The duke--who had already offered Rupert an appointment on his staff, an offer he had gratefully declined, as he preferred to do duty with his regiment--at once acceded to his request, and he was thus spared the horror of seeing the agony of the unhappy peasantry and townspeople, at the destruction of their houses.

Rupert, in his rides with messages across the country, saw enough to make him heartsick at the distress into which the people of the country were plunged.
One day when riding, followed by Hugh, he came upon a sad group.

By a hut which had recently been burned, after some resistance, as was shown by the dead body of a Hessian trooper, a peasant knelt by the body of his wife.

A dead child of some five years old lay by, and a baby kicked and cried by the side of its mother.

The peasant looked up with an air of bewildered grief, and on seeing the British uniform sprang to his feet, and with a fierce but despairing gesture placed himself as if to defend his children to the last.
Rupert drew his rein.
"I would not hurt you, my poor fellow," he said in Dutch.
The man did not understand, but the gentleness of the tone showed him that no harm was meant, and he again flung himself down by his wife.
"I do not think that she is dead, Hugh," Rupert said.