Thaddeus of Warsaw

by Jane Porter

This last assertion banished all remaining suspicion from the mind of the apothecary; and, after giving the good woman what orders he thought requisite, he returned home, promising to call again in the evening.

Mrs. Robson went up stairs to the count's chamber with other sentiments to her sapient doctor than those with which she came down. She well recollected the substance of his discourse, and she gathered from it that, however clever he might be in his profession, he was a hard-hearted man, who would rather see a fellow-creature perish than administer relief to him without a reward. She had paid him to the uttermost farthing for her poor son.

But here Mrs. Robson was mistaken. She did him justice in esteeming his medical abilities, which were great. He had made medicine the study of his life, and not allowing any other occupation to disturb his attention, he became master of that science, but remained ignorant of every other with which it had no connection. He was the father of a family, and, in the usual acceptation of the term, a very good sort of a man. He preferred his country to every other, because it was his country; he loved his wife and his children; he was kind to the poor, to whom he gave his advice gratis, and letters to the dispensary for drugs; and when he had any broken victuals to spare, he desired that they might be divided amongst them; but he seldom caught his maid obeying this part of his commands without reprimanding her for her extravagance, in giving away what ought to be eaten in the kitchen: "in these times, it was a shame to waste a crumb, and the careless hussy would come to want for thinking so lightly of other people's property."

Thus, like many in the world, he was a loyal citizen by habit, an affectionate father from nature, and a man of charity because he now and then felt pity, and now and then heard it preached from the pulpit. He was exhorted to be pious, and to pour wine and oil into the wounds of his neighbor; but it never once struck him that piety extended further than going to church, mumbling his prayers and forgetting the sermon, through most of which he generally slept; and his commentaries on the good Samaritan were not more extensive, for it was so difficult to make him comprehend who was his neighbor, that the subject of the argument might have been sick, dead and buried before he could be persuaded that he or she had any claims on his care. Indeed, his "chanty began at home;" and it was so fond of its residence, that it stopped there. To have been born on the other side of the British Channel, spread an ocean between every poor foreigner and Mr. Vincent's purse which the swiftest wings of chanty could never cross. "He saw no reason," he said, "for feeding the natural enemies of our country. Would any man be mad enough to take the meat from his children's mouths and throw it to a swarm of wolves just landed on the coast?" "These wolves" were his favorite metaphor when he spoke of the unhappy French, or of any other penniless strangers that came in his way.

After this explanation, it may appear paradoxical to mention an inconsistency in the mind of Mr. Vincent which never permitted him to discover the above Cainish mark of outlawry upon a wealthy visitor, of whatever country. In fact, it was with him as with many: riches were a splendid and thick robe that concealed all blemishes; take it away, and probably the poor stripped wretch would be treated worse than a criminal.

That his new patient possessed some property was sufficient to ensure the respect and medical skill of Mr. Vincent; and when he entered his own house, he told his wife he had found "a very good job at Mrs. Robson's, in the illness of her lodger—a foreigner of some sort," he said, "who, by her account, had feathered his nest well in the spoils of battle (like Moore's honest Irishman) with jewels and gold." So much for the accuracy of most quotations adopted according to the convenience of the speaker.

When the Count Sobieski quitted the Hummums, on the evening in which he brought away his baggage, he was so disconcerted by the impertinence of the man who accosted him there, that he determined not to expose himself to a similar insult by retaining a title which might subject him to the curiosity of the insolent and insensible; and, therefore, when Mrs. Robson asked him how she should address him, as he was averse to assume a feigned name, he merely said Mr. Constantine.

Under that unobtrusive character, he hoped in time to accommodate his feelings to the change of fortune which Providence had allotted to him. He must forget his nobility, his pride, and his sensibility; he must earn his subsistence. But by what means? He was ignorant of business; and he knew not how to turn his accomplishments to account. Such were his meditations, until illness and delirium deprived him of them and of reason together.

At the expiration of a week, in which Mr. Vincent attended his patient very regularly, Sobieski was able to remove into the front room; but uneasiness about the debts he had so unintentionally incurred retarded his recovery, and made his hours pass away in cheerless musings on his poor means of repaying the good widow and of satisfying the avidity of the apothecary. Pecuniary obligation was a load to which he was unaccustomed; and once or twice the wish almost escaped his heart that he had died.

Whenever he was left to think, such were his reflections. Mrs. Robson discovered that he appeared more feverish and had worse nights after being much alone during the day, and therefore contrived, though she was obliged to be in her little shop, to leave either Nanny to attend his wants or little William to amuse him.