For Greater Things | Page 8

into his head.
"Did you see that boy who ran up the lane?" he cried at length to
Bilinski. "I believe it was Stanislaus."
"But he was dressed like a peasant," said Bilinski. "And Stanislaus had
on a handsome suit."

They debated for a time, but Paul prevailed. Round they turned and
drove furiously back to the lane. But as the driver tried to turn his
horses into it, the animals reared and balked and refused to enter.
Blows and curses were showered on them; they merely stood and
trembled; no efforts could urge them into the lane. Then the driver grew
afraid, and cried out:
"My Lord Paul, we cannot go into this lane. And before God, I have
fear upon me! Never have the horses acted this way."
And indeed fear seized them all. They saw the hand of God in this
strange obstinancy of their beasts. Even Kimberker cried the pursuit.
"Fear God!" he said. "For this is no common mishap!"
And when they turned the horses' heads again toward Vienna, the
animals snorted and pranced and went very willingly.
And so, when Stanislaus came to the bridge, the highway was clear.
After a look about, he put on his shoes, gripped his staff afresh, and
took up again cheerily as ever his thirty miles a day to Augsburg.
Day after day, tired and footsore, he told off the long miles, begging his
food and lodging as he went; fearless and happy, praying like an angel
of God as he walked along.
Many were kind to him for the brave, bright spirit that shone out in his
face. Many remembered those words of our Lord, "Whatsoever you
have done unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto
me," and willingly sheltered the boy and gave him to eat. Sometimes he
turned into the fields beside the road and slept through the warm
August night beneath the open sky. Whenever he came to a church in
the morning, he heard Mass and received Holy Communion, for he
started out each morning fasting. And on the fourteenth day he reached
Augsburg.
What happened there, we shall see in another chapter, and how within
three weeks this smiling boy turned his face southward and tramped

another eight hundred miles on foot to Rome. But just that will show
you something of the spirit of Stanislaus, the spirit of a hero. All that a
knight might do out of love for his lady, he did out of love for God. He
really loved God with a sort of fierce intensity. And he wanted to show
his love in deeds, just as we want to show our love for a person by
doing something, by giving something. God had given him everything,
he would give God everything: that was the whole of his life. And with
that generosity went a fine common sense. He was not rash or headlong,
acting first and thinking afterward. He reckoned things out calmly and
sensibly, and then went ahead with a pluck and determination that
nothing in the world could stop.
God asked a fearfully hard thing of him; to leave his people, his home;
to set out afoot on an enormous journey; to undergo no end of
hardships and humiliations; to live in a strange land, among strange
people. And he did it, did it smilingly, joyfully, with a simple, quiet
bravery seldom if ever matched by any other boy in the world.
The one thing that staggers us is his reason for doing it, his great love
for God. And that is because we have not got, what we could easily get,
his secret. He prayed, he kept close in thought to God always. God and
heaven and our Lady were as familiar to his mind as the sun and the
earth and the air are to our mind's. The earth to him was only the
antechamber of heaven. He looked upon life as one looks upon a little
delay at a railway station before the train leaves; the only important
thing is to catch the train.
CHAPTER III
EARLY DAYS
Bilinski and Paul Kostka went back to Vienna, much troubled at heart.
They really loved Stanislaus, for one thing, though they had been pretty
rough with him. And for another, they had to face the anger of the Lord
John Kostka, when he should hear of Stanislaus' flight.
Shortly after they had got back, a young friend of the runaway came to
them and said:

"If you look between the leaves of such-and-such a book, you will find
a letter which Stanislaus left for you."
They looked and found the letter. It was very simple and
straightforward, a genuine boy's letter. He had run away, he said,
because he had to. He