His figure is yet impressed upon my memory.
Tall, handsome, and about forty years of age, his features were stern, grave, and sometimes sad; though, when his eyes became animated, they filled with fire. A deep scar on his forehead shewed that before this he had met death face to face; and there was a frank bluntness in his manner which showed a long familiarity with danger, and with every phase of life.
"Your servant, my young friend," said he, in a strong Scottish accent, and smiling, as we saluted each other with our swords; "if you have forgotten our meeting by the Elbe near Glückstadt, and the pretty actress Prudentia, I have not."
"Pardon me, sir, but I did not recognise you in your helmet. Yet see—in memory of that meeting, I have still worn your gold chain."
"Ah! you must prize it more when I tell you, that it is formed from the gold of that identical cup with which Knox and Calvin so often administered the sacrament to the English refugees at Frankfort. Old Spürrledter, one of my troopers, picked it up on the march through there, and so I had it made into a chain."
"It were a thousand pities to deprive——"
"Tush! I shall soon find another; if you offer it back, I shall fling it into the Elbe."
"You wished to parley with us, sir?"
"The fact is, we are anxious to cross the river, and you have most annoyingly cast up a sconce right in our way; and, as this sconce is garrisoned by five companies of Highlanders, we count upon a desperate resistance."
"You reckon rightly, sir," I replied proudly; "there is a high spirit among my comrades in yonder place. This will be the scene of our first encounter with your Austrians; and I will answer for it, that as Scottish soldiers, with the high memory of a great and glorious past urging us to win new honour for our fatherland, many a heart must pour forth its best blood before either the Counts of Tilly or Carlstein shall cross the Elbe."