Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/121

 "An healthy well-made man of my age had no need to be uneasy about getting into the service of any foreign power. I had taken a liking to the life of a soldier, and found soon an opportunity of enlisting under the banners of Austria."

"A few days after I had began my peregrination, I met with a recruiting officer of that country, who proposed me to enter into the Austrian service, but, being grown wiser by experience, I at first feigned to dislike the military profession, and succeeded so well, that the officer at last threw a hundred ducats upon the table, assuring me, upon his salvation, that he never had paid such a price to a recruit."

"Now I thought it high time to strain the strings a little lower, agreed to his terms, and told him, that I had been serjeant in the Hn service: Having given him a specimen of my skill in penmanship, I requested him to recommend me to his commanding officer: