For Greater Things | Page 7

not go very often to Holy Communion, especially when they were
traveling hard, as Stanislaus evidently was. And his admiration and
liking grew for this boy with the merry face and the heart so near
heaven.
"At least," he said, "you must take something with you for the way."
And that Stanislaus did not refuse, but accepted gratefully, and so
parted from the kind landlord, leaving him gazing in the doorway with
wonder in his eyes.
His legs were a bit stiff and sore this second day. But the first few miles
wore that off, and he swung on his way as bravely and gayly as before.
CHAPTER II
THE PURSUIT Meanwhile, there was a hubbub in Vienna. Stanislaus
had lived in that city about three years with his brother Paul, who was
about a year older than he, and in the care of a tutor, a young man
named Bilinski. He had left them in the early morning. As the day wore

on and he did not return home, they became uneasy. They went about
all afternoon, inquiring amongst their friends and acquaintance if any
had seen him. Only one or two were in the secret, and they kept
discreet silence. Unable therefore to get any trace of Stanislaus, they
soon came to the conclusion that he had fled. And, as we shall see, they
had good reason in their own hearts for guessing that from the first.
They returned to the house of the Senator Kimberker, where they were
all lodging, and taking Kimberker, who was a Lutheran, into their
confidence, they held a council of war.
It was decided that Stanislaus must have gone to Augsburg. Paul
recalled something that Stanislaus had said to him only the day before,
when he had threatened plainly to run away. And they had heard him
say, another time, that at Augsburg was Peter Canisius, the Provincial
of the German Jesuits. Of course they were going to follow him and
bring him back. But night had come on before their inquiries and
deliberations were finished. They must wait till the next day.
Accordingly, bright and early the following morning, all three, with
one of the Kostkas' servants, drove out in a carriage over the Augsburg
road. They had four good horses and they told their coachman not to
spare the whip. They came to the inn where Stanislaus had spent the
night. They questioned the landlord.
"Have you seen a boy of seventeen, a Polish noble, pass westward
along this road yesterday or today?"
But the landlord was shrewd, and though the whole matter was beyond
him, he fancied somehow that these eager folk were no great friends of
the boy who had lodged with him. And as he trusted that boy and could
scarcely help being loyal to him, he shrugged his shoulders and
answered:
"How should I know? So many travel this road."
Then Bilinski described Stanislaus and his doublet of velvet and hose
of silk and jeweled dagger. But at that the landlord shook his head in
denial.

"I have seen no such person as your graces describe," he said.
Bilinski called out to the coachman:
"Drive on. We have nothing to learn here."
But Paul said: "NQ let us turn back. He cannot have walked this far in
one day. We must have passed him on the road."
"Perhaps you could not have walked so far," said Bilinski, with a sneer.
"But Stanislaus could. Drive on!"
Forty miles or more out of Vienna, they saw a boy trudging ahead of
them, in a rough tunic, rope-girdled, with a staff in his hand. At the
noise of the hurrying wheels the boy glanced back, then quickly turned
up a lane which there entered the road. He did not look in the least like
a nobleman's son, and the carriage passed the bottom of the lane
without so much as slacking speed.
Stanislaus ran up the lane until he came to where it ended at a rough,
brawling stream. Without a moment's hesitation he put off his shoes,
tucked up his tunic, and began wading in the course of the stream. The
water was cold, the sharp stones in the bed of the stream bruised his
feet, at any moment he might fall into a deep hole and be drowned. But
he splashed and stumbled ahead, as fast as he could go, praying to his
guardian angel to have care of him. A little farther, he knew, the
highway crossed this stream by a bridge, and there he could leave the
water and regain the road.
The carriage meantime kept on and came to this bridge. But Paul had
been thinking of the young fellow who took to the lane when he saw
the carriage approach and a shrewd suspicion came