The massed columns of infantry were in heavy marching order, with great-coats rolled, canteens and havresacks slung crosswise, with colours, in some instances cased, and locks hammerstalled; the cavalry were in the great plaza, in close column of troops, every man riding with a net of forage (chopped straw or whins) behind him; the baggage-animals--horses, mules, and burros--already laden with tents, bags, beds, boxes, and camp-kettles, amid the cracking of whips, and oaths uttered in English, Irish, Spanish, and Portuguese, were driven forth to make way for the troops, who, while staff and other officers galloped about as if possessed by so many devils, began their march for Spain. Bewildered by the confusion and hurly-burly of the scene amid which he so suddenly found himself, and thrust by the pressure of the crowd against the wall of the Santa Engracia convent, Quentin sat in the saddle of Madrina and saw nearly the whole division of Sir John Hope defile before him, a long and glittering array, for as the golden light of the sun poured along the picturesque vista of the ancient street, and the white rolling mists were dispelled or exhaled upward, the burnished barrels, bayonets, and sword-blades, the polished brasses of the accoutrements, and the glazed tops of the shakos, all flashed and shone, while the thoroughfares resounded to the tramp of horse and foot, spurs, scabbards, and chain bridles--to the sharp blare of the cavalry trumpets, the drums of the infantry, and the hoarse war pipes of the plaided Highlanders--the wild, strange music that Scotsmen only _feel_ or understand. Many of the soldiers were pale and wan, from the comfortless wards of Belem hospital, and many a bandaged head, many an arm in a scarf, and plaster on a cheek, showed the part they had borne at Roleia and Vimiera, and in the struggle which had just freed Portugal from those who aimed at the conquest of Europe. Uniforms already old and thriftily patched with cloth of divers colours, housings faded, chabraques worn bare, gun carriages minus paint and oil, as they rumbled along; all spoke of service and hard work--of harder work and keener service yet to come! And now advanced a corps, on hearing the well-known air played by whose drums and fifes, Quentin made a leap from the saddle of Madrina, and forced a passage through the dense crowd, for it was the 25th, "The King's Own Borderers," with the Castle of Edinburgh shining on their colours, and all their old honours--"Nisi Dominus Frustra," Egypt, and Egmont-op-Zee, that debouched into the main street of Portalegre in a dense close column of sections, nine hundred men, all marching as one to their old quick step of a thousand memories-- "All the blue bonnets are bound for the border," or General Leslie's march to Long-Marston Moor in the days of the great civil war.