Thaddeus replied with an agitated affection as true as that of the generous speaker. "But," added he, "I must not allow the noble heart of my now regained Somerset to believe that I can live a dependant on any power but the Author of my being. Therefore, if Sir Robert Somerset will assist me to procure some unobtrusive way of acquiring my own support in the simplicity I wish, I shall thank him from my soul. In no other way my kindest friend, can I ever be brought to tax the munificence of your father."
Pembroke colored at this, and exclaimed, in a voice of distress and displeasure, "Sobieski! what can you mean? Do you imagine that ever my father or myself can forget that you were little less than a prince in your own country?—that when in so high a station you treated me like a brother; that you preserved me even when I lifted my arm against your life. Can we be such monsters as to forget all this, or to think that we act justly by you in permitting you to labor for your bread? No, Thaddeus; my very soul spurns the idea. Your mother sheltered me as a son; and I insist that you allow my father to perform the same part by you! Besides, you shall not be idle; you may have a commission in the army, and I will follow you."
The count pressed the hand of his friend, and looking gratefully but mournfully in his face, replied, "Had I a hundred tongues, my generous Pembroke, I could not express my sense of your friendship; it is indeed a cordial to my heart; it imparts to me an earnest of happiness which I thought had fled forever. But it shall not allure me from my principles. I am resolved not to live a life of indolent uselessness; and I cannot, at this period, enter the British army. No," added he, emotion elevating his tone and manner; "rather would I toil for subsistence by the sweat of my brow than be subjected to the necessity of acting in concert with those ravagers who destroyed my country! I cannot fight by the side of the allied powers who dismembered it! I cannot enlist under the allies! I will not be led out to devastation! Mine was, and ever shall be, a defensive sword; and should danger threaten England, I would be as ready to withstand her enemies as I ardently, though ineffectually, opposed those of unhappy Poland."
Pembroke recognized the devoted soul of Thaddeus of Warsaw in this lofty burst of enthusiasm; and aware that his father's munificence and manner of conferring it would go further towards removing these scruples than all his own arguments, he did not attempt to combat a resolution which he knew he could not subdue, but tried to prevail with him to become his guest until something could be arranged to suit his wishes.
With an unuttered emotion at the thought of meeting Miss Beaufort, Thaddeus had just consented to accompany Somerset to the Castle, after Sir Robert had been apprized of his coming, when the countess's old and faithfully attached manservant entered, and respectfully informed her guests that his lady, not willing to disturb their conversation, had retired to her room for the night, but that beds were prepared for them in the Abbey, and she hoped to meet both friends at her breakfast table in the morning. The honest man then added, "It was now past eleven o'clock; and after their honors had partaken of their yet untasted refreshment, he would be ready to attend them to their chambers."
Pembroke started up at this, and shaking his friend warm by the hand, bade him, he said, "a short farewell;" and hastening down the hill, arrived at the gate of the Wold Lodge just at the turn of midnight.
At an early hour the next morning he gave orders to his groom, wrote a slight apology to Shafto for his abrupt departure, and, mounting his fleet horse, galloped away full of delight towards Somerset Castle.
CHAPTER XL.
SOMERSET CASTLE.
But Sobieski did not follow the attentive domestic of his maternal friend to the prepared apartment in the Abbey. He asked to be conducted back through the night shadowed grounds to the little hotel he had seen early in the evening on his approach to the mansion. It stood at the entrance of the adjoining village, and under its rustic porch he had immediately entered, to engage a lodging beneath its humble sign, "The Plough," for the few clays of his intended visit to Lady Tinemouth. A boy had been his guide, and bearer of his small travelling bag, from the famous old Commandery inn, the "Angel," at Grantham, where the Wold diligence had set him down in the afternoon at the top of the market-place of that memorable town of ancient chivalry, to find his way up to the occasional rural palace cells on Harrowby Hill, of the same doughty and luxurious knights who were now lying, individually forgotten, in their not only silent but unknown graves, there not being a trace of them amongst the chapel ruins of the Abbey, nor below the hill, on the sight of the old Commandery church at Grantham.