er
small--zay two.'

"'If one is not enough, Mynheer Baron, I will refer to the decision of
his grace the captain-general.'

"Ach, der tuyvel! vill you?' said the Dutchman, with a savage gleam in
his little eyes, which showed that he quite understood my hint; 'vell,
me vont quarrel vid you, gib me de bills and de schelm is yours.'

"Resolving, nevertheless, to lay the whole affair before Marlborough,
the moment I reached our trenches at Aire, I gave a bill for the
required sum, and approaching the other Frenchman, requested him to keep
beside me; but he seemed too much confused by grief, and cold, and
horror to comprehend what I said. Poor fellow! his whole soul and
sympathies seemed absorbed in the mangled corpse of his brother, which
was now unbound from the halbert, and lay half sunk among the new fallen
snow. While he stooped over it, and hastily, but tenderly, proceeded to
draw the half-frozen clothing upon the stiffened form, the orders of Van
Wandenberg were heard hoarsely through his speaking-trumpet, as they
rang over the desolate plain, and his troopers wheeled back from a
circle into line--from line into open column of troops, and thereafter
the torches were extinguished and the march begun. Slowly and solemnly
the dragoons glided away into the darkness, each with a pyramid of snow
rising from the steeple crown, and ample brims of his broad beaver hat.

"It was now almost midnight; the red moon had waned, the snow storm was
increasing, and there were I and the young Frenchman, with his brother's
corpse, left together on the wide plain, without a place to shelter us."

"'Proceed, Monsieur,' said the Frenchman, as the narrator paused; 'for I
am well aware that your story ends not there.'

"It does not--you seem interested; but I have little more to relate,
save that I dismounted and assisted the poor Frenchman to raise the body
from the snow, and to tie it across the saddle of my horse; taking the
bridle in one hand, I supported him with the other, and thus we
proceeded to the nearest town."

"'To Armentieres on the Lys," exclaimed the Frenchman, seizing the hands
of the Major as the latter paused again; "to Armentieres, ten miles west
of Lisle, and there you left them, after adding to your generosity by
bestowing sufficient to inter his brother in the Protestant church of
that town, and to convey himself to his native France. Oh! Monsieur, I
am that Frenchman, and here, from my heart, from my soul, I th