"Did I say that? But you know my maneing, and as long as you know that, what does it matter which way I put it? Well, now, I suppose Sir Arthur is going to take us tramping along again. Ah, it is a weary thing being a soldier!" "Why, you were saying yesterday, O'Grady, that your feet were getting all right," Terence said. "All right in a manner, Terence. And it is a bad habit that you have got of picking up your supayrior officer's words and throwing them into his teeth. You will come to a bad end if you don't break yourself of it; and the worst of it is, you are corrupting the other lads, and the young officers are losing all respect for their seniors. I am surprised, Major, that you and the colonel don't take the matter in hand before the discipline of the regiment is destroyed entirely." "You draw it upon yourself, O'Grady, and it is good for us all to have a laugh sometimes. We should all have missed you sorely had you gone down on that hill over there--as many a good fellow has done. I hear that both the 9th and 29th have lost their colonels." "The Lord presarve us from such a misfortune, Major! It would give us a step all through the regiment; but then, you see--" And he stopped. "You mean I should be colonel, O'Grady," the major said, with a laugh; "and you know I should not take things as quietly as he does. Well, you see, there are consolations all round." The firing had ceased at four o'clock, and until late that night a large portion of the force were occupied in searching the ground that had been traversed, burying the dead, and carrying the wounded of both nationalities down into the hospital that had been established at Rolica. Sir Arthur determined to march at daybreak, so as to secure the passes through Torres Vedras; but in the evening a messenger arrived with the news that Anstruther and Acland's division, with a large fleet of store-ships, were off the coast. The dangerous nature of the coast, and the certainty that, should a gale spring up, a large proportion of the ships would be wrecked, rendered it absolutely necessary to secure the disembarkation of the troops at once. The next morning, therefore, he only marched ten miles to Lourinha, and thence advanced to Vimiera, eight miles farther, where he covered the disembarkation of the troops.