CHAPTER XLIII.

THE JESUIT.

None save those who have been circumstanced as we unfortunately were, in a city besieged and reduced almost to the last extremity, can fully appreciate the value of the prize I brought with me to lay at the feet of Ernestine; but a pound of fresh meat, or a slice of plain bread, were then worth thrice their weight in gold.

When I entered her little boudoir, which the Fraü of the last occupant had furnished with exquisite taste, and hung with curtains of the richest velvet, she was kneeling at prayer, and the softness of the Turkey carpet enabled me to approach her unheard. Then I paused for a time; but her eye detected me, and she arose with a charming smile.

"You were praying when I left you, and still you are praying! Dear Ernestine, how very bad you must be to have so much to repent of," said I, playfully.

"All my prayers are for my poor father and you, Philip--for your safety and for his," replied she, with somewhat of a pouting air; "believe me, that since I came to Stralsund I have almost forgotten how to pray for myself."

"Now, do not pout, dear Ernestine," said I, clasping her head upon my breast; "for it does not look pretty even in you, who possess the charm of that perfect innocence, without which a beautiful woman is like a rose without perfume."

"Now, where did you pick up this piece of poetry?"

"Not amid the shot and smoke, the slime and slaughter, of yonder batteries; but here with you, Ernestine; for it is you, and you alone, who shed a ray of light and poetry along the dark and dangerous way I am treading."

"And in the hope that Heaven will protect you on that way, to the end of your journey--let me say our journey, Philip--I pray so often."

"Heaven," said I caressing her, "will never be so cruel as to separate two hearts that love each other as ours do."

"Oh, Philip! I have heard Father Ignatius say, that excess of earthly love excludes the love of heaven, which thereby becomes incensed, and sends death as a terrible mentor to those who forget it."

I was about to make some jesting protest against this theory of our old friend, when a knock was given at the door, and the red visage and redder beard of Gillian M'Bane, one of our musketeers, appeared; and after many apologies he informed me, that a patrol of the guard at the Frankendör had taken a prisoner, who incessantly asked for me, and that Ian Dhu required my presence immediately.

Reluctantly I left Ernestine, and taking my sword with me (for I remembered the vicinity of Bandolo), piloted my way in the evening twilight to the Frankendör. From the description of "the prisoner," given to me by Gillian, viz.--a tall, lantern-jawed man, with high cheekbones, black hair, and bald head, keen eyes, and sallow visage, with a long ungainly figure enveloped in a black cassock buttoned up to his chin, I had little doubt that he would prove no other than Father Ignatius; and by part of a conversation which I overheard while descending the steep stair towards the bastion gate, I learned that my suspicions were right.

"You afford no sufficient explanation for prowling close to the walls," I heard the Baron Karl say, as he and Ian stood forward from among a group of our Highlanders, one of whom held up a lantern to the prisoner's face; "but say at once for what purpose you came here?"

"To preach the religion of God, even as Colomanus the Scot, who converted the pagans of Austria, and Argobastus the Scot, who baptized those of Strasburg, preached when they came here before me in other times."

"Bravo!" thought I; "it _is_ Father Ignatius."

"Your religion," said Karl laughing; "and what are you?"

"A poor and unworthy brother of the order of Jesus," he replied, bowing his head at the name.

"Oho--a Jesuit!" continued Karl, in his impudent way; "so that is the trade you follow?"

"Mein Herr, I follow the commands of God--the Master of all. Sir," said he, suddenly turning to Ian, "I am a Scotsman, a countryman of your own, and indeed, sir, merit not this rough handling."

"A Scotsman!" reiterated Ian; "why the deuce did you not say so before? Enter then, and, Imperialist though ye be, here is the hand, and there the sword, that will stretch on the heather the first foreign churl that molests you."

"But your patrol had no right to seize me. In deep reverie, and pondering over many things, but chiefly on a sermon I was to preach to-morrow, I stumbled near your gates, but with no intention of espying your works, believe me. I repeat, sirs, ye have no right to seize me--I belong to God, and not to man. I belong neither to Wallenstein nor Tilly--to Christian nor Gustavus--I serve heaven and not earth----"

"Calm yourself, reverend sir," said I, approaching and taking him by the hand; "make way, gentlemen--'tis my friend, Father Ignatius, brother of my old preceptor, Dominie Daidle of Cromartie; one to whom I owe a reprieve from an unjust and shameful death."

A kind smile spread over his usually grim visage as I led him away, and he explained to me the circumstances of his capture, and how he had narrowly escaped being sent to enjoy the company of those glorious martyrs and old Scottish missionaries on whom his mind was constantly dwelling, and of whom his friend, Father Robert Strachan of Dundee, was preparing, as he told me, to give the world a history so ample, in his _Germania Christiana_. A musket-shot had been sent through the crown of his shovel-hat, and as such chapeaux were somewhat scarce in Stralsund, he contemplated the orifice with a rueful aspect, as he smoothed down the well-worn nap with his threadbare cuff.

During this, perceiving a half-starved little girl shivering in the doorway of a deserted house, the good but eccentric man (in imitation, I suppose, of St. Martin, when he rent his military cloak in twain, and divided it with a poor devil whom he, met in the streets of Rome) tore off the long skirt of his cassock, spread it over the shoulders of the wanderer, and then stalked on beside me, looking altogether, with his long lean body in the short fragment of his garment and tight serge breeches, as remarkable and absurd as when he appeared before Ernestine in the drummer's doublet at Eckernfiörde.

I took him first to the residence of Ernestine, who had a sincere friendship for him, notwithstanding all his uncouth eccentricity; but, having much to relate, I will only rehearse briefly the news he gave us from the Imperial camp.

The losses endured by the troops of Wallenstein, he stated, were frightful; their trenches were now mere graves, where hecatombs of slain lay buried; but hordes of barbarian soldiers were pouring to his banner from Croatia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Upper Austria, so that severe and disastrous work was yet before us.

Bandolo had been lurking about the Imperial camp, coming abroad only in the night when, like a wolf or jackal, he prowled about those places where he could plunder the unburied dead; and, though fired at repeatedly, he had always escaped. A week ago, the regiment of Merodé had joined, and having marched through Hesinge, had there learned the whole story of Gabrielle's terrible fate. Colonel Johan de Vart (or Wert), a reckless soldier, on whom Carlstein had bestowed many favours, then challenged Merodé to single combat with rapier and pistols, on horseback, before the tent of Wallenstein. After a furious combat, the colonel ran the count fairly through the heart; and thus perished the primary cause of poor Gabrielle's death, but the actual perpetrator yet remained to be taken. By beat of drum Carlstein had offered three thousand ducats to any man who would bring Bandolo before him, dead or alive; Wallenstein had offered as much more from his own purse; Major-general Arnheim had added a thousand, and Camargo five hundred, thus a vast sum was now set on the head of the assassin, whom Count Tilly could no longer protect even if he was disposed to do so. The cupidity of a hundred thousand men had been excited by the proffered reward, and Bandolo had been hunted from one hiding-place to another. For three days he had lurked among some rocks and woods near Hohendorf, where the count in person, with three squadrons of his Reitres, had tracked him like a wolf; and with these three squadrons he had once maintained a running fight for six hours. He was almost naked; in his superhuman exertions to elude pursuit, by rushing from rock to tree, and from tree to rock, his clothing had been torn to shreds, and little more remained than the belt and pouch of ammunition which supplied his murderous carbine. He did terrible execution among the count's Reitres! Concealing himself at one time behind a rock, at another behind a bush, or among the furze and long grass, he hovered within gunshot, and picked off the leading troopers, until terrified by the havoc committed by his single arm, and by the miraculous manner in which he escaped their shots, as if he was bullet-proof; and, moreover, finding the perfect impractibility of pursuing in their heavy accoutrements a half nude and wholly desperate man, who was strong as a lion, active as a lynx, and determined to die rather than be taken alive, Carlstein's Reitres had been compelled, but reluctantly, to relinquish the chase, and thus Bandolo had escaped.

"_Escaped!_" I exclaimed, and started to my feet; "ah! if I, with only six of our fleet Highland mountaineers, had been there, a different story had been told."

"Well, he escaped, and none save myself know to where; for he sent me a message by a poor Franciscan yesterday, that he was concealed in a cavern of the isle of Rugen, which is now almost desolate; for Wallenstein's Croats have poured over it like a fiery scourge, driving all the inhabitants into the sea."

"You are sure he is there, sir?"

"Sure as that I now address you," continued the Jesuit, from whom I concealed the fierce exultation that, arose within my breast; "but he will soon be discovered, and may Heaven, through the intercession of one more worthy than me, grant him that contrition and forgiveness for the horrors of his past life, which I--by falling into the hands of your very unceremonious patrol--am unable to afford him."

"And would you really have gone to him?" I asked with unfeigned astonishment.

"Bandolo has an immortal soul, as well as yourself, Captain Rollo; and had he slain my own father (and, Heaven knoweth, I loved little Gabrielle like a daughter of my own), it would have been but my duty to visit him when summoned on such an errand."

"What errand?" said I, drawing the buckle of my belt with impatience.

"He believed himself to be dying; and, if free and unfettered, on what plea could I withhold the last sacrament from a repentant sinner--one in _articulo mortis_, as he most probably is."

"And he is lurking"----

"In a cavern of the rocky isle of Rügen--poor wretch!"

I turned away, lest the simple-hearted priest should read the dark thoughts that flitted through my mind; for he thought that in Rügen, Bandolo was as safe from those in Stralsund, as if he had been among the Norwegian Alps. All that long and terrible debt of vengeance, which time and atrocity had scored up between us, seemed now on the point of being paid off. In the keen exultation of the time, I had only one fear--that Bandolo might die ere I could reach him. Some may deem this sentiment revengeful and unchristian; but let me remind them that Stralsund was not then the school wherein to learn the Christian virtues.

Concealing my future intentions under a mild exterior, after we left Ernestine, and when we walked through the streets towards the house of our preacher, where I intended to billet Father Ignatius, I acquired every necessary information about the isle of Rügen. There were no Imperialists there now; the few inhabitants who had not been shot or driven into the sea, lurked in their half-ruined villages; and the cavern occupied by Bandolo lay among some rocks that overhung the Black Lake, near Stubbenkamer. Poor Father Ignatius, in the perfect simplicity of his heart, gave me all the information I required.

Already, in imagination, I saw Bandolo in his cavern! I could reach it blindfolded! These little details occupied me until we reached the billet of our regimental minister, the Reverend Mr. Gideon Geddes, to whom the burgomaster had carefully assigned one of the most comfortable, and (so far as cannon-balls were concerned) least exposed houses in Stralsund.

To him I introduced Father Ignatius, whom he welcomed with a sour smile, and after measuring him from top to toe with his eye, as if he was examining an adversary, invited him to partake of the supper which his servant was just then spreading on the table. I now bade their reverences adieu, and went in search of Phadrig Mhor.

I should have remembered that good and true, though homely adage, "concerning two of a trade," who seldom agree; and that our preacher's billet, though the largest house in Stralsund, was still not large enough to contain two such spirits as Father Ignatius, a follower of Loyola, and the Reverend Gideon Geddes, who had studied divinity at the ancient university of Glasgow. A tremendous explosion of polemics was the result!

The Reverend Gideon, a hard-featured, short-nosed and wiry-haired little man, with eyes like a Skye terrier, stiffly starched bands, and a sable cloak of the newest Geneva cut, was unguarded enough, in the very middle of supper, to make some caustic remarks concerning the absurdity of Lent and saints' festivals.

Father Ignatius defended both from Scripture.

The Reverend Gideon retorted by averring that the devil might quote Scripture; but that the church of Rome could never stand before the Bible, and that the triple-headed beast, which arose from the gates of hell, would soon be hurled behind them.

Irritated by this, Father Ignatius swelled up in his skirtless cassock, and told our chaplain that he was a blasphemous wretch, a preacher of heresy, a broken reed, and so forth--one who railed at a church which would yet overshadow the earth.

"Nay, nay," said our preacher, with a grin; "for lo you now! There riseth a tide which, from the shores of the Baltic, will flow to the Adriatic, and in its passage that tide shall sweep away Rome and its corruption. The force of opinion, and the valour of Gustavus and his host, will bear all before them. All the world knoweth that the crimes of the Cæsars, of Nero, Tiberius, and Heliogabalus, were as purity and innocence when compared to those of Pope Stephen and many of his successors, down to him who was the father of the Duke of Valentinois and Lucrezia Borgia."

"Wretch!" replied the Jesuit, "I only pray that Heaven may spare you to repent this blasphemy, or permit you by your invincible ignorance to escape the flames of the great abyss."

"Jesuit--I need no man's prayers," replied the sturdy Presbyterian, snapping his fingers; "my ain are enough, and may be mair than enough for my purpose--but a Jesuit's--feich!"

"Sir," said the priest proudly, "the order of Jesus are the best soldiers of the church of Rome!"

"Likely enough," retorted Gideon; "for it's a kirk that's been unco fond of war of late."

Then arming himself with the famous folio Bible of Andro Hart of Edinburgh, and Calvin's _Commentaries_, he returned to the charge against Lent and images, and assailed poor Father Ignatius with such vigour and vituperation, and with such a noisy storm of hard Hebrew names, that he had great difficulty in keeping his ground; for our preacher was one of those clever fellows who take care to keep all the argument to themselves. At this crisis, when the battle was at the fiercest, a file of the quarter-guard were sent by Major Fritz, who separated the angry disputants, and conveyed the Jesuit to his own billet, at the house of the widow.