"Very well; I have but to run up, make love to the custodian, and he would swing me down. There; it is easy done!" "You had best cast down the hammer and let me replace the steps." "I'll come down without them and without a rope. I can leap. If I cannot creep up as a cat, I can spring down like one--aye! and like a squirrel, too, from one lodging place to another. Stand back and see me." "Stay!" said Jean. "Why run the risk when not needed?" "Because I like the risk--it is pepper and mustard to my meat of life. Stand back, clown, or I will spring and strike you over--and down you go and crack your foolish pate." "If I go--you go also--do you not see that?" "Look aloft!" said the girl. "Up in that nest--whenever the English are about, up goes into it the Bishop of Sarlat, and he takes with him all his treasure, his gold cups and patens, his shrines for holy bones all set with gems, and his bags of coin. There he sits like an old grey owl, Towhit! towhoo--towhit! towhoo! and he looks out this way, that--to see where houses are burning and smoke rises, and when at night the whole world is besprent with red fires--as the sky is with stars, where farms and homesteads are burning. And he says 'Towhit! towhoo! I have my cups and my patens and my coin-bags, and my dear little holy bones, all safe here. Towhit! towhoo! And best of all--I am safe--my unholy old bones also, whoo! whoo! whoo! Nobody can touch me--whoo! whoo! whoo!'" "Is he there now?" "No, he is not. There is no immediate danger. Only a few as guard, that is all. If I were a man, I'd take the place and smoke the old owl out, and rob him of his plunder. I'd keep the shrines, and throw the holy rubbish away!" "How would you do that?" "I have been considering. I'd be let down over the edge of the cliff and throw in fireballs, till I had set the castle blazing." "And then?" "Then I'd have grappling-irons and crook them to the walls, and swing in under the ledge, and leap on the top of the battlements, and the place would fall. I'd cast the old bishop out if he would not go, and carry off all his cups and shrines and coin." "It would be sacrilege!" "Bah! What care I?" Then, after enjoying the astonishment of the lad, she said: "With two or three bold spirits it might be done. Will you join me? Be my mate, and we will divide the plunder." She burst into a merry laugh. "It would be sport to smoke out the old owl and send him flying down through the air, blinking and towhooing, to break his wings, or his neck, or his crown there--on those stones below." "I'm not English--I'm no brigand!" answered the young man vehemently. "I'm English!" said the girl. "What? An English woman or devil?" "I'm English--I'm Gascon. I'm anything where there is diversion to be got and plunder to be obtained. Oh, but we live in good times! Deliver me from others where there is nothing doing, no sport, no _chevauchée_[1] no spoil, no fighting."