"Well, I have no reason to grumble," Bull said. "If I had been with my old regiment and got this hurt, a shilling a day would have been the outside. Now I shall get lieutenant's pension, and so much for my arm and shoulder." "I have no doubt you will get another step, Bull. After the way the regiment suffered, and with poor Macwitty killed, and you and I both badly wounded, they are sure to give you your step," and indeed when, on their arrival, they saw the Gazette, they found that both had been promoted. "I suppose it is all for the best," O'Grady said. "At any rate, I shall be able to drink dacent whisky for the rest of me life, and not have to be fretting meself with Spanish spirit; though I don't say there was no virtue in it, when you couldn't get anything better." Three days later, the vessel sailed for England. At Plymouth Terence, O'Grady, and several other of the Irish officers left her; Bull promising Terence that, when he was quite restored to health, he would come and pay him a visit. Terence and his companion sailed the next day for Dublin. O'Grady had no relations whom he was particularly anxious to see and therefore, at Terence's earnest invitation, he took a place with him in a coach--to leave in three days, as both had to buy civilian clothes, and to report themselves at headquarters. "What are you going to do about a leg, Terence?" "I can do nothing, at present. My stump is a great deal too tender, still, for me to bear anything of that sort. But I will buy a pair of crutches." This was, indeed, the first thing done on landing, Terence finding it inconvenient in the extreme to have to be carried whenever he wanted to move, even a few yards. He had written home two or three times from the hospital, telling them how he was getting on; for he knew that when his name appeared among the list of dangerously wounded, his father and cousin would be in a state of great anxiety until they received news of him; and as soon as they had taken their places in the coach he dropped them a line, saying when they might expect him. They had met with contrary winds on their voyage home, but the three weeks at sea had done great things for Terence and, except for the pinned-up trousers leg, he looked almost himself again. "Be jabers, Terence," O'Grady said, as the coach drove into Athlone, "one might think that it was only yesterday that we went away. There are the old shops, and the same people standing at their doors to see the coach come in; and I think I could swear even to that cock, standing at the gate leading into the stables. What games we had here. Who would have thought that, when we came back, you would be my senior officer!" When fifteen miles beyond Athlone there was a hail, and the coach suddenly stopped. O'Grady looked out of the window. "It's your father, Terence, and the prettiest girl I have seen since we left the ould country." He opened the door and got out.