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ke preliminary view of the ground. ... "From Berlin, 20th December, 1741; by Breslau,"--where some pause and correspondence;--"thence on, Neisse way, as far as Lowen [so well known to Friedrich, that Mollwitz night!]. From Berlin to Lowen, Nussler had come in a carriage: but as there was much snow falling, he here took a couple of sledges; in which, along with his attendants, he proceeded some fifty miles, to Jauernik, a stage beyond Neisse, to the southwest. Jauernik is a little Town lying at the foot of a Hill, on the top of which is the Schloss of Johannisberg. Here it began to rain; and the getting up the Hill, on sledges, was a difficult matter. The DROST [Steward] of this Castle was a Nobleman from Brunswick-Luneburg; who, for the sake of a marriage and this Drostship for dowry, had changed from Protestant to Roman Catholic,"--poor soul! "His wife and he were very polite, and showed Nussler a great deal of kindness. Nussler remarked on the left side of this Johannisberg," western side a good few miles off, "the pass which leads from Glatz to Upper and Lower Schlesien,"--where the reader too has been, in that BAUMGARTEN SKIRMISH, if he could remember it,--"with a little Block-house in the bottom," and no doubt Prussian soldiers in it at the moment. "Nussler, intent always on the useful, did not institute picturesque reflections; but considered that his King would wish to have this Pass and Block-house; and determined privately, though it perhaps lay rather beyond the boundary-mark, that his Master must have it when the bargaining should come.... "On the homeward survey of these Borders, Nussler arrived at Steinau [little Village with Schloss, which we saw once, on the march to Mollwitz, and how accident of fire devoured it that night], and at sight of the burnt Schloss standing black there, he remembered with great emotion the Story of Grafin von Callenberg [dead since, with her pistols and brandy-bottle] and of the Grafin's Daughter, in which he had been concerned as a much-interested witness, in old times.... For the rest, the journey, amid ice and snow, was not only troublesome in the extreme, but he got a life-long gout by it [and no profit to speak of]; having sunk, once, on thin ice, sledge and he, into a half-frozen stream, and got wetted to the loins, splashing about in such cold manner,--happily not quite drowned." The indefatigable Nussler; working still, like a very artist, wherever bidden, on wages
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