leading up and down on the village green, before the inn door, two
black, glossy, long-tailed, barrel-bellied, thick-flanked,
arch-necked, Roman-nosed Flanders horses, which were the property of
the two gentlemen now taking their ease at the "Bugle Inn." The two
gentlemen were seated at their ease at the inn table, drinking
mountain-wine; and if the reader fancies from the sketch which we
have given of their lives, or from his own blindness and belief in
the perfectibility of human nature, that the sun of that autumn
evening shone upon any two men in county or city, at desk or
harvest, at Court or at Newgate, drunk or sober, who were greater
rascals than Count Gustavus Galgenstein and Corporal Peter Brock, he
is egregiously mistaken, and his knowledge of human nature is not
worth a fig. If they had not been two prominent scoundrels, what
earthly business should we have in detailing their histories? What
would the public care for them? Who would meddle with dull virtue,
humdrum sentiment, or stupid innocence, when vice, agreeable vice,
is the only thing which the readers of romances care to hear?

The little horse-boy, who was leading the two black Flanders horses
up and down the green, might have put them in the stable for any
good that the horses got by the gentle exercise which they were now
taking in the cool evening air, as their owners had not ridden very
far or very hard, and there was not a hair turned of their sleek
shining coats; but the lad had been especially ordered so to walk
the horses about until he received further commands from the
gentlemen reposing in the "Bugle" kitchen; and the idlers of the
village seemed so pleased with the beasts, and their smart saddles
and shining bridles, that it would have been a pity to deprive them
of the pleasure of contemplating such an innocent spectacle. Over
the Count's horse was thrown a fine red cloth, richly embroidered in