With Frederick the Great: A Story of the Seven Years' War by G. A. Henty (best classic romance novels txt) 📗

Lacy at once marched off with all speed towards Torgau; while Tottleben and the Russians made for Frankfort-on-Oder, the Cossacks committing terrible depredations on the march.

The king halted when he heard that Berlin had been evacuated. He was deeply grieved and mortified that his capital should have been in the hands of the invaders, even for three days; and his own loss, from the sacking of Potsdam and other palaces, was very heavy. However, he paid the ransom from his own pocket, and bitterly determined to get even with the enemy, before winter came on.

While Hulsen was away, the Confederate army had captured all the strongholds in Saxony. Daun had, as usual, advanced with his sixty thousand men, and intended to winter in Saxony; but before he could get there, Frederick had dashed south and recaptured Wittenberg and Leipzig, crossed the Elbe, and driven the scattered corps of the Confederate army before him. Prince Eugene had also hurried that way, and defeated his brother, the reigning Duke of Wuertemberg.

Daun moved with the intention of aiding the Confederate army, but before he could reach them Hulsen had driven them across the mountain range into Bohemia, and fell back towards Torgau.

Long before this Fergus had received a reply, from his mother, to his letter announcing the glad news of the restoration of the estate:

"It will be doubly dear to me," she said, "as having been won back by your own exertions and bravery. These four years have been an anxious time, indeed, for me, Fergus; but the thought that you are restored to your own, as the result of what you have done, makes up for it all. I quite see that as long as the war continues you cannot, with honour, leave the king; but I cannot think that this war will go on very much longer, and I can wait patiently for the end.

"And, Fergus, I am not quite sure that the end will be that you will quietly settle down in the glens. A mother's eye is sharp, and it seems to me that that young countess near Dresden is a very conspicuous figure in your letters. During the four years that you have been out, you have not mentioned the name of any lady but her and her mother; and you always speak of going back there, as if it were your German home. That is natural enough, after the service that you have rendered them. Still, 'tis strange that you should apparently have made the acquaintance of no other ladies. I don't think that you have written a single letter, since you have been away, in which you have not said something about this Saxon count and his family.

"However, even if it should be so, Fergus, I should not be discontented. It is only natural that you should sooner or later marry; and although I would rather that it had been into a Scotch family, it is for you to choose, not me. I am grateful already, very grateful for the kindness the family have shown you; and am quite inclined to love this pretty young countess, if she, on her part, is inclined to love you. I don't think I could have said so quite as heartily, before I received your last letter; for I had a great fear that you might marry and settle down, altogether, in Germany; but now that the estate is yours, and you are the head of your clan, I feel sure that you will, at any rate, spend a part of your time among your own people."

A second letter reached Fergus at the beginning of October; in answer to his from the camp in front of Dresden, in the middle of July, which had been delayed much on its way, owing to the rapid marches of the army, until it had shaken itself free from its pursuers after the battle of Liegnitz. It began:

"I congratulate you, my dear Fergus, congratulate you with all my heart; and if there is just a shadow of regret that you should not have married and settled here entirely, it is but a small regret, in proportion to the pleasure I feel. It is not even reasonable, for when I consented to your going abroad to take service in Prussia, I knew that this would probably end in your settling down there altogether; for it was hardly likely that you could win a fortune that would admit of your coming back to live here.

"Of course, had your estate at that time been restored to you, you would probably not have gone at all; or if you had done so, it would have been but to stay for a few years, and see service under your cousin Keith, and then return to live among your own people. As it was, there was no reason why you should greatly wish to return to Scotland, where you were landless, with no avenues open to employment. However, what you tell me, that the count and countess are willing that you should spend some months here, every year, is far better than I could have expected or even hoped; and, as you may imagine, quite reconciles me to the thought of your marrying abroad.

"In all other respects, nothing could be more satisfactory than what you tell me. Your promised wife must be a charming young lady, and her father and mother the kindest of people. Of course, your worldly prospects will be vastly beyond anything that even my wildest dreams have ever pictured for you, and in this respect all my cares for you are at an end.

"It will be delightful, indeed, to look forward to your homecoming every year; and I consider myself in every way a fortunate woman. I am sure that I shall come to love your Thirza very dearly.

"The only question is, when is the first visit to take place? Everyone says that it does not seem that the war can go on very much longer; and that, wonderful 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 taking young to the business of soldiering abroad. Bravery is excellent in its way; but youth and bravery, combined with good looks, are irresistible to the female mind. I am heartily glad that one of our kin should have won something more than six feet of earth by his sword.

"Count Eulenfurst is one of the few men everyone speaks well of. There is no man in Saxony who stands higher. In any other country he would have been the leading statesman of his time, but the wretched king, and his still more wretched minister, held in disfavour all who opposed their wanton extravagance and their dangerous plans.

"It is an honour indeed to be connected with such a family, putting aside all question of money; but indeed, in this respect nothing could be more satisfactory. His daughter is the sole heiress of his wide estates, and as her husband you will have a splendid position.

"I am very glad, lad, that the count has no objection to your passing a portion of your time in Scotland. They say, you know, that much as Scotchmen boast of their love of their country, they are always ready to leave it to better themselves; and that it is very seldom they ever return to it. Such was, unhappily, the case with my brother; such will probably be the case with myself; but I am glad that you will be an exception, and that you will still keep up your connection with your old home.

"I hope, lad, that you will have more than one son. The first, of course, will make Saxony his home; but bring up the second as a Scotchman, send him home to be educated, and let him succeed you in the glens. If he has the family instinct for fighting, let him go into the British army--he can go into no better--but let your people have some one who will be their own laird, and whose interests will be identified with their own."

Fergus smiled at the old man's earnestness.

"That is rather looking ahead, sir," he said. "However, it is certainly what I should like to do, myself; and if, as you say, I have more than one son, I will certainly give the second the training you suggest, and make a Scotchman of him. Certainly, if he has fighting instincts, he will see that he will have more opportunities of active service, in the British army, than he could have in that of Saxony; which has been proved unable to stand alone, and can only act as a small ally to either Prussia or Austria. Even putting aside my nationality, I would rather be fighting under Clive, in India, than in any service in the world--even in that of Prussia."

"You are right, lad. Since the days of Marlborough, people have begun to think that the British were no longer a fighting people; but the way in which they have wrested Canada from the French, and achieved marvels in India, to say nothing of the conduct of their infantry at Minden, shows that the qualities of the race are unchanged; and some day they will astonish the world again, as they have done several times in their history."

The king soon heard the news from the Earl, and one evening said to Fergus:

"So, as the Earl Marischal tells me, you have found time, Colonel Drummond, for love making. I thought, that day I went to express my regrets for the outrage that had been committed at Count Eulenfurst's, that it would make a pretty romance if the young lady who received me should take a fancy to you; which was not altogether unlikely, after the gallant manner in which you had saved them all from those rascals of mine; and when you told me, at Dresden, that they had been nursing you, the idea again occurred to me. Well, I am glad you have done so well for yourself. As a king, I rejoice that one who has fought so bravely should obtain a meet reward; and as one who dabbles in poetry, the romance of the thing is very pleasant to me.

"But I am not to lose your services, I hope?"

"No, sire. So long as the war goes on, I shall continue to serve your majesty to the best of my powers."

The king nodded.

"It is what I should have expected,