CHAPTER XVII.
While the new royal counsellor, Nils count Gyllenstierna was sitting, as two months before, employed at his writing table, Arwed timidly entered the room.
'Aha!' said he satirically, 'the brave captain has at last the goodness, after my repeated requests, to grant me an interview. I beg you will take a seat upon the sofa, and I will be at your service directly.'
Arwed, however, remained standing with a sad and resigned countenance, as he had determined to submit patiently to the censures of his passionate father, whose political ambition had now attained its utmost gratification.
The old counsellor continued writing for a short time, and then, signing his name with an energetic stroke of the pen, he arose and stepped immediately in front of his son, with folded arms and an angry countenance.
'Where shall I begin with my reproaches!' blustered he at length. 'You have committed so many excesses in so short a time, that it is difficult for me to select, and I can only fix my mind upon the result--that you are a ruined, yes, in the strictest sense, a lost son, with whom I am destined to have much trouble and sorrow.'
'That I went to the king's army against your will...?' commenced Arwed, pleadingly.
'That is the least!' proceeded the father, interrupting him. 'You have proceeded so far in your evil way, that even so shameless an act of disobedience has become a mere trifle, unworthy of consideration in comparison with your ulterior conduct. Besides, you may find some excuse for that act, in what has recently happened. According to despatches this day received, Armfelt's corps has been miserably frozen up in the ice mountains on its retreat towards Jemtland, and although you have caused me much sorrow, I am yet glad that your obstinacy has this time saved you from an inglorious death.'
'Thanks to thee, true warner,' said Arwed tremblingly to himself;--then addressing his father: 'if that be not the cause of your anger, may I beg of you to name my other transgressions. From your justice I have a right to hope that I shall be allowed to exculpate myself.'
'Bold and insolent as usual!' grumbled the old man. 'Quasi re bene gesta comes he before me, while he thinks I am not acquainted with his conduct. Who joined himself to the deputation which endeavored to have the duke of Holstein proclaimed in the camp as king of Sweden? Who obtruded himself as a companion upon colonel Brenner, that he might insult the queen and warn Goertz of his well-deserved fate? Who threatened colonel Baumgardt with a challenge for doing his duty? Who has been this very day to visit the daughter of the arch-traitor, for whom the scaffold is already preparing?'
'You are very accurately informed, my father,' answered Arwed. 'I am too proud to deny what I have done, nor do I believe it deserves your anger. The king, when he appointed me a captain in the royal service, thereby rendered me independent of parental authority, and thenceforth free to follow the dictates of my own judgment. You yourself must concede, that the right was doubtful between the princess and the duke. I, however, am firmly convinced that it is entirely on the side of the latter, and have acted accordingly. I wished to save Goertz, because I believed him innocent. His crime is, that the king, so little in the habit of receiving advice from others, honored him with his exclusive confidence; that he is a foreigner, and the capable and dreaded servant of a young prince who is a candidate for a crown which you think he ought not to have.'
'You believe all this, because you love his daughter!' remarked the father.
'Colonel Baumgardt,' proceeded Arwed, 'has injured me personally, and we shall settle that matter as is usual among men of honor, as soon as my cares for Georgina may leave me time.'
'Arwed!' cried the father, 'do you then really entertain a hope that I will give my consent to this foolish connection?'
'Do as you think proper, my father,' answered Arwed. 'My resolution is taken, whatever may betide. Nor could you yourself approve my conduct if, now that the storm is breaking over her innocent head, I should desert the maiden whose heart I won when the sun of prosperity shone brightly upon her.'
'The queen will forbid the union,' said the old man.
'And were it the bold Margaret herself,' cried Arwed with passionate warmth, 'who united upon her own head the three northern crowns, and held them there with a strong hand, she would not dare attempt to regulate the impulses of our hearts! How much less, then, this poor Ulrika, whose only crown, to which she has no right, was shamefully bought with the costliest jewel of royalty, the sovereignty.'
'You are deep in constitutional principles,' said the counsellor peevishly--but his strong displeasure was already melted into secret satisfaction with the talent and spirit of his son. He appeared, standing there before him with his flashing blue eyes, his scarred cheek and noble bearing, as if he were about to plant again the Swedish standard upon a stormed wall. 'Upon honor!' at length exclaimed the old man, 'if you had not conducted yourself so bravely before Frederickshall, I would reckon with you in another fashion. But the deed of arms which Charles the XIIth rewarded with an embrace, must be considered as truly heroic--and to a hero much must be forgiven. To that, we Swedes have long been accustomed.'
'Nor was that embrace the best of the king's favors,' said Arwed eagerly. 'For beating back a sally of the Danes, I had his word for my marriage with Greorgina. And surely you would not have resisted the request of Charles.'
'Yes,' answered his father, turning away from him; 'and now all that has been changed forever by one bullet! I pity you, poor youth, but your case cannot be helped!'
'I do not yet give up every hope,' said Arwed. 'They dare not murder Goertz without a trial, and if they will but give him a fair one he must be acquitted.'
'Do you think so?' murmured the old man; 'so do not we think here in Stockholm, and all Sweden cries out guilty against him.'
'The voice of the people is not always the voice of God,' said Arwed. 'I still trust in holy justice. But I have a favor to ask of you, my father. The baron's daughter wishes to see her father. Give me the necessary permission.'
'That is not to be thought of for the present,' answered the father. 'Perhaps it may be obtained a little later, after the sentence has been pronounced. Besides I am not the person who has power to grant it. Upon such a request the president of the special commission, landmarshal Ribbing, must decide.'
'Alas, that heart of stone!' cried Arwed. 'Give me at least a letter of introduction to him, that he may do from favor what is only a duty.'
'I can have nothing to do with the affair,' said the father angrily. 'You presume upon my forbearance.'
He pointed towards the door. Arwed wished to speak to him yet once again, but the counsellor, turning his back upon him, walked to his writing-table and the son in sadness departed.