soon as we enter their country."

"They may rise and flock round us until they have got arms and money, and
then they will go off to their homes again. That is the sort of assistance
that is to be had from them. We should do a deal better if there was not a
Spaniard in the country, and it was left to us to fight it out with the
French."

"In that case, O'Flaherty, we should never cross the frontier at all. They
say that Napoleon is gathering a great army, and against such a force,
with the French troops already in Spain, our twenty or twenty-five
thousand men would fare very badly, especially as they say that the
emperor is coming himself."

"That is worse news than the other, Terence. It is only because the French
generals have always been quarrelling among themselves that the whole
Peninsula has not been conquered; but with Napoleon at the head of affairs
it would be a different matter altogether, and my humble opinion is that
we had better stay where we are until he has wiped out the Spaniards
altogether."

Terence laughed.

"You don't take a sanguine view of things."

"You have been with the regiment, Terence, and have had very little to do
with the natives. I have not seen very much of them either, thank
goodness; but I have seen quite enough to know that though perhaps the
peasants would make good soldiers, if officered by Englishmen, there is
mighty little feeling of patriotism among the classes above them. Reading