Mr. Volunteer Ray saw much more of these things than ever
I did, and the curious reader may turn to his fat, little, brown volume
for particulars. He was on the other side, and is too partial for a
perfect historiographer, but the account of things is there, and
reasonably well done too. But as what happened to Margaret, the Colonel,
and me, happened because of the campaign of the rival armies, I must boil
down what the Colonel told me if I am to make my tale clear. The Colonel,
to his credit, as I think, was so enthusiastic over all matters military
that he was rather long-winded in his account, and, in like fashion with
our housewifely Kate, it behoves me, so to speak, to make a jar of jelly
out of a pan of fruit, which is easier done with crab-apples than words.
According to the Colonel, one of the master maxims of the military art
is, "Find out what the enemy thinks you are going to do, and then don't do
it." My Lord George Murray, the Prince's chief adviser in military
matters, had acted on this plan, and had given the go-by to the Duke of
Cumberland in grand style. At Macclesfield, the traveller to London had
choice of two high roads, one through Leek and Derby, and the other
through Congleton and Stafford.
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