within a few hundred yards below. Their petition was unanimous,
to be allowed to refresh themselves and their horses at this rare
opportunity; and their request, though respectful in its words, yet was so
decisive in its tone, that to comply was fully as much my policy as my
inclination. I mounted my horse, and proceeded, according to the humble
"command" of my brave dragoons. This was a most popular movement--the men,
the very horses, evidently rejoiced. The fatigue of our hard riding was
past in a moment--the riders laughed and sang, the chargers snorted and
pranced; and, when we trotted, huzzaing, into the baggage lines, half
their motley crowd evidently conceived that some sovereign prince was come
in fiery haste to make the campaign. We were received with all the
applause that is given by the suttler to all arrivals with a full purse in
the holsters, and a handsome valise, no matter from what source filled, on
the croupe of the charger. But we had scarcely begun to taste the gifts
that fortune had sent us in the shape of huge sausages and brown
bread--the _luxuries!_ for which the soldier of Teutchland wooes the
goddess of war--than we found ourselves ordered to move off the ground, by
the peremptory mandate of a troop of the Royal Guard, who had followed our
movement, more hungry, more thirsty, and more laced and epauleted than
ourselves. The Hulans tossed their lances; and it had nearly been a
business of cold steel, when their officer rode up, to demand the sword of
the presumptuous mutineer who had thus daringly questioned his right to
starve us. While I was deliberating for a moment between the shame of a
forced retreat, and the awkwardness of taking the bull by the horns, in
the shape of the King's Guard, I heard a loud laugh, and my name
pronounced, or rather roared, in the broadest accents of Germany. My
friend Varnhorst was the man. The indefatigable and good-humoured
Varnhorst, who did every thing, and was every where, was shaking my hand
with the honest grasp of his honest nature, and congratulating me on my
return.

"We have to do with a set of sharp fellow," said he, "in these French; a
regiment of their light cavalry has somehow or other made its way between
the columns of our infantry, and has been picking up stragglers last night.
The duke, with whom you happen to have established a favouritism that
would make you a chamberlain at the court of Brunswick, if you were not
assassinated previously by th