Every moment increased the respect and tenderness, the vague sensation of mingled joy and sadness, with which the merit and beauty of Ernestine had first inspired me; and I felt, that if she had not already divined my important secret, I could not conceal it very long. A hundred times I was on the point of recalling to her memory—or rather, seeking to resume—our last conversation, and my farewell to her at Luneburg. I was certain she could not have forgotten it; but now an unconquerable timidity repressed me.
Being young, and but a plain soldier, I was naturally backward. One moment I resolved to let events develop themselves, and the next to declare my passion to the count and to her; but there was a polished dignity—a terrible air of self-possession about them both—that put all my resolutions completely to rout; for the fear of her refusal, the memory of his preference for Count Kœningheim, and his promise to him, damped my rising courage, and I felt that I would rather, a thousand times, have faced a brigade even of Lowland pikes, than ventured on a subject which seemed so distant from their thoughts, though it involved my whole future happiness and fate.
"The count might ask," I reflected, "where are your estates?" I could but lay a hand on my sword, and "Here—with this blade I clothe and feed myself." "And your home, Master Philip?"—"Wherever the colours of my regiment happen to be." These soldier-like answers would assuredly do very well for a baggage-wife, but were scarcely suited to the present purpose; and so I cogitated, until I—poor devil!—made myself as miserable as it was possible to be.
Without any determination being come to on my part, four days passed, and the Anna Catharina came to anchor close by the wooden pier of Assens, in the isle of Funen. We had lost much time in touching at various ports inquiring for the residence of the king, of whose exact locality we had some doubts. The whole regiment prepared at once for disembarkation, while Duke Bernard sent an officer (Red Angus M'Alpine) to the king, who was then residing in an old castle near the small town of Assens, with a hastily prepared despatch, announcing the loss of his division, and his arrival with the wreck or remnant thereof—the Scottish invincibles of Sir Donald Mackay.
His letter (which I afterwards transcribed from the Svedish Intelligencer) was in that style of military brevity which so delighted the brave spirits of that sanguinary war.
"To the most excellent Prince, Christian IV., King of Denmark, of the Goths and Vandals; Duke of Sleswig, Holstein, Stormar, and Ditmarsch; Earl of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst; Knight of the Garter, the Dannebrog, and Elephant—these,
"Comrade and Confederate,—Ruined by their own cowardice, the soldiers of my division have surrendered to the Emperor, and taken service under his standard. All are lost save the Scottish regiment of Strathnaver.
"BERNARD OF WEIMAR."