It was a pleasant meal by the torch light. Many a month had passed since the peasants had tasted meat; and the bread, fresh from the Prussian bakeries, was of a very different quality to the black oaten bread to which they were accustomed. A horn of good wine completed their enjoyment.
When the meal was done, the man said:
"Now, master, I will guide you to the wood."
There was no occasion to lead the horse; for it, as well as its companion, had been trained to follow their master like dogs, and to come to a whistle. The wood was but two or three hundred yards off, and the peasant led the way through the trees to a small open space in its centre. The saddle and bridle had been removed before they left the cottage; and Fergus tethered the horse, by a foot rope, to a sapling growing on the edge of the clearing. Then he patted it on the neck, and left it beginning to crop the short grass.
"It won't get much," the peasant said, "for my animal keeps it pretty short. It is his best feeding place, now; and I generally turn it out here, at night, when the day's work is done."
"What is its work, principally?"
"There is only one sort, now," the man said. "I cut faggots in the forest, and take a cart load into Erfurt, twice a week. I hope, by the spring, that all these troubles will be over, and then I cultivate two or three acres of ground; but so long as these French, and the Confederacy troops, who are as bad, are about, it is no use to think of growing anything.
"Now, sir, is there anything that I can do for you?" he went on, after they returned to the cottage, and had both lit their pipes and seated themselves by the fire.
"I can see that you are not what you look. A farmer does not ride about the country on a horse fit for a king, or put up at a cottage like this."
"Yes; you can help me by leading me by quiet paths to Erfurt. I tell you frankly that my business, there, is to find out how strong the French and Confederacy army is, in and around the town; also whether they are taking any precautions against an attack, and if there are any signs that they intend to enter Hanover, or to move towards Dresden."