"Good God!" thought I, "this is no joke, after all. This stupid stable-man
may have loaded his musket. What if it should go off? If I retreat, I must
camp out,--no joke at this season;--rheumatism and a loss of salary, to say
the least. This will never do."
And I screamed,--
"General! General Van Bummel!"
"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.
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