CHAPTER V.-- FRIEDRICH WILHELM'S ONE WAR.
One of Fritz's earliest strong impressions from the outer world chanced to be of War,--so it chanced, though he had shown too little taste that way, and could not, as yet, understand such phenomena;--and there must have been much semi-articulate questioning and dialoguing with Dame de Roucoulles, on his part, about the matter now going on.
In the year 1715, little Fritz's third year, came grand doings, not of drill only, but of actual war and fighting: the "Stralsund Expedition," Friedrich Wilhelm's one feat in that kind.

Huge rumor of which fills naturally the maternal heart, the Berlin Palace drawing-rooms; and occupies, with new vivid interests, all imaginations young and old.
For the actual battledrums are now beating, the big cannon-wains are creaking under way; and military men take farewell, and march, tramp, tramp; Majesty in grenadier-guard uniform at their head: horse, foot and artillery; northward to Stralsund on the Baltic shore, where a terrible human Lion has taken up his lair lately.

Charles XII.

of Sweden, namely; he has broken out of Turkish Bender or Demotica, and ended his obstinate torpor, at last; has ridden fourteen or sixteen days, he and a groom or two, through desolate steppes and mountain wildernesses, through crowded dangerous cities;--"came by Vienna and by Cassel, then through Pommern;" leaving his "royal train of two thousand persons" to follow at its leisure.

He, for his part, has ridden without pause, forward, ever forward, in darkest incognito, the indefatigable man;--and finally, on Old-Hallowmas Eve (22d-11th November, 1714), far in the night, a Horseman, with two others still following him, travel-splashed, and "white with snow," drew bridle at the gate of Stralsund; and, to the surprise of the Swedish sentinel there, demanded instant admission to the Governor.