ossed by this time?--said Brook, hereabouts a mere
fringe of quagmires and marshy pools, is our extreme boundary on the
west or right; Brook of Brtlinka (unluckily NOT wall of the Deer-park)
bounds us eastward, or on our left, Prince Karl, drawn up by this time,
is in two lines, cavalry on right and left, but rather in bent order;
bent towards us at both ends (being dainty of his ground, I suppose);
and comes on in hollow-crescent form;--which is not reckoned orthodox by
military men. What all these Villages, human individuals and terrified
deer, are thinking, I never can conjecture! Thick-soled peasants,
terrified nursing-mothers: Better to run and hide, I should say; mount
your garron plough-horses, hide your butter-pots, meal-barrels; run at
least ten miles or so!--

It is now past seven, a hot May morning, the Austrians very near;--and
yonder, of a surety, is his Majesty coming. Majesty has marched since
four; and is here at his time, loaves and all. His men rank at once in
the corner left for them; one of his horse-generals, Lehwald, is sent to
the left, to put straight what my be awry there (cannot quite do it, he
either);--and the attack by Buddenhrock, who secretly outflanks here on
the right, this shall at once take effect. No sooner has his Majesty
got upon the little eminence or rising ground, and scanned the Austrian
lines for an instant or two, than his cannon-batteries awaken here;
give the Austrian horse a good blast, by way of morning salutation and
overture to the concert of the day. And Buddenbrock, deploying under
cover of that, charges, "first at a trot, then at a gallop," to see what
can be done upon them with the white weapon. Old Uuddenbrock, surely,
did not himself RIDE in the charge? He is an old man of seventy; has
fought at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, nay at Steenkirk, and been run through
the body, under Dutch William; is an old acquaintance of Charles XII.s
even; and sat solemnly by Friedrich Wilhelm's coffin, after so much
attendance during life. The special leader of the charge was Bredow;
also a veteran gentleman, but still only in the fifties; he, I conclude,
made the charge; first at a trot, then at a gallop,--with swords
flashing hideous, and eyebrows knit.

"The dust was prodigious," says Friedrich, weather being dry and ground
sandy; for a space of time you could see nothing but one huge whirlpool
of dust, with the gleam of steel flickering madly in it: however,
Buddenbrock, outflanking