"I think they do," the colonel said, with a laugh. "I think that his order is good and sensible, and I endorse it. You know yourself that spirits are bad for you, with an arm only just healed up. Now, behave like a raisonable fellow, and go off to your quarters. You know well enough that if you stop here you won't be able to keep from it."
"Faith, if the two of you are against me I have nothing more to say. It is mighty hard that after having lost an arm in the service of my country I should be treated like a child and sent off to bed."
"I am going, too, O'Grady," Terence, who had gone back to his original place, now said. "There is no occasion to go to bed. I have a box of good cigars in my tent, and we can sit there and chat as long as you like."
"Thank you, Mr O'Connor," he said, stiffly; "but with your lave I will do as I said."
"That is the best thing," the doctor said. "You have not had a long night's rest since you rejoined. I am going myself, and I see that some of the others are getting up, too, and it would be a good thing if all would do so, for, with such work as we have got before us, the more sleep we get, while we can, the better."
As nearly half the officers now rose from their seats, O'Grady was mollified, and as he went out he said:
"I think, after all, Terence, I will try one of those cigars of yours."
On the 14th of October Fane's brigade left Torres Vedras.
[Illustration: 'I AM TOLD THAT YOU WISH TO SPEAK TO ME, GENERAL.']
A number of the troops had been stationed along the line of route to be followed, and these had started simultaneously with the departure of Fane's brigade from Torres Vedras. The discontent as to the reduction of baggage ceased as soon as the troops were in motion. They were going to invade Spain, and ignorant as the soldiers were of the real state of affairs, none doubted but that success would attend them there. Among the officers better acquainted with the state of things there was no such feeling of confidence, but they hoped that they should at least give as good an account of themselves as before, against any French force of anything like equal strength they might encounter. O'Grady, influenced by the doctor's threats, which he knew the latter would be firm enough to carry out, had obeyed his orders, and had confided to Terence, when the regiment formed up at daybreak for the march, that his arm felt much better.