ve they got cattle and sheep there, your honor?" Denis asked
incredulously.

"Of course they have, Denis; just the same as we have."

"The hathens!" Denis exclaimed. "To think that men who can get beef
and mutton should feed upon such craturs as snails and such like. It's
downright flying in the face of Providence, your honor."

"Nonsense, Denis; they eat beef and mutton just the same as we do. As
to the frogs and snails, these are expensive luxuries, just as game is
with us. There is nothing more nasty about snails after all than there
is about oysters; and as to frogs they were regarded as great dainties
by the Romans, who certainly knew what good eating was."

"Sure, I am a Roman myself, your honor--so are most of the men of the
regiment--but I never heard tell of sich a thing."

"Not that sort of Roman, Denis," Ralph laughed. "The old
Romans--people who lived long before there were any popes--a people
who could fight as well as any that ever lived, and who were as fond
of good living as they were of fighting."

"Well, your honor, there is no accounting for tastes. There was
Bridget Maloney, whom I courted before I entered the regiment. Well,
your honor, if you would believe it, she threw over a dacent boy like
myself, and married a little omadoun of a man about five feet high,
and with one shoulder higher than the other. That was why I took to
soldiering, your honor. No, there is no accounting for tastes anyhow.
There's the mess-bugle, your honor. Next time we hear it, it will be
at say, and maybe there won't be many ready to attind to it."

Denis' prediction was verified. The vessel sailed at two o'clock in
the afternoon, and by six was rolling heavily, and a brisk wind was
blowing. The Twenty-eighth had not long before made the voyage from
the south of France, but they had been favored by exceptionally fine
weather, and had experienced nothing like the tossing they were now
undergoing. The consequence was that only about half a dozen officers
obeyed the bugle call to mess.

There was a general feeling of satisfaction when the low coast round
Ostend was sighted, for the voyage throughout had been a rough one.
Under certain circumstances a sea voyage is delightful, but
confinement in a crowded transport in rough weather is the reverse of
a pleasant experience. The space below decks was too small to
accommodate the whole of the troops, and a third of their number had
to be constantly on deck; and this for a