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.

_L'Ec._ Why, as your ladyship remarks, the clouds seem making a sort of
forced march over our heads; but a storm is the mere trifling of nature
in a soldier's estimation; my master and his humble servant have faced a
cannon-ball too frequently, to be disconcerted by a hail-stone.

_Ger._ Then you have often been employed upon dangerous service,
L'Eclair?

_L'Ec._ Hay, I protest, your ladyship must excuse me there; a man has so
much the appearance of boasting, when he becomes the reporter of his own
achievements; I beg leave to refer your ladyship to the gazettes, though
I confess the gazettes do but afford a soup-maigre, whip-syllabub sort
of narrative, accurate enough, perhaps in the main, but plaguily
incommunicative of particulars: for instance, in the recent affair at
Nordlingen, I can defy you to find any mention in the gazette, that the
chevalier Florian charged through a whole regiment of the enemy's
grenadiers