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