"
"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.
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