CHAPTER XXXV.
DEEP ARE THE PURPOSES OF ADVERSITY.
Next morning, when the Count Sobieski unfolded the several packets of papers which were put into his hands by little Nanny, he laid them one after the other on the table, and sighing heavily, said to himself, "Now comes the bitterness of poverty! Heaven only knows by what means I shall pay these heavy charges."
Mere personal privations, induced by his fallen fortunes, excited little uneasiness in the mind of Thaddeus. As he never had derived peculiar gratification from the enjoyment of a magnificent house, splendid table, and numerous attendants, he was contented in the field, where he slept on the bare ground, and snatched his hasty meals at uncertain intervals. Watching, rough fare, and other hardships were dust in the path of honor; he had dashed through them with light and buoyant spirits; and he repined as little at the actual wants of his forlorn state in exile, until, compelled by friendship to contract demands which he could not defray, he was plunged at once into the full horrors of poverty and debt.
He looked at the amount of the bills. The apothecary was twelve pounds; the funeral fifteen. Thaddeus turned pale. The value of all that he possessed would not produce one half of the sum; besides, he owed five guineas to his good landlady for numerous little comforts procured for his deceased friend.
"Whatever be the consequence," cried he, "that excellent woman shall not suffer by her humanity! If I have to pay with the last memorial of those who were so dear, she shall be repaid."
He scarcely had ceased speaking, when Nanny re-entered the room, and told him the apothecary's young man and the undertaker were both below, waiting for answers to their letters. Reddening with disgust at the unfeeling haste of these men, he desired Nanny to say that he could not see either of them to-day, but would send to their houses to-morrow.
In consequence of this promise, the men made their bows to Mrs. Robson (who too well guessed the reason of this message), and took their leave.
When Thaddeus put the pictures of his mother and the palatine, with other precious articles, into his pocket, he could not forbear an internal invective against the thoughtless meanness of the Misses Dundas, who had never offered any further liquidation of the large sum they now stood indebted to him than the trifling note which had been transmitted to him, prior to his attendance, through the hands of Lady Tinemouth.
Whilst his necessities reproached them for this illiberal conduct, his proud heart recoiled at making a request to their chanty; for he had gathered from the haughty demeanor of Miss Diana that what he was entitled to demand would be given, not as a just remuneration for labor received, but as alms of humanity to an indigent emigrant.