here, whom I still loved--the heartless and
haughty brother--the pomp and pageantry to which he was born; while I was
flung out into the wilderness, like the son of the handmaid, to perish, or,
like him, escape only by a miracle. At that hour, perhaps, there were
revels in the house of my fathers, while their descendant was wandering on
a hill-side, in the midst of hostile armies, exposed to the chances of the
conflict, and possibly only measuring with his pace the extent of his
grave. But while I was thus sinking in heart, my hand, in making some
unconscious gesture, struck the badge of Frederic's order on my bosom.
What trifles change the current of human thoughts! That star threw more
light over my darkness than the thousand constellations that studded the
vault above my head. Success, honours, and public name, filled my mind. I
saw all things, events, and persons through a brilliant haze of hope; and
determining to follow fortune wherever she might lead me, abjured all
thoughts of calamity in my unfriended, yet resolute career. Is it to
consider the matter too curiously, to conceive that the laws of nature
affect the mind? or that the spirit of man resembles an instrument, after
all--an Aeolian harp, which owes all its pulses to the gusts that pass
across its strings, and in which it simply depends upon the stronger or
the feebler breeze, whether it shall smile with joyous and triumphant
chords, or sink into throbs and sounds of sorrow?

The galloping of horses roused me. It was Guiscard with an escort. "What!
not in your bed yet?" was his hurried salutation. "So much the better; you
will have a showy despatch to send to England to-night. Clairfait has just
outdone himself. He found that the French were retreating, and he followed
them without loss of time. His troops had been so dispersed by the service
of the day, that he could collect but fifteen hundred hussars; and with
these he gallantly set forth to pick up stragglers. His old acquaintance,
Chazot, whom he had beaten the day before, was in command of a rearguard
of ten thousand men. His fifteen hundred brave fellows were now exposed to
ruin; and doubtless, if they had exhibited any show of retreating, they
must have been ruined. But here Clairfait's _a la Turque_ style was
exactly in place. He ordered that not a shot should be fired, but that the
spur and sabre should do the business; and at once plunged into the mass
of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. In fiv