"Thin what do you keep me talking here for? haven't I a lot of work on me
hands too. I came in to ask a simple question, and instead of giving me a
civil answer you kape me wasting my time wid your O'Driscols and your
Spartans and all kinds of rigmarole. That is the worst of being in an
Irish regiment, nothing can be done widout ever so much blather;" and
Captain O'Grady stalked out of the orderly-room.

On the march Terence had no difficulty in obtaining leave from his captain
to drop behind and march with his friend Dick Ryan. The marches were long
ones, and they halted only at Parsonstown, Templemore, Tipperary, and
Fermoy, as the colonel had received orders to use all speed. At each place
a portion of the regiment was accommodated in the barracks, while the rest
were quartered in the town. Late in the evening of the fifth day's march
they arrived at Cork, and the next day went on board the two transports
provided for them, and joined the fleet assembled in the Cove. Some of the
ships had been lying there for nearly a month waiting orders, and the
troops on board were heartily weary of their confinement. The news,
however, that Sir Arthur Wellesley had been at last appointed to command
them, and that they were to sail for Portugal, had caused great delight,
for it had been feared that they might, like other bodies of troops, be
shipped off to some distant spot, only to remain there for months and then
to be brought home again.

Nothing, indeed, could exceed the vacillation and confusion that reigned
in the English cabinet at that time. The forces of England were frittered
away in small and objectless expeditions, the plans of action were changed
with every report sent either by the interested leaders of insurrectionary
movements in Spain, or by the signally incompetent men who had been sent
out to represent England, and who distributed broadcast British money and
British arms to the most unworthy applicants. By their lavishness and