"By my soul, Count Tilly, you are a million times too severe," laughed Kœningheim; "I know of no satisfaction equalling that with which a stout fellow, who had done his service in battle duly, basks in the smiles of some kind beauty." "Tis the mere fanfaronade of Don Quixote, this--but, hark! do you not hear something?" "I do; what the devil can it be?" said Count Kœningheim, as a very palpable sound of mastication came from below the vast tester-bed where Dandy Dreghorn had ensconced himself, and where, I had no doubt, he was satisfying his never-ending appetite with some of the provision saved over our dinner. "Devil take thee after, glutton!" thought I; "for if taken now, the cord will be thy doom." "This old house must be full of rats," said Tilly. "Count, I will thank you to turn that portrait to the wall. I hate to sleep among portraits of the dead, they have such a ghostly look in their staring eyes, and that old dame in her coif is like a corpse in a winding-sheet--ah, thank you!" So this old Tartar, who fought afterwards at Leipzig, who stormed Feldberg, exterminated the Scottish garrison at Brandenburg, ravaged the margraviate of Anspach and the banks of the Danube--trembled at the sight of an old picture! "Ay, ay!" he resumed with a yawn, as the portrait was turned; "women are strange and capricious animals. I have known one love to death a man, whom every other woman--yea, and every other man, too--detested. Now, how do you account for that, Count Albert? Obstinacy--I tell you, rank obstinacy!" "Nay, general," yawned the aide, behind his hat, with the air of a man who was excessively tired; "there is always a cause for love." "A cause, but not a reason. Women and wine make fools of our finest men." "Surely it is better to be fooled by a pretty woman than a paltry wine-pot." "But I will have my soldiers fooled by neither," said Tilly, striking his withered hand upon the table. "I am a priest, and, though a soldier, know of such matters only by name. But hence with this rubbish. What is the strength of your regiment, count?" "Eight hundred under baton, your excellency." "Any married men?" "Not one." "Good! when Reitres marry they should be struck off the muster roll. Yet I could have sworn I saw some of your fellows on the march yesterday, with women _en croupe_ behind them." "Only ammunition-wives, your excellency." "Ah! I have heard that there are some thorough-bred rascals in the regiment." "The fact is, general, that Stalhofen's troop is composed, like the honourable regiment of Merodé, entirely of thieves from Vienna." "Diavolo! dost thou say so! Then the sacking of the Danish towns will suit their humour to a hair, without fear of the gallows. Ah! wait till we reach Kiobenhafen!" The count uttered a shout of laughter; Tilly added one of his frightful grins, and rubbing his lean brown hands, said--