Thaddeus of Warsaw

by Jane Porter

The last busy month of autumn in London had not only laid down its wearied head under the dark canopy of a murky atmosphere, lit with dimmed street-lamps to its slumbers, but its expected refreshment in the country did not offer much more agreeable materials for repose and vernal renovation. There were blustering winds strewing the recently green earth with beds of withered leaves of every foliage, stripped and fallen from the shivering woods above. And there were drenching rains, laying the lately pleasant fields in trackless swamps, and swelling the clear and gentle brooks into brawling floods, rending asunder the long-remembered rustic bridges which had hitherto linked the villages together, in convenient passages for wholesome relaxation or useful toil.

Such were the newspaper accounts from the country during the latter part of November; but there was seen a fairer prospect from the carriage windows of Sir Robert Somerset, when he and his gladdened party, one bright morning, on quitting the splashy environs of Hammersmith and Brentford, entered the broad expanse of Hounslow Heath, on their way into Warwickshire, and beheld its wide common covered with a fair carpet of spotless snow. Winter had then seriously, or, rather, smilingly, set in. It was the 10th of December; and the baronet, having signed and sealed all things necessary to transfer with perfect satisfaction himself and family (as was always his custom at this homeward season), now set forth to one or other of his ancient domains, to pass his Christmas in the bosom of an enlarged and a grateful domestic happiness. Thus, year after year, he diffused from each of those parental mansions that bounteous hospitality to high and low which he considered to be an especial duty in an English gentleman, whether in the character of "landlord" to noble guests and respected neighbors, or to wayfaring strangers passing by; or, while graciously mingling with his widely- established tenantry, or his equally regarded daily guests at this "holy festival," the virtuous, lowly peasantry, laborers on the land. Then smiled the cottager, with honest consciousness of yeoman worth, when seated in the great hall, under the eye of his munificent lord, who partook of the general feast. Then, too, did he smile when, at the head of his own little board, he sat with his children and humbler dependents, all furnished with ample Christmas fare by the baronet's still open hand.

When Thaddeus shared these primeval scenes of old England by the side of his British parent, (which festivities are still honorably preserved by some of its most ancient and noblest families,) they brought back to his heart those similar assemblages at Villanow and in Cracovia, where his revered grandfather, the palatine, had reigned prince and father over every happy breast. [Footnote: The writer remembers a similar scene to the above when she had the honor of dining, along with her revered family, on a festival of harvest-home at Bushy Palace, when its royal owner, his late majesty, was Duke of Clarence. Himself moved through his rustic guests in the gracious manner described.]

And happy were now the recollections of all who met at Deerhurst on this their first joyful Christmas season! Week after week glided along in the bland exercise of social duties aided by the more homefelt enjoyments of sweet domestic affections, which gave a living grace to all that was said or done and more intimately knit hearts together, never more to be divided.

But winter's howling blasts and sheltering halls, "where fireside comforts, taste, and gentle love, with soft amenities mingled into bliss," swiftly and fairer, changed their pleasant song, proclaiming in every brightening hue the hymn of nature—

"These, as they change, Almighty Father!
Are but the varied God! The rolling year
Is full of Thee! Forth in the pleasing spring
Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love;"

and in the first month of that genial season, when the young grass covers the downy hills with verdure, and the glowing branches of the trees bud with an infant foliage, the sun smiles in the heavens, and the pellucid streams reflect his glorious rays, the day was fixed by Sir Robert Somerset, and approved by the beloved objects of his then peculiar solicitude, in which his paternal hand should plight theirs together before the altar of eternal truth.

The solemnity was to be performed in the village church, which stood in the park of Deerhurst, and the Rev. Dr. Blackmore, who came over from his own private dwelling in Worcestershire, accompanied by his pupil, Lord Avon, vas to perform the holy rite. No adjunct of the Roman Catholic ceremony (then the national church of Poland) was needful fully to legalize it. Thaddeus from his infancy had been reared in the Protestant faith, the faith of his mother, whose own mother was a daughter of the staunch Hussite race of the princely Zamoiski, who still professed that ancient, simple creed of their country. It was also the national faith of him who had given Therese's son being; therefore, to the same pure doctrine of Christianity had she dedicated his deserted child; and should they ever meet again, she believed it must be before the throne of Divine Mercy; and there she trusted to present their solitary offspring with the sacred words—"Here I am, Lord, and the child thou didst give me."

But to return to the marriage-day itself. The hour having arrived in which the soul-devoted Mary Beaufort was to resign herself and her earthly happiness into the power of the only man to whom, having once beheld and known him, she could ever have committed them, she pronounced her vows at the sacred altar with unsteadiness of tongue but with a fixed heart. And when, after embracing all the fond kindred so long dear to her, and now to him, and having received their parting blessings within the walls of her ever-cherished home, —sweet, while familiar Deerhurst,—she was driven rapidly through its gates, while a mixed and awed emotion agitated her breast. But immediately she felt the supporting arm of her husband gently pressing her trembling form; and so, with all that husband's tender sympathy, the hours glided away unperceived, till the august towers of her own native domain appeared on the evening horizon, and soon afterwards she alighted at the mansion itself, having passed along a central avenue of ancient oaks amid the congratulatory cheers of a large assemblage of her tenantry on horseback and on foot, planted on each side, to bid a glad welcome to their "liege lady and her lord."

Within the great entrance of the baronial hall, winch opened to her by the immediate raising of a massive brazen portcullis, the ancient insignia of the Beaufort name, she received the joyful obeisance of the old domestics of her honored parents, hailing her, their beloved daughter, with a humble ardor of affection that bathed her enraptured face with filial tears. Thaddeus felt the scene in his own recollective heart.