conceived of the service, its
chivalry, and its fame.

"I wrote to Walstein, telling him that if I could not obtain my freedom
otherwise, I would desert. A copy of my letter, I know not how obtained,
was sent to my Colonel, and I was sentenced to a month's arrest, a week
of which I was to pass in irons. They now made me a rebel in earnest,
and I came out of the 'stockbaus' more insubordinate than I went in. It
would weary, and it would fret you, dearest sister, were I to tell all
the petty schemes I formed of resistance, and all the petty tyrannies
they brought down upon my head; the taunt of my 'gentle blood,' my
'noble origin,' my 'high descent,' being added to every cruelty they
practised, till I was ready to curse the very name that associated me
with this bitterness. They told me that a second desertion was always
punished with death, and that even the attempt was accounted as the act.
I resolved, then, to finish with this dreary existence, and I wrote a
farewell letter to poor Nelly, telling her that, as I was certain of
being taken, these were the last lines I should ever write. In this I
repeated all I have now told you, and a vast deal more, of the hardships
and indignities I had endured; and this, like my former letter, was sent
back to me. Then came three months more of durance, after which I came
out what they deemed a good soldier."

"Subdued at last!" sighed Kate.

"Not a bit of it. Like a Banat charger I had a kick in me, after all
their teaching and training. I found out the lance-corporal of our
company was the man who had discovered my letters. I sent him a
challenge, fought, and wounded him. Here was another offence; and now
the Minister of War was to deal with me himself; and I half fancied they
would be glad to get rid of me. Far from it The 'stockhaus' again, and
short fetters, my wrist to my ankle, were the sovereign remedies for all
misdeeds. In this plight I made my entrance into Vienna."

"Did you never think of Uncle Stephen all this while, Frank,----never
appeal to him?"

"Ay, Kate, and what was worse, _he_ thought of _me_, for he had my
punishment-rolls brought to him; and although from some good-natured
interference they did not forward more than a fourth of my misdeeds,
there was enough to condemn me in his eyes, and he wrote, 'No favor to
this cadet,' on the back of my certificate."

"Poor boy! so friendless and deserted."

"Persecuted by creditors, too," continued Frank, as, exc