A day or two later the Duke came to inspect the regiment to which our boys belonged, just as he was inspecting others.  The men with their officers were drawn up, and the General’s eyes ran along the line.  Presently he spoke a word to the colonel in command of the regiment, and, to their no small confusion, Lieutenant Blackett and Cornet Fairburn were called out to the front.

“How old are you?” the Duke inquired, as the youths saluted.

“Nearly twenty, may it please your Grace.”  “Just turned nineteen, by your Grace’s leave.”  Such were the replies.

“Hum!” said the Duke thoughtfully, “you shall have your promotion in due course.  You are young, and can afford to wait for it.”  This to Matthew.  “As for you”—­turning to George—­“you have fairly earned your lieutenancy.”  And he turned away.

CHAPTER IX

ANNUS MIRABILIS

“Don’t imagine, my dear lad, that they are going to make captains of mere boys like ourselves.”  This was the reply, given with a hearty laugh, when George Fairburn, after receiving his friend’s warm congratulations at the close of the inspection, was condoling with Matthew on his failure to get his step.  “A captain at twenty is somewhat unlikely,” Blackett went on.  “I suppose so,” replied George.  “After all we are only glorified schoolboys, some of our fellows tell us.  Yet you look three-and-twenty, if a day.  However, all will come in time, let us hope.”

The brilliant operations on the defence line proved to be but the prelude to Marlborough’s second great life disappointment.  He saw his chance.  He had but to follow up his success by a decisive victory over Villeroy’s forces, and the way lay open to Paris.  His hopes ran high.

Alas! the Dutch had to be reckoned with.  Eager to follow up his advantage, Marlborough called for assistance, immediate and effective, from them; in vain; the assistance did not come, or came too late.  With what help he could get from the Dutch, nevertheless, he went forward to the Dyle.  Here again the Dutch balked him, raising objections to the crossing of that river.  In despair the Duke gathered his troops, as it happened, strangely enough, on the very spot where, a hundred years later, another great Duke gained his most famous victory over the French.  Could Marlborough have but had his chance with Villeroy in that spot, there is little doubt that Europe would have seen an earlier Waterloo.

But it was not to be.  Just as the Margrave of Baden had stopped his advance along the Moselle into France the previous year, so now the supineness and factious opposition of the Dutch prevented Marlborough from dealing the French power a crushing blow.  Deeply disgusted, he threatened once more to resign his command.  “Had I had the same power I had last year,” he wrote, “I could have won a greater victory than that of Blenheim.”  It was a bitter trial for him.