Ruez, poor boy, was almost distracted at the realization of
the young soldier's fate. Boy though he was, he had yet the
feelings, in many respects, of manhood, and though before Lorenzo
Bezan he said nothing of his coming fate, and indeed struggled to
appear cheerful, and to impart a pleasant influence to the prisoner,
yet when once out of his presence, he would cry for the hour
together, and Isabella even feared for the child's reason, unless
some change should take place ere long.
When his mother was taken from him, and their home made desolate by
the hand of death, Ruez, in the gentleness and tenderness of his
heart, had been brought so low by grief, that it was almost
miraculous that he had survived. The influence of that sorrow, as we
have before observed, had never left him. His father's assiduous
care and kindness, and Isabella's gentle and sisterly love for him,
had in part healed the wound, when now his young and susceptible
heart was caused thus to bleed anew. He loved Lorenzo Bezan with a
strange intensity of feeling. There was an affinity in their natures
that seemed to draw them together, and it was strange that strength
of consolation and happiness that weak and gentle boy imparted to
the stern soldier!
In his association of late with Ruez, the condemned officer felt
purified and carried back to childhood and his mother's knee; the
long vista of eventful years was blotted out from his heart, the
stern battles he had fought in, the blood he had seen flow like
water, his own deep scars and many wounds, the pride and ambition of
his military career, all were forgotten, and by Ruez's side he was
perhaps more of a child at heart than the boy himself.
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