mighty little time to think of it. When you have been doing your twenty
miles a day, with halts and stoppages on these beastly roads and defiles,
and are on your feet from daylight until late in the evening, and then,
perhaps, a turn at the outposts, a man hasn't got much time for divarshon;
and even if there is liquor to be had, he is glad enough when he has had a
glass or so to wrap himself in his cloak and lie down to sleep. I have
nearly sworn off myself, for I found that my head troubled me in the
morning after a glass or two, more than it did after an all-night's
sitting at Athlone. Ah, Terence, it is lucky for you that you have no
fancy for it!"

"I hope I never shall have, O'Flaherty. If one has got thoroughly wet
through in a long day's fishing, it may be that a glass of punch may keep
away a cold, though even that I doubt. But I am sure that I am better
without it at any other time; and I hope some day the fashion will change,
and instead of it being considered almost as a matter of course after a
dinner that half the men should be under the table, it will then be looked
upon as disgraceful for a man to get drunk, as it is now for a woman to do
so."

O'Flaherty looked at his companion with amused surprise. "Faith, Terence,
that would be a change indeed, and you might as well say that you hope the
time will come when you can whip off a fellow's leg without his feeling
pain."

"Perhaps that may come too," Terence laughed; "there is no saying."

The next morning the detachment started at daybreak and marched to Torres
Vedras, where they heard that a general movement was expected to begin.
The regiment had now a comfortable mess, and the situation was freely