rsonal,
participation in the joys of the battlefield, whatever natural reluctance
veterans are apt to manifest at relinquishing high military control.

But Mondragon looked not with envy but with admiration on the growing
fame of the Nassau chieftain, and was disposed, before he himself left
the stage, to match himself with the young champion.

So soon as he heard of the intended demonstration of Maurice against
Grol, the ancient governor of Antwerp collected a little army by throwing
together all the troops that could be spared from the various garrisons
within his command. With two Spanish regiments, two thousand Swiss, the
Walloon troops of De Grisons, and the Irish regiment of Stanley--in all
seven thousand foot and thirteen hundred horse--Mondragon marched
straight across Brabant and Gelderland to the Rhine. At Kaiserworth he
reviewed his forces, and announced his intention of immediately crossing
the river. There was a murmur of disapprobation among officers and men at
what they considered the foolhardy scheme of mad old Mondragon. But the
general had not campaigned a generation before, at the age of sixty-nine,
in the bottom of the sea, and waded chin-deep for six hours long of an
October night, in the face of a rising tide from the German Ocean and of
an army of Zeelanders, to be frightened now at the summer aspect of the
peaceful Rhine.

The wizened little old man, walking with difficulty by the aid of a
staff, but armed in proof, with plumes waving gallantly from his iron
headpiece, and with his rapier at his side, ordered a chair to be brought
to the river's edge. Then calmly seating himself in the presence of his
host, he stated that he should not rise from that chair until the last
man had crossed the river. Furthermore, he observed that it was not only
his purpose to relieve the city of Grol, but to bring Maurice to an
action, and to defeat him, unless he retired. The soldiers ceased to
murmur, the pontoons were laid, the river was passed, and on the 25th
July, Maurice, hearing of the veteran's approach, and not feeling safe in
his position, raised the siege of the city. Burning his camp and
everything that could not be taken with him on his march, the prince came
in perfect order to Borkelo, two Dutch miles from Grol. Here he occupied
himself for some time in clearing the country of brigands who in the
guise of soldiers infested that region and made the little cities of
Deutecom, Anholt, and Heerenberg