NOTE

In this story, as in all the other stories for the young written by the author, few, or no liberties have been taken with history and chronology.

In

Molly Elliot Seawell

Molly Elliot Seawell

ILLUSTRATIONS

[Pg 1]

[Pg 1]

THE LIVELY ADVENTURES OF GAVIN HAMILTON

CHAPTER I

In Silesia, the autumn of 1757 was one of frightful cold, of icy winds, of sunless days, and freezing nights. The land, made desolate by the contending armies of the Empress Queen, Maria Theresa, and Frederick the Great, of Prussia, suffered still more from this bitter and premature winter. The miserable inhabitants, many of them houseless, died by thousands, of cold and starvation. The wretched remnant of cattle left them perished; the fields lay untilled, the mills were only piles of charred ruins, and desolation brooded over the land. War could add but little more to the miseries of this unfortunate region; but Frederick of Prussia and the lion-hearted Empress of Austria fought as fiercely as they had done sixteen years before when the Titanic combat[Pg 2] had first begun. Rosbach had been fought—that terrible battle in which Frederick prevailed against the Austrians, who were assisted by the soldiers of France and the money of England. The Austrians and French had, at first, attempted an orderly retreat; but the piercing cold, the constant fall of snow, and the difficulties of subsistence, had very much interfered with this. Their object was to reach Prince Charles of Lorraine, in northwest Silesia, and many small bodies of troops succeeded in maintaining their organization until they joined Prince Charles. Others were not so fortunate; soldiers found themselves 

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