original. Nobody had cause to suspect what I was about, and with the service done, and with the great opportunity of declaring myself, in the boudoir, in prospect, I repaired to the back gate of the Czarinski Palace between seven and eight. The same footman admitted me; but instead of leading on to the boudoir, as I expected, he handed me a sealed note, and stood by in the passage until I had read it. The process of reading did not require much time; the billet, which was dated 12 a.m., contained only this:
My dear Young Friend,—Unforeseen circumstances oblige me to set out immediately for Archangel: I must therefore lose the pleasure of receiving you this evening; but we will meet again at my return, when I hope to make more fitting acknowledgments for your friendship. Please to give the papers, both copy and original, to the footman. He has orders how to forward them. And believe me to be yours very faithfully,
Maria Czarinski.
It was her own handwriting, and only one course remained for me. I gave the papers to the footman. These wonders were still fresh in my mind, when the English packet brought me a letter from my father, earnestly requesting my immediate return to England. It was so brief and so hastily written, that I concluded the old man must be very ill. McDiddle was of the same opinion, and thought I should lose no time.
******
In answer to my hasty inquiry, why he had sent for me, my father looked mysterious, beckoned me into his private room, and put into my hands a letter to Screwer, Grindem, & Co., in which they were informed, in the most business-like manner, that the interests of the firm and my own safety, made it advisable that I should leave St. Petersburg immediately, as I had incurred the resentment of a noble Russian family. The case was now clear to me; the Countess had been exiled to Archangel, and I sent home to England, through her high-born relations’ dread of a mésalliance. I felt myself the hero of a real romance; but who should arrive but Mr. McDiddle! He had resigned his office under Screwer & Co., and was on his way to Glasgow, or Glasger, as he pronounced it, and I took the opportunity of asking him if Madame Czarinski had been calling at the counting-house of late?
“Oh, no,” said he, “she sends her steward now. She wants no more silly young men to do her business.”
“What business do you mean?” I asked, rather sharply.
“What you did for her:—helping her to get her nephew’s estate in Archangel. The boy had died while he was yet a minor. He was dumb, and had been dead for two years, but nobody knew that. She got the rents and the profits, and at last contrived a scheme to pass you off for her dead nephew, and make you copy out a will, leaving the estate to her. I believe the monks and she got up a funeral when you were fairly out of St. Petersburg. Of course she made Screwer & Co. recall you.” And the amiable man smiled.
“How much did you get for helping in the business?” said I.
“Fools do the work, and wise folk get the profit,” responded my excellent senior.
“But I must tell you she is married to a prince—one of the Romanoff family; and I would advise you to keep well out of Russia; for they have a pretty sure way of getting rid of troublesome people, or folks who know too much.”
With a malicious leer, the wretch left our counting-house, and went on his way to Glasger, and I never had the misfortune to meet him again.
******
Years have elapsed since the events above related occurred, and things have prospered with me. I am now the head-partner in one of the most extensive and well-managed mercantile concerns that the city of London can boast of.
Colyton Priory, once the seat of my late lamented father, is again the property of a Trussell; and I have a loving and beloved wife, and four as pretty children—three boys and a girl—as any man could wish for.
Yet sometimes, when I look back upon the adventures which characterised my short residence in the land of the Czar, I am foolish enough to wish that the beautiful and fascinating Madame Czarinski had reciprocated (as I thought she did) my passion, and taken me as her lawful husband, instead of making a mere cat’s-paw of me, and causing me mental agony unspeakable, whenever I think of how I was duped by a Russian female—I can’t call her a lady, for she did not behave as such.
SWANS ON THE THAMES.
Living on the banks of this most delightful and far-famed river, I have often had my attention drawn to the swans, those noble birds, that are so ornamental to the river, and so closely associated with its most lovely scenery; and thus I have been led from time to time to gather together many curious facts connected with these birds from really authentic sources.
We find that at a very early date it was a very high privilege, granted only by the sovereign to different companies and individuals, to keep and preserve swans on the different rivers and lakes throughout England. Many different swan-marks adopted by the proprietors, that each might know their own birds, will here be accurately given. They are copied from authentic sources only. This privilege only being granted under certain conditions and to certain persons, shows the degree of value and importance attached to the possession of these birds in old times, as well as the authorised power to protect it. For example, in the twenty-second year of the reign of Edward IV., 1483, it was ordered that no person who did not possess a freehold of a clear yearly value of five marks, should be permitted to keep any swans; and in the eleventh year of Henry VII., 1496, it was ordained that “any one stealing or taking a swan’s egg should have one year’s imprisonment, and make payment of a fine at the king’s will.” And stealing or setting snares for, or driving grey or white swans, was punished still more severely. Even at the present