,
judging by the view of their unfolded characters at present, a certain
command of the freakish beast; she, whatever her task, would not be the
one set trotting. He came to his opinion through the estimate he had
recently formed of Lord Fleetwood, and a study of his changed sister.

Her brows gloomed at a recurrence to that subject. Their business of the
expedition absorbed her, each detail, all the remarks he quoted of his
chief, hopeful or weariful; for difficulties with the Spanish Government,
and with the English too, started up at every turn; and the rank and file
of the contingent were mostly a rough lot, where they were rather better
than soaked weeds. A small body of trained soldiers had sprung to the
call to arms; here and there an officer could wheel a regiment.

Carinthia breasted discouragement. 'English learn from blows, Chillon.'

'He might have added, they lose half their number by having to learn from
blows, Carin.'

'He said, "Let me lead Britons!"'

'When the canteen's fifty leagues to the rear, yes!'

'Yes, it is a wine country,' she sighed. 'But would the Spaniards have
sent for us if their experience told them they could not trust us?'

Chillon brightened rigorously: 'Yes, yes; there's just a something about
our men at their best, hard to find elsewhere. We're right in thinking
that. And our chief 's the right man.'

'He is Owain's friend and countryman,' said Carinthia, and pleased, her
brother for talking like a girl, in the midst of methodical calculations
of the cost of this and that, to purchase the supplies he would need. She
had an organizing head. On her way down from London she had drawn on
instructions from a London physician of old Peninsula experience to
pencil a list of the medical and surgical stores required by a
campaigning army; she had gained information of the London shops where
they were to be procured; she had learned to read medical prescriptions
for the composition of drugs. She was at her Spanish still, not behind
him in the ordinary dialogue, and able to correct him on points of
Spanish history relating to fortresses, especially the Basque. A French
bookseller had supplied her with the Vicomte d'Eschargue's recently
published volume of a Travels in Catalonia. Chillon saw paragraphs
marked, pages dog-eared, for reference. At the same time, the question of
Henrietta touched her anxiously. Lady Arpington's hints had sunk into
them both.

'I have thought of St. Jean d