CHAPTER XII

Theabandonment of the siege of Olmutz and the success of the Battle of the Wagons raised to a high pitch the spirits of the Austrian army. Marshal Daun even departed so far from his usual extreme caution as to follow Frederick, who retreated through the mountains, and took up his post upon his own side of them. But he was not suffered to remain in peace, and was continually harassed by the Austrian cavalry and the clouds of Pandours, who followed and hung upon him.

To be of Loudon’s corps was enough to say that the summer was one of incessant movement to Gavin Hamilton and St. Arnaud. Both of them were, however, of so much natural activity, that nothing could have suited them better than the constant marching, manœuvring, and fighting of the summer of 1758. It was a particularly cool and healthful summer, and in spite of hard work and soldier’s fare, both of them grew more robust than ever.

For Gavin, it was a time as nearly free from care and sorrow as often comes on this planet. He had got his promotion, and blossomed forth as a full lieutenant. He ardently loved the soldier’s life; he appreciated greatly his extreme good fortune, and although he had but little money, he required but little while the campaign lasted. It is true he was beginning to acquire tastes very much above the rigid poverty in which he had been reared, and sometimes thought rather ruefully of the slenderness of his pay if he should be in Vienna the next winter, which he ardently hoped he would. But with the joyous carelessness of youth, he considered it settled that as soon as he was twenty-one, which would be in December, he would demand his mother’s recognition by his father, and force Sir Gavin to make Lady Hamilton a handsome allowance. Gavin did not trouble himself very much with the details and difficulties of this brilliant scheme, but only figured out how he would manage to live when it would be no longer necessary for him to divide his scanty pay with his mother. He sometimes talked about it to St. Arnaud, but St. Arnaud could enlighten him very little as to his rights under the English laws. However, it is very easy at twenty, with health andstrength and an officer’s commission and a good horse, to throw future perplexities to the winds. This was what Gavin Hamilton did. He was made happy by frequent letters from his mother, who always wrote cheerfully, and to whom, Gavin knew, her present time of rest and peace and hope was blessed. To live upon a little money, and to spend a part of every day in teaching Freda and Gretchen, was no hardship to one who had known Lady Hamilton’s sad vicissitudes. Unlike Gavin, she did not look for any redress from Sir Gavin Hamilton for a long time to come. Not until Gavin himself had reached maturity and considerable rank did she think he would he able to enter into a contest for his rights; but it was enough for her to know that she was at last recognized as Sir Gavin Hamilton’s lawful wife, and that Gavin was tacitly allowed the position that was his by every right.

In August the battle of Zorndorf had been fought, in which Frederick had very handsomely beaten the Russians under General Fermor, and Marshal Daun, with his usual caution, had fallen back behind Dresden to Stolpen, where he took up, as always, a strong position. There, for four weeks, he faced Frederick, and withstood muchprovocation to do battle, knowing that every day Frederick’s supplies were getting shorter, and the longer the battle was delayed the worse the case of the King of Prussia.

Loudon’s corps had the extreme outpost, and barred the road to Bautzen, where the Prussians had their magazines of food and ammunition. During all the month of September there was continual manœuvring and fighting for this road to Bautzen. But General Loudon managed to dispose of all whom Frederick sent against him, until one October day, Frederick himself, with his whole force, took up his march for Bautzen. Then there was great commotion in the whole Austrian army, and in Loudon’s corps especially. There was much riding to and fro in the mountain roads and passes, quick mustering of the grenadiers, but it was known tolerably early that the movement was one in force, and that General Loudon could by no means stop it, and could only harass and delay it, which was done with a will. But by sunset the attempt was given over, and it was seen that the next move in the game must be by Marshal Daun with his whole army.

Toward night, as Gavin and St. Arnaud were making ready to bivouac with their men, GeneralLoudon and his staff rode by. The general stopped and beckoned to Gavin.

“Your horse appears to be fresh,” said he, “and I wish to send a last dispatch to Marshal Daun to-night. Take a small escort, and carry this to Stolpen as quickly as possible. You should be able to bring me a reply before daylight to-morrow morning. Marshal Daun will provide you with fresh horses;” and tearing a leaf out of his pocket-book, and using his hat for a writing-desk, he scribbled a few lines in pencil, addressed them to Marshal Daun, and rode on.

It did not take Gavin five minutes to mount and be off, with a couple of troopers trotting behind him. The night was falling, and it grew dark in the mountain fastnesses; but so much had Gavin and his men ridden over those tortuous and rocky roads in the last few weeks, that not only they, but their horses, knew the way perfectly. They rode on steadily, occasionally meeting with returning couriers; but by nine o’clock they seemed to be the only travellers on the road. They were passing through a dense woodland, hemmed in on each side of the road by rocky walls, when suddenly a small party of men appeared in their path, swiftly and silently, as shadows rising from the earth.Gavin had no apprehension of an enemy, and supposed he was meeting a belated party of Austrians. This was confirmed when the person, apparently an officer, at the head of the number, rode up to Gavin, and said:

“I presume that you are an officer, and going toward Stolpen.”

“You are right,” answered Gavin, trying to make out in the half darkness the uniform of the person addressing him.

“Then, may I ask you to deliver a letter to Marshal Daun? I am not at liberty to say from whom it is, but it will be a favour to Marshal Daun if you can contrive it into his hands.”

Gavin hesitated for a moment as the stranger drew a letter from his breast; and then, to Gavin’s infinite surprise, threw the letter on the ground, and the whole party galloped off. One of Gavin’s troopers, dismounting, picked the letter up, and striking his flint, the address was easily read. It was to his Excellency, Field-Marshal Daun.

Then followed a correct enumeration of Marshal Daun’s titles and honours. And at the very first glance Gavin recognized the handwriting of Frederick of Prussia. To make sure, he took from hisbreast pocket the treasured memorandum, which he always carried, that Frederick had given him the night of their adventure at Breslau. Yes, it was impossible to mistake that handwriting, and there was not the smallest attempt to disguise it on the mysterious letter. Gavin returned both to his safest pocket, and rode on steadily.

At one o’clock in the morning he and his two troopers clattered into the camp at Stolpen. He was at once shown to Marshal Daun’s headquarters, a peasant’s hut, in which a light was burning and a couple of hard-worked aides-de-camp were busy at a writing-table.

“The marshal has just gone into the inner room, but left orders that he should be aroused at once, should any dispatches come from General Loudon,” said one of them.

The marshal, however, saved them the trouble, for, hearing voices in the outer room, he appeared at the rude door that separated the rooms. He had lain down wrapped in his cloak, and it still hung about him.

Politely motioning Gavin to sit, he opened and read General Loudon’s dispatch, and promptly dictated a reply to his aide. When that was done, Gavin handed him the mysterious letter hehad received, briefly recounting the circumstances under which he received it.

Marshal Daun read it attentively, and then, laying it down on the table, said with a puzzled air:

“This is very strange. This letter appears to be a reply to a letter I wrote General Fermor before the battle of Zorndorf, warning him against rashly engaging the King of Prussia, and expressing my high opinion of the King as a military man. I have had no word of reply to it until now, and this letter is not in General Fermor’s handwriting. I will read it to you.

“‘Your Excellency was in the right to warn me against a cunning enemy whom you knew better than I. Here have I tried fighting him and got beaten. Your unfortunateFermor.’”

Gavin, taking Frederick’s letter from his pocket, silently laid it before the marshal, and Marshal Daun, after reading it, passed it over to his aides. A universal grin went around, not even excepting the grave and ceremonious field-marshal, at poor General Fermor’s expense.

“Well,” said Marshal Daun, after a moment, “the King of Prussia is entitled to his pleasantry. And I am sincerely glad he knows that I am incapable of one of the greatest faults of a soldier—underratingthe enemy. I ever considered that king, since first I had the honour of fighting him, as one of the great masters of the art of war, and I have no objection to his knowing it. General Fermor did not know it, and behold, he was beaten at Zorndorf.”

There was no time to be lost in returning, and fresh horses being already provided, within half an hour Gavin was on his way back to General Loudon. As he rode along in the darkness, and then in the gray dawn, he could not help laughing at Frederick’s grim humour. Clearly, he had taken some trouble to get his reply conveyed to Marshal Daun, and Gavin had no doubt that the troopers who had delivered it to him were really Prussians, disguised. By daylight he had got to General Loudon’s headquarters, and after delivering his dispatches went to the hut of boughs in which St. Arnaud and himself spread their blankets. He was very tired, but before lying down to sleep he told St. Arnaud about the King of Prussia’s letter.

“How like the elfish nature of the man!” was St. Arnaud’s comment.

The utmost activity prevailed in the Austrian ranks after Frederick’s escape, and it became known through that telepathy which anticipatesgreat events that a general engagement was impending; and when on the night of the 5th of October, in the midst of a drenching rain, wild wind, and pitch darkness, the whole Austrian army abandoned Stolpen, and took up its march for Kittlitz, a strong position east of Bautzen and of Hochkirch, around which was collected the whole of the King of Prussia’s army, all knew that the hour was at hand.

So secretly was this done, that, although it was known that the Austrian army was on the move, it was with the greatest surprise that, on the evening of the 10th of October, Frederick, reaching Hochkirch, found Marshal Daun securely established with ninety thousand men in lines many miles long on the woody heights that surround the hill upon which the village of Hochkirch—of immortal memory—stands. Frederick had but his forty thousand, and the amazement of the Austrians was as great as their delight when they saw this mighty captain, usually so wise in the disposition of his armies, walk into a ring encircled by his enemies, and then quietly sit down before them.

A part of Loudon’s corps was encamped on a wooded crest, the Czarnabog, or Devil’s Mountain, as the village people called it, and among themwas the regiment of St. Arnaud and Gavin. It was a lovely, still, autumn afternoon when the two, standing together at the highest point of the mountain, saw the mass of Prussians coming into sight on the opposing heights, divided only by the Lobau water, and the many streams and brooks that go to make up the Spree. As it became plain that the dark masses of approaching men were Prussians, St. Arnaud and Gavin, standing in a group of other officers, could not conceal their surprise.

“This king must be mad,” said St. Arnaud. Gavin nodded, and continued to watch the Prussians, as a post for several thousand of them was being marked out not half a mile distant from the heights, dense with trees, where thousands of Austrians, with several batteries of heavy guns, were placed.

Numbers of Prussian officers were seen moving about as the various regiments marched in, and at last a group on horseback appeared, in which was a figure that St. Arnaud and Gavin instantly recognized without glasses. Worn, thin, and wizened as he was, Frederick of Prussia was ever an imposing figure. All who saw that slight, pale man, shabbily dressed, but splendidly mounted, riding nonchalantly into the view of tens of thousandsof men, were thrilled at the sight of him. Here was one of the world’s masters and dictators. Beaten he might be, he was never conquered; less in force than his enemy, he was always dangerous; with but a thousand men behind him, he could yet keep his enemies awake at night. He rode to the edge of the plateau on which the village is built, and surveyed the long lines of his enemies drawn up for many miles in the woods, and hills, and hollows close by. The sun was sinking in a blaze of glory, and its mellow light fell upon a landscape singularly beautiful. In a long, deep valley ran a rapid and musical stream, with many branches. White villages nestled among the hills, and the blue air was pierced by slender church steeples. A thin haze, from many thousands of camp-fires, enveloped the valleys in mysterious beauty, and the white tents, in tens of thousands, lay like snowflakes on the still green earth. No eye noted this, though, as long as Frederick of Prussia remained in sight, his slight, compact figure on his horse silhouetted against the evening sky. Suddenly from the wooded heights, directly in front of him, a flash and a roar burst forth, and twenty Austrian cannon-balls ploughed up the ground. The King’s horse stood motionless—the charger thatcarried Frederick the Great must needs be used to cannon and musketry fire—and Frederick himself, without changing his position, put his field-glass to his eyes, and coolly surveyed the scene. A dozen officers galloped toward him, but Frederick with a gesture motioned them away. Five minutes of perfect silence followed. Of the thousands who beheld him, every man held his breath; and when a second round roared out, a kind of universal groan and shudder ran like electricity through the watching multitudes. This time it threw some earth upon the King, and then, calmly dusting it off, he turned and rode toward the village church. Ten minutes after, Gavin and St. Arnaud eagerly watching, he appeared upon the little belfry. Twilight was falling, though, and it was no longer possible to see clearly. Lights were twinkling, and the blaze of the camp-fires became lurid in the falling darkness. In a little while silence but for the sentry’s tread, and darkness but for the camp-fires burning through the chill autumn night, had settled down upon the scene.

The next morning rose clear and beautiful, and daylight only showed more plainly the extreme danger of Frederick’s position. It was known, however, through spies, that it would be impossiblefor him to leave for several days, owing to a lack of provisions and ammunition upon any road that he might take. The Austrians wished to lull him into security, and three days were spent in what seemed to the Prussians preparations to defend themselves on the part of the Austrians. The air resounded with thousands of axes hewing trees, to form abatis; slight earthworks were thrown up, and Marshal Daun gave every sign of preparing to defend himself rather than to attack. He even continued to have false information sent Frederick, that the Austrians were preparing to fall back on Zittau. But at nightfall, on Friday, the 13th of October, thirty thousand Austrians stole away, leaving their camp-fires brightly burning, and enclosing Frederick on the only side he had been free, rendered his escape impossible, except by cutting his way through.

St. Arnaud’s and Gavin’s regiment were kept concealed in the Devil’s Mountains. Wild beyond expression were these hills, with vast boulders, black hollows, trees standing so close that daylight scarcely penetrated, and tangled thickets. In these dark hills three thousand men were easily hidden. Through these thick wildernesses were cut roads for the ammunition wagons.

The night of the 13th of October was moonless and starless. The fair days preceding had been followed by a day of dun clouds and brown fog. During the dark and rainy night, when the silent movement of thirty thousand Austrians, under Marshal Daun himself, had taken place, the three thousand grenadiers and light troops of Loudon’s corps, encamped in the Devil’s Mountains, had peacefully spent the night. At four o’clock they were to be called by their officers, without blare of the trumpet; and when the clock in the belfry of the village church of Hochkirch struck five they were to fall upon the Prussians. Gavin and St. Arnaud, having to be awake early, did not sit up late, but wrapped in their cloaks, with their saddles for pillows, lay down before a roaring fire, which was to be kept up all night, and were soon asleep.

At three o’clock St. Arnaud rose. It was pitch dark but for the ruddy blaze of the fire still burning, and a cold, brown mist hid everything from sight except the ring of light from the fire. Gavin was still sleeping—he always slept until he was roused.

The orderly was already preparing something savoury in an iron pan, and when it was ready St.Arnaud gave Gavin a vigorous shake, which brought him to his feet at once. Without losing a moment he fell to upon the contents of the pan; for there was no hour of the day or night that Gavin Hamilton was not ready to eat and to fight.

“Bad for the Prussians, this fog,” he said between mouthfuls of bacon and cheese.

“Very,” laconically replied St. Arnaud, who was not half the trencher-man that Gavin was.

Their horses were already fed and saddled, and in a few minutes they were on horseback, going through the ranks of soldiers, who were munching their breakfasts while the horses munched their hay.

At half-past four o’clock, when it was still perfectly dark, the Austrians were ready and ranked and waiting for the church clock to toll five. It seemed a long wait, and St. Arnaud noticed Gavin blinking his eyes with sleep as he sat on his horse. Presently, through the white mist which wrapped the world for them, echoed five delicate, light strokes of the clock on the village hill, and immediately after the silvery sound of the Prussian bugles sounded faintly through the fog.

And then came a sudden deafening roar of artillery, a crashing of musketry from many thousandmuskets, and in an instant of time the Prussians were surrounded by a ring of fire five miles in circumference.

By that time St. Arnaud’s and Gavin’s regiment was picking its way out of the woods, toward the village of Winschke, where it was to support the grenadiers. As they came into the open country the impenetrable mist lay over the whole earth; but it was lighted up at every moment, and in a vast circle, by the blaze of gunpowder. Across the valley, by the constant flashes they could see great masses of Austrian cavalry dashing themselves upon the Prussian infantry, which was completely surprised. The Prussians in the village were awake, too, and the Austrians were pouring in upon them. The thunder of the artillery, the sharp crash of musketry, the shouts and cries, rang through the hills and valleys, where a hundred and thirty thousand men were fighting.

It was trying work, standing still at the brow of the hill, waiting for the word to charge down the hill, ford the little river, and up the steep incline to the village. All around them was fighting—masses of Austrians, horse and foot, throwing themselves upon the Prussians, who were outnumbered two to one, but making a stiff defenceand commanded by the greatest captain of the age.

“I wonder what kind of a humour the King was in this morning when he was waked by our pounding him?” asked Gavin of St. Arnaud.

“He was not waked, that you may depend upon. He was no doubt up and on horseback by five o’clock. But his headquarters are two miles away, and it must have taken him some little time to form a plan of defence, for he could not tell at first that he was being attacked on all sides at once.”

“It is said that when Marwitz, his adjutant, was called upon to mark off the post Tuesday evening, he flatly refused to do it, saying he would have no part in marking off a post so dangerous, and the King promptly ordered him under arrest.”

“He was to get away from here this afternoon, only Marshal Daun was, for once, beforehand with him—a—a—ah!” for at this a Prussian battery wheeled in front of them and opened up with vigour.

“Forward!” rang out, and the regiment moved as if on parade, the trot down hill increasing to a gallop up the hill, after they had crossed the stream.

From that on Gavin saw nothing of the battle except the furious mêlée just around him. The Prussians held the village stubbornly, and with a battery of artillery and a few regiments of infantry stood like rocks, while the Austrians poured infantry and cavalry upon them. Gavin, at the head of his troop, dashed again and again at the Prussian lines, only to be repulsed. He heard himself as in a dream shouting:

“Come on! Their ammunition can’t last forever!”

And as the Austrians came on, an endless, steady stream, never ceasing, he saw riding out of the mist, which was slowly melting before the rising sun, the figure of the King of Prussia. He dashed among the struggling Prussian infantry, and as if by magic a line of bayonets was formed around him, against which the Austrians threw themselves like an avalanche of fire and steel. Then came a Titanic struggle, men, guns, and horses inextricably mixed, no man having time to load and fire, but steel to steel, sabres and bayonets, and a fearful and hideous din drowning the roar of cannon and shriek of musketry. No man asked or gave quarter, but with powder-blackened faces and grim eyes and distorted features sought death or gave it.

It lasted a short ten minutes, but it seemed hours. Gavin Hamilton, in the midst of it, whirling his sabre like a flail, found himself, he knew not how, on the ground, with his riderless horse plunging wildly near him, a forest of Austrian bayonets behind him, and a steady line of Prussian steel in front of him. Sometimes that line wavered, sometimes it broke, but it always formed again. And suddenly the line of glittering steel parted for a moment, and he saw the King of Prussia for one moment erect on his horse, and the next the horse staggered and fell, and Gavin, running forward, with his strong left arm seized Frederick by the arm, shrieking:

“You took me prisoner once; now it is my turn!”

Their eyes met for one brief instant, and the glance that Frederick gave him made Gavin forget the battle, the uproar, the danger—all, except those steel-blue eyes, sparkling with the light of battle; that slight, wiry figure, with one uplifted arm, and the singular music of that voice, ringing out above the shouting and the clash of arms:

“Not yet! Not yet!”

The ancient Germans represented their god of war as huge, blonde, and bearded; Gavin Hamiltonwould have said that Frederick of Prussia, unhorsed, defeated, and almost captured, was the ideal of the lord of battles.

In another moment a regiment of Prussian hussars appeared as if they had sprung out of the ground, their horses plunging over every obstacle, their sabres flashing right and left; and encircling the King, he was swept out of sight like magic. It was over in the twinkling of an eye—one instant Gavin had Frederick by the arm, looking into his blue and blazing eyes; the next instant there was a trampling of iron hoofs, a flashing of steel, a torrent of men, and Gavin had dropped to his knees without so much as feeling a blow. Only everything grew suddenly indistinct and far away, and then he knew no more.

It seemed to him but another instant before he revived, perfectly alive to everything, but it was strangely quiet after the fierce confusion of the last charge. There was still fighting going on, but it was far at the other end of the village, and elsewhere it seemed to be quite over. He opened his eyes, and glanced upward; the mist was rolling off the valleys, and the sun, shining in unclouded splendour, was high in the heavens. It must be at least nine o’clock, thought Gavin, and he knew itwas not more than six when the order to charge was given. He concluded that he had been knocked on the head by a Prussian musket or a horse’s hoof. Glancing around again, he saw himself in a pool of blood. A dozen men lay in ghastly attitudes near him, and within touch of his hand was a dead horse. Gavin recognized the horse—it was the one ridden by the King of Prussia.

He grew faint presently, and concluded it was the neighbourhood of the horse; he tried to get up and walk away, which he failed to accomplish, and knew no more. When he next came to himself, he was lying in a little cart jolting along the road, and his head was aching miserably. He was in the open country, and the stars were shining overhead. It was very cold, and St. Arnaud was holding his head and trying to wrap him the better in cloaks. Gavin made quite sure before he spoke; then he said:

“St. Arnaud, is the King of Prussia a prisoner?”

“No. As well try to take the devil prisoner as that man.”

A pause.

“But for the wound in my head I could have done it. I had my hand on him.”

“It would take ten thousand men like you to carry off that Frederick of Prussia. The Prussian hussars did for you and the rest of our poor fellows very handsomely.”

“Yes; this wound in my head”—

“You have no wound in your head.”

“But I have, I tell you. It makes me suffer terribly.”

“The wound is in your leg. It is broken, but the surgeons have set it, and I am taking you to Zittau. There you can be treated, and I shall return to the regiment.”

“Yes; it is in my leg; I know it now. Did I lose my sword?”

“No; you were holding it tightly when I found you.”

“So you came to look after me?”

“Certainly. Everything was over, and what was left of the Prussians in full retreat before ten o’clock.”

“Are the Prussians really beaten?”

“As much as they ever are. Frederick will be up and at us again in a month as if he had never been beaten at all. But he has lost Marshal Keith. The marshal’s body was found among a heap of slain, watched by a foot-soldier, an Englishman,who had it carried into the church. And there General Lacy recognized the grand old marshal. General Lacy wept at the sight. The marshal will be buried to-morrow with full military honours, as if he were an Austrian marshal, General Lacy acting as chief mourner. Frederick has no more Keiths among his generals.”

Gavin broke out into a cry, so terrible was the jolting of the wagon upon his wounded leg.

Presently, when he became calmer, he asked:

“Will my leg be crooked or disfigured in any way if I get well?”

“Pooh! I don’t know. It is no matter, so you get well.”

“But my legs are very important to me, at least.”

“You are very vain of them. Well, I dare say they will be all right.”

Hours of agony followed, and Gavin was not of the sort to endure pain silently. He moaned and cried incessantly, and St. Arnaud comforted him as a mother comforts a suffering child.

By daylight he was at Zittau, lying in a rude bed in an artisan’s house. St. Arnaud stayed with him a few hours, and then was obliged to leave him, but not before sending an express to Viennato Lady Hamilton, to Gavin’s joy and relief. He felt, as he lay in agonizing pain upon his hard bed, that could he but know his mother was near, half his suffering would be over.

Six days of suffering followed, suffering that turned his ruddy cheeks to a deathly pallor, and brought lines never to be effaced in his boyish face. He burned with fever, while racked with anguish, and neither day nor night brought him any relief. The artisan’s family were kind to him, and he had the surgical attention necessary, but Zittau was full of wounded Austrians, and all suffered hardships.

On the sixth evening, just as Gavin felt himself sinking into delirium, the door to his little room opened. He thought it was the woman of the house coming to do what little she could for him; but oh, happiness! it was his mother; and behind her was thirteen-year-old Freda, lugging a great soft pillow; and Gavin, throwing his arms around his mother’s neck as she clasped him, sobbed and cried with joy and pain as he had not done since he was a little lad.

His mother, to soothe him, told him the circumstances of her coming to him.

“As soon as I had that dear St. Arnaud’s letter,Madame Ziska and Count Kalenga got the money for my journey, and they insisted I should not start alone, and would have me take Freda, who is worth ten grown women for helpfulness. The Empress Queen herself sent me a message, saying you were at Zittau; and Prince Kaunitz gave me a letter enabling me to get post-horses anywhere on the road. So here we are, to stay until you can be moved to Vienna.”

The pain was no better for many days, but it was incomparably easier for Gavin to bear, with his mother’s tender ministrations and Freda’s untiring help, who was ever at hand to do, with the greatest intelligence, whatever was to be done. With all of Gavin’s youth and strength, it was yet six weeks before he could be moved to Vienna by easy stages. It was not an unhappy six weeks. The Austrians were in high spirits, and that was of great advantage in the convalescence of all the wounded. Gavin received early assurances of promotion and a good command as soon as the spring campaign opened. He, however, was not a conspicuously good patient, but rather the other way. He not only required to be nursed, but to be entertained, and in this last particular his mother’s natural gifts and accomplishments were invaluable.In return for all that she could do, however, Gavin would occasionally long for St. Arnaud’s charming society, and was far from polite in expressing his wishes. When he grew intolerable his mother would quietly withdraw, and let him get over his fit of ill humour as best he could. Little Freda, on the contrary, would be more tender and attentive the less he deserved it, and rewarded, rather than punished, his spells of diabolism.

When Gavin was able to sit up, he found diversion in keeping up the English lessons with Freda that Lady Hamilton had begun. The first sign of his return to his old self was one day when she discovered that he was teaching the innocent Freda the most outlandish pronunciation of English words, and laughing uproariously at her.

“I should think a young gentleman who calls his own name Ameeltone would try to mend his own pronunciation instead of imposing on Freda, who can say Hamilton quite well,” was Lady Hamilton’s comment.

In December, after a slow journey, Gavin found himself in his old quarters again, to the delight of his mother and his good friends. He was not yet able to attend the Empress Queen’s levee, but an aide-de-camp of the Emperor’s had come to makeformal inquiry concerning him and to bring a kind message from the sovereigns.

In December was Gavin’s twenty-first birthday, and to his great delight he found that St. Arnaud, then in winter quarters at Olmutz, would come to Vienna for a short visit about that time. On the winter afternoon that St. Arnaud arrived Gavin threw aside his crutches. It was his twenty-first birthday.

Madame Ziska had arranged a little feast for them, and Lady Hamilton, who had taken the utmost interest in it, had gone out with Freda to attend to some of the preparations. St. Arnaud arrived at five o’clock, and a few minutes after Freda returned alone, with a letter. She ran upstairs, and with a pale, scared face handed it to Gavin. It ran thus:

“I have this moment heard that your father is ill with smallpox and deserted by all his servants. I am going to him. I forbid you to come to the house, from the danger of infection not only to yourself, but to the family of our friends. You may, however, come to-morrow morning and every morning at nine o’clock to the corner of the street, and if all goes well I will be at the middle windowin the second story with a white handkerchief in my hand. If I should never see you again, be always a good man, and do not cease to love your devoted mother.M. Hamilton.”

Gavin, weakened by his illness, fell back in his chair, faint and overcome. St. Arnaud had to do the questioning of little Freda, who, though much frightened, could yet give a very intelligent account of what had happened.

“We were coming out of a shop,” she said, “when a man, looking like a servant, came up to us, and catching Lady Hamilton by the sleeve, begged her to go to a house not far off, where he said Sir Gavin Hamilton lay dying of smallpox, and quite alone. Lady Hamilton trembled very much at that, and asked him why he had deserted his master. The man answered that he had a wife and children, and when all the other servants left he was afraid to stay; and then it came out—for the man did not at first tell it—that he had left Sir Gavin the day before, and had gone for a doctor, but did not know whether the doctor went to Sir Gavin or not. But the man felt troubled about his master, and knowing about Lady Hamilton, had followed her up, and watched for her tocome out of the shop. Then Lady Hamilton, weeping very much, went back into the shop, and wrote this letter, and brought me to the corner of our street, and kissing me good-by, went off with the man.”

Gavin started up, crying out:

“I must go at once to my mother!” but sank back, exhausted; and St. Arnaud, seeing the necessity for quieting him, said:

“I will go to the house, which I know well, and try to attract Lady Hamilton’s attention, and perhaps I can find out something.”

He went immediately, and returned in half an hour. He found Gavin much agitated, and Madame Ziska and Freda vainly trying to calm him. The news St. Arnaud brought was not, however, calculated to soothe poor Gavin.

“I went straight to the house—one of the finest in the court quarter,” he said. “It was not necessary to know that the house had been hastily abandoned. Doors and even windows were wide open, and Sir Gavin’s dog, a huge mastiff, lay moaning with hunger on the stairs of the main entrance, for the servants fled yesterday. There was but a solitary light in the whole vast place—I suppose, in Sir Gavin’s room, I stood on the street below, andthrew pebbles at a window, until Lady Hamilton appeared at the window of a lower room. ‘He is very ill,’ she said, ‘and I believe would not have lived through another night had I not come. He is now delirious.’ I asked her if Sir Gavin’s valet had sent her a doctor. She replied the doctor had not yet come. At that moment the doctor arrived, on foot. I noticed that his man, following with his medicine case, was deeply pitted with smallpox, and I asked the doctor if, for a handsome consideration, I could engage this man to assist Lady Hamilton, which he agreed to, after making sure that Sir Gavin was of the rank and position to pay well for all that was done for him. So that she is now provided with help. I remained outside until Lady Hamilton again appeared at the window. She was weeping, and told me the doctor thought Sir Gavin could hardly survive many hours.”

“Why should my mother weep for that man, who has made her whole life wretched; and why—ah, why should she risk her life for him?” cried Gavin, throwing himself about in his chair in his agony of grief and alarm.

“Because,” quietly replied St. Arnaud, “she loves him still. I have seen it always. Yourmother, Gavin, is one of those faithful women, whose love once given cannot be withdrawn; who silently and patiently endure to the end, and whose unshaken constancy makes one admire and despair. In one moment of Sir Gavin’s danger she forgot twenty-one years of insults and injuries.”

“I cannot understand it,” sighed Gavin.

“Nor can I. Only exalted souls like hers can. But I tell you a fact, which I have seen in Lady Hamilton’s eyes ever since the first moment I saw her, that Sir Gavin Hamilton has never ceased to be dear to her, although her pride forbade her to acknowledge it. There could be no doubt of it to-night when, sobbing and trembling, she told me that in his delirium he raved of her and his child as they were twenty years ago, and moaned that his wife would not come to him. She sent you her dearest love and prayers, and only begged, if you valued her happiness, to keep away from the infection. She will talk to you from the window, as she did to me; it is some distance from the ground.”

The birthnight supper was a very different affair from what had been planned. Although all tried to cheer Gavin, and make him hopeful of the best, all of them were oppressed with fear. LadyHamilton’s life was in jeopardy every hour. Gavin slept not at all that night, and soon after sunrise was standing with a forlorn face under his mother’s window. He looked listlessly at the splendid façade, the marble steps, the tall, bronze lamps, all the evidences of wealth, and wondered stupidly at the good and evil in human nature, which made all desert Sir Gavin in his hour of direst need except the one human being he had most injured.

Not until nine o’clock did Lady Hamilton appear at the window.

“He still lives,” she said.

It was in Gavin’s heart to say that he cared not whether Sir Gavin lived or died if but she escaped; but he dared not.

“Mother,” cried Gavin, “I have not slept since your letter came, and I have been here since sunrise.”

“My poor, poor Gavin! Would you break your mother’s heart by making yourself ill? Go home now, and do not come back until to-morrow at nine.”

“Mother, I shall go mad if I do not see you again this day. Let me come at sunset. Iwillcome, and I will stand on this pavement untilyou speak to me, if it is until to-morrow morning.”

“Well, then, at sunset, dearest.”

Days of agonizing suspense followed for Gavin. He learned in that time to know that, fearful as bodily pain is, it is a bed of roses to mental anguish. All he had suffered with his wounds was nothing to what he endured in those December days when his mother remained in the infected house. Sir Gavin, after a week of the extremest danger, began to hold his own, and then to gain a little and a little. This change was plain in every tone of Lady Hamilton’s voice, and in every lineament of her pale, glorified face. It amazed and confounded Gavin, but it waked no jealousy in his heart. His nature was too large, too free, too liberal, to let a shade come between his mother and himself. He knew that she had once loved his father well; and when he came to examine his memory he could not recall a single expression of resentment she had ever used against Sir Gavin. True, she had approved Gavin on each of the two occasions when he had resented his father’s treatment of her, but Gavin felt that in strict justice she must have approved him, and it would have been a fatal mistake for him to have acted otherwise.But though convinced of Sir Gavin’s wickedness of conduct, she could not wholly withdraw the memory of her love, and at the first need of her it rose again, full of life and vitality.

It was eight weeks before Sir Gavin was entirely well and it was safe to enter the house. But on a bright and spring-like February day Gavin was to be allowed to see his mother. Lady Hamilton had especially asked that St. Arnaud and Madame Ziska come with him. She knew her own power over Gavin, but she was not quite sure of his resistance, and knowing well that both of these noble souls would be on her side, she thought it well to have them at hand.

Arrived at the house, a striking change was visible in its aspect from the day that its master lay ill and deserted to the time when he was again the Sir Gavin Hamilton of old. A splendidly liveried porter opened the great carved door, and within four powdered and silk-stockinged footmen obsequiously showed them into a noble drawing-room. But Gavin saw nothing except his mother, flitting down the grand staircase as the door opened; and bounding up three steps at the time, he caught her in his strong, young arms, and covered her face with kisses. And then, holding heroff at arm’s length, he studied her countenance, thinking to find her thin and pallid. But instead, he had never seen her face so round, so delicately rosy, so nearly beautiful. Lady Hamilton’s examination of him was not nearly so satisfactory.

“My poor, poor Gavin!” she said, and tears sprung to her eyes. Gavin had not endured six weeks of bodily pain and eight weeks of the anguish of fear without showing it.

After a few grateful words to Madame Ziska and St. Arnaud, Lady Hamilton turned and said with authority to Gavin:

“You will now go with me to your father’s room.”

Gavin, obeying the habit of years, went with his mother silently. His mind was in a tumult. He had hated his father very deeply ever since he could remember, nor was he capable of the sublime self-forgetfulness of his mother; for he not only bitterly resented his mother’s injuries, but his own. He, the son of a man rich, powerful, and well born, had spent his youth in poverty, in ignorance of many things, in the hardship of a private soldier’s lot. No; he could never forgive his father. He was saying this to himself when his mother stopped before a large door, and spoke.

“Sir Gavin is changed—more changed than I could have believed. And this change was not brought about for any advantage to be gained; it is that, looking death in the face, his better self was heard. He told me almost in the first days that he was conscious he always yearned over you as other fathers yearn over their sons, and at the very time he tried to win you from me he felt ten times the longing for you when you showed a spirit loyal to your mother. Sir Gavin, with all his faults, is not the man to miss the point of honour, and he respects that in you. He says often to me, whenever we speak of you, ‘The boy is no poltroon.’”

“But what, mother,” asked Gavin, firmly, “of his treatment of you?”

“That is between us, and with it you have nothing to do,” replied Lady Hamilton, with a flush rising to her face. “It is enough to know that Sir Gavin will do all he can to atone—”

“Atone!” cried Gavin, wheeling around and bringing his fist down on the wainscoting in a burst of rage.

The door opened noiselessly, and Sir Gavin Hamilton, dreadfully changed in appearance, but with the same indomitable coolness, appeared.

“The boy is right,” he said, turning to Lady Hamilton. “Men talk of atonement; how imperfect must it ever be! This boy hates me; it may be long before he feels otherwise. But for myself, I do not hate him, and never hated him. I should have despised him, though, had he accepted the conditions I offered him.”

“Yet you offered them,” replied Gavin; “you offered me anything and everything if I would abandon my mother.”

Sir Gavin waved his hand calmly.

“That is past,” he said. “She saved my life at the risk of her own. I have offered her the only recompense possible. I will acknowledge her to be my wife. Of course, in doing that, I am condemning my own course for twenty years past. Well, men sometimes do that. It is not in me to fall down on my knees and ask the world to flagellate me. I make neither promises nor professions. I only offer to regard the imperfect marriage ceremony which united us as perfectly valid. We both acted in good faith. The time came when I would have been glad to have been free from the bond. I shall make no further effort. I cannot, in fact, after having received her in my house, and acknowledged her right to be here.”

It was not gracious, but, as Sir Gavin truly said, it was not in him to abase himself.

Lady Hamilton’s reply was made with the utmost dignity.

“I ask nothing but the recognition of my right and my son’s right. I do not desire to remain in this house an hour longer than is necessary to establish the fact in the eyes of the world that I am Lady Hamilton. Then I shall go with my son and depend entirely upon him and upon myself. He has never yet failed me either in respect or affection, and having secured his right, I have nothing more to ask.”

Never in all his life had Gavin felt prouder of his mother than at that moment. Even a gleam of admiration came into Sir Gavin Hamilton’s cold eyes. His reply was more conciliatory than anything he had yet said.

“I do not feel I have the right to exercise any compulsion over you, madam, but I would suggest that you remain in my house until I am sufficiently recovered to attend you to the royal levee. That will be the simplest as well as the most effective method of undoing the work of many years.”

Lady Hamilton bowed silently, and Gavin, with a formal inclination of the head to his father, offeredhis mother his arm, and they descended the stairs.

Sir Gavin, with a strange expression on his face, watched them as they descended, and when they reached the first landing, supposing themselves unseen, mother and son fell into each other’s arms and clung together. But Sir Gavin Hamilton stood watching—watching, while that which did duty for him as a heart was deeply stirred.

Below were Madame Ziska and St. Arnaud. St. Arnaud was just saying:

“I am getting frightened, they are so quiet; Gavin must have thrown his father out of the window,” when Lady Hamilton and Gavin appeared.

“What did Gavin do?” anxiously cried Madame Ziska.

“All I could have asked of him,” replied his mother. She did not say all she could have wished. She had hoped that he would offer his hand to his father, but he had not done it. However, glad to have gained so much from him, Lady Hamilton would not be too exacting. And Madame Ziska, by way of encouraging Gavin, said what she did not feel:

“What a sweet, forgiving Gavin is it!” and patted his shoulder.

Lady Hamilton then said simply that she would remain until after the next levee, which she would attend with Sir Gavin.

“And then you will come back to us,” cried Gavin.

“If you do not come here,” said St. Arnaud, out of Gavin’s hearing, and exchanging glances with Madame Ziska.

Lady Hamilton led them through the splendid lower floor, the bewigged and bepowdered footmen obsequiously showing the way, and at the same time indicating they knew who was mistress there. On parting, Gavin promised faithfully to return the next day.

Gavin expected to be met with many urgings from St. Arnaud and Madame Ziska and Count Kalenga to be more conciliatory to his father, but they wisely said nothing. Every day Gavin went to see his mother, and every day, when he saw her the acknowledged mistress of his father’s house, it seemed as if his hatred to Sir Gavin was abating little by little. On the third day he met Sir Gavin as he was about to go out in his coach, and heard him say:

“Make my compliments to Lady Hamilton, and ask for the honour of her company to drive.”

The footman disappeared and returned.

“Lady Hamilton sends her compliments, and regrets she cannot accept Sir Gavin’s invitation. She is expecting Lieutenant Hamilton.”

Sir Gavin looked so cross and surprised that Gavin could not restrain a grin—he had never been able to smile at anything his father did before.

All this had not been unknown in Vienna society, and curiosity was at the highest pitch the night of the royal levee, when the strangely reconciled couple were to appear for the first time in public. Gavin and St. Arnaud were to be present—their first appearance after the campaign in which both had distinguished themselves. On the next day both were to return to their command at Olmutz. As they rolled along in a hired coach toward the royal palace St Arnaud said:

“How happy you should be! How I envy you!”

Gavin was surprised at this. St Arnaud was always cheerful, even gay, self-contained, and Gavin had thought a very happy man.

“Why should I not envy you? Compare your youth with mine.”

“True. But I have no one in the world to love or to love me. I have neither father nor mothernor brother nor sister. One day I will tell you some things that may make you pity me.”

Gavin was again surprised, but more wounded than surprised. He loved St. Arnaud with the devoted affection of his nature, full of enthusiasm, and without having lost a single illusion; and to have St. Arnaud speak of himself as unloved and unloving cut him to the heart. He said nothing, and St. Arnaud’s next words reassured him.

“That meeting in the snow was as fortunate for me as it was for you; it gave me interests, affections; for what I said just now meant that I was cut off from those natural ties that give life most of its charm. I have many comrades—what are called friends—but, except yourself, there is not one who feels very near to me. I do not know why it is so. I was ever ready to make friends, but I only know that you are the one person who knows my inmost thoughts, the one person to whom I can ever tell the story of my life.”

“Well, then, tell it to me whenever you like,” cried Gavin joyously. “And all I can say is, if you have an enemy, let him beware of me!”

The levee was exceptionally brilliant, and the event of the evening was undoubtedly the appearance together of Sir Gavin and Lady Hamilton.Gavin, in a fever of excitement, pride, joy, triumph, and nervousness, waited to see them enter the grand saloon where the Empress Queen and Emperor received. Presently they were seen advancing—Lady Hamilton radiant in the beauty of her youth, which seemed to have returned to her, and Sir Gavin as cool and unconcerned as if a reconciliation with his wife were no more than rejoining her after a journey. Prince Kaunitz remarked confidentially to his intimate, the French ambassador:

“What a loss, monsieur, to diplomacy is Sir Gavin Hamilton! Observe his composure, and see how he outwits all of his enemies by doing the unexpected thing in the unexpected manner. I understand he made no move to keep Lady Hamilton with him permanently until she informed him she should leave his house immediately he performed this act of restitution; but as soon as he found that out, he has been using all his endeavours to make her stay. If she remains with him, she can make her position entirely secure and agreeable by occasionally offering to leave him. The rule of Sir Gavin Hamilton’s life is the rule of contrary.”

By St. Arnaud’s artful manœuvring, Gavinfound himself directly behind his father and mother when they made their obeisance to royalty. The Empress Queen, who knew the circumstances perfectly well, was peculiarly gracious to Lady Hamilton, as was the Emperor.

“Permit me to congratulate you upon your son, Lieutenant Hamilton,” she said, with her charming smile and an air of imperial grace. “General Loudon has spoken of him to the Emperor and myself with great praise. It is to such young officers as he that we look for our safety and that of our children.”

“My son ever considers it an honour to serve your Majesties,” was Lady Hamilton’s reply; and behind her was Gavin, blushing, confused, only half hearing the Empress Queen’s kind words to him, but wholly happy.

At midnight, under a brilliant moon, Gavin and St. Arnaud stood together in the silent street before Sir Gavin Hamilton’s splendid house. The great door was slightly ajar, and occasionally Lady Hamilton’s figure passed in front of it.

“Go in,” said St. Arnaud, in a quiet, determined voice. “Your father has asked you; your mother pleaded with you with her eyes. This is the turning-point. Go in for your mother’s sake.”

“Yes—for her sake,” said Gavin after a moment. In that moment he had lived through the hardest struggle of his life.

St. Arnaud walked home alone—and for the first time Gavin Hamilton slept under his father’s roof.

THE END

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