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He blamed everybody, but most of all Stanislaus and the tricky Jesuits who, he said, were back of the whole scheme. He wrote to Cardinal Osius that he would not rest until he had broken up the Jesuit college in Pultowa and driven every schemer of them out of Poland. As for Stanislaus, he would follow him across the world, if need were, and drag him back to Kostkov in chains.
Paul also wrote, as did Kimberker and even the servant who had gone with them in the carriage. Each tried to shift the blame from himself, told of the strange behavior of the horses, explained that everything possible had been done to overtake the fugitive. And when their letters came, there was high wrath in Kostkov. The Lord John raved and swore.
He was bound for Augsburg, 400 miles to the west, and he set himself thirty miles a day as his rate of travel. He wore splendid clothes, because he was Stanislaus, the son of John Kostka, Lord of Kostkov, Senator, and Castellan of Zakroczym in the Duchy of Mazovia, Poland.
He ordered his eldest son, Paul, on to Rome, with power to bring back Stanislaus to his home at Kostkov. Paul traveled in some state and with no great haste. He reached Rome in the middle of September, 1568, to find that God had been beforehand with him, and that Stanislaus had indeed already gone home, to heaven.
Stanislaus said, yes, he understood perfectly. "And that you are closing the door on your return, that in no case will you ever be received again at Kostkov?" Yes, Stanislaus knew that too.
He put all his fears and heartache away from him, and went out to do what God wanted. He had always done that, even when he was a little tad in the rough castle at Kostkov. God had taught him, God had helped him wonderfully. But more wonderful still to our eyes is the way the boy listened to God's teaching and obeyed it. We think things come easy to the saints.
Bitter remembrance of his harshness and brutality to the dead saint was with him always and urged him to a life of penance and prayer. He never married, but passed his days largely at the castle of Kostkov in retirement with his widowed mother. He busied himself in constant works of charity, spending his great fortune in helping the poor and in establishing hospitals and building churches.
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