he joys of the moment lustily sharing,
'Bout the past or the future not thinking or caring:
To the Kaiser, therefore, I sold my bacon,
And by him good charge of the whole is taken.
Order me on 'mid the whistling fiery shot,
Over the Rhine-stream rapid and roaring wide,
A third of the troop must go to pot,--
Without loss of time, I mount and ride;
But farther, I beg very much, do you see,
That in all things else you would leave me free.'

The Pappenheimer is an older man, more sedate and more indomitable; he
has wandered over Europe, and gathered settled maxims of soldierly
principle and soldierly privilege: he is not without a _rationale_ of
life; the various professions of men have passed in review before him,
but no coat that he has seen has pleased him like his own 'steel
doublet,' cased in which, it is his wish,

'Looking down on the world's poor restless scramble,
Careless, through it, astride of his nag to ramble.'

Yet at times with this military stoicism there is blended a dash of
homely pathos; he admits,

'This sword of ours is no plough or spade,
You cannot delve or reap with the iron blade;
For us there falls no seed, no corn-field grows,
Neither home nor kindred the soldier knows:
Wandering over the face of the earth,
Warming his hands at another's hearth:
From the pomp of towns he must onward roam;
In the village-green with its cheerful game,
In the mirth of the vintage or harvest-home,
No part or lot can the soldier claim.
Tell me then, in the place of goods or pelf,
What has he unless to honour himself?
Leave not even _this_ his own, what wonder
The man should burn and kill and plunder?

But the camp of Wallenstein is fall of bustle as well as speculation;
there are gamblers, peasants, sutlers, soldiers, recruits, capuchin
friars, moving to and fro in restless pursuit of their several
purposes. The sermon of the Capuchin is an unparalleled
composition;[34] a medley of texts, puns, nicknames, and verbal logic,
conglutinated by a stupid judgment, and a fiery catholic zeal. It
seems to be delivered with great unction, and to find fit audience in
the camp: towards the conclusion they rush upon him, and he narrowly
escapes killing or ducking, for having ventured to glance a censure at
the General. The soldiers themselves are jeering, wrangling, jostling;
discussing their wishe