“I thank you, indeed,” Malcolm replied.  “It will of all things be the most pleasant; the doctor has told me that I shall not be fit for duty until the spring, and I have been wondering how ever I should be able to pass the time until then.”

“Then we will be off without a minute’s delay,” the count said.  “I sent off the litter last night and started myself at daybreak, promising the countess to be back with you ere nightfall, so we have no time to lose.”

The news soon spread that Malcolm Graheme was about to leave the camp, and many of the Scottish officers came in to say adieu to him; but time pressed, and half an hour after the arrival of the count he started for Leipzig with Malcolm in a litter swung between two horses.  As they travelled at a foot pace Malcolm did not find the journey uneasy, but the fresh air and motion soon made him drowsy, and he was fast asleep before he had left the camp an hour, and did not awake until the sound of the horses’ hoofs on stone pavements told him that they were entering the town of Leipzig.

A few minutes later he was lying on a couch in the comfortable apartments occupied by the count, while the countess with her own hands was administering refreshments to him, and Thekla was looking timidly on, scarce able to believe that this pale and helpless invalid was the stalwart young Scottish soldier of whose adventures she was never weary of talking.

CHAPTER XIX A PAUSE IN HOSTILITIES

Never had Malcolm Graheme spent a more pleasant time than the two months which he passed at Mansfeld.  Travelling by very easy stages there he was so far convalescent upon his arrival that he was able to move about freely and could soon ride on horseback.  For the time the neighbourhood of Mansfeld was undisturbed by the peasants or combatants on either side, and the count had acted with such vigour against any parties of brigands and marauders who might approach the vicinity of Mansfeld, or the country under his control, that a greater security of life and property existed than in most other parts of Germany.  The ravages made by war were speedily effaced, and although the peasants carried on their operations in the fields without any surety as to who would gather the crops, they worked free from the harassing tyranny of the petty bands of robbers.

As soon as he was strong enough Malcolm rode with the count on his visits to the different parts of his estates, joined in several parties got up to hunt the boar in the hills, or to make war on a small scale against the wolves which, since the outbreak of the troubles, had vastly increased in number, committing great depredations upon the flocks and herds, and rendering it dangerous for the peasants to move between their villages except in strong parties.