“But I want the history now,” Thekla said. “It is much nicer to hear a thing straight from some one who has done it, than from any one else.”
“There is no story to tell,” Malcolm said. “I had been promised my lieutenancy at the first vacancy before I was at Mansfeld, and on my return found that the vacancy had already occurred, and I was appointed. I got my company the other day for a very simple matter, namely, for swimming across the Rhine with a barrel fixed on each side of me to prevent my sinking. Nothing very heroic about that, you see, young lady.”
“For swimming across the Rhine!” the count said. “Then you must have been the Scottish officer who with a sergeant swam and fetched the boat across which enabled the Swedes to pass a body of troops over, and so open the way into the Palatinate. I heard it spoken of as a most gallant action.”
“I can assure you,” Malcolm said earnestly, “that there was no gallantry about it. It was exceedingly cold, I grant, but that was all.”
“Then why should the king have made you a captain for it? You can't get over that.”
“That was a reward for my luck,” Malcolm laughed. “'Tis better to be lucky than to be rich, it is said, and I had the good luck to discover a boat concealed among the bushes just at the time when a boat was worth its weight in gold.”
For an hour Malcolm sat chatting, and then took his leave, as he was going on duty, promising to return the next day, and to spend as much of his time as possible with them while they remained in the city.
CHAPTER XII THE PASSAGE OF THE LECH
For the next two months the Green Brigade remained quietly at Maintz, a welcome rest after their arduous labours. The town was very gay, and every house was occupied either by troops or by the nobles and visitors from all parts of Northern Europe. Banquets and balls were of nightly occurrence; and a stranger who arrived in the gay city would not have dreamt that a terrible campaign had just been concluded, and that another to the full as arduous was about to commence.