as the king's resistance to so
many enemies has been, it cannot continue. However, from what you
say of his determination, and the spirit of the people, I cannot
think that the end can be so near as people think. They have been
saying nearly the same thing for the last three years; and yet,
though everything seemed as dark as possible, he always extricated
himself somehow from his difficulties.

"Besides, his enemies must at last get tired of a war in which, so
far, they have had more defeats than victories, and have lavished
such enormous sums of money. France has already impoverished
herself, and Russia and Austria must feel the strain, too. In every
church here prayers are offered for the success of the champion of
Protestantism; and I am sure that if he had sent Scottish officers,
as Gustavus Adolphus did, to raise troops in Scotland, he could
have obtained forty or fifty thousand men in a very few weeks, so
excited is everyone over the struggle.

"You would be surprised what numbers of people have called upon me,
to congratulate me upon your rising to be a colonel in Frederick's
army--people I have never seen before; and I can assure you that I
never felt so important a person, even before the evil days of
Culloden. When you come back the whole countryside will flock to
give you welcome."

This letter was a great comfort to Fergus. That his mother would
rejoice at his good fortune, he knew; but he feared that his
marriage with a German lady, whatever her rank, would be a sore
disappointment to her, not so much perhaps for her own sake as for
that of the clansmen.

The English ambassador was no longer with the army. At the fierce
fight of Liegnitz he had been with Frederick, but had passed the
night in his carriage, which was jammed up among the baggage
wagons, and had been unable to extricate himself or to discover how
the battle was going on. Several times the Austrian cavalry had
fallen upon the baggage, and had with great difficulty been beaten
off by its guard; and the discomforts of the time, and the anxiety
through which he had gone, so unhinged him that he was unable to
follow Frederick's rapid movements throughout the rest of the
campaign.

Fergus had confided to Earl Marischal Keith, later, his engagement
to the Count Eulenfurst's daughter.

"You are a lucky young dog, Fergus," he said. "My brother and I
came abroad too late for any young countess to fall in love with
us. There is nothing like t