which
nature had by no means scantily endued him. At the same time he was
the most faithful soul that could possibly exist. Ready every moment
to sacrifice his life for his master, neither his advanced age nor any
other consideration could prevent the good Paul from following him to
the field in the year 1813. His own nature rendered him superior to
every hardship; but less strong than his corporeal was his spiritual
nature, which seemed to have received a strange shock, or at any rate
some extraordinary impulse during his residence in France, especially
in Paris. Then, for the first time, did he properly feel that Magister
Spreugepileus had been perfectly right when he called him a great
light, that would one day shine forth brightly. This shining quality
Paul had discovered by the aptness with which he had accommodated
himself to the manners of a foreign people, and had learned their
language. Therefore, he boasted not a little, and ascribed it to his
extraordinary talent alone, that he could often, in respect to quarters
and provisions, obtain that which seemed unattainable. Talkebarth's
fine French phrases, the gentle reader has already been made acquainted
with some pleasant curses--were current, if not through the whole army,
at any rate through the corps to which his master was attached. Every
trooper who came to quarters in a village, cried to the peasant with
Paul's words, "Pisang! de lavendel pur di schevals!" (_Paysan, de
l'avoine pour les chevaux_.)

Paul, as is generally the case with eccentric natures, did not like
things to happen in the ordinary manner. He was particularly fond of
surprises, and sought to prepare them in every possible manner for his
master, who was certainly often surprised, though in quite another
manner than was designed by honest Talkebarth, whose happy schemes
generally failed in their execution. Thus, he now entreated
Lieutenant-colonel von B----, when the latter was riding straight up to
the principal entrance of the house, to take a circuitous course and
enter the court-yard by the back way, that his master might not see him
before he entered the room. To meet this view, Albert was obliged to
ride over a marshy meadow, where he was grievously splashed by the mud,
and then he had to go over a fragile bridge on a ditch. Paul
Talkebarth wished to show off his horsemanship by jumping cleverly
over; but he fell in with his horse up to the belly, and was with
difficulty b