"Every foot of it. I don't think that there is a pond in which I have not laid my lines, not a streamlet of which I do not know every pool, not a wood that I have not slept in, nor a hedge where I have not laid snares for rabbits. I could find my way about as well by night as by day; and you know, sir, that may be of use, if you ever want to send a message into the town when the Guises have got their troops lying outside." Philip looked sharply at him. "Oh, you think it likely that the Guises will soon be besieging La Rochelle?" "Anyone who keeps his ears open can learn that," Pierre said quietly. "I haven't troubled myself about these matters. It made no difference to me whether the Huguenots or the Catholics were in the saddle; still, one doesn't keep one's ears closed, and people talk freely enough before me. "'Pierre does not concern himself with these things. The lad is half a fool; he pays no attention to what is being said.' "So they would go on talking, and I would go on rubbing down a horse, or eating my black bread with a bit of cheese or an onion, or whatever I might be about, and looking as if I did not even know they were there. But I gathered that the Catholics think that the Guises, and Queen Catherine, and Philip of Spain, and the Pope are going to put an end to the Huguenots altogether. From those on the other side, I learned that the Huguenots will take the first step in La Rochelle, and that one fine morning the Catholics are likely to find themselves bundled out of it. Then it doesn't need much sense to see that, ere long, we shall be having a Catholic army down here to retake the place; that is, if the Huguenot lords are not strong enough to stop them on their way." "And you think the Catholics are not on their guard at all?" "Not they," Pierre said contemptuously. "They have been strengthening the walls and building fresh ones, thinking that an attack might come from without from the Huguenots; and all the time the people of that religion in the town have been laughing in their sleeves, and pretending to protest against being obliged to help at the new works, but really paying and working willingly. Why, they even let the magistrates arrest and throw into prison a number of their party, without saying a word, so that the priests and the commissioners should think they have got it entirely their own way. It has been fun watching it all, and I had made up my mind to take to the woods again, directly it began. I had no part in the play, and did not wish to run any risk of getting a ball through my head; whether from a Catholic or a Huguenot arquebus. "Now, of course, it is all different. Monsieur is a Huguenot, and therefore so am I. It is the Catholic bullets that will be shot at me and, as no one likes to be shot at, I shall soon hate the Catholics cordially, and shall be ready to do them any ill turn that you may desire."