Such were the hurried directions I obtained, in the midst of the smoke and din of a battle; but it was no time to ask for more precise instructions, and away I went.
In less than twenty minutes’ sharp riding I found myself in a little valley, inclosed by low hills, and watered by a small tributary of the Danube, along whose banks cottages were studded in the midst of what seemed one great orchard, since for miles the white and pink blossoms of fruit-trees were to be seen extending. The peasants were at work in the fields, and oxen were toiling along with the heavy waggons, or the scarcely less cumbersome plough, as peacefully as though bloodshed and carnage were not within a thousand miles of them. No highroad penetrated this secluded spot, and hence it lay secure, while ruin and devastation raged at either side of it. As the wind was from the west, nothing could be heard of the cannonade towards Moosburg, and the low hills completely shut out all signs of the conflict. I halted at a little wayside forge to have a loose shoe fastened, and in the crowd of gazers who stood around me, wondering at my gay trappings and gaudy uniform, not one had the slightest suspicion that I was other than Austrian. One old man asked me if it were not true that the ‘French were coming?’ and another laughed, and said, ‘They had better not’; and there was all they knew of that terrible struggle—the shock that was to rend in twain a great empire!
Full of varied thought on this theme I mounted and rode forward. At first, the narrow roads were so deep and heavy, that I made little progress; occasionally, too, I came to little streams, traversed by a bridge of a single plank, and was either compelled to swim my horse across, or wander long distances in search of a ford. These obstructions made me impatient, and my impatience but served to delay me more, and all my efforts to push directly forwards only tended to embarrass me. I could not ask for guidance, since I knew not the name of a single village or town, and to have inquired for the direction in which the troops were stationed might very possibly have brought me into danger.
At last, and after some hours of toilsome wandering, I reached a small wayside inn, and, resolving to obtain some information of my whereabouts, I asked whither the road led that passed through a long, low, swampy plain, and disappeared in a pine wood.
‘To Landshut,’ was the answer.
‘And the distance?’
‘Three German miles,’ said the host; ‘but they are worse than five; for since the new line has been opened this road has fallen into neglect. Two of the bridges are broken, and a landslip has completely blocked up the passage at another place.’
‘Then how am I to gain the new road?’
Alas! there was nothing for it but going back to the forge where I had stopped three hours and a half before, and whence I could take a narrow bridle-path to Fleisheim, that would bring me out on the great road. The very thought of retracing my way was intolerable; many of the places I had leaped my horse over would have been impossible to cross from the opposite side; once I narrowly escaped being carried down by a millrace; and, in fact, no dangers nor inconveniences of the road in front of me could equal those of the course I had just come. Besides all this, to return to Fleisheim would probably bring me far in the rear of the advancing columns, while if I pushed on towards Landshut I might catch sight of them from some rising spot of ground.
‘You will go, I see,’ cried the host, as he saw me set out. ‘Perhaps you’re right; the old adage says, “It’s often the roughest road leads to the smoothest fortune.”’