"Ah! these wars are frightful!" said poor Ernestine, when she had related all her escapes, and heard all mine. "On one side, I tremble for the loss of my father; on the other, for the loss of you."
"But weep no more, Ernestine; a happy time is in store for us all."
"For such scenes as these—for this town with its shattered walls and corpse-strewn streets—you have left those quiet glens and silent hills, of which I have heard my poor father often speak with so much rapture and regret."
"Ay, Ernestine," said I; "but on those blue hills, where the mountain bee sucks the honey from the purple heath, and the white butterfly floats over the yellow broom bells; and in those green glens, where the hirsels graze and the sheep bleat by the whimpling burn, or the smoke of the sequestered cottage ascends through the summer woods—the din of war is often heard, and the gleds and corbies are summoned to a feast from the four winds of heaven. The cross of fire gleams across the country, flung from hand to hand; the war-pipe rings from the echoing rock; the beacon blazes on the muster-place, and the clink of arms with the fierce slogan rise among the lonely hills; tribe pours forth against tribe, with banners waving and pibroch yelling; the heather is in flames—the flocks are seized—the valley is strewn with dead—the cottage is sheeted with fire, and the green sod drenched with the blood of the inmates; for the world never saw quarrels more bitter than the hereditary feuds of our Scottish clans; and while the human heart and the human mind are constituted as they now are, there will be wars and crimes, the sack of cities, and the rush of armies; for men are but men, Ernestine, all the world over."
Three days we remained at Eckernfiörd, burying the dead, collecting provisions, curing the wounded, or embarking them for Zealand. Thanks to the skill of Dr. Pennicuik, and the sisterly attentions of Ernestine, I was able to attend parade on the evening of the fourth day; but I was so ghastly and pale, that one would have imagined all the experiments of the college of physicians had been tried upon me.
So M'Alpine told me, on seeing me almost staggering at the head of my company, and added, "On my honour, Rollo, I did not expect to see you again after hearing that you were wounded; for I thought our Danish doctors would soon do the rest."
"They are much obliged to you for your high opinion of their skill, Angus," said I; "but I have been under the hands, not of a Copenhagener, but a barber-chirurgeon, regularly graduated at King James' College, in the good town of Edinburgh—hence my rapid recovery, perhaps."
Ernestine had by this time informed me of the manner in which she believed Gabrielle had been betrayed into the hands of Merodé; and that she was only some ten or twelve miles distant from us, at Fredricksort on the gulf of Kiel. I would have given the world—had the world been mine—to have been permitted to march a wing of our stout Highland blades to overhaul Merodé in his quarters; but King Christian, who occupied, the house of the Herredsfoged of Wohlder, had other objects in view; and the result of various councils of war, which he, Ian, Count Montgomerie, the Baron Karl, and others, held there, soon became developed.
I may mention that a party under Phadrig Mhor was despatched to the cottage in the wood; but neither Bandolo nor dame Krümpel were found there. After burning it to the ground, they fished the tarn for the portmanteau, which I told them might be kept by the finders; and Gillian M'Bane, who when at home had been an expert pearl-fisher, after diving down once or twice, discovered its locality; the spoil was soon hooked out, and generously distributed by him fairly and equally among the privates of the regiment. It came to a handsome sum per man, and many of our musketeers wore silver buttons and silver-mounted sporrans to the end of their days.
Meanwhile the increasing preparations of the great Albrecht, Count of Wallenstein, who had been created Duke of Friedland, Sagan, Glogau, and Mechlenburg, General of the Baltic and Oceanic seas, compelled Christian IV. to exert himself without delay.