learned that Portugal had joined the Grand Alliance, in consequence of
the Methuen Treaty between her and England, by which Portuguese wines
were to be admitted into English ports at a lower customs duty than
those of other countries. This step on the part of Portugal had
greatly enraged the French King, and he had poured his troops into
Spain. The Allies, therefore, were preparing to attack Spain from the
eastern and the western sides of the Peninsula at the same time. So
George and his comrades began their march eastward, while the gallant
admiral Sir George Rooke was attacking Barcelona on the opposite
coast.

It was a new life for the English lad, and the heavy marches in a hot
climate tried him. But he was growing into a stout youth, and was not
afraid of a bit of hard work.

"Besides," he would say to himself, when disposed to grumble, "am I
not a soldier? And isn't that what I've always wanted to be? And I
might have been chained up in a French prison still! A thousand times
better be here, even in this scorching place."

If it seemed odd to the lad that the English soldiers were commanded
by a Frenchman, it was still stranger that the French forces they were
marching to meet were under an Englishman. Yet so it was; the
commander of Louis's army in Spain being the Duke of Berwick, a son of
James II and Arabella Churchill, Marlborough's sister. The two
generals were well matched, according to the opinion that prevailed
among the troops.

Weeks passed, and as yet George Fairburn had seen no actual fighting.
He was all eager to get into action, and was not much comforted by the