In a lawless society she had learned to fear neither God nor the king. Both were too far off. The one in Heaven, the other in England; too distant to rule effectively. A certain perfunctory homage was claimed by both, neither was regarded as exercising any control over men. A feudal service was all that a bandit in those days, or indeed any baron or seigneur, thought of rendering to the Almighty. He would fight in a crusade for Him, he would do knightly homage in church, but he would no more obey the laws of the Christian religion than he would those of the realm of France. Noémi had seen but little of Jean del' Peyra, and yet that little had surprised her, and had awoke in her thoughts that were to her strange, and yet, though strange, consonant with her instinctive sense of what was right and wrong. Jean del' Peyra not only surprised her, but occupied her thoughts: she saw, almost for the first time, in him one of a different order from the men with whom she had been thrown. Even her cousins, the Tardes, were akin in mind and consciencelessness to the _routiers._What they did that was right was done rather out of blind obedience to instinct, or allegiance to their feudal lord, the Bishop of Sarlat. They were noble, for they had escutcheons over their doors, but all their nobility was external. They were boastful, empty roysterers. On the other hand, the Del' Peyras were quiet, made no pretence to being more than they were, and were inspired with a moral sense and a regard for their fellow-men. She saw how far greater was the influence exerted by the old man and his son than was exercised by that remorseless man of war, Guillem, or the braggart Jacques Tarde. Her father controlled men by fear; Ogier del' Peyra moved men by respect. The Captain was a destructive, and only a destructive element. Solely by means of men like the Del' Peyras could human happiness and well-being be built up. Noémi was a thoughtful girl. At first, somewhat contemptuously, she had set down Jean del' Peyra as a milksop; from what she had heard, his father was but a country clown. But the country clown and the milksop had revealed in themselves a force, an energy quite unexpected. Noémi laughed as her busy mind worked. She laughed to think of the discomfiture of professional fighting men, accustomed to arms from their youth, by a parcel of inexperienced peasants and charcoal-burners. She was glad that these oppressed beings had risen. It showed that there was in them a nature above that of rabbits. She had seen a thousand times the holes into which they ran at the glint of a spearhead, at the jangle of a spur. But now they had issued from their holes and had hunted like wolves.