I have been hearing about it from my friends, who were a
couple of days there before the force marched to Braga. They tell me that,
by all accounts, the business was even worse than we feared. The French
came upon some of their comrades tied to posts in the great square,
horribly mutilated, some of them with their eyes put out, still living,
and after that they spared no one; and upon my word, I can hardly blame
them, and in fact don't blame them at all, so long as they only their
vengeance on men. The people made it worse for themselves by keeping up a
desultory fire from windows and housetops when resistance had long ceased
to be of any use; and, of course, seeing their comrades shot down in this
way infuriated the troops still further.
"I don't suppose it will make the slightest difference in the world to my
cousin whether her mother is dead or not, for I fancy from what Mary said
that her mother never cared for her in the slightest. Possibly she was
jealous that the child had the first place in the father's affections.
However that may be, there was certainly no great love between them, and
of course her subsequent treatment of my cousin destroyed any affection
that might have existed. That either by some deed executed at the time of
marriage, or by Portuguese law, Mary has a right to the estate at her
mother's death, is clear from the efforts they made to get her to renounce
that right.
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