along the Lobosch, where their nearest duty is to drive off
those Pandours. Always as a new battalion, pushing farther leftward,
comes upon its ground, the Pandours give fire on it;--and it on the
Pandours; till the Left Wing is complete, and all the Lobosch is, in
this manner, a crackling of Pandour musketry, and anti-musketry. Right
Wing, steady to its guns on the Homolka, has as yet nothing to do. Those
wings of Infantry are two lines deep; the Cavalry, in three lines, is
between them in the centre; no room for Cavalry elsewhere, except on the
outskirts some fringing of light horse, to be ready for emergencies.

The Pandour firing, except for the noise of it, does not amount to much;
they can take no aim, says Lloyd, crouching behind their stone fences;
and the Prussian Battalions, steadily pushing downwards, trample out
their sputtering, and clear the Lobosch of them to a safe distance.
But the ground is intricate, so wrapt in mist for the present. That
crackling lasts for hours; decisive of nothing; and the mist also, and
one's anxious guessings and scrutinizings, lasts in a wavering fitful
manner.

Once, for some time, in the wavering of the mist, there was seen, down
in the plain opposite our centre, a body of Cavalry. Horse for certain:
say ten squadrons of them, or 1,500 Horse; continually manoeuvring,
changing shape; now in more ranks, now in fewer; sometimes
"checkerwise," formed like a draught-board; shooting out wings: they
career about, one sees not whither, or vanish again into the mist
behind. "Browne's rear-guard this, that we are come upon," thinks
Friedrich; "these squatted Pandours, backed by Horse, must be his
rear-guard, that are amusing us: Browne and the Army are off; crossing
the Elbe, hastening towards the Schandau, the Pirna quarter, while we
stand bickering and idly sputtering here!"--Weary of such idle business,
Friedrich orders forward Twenty of his Squadrons from the centre
station: "Charge me those Austrian Horse, and let us finish this." The
Twenty Squadrons, preceded by a pair of field-pieces, move down hill;
storm in upon the Austrian party, storm it furiously into the mist; are
furiously chasing it,--when unexpected cannon-batteries, destructive
case-shot, awaken on their left flank (batteries from Lobositz, one may
guess); and force them to draw back. To draw back, with some loss; and
rank again, in an indignantly blown condition, at the foot of their
Hill. Indignant; after brief br