"It's hey for Ghent!" said Martin again, as we stood on the grass watching the sparks fly, but with hearts less heavy than might have been supposed. The very greatness of a catastrophe can be its own alleviation. The spirit of a man rises within him to watch the crisis and face it down. "Hey for Ghent! or maybe, Cologne? And the sooner we are on the road the better. Which shall it be, Monsieur Gaspard, burgher or Emperor?" "Neither," I answered; "the King and Paris." "Paris?" and he looked his incredulity. It was a new thing for Monsieur Gaspard to have a will of his own. "Why to Paris?" "How can we two face Jan Meert and his twenty brutes?" I quoted. "We need backing, and we'll get it from Louis of France." "From that old fox? From Louis the treaty-breaker? A cunning, coldhearted, cruel--for the Lord's sake, Monsieur Gaspard, let us keep out of his claws. When did Louis of France ever back anything but Louis?" "Never, and that is why he'll back us. Listen, and see if I am as much a fool as you think. The Dauphin marries our Margaret of Flanders. The Dauphin's father, that cunning old fox, will desire excuses to meddle in the affairs of Flanders; we give him one, and to gain his own end, he helps us to gain ours." "What right has he to meddle with Flanders?" "The right of every just man to put down lawlessness, the right of The Most Christian King to right the wrong, the right of Louis of France to please himself--when he is strong enough! and the right of the third is greater than the other two." "But he shuts himself up like a rat in a hole; no man goes near him." "Monsieur de Commines is the King's good friend, Monsieur de Commines was my father's good friend, and is my cousin thrice removed. Monsieur de Commines will open the rat hole and let me in. The one thing that troubles me is how we are to reach Paris, scarecrows as we are and penniless." "Scarecrows," answered Martin, looking ruefully at the stains and tatters that either from fire, smoke, or the ragged edges of splintered timber so disguised us that whether we were clad in silk or stuff, browns or crimsons, no man could have told. That morning, even though the tryst was only with a peasant girl, I had put on my finest splendour, and now it was a thing of derision; "scarecrows, but not quite penniless; wait for me, Monsieur Gaspard." Chuckling, he half ran, half shuffled off into the wood in the opposite direction to that in which he had hidden Babette, and in five minutes was back, breathless, but his face still puckered with satisfaction.