can learn that," Pierre said
quietly. "I haven't troubled myself about these matters. It made no
difference to me whether the Huguenots or the Catholics were in the
saddle; still, one doesn't keep one's ears closed, and people talk
freely enough before me.

"'Pierre does not concern himself with these things. The lad is
half a fool; he pays no attention to what is being said.'

"So they would go on talking, and I would go on rubbing down a
horse, or eating my black bread with a bit of cheese or an onion,
or whatever I might be about, and looking as if I did not even know
they were there. But I gathered that the Catholics think that the
Guises, and Queen Catherine, and Philip of Spain, and the Pope are
going to put an end to the Huguenots altogether. From those on the
other side, I learned that the Huguenots will take the first step
in La Rochelle, and that one fine morning the Catholics are likely
to find themselves bundled out of it. Then it doesn't need much
sense to see that, ere long, we shall be having a Catholic army
down here to retake the place; that is, if the Huguenot lords are
not strong enough to stop them on their way."

"And you think the Catholics are not on their guard at all?"

"Not they," Pierre said contemptuously. "They have been
strengthening the walls and building fresh ones, thinking that an
attack might come from without from the Huguenots; and all the time
the people of that religion in the town have been laughing in their
sleeves, and pretending to protest against being obliged to help at
the new works, but really paying and working willingly. Why, they
even let the magistrates arrest and throw into prison a number of
their party, without saying a word, so that the priests and the
commissioners should think they have got it entirely their own way.
It has been fun watching it all, and I had made up my mind to take
to the woods again, directly it began. I had no part in the play,
and did not wish to run any risk of getting a ball through my head;
whether from a Catholic or a Huguenot arquebus.

"Now, of course, it is all different. Monsieur is a Huguenot, and
therefore so am I. It is the Catholic bullets that will be shot at
me and, as no one likes to be shot at, I shall soon hate the
Catholics cordially, and shall be ready to do them any ill turn
that you may desire."

"And you think that if necessary, Pierre, you could carry a message
into the town, even though the Catholics were camped