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as I pranced away, and the sentinels presented arms to me at the
town-gates, felt once more that I was in my proper sphere, and
determined never again to fall from the rank of a gentleman.
I took at first the way towards Bremen, where our army was, and gave
out that I was bringing reports and letters from the Prussian
commandant of Warburg to headquarters; but, as soon as I got out of
sight of the advanced sentinels, I turned bridle and rode into the
Hesse-Cassel territory, which is luckily not very far from Warburg:
and I promise you I was very glad to see the blue-and-red stripes on
the barriers, which showed me that I was out of the land occupied by
our countrymen. I rode to Hof, and the next day to Cassel, giving
out that I was the bearer of despatches to Prince Henry, then on the
Lower Rhine, and put up at the best hotel of the place, where the
field-officers of the garrison had their ordinary. These gentlemen I
treated to the best wines that the house afforded, for I was
determined to keep up the character of the English gentleman, and I
talked to them about my English estates with a fluency that almost
made me believe in the stories which I invented. I was even asked to
an assembly at Wilhelmshohe, the Elector's palace, and danced a
minuet there with the Hofmarshal's lovely daughter, and lost a few
pieces to his excellency the first huntmaster of his Highness.
At our table at the inn there was a Prussian officer who treated me
with great civility, and asked me a thousand questions about
England; which I answered as best I might. But this best, I am bound
to say, was bad enough. I knew nothing about England, and the Court,
and the noble families there; but, led away by the vaingloriousness
of youth (and a propensity which I possessed in my early days, but
of which I have long since corrected myself, to boast and talk in a
manner not altogether consonant with truth), I invented a thousand
stories which I told him; described the King and the Ministers to
him, said the British Ambassador at Berlin was my uncle, and
promised my acquaintance a letter of recommendation to him. When the
officer asked me my uncle's name, I was not able to give him the
real name, and so said his name was O'Grady: it is as good a name as
any other, and those of Kilballyowen, county Cork, are as good a
family as any in the world, as I have heard. As for stories about my
regiment, of these, of course, I had no lack. I wish my other
histories had been equally authentic.
On the morning I left Cassel, my Prussian friend came to me with an
open smiling countenance, and said he, too, was bound for
Dusseldorf, whither I said my route lay; and so laying our horses'
heads together we jogged on. The country was desolate beyond
description. The prince in whose dominions we were was known to be
the most ruthless seller of men in Germany. He would sell to any
bidder, and during the five years which the war (afterwards called
the Seven Years' War) had now lasted, had so exhausted the males of
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