"But can you ascertain?" demanded Bernard de Rohan; "is it possible to learn exactly in such a labyrinth-like country as this?" The priest laughed. "Beyond all doubt, my son, beyond all doubt," he said. "The past we can always ascertain. The future is God's," he added, more reverently; "the future is God's, and must rest in his dark council chamber. But do you not know, have you not yourself seen, that though the peasant and the traveller wander along the sides of these mountains without beholding anything but the gray stone, and the clear stream, and the green bush; though he might whistle all the lays of France and Italy together, and blow all the horns that ever were winded from Naples to the far North, without rousing anything but a roebuck or an eagle, there are particular sounds, to be uttered by particular voices, which would call every bush into life, and change every rock into an armed man? My good friend, my good friend, the mountain is full of eyes; and the Lord of Masseran himself, though he knows it is so, does not know to what extent. There is only one being under the blue eye of heaven that sees it all, and that is the man whom I met with you the other night." "He is certainly a very extraordinary being," replied Bernard de Rohan, "and I would fain know more of him." "In all probability you will know more," replied the priest. "But you may meet with thousands like him in various parts of the world. There are three places where you generally find the great rogues congregate--the court, the court of law, and the refectory. The honest man has only two places that I know of--the mountain-side and the highway. There are exceptions, you know; for instance, there is a very honest priest, who has the care of the poor souls in the parish of Saint John of Bonvoisin, just across the frontier line in France. Sinner that I am! what should he be doing here, using his time no better than his patron, Saint Anthony, used his head? Why should he be here, I say, preaching to the stones upon this mountain, when his reverend predecessor preached to fishes and petted a pig? However, the king, a blessing on his good-humoured head, sent the said priest to Bonvoisin to keep him out of harm's way; for that boisterous heretic, Clement Marot, threatened to drive his dagger into him for throwing back some of his ribald poetry on his own head. Then, again, the grave and serious admiral felt aggrieved at his preaching, one Saint Anthony's day, upon the subject of herrings, which he vowed was a satire upon the tax he had laid on the fishery. However, there the good priest is--or, rather, there he is not, but ought to be--one of the honestest men in all France, if you will take his own word for it; a great rogue according to some men, and a good soul according to others. There may be two or three like him in other parts of France; and depend upon it, wherever they are, you will find the poor speak well of them, the widows and the