But this state of almost nervous torture was as brief as it was painful, and my faculties became suddenly clear. The service of outposts was a branch of soldiership, at that period, wholly unpractised by the British troops; but I had seen it already on its most perfect scale in the Prussian retreat, which I and my hussars had our share in covering. My first step was to warn my soldiers and the dragoons of the probability of attack, and my second to call for a favourite quadrille, in which I saw all our guests busily engaged before I left the chateau. My next was to repeat my Prussian lesson in reconnoitring all the avenues to the house. This, which ought to have been our first act on taking possession, had been neglected, in the common belief that the enemy were in full retreat. The gallant captain of dragoons prepared to take a gallop at the head of a party along the _chaussée_, and ascertain whether there were any symptoms of movement along the road. He mounted and was gone. Posting the dragoons in the farm-yard, I went to the front to make such preparations as the time might allow for the enemy. Like the greater number of the Flemish chateaux, it was approached by a long avenue lined with stately trees; but it wanted the customary canal, or the fosse, which, however detestable as an accompaniment to the grounds in peace, makes a tolerable protection in times of war, at least from marauding parties. All was firm, grand, and open, except where the garden walls and hedges of the lawn shut it in. As the avenue was the only approach accessible to cavalry, and as this was the force which would probably be used for a _coup-de-main_, if it were to be attempted at all, I set all hands to work to secure it. Wild as the night was, my men wielded the spade and mattock with good will; and we had completed a trench of some feet deep and wide, half across the road, when I caught the trampling of cavalry at a distance. My chagrin was irrepressible; the enemy would be upon us before we had got through our work, and we must be taken or fly. My men worked vigorously; but the cavalry were upon us--and to my utter astonishment and infinite relief, our labours produced a roar of laughter. The party were our dragoons, who had looked for the French advance in vain, and were now amusing themselves with our waste of toil. We forgave them their jest; they passed, and we prepared to follow to our quarters. But still the French officer's report haunted me; the precision of its terms, and the feasibility of the enterprise itself, struck with new force; and even after I had given the word to move, I halted the men, and climbing a little pleasure turret by the side of the avenue, gave a parting glance round the horizon. Nothing was to be seen. The night was dark as a dungeon, and I prepared to descend, when at that moment the distant sound of a trumpet broke on the air. I listened, and thought that I recognised the French call for cavalry to saddle and mount.