"As the Herr has been so kind," said he again; "perhaps he will escort Karoline past these troops, so far as the pathway which leads to the little chapel of St. Patto; she has to adorn the altar with flowers for service to-morrow; and, perhaps, she will be safer there, too----" "Than in a village among soldiers--you think right. But you put great trust in me. May I not run off with her?" "I know that the soldiers of King Christian are not like our Imperialists. Ah! Mein Herr, do you imagine I would make such a request of one of them! It would be setting the wolf to guard the lamb. Besides, the Herr has an expression of so much candour." I bowed; for the confidence this stranger placed in me was the highest compliment I ever received. In a little hood and cloak, with a large basket of beautiful flowers on her arm, the jungfer accompanied me through the village, pausing every two or three paces to hearken for the rat-tat of the drums, which, she said, "had ceased." I walked on by her side, well satisfied with myself; for being well supped, having a good sword in my belt, and a purse in my pocket, I felt that I could have faced the devil; and strutted on, chatting as gaily to my pretty companion as if I had been lord of all Lauenburg. At the door of his inn, the host stood watching us until we reached the end of the street, where a little wicket gave admittance to the narrow lane that led to the chapel of St. Patto. There I bade my little devotee adieu, with proper gallantry; and, glad that my brief halt had terminated so pleasantly, walked on quickly by the highway that led to Korslack, a town which lay something less than eighteen of our Scottish miles distant. I resolved to pass beyond it, and not halt again until I reached Bergedorf, in the territory of the quiet and industrious Hamburgers, where I expected to find comparative safety. After the keen and varied excitement of the last day or two, there was something soothing and pleasing in this solitary night march through a strange and foreign country; and, like a kaleidoscope, my mind was full of ever-changing thoughts and figures, as I journeyed on. Midnight came. I had passed through several little villages of grotesque old houses, but they were buried in silence, as their quiet inmates were asleep. Not a sound was heard in them but the occasional bay of a watch-dog, the boom of a stork's wing overhead, or the solemn chime from the ivy-clad spire of an old gothic church; and I reflected with a sigh, on how soon--to-morrow, perhaps--fierce Tilly's lawless Croats and Merodé's musketeers would carry rapine, murder, and a thousand crimes through these rural and sequestered districts.