_L'Ec._ Here's a set of rascals! no discipline? no subordination in the house! eh! look to the baggage, curry down my charger! hem! ha! Enter _L'Eclair_. Your ladyship's devoted servant, ever in the foremost rank! never did a nine-pounder traverse the enemy's line with more promptitude than I, Phillippe L'Eclair, unworthy private of the fifth hussars, now fly to cast my poor person at your ladyship's gracious feet. _Ger._ You are very welcome from the wars, L'Eclair, Fame has spoken of you in your absence. _L'Ec._ Fy! my lady, you disorder me at the first charge,--a pestilence now upon that wicked, impertinent gossip, Fame,--will not her everlasting tongue suffer even so poor a fellow as L'Eclair, to escape? 'tis insufferable; may I presume to inquire then, what rumours have reached your ladyship's ear? _Ger._ To a soldier's credit, trust me.--But your master, L'Eclair, where is he? _L'Ec._ Ah! poor gentleman, he's in the rearguard, I left him four leagues off, at the fortress of Huningen, unexpectedly confined by---- _Ger._ Confined! heavens! by what complaint? _L'Ec._ Only the complaint of old age; the general commissioned my master upon his route to deliver some instructions to the superannuated commandant of the fortress; now the old gentleman proving somewhat dull of apprehension, my master though dying of impatience, was constrained to a delay of some extra hours, despatching me, his humble ambassador, forward, to prevent alarms, and promise his arrival at the chateau before midnight. _Ger._ Midnight! so late?--four leagues to travel--alone--his road through an intricate forest, and the sky already seeming to predict a tempest. _L'Ec._ Why, as your ladyship remarks, the clouds seem making a sort of forced march over our heads; but a storm is the mere trifling of nature in a soldier's estimation; my master and his humble servant have faced a cannon-ball too frequently, to be disconcerted by a hail-stone. _Ger._ Then you have often been employed upon dangerous service, L'Eclair?