The deception was complete, and away they went double quick to the dreary cottage on the hill.
Amid the darkness which had now set in, we reached the willow bushes and scattered rocks at the ford, the scene of my late affair with its watchers, and there a hoarse challenge in German rung through the frosty air upon our right. Then issuing from a thicket of pines, we saw a patrol of twenty of those dark and sombre fellows, the King of Prussia's Death's-head Hussars, riding slowly toward us.
They were all mounted (like our own corps) upon grey horses, their uniform was black, trimmed with silver or white braid, and skulls and cross-bones grimly adorned their caps, saddle-cloths and accoutrements, It was commonly said that the Black Hussars neither took nor gave quarter. Of this I know not the truth; but under the gallant and intrepid General Ziethen, they gained a glorious reputation during the Seven Years' War.
I speedily made myself known to the officer in command. He informed me that my corps, which he knew well by its reputation, and by the grey horses and grenadier caps of their riders, had suddenly left all the villages of the Lahn and marched to Osnaburg (thirty-seven miles from Minden) a town which Hob and I reached, after undergoing no small degree of suffering and privation, about the beginning of January; and happy were we when we saw the union-jack flying above the fortress on the Petersburg, and our sentinels in their familiar red coats at the gates.
Then indeed did we feel at home, and that night in Tom Kirkton's quarters opposite the Dominican monastery, over a smoking rasher of Westphalian bacon and a crown bowl of steaming brandy punch, I had the pleasure of relating to old Colonel Preston and other brother-officers all our adventures after my fashionable friend Shirley had blown up the bridge of the Lahn.
One of the first persons I inquired for was this gallant major, who, however, was elsewhere with the staff of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick; but I was determined to settle my little score with him on the first suitable occasion. We had a jovial reunion; many times was the punchbowl replenished. Tom Kirkton gave us his favourite ditty, and then the old Colonel, in a voice somewhat cracked, struck up—
"Malbrook s'en va t'en guerre, (and)
Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine!"
chorussed all to the clank of glasses and drinking-horns.
My indignation was great on finding that not content with betraying me into the hands of the enemy, Shirley, to blacken my professional reputation, had forwarded to the Marquis of Granby, General of our cavalry, a report to the effect, that "by culpable negligence Cornet Gauntlet had delayed to recross the Lahn, and had permitted himself to be taken prisoner, thus betraying into the hands of the enemy ten men and ten horses of his Majesty's Scots Grey Dragoons."
The corps were so furious at this aspersion that they cast lots for who should call him out; it fell on a Captain named Cunningham, who sent at once a challenge, which the Major declined on the prudent plea that "he could deal with the principal only," but worthy old Colonel Preston, who had seen the whole affair from the tower of Freyenthal, cleared me of all the imputations of Shirley, whom I would have punished severely by horsewhip and pistol, had he not been mortally wounded in a skirmish on the 10th of January, when he expired in the hands of two soldiers who were carrying him to the rear in his sash.