As the men fell out they gave a loud and general cheer, and Tom and Peter were surrounded by their comrades, who shook them by the hand, and congratulated them upon their promotion. The boys were too much surprised and affected to speak, and they had scarcely recovered from their bewilderment, when Carruthers came up to them, and led them to the colonel. Here General Hill first, and then all the officers, warmly shook hands with them. The boys were much touched by the warmth with which they were received, and were soon hurried off to the tents of the officers. Several of the ensigns were slight young men, and they insisted upon rigging the boys out in uniform, and the boys had the less scruple in accepting the kind offer, inasmuch as they expected every day to enter Spain, when the baggage would be cut down to the smallest possible proportion, and the officers as well as the men be obliged to leave almost everything behind them. Sam was delighted at the promotion of his friends, and asked to be appointed their servant, a request which was at once acceded to. The regiment had now been three months in Spain, and the boys had continued to work hard at Spanish, devoting several hours a day to its study, and talking it whenever they could find an opportunity--no difficult matter, as Portugal was full of Spanish who had crossed the frontier to avoid the hated yoke of the French. The delay in invading Spain was caused partly from want of transport, but more by the utter incapacity of the Spanish Junta or government, and by the arrogance and folly of Cuesta, the Spanish Commander-in-Chief, who was always proposing impracticable schemes to Wellington, and, inflated with Spanish pride and obstinacy, believed that his own worthless troops were fully a match for the French, and was jealous in the highest degree of the British general. At last, on the 27th of June, the British army advanced. Scarcely had they made a day's march, however, when the utter faithlessness of the Spaniards became manifest. The provisions and transport promised were not forthcoming, and from the very day of their advance the British were badly fed, and indeed often not fed at all; and so great were their sufferings during the campaign--sufferings caused by the heartlessness of the people whom they had come to deliver from a foreign yoke, that the British soldiers came to cherish a deep and bitter hatred against the Spanish; and it was this intense feeling of animosity which had no little to do with the cruel excesses of the English soldiery upon the capture of Burgos and San Sebastian.