CHAPTER XI.

THE PRISONER OF STATE.

The room which we now enter is situated in the south tower of the castle, and is not very inviting. It is large and dark. Although with a sunny aspect, the narrow window, with its thick iron gratings, only admits a few of the winter's day sunbeams. A large open fire-place, with a granite hearth, occupies one corner of the room; a rough unpainted bed, a couple of benches, two chairs, a clothes-chest, a large table under the window, and a high cupboard next to it, make up the furniture of the room. All these things have a new appearance, which to some degree reconciles the eye to their coarseness.

But the room is a curious combination of kitchen and study. Learning has established its abode at the upper end nearest the window. The table is adorned with ink spots, and covered with old yellow manuscripts and large folios of parchments. The door of the cupboard is open, and shows its use as a library. The lower part of the room, near the fire-place, has a different appearance. Here stands a wash-tub by a sack of flour; a kettle is waiting to receive some dried pike and bits of salt pork, and leaves room for a bucket of water, and a shelf filled with coarse stone dishes.

Such was the habitation which Governor Wernstedt had assigned to the state prisoner, Johannes Messenius, his wife, and servant, instead of the horrible place where Messenius' tormentor, old Erik Hare, for so many years confined these unfortunate beings. The room was at least high and dry above the ground, and its furniture was likewise a friendly gift from the Governor. Messenius occupied the upper part, and the women of his household the lower.

By the large ink-spotted table sat a grey-haired man, with his body wrapped in furs, his feet clad with reindeer boots, and his head covered with a thick woollen cap. One who had seen this man in the days of his prosperity, when he occupied the rostrum in Upsala "Consistorium," or proud as a king on his throne, exercising sole control over all the historical treasures of the Swedish state archives, would scarcely now recognise in this withered form, bent by age and misfortune, the man with the arrogant mind, the opponent of Rudbeck and Tegel, the learned, gifted, haughty, Jesuit conspirator, Johannes Messenius.

But if one looked deep into those keen, restless eyes, which seemed constantly trying to penetrate the future as they had done the past, and read the words which his shaking hand had just penned--words full of egotism even to presumption--then one could divine that within this decayed tenement toiled a soul unbroken by time and events, proud as it had always been, ambitious as it could never cease to be.

The old man's gaze was fixed upon the paper long after he had laid down his pen.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully and reflectively, "so shall it be. During my lifetime they have trampled me like a worm in the dust; once I am dead they will know upon whom they have trodden. _Gloria, gloria in excelsis!_ The day will arrive, even if it be a century hence, when the miserable prisoner who, now forgotten by the whole world, pines away in the wilderness, shall with admiration and respect be called the father of Swedish history....

"Then," he continued with a bitter smile, "they can do nothing more for me. Then I shall be dead ... Ah, it is strange! the dead man, whose bones have long mouldered in the grave, lives in his works; his spirit goes quickening and ennobling through the ages. All that he has endured while he lived, all the ignominy, all the persecutions, all the prison gratings are forgotten; they exist no longer, provided his name still shines like a star through the night of time, and posterity, with its short memory and its ingratitude, says, with thoughtless admiration, he was a great man!"

During this soliloquy the old woman, whose acquaintance we made in the castle yard, entered the room. She carefully opened the door, and walked on tip-toe, as if afraid of waking a sleeping babe. Then she carefully put down the wood she carried in her arms. A little noise, however, was unavoidable; the old man at the table, startled from his thoughts, began to upbraid the intruder:

"Woman!" he said, "how dare you disturb me! Have I not told you _iterum iterumque_, that you shall take away your _penates procul a parnasso_? Do you understand it ... _lupa_?"

"Dear Messenius, I am only bringing you a little wood. You have been so cold all these days. Do not be angry now. I shall make the room nice and warm for you; it is excellent wood..."

"_Quid miki tecum_. Go to the dogs. You vex me, woman. You are, as the late King Gustaf always said, _Messenü mala herba_; my wormwood, my nettle."

Lucia Grothusen was an extremely quick-tempered woman, angry and quarrelsome with the whole world; but this time she kept quite still. How strangely her domestic position had altered! She had always idolized her husband, but as long as he was in the full strength of his manhood and prosperity, she had bent his unquiet, vacillating spirit like a reed under her will. All that time the feared and learned Messenius was held in complete subjection. Now the _rôles_ were changed. As his physical strength declined, indicating more and more that he approached the end of his life, his wife's idolatrous love came into conflict with her masterful disposition, and finally produced the extraordinary result of reducing this character to humble submission. She nursed him as a mother nurses her sick child, for fear of losing him. She bore everything patiently, and never had an angry word in reply to his querulous remarks. Even on this occasion, only a slight trembling of the lips gave evidence of the effort it cost her to check her anger.

"Never mind," she said kindly, as she went a few steps nearer, "do not feel angry about it, my dear, because it injures your health. I will not do it again; next time I will lay a mat under the wood, so that it will not disturb you. Now I will cook you a splendid leg of mutton for supper ... Believe me, I had trouble enough to get it. I almost had to take it by force from the Governor's kitchen."

"What, woman! have you dared to beg _beneficia_ from tyrants? By Jupiter, do you think me a dog, that I should eat the crumbs from their tables? And then you limp. Why do you do that? Answer me; why do you limp? I suppose you have been running around like a gossiping old woman, and tripped on the stairs."

"Do I limp?" repeated Lucia, with a forced smile. "I really believe I have hurt my foot ... Ungrateful!" added she silently to herself; "it is for your sake that I suffer."

"Go your way, and let me finish my epitaph."

But Lucia did not go; she came closer to him. Her eyes filled with tears, and she folded both her arms around the old man's neck.

"Your epitaph!" she repeated in a voice so mild that one would never have expected it from those withered lips, used so very often for hard words and invective only.

"Oh, my God!" she continued in a low tone, "shall, then, all that is great and glorious on earth finally become dust? But that day is still far distant, my friend; yes, it must be so. Let me see the epitaph of the great Johannes Messenius!"

"Certainly," said the old man, consoled by her sincere flattery, "you are decidedly the true _persona executrix_ who ought to read my _epitaphium_, as you are also the one who will have to engrave it on my tombstone. Look, my dear; what do you think of this?

"Here lie the bones of Doctoris Johannes Messenii. His soul is in God's kingdom, but his fame is all over the world!"

"Never," said Lucia, weeping, "have truer words been placed over a great man's grave. But let us say no more about it. Let us speak of your great work, your _Scondia_. Do you know I have a feeling that its glory will in a short time prepare freedom for you..."

"Freedom!" repeated Messenius, in a melancholy tone. "Yes, you are right; the freedom of the grave to decay wherever one chooses."

"No," replied Lucia with eagerness and enthusiasm, "you shall yet receive the honour that is due to you. They will read your great _Scondia illustrata_, they will have it printed ... with your name in gilded letters on the title-page ... the whole world will say, full of admiration: 'never has his equal existed in the North'!"

"And never will exist again!" added Messenius, with confidence. "Oh! who will restore me my freedom--freedom that I may behold my work and triumph over my enemies. Hear me, Lord, I stretch out my hands before Thy face. Save me from misery, for Thou hast said: 'I will prostrate thine enemies, to be trampled under thy feet.' Who will give me freedom--freedom and ten years of life to witness the fruits of my labour?"

"I," answered a muffled voice at the lower end of the room.

At the sound of this voice both Messenius and his wife looked around with superstitious terror. The loneliness of the prison, and the associations of this wild country, which in all ages has been the fruitful soil of superstition, had in both increased the belief in superhuman things to a perfect conviction. More than once had Messenius' brooding spirit been on the point of plunging into the enticing labyrinth of the Kabala and practical Magic; but his zealous labours and his wife's religious exhortations had held him back. Now came an unexpected answer to his question ... from Heaven or the abyss, no matter which, but an answer, nevertheless--a straw for his drowning hopes.

The short winter day had drawn to a close, and twilight already spread its shadows over that part of the room which lay nearest the door. From this obscurity advanced a man, in whose sallow features one recognised the same person who two hours before had gained an entrance to the castle, under the name of Albertus Simonis. He had probably, in his capacity of physician, obtained permission to see the prisoner, for the whole medical faculty of the castle consisted of a barber, who practised chirurgery, and an old soldier's widow, whose skill in curing internal diseases was highly commended, especially when it was assisted by _luvut_, or incantations, which, although forbidden by the Church, were still used in the vapour-baths as powerful magical aids.

"_Pax vobiscum!_" said the stranger with a certain solemnity, and coming nearer the window.

"May the Lord be with you also!" answered Messenius, in the same tone, and with curiosity mingled with inquietude.

"May the woman's tongue be far from the consultation!" continued the stranger also in Latin.

Lucia, in whose youth the daughters of learned men knew Latin better than those of the nineteenth century read French, did not wait for a further reminder, and left the room with an inquisitive glance at the mysterious stranger.

Messenius made a sign to his visitor to take a seat near him. The whole conversation was conducted in Latin.

"Receive my greeting, great man, whom misfortune has only been able to elevate!" began the stranger, with artful discrimination attacking Messenius' weakest point.

"Be welcome, you who do not disdain to visit the forsaken!" replied Messenius with unusual courtesy.

"Do you recognise me, Johannes Messenius?" said the stranger, as he let the light fall on his pale face.

"It seems to me that I have seen your face before," replied the prisoner hesitatingly; "but it must have been a long time ago."

"Do you remember a boy in Braunsberg, some years younger than yourself, who was educated with you in the school of the holy fathers, and afterwards in your company visited Rome and Ingolstadt?"

"Yes, I remember ... a boy who gave great promise of one day becoming a pillar of the church ... Hieronymus Mathiæ."

"I am Hieronymus Mathiæ."

Messenius felt a shudder run through his frame. Time, the experiences of life, and the soul destroying doctrines of the Jesuits, had completely changed the features of the once blooming boy. Pater Hieronymus observed this impression, and hastened to add:

"Yes, my revered friend, thirty-five years' struggle for the welfare of the only saving Church has caused the roses in these cheeks to fade for ever. I have laboured and suffered in these evil times. Like you, great man, but with much lesser genius, I have dug in the vineyard, without any reward for my toil but the prospect of the holy martyr's crown in Paradise. You were very kind to me in my youth; now I will repay it so far as it lies in my power. I will restore you to freedom and life."

"Ah, reverend father," replied the old man, with a deep sigh, "I am not worthy of this; you, the son of the holy Church, extending your hand to me, a poor apostate? You do not know, then, that I have renounced our faith; that I, with my own hand and mouth, have embraced the accursed Lutheran religion, which I abhor in my heart; nay, even in my time persecuted your holy order with several godless libels."

"Why should I not know all this, my honoured friend; have not the great Messenius' work and deeds flown on the wings of fame throughout Germany? But what you have done, has been done as a blind, so as to work in secret for the highest good of our holy Roman Church. Do not the Scriptures teach us to meet craft with craft in these godless times? 'Ye shall be as wily as serpents.' The Holy Virgin will give you her absolution as soon as you have worked for her sake. Yes, esteemed man, even had you seven times abjured your faith, and seven times seventy sinned against all the saints and the dogmas of the Church, it shall all be accounted to you for reward, and not for condemnation, provided you have done it with a mental reservation, and with the design of thereby serving the good cause. Even if your tongue has lied, and your hand killed, it shall be deemed a pious and holy work, when it was for the purpose of bringing back the stray sheep. Courage, great man, I absolve you in the name of the Church."

"Yes, good father, these teachings which the worthy Jesuit fathers, in Braunsberg so eloquently instilled into my young mind, I have faithfully followed in my life. But now, in my old age, it sometimes seems to me as if my conscience raised some opposition in the matter..."

"Temptations of the devil! nothing else. Drive them away!"

"That may well be, pious father! Yes, to calm my conscience, I have written a formal confession, in which I openly declare my profession of the Lutheran faith a hypocritical act, and as openly proclaim my adherence to the Catholic Church."

"Hide this confession, show it not to any mortal eye!" interrupted the Jesuit quickly. "Its time will yet come."

"I do not understand your reasons, pious father."

"Listen attentively to what I have to say! Do you think, old man, that I, without important reasons, have ventured up here in the wilderness, daily exposed to hunger, cold, wild beasts, and the still wilder people in this country, who would burn me alive if they knew who I was, and what I was about? Do you think I would have left the wide field in my native land, had I not hoped to accomplish more here? Well, then, I will briefly explain to you my point ... Can anyone hear us? Perhaps there are private passages in these walls."

"Be sure no mortal can hear us."

"Know, then," continued the Jesuit in a low voice, "that we have again before us the never-abandoned plan of bringing heretic Sweden back to the bosom of the Roman Church. There are only two powers which can any longer resist us, and the saints be praised, these powers are becoming day by day more harmless. The House of Stuart, in England, is surrounded by our nets, and in secret does everything for our cause. Sweden still lies stunned by the terrible blow at Nördlingen, and cannot, without fresh miracles, retain its dominant position in Germany. The time has come when our plans are fully matured; we must avail ourselves of our enemies' powerlessness. In a few years England will fall into our hands like a ripe fruit. Sweden, still proud of former victories, shall be forced to do the same. The means to this end will be a change of dynasty."

"Christina, King Gustaf's daughter..."

"Is a nine-year-old child, and besides a girl! We are not without allies in Sweden, who still remember the expelled royal family. The weak Sigismund is dead; Uladislaus, his son, stretches out his hands, with all the impatience of youth, for the crown of his forefathers. It shall be his."