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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.
What happened else that day we have already seen, and how Paul and Bilinski followed him, and how he got away, and how he did walk, bravely, gayly, in less than two weeks the four hundred miles to Augsburg. It was well on in the afternoon of August 30th or 31st when Stanislaus arrived at Augsburg. The town was strange to him. He had to ask his way to the Jesuit house.
But Paul, though he might be touched for the moment by his brother's readiness to forgive, continued to grow even more irritated with him. Many and many a time he struck Stanislaus; and often, after knocking him down, kicked him and then tramped on him. And Bilinski always took the same line, trying to make peace by blaming everything on Stanislaus.
They seemed a sort of standing rebuke to him, and they constantly nettled him. Of course he sought reasons to justify himself, as we all do when we are in the wrong. When they were alone, he and Bilinski fell to scolding Stanislaus. "You shame us!" Paul would cry. "You do not act like a nobleman, but like some boorish peasant." Then Stanislaus would be troubled. He knew he was in the right.
On inquiry, they found that Kimberker used less than half of the house, for it was a huge building with many rooms, and that he was more than willing to rent the unused rooms to the young Poles. Stanislaus felt a little ill at ease over living with a Lutheran. But Bilinski and Paul pooh- poohed at his fears, and had their own way in the matter.
But oftenest he could only smile and say nothing. And whether he answered or kept silence, Paul was sure to grow more irritated. Then Bilinski tried to exert his authority. "Your father gave you into my charge," he would say. "I order you to act like the rest of us and not make yourself odd and shame us by your conduct."
No, he was very sensible and did everything with reason. He would not stop saying his prayers when Bilinski and Paul objected, he would not join in gay dinners and drinking-bouts and gambling, he would not sit and smile at shady stories or smutty wit. He would no? do anything his conscience forbade. But he was most ready to do anything else they wanted.
He looked upon life as one looks upon a little delay at a railway station before the train leaves; the only important thing is to catch the train. Bilinski and Paul Kostka went back to Vienna, much troubled at heart. They really loved Stanislaus, for one thing, though they had been pretty rough with him.
He remembered Saint Barbara, of whom he had asked 'the grace of not dying without the Holy Viaticum. He renewed his prayers for her intercession. He laid his whole case with confidence before God, and with confidence waited. Bilinski still sat by his bed, watching anxiously. The day passed, the light failed, darkness and night came on.
But who can say how much is endurable, or in what direction men will seek at last to escape from their misfortunes? On October 3, 1919, M. Bilinski made his financial statement to the Polish Diet.
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