"You may, and welcome," said Brown, leading his companion through the town in the direction of the docks, and chatting, as they walked along, about the army and navy; about his own experiences in the former; and about the condition of soldiers at the present time as contrasted with that of the days gone by. CHAPTER FOUR. THE EMBARKATION JETTY--AND NIPPED IN THE BUD. Bronzed faces under white helmets crowded the ports and bulwarks of the great white leviathan of the deep--the troop-ship _Orontes_--as she steamed slowly and cautiously up to the embarkation jetty in Portsmouth harbour. On the jetty itself a few anxious wives, mothers, and sisters stood eagerly scanning the sea of faces, in the almost hopeless endeavour to distinguish those for which they sought. Yet ever and anon an exclamation on the jetty, and an answering wave of an arm on the troop-ship, told that some at least of the anxious ones had been successful in the search. "Don't they look weather-beaten?" remarked Miles to his companion. "Sure it's more like sun-dried they are," answered a voice at his side. Brown had gone to the shed to prepare his coffee and bread against the landing of the troops, and a stout Irishwoman had taken his place. Close to her stood the two ladies from the Institute with baskets on their arms. "You are right," returned Miles, with a smile; "they look like men who have seen service. Is your husband among them?" "Faix, I'd be sorprised if he _was_," returned the woman; "for I left him in owld Ireland, in the only landed property he iver held in this world--six futt by two, an' five deep. He's been in possession six years now, an' it wouldn't be aisy to drive him out o' that, anyhow. No, it's my son Terence I've come to look afther. Och! there he is! Look, look, that's him close by the funnel! Don't ye see 'im? Blissins on his good-lookin' face! Hooroo! Terence--Terence Flynn, don't ye recognise yer owld mother? Sure an' he does, though we haven't met for tin year. My! hasn't he got the hair on his lips too--an' his cheeks are like shoe-leather--my darlint!" As the enthusiastic mother spoke in the tones of a public orator, there was a general laugh among those who were nearest to her; but she was forgotten immediately, for all were too deeply intent on their own interests to pay much regard to each other just then. The great vessel was slow in getting alongside and making fast to the jetty--slow at least in the estimation of the impatient--for although she might leap and career grandly in wanton playfulness while on her native billows, in port a careless touch from her ponderous sides would have crushed part of the jetty into fragments. Miles therefore had ample time to look about him at the various groups around.