there three weeks, and I
have been here now more than two months, and my leg is all right
again. But I am a lop-sided creature, though it is lucky that it is
my left arm and leg that have gone. I was always a good hopper,
when I was a boy; so that, if this wooden thing breaks, I think I
should be able to get about pretty well."

"This is Major Bull, O'Grady. Don't you know him?"

"Faith, I did not know him; but now you tell me who it is, I
recognize him. How are you, major?"

"I am getting on, Captain O'Grady."

"Major," O'Grady corrected. "I got my step at Salamanca; both our
majors were killed. So I shall get a dacent pension: a major's
pension, and so much for a leg and arm. That is not so bad, you
know."

"Well, I have no reason to grumble," Bull said. "If I had been with
my old regiment and got this hurt, a shilling a day would have been
the outside. Now I shall get lieutenant's pension, and so much for
my arm and shoulder."

"I have no doubt you will get another step, Bull. After the way the
regiment suffered, and with poor Macwitty killed, and you and I
both badly wounded, they are sure to give you your step," and
indeed when, on their arrival, they saw the Gazette, they found
that both had been promoted.

"I suppose it is all for the best," O'Grady said. "At any rate, I
shall be able to drink dacent whisky for the rest of me life, and
not have to be fretting meself with Spanish spirit; though I don't
say there was no virtue in it, when you couldn't get anything
better."

Three days later, the vessel sailed for England. At Plymouth
Terence, O'Grady, and several other of the Irish officers left her;
Bull promising Terence that, when he was quite restored to health,
he would come and pay him a visit.

Terence and his companion sailed the next day for Dublin. O'Grady
had no relations whom he was particularly anxious to see and
therefore, at Terence's earnest invitation, he took a place with
him in a coach--to leave in three days, as both had to buy civilian
clothes, and to report themselves at headquarters.

"What are you going to do about a leg, Terence?"

"I can do nothing, at present. My stump is a great deal too tender,
still, for me to bear anything of that sort. But I will buy a pair
of crutches."

This was, indeed, the first thing done on landing, Terence finding
it inconvenient in the extreme to have to be carried whenever he
wanted to move, even a few yards. He had written home two or thr