AUGUST was laid to rest in the Church of St. Wenceslaus; and amongst the many friends who followed him to the grave were Hugh and Charles Graham and the boy who had loved him so well. For both the brothers the day since their meeting had been really momentous, though outwardly uneventful. They had talked much at intervals about the past, though little as yet about the future. Each thought the other greatly changed. Hugh observed that Charles had grown strangely gentle and thoughtful; Charles fancied Hugh more practical and business-like than of old. After the funeral, which took place on a Sunday, they walked together out of the town by the banks of the Saale. It was some time before either spoke, for both hearts were full. At length Charles said, almost as if to himself, “He wished me to tell his father―I cannot.”
“Why not, brother?”
“It would be a terrible thing to do. And besides, there are other reasons. You know me of old, Hugh, for a foolish fellow,―and, to confess the truth, I have had dreams and fancies which I now feel to have been unutterably foolish, but which the very sight of Nuremberg would bring back to me. Moreover, the necessary leave of absence would be difficult to get, and perhaps improper to ask for at present. The duke may need us any day.”
He meant the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, whom the Swedes after the death of their great king had chosen for their leader; and a better choice, under all the circumstances, they could not have made.
“You will then remain with the army?”
“What else should I do? I have an honorable position there; I am doing worthy and useful work, serving God and man―which is what 1 never did in my life, until the day I swore allegiance to the King of Sweden.”
“The service has certainly been of use to you.”
“Of use to me? It has made a man of me. I was just a ne'er-do-weel, idling about that old rook's nest at Denniscraig, my best pleasure a carouse, my worst trouble the hopeless effort to borrow a little more money from my neighbors. I had no thought but of scrambling through life any way I could, and a very poor way it was for the most part. I shall bless Captain Stuart till my dying day for shaking me out of my hole. And then my own pride and folly in parting with my lord of Hamilton upon what was no better than a bairn's quarrel, was so ordered as to bring me to a school where I have learned more in two years than I did in all my life before. Truly ‘a man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps,’” he added reverently.
“What have you learned that you did not know before?” asked the elder brother.
“I have learned that godliness is the truest manliness, and the soldier of Christ the best of soldiers; that it is a noble and heroic thing to be pure, true, temperate, merciful; that prayer fits the lips of the strong man on the battlefield as well as those of the bairn at its mother's knee; and that God hears the prayer and fulfills the desire of them that seek Him.”
“Can you say that now, brother, with the king you loved lying dead at Weissenfels?”
Charles turned and faced his brother with a look in his eyes Hugh had never seen there before. “I can,” he said. “Has He not fulfilled his desire, think you? Is not to depart and to be with Christ as ‘far better’ for him as for any other Christian man? Would he come back now, if he could, were it to take the emperor's crown and to dictate peace to the world? And for me too―I think, brother, I can say that He has fulfilled my desire.”
“How do you mean?” asked Hugh.
“I do not know if I can tell you―my words were aye ill to find. It has been with me for some time back somewhat as if I had continued still in my lord Hamilton's service, knowing the king's to be incomparably better, longing to exchange into it, yet somehow, through laziness or indifference, staying where I was. I thought it good and noble to be a Christian man, serving God from the heart ―still I was not that myself, and I knew it. But, Hugh, when the king was slain, there came a terrible night―a horror of great darkness upon me; I shall never forget it. I began to think that all was a dream, ―all truth, all faith, all right― and that a man might as well go his own way, and give himself up to the devil at once. Then I thought my worthless life might be the next to go, where life infinitely more precious had gone before. But what then—what afterward? I could not tell―all was dark. I felt myself sinking—sinking into a fathomless gulf of despair. So I just cried to God out of the depths, as I had never cried before. I did not think He heard me, and I went forth from my lodging sad at heart. As I went I met the lancers carrying in young Lübeling, mortally wounded. I made them bring him where I was, saying that I was a friend of his father, and that I would help Widow Koch to take care of him. And that was the answer to my prayer.”
“How so?”
“The peace I saw in the face of the dying boy passed into my heart. God put it there. It seemed as if He left him here, those quiet days of waiting for the end, just to teach me how to follow him. ‘Thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord,’―giveth us, ay, even a poor blundering ne'er-do-weel like me. For the victory is not in me, but in Him. And I can trust Him now, for life and death and all things.”
A long silence followed. One of the brothers had said already more than he intended; the other, in much amazement, was pondering his words. Hugh could not fail to know himself far more richly gifted than his brother, whose lower range of thought and feeling he had ever regarded with loving toleration, but still from the height of confessedly nobler and loftier aspirations. Now the last was first, and the first last. Charlie's frail boat was safely anchored, while his own more stately ship was still the sport of wind and waves. What brought to his mind a verse that Hugh had read for him, “Then they willingly received Him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went”?
He said at last, “I am sure I may call myself a blunderer as well as you, brother. I often think I have made but a poor business of my life.”
“Not in worldly matters,” said Charles. “It is true that a fortnight ago I would have given but little for your lordship of Savelburg; since he who is lying at Weissenfels would certainly, had he lived, have restored the rightful King of Bohemia, and the confiscated estates would have returned to their former owners. But all that is over now. For aught I know, you can keep Savelburg forever.”
“ ‘I ask not if I can, but if I ought,’ as Philip of Spain said once; a good word from a bad man.”
“As a Catholic, I see not what should hinder you,” said Charles rather dryly.
“Nor do I, as a Catholic,” Hugh returned. “The rightful owner―the former owner, I should say—could scarcely live upon it, were it restored to her, being a Lutheran. Yet it is not pleasant to feel myself the supplanter of a noble lady, and one who has shown extreme kindness to my children, especially to Giovana, to whom it appears she has been as a mother. All that seems possible for me to do is to offer to purchase her rights.”
“An offer she will reject with scorn,” said Charles hotly.
“I do not see why she should; and at all events my own honor requires that I should make it.”
“Most men would not regard it in that light.”
“Perhaps not, but I do. I am free for the present, since the Duke of Friedland is going into winter quarters in Bohemia, and I could be of no use to him there. I can arrange afterward about my troop. Moreover, I long to see the face of my daughter. So I think I will go to Nuremberg.”
“A good thought. If you do, you can bring letters to Baron von Lübeling, and tell him of August.”
“True; if any words of mine can soothe his sorrow I shall be more than thankful. How he will grieve for such a son!”
“An only son, the hope of his house,” said Charles. “But I think he will say, when the first anguish is over, that it is well with him.”
There was a pause; then the elder brother resumed: “I should like to take Hugh with me.”
“I have no right to prevent you, even if I wished so to do,” Charles answered. “But, brother, there is one thing I ask of you most earnestly.”
“You are not likely to ask in vain. What is it?”
“That you let the boy's religion alone. You will never make a Catholic of him. An education begun in the Scotch Kirk and continued in the Swedish camp leaves no chance of that.”
“Set your mind at rest on that subject. What if, on the other hand, he were trying to convert me?”
“Jeanie might try. Hugh is but a bairn; such a notion would never enter his head.”
“I once read of a man who had committed murder, and who rode away desperately for dear life from the scene of his crime. After galloping all night, he found himself in the morning, with his exhausted, foam-covered horse, just where he started. He had described a circle. It may be that you have there the story of my life.”
“I wish you would converse with some learned divine; with Dr. Fabritius, for instance, or with Pastor Romano, to whose excellent sermon we have just been listening.”
“I have conversed with learned divines perhaps more than enough already. It is in my heart now to turn away from them all, and look to a greater Teacher, who, if He deign to speak to me, will assuredly speak the Truth.”
“You are right there. God guide you, brother.”
After that, little more was said. Almost in silence the brothers retraced their steps to the town; and the next morning Hugh set out on his mournful errand to Nuremberg, taking his son with him.