OFF TO VIENNA
In this way Stanislaus went on until he was nearly fourteen years
old and his brother Paul was approaching fifteen. Then the Lord
John Kostka thought his boys had better continue their studies, not
at home, but at a regular school. He picked out John Bilinski, a
young man who had lately completed his college course, as tutor for
them. He gave them a couple of servants, mounted them all on good
horses, and sent them off six hundred miles or more on horseback to
Vienna.
You may be sure Stanislaus enjoyed the long ride. It would be
strange if he, a nobleman of the finest cavalry nation in the world,
were not a good horseman. He loved the smell of the open fields, he
loved the boisterous song of the mountain torrent. The hills and
the plains were his home, for the hills and the plains were nearer
to God than the houses of men.
In those days all travel was on foot or on horseback. The wealthy
and noble rode, the poor footed it. Great highways cut Europe from
end to end; though there were tracts in Stanislaus' country where
the roadway was only the broad steppe, where the grasses waved and
tossed like the sea, where men were few and their dwellings
scattered far apart.
They crossed great rivers, they climbed the foothills of the
Carpathian mountains. Many a night Paul and Stanislaus, with their
people, slept under the stars. Many a wild, rough border town they
passed. Many a great forest they penetrated, the home of the wild
boar and the aurochs.
And the tar burners in the forests looked up from under their matted
brows at the fair oval face of the Polish boy, and said:
"He is like a wild flower blown by the wind. He is like the violets
that laugh in spring at the sun."
And the shaggy fighting-men of the frontier villages watched him
ride through their streets, and thought:
"This is an angel. He looks toward heaven because he sees his
Brothers there."
They crossed themselves piously as he passed. And some of the light
and laughter of his face glowed 'for a moment in their dark lives,
as a gloomy glen in the forest is brightened up by a darting ray of
sunlight.
He was wonderful, but he was always a boy. He was glad to feel the
good horse under him, to grip the Tartar saddle with his knees, to
feel the air rush by his cheek.
Sometimes they met poor people staggering wearily afoot along the
road. Often Stanislaus checked his horse and lightly dismounted.
"Get up, get up, old father!" he would cry. "My legs are stiff from
the saddle. I want to walk."
And though a peasant might often be afraid to accept the favor from
a noble, or be surly and churlish, the folk never were so with
Stanislaus. Up climbed the old father into the saddle, and
Stanislaus stepped out by his side.
"God give your grace long years!" said the thankful old man.
"Long years!" cried Stanislaus. I want more than that. I want
eternity. I was born for greater things than long years."
And the old man would understand; for he was of the poor, and the
poor know more of this longing for heaven than do the rich. But he
looked almost with awe at this richly dressed noble boy who had
learned even now to value life so justly. Then it was easy for
Stanislaus to talk of heaven to the old man.
"Old father, in the barony of the Lord Jesus there is no poverty or
old age or weariness. Nor is there any difference of rank there as
here, for we shall all be great lords and castellans in heaven."
"Aye, but your grace will be a hetman surely in the army of the Lord
Jesus," said the old man.
"Who knows!" cried Stanislaus. "I should love that dearly. Though
the generals in His kingdom are not always from amongst the nobles.
It may be that you will be hetman, and I a common soldier. But it is
good to be even a common soldier with Him."
"I went against the Tartars in my youth," said the old man. "Perhaps
we shall have a campaign against that dog-brother Lucifer, and Saint
Michael and Saint Wenceslaus will lead us under the Lord Jesus; and
our Lady of Yasna Gora will look on when we come back victorious!"
And so they talked on until it was time to set the old man down, and
Stanislaus mounted again to catch up with his party, which had gone
ahead.
"With God!" cried the old man.
"With God!" echoed Stanislaus. 'And if you go to heaven before me,
father, do not forget to plead for me with the Lord Jesus and with
His Mother."
Then he clattered along the road, and shortly came up with Bilinski
and Paul.
Sometimes they came to districts infested by robbers, and waited to
join themselves to some larger party for protection. Sometimes they
made long stretches of many hours in the saddle, when the inns were
far apart and they could get no food on the road. Sometimes they
tarried a day or two in a little town to rest their horses.
But everywhere Stanislaus thought of God, and prayed, and when
occasion offered spoke of holy things as only he could speak.
Bilinski and Paul often laughed at him, for they were of a different
stamp. But he did not mind their ridicule, and he bore them no
grudge for it. And so, after. many days, they came at length to
Vienna, on July 26, 1564.