"No; on my lands, whilst under my protection, you are safe." "Under your protection!" jeered the girl! "Bah! If I stood among a thousand, and shouted, 'Ware! Le Gros Guillem is on you!' they would fly on all sides as minnows when I throw a stone into the water." She altered her tone and said: "There, I go to do good. I will see my father if he is at his church, and I will whisper good thoughts unto him, and get him to reduce the ransom. Now, will you take me with you?" "You will trust yourself with me?" "Jacques Tarde shall come also. Let anyone dare to touch Noémi! I will come. When shall we start?" "At once," answered Jean. "So be it; at once." CHAPTER VII. THE NEW COMPANION. ONE of the strangest features of a strange time was the manner in which families were broken up and neighbours were at feud. The same individuals shifted sides and were one day boozing together at table and the next meeting in deadly conflict. Discord was in families. In the house of Limeuil the father was French, the son English; and the son was English merely because he desired to turn his father out of the ancestral heritage and lord it in his room. Limeuil was stormed by the son, then retaken by the father; now sacked by English troops, and then sacked again by French troops, who cared nothing for the national causes of France or England. Prevost de la Force and Perducat d'Albret had castles facing each other on opposite sides of the Dordogne. Each desired to draw some money out of the commercial town of Bergerac on the plea that he was empowered to protect it from the other. Accordingly, one called himself French, the other English; and Perducat, when it suited his convenience, after having been English, became French. Domestic broils determined the policy of the turbulent seigneurs. If they coveted a bit of land, or a village, or a castle that belonged to a brother or a cousin of one persuasion, they went over to the opposed to supply them with an excuse for falling on their kinsmen. The Seigneur de Pons, because his marriage settlement with his wife did not allow him sufficient liberty to handle her means, turned French, and his wife threw open her gates to the Duke of Lancaster. Whereupon the seigneur fought the English, to whom he had formerly been devoted, retook his town, and chastised his wife. The man who was French to-day was English to-morrow, and French again the day after. Some were very weathercocks, turning with every wind, always with an eye to their own advantage. Consequently, families were much mixed up with both parties. Unless a seigneur was out on a raid, he would associate on terms of friendliness with the very men whom he would hang on the next occasion. Kinsfolk were in every camp. The seigneurs had allies everywhere; but their kinsfolk were not always their allies--were often their deadliest enemies.