before daylight: everybody knows that it took effect (Hochkirch,
Saturday, 14th October, 1758, 5 A.M. of a misty morning); nobody expects
of an unassisted fellow-creature much light on so doubly dark a thing.
But the truth is, there are ample accounts, exact, though very chaotic;
and the thing, steadily examined, till its essential features
extricate themselves from the unessential, proves to be not quite
so unintelligible, and nothing like so destructive, overwhelming and
ruinous as was supposed.

Daun's plan is very elaborate, and includes a great many combinations;
all his 90,000 to come into it, simultaneously or in succession. But the
first and grandly vital part, mainspring and father to all the rest, is
this: That Daun, in person, after nightfall of Friday, shall, with the
pick of his force, say 30,000 horse and foot, with all their artilleries
and tools, silently quit his now position in front of Hochkirch,
Friedrich's right wing. Shall sweep off, silently to southward and
leftward, by Wuischke; thence westward and northward, by the northern
base of those Devil Mountains, through the shaggy hollows and thick
woods there, hitherto inhabited by Croats only, and unknown to the
Prussians: forward, ever forward, through the night-watches that way;
till he has fairly got to the flank of Hochkirch and Friedrich: Daun to
be standing there, all round from the southern environs of Hochkirch,
westward through the Woods, by Meschwitz, Steindorfel, and even north
to Waditz (if readers will consult their Map), silently enclosing
Friedrich, as in the bag of a net, in this manner;--ready every man and
gun by about four on Saturday morning. Are to wait for the stroke of
five in Hochkirch steeple; and there and then to begin business,--there
first; but, on success THERE, the whole 90,000 everywhere,--and to draw
the strings on Friedrich, and bag and strangle his astonished people and
him.

The difficulty has been to keep it perfectly secret from so vigilant a
man as Friedrich: but Daun has completely succeeded. Perhaps Friedrich's
eyes have been a little dimmed by contempt of Daun: Daun, for the
last two days especially, has been more diligent than ever to palisade
himself on every point; nothing, seemingly, on hand but felling woods,
building abatis, against some dangerous Lion's-spring. They say also,
he detected a traitor in his camp; traitor carrying Letters to Friedrich
under pretence of fresh eggs,--one of the eggs blown