Stephen Báthory

“ You are old enough now to be treated like a man, not like a little boy."
As he spoke he looked toward Stephen with an expression of such pride and affection that the force of it swept over the lad as it never had done before. What a bully sort his father was, he suddenly thought; and how genuinely he believed in him! Why not speak out now and clear up the wretched deception he had practiced, and start afresh with a clean conscience? With impulsive resolve he gripped the arms of the chair and pulled himself together for his confession. ”

“ There was a moment of silence and the rumble of the busy street rose to their ears.
"I never shall build anything that will help the men of the future," observed Stephen, in a low tone.
"Every human being is building all the time," replied his father. "He is building a strong body that shall mean a better race; a clean mind that shall mean a purer race; a loyalty to country that will result in finer citizenship; and a life of service to his fellows that will bring in time a broader Christianity. Will not the world be the better for all these things? ”

“ His will rose up and opposed itself to the whole invasion⁠ ⁠... and in the end his will of steel, trained as all men of character train their wills against the difficulties of life, did actually produce a certain, definite result. This result was almost a tour de force, perhaps, yet it seemed valid. By its aid Stephen forced himself into a position he felt intuitively was an impossible one, but in which nevertheless he determined, by a deliberate act of almost incredible volition, that he would remain fixed. He decided to conquer his obsession, and to remain true to Mark.⁠ ⁠... ”

“ There is just one thing! Don't lock horns with him; those who do, go away crippled. He's a potent influence in the life here, Steve; perhaps we don't analyse or realize it, but he stands for the power that money gives; he is the first and last expression of that power to most of us.”
“But he's very simple and kindly,” suggested Stephen.
“I don't know, with so much to say in the affairs of his neighbours, he'd hardly dare to be autocratic; but he's a great lawyer, for a country lawyer, he's really a big man; there's no gainsaying that.” Wade spoke with enthusiasm. ”

“ Beauty became incarnated in the person of Stephen Redshawe, whose son she later encountered in the house at Maadi. The past rose in sad loveliness, enveloping her with the fragrance of pressed flowers; but of all the memories that surged in her, this one alone broke in pitiless splendour over her consciousness. In that moment Stephen Redshawe lived again, less as a man and a lover than as a gleam, an ecstasy, a chord of divine music, a symbol of all that she had longed for and lost. Other things she could recall minutely, but Stephen remained a vague splendour. ”

“ He was a mischievous, happy-go-lucky lad but in his homely, freckled face there was a winsome manliness. Whatever the scrapes he got into through sheer love of fun it was characteristic of him that he was always courageous enough to confess to them. This was the first inkling he had had that Stephen had not acquainted his father with the escapade of the previous week and such a course was so at variance with his own frank nature that he was aghast. ”

“ Stephen was a good half-mile out of his way.
When the mind is empty and the body tired it would seem that the system is sensitive to impressions with an acuteness impossible when these are vigorously employed. The face of this, girl, framed against the glass of the hotel verandah, rushed out towards him with a sudden invading glory, and took the most complete imaginable possession of this temporary unemployment of his spirit. ”

“ The fools who govern us find it easier to be severe. It saves them trouble to say, “The innocent must suffer with the guilty.” It even gives them a thrill of pride. Against all this wicked nonsense, against the Wilbrahams and Pembrokes who try to rule our world Stephen would fight till he died. Stephen was a hero. He was a law to himself, and rightly. He was great enough to despise our small moralities. He was attaining love. This evening Rickie caught Ansell’s enthusiasm, and felt it worth while to sacrifice everything for such a man. ”

“ He had not been a candidate for justice of the peace for nothing; he had absorbed something of the methods and spirit of the law through sheer propinquity to the office. "We-uns wouldn't be persumed ter know." And he ungrudgingly gave himself all the benefit of the doubt that the law accords.
"That's a true word!" exclaimed Stephen, quick to console his conscience. "Jes' look at the fac's, now. We-uns in a plumb black midnight hear a man a-gittin' over our fence; we git our rifles ”

“ Count Stephen told me that he felt as if he were in the tower of the Sleeping Beauty when he was here."
"The sleeper has awakened," the priest responded, with a smile that was not without some secret shadow. "In truth, the countess and her husband have become so truly one that it is not possible to say that either is gayer than the other. They think alike, and they feel in all things the same." ”

“ As has been seen, he was too strong a man to drift merely; a definite way out that could commend itself to a man of action had to be found; and, though the raw material of heroism may have been in him, he made no claim to a martyrdom that should last as long as life itself. And this alternative dawned upon him now as the grey light of a last morning must dawn upon the condemned prisoner: given Stephen, and given this particular problem, it was the only way out. ”

“ XXIV HOW COUNT STEPHEN MET HERR FREDERICH.
It was in sooth with angry mind that Count Stephen dashed about in the wood, seeking for his cousin. He did not in his secret heart expect to find her, but it seemed to him that if she had really fled to the castle this would mean a giving up of the hope of her love. If she was ready to yield to his wooing, she might indeed have been so taken by surprise and so overcome by shyness at the moment as to seek instinctively to escape him ”

“ Stephen, if not a bigoted Puritan, was a strong Protestant, and never failed to express his dread of the consequences should James come to the throne.
Stephen Battiscombe was the second son of Mr Battiscombe of Langton Park, who had several other sons and daughters. He had been an officer in General Monk’s army, and had consequently retained his paternal estates, although he had been compelled to part with some of his broad acres in order to secure the remainder. Stephen had been for the last year or two a constant visitor at Eversden, he and Roger having formed a friendship ”

“ Stephen would have been more than human if he could have stood the loss of all his earthly goods with perfect equanimity. He groaned when the oxen began to move, and then, feeling a desperate desire to relieve his feelings, and a strong tendency to fight, he suddenly shut his eyes, and began to pray that the robbers might be forgiven, and himself enabled to bear his trials in a becoming manner. Opening his eyes again, he beheld a sturdy Bushman gazing at him in open-mouthed surprise, with an uplifted assagai in his hand. ”

“ Robert of Bathenton and Baldwin of Redvers, in Devonshire, began to rebel. They were indeed both conquered, but such movements mark the temper of the times. In 1137 Stephen found himself strong enough to cross to Normandy, where Geoffrey of Anjou was making war upon his provinces. His success there was not great. He purchased from Geoffrey a cessation of hostilities. Meanwhile the Northern frontier of England had become a scene of war. David of Scotland, the nephew of Eadgar Ætheling, and uncle through his sister Matilda of the Empress, had himself some claims to the English throne. ”

“ Stephen died Friday, March 10. She was with him when he died and mourned for her “dear, noble brother.” She believed he had gone to meet the loved ones on the other side, and she wondered whether her mother was [Pg 338] not the first to welcome him. His body was embalmed, and a service was held in Washington, and another in Oxford. Between the time of Stephen’s death and her departure with his body, she received her papers with the President’s endorsement. General Hitchcock presented them to her. She wrote:
We had a most delightful interview. ”

“ On the death of Henry, Richard, the eldest brother of Baldwin, was slain, and his lands were harried by Morgan ap Owen. Stephen gave Baldwin a large sum of money to enable him to hire troops for the relief of the lands of his house. Baldwin, however, retreated without, as it seems, striking a single blow. When, in 1141, Stephen's army was drawn up before the battle of Lincoln, the king, because his own voice was weak, deputed Baldwin to make a speech to the host. ”

“ That the character of Master Stephen is not, in this respect, overcharged, but represents faithfully the fashionable folly of the age, is evident from many contemporary writers, and especially from that sensible old author Richard Brathwait, who, speaking of dogs and hawks, says, "they are to be used only as pleasures and recreations, of which to speake sparingly were much better, than onely to discourse of them, as if our whole reading were in them. ”

“ I hardly know how it happened, but the conversation once more turned upon the siege of Buda, and Stephen maintained, quite rightly, as after events proved, that even a successful assault must be attended by immense slaughter.
"The boy speaks sense there!" growled the smoke-hidden Teuton. "I know Hentzi well; he's just the man to strike hard and to strike often."
"Well, well. Our young friend need not be afraid," broke in the count sneeringly. "We shall find men stout-hearted enough to storm the breach when it's made."
"I do not fear for myself," Stephen answered proudly. ”

“ Matilda’s adherents were already in the field in Normandy; in England their rising was only delayed for a few months.
Stephen, though he had shown some enterprise and capacity in his successful snatch at the crown, was a man far below his three predecessors on the throne in the matter of perseverance and foresight. He was a good fighter, a liberal giver, and a faithful friend, but he lacked wisdom, caution and the power to organize. Starting his career as a perjurer, it is curious that he was singularly slow to suspect perjury in others ”

“ Stephen,” he panted in his fury, “unless you tell me the truth now, by the mother that bore you, I’ll show you no mercy—none.”
For a space Stephen stared at him, fascinated—caught. All at once his courage quite went, and he sagged down in his chair, crumpled and beaten. “I did it,” he said hoarsely. “I had to.”
“You made the alteration in the ledger after Hugh left?”
“Yes.”
“My God! and you wrote the anonymous letter to Grant, too! Why?”
“I wanted power—dominion—they are all that make life worth living. You drove me to it. You never cared for me—not as you did for Hugh—you thwarted me always. ”

“ Stephen resumed his old habits of billiard-playing, cards, and late hours. He had grown fond of his home, and reconciled to a quiet, domestic life. Darling Laura’s pretty ways and sweet little talk amused and interested him. But after Captain Desmond came upon the scene Stephen seldom spent an evening at home. I know that it is wicked to hate people,” the poor thing said, in her simple way, “but I cannot help hating this bad man.”’
‘Poor mother!’ sighed Laura, touched to the heart by this picture of domestic misery. ”

“ Robert Maitland could not comprehend how it irritated his stately brother to be called "Steve." Nobody ever spoke of him but as Stephen Maitland—"But Lord, I don't blame you," continued the Westerner. "Any man whose vision is barred by a foothill couldn't be expected to know much of the main range and what's beyond." ”

“ On a report being raised of the death of Stephen in 1136, Baldwin, with the connivance of other barons, made a revolt. He began to oppress the city of Exeter. The citizens sent to the king for help, and Stephen ordered 200 horse to march at once to their relief. Baldwin's men, having heard that the citizens had complained of them, sallied forth to take vengeance on them. ”

“ Had anyone told Mark that some day he would marry, Mark would have shrugged his shoulders with a smile, and replied, “No; but I’m awfully afraid Stephen may!” And vice versa.
III Then out of a clear sky the bolt fell⁠—upon Stephen. Catching him utterly unawares it sent him fairly reeling. For Stephen even more than his brother, possessed that glorious yet fatal gift, common to poets and children, by which out of a few insignificant details the soul builds for itself a whole sweet heaven to dwell in. ”

“ When his daughter's name was suddenly pronounced by Mme. Bathory he had sufficient control over himself to suppress his emotion. But his heart for a moment ceased to beat, and he fell on the threshold of the chapel as if he had been struck by lightning.
And so his daughter was alive! And she loved Pierre, and she was loved! And it was Mathias Sandorf who had been doing everything to prevent the marriage! And the secret which gave Sava back to him would never have been discovered had not Mme. Bathory's reason been restored to her as by a miracle! ”

“ Stephen speaks of his readiness to refuse prominence if he thought that others could serve 214better than he, of his eagerness ‘to meet the strength of the opposite case,’ to see his opponent’s point of view and to judge it generously; he dwells on the great interest he took in private life in considering impartially and thoughtfully his friends’ problems, so that his advice to them was of unusual value. ”

“ They had been with him nearly a year now, and because he counted them as one of his assets, possible appanages of his great business—and because of their daily companionship with Helen—he watched them keenly. He did not suspect it, as yet, but both little fellows were creeping slowly into a corner of the heart that still beat true enough and human under his surface of granite and steel. And Stephen began to interest him much. Indisputably Stephen Pryde was interesting. He had personality beyond Nature’s average dole to each individual of that priceless though dangerous quality. ”