Tales from the German. Volume I.

by C. F. van der Velde

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Arwed was sitting in his quarters, and his regimental surgeon had just finished bandaging the wound in his arm, when old Brodin entered in great perplexity.

'His excellency, your father,' whispered he, 'desires to speak with you alone. He will be here directly.'

'It will not be a very pleasant interview,' sighed Arwed, motioning the surgeon to absent himself.

'You are not far out of the way,' said Brodin, after the surgeon had retired. 'His excellency is very angry with you. I have, therefore, hastened here before him to prepare you for his visit and to beg of you, as an old, true and zealous servant of your house--if the anger of the old gentleman should carry him too far, that you will still remember that he is your father, and listen to what he may please to say to you, not as a captain of the guards, but as a son.'

'I thank you for the warning, worthy friend, and will obey you,' answered Arwed.

The door now opened, and with a flaming, red face, the old counsellor entered.

'The old tell-tale already here,' cried he, 'plotting with the lost son? I would be alone with the captain.'

Brodin made a submissive, exculpatory gesture, whereby he at the same time seemed to beg permission to remain--but the old man pointed angrily towards the door, and Brodin unwillingly retired.

'So, you have fought to-day with major general Baumgardt?' asked the father with assumed calmness.

'Yes,' answered the son, 'but without any important consequences. I am but slightly injured, and his life is also out of danger.'

'Right!' cried the father, with somewhat increasing vehemence. 'So the trifle of rendering a general, who is particularly valued by the queen, a cripple for life, is a mere ordinary affair.'

He walked two or three times up and down the room, and then opened a window and looked out. After a while he turned again towards Arwed.

'God is my witness,' cried he, shutting the window with great violence, 'God is my witness, that I have been forbearing as an angel, but your conduct would make an Epictetus furious. To challenge the major general just at the moment when the queen, by promotion and knighthood, had declared him her favorite--to shatter his arm, and then confidentially to tell him that it was on account of his arresting Goertz, to which arrest Ulrika is probably indebted for her crown! Would it indeed be possible, by the widest stretch of fancy, to imagine a proceeding more senseless and ruinous than yours?'

'The party spirit,' answered Arwed, 'which divides our country, early teaches every Swede to choose his side; and, in a land so disturbed by political storms, a peculiar disgrace seems to rest upon neutrality. Blame me not then, my dear father, if I also have formed my principles; and be not angry because they are not exactly like yours. If you have nothing to pardon me for, except that, having once chosen my party, I have remained true to it in every emergency, that circumstance should, as I think, honor me in your eyes.'

'Honor!' cried the counsellor angrily. 'You dare to talk of honor, you!'

'What mean you by that? 'asked Arwed with vehemence.

'Where were you on the evening of the king's funeral solemnities?' thundered the father.

'With Georgina,' answered he, not without great astonishment at the question.

'The body of Goertz,' said the counsellor, with fierce energy, 'was on that very night stolen from the place of execution. You, perhaps, can tell how it happened.'

'I find it very natural,' answered Arwed, 'that those who loved the unhappy man, and are firmly convinced of the injustice of his condemnation, should, at least, have borne off his remains from the unworthy resting place in which he was left by the malice of his enemies.'

'And if,' proceeded the counsellor, in a slow, cutting tone, 'if a Swedish officer had commanded this nocturnal expedition, what fate do you think would await him under the present government?'

Arwed, by this question, perceiving with a secret shudder that his father knew all, remained silent.

'Dishonorable dismission!' sternly exclaimed the counsellor; 'and possibly, as an especial mercy, imprisonment for life!'

'If the senate require only my confession to enable it to pass the sentence,' cried Arwed with violence, 'you may be the bearer of that confession to it. I am too proud to deny what my heart impelled me to do.'

The father stood a long time looking at his son with powerful emotion. 'Yes!' he finally broke forth, 'yes, you are a Gyllenstierna! With our failings you unite all the virtues of our family. Holding fast that which has been once chosen--noble even in our errors--so were we always. And so much the deeper is my regret that so many good qualities must be forever lost to the country.'

'From these expressions,' said Arwed, 'I must infer that you bring me already the decision of my fate. If so, speak it without hesitation. I am prepared to receive it.'

'The queen was beside herself,' answered the counsellor, 'when she heard of your last misdeed; and had she obeyed the first suggestions of her rage, you would now have been in chains, awaiting a decision involving life or death.'

'Little souls are generally cruel,' observed Arwed.

'As a father I pleaded for my disobedient son,' continued the counsellor; 'and it is not strange that the man, whose duty it will be to place the crown upon Ulrika's head at Upsala, should not plead entirely in vain. A full pardon was not, indeed, to be thought of. Yet have I succeeded so far in the business, that she has left the designation of your punishment to her husband. To him I shall now lead you; and what he thinks proper to inflict, must be received by you with humility and thankfulness.'

'If consistent with honor,' answered Arwed, taking his hat; 'otherwise I shall demand a court martial.'

They went forth together. In the entrance-hall they were joined by two officers of the guards, who, with them, entered a carriage which was waiting at the door. They soon arrived at the palace upon the Ritterholm. The two Gyllenstiernas, with their companions, ascended the steps to the apartments of the prince of Hesse, who came forward to meet them with a sealed paper in his hand. Only lieutenant general Rank was with him, who gave an encouraging wink to Arwed.

'You have deeply erred, captain Gyllenstierna,' said the prince, earnestly. 'The severe letter of the law must inevitably crush you, were not the hand of mercy interposed. But my wife wishes to convince the nobles of the land that her royal heart gladly inclines to mercy, willingly pardoning when it is in her power to do so, and she also wishes to evince her respect for your worthy father, by even undeserved kindness towards his son. Yet must you be informed, that a man who has declared open war against the state through his audacious acts, cannot remain in his country's service, and that the government must be secured from any repetition of his offences. Therefore receive from me your dismission from the Swedish army. You may thank your heroism before Frederickshall, and the distinction of which my royal brother-in-law thought you worthy, that this dismissal is united with the title of major, which you will henceforth be entitled to bear. Yet your crime must not go entirely unpunished. Wherefore the queen banishes you forever from the limits of the capital, and exacts from you a promise that you will never pass the frontier of the nation, and that you will never again meddle with the political affairs of this kingdom, under pain of death. Your father will receive your promise, and will determine your future place of residence. May time make you wiser!'

Handing to the youth the paper containing his discharge from the service, he departed and was followed by Rank. 'God bless your royal highness!' cried the elder Gyllenstierna after him.

'So, I am a prisoner of state in Sweden,' said Arwed with a bitter smile. 'It is fortunate that my prison is tolerably spacious. Where is it your pleasure that I shall go, my father?'

'To Gyllensten, to my brother,' answered the counsellor, 'after you have signed the required promise, which I must return to her majesty.'

He pointed to a paper lying upon the marble table. Arwed hastily run his eye through the written promise, and subscribed his name to it; upon which the two officers, who had hitherto guarded the door, immediately left the room.

'To Gyllensten!' exclaimed Arwed, gratefully kissing his father's hand, 'to the loved resort of my childhood, to my good old-uncle! How good you still are, my father, even when you punish. How deeply do I regret that I have caused you so much sorrow.'

'You bad boy!' cried the father with strong emotion, pressing him to his bosom. 'And if I pardon you every thing else, I will not pardon you for depriving yourself of the power of serving your father-land, whose golden age is just commencing.'

'May heaven grant,' answered Arwed, 'that Sweden may not soon wish back the departed iron age! I shall always think that the strong will of one only ruler can direct the government more consistently and happily, than the constantly divided opinions of the four and twenty little kings who are now to rule the country, even though you yourself are one of these kings, my father.'

'Silence! you are incorrigible!' cried the old counsellor, drawing his son with him out of the palace.