"Pooh! He is a fool of the new school! He will go back to his cabbages before he will do that! I tell you," he continued, laying his hand on the other's knee, "he has got Perigord, the main part of it, into order! Ay, into order! And if he don't go, we shall have to mend our manners," with a grin, "and get our governments into order, too!" "By the Lord, there is no finger wags in my country unless I will it!" the Constable rejoined with some tartness. "Since he"--he indicated Joyeuse--"came over to us, at any rate! Don't think it! But there it is. If there were no whifflesnaffles here and there, and no blood-letting, it would not suit us very well, would it? You don't want to go to cabbage planting, Marshal, more than I do?" The Marshal smiled. * * * * * Late that night the young Duke of Joyeuse, leaving his people at the end of the street, went by himself to the house in which des Ageaux lodged in Lyons. A woman answered his summons, and not knowing the young grandee--for he was cloaked to the nose--fetched the Bat, an old, lean, lank-visaged captain who played squire of the body to des Ageaux. The Bat knew the Duke in spite of his cloak; perhaps he had him for a certain reason in his mind. And he bowed his long, stiff back before him, and would have fetched lights; yet with a glum face. But the Duke answered him shortly that he wanted no more than a word with his master, and would say it there. On which, "You are too late, my lord," the Bat rejoined; and Joyeuse saw that with all his politeness he was as gloomy as his name. "He left Lyons this afternoon." "With what attendance?" the Duke asked in great surprise. For he had not heard of it. "Alone, my lord Duke." "Does he return to-morrow?" "I know not." "But you know something!" the young noble retorted with more of vexation than the circumstances seemed to justify. "My lord, nothing," the Bat answered, "save that we are ordered to follow him to-morrow by way of Clermont." "To his province?" "Even so, my lord." Joyeuse struck his booted foot against the pavement, and the sombre Bat, whose ears--some said he got his name from them--were almost as long as his legs, caught the genial chink of gold crowns. It was such music as he seldom heard, for he had a vision of a heavy bag of them; and his eyes glistened. But the chink was all he had of them. Joyeuse turned away, and with a stifled sigh and a shrug went back to the play-table at the Archbishop's palace. Sinning and repenting were the two occupations in which he had spent one half of his short life; and if there was a thing which he did with greater ardour than the first--it was the second. CHAPTER I. VILLENEUVE-L'ABBESSE.