“We carry the worse consequences with us,” said L’Isle, pertinaciously.  “Little disorders, my lord!  The peasantry round Elvas do not talk of them so.  They say that their property is plundered, their women insulted, and themselves at constant risk in life and limb.”

“What! do the rascals talk of us in that way? even while we are protecting them,” exclaimed Lord Strathern, springing from his chair.  “We have spent more money among them than their beggarly country is worth in fee simple; and they are no more thankful than if we had occupied it as enemies.  I wish they had among them again, for a few weeks, that one-handed Loison with his cut-throat bands, or pious Junot, who loved church plate so well.”

“It is bad enough to be robbed by their enemies, they say,” suggested L’Isle, “but they did not expect it from their friends.”

“Pooh,” said Lord Strathern, “the Portuguese, of all people, ought to know what real military license is.  The French taught them that.  As for our fellows, what if they do at times drink a little more wine than they pay for, or even take a lamb or kid from the flocks they protect, or kiss a wench before she has consented; is that any thing to make a hubbub about?  The lads should be paid for drinking their muddy vinho verde, and as for the girls, all the trouble comes of their ignorance of our tongue, so that they have to be talked to by signs.”

“You must be jesting, my lord.  To overlook small offences is to license greater.”

“I license none; I punish whatever is clearly proved, but will not play grand Inquisitor, and hunt out every little peccadillo.  With your notions, L’Isle, you would bring the men to confession every morning and make the service worse than purgatory.  Must I answer for it if a girl squeaks out, half in jest, and half in earnest?”

L’Isle was provoked to see that Lord Strathern was laughing at him, and said, earnestly, “You cannot have forgotten, my lord, the state of the army at the end of the campaign.  Little has yet been done to bring this brigade up to the mark, and little will be achieved by it in the coming campaign in its present state.  Now is the time to check the licentious spirit by making some severe examples.”

“I will do no such thing,” said Lord Strathern, coolly.  “The occasion does not call for it.  We will be in the field shortly, and want all the bayonets we can muster.  The brigade is too weak to spare men from the ranks to put into irons.”

“I did not suppose,” said L’Isle, “that the warning my Lord Wellington gave us not long since, would be so soon forgotten.”

L’Isle alluded to the circular letter Wellington had addressed to his subordinates, at the end of the campaign, in which he had politely dubbed half of his officers idlers, whose habitual neglect of duty suffered their commands to run into ruffianism.  Perhaps their commander was suffering under a fit of indigestion when he wrote it.  It certainly caused a general heartburning among his officers.  Lord Strathern, among others, had found it hard to digest, and now angrily denounced it unjust.