our rivals in the one, and it therefore became incumbent on us to equal or surpass them in the other. Amongst the number of those whose smiles proved magnetic, were the pretty Miss S ___, and her companion Miss N ___. Lord George and myself had just paid them a morning visit. The window of their drawing room overlooked the main street of Ritzbuttle, and while diligently employed in playing the agreeable, I by chance looked out, and was surprised by the sudden appearance of two mounted dragoons, with drawn sabres, dashing down the street, closely followed by others. Accosting Lord George, who was busily engaged in conversation with Miss S ___, I asked ‘where have those German dragoons come from?’ He did not notice the question, and I repeated it. He then turned to look, and his eye glancing on the lengthening column, the truth flashed on his mind. He sprang on his feet, vehemently exclaiming ‘we are surprised, the French are in the town, and we are all taken.’ More appalling words never saluted my ears; nor was a delightful tête-a-tête ever more abruptly, or disagreeably interrupted. We sought instant safety in flight: he one way, I another. My route lay through the garden, terminated by a palisade, which I mounted, and then leaped on what I took to be dry ground, but which proved to be a stagnant ditch, the water of which, evaporated by the summer heat, had left a residuum, which for consistence and odour might be likened to the most unutterable of abominations. I was absolutely so ‘enfoncé’ as to be in danger of suffocation; but by dint of immense exertion I at length succeeded, by the aid of the luxuriant corn which grew on the banks, in extricating myself from this vilest of durances, and creeping forward, I lay down in the midst of the field, listening to the clattering of the horses’ hoofs, as they rang on the pavement; to the shouts of the assailants; and the scattered fire of their carbines and pistols, discharged in exchange for the fire of our out-posts. To describe the train of disagreeable thought, nay of miserable feeling, which occupied my mind at this moment, is quite impossible. A more rapid moral transition from pleasure to pain, from happiness to misery, cannot be imagined. Instead of my day-dreams of victory, of glory, and promotion, Verdun, or Valenciennes, with
