“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 ten days’ voyage in a heavy sea, with occasional rain-showers, is not, under ordinary circumstances, calculated to raise the spirits of troops.  But men bound on active and dangerous service are always in the highest spirits, and make light of disagreeables and hardships of all kinds.

They had expected to find Ostend full of troops, for several regiments had landed before them; but they soon found they were to be marched inland.  As soon as the regiment had landed they marched to a spot where a standing camp had been erected for the use of troops on their passage through.  Their baggage was at once sent forward, and the men had therefore nothing to do but to clean up their arms and accoutrements, and to wander as they pleased through the town.  They started early next morning, and after two days’ marching arrived at Ghent, where several regiments were quartered, either in the town itself or in the villages round it.  Ralph’s company had billets allotted to them in a village a mile from the town, a cottage being placed at the disposal of the captain and his two subalterns.  The next morning, after the parade of the regiment was over, most of the officers and many of the men paid a visit to the town, where the fugitive King of France had now established his court.