A skirmish between the French Dragoons and the Prussian Black Hussars had evidently taken place close by this farm; for near it several horses, still accoutred were lying dead among the deep snow, and in some instances we saw spurred boots and ghastly white hands sticking up through it. When we opened the door and entered the lower apartment the reason of the silence within it was at once accounted for, and we saw that which at another time, and to folks less case-hardened than Hob and I, would have been a very appalling spectacle. The house had been pillaged and its usual occupants had fled; but on the table of the principal room lay a dead body muffled in a scarlet cloak, all save the feet (from which the boots had been stolen), and stiffly white and cold they protruded beyond the scarlet covering. In a corner lay a pile of regimental coats, caps, boots, shirts, stockings, waist and shoulder-belts, all spotted, and in some instances soaked with now frozen blood; and there, too, were broken swords, bent bayonets, and wooden canteens piled up by those vile strippers of the dead, who would no doubt return ere long for their plunder, so this was no place for us to linger in. A Prussian Hussar, in the black uniform laced with white of the King's favourite regiment, lay in another corner almost without a wound, yet quite dead, and in a pool of his own blood. A sword-point had grazed his left temple, severing the temporal artery, and he had bled to death, thus his blanched aspect was ghastly in the extreme. "Horrible!" said I, shuddering. "Maist deevilish!" added my companion, "but I've kenned o' waur." Urged I knew not by what motive, for on service the emotion of mere _curiosity_ soon becomes extinct, I turned down the mantle of the dead body which lay on the table, and then imagine my regret and horror on tracing in the glazed eyes, the relaxed jaw, the livid but handsome face, where the black moustache contrasted with its pallor, the Chevalier de Boisguiller, the gay and heedless Frenchman, who now lay stiff and cold in his rich Hussar uniform. He had been shot through the heart, and must have died instantly, as there was not much blood about him, but a fearful expression of agony yet distorted his features. Hob at once recognised him, and said, "He was a braw cheild, this Boygilly; but he has gane oot o' the world noo, and I daursay the damned world will never miss him."