use of arms, equitation, and certain dry studies
under an abbe. I wish now that instead of Latin I had learned something
of military history; it seems to me that when one is intended for the
army it is a good deal more important than Latin or theology."

"I fancy, de Lisle," his companion said laughing, "that from what I know
of you your objection was not so much to the course of study as to study
altogether. I know that that was my case."

"Well, perhaps so; still, I might as well have been whipped into
learning something useful, instead of something that, so far as I can
see, will never be of any value whatever. Were you born over here,
lieutenant?"

"No, I was born in Scotland; but my father, who was a younger son, saw
no chance of making his way by his sword at home. It was certain that
James would never go to war, and as there was no regular army, there
seemed no opening for a penniless cadet in England or Scotland, so he
came over here and obtained a commission, and as soon as he did so sent
for my mother and myself. She died two years later; he kept me with him.
When he went on service I was left in the charge of a Huguenot family,
and it was well that it was so, for otherwise I might have grown up
unable to read or write. The last time that I saw him was before he rode
to La Rochelle. After his death I was adopted by the regiment, for the
good people I was with left Paris to join their friends in the south.
Had it been otherwise I should have stayed with them. The good man would
probably have brought me up to be, like himself, a minister, and I am
afraid I should have made a very poor one."

The two young men laughed. "Just at present," de Lisle said, "the two
religions get on quietly together. The cardinal, churchman as he is,
knows that if France is to be great religious enmities must cease, and
that the wars of the last reign cost tens of thousands of lives, and
drove great numbers of men to take refuge in Holland or England, to the
benefit of those countries and our loss. Still, his successor, whoever
he may be, may think more of party and less of France, and in that case
you might have found your vocation of a Huguenot minister as full of
danger as that of a soldier."

"It would have been much worse," Hector said, "for it would not have
been a question of fighting, but of being massacred. I know nothing of
either religious disputes or of politics. In the regiment these things
were never talked about,