CHAPTER XXX.

THE JESUIT.

Retaining ten thousand men under his own command, Count Tilly immediately despatched the Counts of Carlstein and Merodé, with the remainder of his force, along the banks of the Elbe, with orders to turn the flank of all King Christian's outposts; after which they were all to reunite, and advance again to the conquest of the Danish isles.

Devereaux's Irish regiment occupied Lauenburg, where the German pioneers buried the dead in great trenches, and many were quite warm, with the blood still oozing from their wounds when flung in. The vast depth to which they dug these pits excited my surprise, and I was informed by Count Kœningheim that it was "to prevent any vampires who might be among the slain ascending to upper earth;" for I found that, from the frightful atrocities of the Imperial troops, they had the most implicit belief in these imaginary monsters, and supposed that many were in their ranks.

Several prisoners, who had incurred Tilly's displeasure for various reasons, were now selected by the sergeant of the quarter-guard, and put aside for hanging at sunset. To my horror, I found _myself_ placed among these doomed men! I remonstrated with the sergeant with all the earnestness of one whose life depended upon his own exertions, assuring him that I had done nothing worthy of a death so detestable.

"Very well," said he coolly; "make some interest with an officer, and we may shoot you instead--forward, escort!" and we were marched to a small open shed, which stood under some large trees that grew near the river. Against one of these trees stood a ladder, and Bandolo, who on this occasion had constituted himself assistant to the provost-marshal, superintended the arrangement of certain cords, having ugly loops thereon, from the branches of the trees. My fellow prisoners were six Croats and two Germans. They were all tied with cords; the Croats sat on the ground in sullen silence, glaring at their guards from under their fur caps and savage elf-locks; the two Germans had smoked themselves into a state of dreamy indifference, and sat with their lack-lustre eyes fixed on the flowing river. Around us, the soldiers of the escort were quietly cleaning their arms, rubbing down their horses, and cooking their rations on a large fire (composed of tables, chairs, &c., taken from a neighbouring house), previous to marching.

Though I could face death in any form when encountering him in the ranks, with the colours above and my comrades beside me, to die thus was a very different thing. To be left hanging like a dog or a thief from the branch of a tree (though the sergeant assured me "it was a most respectable gibbet")--I, a gentleman and soldier, in the manly garb of my native country--to die thus--and to die without a crime! The reflection was intolerable!

But there was not one to whom I could apply for mercy or for succour. Count Carlstein had marched, and Kœningheim, had gone, no one knew whither.

Devereux's Irishmen cared nothing for me. I was not their countryman; besides, I had not the means of communicating with them.

As the day wore on, with an agony which cannot now be written, I watched the summer sun verging to the westward, and shedding along, the whole bosom of the Elbe its bright evening beams, throwing far across the river and its bordering meadows the lengthening shadows of every spire, and house, and tree; for as still, as glassy, and waveless as ever, the stream flowed on towards the German Sea--the same sea that washed the Scottish shore. The sun sank lower and lower; the days were then long, and the landscape was flat; yet it was within an hour of setting.

Only an hour! .......

I sprang up, and walked to and fro with an air of perturbation which I could not conceal; but which my phlegmatic German guard, viewed with the most perfect indifference. A torrent of bitter thoughts poured through my heart; I had quitted a home where none regretted me, with the hope that all I left behind should one day be proud of my actions, and might boast of my glorious death if I fell in battle or siege--but now the noose was waving over my head! I felt that it was impossible for me to meet such a death, and so unmerited, with resolution or with resignation, and without a struggle--a desperate struggle--if not for liberty at least for revenge. It was better, a thousand times better, to die sword in hand, and be hewed to pieces, than to be hung like a pitiful marauder.

A weapon! I saw none save in the hands of the strong guard which surrounded us, laughing and jesting through their bushy mustaches just as if nothing unusual was to happen, and nine poor devils were not to be hanged at all.

While full of these bitter thoughts, I perceived a man whom I knew by his attire to be a priest of the order of Jesus--one of the many who followed the army of Tilly--walking slowly towards the trees whereon the fatal nooses were dangling, and at the foot of which the Croats and Germans were seated in sullen and listless apathy.

He stooped down and addressed them all in succession; but they cursed, and bade him begone "to the devil." Then he paused, with the air of one who conferred with himself whether it were worth while to continue so ungrateful a task; and, after some hesitation, he approached and gazed at me from head to foot.

His thin, tall figure is yet before me. Worn evidently by asceticism and conventual severity, he stooped a little forward; his forehead was broad and impending; his features were harsh, while a prominence of mouth and chin indicated more firmness of purpose than mildness and benignity--yet, in many respects, his face belied the good man's disposition. His eyes--keen, penetrating and hard in expression--inspired awe, and commanded respect from all on whom he bent them; but their decided expression belied the humility with which he crossed his bony hands upon his bosom, and humbly bowed his head even unto the most humble.

Educated a Presbyterian, and being the soldier of a Protestant king, I gazed with some distrust at this brother of that order whose name excites so many jealous feelings, and which has been so obnoxious to the princes of Europe generally; for in my own time I have seen the Jesuits, as the result of their intrigues, expelled forcibly from Venice and Prague, from Naples and Flanders.

He halted before me, crossed his hands upon his breast, and slightly bent his lofty figure.

"Your servant, reverend sir," said I, in my own language.

"God be with you, my son," he answered in the same. I had used it inadvertently, but now my attention was excited, and I gazed at him inquiringly. "I am sorry," he continued, "to see a Scottish gentleman in this sad predicament."

"I fear me, good sir, your regrets will not mend the matter much," I replied sourly, for the most intense hatred of the Imperialists was swelling in my breast; "you cannot do any thing for me, I presume."

"Perhaps not--I am only poor father Ignatius."

"The confessor of Count Tilly!" I exclaimed, thunderstruck; "pardon me, sir--I have often heard of you."

"For little that is good--if in the Danish camp."

"Nay, sir--even there I have heard you spoken of with respect, as the possessor of a thousand virtues."

"Though a Jesuit--'tis wonderful! Though I am known as Ignatius in the Order of Jesus, at home, in poor old Scotland, I was kent but as David Daidle, the neer-do-weel o' the parish schule, and son o' auld Davie o' the Daidleysheugh, at the Rollo's Craig. Ye see, gude sir, I've no forgotten our auld Scottish whilk my puir mither taucht me."

"How!" I exclaimed, clasping both his hands in mine; "are you the brother of my old Dominie Daidle, at home in dear Cromartie?"

"The same--the same!" he sighed, with a flushing cheek and a kindling eye; "my brother did become a dominie; but I, with James of Jerusalem, and Father Leslie, now superior of the Scottish college at Douay, became followers of Ignatius Loyola. But my puir brother--when saw ye him last?"

"But a few months ago; the poor dominie plays the fiddle as well as ever, and still leads the choir of our parish kirk. I promised to bring him from Germany the object of his greatest ambition--a metal horologue, which he is not likely to receive, however," I added, glancing at the setting sun, and the noose which dangled over my head.

"Young gentleman, it seems to me as if your face was familiar to me, and your voice, too; yet I must have left old Scotland, years before you were born. You are a son of our father's laird and patron, Rollo of Craigrollo?"

"Compelled to become a soldier of fortune, because of a certain unlucky heirloom----"

"The Rollo spoon," replied the Jesuit, a broad smile spreading over his usually grave features; "I remember well that quaint heirloom of old Sir Ringan; I remember too, with gratitude, the many favours your family have for ages bestowed on mine, the hereditary vassals of your house. Oh! I would gladly repay but one of these, if in my power----"

"You can more than repay them all, sir, for indeed you owe us nothing. If we did service to the dominie's family, they did good service to ours. Whose sword hewed a farther passage into Huntly's pikemen at Glenlivat, than old Davie Daidle's? I am to be hanged in ten minutes--hanged like a dog, because I have done my devoir as a soldier against these rascally Imperialists, and would not betray to them my kinsmen, the M'Farquhars. If you can save me----"

"Save you!--I can and will----"

"There is but little time, then; for, by my soul, yonder come Bandolo the bravo, and the provost-marshal with his guard and assistants, carrying the fatal ladder, by which they mean to accommodate us in mounting the branches of these high trees."

"Follow me, Mr. Rollo, and let me see who will dare to interrupt you."

The soldiers fell back and presented arms to this well-known and formidable priest, who was as familiar to the armies of Tilly as the terrible Father du Tremblay was then known in those of France, but in a very different way--for every good, and not for every evil. Like his master's, the will and command of Ignatius d'Eydel (for so had they rendered his homely name) were as much law to the soldiers as if the cruel thin lips of Tilly had expressed them.

As we passed the provost, he respectfully saluted the priest who stood by my side, in his long flowing garments. Bandolo scowled at me with rage and disappointment, but was compelled to pass on, leaving me untouched. I remembered the cruel murder of poor Dandy Dreghorn, and could scarcely keep my hands from his throat; but hoped that an hour of retribution was coming.

After walking in silence along the road for some hundred yards, on looking back I saw the convulsed bodies of my eight recent companions dangling from the trees, while the provost and his guard retired leisurely towards their quarters in the town of Lauenburg.