Though Thaddeus Sobieski would have disdained a life of dependence on the greatest potentate of the world; though he rejected with the same sincerity a similar proposal from his friend, and despised the degrading offer of Sir Robert, yet he did not disparage his dignity, not infringe on the disinterested nature of friendship, when he retained the money which Pembroke had conveyed to him in prison. Thaddeus never acted but from principle. His honorable and penetrating mind knew exactly at what point to draw the tender thread of delicacy—the cord of independence. But pride and independence were with him distinct terms. Receiving assistance from a friend and leaning on him wholly for support have different meanings. He accepted the first with gratitude; he would have thought it impossible to live and endure the last. Indeed Thaddeus would have considered himself unworthy to confer a benefit if he had not known how to receive one. But had not Pembroke told him "the whole gift was Mary Beaufort's?" And what were his emotions then? They were full of an ineffable sense of happiness inexplicable to himself. Mary Beaufort was the donor, and it was bliss to have it so, and to know it was so. With these impressions again throbbing at his heart, he began a short letter to her, which he felt must crush that heart forever.
"To Miss Beaufort.
"My faculties lose their power when I take up my pen to address, for the first and the last time, Miss Beaufort. I hardly know what I would say—what I ought to say; I dare not venture to write all that I feel. But have you not been my benefactress? Did you not assert my character and give me liberty when I was calumniated and in distress? Did you not ward from me the scorn of unpitying folly? Did you not console me with your own compassion? You have done all this; and surely you will not despise the gratitude of a heart which you have condescended to sooth and to comfort. At least I cannot leave England forever without imploring blessings on the head of Miss Beaufort, without thanking her on my knees, on which I am writing, for that gracious and benign spirit which discovered a breaking heart under the mask of serenity, which penetrated through the garb of poverty and dependence, and saw that the condemned Constantine was not what he seemed! Your smiles, Miss Beaufort, your voice speaking commiseration, were my sweetest consolations during those heavy months of bitterness which I endured at Dundas House. I contemplated you as a pitying angel, sent to reconcile me to a life which had already become a burden. These are the benefits which Miss Beaufort has bestowed on a friendless exile; these are the benefits which she has bestowed on me! and they are written on my soul. Not until I go down into the grave can they be forgotten. Ah! not even then, for when I rise again, I shall find them still registered there.
"Farewell, most respected, most dear, most honored! My passing soul seems in those words. O, may the Father of heaven bless with his almighty care her whose name will ever be the first and the last in the prayer of the far distant
"THADDEUS CONSTANTINE SOBIESKI.
"HARROWBY VILLAGE, MIDNIGHT."
When he had finished this epistle, with a tremulous hand he consigned it to the same cover that contained his letter to Somerset. Then writing a few lines to the worthy master of the inn, (the brother-in- law of the faithful servant of his late lamented maternal friend,) saying that a sudden occasion had required his immediate departure at that untimely hour, he enclosed a liberal compensation in gold for the attentive services of both the honest man and his warm-hearted wife. Having sealed each packet, he disposed them so on the table that they might be the first things seen on entering the room.
He had fixed on deep night as the securest time for commencing unobserved his pedestrian tour. The moon was now full, and would be a sufficient guide, he thought, on his solitary way. He had determined to walk to London by the least public paths; meaning to see kind Mrs. Robson, and bid her a grateful farewell before he should embark, probably never to return, for America.
He had prepared his slender baggage before he sat down to write the two letters which had cost him so many pangs; compressed within a light black leather travelling-bag, he fastened it over his shoulders by its buckled straps, in the manner of a soldier's knapsack. He then put the memorandum-book which contained his "world's wealth," now to be carefully husbanded, into a concealed pocket in the breast of his waistcoat, feeling, while he pressed it down upon his heart, that his mother's locket and Miss Beaufort's chain kept guard over it.
"Ah!" cried he, as he gently closed the low window by which he leaped into the garden; "England, I leave thee forever, and within thee all that on this earth had been left to me to love. Driven from thee! Nay, driven as if I were another Cain, from the face of every spot of earth that ever had been or would be dear to me! Oh, woe to them who began the course. And thou, Austria, ungrateful leader in the destruction of the country which more than once was thy preserver!— could there be any marvel that the last of the Sobieskis should perish with her? What accumulated sins must rest on thy head, thou seducer of other nations into the spoliation and dismemberment of the long-proved bulwark of Christendom? Assuredly, every hasty sigh that rebels in the breasts of Poland's outcast sons against the mystery of her doom will plead against thee at the judgment-seat of Heaven!"