few hours. I have money to pay for it."

The peasants at once came round him. Confused accounts had reached them of
the doings on the other side of the hills. They knew that an English army
had marched from Lugo to Corunna, hotly pursued by the French, but they
had heard nothing of what had happened afterwards. They eagerly asked for
news. Terence told them that there had been a great battle outside
Corunna, that the French had been repulsed with much loss, and that the
English had embarked on board ships to take them round to Lisbon, there to
march east to meet the French again.

Nothing could be kinder than the treatment he received. They told him that
Ney's army was between the Sil and Lugo, but that no French troops had
crossed the Minho as yet.

They were eager to know why the English, if they had beaten the French,
sailed away. But when he said that Soult would have been joined by Ney in
a couple of days, and would then be well-nigh double the strength of the
British, who would be so hotly pressed that they would be unable to
embark, the peasants saw that what they considered their desertion could
not have been avoided. The news of the terrible defeats that had, a month
before, been inflicted upon their armies had not reached them, and Terence
did not think it necessary to enlighten them. He told them that the march
north of the English had been intended to bring all the French forces in
that direction, and so to enable the Spanish armies to operate
successfully, and that not only Soult and Ney, but Napoleon himself, had
been drawn off from the south in pursuit of them.

They were filled with satisfaction, and he was at once taken into one of
the cottages. A good meal was shortly placed before him, his head was