now nothing
about the matter. For myself, it seems to me that when one is a noble,
and has everything that a man can want, he must be a fool to mix himself
up in troubles. I know that if the King of France were to give me a big
estate, and anyone came to me and asked me to take part in a plot, I
would, if I had the power of life and death, have him hung up over the
gate of my castle."

"That would be a short way, no doubt, Paolo, but it might not keep you
out of trouble," Hector said, smiling. "If the person who came to you
were also a noble, his family and friends would rise in arms to avenge
his death, and instead of avoiding trouble you would bring it at once
upon your head."

"I suppose that would be so, master," Paolo said thoughtfully; "so I
think that it would be best for me that the king should not take it into
his head to give me that estate. And so we are going to Geneva, master?"

"Yes."

"That pleases me not," the other one said, "for I have heard of it as
a terribly serious place, where a man dares not so much as smile, and
where he has to listen to sermons and exhortations lasting half a day.
My father was a Huguenot, and I suppose that I am, too, though I never
inquired very closely into the matter; but as for exhortations of four
hours in length, methinks I would rather swim those moats again, master,
and to go all day without smiling would be a worse penance than the
strictest father confessor could lay upon me."

"I own that I am somewhat of your opinion, Paolo. My father brought me
up a Protestant like yourself, and when I was quite young I had a very
dreary time of it while he was away, living as I did in the house of a
Huguenot pastor. After that I attended the Protestant services in the
barracks, for all the officers and almost all the men are Protestants,
and, of course, were allowed to have their own services; but the
minister, who was a Scotchman, knew better than to make his discourses
too lengthy; for if he did, there was a shuffling of jackboots on the
stone floor and a clanking of sabres that warned him that the patience
of the soldiers was exhausted. In our own glen my father has told me
that the ministers are as long winded as those of Geneva; but, as he
said, soldiers are a restless people, and it is one thing for men who
regard their Sunday gathering as the chief event in the week to listen
to lengthy discourses, but quite another for soldiers, either in the
field or a city like Pa