Elsineur was to be the muster-place, and all the remains of our slender garrisons in Zealand, Laaland, and Falster, and every man who could handle a musket in the king's service, was ordered to repair there by an appointed day.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE MAJOR OF MUSKETEERS.
The whole of our regiment looked forward with joy and ardour to entering on this new arena of operations, where we hoped to do deeds more worthy of us than the futile and desultory conflicts maintained by the brave, but almost fugitive King Christian, along the shores of the Lesser Belt; and though at times I caught the old spirit, from the fire, animation, and example of my comrades, the presence of Ernestine, and the doubt which overhung the fate of Gabrielle, were to me a source of great anxiety.
Christian having heard that the Count of Carlstein was with the Imperialists at the siege of Stralsund, was so gracious as to offer Ernestine the use of a small vessel with a white flag, that she might, accompanied by a slender retinue, rejoin him; but she modestly declined, and requested permission to remain until she could obtain some certain tidings of her sister; and the king pledged himself, that between this day and that of the rendezvous at Elsineur, nothing should be left undone to discover in what direction Count Merodé had marched.
Ernestine's proud heart was filled with gratitude, and on her knees she wept and kissed the rough brown hand of the warrior king, who immediately raised her up.
In the cabin of Sir Nikelas Valdemar she stood, amid a group of some twenty noble ladies of Holstein, all fugitives, and bound for Zealand; but in her satin hood of that bright yellow, which so finely became her beautiful black hair, and with her dark, yet timid and dovelike eyes, my Ernestine was the fairest among that group of fair ones.
By the isles of Fuhnen and Zealand we were to march for Elsineur, while the king was to go round with the fleet by sea, and take on board some of the little garrisons he had left in Faasinge, Œrœ, and the lesser isles. The ladies on board the Anna Catharina, being anxious to reach the cathedral city of Roschilde or Copenhagen, landed with us at Faaborg, from whence they proceeded at once towards their various destinations; some in caleches, others by waggon, the usual vehicle of the country, for transmission from place to place.
The Baron Karl had kindly placed his gilded caleche with its two sturdy switch-tailed Holsteiners at the service of Ernestine, so long as she might require them, and, having no other means of protection, she resolved with her female attendants to travel with our column towards Elsineur. The circumstance of her being with us, thrown in a manner so isolated, completely under my wardship (a beautiful young girl under the charge of a young fellow of three-and-twenty—and that young fellow an officer), certainly made me think, that, if we were married, a great deal of trouble in the mode of travelling, and expense in the matter of billets, might be saved; but her unprotected state, the distance from her father, and the mystery that overhung her sister's fate, compelled me to keep such occasional thoughts to myself.
Ernestine placed perfect confidence in every soldier of our regiment, and there were not less than a hundred tall gillies in my own company, each of whom considered it their bounden duty to risk life and limb, if necessary, in defence of the foreign lady who was the kinswoman of their captain, and consequently the kinswoman of every one who bore the name of Rollo or M'Farquhar.