Page 217 - A Jacobite Exile

large scale, and it has often gone terribly against the grain, when I have had
to join parties sent out to forage. But it has to be done. I would rather not

join men in taking food, yet I understand that it may be necessary. But as to
taking money, I will have nothing to do with it. At the same time, I

understand that we cannot share your food, and be with you, without doing
something. Stanislas has brought me a little money from Warsaw, and I
shall be ready to pay into the common treasury a sum sufficient to pay for

our share of the food. As to money taken, we shall not expect any share of
it. If you are attacked, we shall of course fight, and shall be ready to do our

full share in all work. So, at any rate, you will not be losers by taking us
with you."

"That is fair enough," the captain said, when Stanislas had translated what
Charlie said, suppressing, however, his remarks about foraging with the

army, as the brigands were ignorant that Charlie and he had any connection
with the Swedes, or that he was not, as he had given out, a young
Englishman come out to set up as a trader.

The band now journeyed slowly on, keeping near the north bank of the

Dnieper. They went by twos and threes, uniting sometimes and entering a
village or surrounding a farmhouse at night, and taking what they wanted.
The people were, however, terribly poor, and they were able to obtain but

little beyond scanty supplies of flour, and occasionally a few gold or silver
trinkets. Many other bands of plunderers had passed along, in the course of

the summer, and the robbers themselves were often moved to pity by the
misery that they everywhere met with.

When in small parties they were obliged to avoid entering any villages, for
once or twice furious attacks were made upon those who did so, the women

joining the men in arming themselves with any weapon that came to hand,
and in falling upon the strangers.

Only once did they succeed in obtaining plunder of value. They had visited
a village, but found it contained nothing worth taking. One of the women

said: