And though I was reviled for not bringing them better cheer, yet I pacified them by smiling like my aunt, and echoing her "Attendez, messieurs, s'il vous plait;" and started forth again on my foraging expedition, though very doubtful of having anything to bring back.
How long were these horrible men going to stay?
How could we go on supplying their wants at this rate?
If their orders were to eat my uncle out of house and home, and drive him and my aunt to distraction, would it not be just as well to let them do so at once, and have done with it?
One and another to whom I applied were so full of their own griefs that I had to listen to what they had to say before they would or could hear a word from me in return.

One had been hung up by his feet over a chimney; another had a knife held to his throat; one had seen her little infant nearly strangled; another had been dragged along the ground by her hair.

I could not help pitying them sincerely, but not so much as I should have done, but for the sad plight of my uncle.

When I, with a kind of wrench, forced the talk into the subject of what was going on at his house, they, through their great love for him, forgot for a moment their own trials in thinking of his; and those who had anything to contribute brought it out, and those who had nothing to spare made up for it in pity.

All this consumed so much time that when I got back it was nearly dark, and the house was all in a blaze with lights, for the dragoons had lighted candles all over the house; and some of them were stupid with drink, and lying in heaps; others were rendered quarrelsome by it, and fighting and abusing one another; but as for the drummers, they never ceased.