On the morning we landed at Faaborg, a beautiful and unclouded sun arose from a brilliant sea, and its morning light tipped the foamy waves with purple; even in storms, the waves of that shallow sea are never so great as those of the outer ocean; but by their fury and rapidity they are much more dangerous, as they roll through the narrow straits, to deposit amber on the sands of Courland and on the Prussian shore.
At the small and unsheltered port of Faaborg, the Danish boats landed us on the ruinous quay; the little that had survived the time when the soldiers of Christian III. burned the town, was ill built and fast decaying. Being situated at the end of a shallow bay, and among marshes, Ian resolved that we should at once march inland, lest the effect of a swampy district on our mountaineers in the summer season, might cause some fatal distemper. As the king had directed him to halt for four days, that we might recover from the close confinement of the ships, he marched for Hesinge, a small town which we entered about mid-day, with our drums beating and pipes playing, to the great consternation and manifest annoyance of the townsmen and boors; who, although too cowardly to fight their own battles, gave ever a poor welcome to those who were good-natured enough to do that favour for them.
During this ten miles' march, I had frequently walked by the door of Ernestine's caleche; she was becoming intensely dejected; for to lose sight of the Baltic seemed like relinquishing all hope of recovering Gabrielle.
As the regiment drew up in close column under the colours in the main street of the little town, where all their bright arms flashed in the sun, as they were ordered on the ground, with the clatter of seven hundred butts of steel, a well-dressed cavalier, who wore a suit of peach-coloured velvet, laced with silver, large calf-skin boots, a broad hat bound with galloon, and garnished by a red feather, with a sword and pair of pistols in his girdle, rose up from a table under a beech that stood before the door of the Inn, which was named the Green-Tree.
While his horse which stood near took corn from a wooden bowl, he had been regaling himself with a pipe of tobacco and a can of pale Odenzee beer, when the rat-tat of our drums and the flashing of our arms, as we marched in, had excited his attention. He came slowly towards us. I saw him look once or twice into the caleche which followed the baggage wains, and then, as became a well-bred cavalier, he touched his beaver to its fair occupant. His figure now seemed familiar to me.
"Welcome to Hesinge, Captain Rollo," said he, grasping my hand, with a broad laugh.
"Major Fritz!" I exclaimed; "I thought you were at Vienna."
"Henckers! I was there, long enough, paying the penalty of admiring a pair of pretty ankles in white stockings."
"Oh—the mask?"
"No more of that—for I cannot, with patience, think of the outrageous ass I made of myself. However, I escaped; reached Rostock, disguised as a valet of General Arnheim, and wearing a suit of his livery, which I purchased at Vienna, took shipping at the Baltic, reached Nyeborg last week, and was on my way to join the king, when I now learn that his majesty is sailing round by the Great Belt for Helsingör. I am most anxious to serve again."