hey led Napoleon to imagine that a large army of Austrians,
Russians, and Prussians was here; and, while he watched them carefully,
they had well-nigh cut him off from his line of retreat. During these
demonstrations on both sides, foraging parties had been sent out from
Gabel, to sweep the neighbouring villages. These our guide had seen,
and one of them he followed so as to become eye-witness to an affair
which it had near a hamlet which we passed. He described the scattering
fire of the jagers, and the occasional dashes of the hussars, with
great animation, though, according to his showing, this, like other
rencounters of the sort, cost more powder than lives.

Having accompanied us at least two German miles,--that is, full ten
miles according to our English mode of computing distances,--the
landlord of the Hernhause stopped short, and prepared to take his
leave. We shook hands warmly, and I thought I heard his voice quiver
when, in return for a cast of flies, he thanked me. Nor must I permit
it to be believed, that the regrets were all on his side. I do not know
when my feelings have been more engaged among strangers, than by the
unaffected kindness of the people of Gabel,--a kindness on which we had
no right to calculate, however much we might be justified in looking
for civility in return for our money.

Once more, then, the world was before us, and seldom has it shone out
beneath the gaze of youth and inexperience more winningly than it did
under the influence of that delicious day. The rain of the preceding
night, and of the early part of the morning, had given to herb and tree
a fresher and a fairer green. The fallows wore no longer a parched-up
and dust-like hue, and the rivulets, swollen but not polluted, retained
their lucid character as they rolled on their way. From brake and bush,
from grove and hedge-row, thousands of unseen choristers filled the air
with melody, and the very oxen and horses, as they dragged their
ploughs, or toiled onwards with their wagons, seemed to acknowledge the
blessed influence which other creatures felt. We sat beneath the shade
of a small plantation to enjoy the scene, and then, with spirits
unconsciously elevated, and hearts not, I trust, insensible to the
glories of nature, and the goodness of nature's God, resumed our
pilgrimage.

Our route lay, throughout the whole of this day's progress, through
green fields, and over narrow footpaths. Not so much as once were we
driven