Turning giddy with the tumultuous
delight that rushed over her soul, she staggered back a few paces,
and leaning against the open door, tried to recover breath to regain
the room she had left.
Pembroke, having escaped from her grasp, ran furiously down the hill,
mounted his horse, and forbidding any groom to attend him, galloped
towards the high road with the impetuosity of a madman. All the
powers of his soul were in arms, Wounded, dishonored, stigmatized
with ingratitude and baseness, he believed himself to be the most
degraded of men.
It appeared that Sir Robert Somerset had long cherished a hatred to
the Poles, in consequence of some injury he affirmed he had received
in early youth from one of that nation. In this instance his dislike
was implacable; and when his son set out for the continent, he
positively forbade him to enter Poland. Notwithstanding his
remembrance of this violated injunction, when Pembroke joined the
baronet in his library, he did it with confidence. With a bounding
heart and animated countenance, he recapitulated how he had been
wrought upon by his young Russian friends to take up arms in their
cause and march into Poland. At these last words his father turned
pale, and though he did not speak, the denunciation was on his brow.
Pembroke, who expected some marks of displeasure, hastened to
obliterate his disobedience by narrating the event which had
introduced not only the young Count Sobieski to his succor, but the
consequent friendship of the whole of that princely family.
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