"No, no, my friend, no, no," replied the Count, "I do not doubt you for a moment. I only look to our good comrade here, to speak what is very unpleasant for me to say. Indeed, I do not know how to explain it to you; for you will naturally think that my father's power ought to be sufficient to protect one of his own knights against his own people." "The truth is, Sir Richard," said the Lord of Croy, "that the citizens of Ghent are an unruly race; and if they once get you in their hands, they may treat you ill. If my lord the Count were to resist them, there is no knowing what they might do. I would not answer for it, in such a case, that we should not see them in arms before the castle gate, ere noon to-morrow." "That shall never be on my account, noble prince," replied the knight, turning to the Count; "but, under these circumstances, it were wise in me to quit the town of Ghent." "That is exactly what I wish to say," answered the Prince; "but, in truth, it seems most ungrateful of me to propose such a thing to you, my friend. Undoubtedly, if you are not pleased to go, I will defend you here to the best of my power; and my father would soon give us aid, in case of necessity; but I need not tell you, that to have Ghent again in revolt, just on the eve of a new war with the Armagnacs in France, might be ruinous to all his schemes, and fatal to his policy. Moreover, if they were to accuse him of countenancing heresy here, it would do him a bitter injury; for the people in Paris have just pronounced that the sermon preached by one of his doctors, Jean Petit, is heretical." "Well," answered Richard of Woodville, "I can go to Bruges, my lord, where you said I should find good archers, and can be carrying on my levies there." The Count shook his head, saying, "That will be no place of safety. These good folks of Ghent, and those of Bruges, so often at deadliest enmity, are now sworn friends; and the Brugeois would give you up without a thought. No, what I have to propose is this, that you should go an hour or two before daylight to my cousin Waleran de St. Paul, who is now raising troops upon the Meuse. I shall have to pass thither also; for my father sends me into Burgundy, and I cannot go through France. If you will wait for me between Chimay and Dinant, I will join you within ten days, and we will go on to the west, and raise what men we can at Besançon." "So be it, my noble lord," replied Richard of Woodville; "but where shall I find the Count?" "You will find him at Chimay," replied the young prince. "He has a castle two leagues thence, on the road to Dinant. From me you shall hear before I come. I will meet you somewhere in the Ardennes. Make all your preparations quickly; and, in the meanwhile, I will write letters to my uncles of Brabant and Liege, that you may have favour and protection as you pass."