"
The six months at home passed rapidly. Rupert fell into his old
ways; rode and hawked, and occasionally paid state visits to the
gentry of the neighbourhood, by whom, as one of Marlborough's
soldiers, he was made much of.
"I think this soldiering life makes one restless, Master Rupert,"
Hugh said one day when the time was approaching for their start. "I
feel a longing to be with the troop again, to be at work and
doing."
"I feel the same, Hugh; but you would not find it so, I think, if
you had come home for good. Then you would have your regular
pursuits on the farm, while now you have simply got tired of having
no work to do. When the war is over, and we have done soldiering,
you will settle down on one of the farms of the Chace. Madame says
you shall have the first that falls vacant when you come home. Then
you will take a wife, and be well content that you have seen the
world, and have something to look back upon beyond a six miles
circuit of Derby."
The next campaign may be passed over briefly. The parsimony of
England and Holland, and the indifference of Germany, spoiled all
the plans of Marlborough, and lost the allies all the benefits of
the victory of Blenheim. The French, in spite of their heavy
losses, took the field in far greater force than the allies; and
instead of the brilliant offensive campaign he had planned,
Marlborough had to stand on the defensive.
The gallantry of his English troops, and the effect which Blenheim
had produced upon the morale of the French, enabled him to hold the
ground won, and to obtain several minor successes; one notably at
the Dyle, where Villeroi's troops were driven out of lines
considered impregnable, but where the pusillanimity and ill will of
the Dutch generals prevented any substantial results being
obtained; but no important action took place, and the end of 1705
found things in nearly the same state that 1704 had left them.
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