Country Lodgings | Page 4

flowers?
And finding, upon inquiry, that M. Choynowski (so he called himself)
had brought a letter of recommendation from a respectable London
tradesman, and that there was every appearance of his being, as our fair

young friend had conjectured, a foreigner in distress, my father not only
agreed that it would be a cruel attempt to drive him from his new home,
(a piece of tyranny which, even in this land of freedom, might, I
suspect, have been managed in the form of an offer of double rent, by
that grand despot, money,) but resolved to offer the few attentions in
our poor power, to one whom every look and word proclaimed him to
be, in the largest sense of the word, a gentleman.
My father had seen him, not on his visit of inquiry, but on a few days
after, bill-hook in hand, hacking away manfully at the briers and
brambles of the garden. My first view of him was in a position even
less romantic, assisting a Belford tradesman to put up a stove in the
nursery.
One of Mrs. Cameron's few causes of complaint in her country
lodgings had been the tendency to smoke in that important apartment.
We all know that when those two subtle essences, smoke and wind,
once come to do battle in a wide, open chimney, the invisible agent is
pretty sure to have the best of the day, and to drive his vapoury enemy
at full speed before him. M. Choynowski, who by this time had
established a gardening acquaintance, not merely with Bill and Martha,
but with their fair mistress, happening to see her, one windy evening, in
a paroxysm of smoky distress, not merely recommended a stove, after
the fashion of the northern nations' notions, but immediately walked
into Belford to give his own orders to a respectable ironmonger; and
they were in the very act of erecting this admirable accessary to warmth
and comfort (really these words are synonymous) when I happened to
call.
I could hardly have seen him under circumstances better calculated to
display his intelligence, his delicacy, or his good-breeding. The
patience, gentleness, and kind feeling, with which he contrived at once
to excuse and to remedy certain blunders made by the workmen in the
execution of his orders, and the clearness with which, in perfectly
correct and idiomatic English, slightly tinged with a foreign accent, he
explained the mechanical and scientific reasons for the construction he
had suggested, gave evidence at once of no common talent, and of a

considerate-ness and good-nature in its exercise more valuable than all
the talent in the world. If trifling and every-day occurrences afford, as I
believe they do, the surest and safest indications of character, we could
have no hesitation in pronouncing upon the amiable qualities of M.
Choynowski.
In person he was tall and graceful, and very noble-looking. His head
was particularly intellectual, and there was a calm sweetness about the
mouth that was singularly prepossessing. Helen had likened him to a
hero of romance. In my eyes he bore much more plainly the stamp of a
man of fashion--of that very highest fashion which is too refined for
finery, too full of self-respect for affectation. Simple, natural, mild, and
gracious, the gentle reserve of his manner added, under the
circumstances, to the interest which he inspired. Somewhat of that
reserve continued even after our acquaintance had ripened into
intimacy.
He never spoke of his own past history, or future prospects, shunned all
political discourse, and was with difficulty drawn into conversation
upon the scenery and manners of the North of Europe. He seemed
afraid of the subject.
Upon general topics, whether of literature or art, he was remarkably
open and candid. He possessed in an eminent degree the talent of
acquiring languages for which his countrymen are distinguished, and
had made the best use of those keys of knowledge. I have never met
with any person whose mind was more richly cultivated, or who was
more calculated to adorn the highest station. And here he was wasting
life in a secluded village in a foreign country! What would become of
him after his present apparently slender resources should be exhausted,
was painful to imagine. The more painful, that the accidental discovery
of the direction of a letter had disclosed his former rank. It was part of
an envelope addressed, "A Monsieur Monsieur le Comte Choynowski,"
and left as a mark in a book, all except the name being torn off. But the
fact needed no confirmation. All his habits and ways of thinking bore
marks of high station. What would become of him?
It was but too evident that another calamity was impending over the

unfortunate exile. Although most discreet in word and guarded in
manner, every action bespoke