SECOND TO NONE.

CHAPTER I.
WE TAKE THE FIELD AGAIN.

While we were in quarters at Paderborn, a mixed detachment (composed of men for various corps) arrived to join the army, and with it came Major Shirley, looking quite the same as when I had seen him last, on the morning we marched from Wadhurst—his uniform new and spotless, his aiguilettes glittering, his wellfitting gloves of the whitest kid, above which he wore pearl rings; his hair curled and perfumed, with his handsome figure, suave and courtly bearing, his sinister and unfathomable smile.

He was one of those lucky fellows who have mysterious interest (feminine probably) at head-quarters, and who, whether at home or abroad, are always on the staff, and never with their regiments; thus he had been appointed extra aide-de-camp to Lord George Sackville, and thus we chanced to meet on the day of his arrival at an old windmill which did duty as a staff-office for the British head-quarters.

"Did you see my cousin, Miss Gauntlet, before leaving England?" I inquired, though in reality caring little whether he had or not.

"Oh yes, frequently—especially when I was last in London; she is the reigning toast at White's and elsewhere."

"She was well, I hope?" said I, dryly.

"Well, and looking beautiful as ever."

"Did she charge you with any message to me?"

"None, Sir Basil. Zounds! none, at least, that I can remember," replied the major, colouring.

"Is there any word of her being married yet?" I asked, having a natural anxiety to know who might next be proprietor of my paternal acres. "So handsome a girl, and so rich, too, should certainly not lack offers."

"Nor does she, 'sdeath—nor does she." replied Shirley, as a shade of vexation mingled with his perpetual smile.

"Aha, major," thought I; "an unsuccessful wooer—eh!"—"And so you have no message for me?"

"None; but I have just delivered one of more importance than that of a London belle—one for the army."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; we are to take the field at once, and advance into Hesse."

"Against whom?"

"The Duc de Broglie."

On hearing this, to me, familiar name, it was my turn to feel a tinge of vexation.

"Our muster-place is Fulda; there the allies are to be concentrated;" and with his constant smile which showed all his white teeth, with his gold eyeglass in his right eye, and his gilt spurs ringing, our gay staff-officer left me.

As it is my object to confine these pages as much as possible to my own adventures, avoiding anything like a general narrative of the war, the reader may learn briefly, that when summoned to the field, the Scots Greys marched to Hesse, "through roads which—as our records have it—no army had ever traversed before," and encamped at Rothenburg, in a pleasant vale, sheltered by high hills.

In April we moved to Fulda, from whence Prince Ferdinand began to advance at the head of thirty thousand men against the Duc de Broglie, whom we found strongly posted near the village of Bergen, which occupies a wooded eminence between Frankfort and Hanover. This village was defended by earthen works, along which were rows of corbeilles, as the French name those large baskets which, on being filled with earth, are placed close to each other, and serve to cover the defenders of a bastion. They are usually eighteen inches high, and are always wider at the top than at the bottom; thus the opening between forms a species of loophole, and through these apertures the red musketry was flashing incessantly as we came within range.

On the 13th of April we attacked the duke.

Early in the morning our corps took post in the line of battle; but it was not till ten a.m. that the columns of attack moved across the plain in front of the French army, whose artillery bowled long and bloody lanes through them.

"Preston," said Major Maitland, as we formed squadrons to attack a body of cavalry; "that column consists of at least fifteen hundred tried men, under the Count de Lusignan, and you have but five hundred——"

"True—but mine are tried soldiers," was the old man's proud reply; "soldiers second to none in Europe."

These were no vain words, for in less than two minutes, by one desperate charge, we had routed them.

The grenadiers of all corps had commenced the action, supported by us and other dragoons, but were repulsed. They rallied again, but were again driven back and forced to retire, under cover of several charges made by us and by the Black Hussars of Prussia.

"Well done, my own hussars—and well done the Scots Greys!" cried Prince Ferdinand, as we re-formed after a furious charge, without having a saddle emptied. "Colonel Preston, you ought to be proud of commanding such a regiment."

"I am proud," was the quiet reply of our old colonel.

In all this affair, our only loss was a single horse—mine, which was killed under me by a six-pound shot; but Prince Ferdinand was compelled to fall back, leaving five guns on the field, where the Prince of Ysembourg and two thousand of our soldiers were slain.

By this victory the French army was plentifully supplied with provisions of every kind, while we suffered greatly by the lack of food and forage. By it, also, their armies formed a junction and advanced together under the command of Maréchal de Contades, while Prince Ferdinand, with his British and Hanoverians, had to retire, leaving garrisons in Rothenburg, Munster, and Minden, to cover his retreat.

But vain were these precautions!

Rothenburg was surprised by the Duc de Broglie; his brother the Count de Broglie, and his nephew the Count de Bourgneuf, "with sixteen companies of grenadiers, one thousand four hundred infantry, the regiments of Schomberg, Nassau and Fischer," took Minden by assault, and found therein ninety-four thousand sacks of grain. Then Munster, though bravely defended by four thousand men, fell after a short but sharp siege. It was severely, I may say savagely, proposed by de Bourgneuf, to put all in Minden to the sword, on the plea that the garrison of a place taken by assault had no right to be received as prisoners of war; "but," as a newspaper informs us, "General Zastrow and his men owed their safety to the noble generosity of the Duke and Count de Broglie."

Considering the conquest of Hanover as certain, the court of Versailles was now occupied mainly by considering how that Electorate should be secured to France for the future, when we advanced to have a trial of strength with their armies on the glorious, and, to us, ever memorable plains of Minden.

Prior to this, my friend Tom Kirkton had been promoted to the rank of cornet and adjutant, for taking prisoner with his own hand, during our first charge at Bergen, the Comte de Lusignan, a Maréchal de Camp.

CHAPTER II.
THE TWO PRESENTIMENTS.

On the night before the action at Minden, while we were bivouacked in a wood near the bank of the Weser, there came under my observation two instances of that remarkable and undefinable emotion or foreboding termed presentiment; and I believe there are few men who have served a campaign without meeting with something of the kind among their comrades, though the dire foreboding may not always have been fulfilled.

One of these instances was the case of Lieutenant Keith of ours; the other was that of the aide-de-camp, Major Shirley.

Under a sheltering tree, and near a large watchfire, a few of our officers, among whom were Captain Douglas, Keith, Tom Kirkton, Dr. Probe, and myself, were making themselves as comfortable as our poor circumstances would admit. We had plenty of wine from the regimental sutler, "whose princely confidence" Kirkton ironically urged us not to abuse; we had plenty of brandy captured from a French caisson; we had water in plenty from a stream hard by; we had ration beef boiled in camp kettles; we had biscuits too; nor was Tom's usual song wanting on the occasion, and he trolled it so lustily that many of our men loitered near to hear him.

We were in high spirits with the expectation of meeting the French in the morning; young Keith alone was sad, melancholy, and silent, and it seemed to me that he drank deeply, an unusual circumstance with him. Then suddenly he appeared to reflect, and ceasing his potations, resolutely passed alike the wine-jar and the cognac bottle.

"Are you ill, Keith?" asked Douglas, kindly.

"Not a bit of it," interrupted Tom Kirkton; "it is only the Westphalia wine that partially disagrees with him. Is it not so, friend Probe? Try some more brandy. I took it from a French baggage cart; 'tis the spoil of my sword and pistol. Come, Jamie Keith—

"How stands the glass around?
For shame, ye take no care, my boys!"

But Keith shook his head and turned away.

"Pshaw, boy! don't imitate any virtue of the Spartans to-night," said Probe, our surgeon; "who can say that we shall all be together at this hour to-morrow?"

"Ah, who indeed!" muttered young Keith, with an air so melancholy that we all paused to observe him.

"Look at me, Keith," said Captain Douglas, gravely; "there is something wrong with you to-night."

"I grant you that there is," replied the young lieutenant, turning his pale and handsome face to the inquirer. "I have in my heart—and I cannot help telling you—a solemn presentiment that I shall not survive the battle of to-morrow. Yet observe me, gentlemen, observe me well and closely all of you, and see if I shall blench before the enemy, or belie the name of my forefathers."

With one voice we endeavoured to ridicule this unfortunate idea, or to wean him from it; but he only replied by sadly shaking his head. After a pause, he said—

"I trust that you will not laugh at what I am about to tell you; but indeed I care little whether you do so or not. An hour ago, after our halt, I fell asleep in my cloak at the foot of that tree, and while there I dreamed of my home, of my father's house at Inverugie. I saw the Ugie flowing between its banks of yellow broom, I heard the hum of the honeybee among the purple heather bells, while the sweet perfume of the hawthorn passed me on the wind. Then I heard the German Sea chafing on the sandy knowes in the distance, and all the sense of boyhood and of home grew strong within me. But when I looked towards our old hall of Inverugie, it was roofless and windowless, the long grass grew on its cold hearthstone, and there the nettle and the ivy waved in the wind, while the black gleds were building their nests by scores in the holes of the ruined wall; and that dream daunts me still.

"Why—why—what of it?" we asked together.

"Because when one of our family dreams of a gled the hour of death is nigh. I have never known it fail, and so it has been ever since Thomas the Rhymer sat on a block near the castle (to this day called the Tammas stane), and as a vision came before him, he stretched his hands towards the house, saying—

"When the gleds their nests shall build
Where erst the Marischal hung his shield;
Then Inverugie by the sea,
Lordless shall thy lands be."

I am the last of the old line, and there is a conviction in my heart that the prophecy of the Rhymer is about to be fulfilled."

But for the well-known bravery, worth, and high spirit of the young subaltern, and the hereditary valour of the house he represented, we might have laughed at his strong faith in such an extremely old prediction—a faith in which, doubtless, his mother, his nurse, and many an old retainer had reared him; but as it was, we heard him in silence, till after a time, when Douglas endeavoured to reason with him on the folly of surrendering himself to such gloomy impressions, but in vain. His mind was sternly made up that he would fall on the morrow, and that he would die with honour to the attainted house he represented among us—the old lords of Inverugie and Dunotter, the earls marischal of Scotland.

While I was thinking of this—as we deemed it, fantastic idea—a hand was laid on my shoulder. I looked up and saw Major Shirley, who requested me to accompany him a little way apart. I could perceive by the light of the moon on one hand, and that of our watchfire on the other, that he was remarkably pale and somewhat agitated.

"Gauntlet," said he, with a smile, but with a very sickly one, "I have here a letter for you."

"From whom?"

"Your cousin; a letter which I quite forgot to deliver to you when I joined the army in Paderborn."

"This is somewhat odd—you forgot, eh?"

"Exactly; very awkward, is it not?"

"Rather," said I, somewhat ruffled. "Seven months have elapsed since you came from England, and you only remember it now! Do you recal that you stated she had not sent even a message to me?"

"Zounds! 'tis a fact, however odd," he replied, calmly, and in a very subdued voice. "I only bethought me to-night that the letter was in my dressing-case. We are to be engaged to-morrow; I may be knocked on the head as well as another, and thus have no wish to leave even the most trivial duty unfulfilled. You understand me?"

"Precisely," said I, with some contempt of manner.

"Here is your letter—adieu. I have an order for the Marquis of Granby. Where is his tent?"

"On the extreme right of the Inniskilling Dragoons."

"Good." He mounted and rode hurriedly away. I saw it all: this simpering staff officer was in love with Aurora, and dreaded in me a rival. Thus he had concealed the letter till his presentiment—shall I call his emotion apprehension?—of the coming day, impelled him to deliver it to me.

It was sealed and bordered with black. I tore it open and read hurriedly by the wavering light of our watchfire. The whole tenor of the letter was melancholy, and at such a time and under all the circumstances, it moved me, though one or two sentences were rather galling in their purport.

Aurora informed me that she had lost her mother at Tunbridge Wells on the day after we sailed. Save twice, and under rather cloudy circumstances, I had never seen the good lady, and so I had no tears for the occasion.

"Dear cousin Basil," she continued, "my father is dead; my beloved mother is dead; my poor brother Tony and a little sister whom I loved dearly, are also dead: so I feel very lonely now. The loss of mamma has been my most severe calamity, for she was the person in whom all my thoughts, feelings, and anxieties centred. You are a soldier, and I know not whether you can feel like me—that each link of the loving chain as it breaks unites us closer, by near, dear, and mysterious ties, to those who are beyond the grave—the beloved ones who are gone, and to be with whom would be life in death. For a time after poor mamma left me I felt more a denizen of the world to come than of this, and I feel that though dead she can still strangely control or inspire my actions, my emotions, and my conduct here.

"Oh yes, Basil, when my poor mamma died I felt eternity close to me—I felt that the circumstance of her going there before me instituted a strange and endearing tie between me and that mysterious state of being; that my heart was drawn towards the land of spirits; that it yearned for the other world rather than to linger in this. (The deuce! thought I; is Aurora about to take the veil—or whence this sermon?)

"Excuse me, cousin, if I weary you with my sorrow; but to whom could I write of it, save you? You promised to write to me, but have never done so. How unkind, after all you have said to me! I am at present at Netherwood, where the autumn is charming, and as I write the sun is shining with a lovely golden gleam on the yellow corn-fields and on the blue wavy chain of the Cheviot Hills. We are cutting down a number of the old trees at Netherwood. (Are we really! thought I.) Some of these are oaks that King James rode under on his way to Flodden Field; and dear old Mr. Nathan Wylie (Delightful old man!) recommends that the ruined chapel of St. Basil in the jousting-haugh should be removed as a relic of Popery, which stands in the way of the plough. But as the saint is a namesake of yours, it shall remain untouched, with all its ivy and guelder roses.

"When you return and visit us, as I trust in Heaven you shall (for I never omit to pray for your safety), you will find wonderful improvements in the kennels, stableyard, vinery, and copsewood."

It was very pleasant to me, a poor devil of a cornet, half-starved on my pay, especially since the capture of Minden, with its 94,000 sacks of grain, by Messieurs de Broglie and de Bourgneuf, to read how this lovely interloper and her crusty Mentor cut and carved on my lands and woods, kennels and stables.

"You will regret to hear that poor Mr. Wylie is failing fast, poor man! His niece Ruth—a very pretty young woman indeed—has just had twins. Her husband is Bailie Mucklewham, of the neighbouring town—a grave and rigid man, and ruling Elder of the Tabernacle, whatever that may be."

Ruth and her twins, and her husband the demure Elder and Bailie! I could laugh now, at the boyish hour in which I thought seriously of marrying Ruth Wylie.

"Doubtful where to address this letter to you, I have committed it to the care of Major Shirley, who has been hunting in this neighbourhood, and is now proceeding to Germany, to join the staff of mv Lord George Sackville.

"P.S.—Write me, dear cousin, and tell me all about this horrible war, and if it will soon be over. The major is so impatient that I have not time to read over what I have written. Adieu, with a kiss, A.G."

In our comfortless bivouac, by the sinking light of the wavering watchfire, as I read on, Aurora's face came before me, so charming, so fair, so blooming, and so English. She was warmhearted, affectionate, and my only relative on earth, so could I think of her in such a time of peril otherwise than kindly?

"Can it be—I asked of myself—that I am forgetting Jacqueline? But wherefore remember her now!"

Shirley had been hunting in the vicinity of Netherwood, so I might be sure that all his time would not have been there devoted to the sports of the field. Aurora prayed for me! It was delightful to have some one at least who thought of me—whose friendship or regard blessed me and that my course in life was not unheeded or unmarked amid the perils of war.

Aurora might love me, if I wished; surely there was no vanity in me to think so? But I feared that I could never love her—at least as I had loved Jacqueline—for she was the holder, the usurper of all that should be mine.

I resolved to write to her kindly, affectionately, after the battle, and then I would think of her no more; but somehow Aurora's image was very persisting, and would not be set aside.

I put the letter in my sabretache, and was looking about for a soft place whereon to sleep for an hour or so, when the sharp twang of the trumpet sounding, and the voice of Tom Kirkton shouting "Saddles and boots! to horse, the Greys!" warned me that day had broken, and that we must stand to arms, for the bloody game of Minden was about to begin.

CHAPTER III.
BATTLE OF MINDEN.

The morning of the 1st of August dawned fair and softly. The sky was a deep blue, and light fleecy clouds were floating across it. It was the opening of a day of battle, a day of doom to many, for who among us were fated to fall, and who to see its close?

A gentle breeze waved the foliage of the green woods, and swayed the ripened corn in yellow billows as it passed over the broad harvest-fields.

Bright, clear, and sparkling amid the blue ether shone the morning star, and lower down rolled a mass of amber-coloured cloud, on the edges of which glittered the rays of the yet unrisen sun.

Phosphor paled, the light gradually became golden, and the last shadows of night grew fainter as they faded away. Then the light breeze died, and there was not a breath to stir the foliage of the dense old forests which cast their shadows on the current of the Weser—that watery barrier which the French were to defend, and we to force at all hazards; hence, as the morning drew on, the air became close, heavy, and hot, and our men—horse, loot, and artillery—while wheeling, deploying, and getting into position among green hedgerows and deep corn, laden as they were in heavy marching order, soon felt their frames relaxed and the bead-drops oozing from under their grenadier caps and heavy cocked hats.

Brightly the sun burst forth from amid his amber clouds, and ere long the embattled walls of Minden, and its Gothic spires, Catholic and Lutheran, were shining in light.

The allied army formed in order of battle on the plain called Todtenhausen, in front of the town of Minden, which occupies the left bank of the Weser, and in which there was a strong French garrison, whose cannon commanded the famous stone bridge of six hundred yards in length. After capturing the town from General Zastrow, the main body of the army of M. de Contades had encamped near it.

On his left rose a steep hill, in his front lay a deep morass, and in his rear flowed a rugged mountain-stream.

As this position was strong, Prince Ferdinand employed all his strategy to draw the maréchal from it. With this view he had quitted his camp on the Weser, and marched to a place named Hille, leaving, however, General Wangenheim with a body of troops entrenched on the plain of Todtenhausen. Then detaching his nephew (known among us as the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick) with six thousand men, he gave him orders to make a detour towards the French left, and thus cut off their communication with Paderborn.

Though not ignorant of the compass of these triple dispositions, Contades, the Duc de Broglie, and Prince Xavier of Saxony, leader of the Household Cavalry of France, readily fell into the snare.

"Messeigneurs," said Maréchal Contades, with confidence, "the opportunity which we have so long sought for cutting off Prince Ferdinand's communication with the Weser has been found at last. It is the very consummation of our wishes. Already we may behold those vainglorious allies divided and separated in three masses without the possibility of a reunion. Let us march, gentlemen, and by the ruin of General Wangenheim, obtain the full command of the Weser!"

"Vive le Roi!" cried the whole council of war.

It was with this idea in their minds that we saw the French troops leaving their strong position between the hill, the long and impassable morass, and the rugged stream, and advancing into the open plain—precisely the same fatal error committed about a hundred years before by the Scots at the battle of Dunbar.

The allied army, composed of fifty-nine squadrons of horse and forty-three battalions of infantry, with forty-eight 12-pound field-pieces and four mortars, was formed in three lines.

We, the Scots Greys, were in Elliot's brigade of Lord Granby's Cavalry Division, and with the 3rd Dragoon Guards (Howard's) and 10th Dragoons (Mordaunt's) were on the extreme right of the second line, when we formed up from open column of squadrons through fields of hemp and flax.

In our front were the Horse Guards (Blue) and Inniskilling Dragoons, who formed the right of the first line.

Over those thousands forming in order of battle the shadow of death was passing; but no thought had we then, save of victory and triumph, and of regilding our lost laurels!

"There will be rough work to-day—Auld Geordie has his buff-coat on," I heard our men muttering.

As the kettledrums beat and the trumpets sounded the usual flourish when swords were drawn, old Preston looked along our glittering line with a grim smile of satisfaction on his wrinkled visage.

"They have unsheathed as one man!" exclaimed Lord Granby, approvingly.

"'Tis well, my lord," said Colonel Preston, "for those swords have killed as many Frenchmen as any blades in Europe."

As yet all was still—not a shot had stirred the morning air; but we knew that the French were advancing, as from time to time the sky-blue colours, with the golden lilies and the steady gleam of bayonets appeared among the trees, the hedges, and broken ground in front.

James Keith of Inverugie was near me. He was smiling now, and there was a bright flush on his cheek with a feverish restlessness in his eye, for the belief in the old prediction was stronger than ever in his heart, and I pitied the poor lad, for he was brave as a Bayard or a Du Guesclin.

Ere long a noisy murmur—the hum of expectation—passed along the first line, when eight battalions of French—the vanguard, which was led by the Duc de Broglie (who was mounted on a splendid white horse with housings flashing in the sun), and which had passed the Weser at midnight, after marching on with perfect confidence until they reached the crest of an eminence, halted simultaneously, on finding to their astonishment the whole army of the allies now acting in unison, disposed in excellent order, and formed in three lines, the first of which reached almost to the gates of Minden, and covered the entire plain of Todtenhausen!

A discovery so unexpected filled the Duke with embarrassment; but it was too late to retreat.

"St. Denis for France!" he exclaimed, waving his baton, and ordered the Cavalry, which had covered his advance, to charge. Thus, in five minutes, the battle began in all its fury about six o'clock, A.M.: a battle in describing which I shall generally confine myself to a few personal episodes.

On the Hanoverian Guards and the six regiments of British Infantry—our brave 12th, 20th, 23rd, 25th, or Edinburgh, 37th, and 51st—fell the chief fury of the action. They were all formed in one division, protected by a brigade of British artillery under Captains Drummond and MacBean; and we writhed in our saddles when we saw them knocked over like nine-pins—their red coats dotting all the green plain in our front; and yet no order was given for us to advance and support them.

After repulsing the French Infantry they were assailed by a column of Swiss, with whom they exchanged several volleys at twenty yards distance.

Shoulder to shoulder they stood, our splendid British Infantry, the rear-ranks filling up the gaps in front, the men never pausing under fire, save to wipe their pans, renew their priming, or change their flints, for none would fall to the rear. In the words of the old ballad—

"So closing up on every side,
No slackness there was found,"

amid the fierce roar of musketry and the clouds of smoke which enveloped all the plain. Colonel Kingsley, at the head of a Cavalry regiment on our left, had two officers shot dead by his side, two horses killed under him, and he received a musket ball through his hat.

Now the French brought up several batardes, as they term their eight-pounders, and the range of these extended to us, the cavalry of the second line.

Almost immediately after these guns opened, I heard a half-stifled scream near me, and turning, saw Keith doubled in two, and falling from his horse mortally wounded and dying. A cannon-ball had torn away his bowels, and my heart was wrung on seeing him gasping beneath my horse's feet, while the memory of the prediction flashed upon me. He died in a few minutes.

The great aim of the French marshals was now to drive in or destroy either flank of the allies. In endeavouring to effect this object, a charge of cavalry was made. The Household Troops of France, most of whom were noblesse, the red, grey, and black mousquetaires, with the carabiniers and gendarmerie, came boldly on. They were led by Prince Xavier of Saxony, brother of the Queen of France, a brave soldier, distinguished by his bearing, his splendid uniform, which was covered with orders, his sparkling diamond star and piebald charger. Forcing a passage, sword in hand, through the flank of our first line, he was advancing towards us, re-forming his glittering squadrons as they came on, when by order of the Marquis of Granby, we advanced to repel them.

I saw old Preston's withered cheek redden with stern joy, and his sunken eye sparkle brightly, as he rapidly formed us in open column of squadrons at the usual distance of twenty-four feet between each other.

"Forward, my lads! Keep your horses well in hand—no closing—no crowding. March!"

But when we began to move, the ordinary distance from boot-top to boot-top between the files became closer and denser, till we formed as it were a ponderous mass of men and horses wedged together.

"Trot!" cried the colonel; then followed, "Gallop—CHARGE!"

His voice blended with the trumpet's twang; there was a rush of hoofs, a hard breathing of men and horses, a rustling of standards and rattle of accoutrements, as we rushed with uplifted swords and with a wild hurrah upon the recoiling foe.

We trod them down like the hemp-field over which we spurred; and in that dreadful shock, down went mousequetaire, gendarme, cuirassier, and we made a horrid slaughter of the French Household Troops.

The colonel of the Mousquetaires Gris, an old officer, whose breast was covered with stars and medals, was pistolled by one of our corporals; and Prince Xavier of Saxony, separated from his discomfited column, found himself engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with Hob Elliot.

Aware of the vast difference between them in strength and stature, worthy Hob Elliot tried to spare and capture the Prince, of whose rank he was ignorant, and who was a very little man; but he resisted bravely, and gave our poor Borderer several severe sword-cuts. Hob at last lost all patience, cut him down, and was about to capture him by the collar, when a stray shot struck the unfortunate Prince, who fell dead from his horse.

This occurred immediately in front of our 51st Foot.

While we waged this conflict on the right, the valour of the Prussian and Hanoverian Dragoons under the Prince of Holstein and others on our left, repulsed the enemy, and compelled them to seek safety in a flight which soon became general along the whole line, despite every effort of the Duc de Broglie and Maréchal de Contades.

"It was at this instant," says an historian of the war, "that Prince Ferdinand sent orders to Lord George Sackville, who commanded the British and Hanoverian Horse which composed the right wing of the allies, to advance to the charge. If these orders had been cheerfully obeyed, the battle of Minden would have been as decisive as that of Blenheim. The French army would have been utterly destroyed, or totally routed and driven out of Germany. But whatever was the cause, the orders were not sufficiently precise, were misinterpreted, or imperfectly understood."

The cause of the misfortune was this.

We had just re-formed after repelling the Household Cavalry, when Major Shirley, minus his cocked-hat and kid gloves, and what was more, his presence of mind, looking ghastly pale and wild, and so agitated apparently that he could scarcely articulate, rode up to Colonel Preston (who was sitting on his old horse as cool as a cucumber, with the bullets whistling about him), and inquired for Lord George Sackville, whose whereabouts the colonel indicated, by pointing with his sword to a horseman whose aspect was somewhat shadowy amid the eddying smoke.

Shirley's conventional smile had vanished now, and he rode hurriedly on. His instructions were to order the whole line of cavalry to pursue; but this message in his then state of mind he failed to deliver, and hence the omission of an immediate cavalry advance—a miscarriage for which Lord George Sackville, after being victimized by the public press, had to appear before a general court-martial.

Shirley's undisguised panic was, however, unnecessary, as his presentiment was not fulfilled, and he escaped untouched amid the horrors of a field whereon lay one thousand three hundred and ninety-four officers and men of our six British infantry regiments alone, and I know not how many of our allies.

Two thousand French were hurled at the bayonet's point into the Weser, and five thousand more, with Princes Xavier and De Camille, were left dead upon the plain, with many standards and forty-three pieces of cannon. On some of the latter I saw "25th and 51st Foot" chalked, to indicate that these corps had taken them. The Comte de Lutzelbourg and the Marquis De Monti, two maréchaux-de-camp, were captured by the Greys.

The passage of the fugitives across the Weser was a scene of horror.

Beside the stone bridge already mentioned, the French engineer, M. Monjoy, had chained across the stream two pontoons, which broke under the weight of the passers; thus many waggons full of wounded officers were swept away by the current, and the flower of the Cavalry, particularly the Carabiniers and Mousquetaires, were destroyed.

Amid the shrieks, the cries, the scattered shots that filled the air, we heard the hoarse hurrahs of the advancing Germans, with the clear ringing cheers of the British, and the shouts of "Forward with the Light Bobs and Buffers—support the Tow-rows!"

The latter was the nickname of the Grenadiers in those days, and they in turn named the battalion men "buffers," or "mousers" in the militia; while the "Light Bobs" were the pet company of every corps, being always the smartest and most active men.

The town of Minden surrendered with five thousand men, the half of whom were wounded. By sunset the whole of our cavalry were gone in pursuit, save our Light Troop, which, with a few Prussian Hussars, remained on the field to protect the wounded, to patrol after plunderers, and oversee the working parties who interred the dead.

In the activity of that pursuit old Colonel Preston surpassed every other officer. He actually took the Greys two hundred miles from the field, and captured a vast number of prisoners.*

* "Regimental Records."

Part of the military chest, with all the equipages of Maréchal de Contades and the Prince of Condé fell into his hands—prizes of no inconsiderable value.

CHAPTER IV.
PRINCE XAVIER OF SAXONY.

The Light Troop had gone more than a mile from the field with the pursuing cavalry before it was ordered to return on the service just stated. When falling back, we passed through a hamlet where the baggage of our brigade was lying, and there we were surrounded by our soldiers' wives, clamorously inquiring for tidings of the past day.

"Oh, please your honour, gude sir," cried one, holding her baby to her bare breast with one hand, while the other clung to my stirrup-leather, her eyes streaming with tears the while; "can you tell us if the regiment has been engaged, for heavy has the firing been all day?"

"Have the Greys suffered—have the Greys suffered?"

"Did you see my puir gudeman—he is in the 1st troop—John Drummond, sir?"

"Shot—my poor Willie shot!" shrieked another. "Then God help his puir bairns and me in this waefu' country, for we ne'er shall see the bonnie Braes o' Angus again!"

Such were some of the cries I heard on all sides as we hurried through the hamlet at a trot, and returned to the field on which the moonlight had succeeded the long level flush of the set sun.

There lay all the usual amount of death and agony—the sad paraphernalia of war—and the pale dead in every variety of attitude and contortion, so close to each other that in some places one might have stepped from body to body.

Already had many been stripped nude as when they came into the world by those wretches who hover like carrion crows on the skirts of an army; and their pale marble skins gleamed horribly white with their black and gaping wounds in the cold moonlight.

Amid these many horrors—the dying and the dead, legs, arms, blood-gouts and spattered brains—some phlegmatic German infantry were quietly bivouacking and lighting fires to cook their supper. Others lay down weary and worn, their mouths parched with thirst, and their canteens empty, after twelve hours' marching and fighting.

As we rode slowly over the field to scare plunderers and protect the wounded, I heard, amid a group of officers whom we passed, one laughing loudly, and found him to be Major Shirley. A revulsion of feeling made the flow of this man's spirits extravagant; and here, amid the rows and piles of dead and wounded—amid the expiring on that solemn, harrowing, and moonlighted plain—he was joking and laughing, like a fool or a drunkard—he, the poltroon who could not articulate an order when under a fire at noon!

"His weird is no come yet," I heard old Sergeant Duff mutter as we rode on in extended order, our horses sometimes stumbling over what appeared to be a heap of freshly gathered grain or hemp. These had been uprooted by some kind hand, and spread over a dead comrade to protect or conceal his body from plunderers; and everywhere lay fragments of exploded shells and the half imbedded cannon-shot that had ploughed up the grass or corn in long furrows.

We sought for and interred, separately, in his cloak, the body of poor Keith, our young lieutenant. Elsewhere the dead were rapidly interred; some by lantern-light, and with them, undistinguished among the rank and file, Prince Xavier of Saxony.

One soldier of our 51st got his diamond star, and sold it to a Jew for some hundred pounds, which he spent in six months, keeping the regiment in an uproar while the money lasted; another got his purse, which was filled with louis d'ors; and a third 51st man got his watch, which was studded with brilliants. Some Westphalian boors then stripped the body, which was flung into a pit and interred with about twenty others.

All the churches in Minden and its vicinity were converted into hospitals. The interior of the old Cathedral—whither I rode to inquire after Hob Elliot and some others of ours—presented a very singular scene. It is a dark but stately edifice, said to have been formerly the palace of the Pagan King Wittikind, but was turned by him into a church after his conversion.

Along the high-arched Gothic aisles were rows of wounded soldiers—British, French, and Hanoverian—groaning, praying, cursing, and rustling fretfully among the bloody straw on which they lay. Knapsacks, haversacks, and accoutrements hung on every carved knob, and there was not a saint who did not bear a load of sword-belts, bridles, or canteens slung about his neck or piled within his niche, while, in the Gothic porch, the chapter-house, and the painted chapel of Our Lady of Minden, stood surgeons' blocks for operations; and there were Dr. Probe and all the medical men of the army busy in their shirt-sleeves with knife and saw, and up to their bared elbows in blood.

There was no time, nor was it then the fashion to reduce fractures; so around each military Æsculapius lay piles of legs, arms, hands, and feet, amputated as fast as their owners could be brought from the field; and these revolting fragments were cast into a corner until they could be carted away to the pits that were being dug by our working parties amid the harvest-fields on the plain of Todtenhausen.

But such is war, and such are its grim concomitants.

On the noon of the day after the battle I was returning from the visit to this hospital, or cathedral, and was proceeding to rejoin the Light Troop which was bivouacked in a hemp-field at some distance from the pits where the dead lay, when two French officers and a trumpeter, all mounted, and accompanied by six dragoons, came suddenly upon me at an angle of the road.

As one bore a white banner on a sergeant's pike, I recognised at once a flag of truce, so we simultaneously reined up and courteously saluted each other. One wore the gorgeous uniform of Colonel of the Regiment de Bretagne; the other was a French Hussar officer, in whom I recognised the Chevalier de Boisguiller.

"Peste! monsieur," said he, "you and I have the luck of meeting in strange places, but seldom under pleasant circumstances. We are in haste, for those we have left behind are not likely to wait for us, pressed as they now are by your cavalry; so, can you direct us to the quarters of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick?"

"With pleasure. You are the bearer——"

"Nay, my friend Monsieur le Comte is bearer of a letter from the Maréchal de Contades, our commander-in-chief, to the Prince, inquiring into the fate of Prince Xavier of Saxony."

"His fate?" I repeated, and shook my head.

"Oui, monsieur," said the officer, who bore the rank of count, with great earnestness; "if he is wounded we come to offer a suitable equivalent in exchange for him; if, unhappily, killed, to solicit the restoration of his remains, for he is the brother of her Majesty the Queen of France, and I had the honour to be his particular friend."

While we were speaking, a royal coach and six, accompanied by a squadron of French Household Troops, preceded by an officer bearing a white flag, and by four trumpeters, wheeled round the angle of the road and joined us.

"Here comes the Prince's carriage, with Monsieur Monjoy to receive him, whether dead or alive," said Boisguiller.

With some reluctance I informed these officers that I had seen the Prince cut down by one of our own troopers, and almost immediately afterwards pierced by a ball in front of the grenadier company of our 51st Foot; and that his body had been buried with others on the field.

This information filled the Frenchman with a sorrow that seemed genuine; and the colonel of the Regiment de Bretagne, a handsome, but stern-looking young man, actually wept aloud.

Prince Ferdinand, to whose quarters I conducted them, gave orders to open some of the pits in the field; so a working party was detailed, and a search instituted among the naked and mangled dead for the body of the unfortunate Prince.

No less than eighty of these horrid graves were unclosed, and their poor occupants pulled by the legs or arms from among the mould and examined before the discovery of the Prince's piebald charger in one hecatomb gave hope that his late rider's remains might be near; and accordingly, in one that was filled with Mousquetaires Gris et Noires, we found a nude and bloody corpse, which all the French officers at once declared to be Prince Xavier of Saxony, stripped even to his boots.

He had received a bullet in the left temple, which was his mortal wound. His right arm was found to be broken. This had been done by the sword of Hob Elliot. His fine hair was still neatly dressed, tied by a blue satin ribbon, and powdered with brown maréchale.

The poor remains were rolled in a large crimson velvet mantle, bearing a royal star, and placed in the coach, which was driven rapidly off, followed by its escort, to which all our guards, sentinels, and out-pickets presented arms.

CHAPTER V.
THE BRIDGE OF FREYENTHAL.

Severe weather succeeded the battle of Minden, and the Scots Greys, while it continued, were ordered to cantonments in villages near the Lahn.

On a dull wet morning we paraded in our cloaks and bade adieu to the banks of the Weser, and to the fatal plain of the 1st of August. By sound of trumpet we fell into our ranks, and the corporal-major of each troop proceeded to call the muster-roll.

Alas! there was called over on that morning the name of more than one brave fellow who could respond to it no more, and over whom the autumn grass was sprouting.

Amid the snows of winter we idled away our time in those dreary villages of Prussian Westphalia, till Major Shirley arrived with a message of a peculiar nature for Colonel Preston.

Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, to whose staff the major was now attached (Lord Sackville having been summarily dismissed the service by the king), sent him to inform the colonel that in the district named the Rodhargebirge, a certain baron named Conrad of Freyenthal—whose character would have suited admirably one of Anne Radcliffe's romances—had placed his wife in a dungeon or vault of his residence, and kept her a prisoner therein, while a mistress occupied her place, as the ballads say, "in bower and hall." The orders of his royal highness were, that we should send a party there to free and protect the lady, and also to blow up a bridge of the Lahn close by Freyenthal, which had been partially undermined already by M. Monjoy, an engineer of the French rear-guard already mentioned.

Guided by a peasant, Colonel Preston went with the Light Troop in person on this service, and as it was not likely to be a desperate one, Major Shirley accompanied us, and contrived to play me a trick which I had reason long to remember.

We marched from our cantonment an hour before daybreak, when the sharp crescent moon was waning coldly behind the hills, and the bronze-like conical outlines of the fir-trees cut acute angles against the clear blue sky. After passing through a wooded defile in the mountains, we reached the castle of Freyenthal, a small square tower, surrounded by a barbican wall, and perched on an insulated mass of rock, at the base of which the Lahn poured over a great cascade, that was then almost a mass of icicles.

Close by this tower the river was spanned by the ancient stone bridge which we had such special orders to blow up.

Before this feudal fortress we sounded a trumpet thrice, but met with no response, and could see no one, nor any sign of life about the place, save the dark smoke that ascended from the chimneys into the clear winter sky. The arched gate of the outer wall was strong, and being securely barred within, defied all our efforts.

While ten of our men dismounted, and under the order of a German engineer officer proceeded to examine and make use of the old French mine under one of the piers of the bridge, Colonel Preston, whose temper was apt to be chafed by trifles, deliberately blew up the gate of the tower by a petard which he had brought for the express purpose.

Roused from his apathy or his potations by this unexpected explosion, the proprietor of Freyenthal, a stern-looking man, with powdered hair, a hooked nose, and fierce, black, bushy eyebrows, rushed bareheaded and unarmed into the courtyard, accompanied by two or three men-servants of bloated and forbidding appearance.

Then Colonel Preston in a few words acquainted him with the orders of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, and required the immediate surrender of the baroness—our errand and intention. But, undaunted by the colonel's rank and the aspect of his troop of horse crowding all the pathway that led to the tower, the baron roughly taunted him with "unwise interference in domestic affairs, and with being an insolent braggart to boot."

On hearing this, the fiery old man leaped from his horse, tossed its bridle to an orderly, and drawing his sword, offered the baron the use of another, as well as of a pistol, saying—

"I scorn to take advantage of any man—we are now on equal terms."

The German uttered a hoarse oath, snatched the pistol, cocked it, and fired straight at the head of Colonel Preston, who would undoubtedly have been shot had I not struck the barrel up with my sword. At the same instant our trumpeter, who was close by the colonel, struck the would-be assassin to the earth by a blow of his trumpet.

The wife of this most irritable Teuton we found exactly in the plight Shirley had described, immured in a vault, a cold and miserable place, the sole furniture of which was a truckle-bed. We put the baron in her place, and sent her by her own request, to the Lutheran Convent at Marburg, while her rival was made to ride the cheval de bois for an hour, with a carbine slung at each foot.

While the baron's Westphalian wine and beer were freely brought from his cellar for the use of the troop; while he growled and swore in his vault, and while the bridge of the Lahn was being undermined, Colonel Preston desired me to take ten men with me, and ride a mile or two into the country on the other side of the river, to reconnoitre the district, to see or inquire about the disposition of the enemy, but to avoid all risk.

"Come, Gauntlet," said Shirley, as I tightened my waistbelt and put my foot in the stirrup; "take a parting cup ere you go."

"Excuse me, major," said I, coldly; "I have had wine already—and the hour is not yet noon."

"Toast Miss Gauntlet, man—Zounds! here in Westphalia, so far away from Old England. To your fair cousin's health!" he exclaimed, holding out a silver-rimmed horn of wine.

"To Aurora, then!" said I, and drained the wine, after clinking our horns together in true German fashion, while Shirley's usual smile expanded into a laugh, and when he laughed it always portended mischief.

"Come, my lads," said I, to my chosen ten; "forward—trot!"

"Don't ride too far, Gauntlet," cried Shirley, still laughing loudly, "for the bridge is quite undermined."

"How that fool laughs at his own folly," thought I, as we crossed the antique bridge at a hard trot, and rode into the frozen country beyond. From the bank of the Lahn the ground sloped gradually upward for miles, though intersected here and there by thickly wooded ravines; thus, as we traversed the snow, when looking back we could distinctly see the old tower of Freyenthal, standing dark and grim with its smoky chimneys above the half-frozen river.

The country seemed partially deserted, and any peasants or woodcutters who saw us, fled at our approach, and concealed themselves. We rode several miles, and by the wayside passed the ruins of many roofless cottages and deserted farms; but now Hob Elliot assured me that in the clear frosty air he "more than once had heard the rumble of wheels—perhaps of artillery."

As we saw nothing even in the most distant portion of the level and snow-clad landscape, I ridiculed this notion; but Hob was obstinate, and stuck to his fears on the subject.

"Excuse me, sir," said he, "but I know that I may take the liberty of talking to you, for when I lay in hospital at Minden, wounded, sick, and dying as I thought, no hand was more ready than yours to help me. Never did my auld mother at hame, when I was a yellow-haired bairn, tread mair lightly by my cradle than you did by my straw pallet, to see that I took those devilish draughts of old Drs. Blackstrap and Probe of ours."

"But what about all that now, Hob?—to the point."

"Well, sir, if I might recommend—I'm an older soldier than you—we should go threes about now, and get back, for the bridge is undermined, and that Major Shirley——"

"Well?" said I, as Hob paused.

"He had a queer twinkle in his eye as we rode off."

"What, Hob—you do not mean—you cannot insinuate——"

"Pardon me, sir," said the big burly trooper, lowering his voice; "but he laughed in the faces of the dead at Minden—faces that in life he was grave enough before, and I dinna like a bane in his body."

"Come, come, Hob, you must not speak in this way to me. The major is esteemed a good officer."

"I know that, sir," replied the trooper, dryly; "but by whom?"

"Well," said I, impatiently, "by whom?"

"The worst men in the army."

"Hum—he is a brave man at all events, Hob."

"Yes, sir—we all saw that when he bungled the orders for Lord George Sackville at Minden, and cost the poor general his commission—he that was there under fire, as brave as a lion, in the old red coat that he had worn at Fontenoy."

"Good or bad, Hob, brave or not, it is perilous work for you to speak thus of an officer."

"Well, sir, I beg your pardon," replied the obstinate trooper, "but I can't help having my own thoughts of him, and they are unco queer ones."

Just as he said this we reached the brow of an eminence, over which the road dipped suddenly down into a hollow; and there just beneath us, we saw a train of some thirty laden waggons, proceeding leisurely under an escort of at least three companies of French troops, the Volontaires de Clermont. Thus the rumble of wheels so long heard by Hob, was now completely accounted for!

The French uttered a shout on beholding us, and proceeded to handle their muskets, by priming, loading, and casting about, while we wheeled round our horses and departed without further ceremony to reach the bridge of Lahn.

A hundred or more of the French tossed aside their knapsacks, haversacks and everything that might encumber them, and rushed up the slope to the crest of the eminence. Here they poured a confused volley after us which did no harm, but I could see the bullets ripping up the frozen snow far in front. Then with a yell the Volontaires dashed after us in pursuit.

A partial thaw, which had been setting in, made portions of the snow-covered road deep and heavy, but we soon left the French infantry far in our rear, though they continued to follow us double quick, determined to have a little shooting if possible, as they had enjoyed none since the day of Minden.

We soon distanced them more than a mile, and ere long saw the tower of Freyenthal dotted with the red coats of our comrades, and with rather anxious eyes I measured the long slope that lay between us and the bridge, where we could see our working party, now that their mining task was over, sitting on the parapets in their shirt sleeves, and conversing. Near them, on horseback, was an officer, in whom, by his kevenhüller hat and scarlet feather, I had no difficulty in recognising Major Shirley.

As we came on at a hand-gallop, we suddenly saw a commotion among our men at the bridge as they pointed towards the enemy. Then Shirley seemed to gesticulate violently, and order them to fall back, waving a match which he had snatched from one of them, and which was smoking in his hand.

We saw him stoop from his saddle and fire the train!

In a minute after this there was a roar in the still air; amid a cloud of dust and smoke the old bridge of the Lahn rose bodily aloft, almost in a solid mass, and then sank in foam and ruin among the blocks of melting ice that rolled over the cascade below.

"Treachery!" cried Hob Elliot, shaking his clenched and gauntleted hand; "he has blown up the bridge and cut off our retreat!"

In another moment we all reined up our breathless horses at the edge of the steep rocks, through which the swollen winter stream was roaring and boiling in its mad career towards the Rhine.

"In the name of Heaven," I exclaimed, filled with anger and apprehension, "why has this been done? Rascals, who ordered this?—you have ruined us."

"Major Shirley is alone to blame, sir, not we," replied a sergeant on the other side, saluting me as he spoke; and though the black stream that roared between us was only thirty yards broad, the nature of its banks and its force defied all attempts to cross by swimming.

"It is most unfortunate, my dear Gauntlet," cried Shirley, with a bland and broader smile than usual on his face—"most unfortunate affair—the more so as the enemy are coming rapidly on."

"But, sirrah, what in the world tempted you to commit this act of folly?" I demanded, furiously.

"My dear fellow—ah, ah! you should remember the old saw—in this world expect everything, and be astonished at nothing. I crave your pardon, as it is not pleasant to have one's promotion stopped, and be a prisoner of war. 'Twas all a mistake—a deuced error in judgment, as the Court said which shot Admiral Byng. But don't attempt to swim the river," he exclaimed, on seeing that in my fury I made my horse rear wildly up; "it is too broad, too deep and rapid. Surrender with a good grace—discretion is the better part of valour. Here come the French Light Troops. Zounds! and they are firing, too!"

And with an ironical smile, which I could see distinctly, he waved his hand with a mock salute, and somewhat hastily entered the tower of Freyenthal, for a few scattered files of the Volontaires de Clermont, when they came up, opened a fire upon our men, who, in bewilderment at the whole affair, were loitering at the other end of the ruined bridge.

"I have swam baith Esk and Liddle in full flood, and damn me if I won't swim this!" exclaimed Hob Elliot, who was about to spur his horse madly into the stream, when I caught his bridle. And thus, in less than five minutes, with my ten troopers, I found myself disarmed, dismounted, and marched off a prisoner of war, in presence of Colonel Preston and the remainder of the Light Troop, through the cowardice or treachery—I knew not which—of Shirley the aide-de-camp.

CHAPTER VI.
LES VOLONTAIRES DE CLERMONT.

My handsome grey trooper was bestrode by a dapper little French sous-lieutenant, who seemed to enjoy the ride amazingly, all the more that I, a sacré Anglais, trudged by his side in my boots, secured to the stirrup-leather by a cord.

Fords on the river there were none near; thus, as we were marched off, we knew that all the courage of our comrades, and the skill and energy of Colonel Preston, could avail us nothing. Of all my party I was the most depressed; but big Hob Elliot was the most vituperative, and swore at our bad luck and at our captors, in terms which fortunately they did not understand.

"The devil!" he muttered; "if they discover 'twas I who encountered their favourite Prince Xavier, and gave him that Lockerbie lick in front of the 51st, they will shoot me off hand like a hoodiecrow."

"Unless we tell them, they can never know; and if they did, your fears are unnecessary, Hob. The French are too brave to resent what was done in fair fight."

"Gude wot, I did all I could to spare the puir body. My father, who was a smith at Cannobie, in Liddesdale, used to say that 'mony a stout trooper has been lost for lack of a nail;' but, by the horns o' auld Clootie, here are ten of us and a cornet lost for lack of a little prudence."

"Prudence—a nail—what the devil are you talking about, Hob?" said I, angrily.

"Weel, sir, for lack of a nail the shoe was lost, and for lack of the shoe the horse; and for want of his horse the trooper came to grief, being overtaken in his boots and slain by the enemy. And all this came aboot by the lack of a nail in his horse's shoe—sae quoth my faither the smith."

"And thus, Hob, if I understand your parable, you think that for lack of a little prudence you have all lost your liberty, and I my promotion and liberty for years to come?"

"Just so. Had we gone threes about at the time I ventured to hint it, we would have been on the other side of the river wi' auld Geordie Preston just now. But as for years, sir, dinna speak o' years," he exclaimed, clenching a huge bony hand that must often have swung the great hammer in his father's forge, and at the village games: "there is not a prison in a' France, e'en the Basteel itsel', that will haud Hob Elliot gin he wants to win oot."

My anger at Shirley was deep—too deep for me to express to my companions in misfortune. I remembered how he had withheld the letter of Aurora, from the time we were quartered in Alphen, until the morning of Minden; how, on this very day, he had smilingly warned me to remember that the bridge of Freyenthal was undermined; how I had seen him gesticulating with our unwilling men, and had witnessed their most evident hesitation ere he snatched the match from one and sprung the mine!

I saw more clearly than ever that he loved my cousin; that he viewed, or thought he viewed in me a rival, and believed that he had now fully provided for me for some time at least, if not for ever, as few could tell what might be the dangers and contingencies of a military imprisonment in France.

Then occurred an idea under which I writhed anew. That after enduring perhaps years of captivity—years during which my comrades of the Greys would be playing the great game of war and glory—years that would see my brother subalterns all captains and field-officers, I might be transmitted with others home to find myself a cornet still, and a penniless one too, while, probably, Shirley the poltroon, who had worked me as much evil (just as his brother had done poor Charters) might be the husband of Aurora, and the proprietor of my patrimony—of Netherwood, its hall and fields, wood and wold!

With this chain of thought burning within me I turned fiercely and looked back to the old tower of Freyenthal. Across the snow-clad landscape it was distinctly visible, with a group of redcoats near it; but I was not permitted to loiter, as a tug of the cord which secured me to my horse warned me that the rider was impatient, and compelled me to trudge on.

We soon reached the train of waggons which were halted in the ravine, and amid the cracking of whips, and much noisy congratulation and laughter, the escort of the Volontaires de Clermont resumed their route, we knew not and cared not whither.

Among the officers who accompanied this party I observed one, a fair-haired young man, of very prepossessing aspect, who checked his horse for a moment, and regarded me attentively.

"Monsieur l'officier," said he, lifting his hat, "we have surely had the pleasure of meeting before?"

"You were one of those who came with the flag of truce to Minden," said I, responding to his salute.

"Exactly, monsieur—for the body of Prince Xavier—ah, diable! a sad business that was" (at the prince's name Hob Elliot looked about him as if preparing to fight or flee). "I am M. Monjoy, of the French Engineer department."

I bowed, on which he again uncovered his head, with that genuine politeness and grace which were so charming in the French officers of the old school.

"Monsieur le lieutenant," said he, turning sharply to the dapper little subaltern who had assumed a right of property in my person, and saying something—I know not what—rapidly in French. On this, the cord which secured me to the stirrup-leather of my own saddle was undone, and I was permitted to march at my ease; but the horse itself my captor resolutely refused to give up.

I found the young engineer Monjoy a very pleasant companion. He was grave, earnest, and rational—quite unlike Boisguiller and many other French officers whom I had met. He held out hopes that I should soon be exchanged (so much the worse for you, Major Shirley, thought I), as we had so many of King Louis' officers in our hands, among the 5000 prisoners taken in the town of Minden. He said many other cheering things, and insisted on sharing with me the contents of his haversack (German sausage and biscuits) and of his canteen; and I remained by his side, during a long, slow, and bitterly cold day's march, which brought us to the little town of Ysembourg, whose prince had been slain at the battle of Minden.

His castle, a famous old fortress, crowns the summit of a hill near Corbach. The French standard was flying on it, and there, next morning, we were conducted with several other prisoners, chiefly Black Hussars of the Prussian army, under an escort of the Volontaires de Clermont.

The morning was chilly and depressing; a dense frosty mist covered all the ground; we were without cloaks, without breakfast, cold and miserable; and gloomily we looked at each other as we trod up the snow-clad hill, passing several ancient iron-mines, till we neared the gate of the castle, at which stood two sentinels of the Regiment de Bretagne, muffled in their greatcoats, all whitened by the frost-rime, which seemed to have edged their three-cocked hats as with silver lace.

While we were ascending, one of our escort suddenly perceived a ring on my right hand. It was the emerald given to me by Jacqueline on that morning when first we met—when I had saved her life near St. Malo; and now the rascal demanded it at once and most peremptorily too.

I declined to comply, on which, with great deliberation, he cocked his piece, drew his thumb-nail across the edge of the flint, to ensure its not missing fire, and deliberately placed the muzzle to my head. Whether or not the fellow would have dared to shoot an officer who was a prisoner of war, I cannot say, but on finding myself so vehemently pressed I drew off the ring, which he at once clutched, and put in his haversack, with a laugh and an oath, little foreseeing how dear the bauble was to cost him.

At that moment a blow from behind stretched him on the earth. It was dealt by the clenched hand of Hob Elliot, who, poor fellow, ran imminent danger, for a dozen of fixed bayonets were directly levelled at him breast high, and he would have been instantly immolated, had not an officer of rank, accompanied by M. Gervais Monjoy, rushed forward from the castle-gate, by their influence and authority to stop the brawl.

In the officer I recognised the count who had come with Monjoy for Prince Xavier's body, and who had been so deeply moved on beholding his remains exhumed on the field.

To him I was about to prefer a complaint of the robbery, when he hurriedly turned away, having other matters to attend to, and I was left with the plunderer, who had divined my intention, and tapping the butt of his firelock, gave me a threatening grimace, so much as to say, "Beware!"

Soon after this I was conducted into an ante-room, and thus separated from the rest of the prisoners, who were marched into the interior of the castle.

As the ten men of the Greys left me, each came forward in succession and saluted me as I shook hands with them all, and some said—

"God bless you, sir; I hope we shall soon meet again."

A hope—save in one instance—never realized by these worthy fellows, as nine of them died in French prisons, I know not where or how—probably at Bitsche or Verdun.

The room in which I found myself appeared to be a kind of ante-chamber. Its windows were barred, and a sentinel with his bayonet fixed paced to and fro monotonously outside. Within were tables littered with letters, order-books, and several orderlies with canes and sidearms were loitering about on forms and benches.

"Who commands here?" I inquired of one.

"Monseigneur le Duc de Broglie," replied the soldier, with a polite bow; "this château of the prince of Ysembourg is his head-quarters, and in a few minutes monsieur will have the honour of being brought before him."

At that moment I heard a voice at some distance say, with a tone of authority,

"Monsieur le Comte de Bourgneuf, bring in your prisoner."

At this unpleasant conjunction of names I felt my heart beat quick, and then I saw the colonel of the Regiment de Bretagne, the stern-looking bearer of the flag of truce, beckoning me follow him.

I did so, and in another moment found myself in the presence of the famous Maréchal Duc de Broglie—the father of Jacqueline!

CHAPTER VII.
THE DUC DE BROGLIE.

There was one other present whom I could very well have spared—the Count de Bourgneuf—the stern young colonel, who eyed me steadily with a glance of a very mingled cast—at least, I thought so, for he was the husband of Jacqueline de Broglie.

The Duke, her father, a venerable and stately soldier, who wore the uniform of a maréchal of France, but of a fashion somewhat old, and who had his hair profusely powdered, received me with a polite salute.

The room in which we met was a vaulted chamber of the old castle. In a corner thereof stood a cornette, a standard peculiar to the French Light Cavalry, and from its pole there still hung the white silk scarf which was usually tied to these cornettes when the dragoons went into action, to render them conspicuous, so that they might be rallied round it; and this scarf had doubtless been there since the duke's own regiment had fled at a gallop from Minden. In a corner were embroidered the initials "J. de B." Had Jacqueline's fair fingers worked that scarf and standard? In another corner stood a pair of kettledrums and a few muskets.

A table, whereon lay some maps of Germany by Herman Moll, several French newspapers—particularly the Mercure—the Gazette de Bruxelles; bundles of dispatches and writing materials stood near the arched Gothic fireplace. A few antique chairs were round it, and on these were seated two or three field-officers of the Regiment de Bretagne, Monjoy, the engineer, and the Comte de Bourgneuf, all in full uniform, powdered and aiguiletted, with their swords, sashes, and orders on.

All these details I saw at a glance, and again my eyes rested on the benign face of the old Duc de Broglie, in whom, however, I failed to trace any resemblance to his daughter.

Second to None: A Military Romance, Volume 3 (of 3)

SECOND TO NONE.

SECOND TO NONE.

CHAPTER I.WE TAKE THE FIELD AGAIN.

CHAPTER II.THE TWO PRESENTIMENTS.

CHAPTER III.BATTLE OF MINDEN.

CHAPTER IV.PRINCE XAVIER OF SAXONY.

CHAPTER V.THE BRIDGE OF FREYENTHAL.

CHAPTER VI.LES VOLONTAIRES DE CLERMONT.

CHAPTER VII.THE DUC DE BROGLIE.

CHAPTER I.
WE TAKE THE FIELD AGAIN.

CHAPTER II.
THE TWO PRESENTIMENTS.

CHAPTER III.
BATTLE OF MINDEN.

CHAPTER IV.
PRINCE XAVIER OF SAXONY.

CHAPTER V.
THE BRIDGE OF FREYENTHAL.

CHAPTER VI.
LES VOLONTAIRES DE CLERMONT.

CHAPTER VII.
THE DUC DE BROGLIE.