At times, especially after dreams of home (for such he could not but consider Rohallion), there came keen longings in his heart to see Flora once again and hear her voice, which often came plainly, sweetly, and distinctly to his ear in sleep. Of her, alas! he had not one single memento; not a ring, a miniature, a ribbon, a glove--not even a lock of her soft hair--the hair that had swept his face on that delightful day when he carried her through the Kelpie's pool in the Girvan, and which he had kissed and caressed, in many a delicious hour spent with her in the yew labyrinth of the old garden, by the antique arch that spanned the Lollards' Linn, under the venerable sycamores that cast their shadows on the haunted gate, or where the honey bee hummed on the heather braes that sloped so sweetly in the evening sunshine towards the blue Firth of Clyde. From soft day-dreams of those past hours of happiness he was roused on the evening of the 3rd October by the boom of a heavy gun from the convoy, and several signals soon fluttered amid the smoke that curled upward through her lofty rigging. They were to the effect that land ivas in sight--the fleet of transports to close in upon the convoy--the swift sailers to take the dull in tow; and now from the grey Atlantic rose a greyer streak, which gradually became broken and violet-coloured in the sheen of the sun that was setting in the western waves, as the hills of Portuguese Estremadura came gradually into form and tint, on the lee-bow of the transport. Next morning, when day broke, he found the whole fleet at anchor in Maciera Bay, and all the hurry and bustle on board of immediate preparations to land the troops on the open and sandy beach, where, when the tide meets the river, a dangerous surf rolls at times, and from thence they were, without delay, to march to the front. It was a glorious day, though in the last month of autumn. The ruddy sun of Lusitania was shining gaily on the hills and valley of Maciera, and on the plain beyond, where already the grass was growing green above the graves of our soldiers, who fell three months before at the battle of Vimiera. But little recked the newcomers of that, as the boats of the fleet covered all the bay, whose surface was churned into foam by hundreds of oars, while clouds of shakos and Highland bonnets were waved in the air, and swords and bayonets were brandished in the sunshine, as with loud hurrahs, that were repeated from the ships, and re-echoed by the rocks and indentations of the shore, the soldiers of the Borderers and the 92nd anticipated a share in the laurels that had been won at Rolica and Vimiera--hopes many were destined never to realize; for like the thousands who, elsewhere, were marching under Moore and others, towards Castile and Leon, full of youth and health, joy and spirit, many were doomed but to suffer and die, unhonoured and unurned.