"Why not mount yourself better? I saw nags enough and to spare, among the Imperialists."
"It would ill become us to ride chargers, when our Master, who is in heaven, contented himself with the humbler animal, and in memory thereof marked it with his cross. If you escape all the dangers of this disastrous war, and return to our common home by the shore of Cromartie, bear my blessing to my poor brother, the dominie—for, alas! it is all the poorer Jesuit has to send him. Keep the path that is before you; by it your comrades marched this morning—it leads straight to Hamburg, and to Glückstadt—farewell."
We separated—
He to return to Tilly's disorderly cantonment, and I to pursue my solitary way.
Book the Sixth.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE MERODEURS.
From the place where I parted with Father Ignatius, Lauenburg, was about three miles distant, and the Elbe about one. The dusky evening was giving place to duskier night. At a little distance from the road lay a German village, with two or three large, old, and crumbling houses overhanging the narrow thoroughfare, and a number of picturesque little cottages, built of dark and intricate wood-work, carved and plastered. The coppice or wood near me was composed of lofty beeches, which fringed a small and quiet lake; a large misshapen block carved with ancient Runes stood among the long grass, and between the stems of the distant trees, I saw the moon rising afar off, and shedding a soft pale light upon the hazy landscape.
One or two small stags flitted past me, and a solitary stork flapped its large wings on the branch of a hawthorn-tree. Every thing was silent, and the place was so lonely that I sat down on the Runic-carved stone of other times, to reflect on my position.
I was seventy miles at least from Glückstadt; my comrades were a full day's march—thirty miles—in front of me; and though they, by force of numbers, could make their way in safety, I knew the case was different with an individual; for the officers and soldiers of our regiment, who straggled far from camp or quarters, were frequently maltreated, and even murdered by the savage boors, for the sake of their military finery.