Having children certainly increased the hardships that the poor women were fated to endure; but excess of suffering, which tore asunder every other tie, only rendered maternal love stronger, and it was amazing what hardships were voluntarily endured for the sake of their offspring. I remember one poor fellow of our brigade, whose wife died, and left an infant with him of a few months old, and although he might have got one of the women to take care of it, he preferred taking charge of it himself, and for many a day he trudged along with it sitting on the top of his knapsack. Sickness at length overtook him, and he went to the rear to hospital, carrying the child with him, but what was their fate afterwards I have never been able to learn. Next morning we left our encampment, and returning by the way we had come, we passed a man of the division on the road side, who had been hung up to the branch of a tree a few minutes before. According to the current report in the division, he had entered a mill, and asked the miller to sell him some flour, but the miller refusing to sell it, he took it by force; and being caught in the act by some one, who reported the affair to Lord Wellington, he was tried by a general court martial, and sentenced to death. For a long time after his trial, he was marched a prisoner with the provost guard, and he entertained hopes of pardon; but on that morning, without any previous warning, while he was sitting at the fire with some of his fellow-prisoners, the provost came in and ordered him to rise, when placing the rope round his neck, he marched him forward on the road a short distance, and hung him up on the branch of a tree. Examples, perhaps, were necessary, but we were inclined to think that the time was often unfortunately chosen; it was rather an awkward sort of spectacle to greet the eyes of an army the morning after a hard-fought and successful battle: and the poor wretch’s fate excited more commiseration that morning, than detestation of his crime. Some of the men happened to make remarks on the subject,—‘Pshaw!’ said Dennis, who was listening to them, ‘I don’t believe my countryman would do anything of the sort. Sure it’s only a dead man he has ordered to be hung up to frighten yees.’ ‘He is dead enough now,’ said another. ‘Do you remember,’ said a third, ‘the tickler of a circular that was served out to us after the dreadful retreat from Salamanca,—was _that_ your countryman’s doings?’ ‘Troth, I don’t know,’ said Dennis; ‘but it didn’t go well down with us; and if this is the sort of payment we get for beating the French, the best way is to go down on our knees, and promise never to be guilty of the like again.’ CHAPTER X. In consequence of the wet weather, we were unable to proceed, and lay in camp near this place about three weeks; and little of any moment occurred during that time, except the capture of Aire on the 2d of March, by General Hill’s division.