However desirous Marshal Villars might be to fight, my Lord Duke did not seem disposed to indulge him this campaign.  Last year his Grace had been all for the Whigs and Hanoverians; but finding, on going to England, his country cold towards himself, and the people in a ferment of High Church loyalty, the Duke comes back to his army cooled towards the Hanoverians, cautious with the Imperialists, and particularly civil and polite towards the Chevalier de St. George.  ’Tis certain that messengers and letters were continually passing between his Grace and his brave nephew, the Duke of Berwick, in the opposite camp.  No man’s caresses were more opportune than his Grace’s, and no man ever uttered expressions of regard and affection more generously.  He professed to Monsieur de Torcy, so Mr. St. John told the writer, quite an eagerness to be cut in pieces for the exiled Queen and her family; nay more, I believe, this year he parted with a portion of the most precious part of himself—­his money—­which he sent over to the royal exiles.  Mr. Tunstal, who was in the Prince’s service, was twice or thrice in and out of our camp; the French, in theirs of Arlieu and about Arras.  A little river, the Canihe I think ’twas called, (but this is writ away from books and Europe; and the only map the writer hath of these scenes of his youth, bears no mark of this little stream,) divided our pickets from the enemy’s.  Our sentries talked across the stream, when they could make themselves understood to each other, and when they could not, grinned, and handed each other their brandy-flasks or their pouches of tobacco.  And one fine day of June, riding thither with the officer who visited the outposts, (Colonel Esmond was taking an airing on horseback, being too weak for military duty,) they came to this river, where a number of English and Scots were assembled, talking to the good-natured enemy on the other side.

Esmond was especially amused with the talk of one long fellow, with a great curling red moustache, and blue eyes, that was half a dozen inches taller than his swarthy little comrades on the French side of the stream, and being asked by the Colonel, saluted him, and said that he belonged to the Royal Cravats.

From his way of saying “Royal Cravat,” Esmond at once knew that the fellow’s tongue had first wagged on the banks of the Liffey, and not the Loire; and the poor soldier—­a deserter probably—­did not like to venture very deep into French conversation, lest his unlucky brogue should peep out.  He chose to restrict himself to such few expressions in the French language as he thought he had mastered easily; and his attempt at disguise was infinitely amusing.  Mr. Esmond whistled Lillibullero, at which Teague’s eyes began to twinkle, and then flung him a dollar, when the poor boy broke out with a “God bless—­that is, Dieu benisse votre honor,” that would infallibly have sent him to the provost-marshal had he been on our side of the river.