Produced by Susan Skinner, Chris Curnow, Pamela Patten and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER VOL. XX.—NO. 996.] JANUARY 28, 1899. [PRICE ONE PENNY.] “OUR HERO.” A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO. BY AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc. [Illustration: “‘POOR FELLOW! HE DOES LOOK DONE!’” (_See_ p. 262.)] _All rights reserved._] CHAPTER XVIII. ROY’S IMPRUDENCE. The letter from Mrs. Fairbank to Colonel Baron, which Roy undertook to read aloud to Denham, was lengthy and verbose. Some extracts may be given from it, the remainder being, in old-fashioned phrase, “left to the reader’s imagination.” It may be remarked here that much had happened during the last four years in European history, since the Barons had left their own country. Notable among famous events was the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, which crippled for half a century to come the naval power of France. For three years at least previous to that date, England had been kept on tenterhooks of expectation, incessantly dreading a French invasion. Napoleon had talked largely of such an invasion, and had made preparations for it on no mean scale. England also had made ready for it, had feared it, had laughed at it. And at the last, partly through Continental complications, causing Napoleon to withdraw most of the great military force which had long sat at Boulogne, waiting for a safe chance of crossing the Channel, but much more through the magnificent and crushing victory of Nelson, in the course of which he received his death-wound, England escaped it. She escaped it, seemingly, by a very narrow margin. But for Napoleon’s pressing need of more soldiers elsewhere, and but for this crowning victory of Nelson’s, the attempt might certainly have been made. As everybody knows, Nelson chased the combined fleets of France and Spain across the Atlantic to the West Indies and back again; and had he, by one little slip, just missed finding those fleets at the critical moment, a landing of French troops might actually have taken place. Whether Napoleon could ever have done more than land his troops upon the coast, is a question which cannot now be answered. It is not absolutely inconceivable that, through superior numbers and possibly superior discipline,[1] he might have gained one or two small victories, thereby placing himself in a position to march towards London. Even so much is unlikely; and that he could ever in the end have conquered Britain is absolutely inconceivable, despite his own boastful assurance on that point, which lasted or appeared to last until the end of his life.