"My old friend Middleton must have changed sorely to have become the Tartar and martinet you describe him," said Warriston; "if so, he would have suited old Frederick of Prussia to a hair." "You told us to remind you of a story which was worth telling." "About Frederick and my father?" "Exactly," said Quentin. "And how he and I came to be in the Dutch service. Well, the story has something droll in it, and though some may have heard the affair, as it found its way into the newspapers, I shall give you the version which I gave to Mr. Thomas Holcroft, when he was preparing that very light and most readable work on the Life, Times, and Works of the Great Frederick, in thirteen huge royal octavo volumes." "Then it is to be found there?" "On the contrary, he omitted it, not considering it quite a feather in his hero's cap." "And the story----" "Occurred in this way." But the story with which Warriston beguiled a few miles of the morning march deserves, perhaps, a chapter to itself. CHAPTER XXV. THE PRUSSIAN GRENADIER. "There was a criminal in a cart A-going to be hanged; Respite to him was granted, And cart and crowd did stand, To know if he would marry a wife Or rather choose to die; ''Tother's the worst, drive on the cart,' The criminal did reply."--_Old Ballad._ You have all heard I presume (the captain began), of the singular predilection which the late King of Prussia had for tall swinging grenadiers, how he raked all Germany and Pomerania to procure them, and had them formed into corps and companies, sparing nothing in their equipment to add to their vast stature and warlike aspect--giving them the highest of heels to their boots, the tallest bearskin caps, and the longest and largest feathers that could be worn with safety to the neck and vertebral column. Those cross-belted Goliaths were quite a passion with him, and the first battalion of his Foot Guards, which my worthy father had the honour to command, was, no doubt, the most gigantic regiment in the Prussian army, perhaps in Europe; and to see its twelve companies of giants marching past in review order, and in open column, on that little meadow near Halle, which, from the time of the old Dessauer,* has been the training ground of the Prussian infantry, was truly a sight to marvel at and remember. * Prince Leopold, of Anhalt Dessau, born there in 1676, the bravest of three generations who held the highest rank in the Prussian army.--_General Seydlitz's Life_. The Battalion Von Warriston was, to Frederick the Great, his pet band--the flower and pattern corps of his carefully-trained and well-developed army!