THE FROZEN FORD.
By a narrow path between leafless woods, I proceeded for two miles in
the direction indicated by Monjoy, and then saw before me the Lahn, a
stream which rises in the west of Germany, and, as any Gazetteer will
inform us, passes by the hill which is crowned by the castle of
Marburg, the old Bailiwick of Giessen, the walled town of Wetzlar,
and the city of Nassau (in which and in other places along its banks
we had garrisons or outposts), until it flows into the famous Rhine
near Upper Lahnstein.
That portion of the stream which I now approached, though broad, was
shallow and frozen hard. Its banks were thickly fringed by willow
trees, amid which the morning mist was rolling lazily. Here and
there some of those great masses of detached copper-coloured rock
which stud the scenery of Waldeck overhung the stream, and had their
bases crusted with frozen foam.
The region being high and hilly, and the season midwinter, the
atmosphere was intensely cold, yet I was dubious of the strength of
the ice, and feared that my horse, with its wounded off hind leg,
might flounder and fall if its hoofs pierced the covering of the
stream. As this idea occurred to me I was about to dismount, and
hold the animal by the bridle, when the appearance of a well-bearded
human visage regarding me steadily from a cleft in the rocks, made me
pause with a hand on my holster-flap, a motion which made the person
instantly vanish.
The mist enveloping the willow-covered bank I had to traverse before
reaching the stream was dense, and curling up in the sunshine, and it
seemed to me that certain objects which at first resembled stumps of
trees suddenly took the form of men, clad in white coats, the uniform
of the French line; and, as the event proved, here were six men of
the Regiment de Bretagne, a foraging party suborned by Bourgneuf to
cut me off, and with them was the identical peasant whom Monjoy and I
had met near the ruins of the old schloss--Karl Karsseboom.
I had the marshal's signed passport, but feared to ride forward or
deliver it, and for a time remained unchallenged and irresolutely
watching those men whose white-clad figures amid the frosty mist and
tossing willows seemed indistinct and wavering, like Banquo's shadowy
line of kings, or the weird sisters in "Macbeth."
I waved aloft the paper given me by Bourgneuf, the immediate reply to
which was the levelling of four muskets; but three flashed in the
pan, the priming having probably become wet over night. The bullet
from the fourth, however, knocked my grenadier cap awry.
I then shook a white handkerchief, and demanded a parley; but a fifth
and sixth musket flashed redly out of the white mist, making a
hundred reverberations amid the river's bed, and another bullet
grazed my left ear like a hot searing-iron. I was full of fury now,
and while these would-be assassins were casting about and reloading,
I heard a voice shout clearly in French, and with a mocking laugh--
"_Peste_! Arnaud de Pricorbin--_il ne sait pas distinguer une femme
d'une girouette!_" (He knows not a woman from a weathercock--meaning
that he was a bad shot, and could hit neither.)
The brother of the executed Volontaire de Clermont was here, and had
preceded me to the ford; thus I was in peculiarly bad hands it would
appear. Their six muskets were unserviceable as yet, so, spurring
furiously, I rushed sword in hand at the whole group, firing a pistol
and hurling it after the shot as I advanced.
Gored by the spurs, the poor old horse forgot his wound, and swept
through my adversaries, crashing among the frozen willows, reeds,
icicles, and rotten ice. For a moment I saw six fierce, dark-visaged
fellows, with white coats, red epaulets, and black crossbelts, with
their muskets clubbed to beat me down. By a backhanded stroke I
slashed one across the face; but at the same moment a bayonet pierced
my horse in the bowels, and he received a long wound that ripped open
his near hind flank; this was from the musket of the German forester,
who levelled it deliberately over a fragment of rock.
Maddened by pain and fury, the animal reared wildly back upon its
haunches, and then, instead of riding towards the ford, swerved
round, and treading some of our assailants under his hoofs, galloped
straight along a road which led towards Wildungen, in a direction
nearly opposite to that I wished to pursue.
Wild, terrified, and dying, with the bit clenched tightly between his
teeth, the horse was for a time quite unmanageable, and I had not
power to stop him, even if inclined to do so, which I certainly was
not, until beyond musket range of the discomfited rascals who guarded
the frozen ford.
In short, I was borne away by my wounded horse in a manner nearly
similar to that which had occurred after one of our skirmishes with
the French Hussars in Brittany. I know not why it was, but I felt
more excited by this encounter than by the whole day at Minden, and
when riding on, seemed still to hear the report of the muskets, and
to see them flashing out of the mist before me.
Dropping blood and foam upon the snow with every bound, the poor
animal, covered with perspiration and enveloped in a steam induced by
the frosty air, carried me a few miles almost at racing speed. This,
however, slacked suddenly, and on coming to a thicket where a spring
(the water of which had a warm or peculiar mineral property, as it
was quite unfrozen) flowed freely, I rode for nearly a mile up its
bed or course, so that if followed by Arnaud de Pricorbin and other
faithful Bretons of the Comte de Bourgneuf, the track of blood so
visible in the snow would be lost in the running stream.
Perceiving a sequestered cottage upon the slope of a hill, sheltered
by some great fir trees, I approached it, and was made welcome by the
occupants, who appeared to be only a poor woman and her blind
daughter; but they had no fear of me, as my uniform showed them--the
former at least--that I was one of those who had come to assist in
freeing Westphalia and Waldeck from those unscrupulous invaders, the
French.
With some difficulty I made them understand, by a broken jargon, that
we had been engaged in a skirmish, and that my horse had been
wounded. It was placed in an outhouse or shed, where a cow was
munching some chopped straw and frozen turnips. I removed the heavy
demi-pique saddle, bridle, and holsters, putting the remaining pistol
in my belt. While doing so the poor animal, lying among the straw,
with its bowels protruding through the bayonet wound, whinnied and
rubbed its nose upon the sleeve of my red coat, as if recognising the
_colour_; and in that lonely place I felt as if I had lost my only
friend, when the old grey trooper died about two hours after.
I remember partaking with the poor cottager and her blind daughter of
a savoury dish of stewed hare, which had been netted by herself in
the adjacent fir thicket. We had also a warm jug of mulled Wildungen
beer, making a repast for which I was both grateful and well
appetized, after the adventures of so cold a morning. I ate and
drank to strengthen me for whatever might follow, as I was still in
the land of toil and danger; and for the same end I carefully
re-charged, primed, and flinted anew my solitary pistol, and then
slept for an hour or so by the peasant's fire of turf, wood, and
fir-cones.
By the devious course of the river it would appear that I was still
only a few miles from the Lahn; but I knew that if Arnaud de
Pricorbin escaped my scuffle with him and his comrades, it would be
duly reported to the Count that I was yet on the French side of the
stream; thus more ample means would be taken by him to guard it, and
to cut me off at any possible point elsewhere.
In the distance I could see the quaint old city of Wildungen, seated
between two snow-clad mountains, with the dun smoke of its winter
fires ascending into the clear, cold sky. At one time I thought of
venturing there and endeavouring to procure a guide or escort from
any French officer who was in command; and either one or other the
Duke's passport would certainly have procured me; but whom might I
meet on the way? was the next idea.
The jealousy of Bourgneuf was so insane, and his whole proceedings
were so cruel and unwarrantable, that my heart boiled with rage
against him; and in this new cause for anger I forgot even Shirley,
whose jealousy in another matter had cast me into these toils by an
effort of cunning and poltroonery which I hoped one day to requite,
and amply too.
Resolving to wait until nightfall, and then set forth alone, I passed
the day at the cottage of the peasant woman, who urged me to await
the return of her husband, who had been absent all day with his gun
in search of a deer, and could guide me with certainty.
"What is he?" I inquired, carelessly.
"A forester of the Baron Von Freyenthal."
"Indeed!" said I, becoming suddenly interested. "I met such a person
this morning. Does he wear a fur cap and deerskin boots, and has he
a large black shaggy wolf dog?"
"Exactly, Mein Herr--you have met my husband Karl Karsseboom and his
dog Jager."
"If I meet him again!" thought I, with a hand on my pistol.
After this information, and the discovery of who was my landlord (ah!
if the fellow had returned when I was asleep!) I resolved to lose no
time in endeavouring to reach the ford of the Lahn at any risk.
Whoever was there, the night would favour me, and I was alike
forewarned and forearmed.
I studied closely the features of the country from the cottage
window, and repeatedly consulted a little pocket map of the
principality of Waldeck, which had been given to me by Gervais
Monjoy, two means of topographical knowledge that availed me little,
when, a few hours after, without encountering the amiable Karl
Karsseboom, I found myself on the rugged German highway alone,
bewildered, and floundering along in the dark in my military
jack-boots, with a heavy storm of snow drifting in my face, and the
stormy and frosty north wind, which was so keen and cold that at
times it well-nigh choked me.