Flung to the heedless winds,
Or on the waters cast,
(His) ashes shall be watched,
And gathered at the last;
And from that precious seed,
Around us and abroad
Shall spring a plenteous host
Of witnesses for God.'
MARTIN LUTHER.
HUBERT went forth from the chancellor's house without one thought that he was a ‘masterless man,' homeless, friendless, alone in the world. Such thoughts would come afterward. At present he only felt the bitter pain of parting with the man he had so reverenced, loved, and followed. It was intensified by the thrill of a keen disappointment. How could it be that the great chancellor—so good, so wise, so noble—could not see what was so plain to him, could not feel what had appealed with such overmastering power to his heart?
Whither was he now to bend his steps? He did not know: to his present mood all places were alike. For some time he paced idly up and down the street; but at last it occurred to him to tell his brother what had happened, so he bent his steps towards the Burgundian house in the Ros Garten. He met Armand coming out of it, and was hailed by him with evident pleasure.
‘I was just going in search of you,' he said. ‘I have much to tell you. Come, and let us talk. Whither shall we go?—by the Gottlieben way? '
‘Not there,' said Hubert, shuddering.
‘You are right. Let us come to the river-side.'
Before they were out of the town, however, Armand began to pour forth his story. The first part was hard to tell; so he wished to get over it quickly—yet still hesitated —lingering on the brink, as it were.
‘There was a thing,' he said, ‘which happened to me in my boyhood, and which, from one cause or another, I never mentioned to you, Hubert. Perhaps it was not all my fault. I tried more than once; but, somehow, at the right time I could never get your ear. The day after the pope's flight I came determined to tell you, but I could get you to think of nothing, save the triumph of the Council over him.'
‘Ah!’ said Hubert, sadly, that idol at least is shattered now. ‘What a fool I was! '
‘Another time,' resumed Armand, ‘some other thing withheld me, no matter what. And, I suppose, the tale not being much to my own credit, I was withheld the more easily.'
Then, plunging at once into the middle of his story, he told Hubert in a few words the story of his boyish transgression, of the loss of the duke's dispatch and its consequences.
Hubert could hardly contain his indignation. He would have thought beforehand that nothing just then could have moved him. But those are commonly mistaken who expect a great grief, or a great emotion, to 'kill all the rest.' More often, it only leaves the nerves of feeling bare and quivering, doubly sensitive to new pain. So his lively, kindly, openhearted young brother, whom he so loved and trusted, had all the time been keeping a secret from him! Far worse, he had been maintaining a cowardly silence, and letting others suffer the consequence of his own misdeeds! As if it were not enough to lose his faith in the chancellor, he must lose his faith in Armand too! Who, then, was left him to trust? But even in that bitter moment his heart answered softly, ‘God.' With the sacred name something like calmness came back, though the sharp pain was with him still.
‘Oh, Armand, Armand!’ he cried sadly, ‘how could our mother's son have ever done so? '
Armand blushed, hung his head, and murmured, ‘I knew you would take it thus.' After a pause he resumed: ‘And if I feared to tell you, how was I to tell the Demoiselle Jocelyne, whose brother Godefroi de Sabrecourt was? Think of that, Hubert, and pity me. I own I played the coward—but I was tempted sore. God knows, I was tempted sore. After we broke gold together it became impossible to tell her.'
‘But you ought to have done it before.'
‘If I had, would she ever have heard my suit? Afterward, I quieted my soul with the thought that she need never know, and that if she did not know, where was the harm? '
‘Where?’ cried Hubert indignantly. ‘To yourself, of course. You were destroying your own soul. I scarcely recognize my brother in you, Armand. But,' he added with a touch of self-reproach, I ought to have known—I ought to have guessed before this that there was something wrong with you.'
‘I suppose,' said Armand meditatively, 'you might have moved me if you had tried. I would have done—I would do now—almost anything for you, Hubert. But at last, after all, it was not you, but a man I never saw before, and never changed a word with, who opened my lips and set me free.'
Scarcely able to accept the relief his last words brought him, Hubert turned and looked at him eagerly, surprise and hope dawning on his face.
‘Yes,' said Armand, answering his look, ‘I have told all now. Now I fear nothing which any living man—ay, or the dead either, if the dead could rise and speak—could bring against me.'
‘My brother has come back to me, then, thank God!’ cried Hubert joyfully. After a pause,—' But to whom have you told it, Armand? '
‘To the one to whom I owed it, and to whom of all others it was the hardest to tell.'
‘And she? '
‘There was a bitter hour that I care not to recall. She said she had lost her faith in me; that if all the world beside had said it of me she could not have believed me false. "Never false to you," I faltered in my pain. "He that is not true to truth, cannot be true to love," she answered. What boots it to tell you how I prayed and pleaded? Enough—it was in vain. We parted; she in wrath, I in bitterness of soul. That was yestermorn, at Petershausen, in the Pleasaunce, where we had been walking, amongst the flowers. I lingered there the whole day; I could not leave the spot. At last—at last she deigned to hear me plead once more; and you know, when you are heard, you are half forgiven. Now I am forgiven wholly. Never have I been so light of heart—never in all my life. Demoiselle Jocelyne is the noblest as well as the fairest lady for whom true knight ever drew a sword.'
‘And you will be worthy of her,' said Hubert; ‘it was well done—right well done of you.'
‘We are to be faithful to one another, and to wait for better days,' pursued Armand.
‘Why better days?’ queried Hubert.
‘Don't you see that one confession entails another? This morning I wrote a full account of the whole matter to my lord the duke (would I had 'had your ready pen to help me, Hubert). I can scarce expect him to keep me in the service after that.' Armand, you are better off at this moment than I am.' It was Armand's turn to be astonished now. I don't understand you,' he said; ‘you have always the chancellor.' Then he asked, rather irrelevantly, ‘How did you hurt your arm?’
‘I'll tell you by-and-by; I also have many things to tell. Armand, do you remember a promise I made you, in jest, soon after our first meeting?'
‘Ay, do I!’ said Armand, with sudden earnestness, his eyes sparkling. ‘If your chancellor committed a crime, more especially a murder, you were to leave his service, and to tell him why.'
‘What think you, then, of the deed done on Saturday?’ asked Hubert in a low voice.
‘That is just what I want to ask you,' cried Armand eagerly. ‘I saw you in the cathedral.'
Hubert bowed his head. There was a silence; then he said, very gently and sadly, ‘Armand, I have kept my word. I shall see the face of the great chancellor no more. I have told him that he, whom they burned as a heretic, died like St. Stephen, and is gone where St. Stephen went.'
‘Then a braver man than you have I never seen! You ought to be a good knight; perhaps you will one day. And, Hubert, I know you are right about that man.' Armand's voice now grew low and gentle, he looked and spoke as one who stands in a holy place. ‘Strange it is to tell, but he it was who made me speak the truth, and cast lies and falsehoods behind my back forever. Demoiselle Jocelyne persuaded me to go to the cathedral on Saturday. I could refuse her nothing, but it was much against my will. I hated the whole affair; the heat was terrible, and to stand five hours in a crowded church, and hear Latin talked, was no slight penance. Heaven knows what it was all about! You, I suppose, understood it all—but I, of course, never a word. There was something, however, which I did understand, and will never forget, as long as I live. The man's look and bearing, so dauntless and so calm. His steadfast refusal to purchase life by one word which was not true. And he—a poor priest; while I—a gentleman born, and the son of a knight. But, no doubt, God was with him, and gave him strength. For that he was a heretic, that of course will I never believe, nor my lady. But, Hubert,' with a sudden return to his ordinary manner, what will you do now? Have you determined? '
‘I do not know; nor, at present, do I greatly care,' returned Hubert.
By this time they had strolled back again to the town, and were turning up the Rhinegasse. A tall man in a notary's gown crossed the street, apparently to speak to them. Hubert had just time to say to his brother, ‘That is Mladenowie, the Bohemian scribe whom you saw with me that day at the Leiter House,' when Petr came up, and grasped his hand with a warm greeting.
‘God bless you, good Master Hubert!’ he said, ‘you share our sorrow.'
‘And your glory,' answered Hubert. ‘Were I a Bohemian I would hold my head high today.'
‘I have been seeking you,' continued Mladenowic̆. ‘The chancellor's people told me you were gone they knew not whither.'
‘What did you want with me? '
‘My lord, the knight of Chlum, charged me with a message for you. He bade me make his excuse to you for not visiting you himself. Indeed, these were his words—if you will pardon my repeating them, Master Hubert?—that he could not "set his foot inside that murderer's den," meaning the chancellor's house.'
‘I shall account it an honor to wait upon the knight of Chlum,' said Hubert. ‘I esteem him very highly.' Then, turning to Armand, ‘Where shall we agree to meet? '
‘No place so good as the Golden Lion, where we met first, as I may say,' answered Armand. ‘You can fetch your baggage from the chancellor's, and have it left there. Meantime, I will order supper. Mine host hath the best wine in Constance, and the best cook too.'
‘Do as you like,' said Hubert, indifferently, as he turned to accompany Mladenowie to the house of Fidelia in St. Paul's Street.
Vaclav met him at the door, threw his arms around him, and embraced him with boyish fervor. Then, still holding his hand, he led him in. ‘Father, here is good Master Hubert, who saved my life,' he said.
Hubert looked in the strong face of the noble Bohemian. It was calm and firm, but full of grief—' a grief as deep as life or thought '—the face of a man whose heart is crushed, and with whom nothing stands unshaken still except his faith in God. Then, gently disengaging his hand and laying it on the boy's shoulder, he said, ‘And this, sir baron, is the brave young knight who, when he thought we could not both be saved, bade me let him go and save myself, for he did not fear to die.'
The sad features relaxed, and the father's eye rested on his son with tender pride. ‘You never told me that,' he said. Then, turning to Hubert, ‘Do you marvel that I prize what you have given back to me? But for you, brave Frenchman, the same hour would have brought me two sorrows, each enough for a man to bear. How shall I show you I am grateful? '
Hubert's eyes kindled. ‘Would you but take my hand in yours,' he began, I should esteem it—'
He was not allowed to finish his sentence. The good knight took his hand, and pressed it in a strong, cordial grasp, well worth an embrace. At the same moment a younger man, handsomely dressed, and with a hawk on his wrist, came forward, saying, ‘Is this your gallant Frenchman, uncle? Make him known to us.'
Hubert recognized Latzembock; and looking round him for the first time, saw Duba also, seated at a table, clad in a doublet of quilted silk, a sort of knightly undress. His face and attitude showed deep sadness. He rose, however, and came forward, extending his hand. ‘We know you already,' he said.
It were ill done to forget the honest-hearted scribe who came with us that day to the Leiter House. As well for that deed as for ere yesterday's every Bohemian in Constance owes you a debt. But we only know you as Master Hubert, the French Chancellor's secretary. ‘What is your surname, brave Frerchman?' (This Mladenowic̆, as it seemed, either had not heard correctly or had forgotten.)
‘I am Hubert Bohun; my father was an Englishman.' Bohun? Bohun?’ Chlum repeated thoughtfully. ‘And an Englishman? Strange if my father were a friend of yours —strange indeed! Yet no, it is not possible; your father would have been too young. Is he living, Master Bohun?' No, sir baron, I lost him in my infancy. He was taken prisoner in France, and while in captivity married my mother. I know scarce anything of him or his kinsfolk.'
‘Was he, or was his father, perchance, a friend of Master John Wickliffe's? '
‘As to my grandfather, I cannot tell. As to my father, I fear it is but too true. At least, I possess a book which he, being then, as I suppose, very young, had received as a gift from the heretic.'
‘We Bohemians do not call Master John Wickliffe a heretic, although we do not follow him in everything,' said Chlum gently. ‘Yes, it must be so. My father went to England in the train of Queen Anne, and formed friendships which he prized. None more greatly than that with the noble knight whom I have heard him name with honor as Sir Simon Bohun.'
‘True indeed,' said Hubert eagerly. ‘I have heard that my grandfather's name was Simon; my father's, like my own, was Hubert.'
‘Now, in truth,' said Chlum, ‘the grandson of my father's friend, and the preserver of my son's life, has a double claim upon my friendship.'
‘But how came you, the son and grandson of good English knights, to be the French Chancellor's scribe?’ asked Latzembock.
Hubert's answer was an indirect one.
‘I am the chancellor's scribe no longer,' he said. ‘Why so?’ asked Duba and Latzembock together. Hubert looked at both of them in silence, then turned to Chlum, and looked longest and most earnestly at him. ‘You can guess, sir baron,' he said.
‘Do you mean,' asked Chlum, ‘that the manly words you spoke to the Kaiser in our presence a month ago cost you the favor of your lord? I fear, indeed, it is probable enough.' ‘No, sir baron, it was not that,' said Hubert eagerly. ‘My lord—may God be with him!—was ever gentle and forbearing towards me. But how could I write any more for him, or for the Council, after what the Council did ere yesterday?’ Latzembock and Duba uttered exclamations of surprise and admiration; Chlum's sad, earnest eyes seemed to read Hubert through and through as he asked, ‘And is that why you are the chancellor's scribe no longer? '
Hubert bent his head.
‘But—how came he to know what you thought of the Council and its deed?' asked Latzembock, drawing closer to him. ‘I told him,' said Hubert quietly.
‘No man does one brave deed, and only one,' said Duba. ‘Few men stop at the second. Here already is thy third, Master Hubert; and God wot it is the bravest of all.'
Then Chlum said gravely: ‘I confess I do not understand you, Master Hubert. We Bohemians mourn today, for our master is taken from our head. "Alas, my father, my father! The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" That is the cry of our sorrow; but therewith the stranger intermeddleth not. The men of other nations who are assembled here know us not, even as they knew him not. How is it that you, a Frenchman, and a pupil of his enemy and ours, know more than all the rest?’
‘Yes, there is the wonder,' broke in Latzembock, ‘that you should do all this—you, not a Bohemian.'
‘Not a Bohemian, but, as I hope, a Christian,' answered Hubert. ‘The better Christian, all my days, because I have seen him. Sir baron '—he turned again to Chlum—' I was in the church on Saturday—and I believe that God has not taken from him the cup of His salvation; but that even now he drinks of it in His kingdom.'
With a sudden quiver of the firm lip Chlum turned aside. It is often so. Thus calmly can a stranger speak of the joys those who have left us share in His kingdom; while to us, whose very life has gone from us with them, there comes only the desolating sense that the kingdom is very far away.
But Latzembock, Duba, and another knight named Leffle, who entered just then, atoned for the silence of Chlum. Never did a new convert receive a more cordial welcome than they gave Hubert. ‘See how God is with us, after all,' cried Leffle. ‘Already He is causing fruit to spring from our martyr's grave.'
‘His grave?’ repeated Duba, with bitter emphasis. ‘Can we forget for an instant that even a grave has been denied him? His very ashes they would not allow to rest upon God's earth.'
‘Is that true?’ asked Hubert.
‘Did you not know it? Coat and girdle and shoes, everything he had upon him, was burned to ashes; lest aught should remain which we might recover and keep as a precious relic. Then all the ashes they gathered carefully together, and cast them into the Rhine.’
Chlum, who had scarcely seemed to listen, now turned towards them again, and said abruptly, ‘They, and we, and the world, have not done with those ashes. What will spring from them yet, God only knows. But it will be neither curse nor bane, but blessing. Blessing for us and ours, and our children after us. Blessing for Bohemia—but when and how—what more and what further—I see not yet. It is hidden in the hand of God.'
A servant at that moment appeared at the door, bearing a letter. But instead of bringing it in, and giving it to his master, Chlum, he slipped it into the hand of Vaclav, and was going quickly away, when Chlum called him back.
‘Come hither, "faithful Vitus," ' said he. ‘Before these knights, who heard me reproach thee—too hastily—I take now thine hand. There rests upon thee no shadow of blame. One of the last words he wrote was to exonerate thee: "I pray you, have no suspicion of faithful Vitus."'
Vitus kissed the extended hand of his lord, then broke into passionate sobs and tears, and hurried out. It was some time before any one spoke again.
Chlum at last opened his letter, and while he and the others examined its contents Hubert withdrew a little and stood by the window. Vaclav joined him, with the air of one preparing to make a confession. 'My father says,' he began, ‘that I was much in fault on Saturday, and that it would have been my sin if we had both been drowned.'
‘Was he angry with you? '
‘Angry? No,' said Vaclav, with a child's keen sense of the dignity of sorrow. ‘People in great trouble are never angry. Only he said I had done wrong. He sent me on Friday to Petershausen, there to abide for three days with Stanislaus the Pole. [Hubert had no difficulty in guessing why.] But I wanted to see the face of Master John again. How could I help it, Master Hubert? You know we all love him so. Better to die, I thought, than not to see him anymore! They told me he would pass through this street, by this house. So I meant to come back here. I changed clothes with a young flat-cap, Hänschen, the baker's son at Petershausen, that I might not be known in the crowd. I got as far as the bridge, when that happened which you know. When I go home I will tell my mother and Zedenka what you did for me. They will thank you.'
‘The Lady Zedenka is your sister, I suppose? '
‘Yes. Zedenka is much older than I; she is quite grown up. She does all manner of things for me. She is good—very good, and very wise. I had a brother, Johan, but he died last year, while my father was in Italy. Then Master John came to us and comforted us. Who will comfort us now? '
‘Presently Chlum came over to where they stood. I suppose you will now return to your kinsfolk?’ he said to Hubert.
‘I have none to return to,' Hubert answered, rather indifferently than sadly.
‘Then what will you do, my friend?’ the knight asked kindly.
‘God knows,' returned Hubert. ‘I suppose,' he added, ‘I shall find another service. I have always the scholar's weapon, the pen.'
The chancellor's secretary, very likely, might one day become a priest. ‘Was that thy mind, Master Hubert? '
‘In this matter I am in a strait,' Hubert answered candidly. ‘To be a good priest were very good; but to be a priest like some I know here, a priest like those in the Council who did this thing—I would rather die! My father was a good knight, and fought for his country and his king, and gladly would I have followed in his footsteps.'
‘An honest wish for a gallant lad like thee! Each should go after his own kind. What say you, then, to changing thy scholar's gown for a soldier's cloak, and thy pen and inkhorn for a sword?’
‘So would I right gladly, if I had a cloak and sword, a captain to fight under, and a cause to fight in.'
The shadow of a smile played over the sorrowful face of Chlum. ‘I can find the sword and cloak at least,' he said.
‘And if for the present you will take esquire's service under me, I can promise you such training in knightly exercises that you will be ready for the captain and the cause when they come.'
For the instant Hubert was dumb, not with hesitation, but with wondering joy. Nothing better, nothing half so good, could he have dreamed of for himself. To serve this noble-hearted knight, the martyr's brave defender and dearest friend, seemed to him the happiest lot on earth. Moreover, his boyish aspirations would be realized now. He would be knight and soldier after all.
Two persons mistook his silence for hesitation. Vaclav broke in with an eager entreaty, ‘Oh! you will come to us, Master Hubert; say you will come to us!’ Chlum said modestly: ‘But I would not urge you, or hold you bound, should anything offer more suited to your wishes. For, as I said before the Council, I am one of the least of the barons of Bohemia; I have neither vast estates, nor great wealth, nor a fine retinue. I have only, like every other Bohemian knight, a fair skill in knightly exercises, which I shall use right willingly for your instruction.'
‘I am but too fortunate,' said Hubert with a beaming face. ‘The renown of the Bohemian chivalry fills the world; and I have often heard how esquires and pages from the farthest lands of Christendom resort to Bohemia for training. Sir Baron, I take your offer with heartfelt thanks, and I will be true man to you henceforward, so help me God! '
Vaclav's shout of childish joy rang out unawares. ‘That is glorious!’ he cried. ‘Now you will come to Pihel! Now you will see my mother, and my sister Zedenka, and everybody! You shall be my grown-up brother, and Zedenka-'
‘Hush, my son,' said his father gently. ‘Today we speak low and soft, as those who sit beside their dead. Hast thou forgotten? ‘Then to Hubert, It is done. Come to us at once; for as soon as we can make ready we ride back to Bohemia, shaking off from our feet the dust of this wicked city.'
The other knights, who had heard the concluding words, expressed their approbation. ‘Come to-night,' they said to Hubert. ‘Come to supper. Thou art one of us now.'