MEANWHILE the air was charged with electricity, and the clouds of battle, which had so often met already with thunderous shock, still hung black and heavy as ever over the unhappy land. But for true Protestant hearts, at least, there was light behind them. The Swedes were marching on from victory to victory. After the great day of Leipzig, the champion of Protestantism pushed his conquests into the heart of Germany, and crossed the Rhine, taking Mentz and the other strong places which lay along his route. At length he advanced into the fertile plains of Bavaria, and passed the Lech in the face of the Imperial army, inflicting a crushing defeat on its general, Count Tilly, who received his own death-wound in the action.
About the time that the tidings of the fall of Mentz reached Frankfurt on the Oder, Jeanie came one day with a radiant face to her friend. “Wish me joy, dear Fraulein,” she said; “at last I have a letter.”
“Indeed! How has it come to you?”
“Through the commandant of the Swedish garrison here, to whom my uncle enclosed it. Hugh and he are both well. Hugh goes to school every day with the boys of the regiment, and is very happy. He is learning soldiering besides the other things. It was difficult at first, because of the Swedish tongue; but he is becoming used to that now. Do you know, I am not sorry he did not stay with my lord of Hamilton, for the young gentlemen with whom he consorted might have taught him drinking and dicing, and other evil ways, but now he is with sober, Christian-like folk.”
“And your uncle, what of him?” asked Fraulein Gertrud, a little amused by the precedence given to Hugh.
“My uncle is prospering fairly. He joined first as a gentleman volunteer, attaching himself to Colonel Monro's regiment, because it is Scotch. It belongs to what they call the Blue Brigade, the division of the Swedish army where there are most Scotchmen. His behavior at the battle of Leipzig won him praise and notice, and now he has been made a Fuhrer, with a hope of something better ere long. The Fuhrer, he says, attends the ensign in battle, and takes the colors if he is disabled. His pay is seven dollars a month.”
“That is not very magnificent.”
“No, but then he gets it, which is not the case in every service,” Jeanie responded wisely. “The king pays his men in advance, three times in the month. Still”― She paused, and looked anxious.
“I think I can tell of what you are thinking,” said her friend. “And I have something to say to you on the same subject. But it can wait.”
“Don't you think it is good for Hugh?” Jeanie resumed. “He may be nothing all his days but a poor soldier, but if he grows up a noble, God-fearing man, it must be good for him.”
“You always think first of Hugh,” said Fraulein Gertrud, who had perhaps heard more than enough already of this much-loved brother.
“Why not? Is he not my own dear, only brother? If you had a brother”―
“I have had two brothers, dear.” These were the first words Gertrud had ever said to Jeanie about her own past. Simple though they were, they gave her for this reason a thrill of emotion. She made no comment, however, but waited silently for the next. They came at last, but not without an evident effort. “Should you like me to tell you of my brothers, Jeanie?”
“Yes, dearly,” said Jeanie, in a low voice. “I have often wished you would speak of the past, but I feared to give you pain.”
“I too feared pain. In the old days I suffered so much that it seemed as if I could bear no more. I was tired—tired! I could only let my heart lie still and quiet, and grow cold and colder every day. I dared not feel anything, for fear of bringing back all the agony.”
“And now?” Jeanie asked gently.
“Now I am going to put that fear aside. For I must speak of what befell me long ago. Something has happened—and I have to act. You are concerned also, since I need your help; therefore it is meet that I should tell you certain things.”
“You need help from me?” said Jeanie, in great surprise.
“Listen; and see if you do not say to me, in the kind of language you like to use, that God has brought us together to help each other. You know already that we are exiles from Bohemia. My father, Count von Savelburg, had large estates in the mountain forests of my native land. Oh, those free hills, those forest glades―how I used to long for them in the first sad days of exile! Yet it was only surface longing after all―a few sprays of foam thrown up from the deeper fount of bitterness within. The yearning that wore out my life was not for hill or dale or forest, but for the dear faces that were under the clay, the dear voices that were still forever. You will tell me others know this sorrow as well as I―that men and women lose dear kindred every day. But that is by God's hand―or Nature's, if you will―not as I lost mine. From the days of John Huss downwards, every Savelburg who drew breath loved the cause of liberty, and every Savelburg who could wield a sword fought and bled for it. My father was foremost of the band who flung the false councilors of Mathias from the window of the council chamber of Prague, on the memorable day that begun the war which is raging round us yet. Afterward he was amongst those who rejected the perjured Ferdinand, the tool of the Jesuits, and chose and crowned our Protestant king, Frederick of the Palatinate. My mother was one of the ladies of his heroic queen―the sister of your English king—and well she loved and honored her. But short was Frederick's day of prosperity, and truly might his foes and ours call him in scorn the Winter King. The armies of Ferdinand and the League came pouring down upon us. They were trained soldiers, used to war, and with the whole force of the empire behind them. Our raw levies had only inspiring memories of the ancient Hussite battles, and old weapons stored up since the days of Ziska and Procopius. The great battle of the White Mountain was fought and lost, and my dear brother Albrecht was amongst the slain.”
“How sad for you!”
“Foolish child that I was I wept and wailed as if there was never sorrow in the earth like mine. Yet I had still my dear brave father, my tender mother, and my own loving brother Ernst, nearest to myself in age and from childhood my inseparable companion, so that our hearts slave together and we were as one. And he I mourned had died in fair battle with his face to the foe. The bullet had gone right through his heart, and they found him so, and buried him where he lay. It was well with him. Neither pain, nor shame, nor wrong had ever touched him. But I wept for him―wept wildly, passionately, refusing to be comforted. Jeanie, if one dear to you should die in battle, you must not weep. It is not worthwhile―there are so many worse things in the world, one may be glad when it all ends so.”
Jeanie sighed. “But I could not help it,” she said, “if it was Hugh. I do not think you were wrong.”
“I had soon to wish the rest I loved beside him. After the Austrian victory came the Austrian vengeance. It was terrible. Nothing short of massacre, though done after the forms of law. The noblest heads left in our land fell on the scaffold. Nor was death enough to satisfy the rage of Ferdinand and his Jesuits. It was embittered by torture. But I cannot tell you all. I had thought myself stronger.”
“Dear Fraulein, you are fainting!” cried Jeanie in alarm, as she saw the whitening lips and heard the failing voice.
“No, no, it is over. But I must remember there are things not to be spoken. Only one thing I cannot leave untold. The night before they died a great company of the victims supped together very cheerfully; saying that as for themselves they needed no more the food of earth; yet they would partake of it, that all might see how gladly and calmly they gave their lives in so good a cause. Next morning they donned their richest garments and went forth as to a festival. I broidered two scarves, in silken sheen with threads of gold, one in green for my father, the other red, as he had ever loved it, for my boyish brother. I got them back again, stained with drops of blood. I have them now, the most precious things in all the world to me.”
After a long pause she resumed. “We who were left, my mother and myself, might not even let our hearts break silently in our old ancestral home. It was ours no longer. We must go forth desolate from our native land. After all that had come upon us, I could almost have thanked God when He took my mother ere the day of departure came. At least for her there was no more pain. And for myself I cared little. I might have been then about your age, Jeanie, but I was old in misery. My mother's aged father took me and another orphan grandchild, my cousin Ada, under his protection. Why he chose this town as his place of refuge I know not, but he made his way hither, and found safety for us amongst our brethren in the faith. Then he too closed his weary eyes and slept in peace.” Here Gertrud paused, as if her tale was ended, and she was glad to have it over.
“Your cousin is the Frau Doctorin?” said Jeanie.
“Yes; she is happy here. She was younger than I when the storm broke, and she suffered as a child, not as a woman. She loves her husband and her little ones, and she lives for them, while I―ten years ago I died. You look surprised, but it is true that when one no longer loves anything one is dead. It is better so. Those first months were too dreadful to be borne. The desolation, the loneliness, the agony of yearning for those the grave had closed over! Then the passion of hate, the wild, maddening thirst for revenge upon their torturers, their murderers! I tell you, if in those years the King of Sweden had come amongst us to make the craven heart of Ferdinand tremble in the midst of his Jesuits, I should have gone mad with joy. Now I scarcely care. I cared not much about anything until you came. But I have let myself love you.”
“I am so glad,” said Jeanie, drawing closer and putting her hand within that of her friend.
“It is no cause for gladness. Love only brings misery. The end always comes too soon.”
“The end never comes,” said Jeanie brightly; “there is no end to love. Dear friend, don't you know that the faces you longed for you shall see again at the resurrection of the just? They were martyrs; and the ‘souls of them that were beheaded’ for the witness of Christ shall live and reign with Him in glory.”
A cold, hard look came over the face of Gertrud. “When I see on this earth anything like the reign of Christ, I shall begin to believe the rest of it,” she said.
Jeanie's large eyes opened wide with sorrowful wonder. This was quite a new experience to her, and a very terrible one. “But it is true,” she said. “It is written, and Christ is reigning now.”
“Where, I pray you? In the slaughterhouse of Magdeburg last year? Over the battlefields of Bavaria today? Or perchance in the wasted plains of Pomerania, where the wolves are stealing from their coverts to devour the famine-stricken handful war and pestilence have left behind?”
“He reigns now in the hearts of those who love Him. He will reign yet over the whole wide world.”
“Those are vain words. If He were reigning anywhere, He would not let such things as I have told you happen to those who loved and trusted Him.”
“I don't know that; you know what happened to Himself. Did He not choose the bitter cross for Himself, and may He not think it the best thing He can choose for those He loves the best?”
“I know not,” said Gertrud wearily, resting her head on her hand. “Indeed I know not anything, It is so long since I have ceased to believe—to hope—to love. But as for thee, poor child, do not let my words trouble thee. Forget them; they are wild. Let us talk of that which lies clear before us both, and in which we can agree―our duty. And to make it plain I must resume my story. After the noble heads I spoke of had fallen on the scaffold, it was the turn of the poor and lowly to suffer for their faith. The Jesuits and their missionaries went from hamlet to hamlet, the crucifix in one hand, the sword in the other. You will believe that the sons and daughters of the Hussites did not yield too readily to these apostles of a creed they abhorred. Some resisted unto blood, others found means of leaving the country. Amongst these last a company of poor workmen, my father's vassals, found their way to Nuremberg, a free Protestant city, and often ere this a refuge for our oppressed countrymen. They are there now; but they find the exile's life a hard one, and the sharp stings of poverty are added to their trials.”
“How did you come to hear of them?” asked Jeanie.
“My father's dear friend and camarado in the wars of Transylvania, Baron von Lübeling, keeps me informed of their condition. If I were only with them, I could do much to make their lives more tolerable.”
Jeanie started. A thought she did not like to admit seemed about to force itself on her.
“What could you do?” she asked anxiously.
“A great deal. They would gather around me loyally and lovingly, because their fathers had served mine for generation after generation. I could give them counsel and comfort, find work for the men, teach the women some of those simple arts I have been teaching you. It is long since this thought first came to me. I tried to put it from me, for it troubled me. It brought back the past, with its anguish and misery, and broke up the cold indifference I clung to as my only refuge from intolerable pain. But I could not quite get rid of it, and, strange to say, the more I saw of you the stronger it grew. You would do the thing you knew to be right, however hard you might find it―would you not?”
“I would ask God to help me,” said Jeanie, in a low voice.
“I must help myself,” Gertrud answered sadly. “And now, to waste no more words, I ask you, Giovana Graham, will you come with me to Nuremberg?”
“Ah, Fraulein Gertrud!” cried Jeanie breathlessly, while her color came and went with pleasure, surprise, and perplexity.
“Listen: I have planned it all. You will be my companion for the journey, and my friend and helper afterward. Baron von Lübeling will arrange for our safe and comfortable residence in the city. I am not quite without resources. I have valuable jewels, saved by my grandfather out of the wreck of our fortunes, and ever since in the safe keeping of the good doctor, who will take nothing for the bread and shelter he has given me all these years. He and Ada both wish me God speed.”
“But will not the journey be a perilous one, with the war raging all around us?”
“No. It can be managed easily enough. We shall have a good escort, either of Swedes or Germans. There is a rumor at present that the Swedes are going to Nuremberg; indeed, they are certain to go there sooner or later. So you would have a better chance of meeting your uncle and your brother there than here.”
“Besides,” said Jeanie, with a thoughtful face, “it is not fair to the Schubarts that I, a stranger, should continue to tax their hospitality in this way.”
“I am sure they account it no tax, but a pleasure to have you amongst them. However, it seems clear that you ought to go where you are really wanted, and to accept a position where you can be useful, and I hope comfortable. Your society will be a positive boon to me. There is no one whom you are bound to consult. Your uncle is out of your reach; moreover, he has thrown upon you the burden of your own support, and he cannot complain of your taking the best means in your power of making yourself independent.”
Somehow or other this cool, practical statement of her position impressed Jeanie more powerfully than the warmest invitations and assurances of friendship would have done. Her trust in her friend was too absolute for these to be required or missed; while she could not but feel that her friend's view of her case was the true one. Her early cares and anxieties had sharpened her perceptions; she knew but too well that she could not live as did the birds of the air, even though he trusted the same Heavenly Father to feed her. This, she supposed, might be His way of feeding her at present. So she answered quietly, “I will go with you, Fraulein Gertrud. That is, if the Frau Rittmeisterin does not object. I think I ought to consult her, as my uncle, in a certain sense, left me in her care.”
“Do so, then, my child. But I do not think she will object. Go home now, tell her and your other friends what I have said, and come to me in the morning as early as you can.”
Jeanie rose and drew near her friend for a parting kiss. As she received it, she ventured to whisper softly, “Christ comfort you, dear friend. He will do it.”