CHAPTER XVI.
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.