'One is never alone with horses?' he said shyly, for he never lost his awe of Sabran.
'Unless one be ill; then a horse is sorry consolation, and books and art are faithful companions.'
'I have never been ill,' said Bela, with a little wonder at himself. 'I do not know what it is like.'
'It is to be dependent upon others. A hero or a king grows as helpless as a lame beggar when he is ill; you will not escape the common lot; and when you stay in your bed, and your pony in his stall, then you will be glad of Gela and his books.'
'Oh! I do love Gela always,' said the child hastily and generously; 'and the Herr Professor says he is ever—ever—so much cleverer than I am; a million times more clever!'
'You are clever enough,' said Sabran. 'If you do not let yourself be vain and overbearing you will do well. Try and remember that if your pony made a false slip to-day and you fell badly, all your good health would vanish at a stroke, and all your greatness would serve you nothing. You would envy any one of the boys going with whole limbs up into the hills, and, perhaps, all your mother's love and wealth could do nothing to mend your bones again.'
Bela listened with a grave face; when women, even his fearless mother, spoke to him in such a way, he was apt to think with disdain that they over-rated danger because they were women; and when his tutor so addressed him, he was also apt to think that it was because the good professor was a bookworm and cared for weeds, stones, and butterflies. But when his father said so, he was awed; he had heard Ulrich and Otto tell a hundred stories of their lord's prowess and courage and magnificent strength, for the deeds of Sabran in the floods and on the mountains had become almost legendary in their heroism to all the mountaineers of the Hohe Tauern, and all the dwellers on the Danube forest.
'But ought one not to be brave?' he said with hesitation. 'You are.'
'We ought to be brave, certainly, or we are not fit to live; but we must not be vain of being brave, nor rely upon it too much. Courage is a mere gift of '—he was about to say 'chance,' but seeing the blue eyes of the child fastened upon him, changed the word and said 'a gift of God.'
'What a handsome boy he is,' he thought, as he looked thus at his little son. 'And how wise it is to leave children wholly to their mothers when their mothers are wise!'