The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete
and supposing, in their great wisdom, that the city of Belgrade was too
well fortified to be taken during that campaign, they came to a
resolution of withdrawing themselves from the severe service of the
trenches, by deserting to the enemy, after they should have rifled
Count Melvil’s tent of the furniture by which they were so powerfully
allured. The particulars of this plan were concerted in the French
language, which, they imagined, would screen them from all risk of
being detected, in case they should be overheard, though, as there was
no living creature in sight, they had no reason to believe that any
person was privy to their conversation. Nevertheless, they were
mistaken in both these conjectures. The conference reached the ears of
Fathom, who was at the other end of the tent, and had perceived the
eager looks with which they considered some parts of the furniture. He
had penetration enough to suspect their desire, and, alarmed by that
suspicion, listened attentively to their discourse; which, from a
slender knowledge in the French tongue, he had the good fortune partly
to understand.
This important piece of intelligence he communicated to the Count at
his return, and measures were immediately taken to defeat the design,
and make an example of the authors, who being permitted to load
themselves with the booty, were apprehended in their retreat, and
punished with death according to their demerits.
CHAPTER FIVE
A BRIEF DETAIL OF HIS EDUCATION.
Nothing could have more seasonably happened to confirm the good opinion
which the colonel entertained of Ferdinand’s principles. His intentions
towards the boy grew every day more and more warm; and, immediately
after the peace of Passarowitz, he retired to his own house at
Presburg, and presented young Fathom to his lady, not only as the son
of a person to whom he owed his life, but also as a lad who merited his
peculiar protection and regard by his own personal virtue. The
Countess, who was an Hungarian, received him with great kindness and
affability, and her son was ravished with the prospect of enjoying such
a companion. In short, fortune seemed to have provided for him an
asylum, in which he might be safely trained up, and suitably prepared
for more important scenes of life than any of his ancestors had ever
known.
He was not, in all respects, entertained on the footing of his young
master; yet he shared in all his education and amusements, as one whom
the old gentleman was fully determined to qualify for the station of an
officer in the service; and, if he did not eat with the Count, he was
every day regaled with choice bits from his table; holding, as it were,
a middle place between the rank of a relation and favourite domestic.
Although his patron maintained a tutor in the house, to superintend the
conduct of his heir, he committed the charge of his learning to the
instructions of a public school; where he imagined the boy would imbibe
a laudable spirit of emulation among his fellows, which could not fail
of turning out to the advantage of his education. Ferdinand was entered
in the same academy; and the two lads proceeded equally in the paths of
erudition; a mutual friendship and intimacy soon ensued, and,
notwithstanding the levity and caprice commonly discernible in the
behaviour of such boys, very few or rather no quarrels happened in the
course of their communication. Yet their dispositions were altogether
different, and their talents unlike. Nay, this dissimilarity was the
very bond of their union; because it prevented that jealousy and
rivalship which often interrupts the harmony of two warm
contemporaries.
The young Count made extraordinary progress in the exercises of the
school, though he seemed to take very little pains in the cultivation
of his studies; and became a perfect hero in all the athletic
diversions of his fellow-scholars; but, at the same time, exhibited
such a bashful appearance and uncouth address, that his mother
despaired of ever seeing him improved into any degree of polite
behaviour. On the other hand, Fathom, who was in point of learning a
mere dunce, became, even in his childhood, remarkable among the ladies
for his genteel deportment and vivacity; they admired the proficiency
he made under the directions of his dancing-master, the air with which
he performed his obeisance at his entrance and exit; and were charmed
with the agreeable assurance and lively sallies of his conversation;
while they expressed the utmost concern and disgust at the boorish
demeanour of his companion, whose extorted bows resembled the pawings
of a mule, who hung his head in silence like a detected sheep-stealer,
who sat in company under the most awkward expressions of constraint,
and whose discourse never exceeded the simple monosyllables of negation
and assent.
In vain did all the females of the family propose to him young Fathom,
as a pattern and reproach. He remained unaltered by all their efforts
and expostulations, and allowed our adventurer to enjoy the triumph of
his praise, while he himself was conscious of his own superiority in
those qualifications which seemed of more real importance than the mere
exteriors and forms of life. His present ambition was not to make a
figure at his father’s table, but to eclipse his rivals at school, and
to acquire an influence and authority among these confederates.
Nevertheless, Fathom might possibly have fallen under his displeasure
or contempt, had not that pliant genius found means to retain his
friendship by seasonable compliances and submission; for the sole
study, or at least the chief aim of Ferdinand, was to make himself
necessary and agreeable to those on whom his dependence was placed. His
talent was in this particular suited to his inclination; he seemed to
have inherited it from his mother’s womb; and, without all doubt, would
have raised upon it a most admirable superstructure of fortune and
applause, had not it been inseparably yoked with a most insidious
principle of self-love, that grew up with him from the cradle, and left
no room in his heart for the least particle of social virtue. This
last, however, he knew so well how to counterfeit, by means of a large
share of ductility and dissimulation, that, surely, he was calculated
by nature to dupe even the most cautious, and gratify his appetites, by
levying contributions on all mankind.
So little are the common instructors of youth qualified to judge the
capacities of those who are under their tutelage and care, that Fathom,
by dint of his insinuating arts, made shift to pass upon the
schoolmaster as a lad of quick parts, in despite of a natural
inaptitude to retain his lessons, which all his industry could never
overcome. In order to remedy, or rather to cloak this defect in his
understanding, he had always recourse to the friendship of the young
Count, who freely permitted him to transcribe his exercises, until a
small accident happened, which had well-nigh put a stop to these
instances of his generosity.—The adventure, inconsiderable as it is, we
shall record, as the first overt act of Ferdinand’s true character, as
well as an illustration of the opinion we have advanced touching the
blind and injudicious decisions of a right pedagogue.
Among other tasks imposed by the pedant upon the form to which our two
companions belonged, they were one evening ordered to translate a
chapter of Caesar’s Commentaries. Accordingly the young Count went to
work, and performed the undertaking with great elegance and despatch.
Fathom, having spent the night in more effeminate amusements, was next
morning so much hurried for want of time, that in his transcription he
neglected to insert a few variations from the text, these being the
terms on which he was allowed to use it; so that it was verbatim a copy
of the original. As those exercises were always delivered in a heap,
subscribed with the several names of the boys to whom they belonged,
the schoolmaster chanced to peruse the version of Ferdinand, before he
looked into any of the rest, and could not help bestowing upon it
particular marks of approbation. The next that fell under his
examination was that of the young Count, when he immediately perceived
the sameness, and, far from imputing it to the true cause, upbraided
him with having copied the exercise of our adventurer, and insisted
upon chastising him upon the spot for his want of application.
Had not the young gentleman thought his honour was concerned, he would
have submitted to the punishment without murmuring; but he inherited,
from his parents, the pride of two fierce nations, and, being
overwhelmed with reproaches for that which he imagined ought to have
redounded to his glory, he could not brook the indignity, and boldly
affirmed, that he himself was the original, to whom Ferdinand was
beholden for his performance. The schoolmaster, nettled to find himself
mistaken in his judgment, resolved that the Count should have no cause
to exult in the discovery he had made, and, like a true flogger,
actually whipped him for having allowed Fathom to copy his exercise.
Nay, in the hope of vindicating his own penetration, he took an
opportunity of questioning Ferdinand in private concerning the
circumstances of the translation, and our hero, perceiving his drift,
gave him such artful and ambiguous answers, as persuaded him that the
young Count had acted the part of a plagiary, and that the other had
been restrained from doing himself justice, by the consideration of his
own dependence.
This profound director did not fail, in honour of his own discernment,
to whisper about the misrepresentation, as an instance of the young
Count’s insolence, and Fathom’s humility and good sense. The story was
circulated among the servants, especially the maids belonging to the
family, whose favour our hero had acquired by his engaging behaviour;
and at length it reached the ears of his patron, who, incensed at his
son’s presumption and inhospitality, called him to a severe account,
when the young gentleman absolutely denied the truth of the allegation,
and appealed to the evidence of Fathom himself. Our adventurer was
accordingly summoned by the father, and encouraged to declare the
truth, with an assurance of his constant protection; upon which
Ferdinand very wisely fell upon his knees, and, while the tears gushed
from his eyes, acquitted the young Count of the imputation, and
expressed his apprehension, that the report had been spread by some of
his enemies, who wanted to prejudice him in the opinion of his patron.
The old gentleman was not satisfied of his son’s integrity by this
declaration; being naturally of a generous disposition, highly
prepossessed in favour of the poor orphan, and chagrined at the
unpromising appearance of his heir, he suspected that Fathom was
overawed by the fear of giving offence, and that, notwithstanding what
he had said, the case really stood as it had been represented. In this
persuasion, he earnestly exhorted his son to resist and combat with any
impulse he might feel within himself, tending to selfishness, fraud, or
imposition; to encourage every sentiment of candour and benevolence,
and to behave with moderation and affability to all his
fellow-creatures. He laid upon him strong injunctions, not without a
mixture of threats, to consider Fathom as the object of his peculiar
regard; to respect him as the son of the Count’s preserver, as a
Briton, a stranger, and, above all, an helpless orphan, to whom the
rights of hospitality were doubly due.
Such admonitions were not lost upon the youth, who, under the rough
husk of his personal exhibition, possessed a large share of generous
sensibility. Without any formal professions to his father, he resolved