reamers,
when they marched from Scotland to London, and from a republic at once
into a monarchy. Since that period, Brock had been always with the army,
he had had, too, some promotion, for he spake of having a command at the
battle of the Boyne; though probably (as he never mentioned the fact)
upon the losing side. The very year before this narrative commences,
he had been one of Mordaunt's forlorn hope at Schellenberg, for which
service he was promised a pair of colours; he lost them, however, and
was almost shot (but fate did not ordain that his career should close
in that way) for drunkenness and insubordination immediately after the
battle; but having in some measure reinstated himself by a display
of much gallantry at Blenheim, it was found advisable to send him to
England for the purposes of recruiting, and remove him altogether from
the regiment where his gallantry only rendered the example of his riot
more dangerous.

Mr. Brock's commander was a slim young gentleman of twenty-six, about
whom there was likewise a history, if one would take the trouble to
inquire. He was a Bavarian by birth (his mother being an English lady),
and enjoyed along with a dozen other brothers the title of count: eleven
of these, of course, were penniless; one or two were priests, one a
monk, six or seven in various military services, and the elder at home
at Schloss Galgenstein breeding horses, hunting wild boars, swindling
tenants, living in a great house with small means; obliged to be sordid
at home all the year, to be splendid for a month at the capital, as
is the way with many other noblemen. Our young count, Count Gustavus
Adolphus Maximilian von Galgenstein, had been in the service of the
French as page to a nobleman; then of His Majesty's gardes du corps;
then a lieutenant and captain in the Bavarian service; and when, after
the battle of Blenheim, two regiments of Germans came over to the
winning side, Gustavus Adolphus Maximilian found himself among them; and
at the epoch when this story commences, had enjoyed English pay for a
year or more. It is unnecessary to say how he exchanged into his present
regiment; how it appeared that, before her marriage, handsome John
Churchill had known the young gentleman's mother, when they were both
penniless hangers-on at Charles the Second's court;--it is, we say,
quite useless to repeat all the scandal of which we are perfectly
masters, and to trace step by step the events of his history