ith me.

When we were going to the king he inquired of me where I had been, and
what occasion brought me to the army. I told him the short history of
my travels, and that I came hither from Vienna on purpose to see the
King of Sweden and his army. He asked me if there was any service he
could do me, by which he meant, whether I desired an employment.
I pretended not to take him so, but told him the protection his
acquaintance would afford me was more than I could have asked, since I
might thereby have opportunity to satisfy my curiosity, which was the
chief end of my coming abroad. He perceiving by this that I had no
mind to be a soldier, told me very kindly I should command him in
anything; that his tent and equipage, horses and servants should
always have orders to be at my service; but that as a piece of
friendship, he would advise me to retire to some place distant from
the army, for that the army would march to-morrow, and the king was
resolved to fight General Tilly, and he would not have me hazard
myself; that if I thought fit to take his advice, he would have me
take that interval to see the court at Berlin, whither he would send
one of his servants to wait on me.

His discourse was too kind not to extort the tenderest acknowledgment
from me that I was capable of. I told him his care of me was so
obliging, that I knew not what return to make him, but if he pleased
to leave me to my choice I desired no greater favour than to trail a
pike under his command in the ensuing battle. "I can never answer it
to your father," says he, "to suffer you to expose yourself so far."
I told him my father would certainly acknowledge his friendship in the
proposal made me; but I believed he knew him better than to think he
would be well pleased with me if I should accept of it; that I was
sure my father would have rode post five hundred miles to have been
at such a battle under such a general, and it should never be told
him that his son had rode fifty miles to be out of it. He seemed to
be something concerned at the resolution I had taken, and replied very
quickly upon me, that he approved very well of my courage; "but," says
he, "no man gets any credit by running upon needless adventures, nor
loses any by shunning hazards which he has no order for. 'Tis enough,"
says he, "for a gentleman to behave well when he is commanded upon any
service; I have had fighting enough," says he, "upon these points
of honour, and I never got any