"Silence! or I'll march you to the guard-house," thundered the sentinel.
Luckily the General lay, like Irene, "with casement open to the skies." He heard the noise. I recognized his martial tones. I hurriedly explained my situation. He gave me the word; it was Eugene; countersign, Marlborough. This satisfied the Coach-Cerberus, and I passed into bed without further mishap.
The first sound I heard the next morning was the rat-tat-too of a drum. "There goes that d----d coachman again," I said to myself, and turned over for another nap; but a shrill bugle-call brought me to my seat.
Running to the window, I saw two men on horseback in dragoon equipments. The horses were the artillery-nags of yesterday; the riders, the General and his man-at-all-arms. Hurrying on my clothes, I got out of doors in time to see them go at a gallop across the lawn, leap a low hedge at the end of the grass-plot, and disappear in the orchard. Thither I followed fast to see the sport. They reached the boundary-line of the Van-Bummel estate, wheeled, and turned back on a trot. When the General espied me, he waved his sabre and shouted, "Charge!" They galloped straight at me. I had barely time to dodge behind an apple-tree, when they passed like a whirlwind over the spot I had been standing on, and covered me with dirt from the heels of their horses. I walked back to the house, very much annoyed, as men are apt to be, when they think they have compromised their dignity a little by dodging to escape danger from another's mischief or folly. At breakfast, accordingly, I remonstrated with the chief; but he only laughed, and asked me why I did not form a hollow square and let the front rank kneel and fire.
"As soon as you have finished your coffee," he added, "I will take you into the trenches, and there you will be out of danger."
I could not refuse. The trenches were at the bottom of the garden, near the entrance-drive. I had seen them yesterday, and in my ignorance thought of celery; now, I knew better. This morning, a tent was pitched a few yards from a long low wall of sods; and between the tent and the sods there was a small trench, about large enough to hold draining-tiles. Pointing to the wall, the general said,--