onfidence in the leader (for
the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington had inspired in the
whole English nation was as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm
with which at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the country
seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the help at hand
in case of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm was unknown, and
our travellers, among whom two were naturally of a very timid sort,
were, like all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at ease.
The famous regiment, with so many of whose officers we have made
acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to
march to Brussels. Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the
which all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the luxury and
accommodation they afforded. So prodigiously good was the eating and
drinking on board these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that
there are legends extant of an English traveller, who, coming to
Belgium for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so
delighted with the fare there that he went backwards and forwards from
Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he
drowned himself on the last trip of the passage-boat. Jos's death was
not to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs. O'Dowd
insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina to make his happiness
complete. He sate on the roof of the cabin all day drinking Flemish
beer, shouting for Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the
ladies.

His courage was prodigious. "Boney attack us!" he cried. "My dear
creature, my poor Emmy, don't be frightened. There's no danger. The
allies will be in Paris in two months, I tell you; when I'll take you
to dine in the Palais Royal, by Jove! There are three hundred thousand
Rooshians, I tell you, now entering France by Mayence and the
Rhine--three hundred thousand under Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly,
my poor love. You don't know military affairs, my dear. I do, and I
tell you there's no infantry in France can stand against Rooshian
infantry, and no general of Boney's that's fit to hold a candle to
Wittgenstein. Then there are the Austrians, they are five hundred
thousand if a man, and they are within ten marches of the frontier by
this time, under Schwartzenberg and Prince Charles. Then there are the
Prooshians under the gallant Prince Marshal. Show me a cavalry chief
like him