goons, two
squadrons of which were attached at the time to the Light Division. To
be more precise, he was to purchase and bring into Pinhel a hundred
head of cattle, intended some for slaughter and some for draught. His
instructions were to proceed as far as Regoa and there report himself
to one Bartholomew Bearsley, a prosperous and influential English
wine-grower, whose father had acquired considerable vineyards in
the Douro. He was reminded of the almost hostile disposition of the
peasantry in certain districts; warned to handle them with tact and to
suffer no straggling on the part of his troopers; and advised to
place himself in the hands of Mr. Bearsley for all that related to the
purchase of the cattle. Let it be admitted at once that had Sir
Robert Craufurd been acquainted with Mr. Butler's feather-brained,
irresponsible nature, he would have selected any officer rather than our
lieutenant to command that expedition. But the Irish Dragoons had only
lately come to Pinhel, and the general himself was not immediately
concerned.

Lieutenant Butler set out on a blustering day of March at the head of
his troopers, accompanied by Cornet O.'Rourke and two sergeants, and at
Pesqueira he was further reinforced by a Portuguese guide. They found
quarters that night at Ervedoza, and early on the morrow they were in
the saddle again, riding along the heights above the Cachao da Valleria,
through which the yellow, swollen river swirled and foamed along its
rocky way. The prospect, formidable even in the full bloom of fruitful
and luxuriant summer, was forbidding and menacing now as some imagined
gorge of the nether regions. The towering granite heights across the
turgid stream were shrouded in mist and sweeping rain, and from the
leaden heavens overhead the downpour was of a sullen and merciless
steadiness, starting at every step a miniature torrent to go swell the
roaring waters in the gorge, and drenching the troop alike in body and
in spirit. Ahead, swathed to the chin in his blue cavalry cloak, the
water streaming from his leather helmet, rode Lieutenant Butler, cursing
the weather, the country; the Light Division, and everything else that
occurred to him as contributing to his present discomfort. Beside
him, astride of a mule, rode the Portuguese guide in a caped cloak of
thatched straw, which made him look for all the world like a bottle of
his native wine in its straw sheath. Conversation between the two was
out of the