opened but a few hours. Through the great western gate, which cast
its long shadow on the road to Augsburg, came a strange-looking boy.

He lacked but a month or two of seventeen years, was some five feet
two or three inches in height, had an oval face of remarkable beauty
and liveliness, jet black hair, and eyes in which merriment dwelt as
in its home. He was dressed as became a noble of the time, and in
apparel of unusual splendor and costliness; plumed bonnet, slashed
velvet doublet, tight silken hose, jeweled dagger at his girdle.

But it was odd to see so brilliant a figure on foot in the dusty
highway; still more odd that be carried a rough bundle slung on a
staff over his and that, peasant fashion, he munched at a loaf of
bread as he trudged the road.

By no means stalwart-looking, still he swung along with an easy
stride and a confident strength that many a stouter man might envy.
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 ate his rough breakfast, like a
peasant, on the road, because he had just been to Mass and received
Holy Communion at the Jesuit church in Vienna. He carried a bundle
on his staff, because he laughed merrily at fine clothes and had in
the bundle a coarse tunic and a stout pair of brogans, which he
meant to put on as soon as he got well out of the city. And his face
and his eyes shone with joy, because he loved God most wonderfully
and was as happy a boy as ever moved through this dull world.