"
"Willingly, my dear lord," returned he; "for I have no home. I begged
my way from Harwich to this town, and have already spent two dismal
nights in the streets."
"O, my country!" cried the full heart of Thaddeus.
"Yes," continued the poor old soldier; "it received its death wounds
when Kosciusko and my honored master fell."
Thaddeus could not reply; but supporting the exhausted frame of his
friend, who was hardly able to walk, after many pauses, gladly
descried his own door.
The widow opened it the moment he knocked; and seeing some one with
him, was retreating, when Thaddeus, who found from the silence of
Butzou that he was faint, begged her to allow him to take his
companion into her parlor. She instantly made way, and the count
placed the now insensible old man in the arm-chair by the fire.
"He is my friend, my father's friend!" cried Thaddeus, looking at his
pale and haggard face, with a strange wildness in his own features;
"for heaven's sake give me something to restore him."
Mrs. Robson, in dismay, and literally having nothing better in the
house, gave him a glass of water.
"That will not do," exclaimed he, still upholding the motionless body
on his arm; "have you no wine? No anything? He is dying for want."
"None, sir; I have none," answered she, frightened at the violence of
his manner. "Run, Nanny, and borrow something warming of Mrs.
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