Courtiers and lacqueys were running about and jostling each other in confusion and alarm, when colonel Brenner with Arwed mounted the broad stone steps of the royal palace upon the Ritterholm. With great trouble they found a valet-de-chambre, who announced them to the princess Ulrika. As they entered the ante-chamber, the folding doors of the princess' room opened, and Siquier, with shy glances, brushed past them. At a motion of the valet they entered the audience room. Ulrika was standing by a pier-table, upon which lay the king's perforated and bloody hat, holding, with a decent appearance of grief, a handkerchief before her dry eyes.
'I have the melancholy honor,' said Brenner, drawing his despatches from his bosom, 'to present to your royal highness these letters from your princely husband.'
'Siquier has already informed me of the sad occurrence,' answered Ulrika, taking the despatch with great coolness: 'nevertheless I thank you for the zeal with which you have executed the commission of the hereditary prince.'
'This officer,' continued Brenner, pointing to Arwed, 'was one of the first who found the hero's corpse. He can inform your royal highness of all the circumstances accompanying this so wholly unexpected death.'
'Wherefore the details?' cried Ulrika, 'which serve no purpose but to lacerate my heart. If my maternal love for this land forces upon me the conviction that this death is fortunate for Sweden, yet will the ties of blood claim their holy rights--and although I could never boast of my royal brother's love, yet my heart feels his loss with a sorrow which needs no additional poignancy.'
At this moment the chief governor, baron Taube, entered the room with a face in which alarm, feigned sorrow, and ill-concealed joy, struggled for mastery.
'You know it already, governor?' cried Ulrika, advancing hastily to meet him.
He silently bowed assent.
'I am confident that in you I have a truly devoted friend,' said she to him with a gracious stateliness, extending her hand for him to kiss.
'My life for your royal highness!' cried Taube with graceful enthusiasm, tenderly kissing the proffered hand.
'What should be done first, think you?' she asked him confidentially.
'I advise that the senate should be assembled this evening,' answered Taube. 'To be sure its numbers are not complete. Three of its members are with the army as generals, but in their stead the royal counsellors are devoted to your royal highness with their lives and fortunes.'
'If ever I have a voice in these lands,' said Ulrika, warmly, 'these good gentlemen shall not much longer wear these titles. I have never approved of my father's course in making them servants of his own will, instead of counsellors of the empire.'
'The senate know the gracious intuitions of your royal highness,' answered Taube; 'and I am certain of the happy consequences. If any thing could make me fear, it would be the cabals which baron Goertz will not fail to set on foot for the young duke.'
'Goertz is taken care of!' cried Ulzika, with a look of hate. 'While we are now speaking here, all power to do further mischief is, as I hope, taken from him. Let only his house be promptly occupied and his papers and property secured.'
'Then there are his Holstein accomplices,' added Taube: 'Dernath, Ecklef, Paulsen, Sallern----'
'They must all be arrested this night,' decided Ulrika; 'all at the same hour, so that no one may be warned by the fate of the others. See to it, dear governor.'
'I will have the whole garrison under arms,' answered Taube, bowing. 'This business must be carried through with rapidity and decision, as every thing depends upon the proper employment of the present moment.'
'And tell me, dear baron,' asked Ulrika, grasping both of his hands with the most winning kindness, 'the senate will not compel me to buy the crown at too high a price, will they?'
'In relation to that,' answered Taube, with a warning glance towards the officers, who in the heat of the conversation had been overlooked until now; 'in relation to that, I will lay my humble opinions before your royal highness at a more private audience.'
Somewhat alarmed, Ulrika turned towards Brenner, and her glance fell directly upon Arwed's large blue eyes, sparkling with displeasure, which were fixed steadily upon her. She started back, and, with difficulty summoning composure, asked, 'who is that moody young man?'
'My companion, the captain count Gyllenstierna,' answered Brenner for his silent friend. 'A brave soldier. He was the first upon the walls of the Golden Lion, and won the particular approbation of our late blessed king.'
'Gyllenstierna?' asked Taube, eagerly. 'He is then the son of the senator, and was sent by his father to Armfelt's army.'
'The worthy old man was always one of our truest friends,' said Ulrika, interrupting him, and bowing graciously to Arwed. And it will be most agreeable to us to learn that the son follows in the father's footsteps. We shall remember to bestow upon him some peculiar mark of our favor.'
She held out her hand for him to kiss. But Arwed, highly incensed at all he had heard, would not be compelled to show this mark of reverence to a woman whom he hated. He stood stiff and motionless, and the hand of the queen remained in expectancy, unclasped and unkissed, suspended in the air.
Shocked at the gross impropriety, the chief governor hemmed emphatically. Colonel Brenner anxiously endeavored to push Arwed forward, but he would not move a limb, and the hand of the princess finally sank down by her side.
'The young man is certainly not well!' said Ulrika, with much bitterness.
'After his long and forced journey it would not be strange,' said Brenner, apologetically. 'He has need of rest. Is it the pleasure of your royal highness that we now retire?'
'You can receive your despatches early in the morning from the governor,' answered Ulrika with displeasure; 'and for your companion, may he in time learn the courtesy due from every gentleman to a lady, even though she were not the sister of his king.'
'Most assuredly,' said Brenner to Arwed, as soon as they had left the palace behind them, 'you have a very peculiar talent for making your way at court. You ought, at the least, to be made a master of ceremonies. I have taken you with me to an audience once, but I would never do it again.'
'Had you left me behind you, as I earnestly begged of you, colonel,' answered Arwed, 'you would have spared me the pain of witnessing the thoroughly disgusting scene, and yourself the mortification of my awkwardness.'
'You do not understand the matter,' blustered Brenner. 'It was proper for me to present my companion; and in doing so I was actuated by the best intentions towards you. If our own hearts bled at the sad news we brought, yet I knew well that it would be right welcome here; and the face that brings good news may expect to win the good will of those in authority. And every thing was going on so well, and the warm sun of favor was beginning to shine clear and bright upon you, when satan must come all at once into your back so that you could not bend it, into your arm that you could not stretch it out, and into your lips that you could not kiss,--and now the opportunity has passed for time and eternity!'
'Let it be past!' cried Arwed, 'I cannot outwardly honor what I inwardly despise.'
'You will soon leave the royal service then;' grumbled the colonel: 'for in that service cases of the kind may often occur.'
'Have you any further need of me, colonel?' asked Arwed, his glance impatiently turning towards the palace of Goertz.
'For to-night, no,' answered Brenner. 'But come to my quarters early in the morning. We will then make arrangements for our return, I will not trouble you to go with me to the governor's. After the captious remarks which he let fall he might have various dangerous questions to ask you--and if your hitherto passive awkwardness should become active, I might in the end have cause to repent my willingness to take you with me.'
'If I, however,' asked Arwed, seized with a sudden presentiment, 'should have occasion to set out upon a journey to-night, would you give me a furlough upon my word of honor to appear at the camp before Frederickshall in eight days?'
'Come not to me with such a strange request!' cried the colonel with vehemence. 'I have no authority nor power to grant you such a furlough.'
'But when the object is to save a good man?' asked Arwed earnestly, seizing the colonel's hand and looking anxiously in his face with his beautiful clear eyes.
The colonel gave him a piercing glance from under his gray bushy eye-brows. But the severity of his eye soon melted into a more kindly expression. 'My old friend Duecker is well disposed towards you,' said he: 'and there is no falsehood in your face. I see that you are one who will keep your word. Go upon your own terms whither you will.'
'May God reward you!' cried Arwed, hastening away.
Dark and gigantic in the evening dusk arose the proud palace of the baron von Goertz, and the unlighted windows and the perfect silence which reigned in and about it gave it the unpleasant appearance of a deserted spectre-castle. Only in one room shone a dull light which resembled the blue flame that burns in ruins over buried treasures.
'That is Georgina's light,' said Arwed to himself, agitated with the conflicting emotions of sorrow and joy. He pushed open a little side door near the great portal, and creeping softly up the deserted stairs passed through the echoing corridors towards Georgina's chamber. As he entered he saw his beloved sitting at a table and with streaming eyes reading the note in which he had warned her of her father's danger. Her right hand supported her drooping head,--her left had been taken possession of by the little Magdalena, who was endeavoring to administer friendly and childlike consolation.
'Heaven be praised!' said Arwed. 'Thou hast received my letter in time, and thy father is saved!'--
'Would to God it were so!' cried Georgina, with a sorrow so deep that it left no room in her heart for joy at again seeing her lover. 'My father departed yesterday for Frederickshall. He is accustomed to travel with rapidity, and before my courier can overtake him he will be already in the hands of his enemies.'
'That depends upon who the courier is,' said Arwed encouragingly. 'I have determined to save the father of my beloved, and to spare my country the commission of a crime. I will set forth, and should a couple of horses fall dead under me it will be a small matter. I am only held back for the moment by my concern for thee. This palace will soon be occupied, and thy father's property confiscated. What a scene will await thee if thou remainest without a protector in the desolated house!'
'Be not anxious for me,' said Georgina, ringing the bell. 'I will immediately repair, with my sister, to the count Dernath's, where we are certain of a right friendly reception.
'Dernath and all thy father's friends will be arrested this night!' cried Arwed, in deep anguish.
'I nevertheless can find some place of refuge in Stockholm,' answered Georgina; 'and thou canst with confidence devote thyself to the discharge of a duty to which thy heart impels thee.'
Meanwhile the governess of Georgina entered, clasping her hands in astonishment at finding a strange young officer in the bed-room of her pupil.
'Do not alarm yourself respecting my companion, dear governess!' cried Georgina. 'Your attention is now required by affairs of more importance. Instantly call the women and the two Holstein, lacqueys. Let some of the best of mine and Magdalena's things be packed up, and send the steward to provide a boat. We will immediately repair to Blasius Holm, to the old invalid post-captain who was, three years ago, ransomed at Ystad by my father.'
'Accompanied by this cavalier?' cried the terrified governess. 'This looks like an elopement, baroness!'
'Would to God it were!' said Georgina sorrowfully. 'But this cavalier's way lies in quite another direction. The king is dead, my father a prisoner if he be not saved by scarcely less than a miracle, and during this very night will this palace be stormed as though it were a strong hold of the Danes. Therefore hasten, for our moments are counted!'
Wringing her hands, and followed by the weeping Magdalena, the governess retired.
'Will you not also save your father's papers and valuables?' asked Arwed. 'The hands which will rummage here will be none of the purest.'
'No!' answered Georgina after some reflection. 'Let the commissioners do that for which they may be able to answer to God and their own honor. I will not venture to touch my father's property. Besides, I am too proud to take any thing with me out of Sweden which might be claimed as the property of the state. Hasten you, now, to the rescue of my beloved father. He was to proceed through Westgothland and to pass by Stroemstadt. I can give you no more precise information of his route.'
'Let me first accompany you to your asylum,' said Arwed. 'Before that, I cannot leave you in peace.'
'God knows how great a consolation your attendance upon me would be,' answered Georgina: 'but the question now is not of my consolation or your peace, dear Arwed,--but of my father's rescue. An hour's delay may be death to him. Therefore go at once, Arwed, fly, save, and there is no reward which you may not demand of me in exchange for the life of my beloved parent.'
Saying this, she threw her white arms about his neck, printed a fervent kiss upon his lips, and gently thrust him out of the door.
The wearied Arwed pushed the little gothlander, which he had purchased at the Rakalse inn instead of his overridden Norman, into a smart trot upon the high road to Stroemstadt. The rider was almost exhausted, but his determined spirit, animated by love and generosity, impelled the obedient body to renewed exertions of its diminishing powers. At length lie caught a glance of a fast rolling carriage, relieved against the border of a snow-clad forest. 'Now is the crisis!' cried he, burying his spurs so unmercifully in his horse's flanks that he flew with him in furious career over the frozen ground. After a hard ride of a quarter of an hour he overtook the carriage. In it sat baron Goertz, wrapped in a fur cloak, and so attentively reading some papers that he did not perceive the approaching horseman. 'I bless my fate,' called out the latter, as he reached the carriage, 'that I have found your excellency in good time. I bring you important intelligence.'
'Who are you, sir?' asked Goertz, disturbed in his occupation, with a tone of displeasure.
'Captain Gyllenstierna,' answered Arwed. 'I have ridden after you from Stockholm to give you warning and save you from a great misfortune.'
'Gyllenstierna!' cried Goertz with a friendly smile, leaning back that he might hear his voice above the rattling of the carriage. 'Then you bring me news from my daughter, or a message from her. You cannot well deliver it from your saddle; therefore be pleased to hitch your horse to mine and take a seat by me in the carriage.'
'I accept your invitation with thanks,' answered Arwed, and attaching his reins to the collar of a saddle-horse, he sprang into the carriage. 'Have the goodness,' said he, 'to change the direction of your journey immediately, and on the way I will tell you the cause.'
'What are you dreaming of?' asked Goertz with an angry brow.
'There comes a whole troop of dragoons to meet us,' cried the coachman, 'and they are pressing forward under whip and spur.' Arwed examined them attentively for a moment. 'My God, I have come too late!' stammered he, recognizing the gray coat of colonel Baumgardt advancing at their head.
'Are you in your right mind, young man, or rather are you not some other than the person you pretend to be?' asked Goertz yet more angrily, drawing a pistol from the pocket of the carriage.
'For God's sake!' untreated Arwed, grasping his hand, 'reserve your weapons for your enemies, who are coming to meet us. By you sits your friend, who is ready to die in your defence. Turn back instantly, perhaps we may yet avoid them.'
As Goertz sharply examined his countenance his features relaxed into a milder expression at the perusal of his honest face. 'I have no longer an ill opinion of you,' said he smilingly. 'It is my impression, however, that you desire to increase your importance with me a little by pressing upon me your protection against a pretended danger; and I can pardon something on account of your youth and the motive by which you are impelled. Another time, however, you must find some more probable pretence. That the horsemen who are approaching us are no robbers, but honest Swedish dragoons, a child may see; and, if I mistake not, that is colonel Baumgardt, whom I well know, riding at their head.'
In a moment the troops had reached the carriage.
'Good evening, your excellency!' cried Baumgardt, wheeling about his horse and raising his hat. Three other officers, who followed him, likewise wheeled about and remained, courteously greeting the baron, before and on both sides of the carriage, while the dragoons trotted past and closed up behind it.
'Good evening, colonel!' answered Goertz serenely. 'Whither so late?'
'To meet your excellency,' said the colonel politely. 'We lost our way in the driving snow, and have been riding about in a state of perplexity for two days. We bring with us important news from the camp.'
'Whatever it may be,' answered Goertz, 'I bring you from Aland yet better and more important. But it can all be more conveniently told in a warm room with a bottle of old wine. I shall stop for the night at the parsonage of Tanum, and bear with me a good bottle case. Will the gentlemen be my guests? We will pass a pleasant evening together, and in the morning I will proceed to Frederickshall under your safeguard.'
'It will be an honor to myself and officers,' said the colonel. The other officers bowed silently, and the carriage rolled rapidly onward, surrounded by its armed escort, towards the solitary parsonage which, an old dark-gray mass of stone, with tall dark fir trees rustling about it, offered no very tempting shelter even in that desert region.
The travellers alighted, and the minister entered one of the lower rooms of the house. Arwed followed him, prepared for the tragic scene which was approaching. With impetuous haste, that their victim might not escape them, the officers pressed in after him, and the last one closed the door.
'What means this?' asked Goertz, rising, as he remarked it.
The colonel then replaced his hat upon his head and drew his sword, exclaiming in the roughest military tone, 'in the name of the king, Goertz, I demand of you the surrender of your sword!'
With surprise and astonishment Goertz started back. At first, unable to speak, he looked around upon the officers who surrounded him with drawn swords and insultingly triumphant glances.
This unknightly conduct excited Arwed; his blood boiled, and forgetful of the mischief that a powerless opposition must cause, he fixed upon Goertz his eager, enquiring eyes, in which the question was plainly asked if he should draw the sword, whose hilt he firmly grasped, for the deliverance of his friend. But, as with dignified earnestness the minister motioned him to desist from his intention, he withdrew his hand, and leaned against a window in silent despair at witnessing the perpetration of a wrong which he had not power to prevent.
'In the name of the king?' asked Goertz, after a long pause, unbuckling his sword; 'that word is a falsehood! From Charles I might expect any thing rather than the offering up of his truest friend. This destiny is not decreed by him! Nevertheless I see that I must yield to necessity. Take my sword! I have long expected something of the kind. It is the reward for all the service I have rendered to the crown of Sweden!'
'The right reward yet awaits you at Stockholm!' said colonel Baumgardt with bitterness. Then turned he to Arwed and roughly asked him, 'how came you here, captain Gyllenstierna!'
'From Stockholm,' answered the latter: 'whither I accompanied colonel Brenner as a courier, and am upon my return to the camp.'
'And you have deserted your superior officer?' asked Baumgardt in reply: 'and we find you in the carriage with Goertz. That is suspicious!'
'It was but a moment before you met us,' hastily interposed Goertz, 'that the captain first overtook me, bringing me a message from my daughter. His horse now stands without, tied to mine.'
Baumgardt walked to the window, as if to ascertain the truth of the assertion.
'If you, however, yet think the affair suspicious, colonel,' cried Arwed, vehemently, 'I propose to you to take me as a prisoner, together with the minister, to Stockholm. Then will you at least be secured against the imputation of having acted with too great mildness.'
'That would be perhaps very agreeable to you,' answered Baumgardt, scornfully. 'But I am not accustomed to receive directions from subalterns, and prudence requires that I should pursue a course directly opposite to that proposed by a suspected person. It is desirable rather, to ensure your safe return to the camp. Myself, with lieutenant colonel Bioernskioeld will accompany you there. Adjutant general Rosenhahn and lieutenant Loewen with their followers will proceed to Stockholm with the prisoner, and thus each one of us will be in his right place.'
Arwed gnashed his teeth at this injurious treatment, but the iron chain of subordination held the young lion fast bound, and he remained silent.
'Forward, Herr von Goertz,' cried the adjutant general, pointing towards the door.
'Farewell, my son!' cried Goertz, embracing Arwed affectionately. And, while embracing, whispered to him, 'I now understand your true intentions and your real friendship for me. Be certain that you shall be satisfied with my gratitude if my enemies leave me the power of proving it.'
He went forth and stepped into his carriage, upon the box of which one of the dragoons was seated, and which was now employed to convey its former owner to a dungeon, Rosenhahn seated himself by the minister's side. The other officers, together with Arwed, threw themselves upon their horses,--Lieutenant Loewen made a sign to his dragoons, who surrounded the carriage with their swords drawn, and the prisoner, with his escort, galloped quickly towards the south, whilst Arwed, with his unwelcome companions, rode sadly towards the north.
Deserted and empty stood the camp before Frederickshall, as Arwed and the two other officers rode into it. Baggage-men and other camp followers swarmed about the barracks, searching for whatever their late inhabitants might have left behind them worth the finding. The flag of Denmark waved from the Golden Lion, and some companies in the Danish hunting dress were leveling the Swedish embankments and closing up the trenches which it had cost so much time and trouble to open.
'What is that?' cried Arwed with surprise and displeasure. 'Has our army been beaten, that they have raised the siege whose successful termination was so near?'
'I had expected it,' answered lieutenant Bioernskioeld with a lowering countenance: 'but not so soon. The army has marched back to Sweden.'
'How have the times changed!' said Arwed sorrowfully. 'Ninety years ago, the dead Gustavus Adolphus inspired his army and urged it to continual contests and glorious victories,--and now it seems that old Swedish courage and the heroic spirit of her king have flown together, and that the laurels gained under his guidance are yielded in shameful flight.'
'I hope, captain,' said Baumgardt, scornfully, 'that you do not presume to deride the commands of the fieldmarshal. Presumptuous censure of a commander, is in the army called mutiny, and according to our articles of war the punishment therefor is death.'
'You are now on duty, colonel,' said Arwed, with difficulty suppressing his anger. 'I shall therefore hold myself prepared to answer your reproach on a more suitable occasion.'
Some Danish rifle balls from the trenches at this moment whistling about their heads, broke off the conversation. The horsemen silently hastened out of the precincts of the deserted camp, and trotted briskly towards the east, after the retreating army.
They found the army near the city of Amal, upon lake Dalboe, beyond the borders of Norway. Baumgardt rode with his companions directly towards Amal, where the head quarters were established. At the gates they encountered colonel Brenner.
'Is it here we again meet, my dear traveling companion?' cried he to Arwed. 'I am sorry for it.'
'The soldier is indeed but a mere machine,' answered Arwed, 'who may not venture to love or regret any thing; yet is our present meeting of some importance to me, as I need your evidence to clear myself in the eyes of colonel Baumgardt. He is disposed to consider me a marauder or something worse, because he encountered me traveling without you on the road towards Frederickshall.'
'I gave the captain a furlough,' said Brenner to Baumgardt; 'and the fieldmarshal is already informed of it.' Baumgardt bowed in silence.
'Is there now any further hindrance to my taking leave of you?' said Arwed politely to the colonel. 'As soon as I am relieved from my present situation I will not fail to wait upon you for some further explanations.'
Baumgardt rode onward without deigning a word in reply.
'Come directly with me to my old friend Duecker,' said Brenner to Arwed. 'He arrived at head quarters, as I hear, early this morning, and I have come into the city on purpose to seek him. You must give to him and me an account of what has happened during your journey.'
When they arrived at Duecker's quarters they found he was not at home. Swedenborg was sitting in the room, in his traveling cloak, awaiting his return; and so busily studying some leaves of parchment full of signs and figures, that he did not observe the entrance of the new comers.
'God greet you, Swedenborg!' said Arwed with sad cordiality, extending his hand.
Swedenborg stared steadily at him for a long time, his eye indicating his entire absence of mind. Finally, a remembrance of Arwed's face seemed to return to him--he finished the notes he was making upon his parchments, put them aside, and then for the first time seized the proffered hand.
'Thereto art thou chosen, young man,' cried he pathetically with his hollow spirit-voice: 'always to be present when the weightiest events are occurring in the army, without being able to do any thing for the common good. At this moment is to be decided who is to rule over Sweden, and you can neither aid nor prevent, as it happened to you at the death of the king.'
'Is this a question yet to be decided?' asked Brenner. 'I think there is no longer any doubt that Ulkrika will be queen.'
'That is not so certain as you may think,' answered Swedenborg. 'The princess has indeed received the premature homage of the senate, and lavished rewards upon the generals; but the army has a voice in this business, and the superior right of the young duke is as clear as the sun. According to the Nordkioping compact of inheritance, no woman can become heir to the throne unless she be either unmarried, or married with the consent of the states to a Lutheran prince. But Ulrika has, without the consent of the states, married the prince of Hesse, who professes the Calvinistic faith.'
'Ulrika will nevertheless purchase the crown by surrendering a portion of its sovereignty,' retorted Brenner; 'and at this price they will let her off.'
'Hardly, if the young duke bids the same,' answered Swedenborg. 'General Duecker is even now with him for the purpose of prompting him to it. May God give efficacy to his words, for Sweden will have a bad government under this Ulrika.'
At this moment old Duecker entered with furious haste, threw his plumed hat angrily upon the floor, and paced rapidly up and down the room without perceiving the officers.
'Nothing accomplished?' asked Swedenborg dejectedly.
'What can be accomplished,' indignantly replied the general, 'when one has to do with a boy who is governed by fools? He relies confidently upon the strength of his party. He will inherit the royal power wholly unimpaired or not at all. And it is most certain that with his confidence and indolence he will be compelled to accept the latter alternative.'
'The last effort vain!' said Swedenborg, taking his hat. 'God preserve your excellency! I am going.'
'Will you also desert me, my dear ally?' asked Duecker despairingly.
'How can I be further useful in this place?' said Swedenborg. 'The siege is raised; my knowledge can never more be needed here. I go again to the examination of the mines. Under the present circumstances this upper air will no longer exactly agree with me, and I must see whether that of the mines will not be better for my constitution.' He now turned to Arwed. 'We shall meet again!' said he with a mysterious emphasis.
'Who knows!' answered Arwed, who looked to the future with sad misgivings.
'We shall meet again!' cried Swedenborg with greater emphasis; 'It is revealed to me by a dark, voiceless feeling which is vouchsafed to me by the Lord rather as a chastisement than as a mercy-gift. We shall meet again, and if I do not deceive myself, in the heaviest hour of your life. God give you strength to bear it.' He strode forth.
'Did you accomplish your object, Gyllenstierna?' Duecker now anxiously asked.
'Had I but reached Goertz an hour earlier,' answered Arwed. 'I witnessed his arrest.'
'That was the last hope!' cried Duecker, sorrowfully. 'Now is Goertz lost, as is also Sweden to the duke, beyond remedy!'
'Hast thou hoped until now?' asked Brenner with astonishment.
'Of what was not his spirit capable?' retorted Duecker. 'I have just now learned to know him aright from a letter of his to the king. Had Goertz saved himself, he had sufficient influence with the czar to have the occupation of the throne by the duke made the condition of peace. We can hardly imagine what he could not have accomplished. He was the man for Charles's gigantic plans; he was the man to save the tottering kingdom. Now will the sick in their paroxysms call upon the physician for cure, and who will help them?'
'Your fears carry you too far, general,' said Arwed. 'The enemies of Goertz may not be so embittered but that his life may be respected, if only from a holy fear of the manes of their fallen king.'
'You are too young to understand your nation thoroughly,' retorted Duecker. 'The proud senators will never forgive the foreigner for annihilating the last remains of their power by his bold measures; the people, who never dared to impeach their adored king, sought in Goertz the source of his misfortunes. Ulrika hates him, as she hates her nephew,--she fears his activity in the cause of the latter, and she can make an agreeable sacrifice to their prejudices by offering him up. He is a dead man!'
'Then must you assist in procuring my immediate discharge from the service, dear general,' said Arwed earnestly.
'Wherefore?--What has entered your head?' asked Duecker. 'You choose an unsuitable time. A great number of promotions will be immediately made, to win the army; your father is a strong supporter of the queen, and you may perhaps leap the rank of major and obtain a regiment.'
'I fear on the contrary,' answered Arwed gloomily, 'that I can no longer honorably remain a Swedish officer. But that is the least. A being, dearer to me than all others, can now hope for help and consolation from me alone. I must instantly proceed to Stockholm, even should I be compelled to desert from the army for that purpose.'
'There is yet no necessity for that,' said Duecker. 'The guards break up to-day for Stockholm, and will proceed there in advance of the remainder of the forces. Therefore do nothing precipitately. If your wish for a discharge should continue, I will endeavor to obtain its accomplishment at a proper time. Such a request, just at this time, would only render you suspected and hated, and would probably be unsuccessful.'
'That is the voice of a father,' said Arwed feelingly, 'You best know what is the most proper course for me, and I willingly hearken to you.'
At that moment the field music was heard in the distance sounding a wild alarm, and the thunder of the artillery through the city accompanied the peal like a powerful bass.
'What is that?' asked Brenner with surprise.
'The prince has operated suddenly and powerfully,' answered Duecker; 'more suddenly and energetically to obtain Sweden's crown for his wife, than to obtain a victory over Sweden's enemies. The army is won, and Ulrika is queen. That is what the thunder of the cannon denotes.'
The guards had marched into Stockholm. Arwed had performed all the duties of his service, and now flew towards the Blasiusholm to the house of the post-captain who had freely received and sheltered the deserted daughters of the unhappy Goertz. The moment he mentioned his name he was shown into Georgina's room. With a pale face and wasted frame she came forward to meet him. Ardently would he have folded her in his arms, but she held back and merely presented to him her thin white hand, whose icy coldness filled him with alarm.
'Thou hast not saved my father?' asked she with a trembling voice.
'By my honor!' cried Arwed, grieved at the silent reproach conveyed by the question; 'I did every thing in my power, but hard fate was stronger than my honest endeavors.'
'I must believe it,' answered Georgina, 'and thank you for your good intentions. If you are yet willing to make further efforts in my behalf, procure for me through your influence an interview with my father. They have hitherto rejected all my petitions with inhuman severity.'
'Whatever lies in my power I will essay for the accomplishment of your wish,' replied Arwed with much agitation.
'Leave me then for the present,' said Georgina. 'Go and make the effort and bring me word that they will extend towards my father a privilege which even robbers and murderers would not be denied.'
'Do you drive me from you so soon, Greorgina?' asked Arwed mournfully. 'Is this the welcome of a beloved and loving betrothed?'
'Betrothed?' sighed Georgina with a melancholy smile. 'Ah, dear Arwed! that is a subject upon which we must speak no more. The daughter of the man whom Sweden accuses of high treason, can never give her hand in marriage to a Swede.'
'Thinkest thou so meanly of me?' cried Arwed, with great earnestness. 'But no, you do not really think so. You only pretend indignation to conceal your want of affection. From the youth whom you once deemed worthy of your love, you must at least expect that your present misfortunes will bind him to you with still stronger chains.'
A faint blush flitted over Georgina's pale cheeks, and her eyes glistened. She hastily approached Arwed and laid her hand upon his breast. 'I know,' said she proudly, 'that whatever love and honor may demand of a Gyllenstierna, you will obey their voice in every circumstance of life. But a noble German maiden dares not forget what concerns her own honor,--and this commands me to refuse you my hand so long as your own countrymen can with propriety pronounce your union with me a misalliance.'
'You no longer love me!' complained Arwed.
Georgina gave him a glance in which shone all the glow of her first love, and, unconsciously, her eyes filled with tears. At last the all-powerful passion conquered. She threw her arms about his neck and pressed him to her bosom. 'Go, and strive!' sobbed she, retreating into a side cabinet.
Arwed wished to follow her, but hearing her draw the bolt on the inner side, he departed, bitterly afflicted with a confused throng of contending feelings.
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, alost 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 gestacomes 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.