"
"Are you the English officer and soldier who left Dort this
afternoon?" one of the men said. "We saw you come down to the quay
with Mynheer Von Duyk and his daughter. Our boat lay next to the
boat you went by."
"That is so," Hugh said. "Are you going to Bergen? We have enough
dollars left to pay our passage."
"You would be welcome in any case," the boatman said. "Hans
Petersen is not a man to bargain with shipwrecked men. But go
below. There is a fire there. I will lend you some dry clothes, and
a glass of hot schnapps will warm your blood again."
Arrived at Bergen, one of the boatmen, at Rupert's request, went up
into the town, and returned with a merchant of ready-made clothes,
followed by his servant bearing a selection of garments such as
Rupert had said that they would require, and in another half hour,
after a handsome present to the boatmen, Rupert and Hugh landed,
dressed in the costume of a Dutch gentleman and burgher
respectively. Their first visit was to an armourer's shop, where
Hugh was provided with a sword, in point of temper and make fully
equal to that with which he had so reluctantly parted. Then, hiring
horses, they journeyed by easy stages to Huy, a town on the Meuse,
six leagues above Liege, which Marlborough, again forbidden by the
Dutch deputies to give battle when he had every prospect of a great
victory, was besieging.
The capture of the fortress, and subsequently of Limberg, was all
the campaign of 1703 effected; whereas, had the English commander
been allowed to have his way, the great results which were not
obtained until after three years' further fighting might at once
have been gained.
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