L’Ec. Here’s a set of rascals! no discipline? no subordination in the house! eh! look to the baggage, curry down my charger! hem! ha!
Enter L’Eclair.
Your ladyship’s devoted servant, ever in the foremost rank! never did a nine-pounder traverse the enemy’s line with more promptitude than I, Phillippe L’Eclair, unworthy private of the fifth hussars, now fly to cast my poor person at your ladyship’s gracious feet.
Ger. You are very welcome from the wars, L’Eclair, Fame has spoken of you in your absence.
L’Ec. Fy! my lady, you disorder me at the first charge,—a pestilence now upon that wicked, impertinent gossip, Fame,—will not her everlasting tongue suffer even so poor a fellow as L’Eclair, to escape? ’tis insufferable; may I presume to inquire then, what rumours have reached your ladyship’s ear?
Ger. To a soldier’s credit, trust me.—But your master, L’Eclair, where is he?
L’Ec. Ah! poor gentleman, he’s in the rearguard, I left him four leagues off, at the fortress of Huningen, unexpectedly confined by——
Ger. Confined! heavens! by what complaint?
L’Ec. Only the complaint of old age; the general commissioned my master upon his route to deliver some instructions to the superannuated commandant of the fortress; now the old gentleman proving somewhat dull of apprehension, my master though dying of impatience, was constrained to a delay of some extra hours, despatching me, his humble ambassador, forward, to prevent alarms, and promise his arrival at the chateau before midnight.
Ger. Midnight! so late?—four leagues to travel—alone—his road through an intricate forest, and the sky already seeming to predict a tempest.