It would have been worse than cruelty to have aroused them from sleep.

The loss of a fowl or two, and of a dozen eggs, were nothing to them.

If they missed them at all, they would say that a fox had been there, and they would think no more of it.

If, on the other hand, I had waked them up in the middle of the night to pay for these trifles, they would have been scared out of their life; thinking, when I knocked, that some band of robbers was at the door.

In their anger at being thus disturbed they would have been capable of shooting me; and it is well nigh certain that, at any rate, they would have refused to sell their chickens and eggs at that time of the night.
"So you see, sir, I acted for the best for all parties.