"Last year," rejoined Sobieski, "I passed through Dantzic on my way to England. I believe I saw your house, and remarked its situation. The park is beautiful."
"And I am indebted, count," resumed the merchant, "to nobleman of your country for its finest ornament: I mean the very horse I spoke of just now. He was sent to me one morning, with a letter from his brave owner, requesting me to give him shelter in my park. He is the most beautiful animal ever beheld. Unwilling to leave behind so valuable a deposit when I came to England I brought him with me."
"Poor Saladin!" cried Thaddeus, his heart overflowing with remembrance; "how glad I shall be to see thee!"
"What! was the horse yours?" asked Dr. Cavendish, surprised at this apostrophe.
"Yes," returned Thaddeus, "he was mine! and I owe to Mr. Hopetown a thousand thanks for his generous acquiescence with the prayers of an unfortunate stranger."
"No thanks to me, Count Sobieski. The moment I entered this room, I recollected you to be the same Polish officer I had observed on the beach at Dantzic. When I described your figure to the man who brought the horse, he said it was the same who gave him the letter. I could not learn your excellency's name; but I hoped one day or other to have the pleasure of meeting you again, and of returning Saladin into your hands in as good condition as when he came to mine."
Tears started into the eyes of Thaddeus.
"That horse, Mr. Hopetown, has carried me through many a bloody field; he alone witnessed my last adieu to the bleeding corpse of my country! I shall receive him again as an old and dear friend; but to his kind protector, how can I ever demonstrate the whole of my gratitude?" [Footnote: The love of Thaddeus to his horse has had some resemblances in the author's knowledge in yet more recent times. It seems to belong to the brave heart of every country in our civilized Europe, as well as in that of the wild Arab of the desert, to companion itself with his war-steed as with a friend or brother. I knew more than one gallant man who wept over the doom of his old charger when shot in the lines near Corunna; and another, of the same and other fields, who can never mention without turning pale the name of his faithful and beloved horse Columbus, who had carried him through various dangers on the South American continent, and at last perished by his side during a tremendous storm at sea, when no exertions of his master could save him. These are pangs of which only those who have the generous sensibility to feel them can have any idea. But they are true to the noble nature of which the inspired page speaks when it says, "The just man is merciful to his beast."— 1822.
The benignant master of the regretted Columbian steed was the late Sir R. K. Porter, the lamented brother of the yet surviving writer of the preceding note.—1845.]
"To have had it in my power to serve the Count Sobieski is a privilege of itself," returned Mr. Hopetown. "I am proud of that distinction, to be called the friend of a man who all the world honors will be a title which John Hopetown may be proud of."