Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/131

 lead me through narrow streets, where there were few people, for I could not even stand on my feet. And as no one could go into our house without being seen by everybody, my lord the ambassador was at a window and saw me led along tipsy, was exceedingly angry, and wished to have me punished immediately. Seeing, however, that I was quite unconscious, he put it off till the morning, and severely reproved his gentlemen-in-waiting for not taking better care of me. They excused me by saying that I had only drunk a single goblet of wine.

Awaking in the morning before it was day, I was informed by my companions of my good behaviour, and also of the anger of my lord the legatus. So I got up in great terror, put everything in order in my lord’s apartments, attended diligently to my duties, in hopes of obtaining favour in my lord’s eyes, and also begged the gentlemen-in-waiting for their intercession. When he was going to get up and rang his bell, I ran to him at once, before the rest, fell at his feet, and begged for pardon for the fault I had committed. But he, in great anger, explained to me how I had been entrusted to him by my relatives, in order that he might take good care of me; that on the present occasion, after asking for leave to see the city of Galata, I had so unworthily and thoughtlessly got intoxicated, that the Turks could not but have pleasure, and he sorrow and anger at it. He also explained to me in what danger I had been, and how that, had it not been for the Divine protection itself, young as I was, those janissaries might have led me away and sold me, and how he should have afterwards had to be grievously responsible for me. He added, that, before I had begun life in the world, I had learnt