaying the good widow and of
satisfying the avidity of the apothecary. Pecuniary obligation was a
load to which he was unaccustomed; and once or twice the wish almost
escaped his heart that he had died.
Whenever he was left to think, such were his reflections. Mrs. Robson
discovered that he appeared more feverish and had worse nights after
being much alone during the day, and therefore contrived, though she
was obliged to be in her little shop, to leave either Nanny to attend
his wants or little William to amuse him.
This child, by its uncommon quickness and artless manner, gained upon
the count, who was ever alive to helplessness and innocence. Children
and animals had always found a friend and protector in him. From the
"majestic war-horse, with his neck clothed in thunder," to "the poor
beetle that we tread upon"--every creature of creation met an
advocate of mercy in his breast; and as human nature is prone to love
what it has been kind to, Thaddeus never saw either children, dogs,
or even that poor slandered and abused animal, the cat, without
showing them some spontaneous act of attention.
Whatever of his affections he could spare from memory, the count
lavished upon the little William. The child hardly ever left his
side, where he sat on a stool, prattling about anything that came
into his head; or, seated on his knee, followed with his eyes and
playful fingers the hand of Thaddeus, while he sketched a horse or a
soldier for his pretty companion.
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