erfectly safe. "Seize
me the Stromberg to-morrow morning, the first thing!" ordered Friedrich.
And a Detachment went accordingly; but found Daun's people already
there,--indisposed to go; nay determined not to go, and getting
reinforced to unlimited amounts. So that the Stromberg was left
standing, and remained Daun's; furnished with plenty of cannon by Daun.
Retzow's arrest, Retzow being a steady favorite of Friedrich's, was only
of a few hours: "pardonable that oversight," thinks Friedrich, though it
came to cost him dear. For the rest, I find, Friedrich's keeping of this
Camp, without the Stromberg, was intended to end, the third day hence:
"Saturday, 14th, then, since Friday proves impossible!" Friedrich had
settled. And it did end Saturday, 14th, though at an earlier HOUR, and
with other results than had been expected. Keith said, "The Austrians
deserve to be hanged if they don't attack us here." "We must hope they
are more afraid of us than even of the gallows," answered Friedrich.
A very dangerous Camp; untenable without the Stromberg. Let us try to
understand it, and Daun's position to it, in some slight degree.

"Hochkirch (HIGHkirk) is an old Wendish-Saxon Village, standing
pleasantly on its Hill-top, conspicuous for miles round on all sides,
or on all but the south side, where it abuts upon other Heights, which
gradually rise into Hills a good deal higher than it. The Village hangs
confusedly, a jumble of cottages and colegarths, on the crown and north
slope of the Height; thatched, in part tiled, and built mostly of rough
stone blocks, in our time,--not of wood, as probably in Friedrich's. A
solid, sluttishly comfortable-looking Village; with pleasant hay-fields,
or long narrow hay-stripes (each villager has his stripe), reaching down
to the northern levels. The Church is near the top; Churchyard, and some
little space farther, are nearly horizontal ground, till the next Height
begins sloping up again towards the woody Hills southward. The view from
this little esplanade atop, still better from the Church belfry, is wide
and pretty. Free on all sides except the south: pleasant Heights and
Hollows, of arable, of wood, or pasture; well watered by rushing Brooks,
all making northward, direct for Spree (the Berlin Spree), or else into
the Lobau Water, which is the first big branch of Spree.

"The place is still partly of Wendish speech; the Parson has to preach
one half of the Sunday in Wend, the other in German