In the morning, the French, who were masters of that spot, though defeated at some distance, came to plunder the slain, and seeing him to appearance almost expiring, one of them was just applying a sword to his breast to destroy the little remainder of life; when, in the critical moment, a cordelier, who attended them, interposed, taking him by his dress for a Frenchman, and said, “Do not kill the poor child.” Our young soldier heard all that passed, though he was not able to speak one word; and opening his eyes made a sign for something to drink. They gave him a sup of some spirituous liquor, which happened to be at hand; from which he said he derived a more sensible refreshment than he could remember from any thing he had tasted either before or since. Then, asking, by signs, the friar to lean down his ear to his mouth, he employed the first efforts of his feeble breath in telling him (what, alas! was a contrived falsehood) that he was nephew to the governor of Huy, a neutral town in the neighbourhood, and that, if they could convey him thither, he did not doubt but his uncle would liberally reward them. He had indeed a friend there, but the relationship was pretended. However, on hearing this, they laid him on a sort of hand-barrow, and sent him with a file of musketeers towards the place; but the men lost their way, and got into a wood towards the evening, in which they were obliged to continue all night. The poor patient’s wound being still undressed, it is not to be wondered at, that by this time it raged violently. The anguish of it engaged him earnestly to beg that they would either kill him outright, or leave him there to die, without the torture of any other motion; and indeed they were obliged to rest for a considerable time on account of their own weariness. Thus he spent the second night in the open air, without any thing more than a common bandage to stanch the blood; and he often mentioned it as a most astonishing providence, that he did not bleed to death. Judging it quite unsafe to attempt carrying him to Huy, whence they were now several miles distant, his convoy took him early in the morning to a convent in the neighbourhood; where he was hospitably received, and treated with great kindness and tenderness. But the cure of his wound was committed to an ignorant barber-surgeon, who lived near the house. The tent which this artist applied, was almost like a peg driven into the wound; yet, by the blessing of God, he recovered in a few months. The lady abbess, who called him her son treated him with the affection and care of a mother. He received a great many devout admonitions from the ladies there, and they would fain have persuaded him to acknowledge so miraculous a deliverance, by embracing the _Catholic Faith_, as they were pleased to call it. But, though no religion lay near his heart, he had too much the spirit of a gentleman, lightly to change that form of religion which he wore loose about him.