"We shall have to keep a keen lookout, through the winter. Fortunately our harvest here is a good one, and the granaries are all full; so that we shall be able to keep the men-at-arms on through the winter, without much expense. I feel more anxious about the tenants than about ourselves." "Yes, mother, there is no doubt there is considerable risk of the enemy trying to beat us up; and we must arrange for signals, so that our people may have time to fall back here. Philip and I will think it over. We ought to be able to contrive some scheme between us." "Do so, Francois. I feel safe against surprise here; but I never retire to rest, without wondering whether the night will pass without the tenants' farms and stacks being set ablaze, and they and their families slaughtered on their own hearth stones." "I suppose, Francois," Philip said to him as they stood at the lookout, next morning, "there is not much doubt which way they would cross the hills, coming from Poitiers. They would be almost sure to come by that road that we travelled by, when we went to Chatillon. It comes down over the hills, two miles to the west. "There it is, you see. You just catch sight of it, as it crosses that shoulder. Your land does not go as far as that, does it?" "No, it only extends a mile in that direction, and four miles in the other, and five miles out into the plain." "Are there many Huguenots on the other side of the hill?" "Yes, there are some; but as you know, our strength is in the other direction. What are you thinking of?" "I was thinking that we might make an arrangement with someone, in a village some seven or eight miles beyond the hills, to keep a boy on watch night and day; so that, directly a body of Catholic troops were seen coming along, he should start at full speed to some place a quarter of a mile away, and there set light to a beacon piled in readiness. "We, on our part, would have a watch set on the top of this hill behind us; at a spot where the hill on which the beacon was placed would be visible. Then at night the fire, and by day the smoke would serve as a warning. Our watchman would, at once, fire an arquebus and light another beacon; which would be the signal for all within reach to come here, as quickly as possible. "At each farmhouse a lookout must, of course, be kept night and day. I should advise the tenants to send up as much of their corn and hay as possible, at once; and that the cattle should be driven up close to the chateau, at night."