There is as much fun about him as a boy, but when his spirit is up, there are not many swordsmen in the army that could match him.

Why, when he first joined, nearly three years ago, he was in the 3rd Royal Dragoons, my own regiment; and I heard the sergeant who was in the fencing room say that there was not an officer in the regiment who was a match for him with the sword.
"Now I have finished my pipe, and must be going to look after him again." The king's surgeon examined Fergus's wounds the next morning, and said that, although he would not be able to sit a horse until his leg had healed, he would otherwise soon be convalescent.
Soon after he had left him, Sir John Mitchell came in to see him.
As the English ambassador had very often, during the last two winters, met Fergus in the king's apartments, at which he himself was a regular visitor, they were by this time well known to each other.

Mitchell, indeed, regarded Fergus as a valuable assistant in his work of interesting Frederick, and turning his mind from his many troubles and anxieties.
"The surgeon has just given a good account of you to the king, Drummond," he said; "and his majesty expressed much satisfaction at hearing that your wounds are not serious.
"'That youth is not like most of your compatriots, Mitchell,' he said to me with a smile; 'ever ready to fight, but equally ready to join in a drinking bout, should opportunity offer.

He is always on horseback, and as hardy and as healthy as can be.

With one of the hard-drinking sort, fever might set in; but there is no risk of it with him.
"'As I told you, he saved my life yesterday.