"You would have managed it somehow, I am sure," Thirza said confidently. "After getting out of that strong fortress, it would be nothing to get out of Bohemia into Saxony."
"We have not congratulated you yet," the countess said, "upon your last promotion. Lieutenant Lindsay came over to tell us about it, and how you had gained it. Of course we were greatly pleased, although grieved to hear that you had been made prisoner. We wondered whether, at the time you were captured, you had any of the
letters I had written with you, and whether they would come in useful.
"It did not even occur to me that you would have called upon Count Platurn, my cousin. I thought that you might be detained at Prague, but Vienna is the last place where we should have pictured you. Had we known that you had been sent to Spielberg, I think we should have given up all hope of seeing you again, until you were exchanged; for I have heard that it is one of the strongest of the Austrian fortresses.
"I do hope, Captain Drummond, we shall see a great deal of you this winter. There will not be many gaieties, though no doubt there will be some state balls; but there will be many little gatherings, as usual, among ourselves, and we shall count upon you to attend them always, unless you are detained on service. We learn that it is probable your king will pass the whole of the winter here."
"We will send your horse down to you today," the count said. "You will find him in good condition. He has been regularly exercised."
"Thank you very much, count. I wrote to you before I started, but I have had no opportunity of thanking you, personally, for those splendid animals. Sorry as I was to lose the horse I rode at Lobositz, I congratulated myself that I was not riding one of yours."
"I should have had no difficulty in replacing him, Captain Drummond," the count said with a smile. "The least we can do is to keep you in horse flesh while the war lasts; which I hope will not be very long, for surely your king can never hope to make head against the forces that will assail him in the spring, but will be glad to make peace on any terms."
"No doubt he would be glad to, count; but as his enemies propose to divide his dominions among them, it is not very clear what terms he could make. But though I grant that, on paper, the odds against him is enormous, I think that you will see there will be some hard fighting yet, before Prussia is partitioned."
"Perhaps so," the count replied; "but surely the end must be the same. You know I have been a strong opponent of the course taken by the court here. Saxony and Prussia, as Protestant countries, should be natural allies; and I consider it is infamous that the court, or rather Bruhl, who is all powerful, should have joined in a coalition against Frederick, who had given us no cause of complaint, whatever. My sympathies, then, are wholly with him; but I can see no hope, whatever, of his successfully resisting this tremendous combination."
"Various things might happen, count. The Empresses of Russia or Austria or the Pompadour might die, or the allies might quarrel between themselves. England may find some capable statesman, who will once again get an army together and, joined perhaps by the Netherlands, give France so much to do that she will not be able to give much help to her allies."
"Yes, all these things might happen; but Frederick's first campaign has been, to a great extent, a failure. It is true that he has established Saxony as his base, but the Saxon troops will be of no advantage to him. He would have acted much more wisely had he, on their surrender, allowed them to disband and go to their homes.. Many then might have enlisted voluntarily. The country would not have had a legitimate grievance, and the common religious tie would soon have turned the scale in favour of Prussia; who, as all see, has been driven to this invasion by our court's intrigues with Austria. Had he done this he could have marched straight to Prague, have overrun all Bohemia, established his headquarters there, and menaced Vienna itself in the spring."
"Looking at it coolly, that might have been the best way, count; but a man who finds that three or four of his neighbours have entered into a plot to attack his house, and seize all his goods, may be pardoned if he does not at first go the very wisest way to work."
The count laughed.
"I hope that the next campaign will turn out differently; but I own that I can scarce see a possibility of Prussia, alone, making head against the dangers that surround her."
The winter passed quietly. There were fetes, state balls, and many private entertainments; for while all Europe was indignant, or pretended to be so, at the occupation of Saxony, the people of that country were by no means so angry on their own account. They were no more heavily taxed by Frederick than they were by their own court and, now that the published treaty between the Confederates had made it evident that the country, without its own consent, had been deeply engaged in a conspiracy hostile to Prussia, none could deny that Frederick was amply justified in the step he had taken.