ARNAUD DE PRICORBIN.
When about twenty paces distant they halted, and as the evening was
dusky cast about their muskets. Then Arnaud cried with a loud voice,
"_Qui va là?_"
Hob Elliot very unwisely replied in his native tongue, and bade him
go to--it was not Heaven. On this Pricorbin slapped the butt of his
musket and challenged again.
"_La France_," said I, in a very confident tone, and still continuing
to advance; "I am the Chevalier de Boisguiller, going towards
Freyenthal on special service."
"Boisguiller of the Hussars de la Reine?"
"_Oui, mon camarade_," said I, with a jaunty air.
"_Bon Dieu_! M. le Chevalier on foot?"
"My horse was shot in a skirmish yesterday."
"_Tais-toi, nous serrons entendus, monsieur_," said Arnaud, in a
subdued voice, and presenting arms as I came close to him.
"_Pourquoi?_" said I, with affected impatience.
"Because the King of Prussia's Black Hussars are within musket shot
of us."
"Where?"
"Among yonder trees," said all the soldiers together in a whisper.
"It matters not to me," said I; "we go under _cartel_."
I now perceived that one of the six soldiers had his head and face
tied up with bloodstained handkerchiefs.
"And this big Gendarme?" inquired Arnaud, pointing to Hob Elliot.
"My guide from Ysembourg."
"Had he better not return with us? Monsieur is close to the ford."
Instead of replying to this uncomfortable suggestion, I asked "Have
you found him you watched for?"
"The escaped prisoner?"
"_Diable_--yes."
"No, monsieur," he replied, with a malediction, in which the others,
especially he of the slashed visage, heartily joined, while stamping
their feet and blowing their fingers; "and so, after being
half-frozen, we have left the ford in despair."
"Well--in yonder cottage on the slope of the hill you will find him
lying dead, with his red coat beside him."
"_Tres bon!_--but I have some brandy here, M. le Chevalier," said
Arnaud, presenting his canteen.
"_A votre santé, mon camarade_," said I, drinking and handing the
vessel to Hob, who without the smallest compunction and with a leer
in his eye drained it to the last drop. "Diable! 'tis a cold
night--I shaved off my moustache to avoid icicles; now, _camarade_,
the direct road to the ford?"
"Is this we are on, monsieur--a half-mile further will bring you to
it, but beware of the Hussars."
The deception was complete, and away they went double quick to the
dreary cottage on the hill.
Amid the darkness which had now set in, we reached the willow bushes
and scattered rocks at the ford, the scene of my late affair with its
watchers, and there a hoarse challenge in German rung through the
frosty air upon our right. Then issuing from a thicket of pines, we
saw a patrol of twenty of those dark and sombre fellows, the King of
Prussia's Death's-head Hussars, riding slowly toward us.
They were all mounted (like our own corps) upon grey horses, their
uniform was black, trimmed with silver or white braid, and skulls and
cross-bones grimly adorned their caps, saddle-cloths and
accoutrements, It was commonly said that the Black Hussars neither
took nor gave quarter. Of this I know not the truth; but under the
gallant and intrepid General Ziethen, they gained a glorious
reputation during the Seven Years' War.
I speedily made myself known to the officer in command. He informed
me that my corps, which he knew well by its reputation, and by the
grey horses and grenadier caps of their riders, had suddenly left all
the villages of the Lahn and marched to Osnaburg (thirty-seven miles
from Minden) a town which Hob and I reached, after undergoing no
small degree of suffering and privation, about the beginning of
January; and happy were we when we saw the union-jack flying above
the fortress on the Petersburg, and our sentinels in their familiar
red coats at the gates.
Then indeed did we feel at home, and that night in Tom Kirkton's
quarters opposite the Dominican monastery, over a smoking rasher of
Westphalian bacon and a crown bowl of steaming brandy punch, I had
the pleasure of relating to old Colonel Preston and other
brother-officers all our adventures after my fashionable friend
Shirley had blown up the bridge of the Lahn.
One of the first persons I inquired for was this gallant major, who,
however, was elsewhere with the staff of Prince Ferdinand of
Brunswick; but I was determined to settle my little score with him on
the first suitable occasion. We had a jovial reunion; many times was
the punchbowl replenished. Tom Kirkton gave us his favourite ditty,
and then the old Colonel, in a voice somewhat cracked, struck up--
"Malbrook s'en va t'en guerre, (and)
_Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine!_"
chorussed all to the clank of glasses and drinking-horns.
My indignation was great on finding that not content with betraying
me into the hands of the enemy, Shirley, to blacken my professional
reputation, had forwarded to the Marquis of Granby, General of our
cavalry, a report to the effect, that "by culpable negligence Cornet
Gauntlet had delayed to recross the Lahn, and had _permitted_ himself
to be taken prisoner, thus _betraying_ into the hands of the enemy
ten men and ten horses of his Majesty's Scots Grey Dragoons."
The corps were so furious at this aspersion that they cast lots for
who should call him out; it fell on a Captain named Cunningham, who
sent at once a challenge, which the Major declined on the prudent
plea that "he could deal with the principal only," but worthy old
Colonel Preston, who had seen the whole affair from the tower of
Freyenthal, cleared me of all the imputations of Shirley, whom I
would have punished severely by horsewhip and pistol, had he not been
mortally wounded in a skirmish on the 10th of January, when he
expired in the hands of two soldiers who were carrying him to the
rear in his sash.
On the day after I reached Osnaburg, Tom Kirkton, with a Scotch smirk
in his face, handed me a letter addressed in a lady's small Italian
hand.
It proved to be a kind one from my cousin Aurora--"the little
usurper," as I named her; "the fair pretender," as she was styled by
Tom.
Well, thought I, amid the horrors of war and the bitterness of such a
wayward passion as that I cherished for the French girl, it _is_
something above all price to have a pure English heart to remember,
to pray for, and perhaps to love me, as this dear Aurora does at home.
In a postscript she sent her "best duty and kind regards to Major
Shirley of the Staff."
"Poor devil!" muttered Tom, who was shaving himself for parade, and
using the back of his watch as a mirror.
Having nothing else in the shape of uniform, I had to wear poor
Boisguiller's gay Hussar pelisse on parade and on duty for some days,
until our quartermaster supplied me with a sergeant's coat (minus its
chevrons, of course), a trooper's sword, pistols and accoutrements;
and in this motley guise I made my _début_ as Lieutenant of the Light
Troop (and served in it during the remainder of the campaign), for so
valuable were the despatches regarding the projected movements of the
French on the heights of Corbach and before the castles of Marburg
and Dillenburg, that for procuring them I had been appointed to a
Lieutenancy in the 2nd Dragoon Guards by Prince Ferdinand, and then
gazetted back into my own corps--the boys who were _second to none_,
and whom I had no desire to leave.
We moved soon after to Schledhausen. There we remained until the
month of May, when we marched through a country covered with forests
to Fritzlar, a small town which belonged to the Elector of Mentz,
where we were brigaded with the 11th Light Dragoons under General
Elliot till the month of June, when the army again took the field.