Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/413

Rh than be a king myself up yonder—which is what I am no way fit for—I would like to go on serving the Czar there, as I do here. Would not you, Barrinka?"

"I think so now. But how it will be with me then I cannot tell. 'It doth not yet appear what we shall be.' Christ's promise is enough: 'I will give thee a crown of life'—'To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.' Yet is it said too, 'They serve him day and night in his temple.'"

By this time they had reached the gate of Ivan's palace. Clémence gladly renewed her acquaintance with the friend of her husband's boyhood; she gave him a hospitable welcome, and, to his intense delight, showed him her two lovely boys, the elder just able to lisp his father's name, the younger a three months' babe in the cradle.

From that time Ivan's old playfellow was a frequent visitor. Clémence helped him in the studies of which he was so proud; and they had many a quiet happy talk together about Him of whom the Book they loved so well testified in every page. Eventually, however, the current of their lives divided, and swept them apart, never probably to meet again on this side of the grave. But the lessons they had learned remained with both, and both in their several spheres sought to pass them on to others. Many years afterwards, a German traveller in Russia visited the churches of St. Petersburg, as an interested spectator of the touching Russian custom of the reading of the Scriptures on Easter eve by the people for one another. He tells us that in one of these churches he saw a veteran soldier, scarred and weather-beaten, standing at the desk with a taper in his hand reading the story of his Saviour's death to a company of little children who clustered around him, listening to the sacred words with absorbed and breathless attention. Perhaps he failed to notice, or perhaps he did not think it worth while to chronicle, that the reader had lost a hand.