"Consequently, at this hour of the night, midnight, the hour of the Vagres, Count Neroweg must be full as a tick, and snoring in his bed; his wife or some concubine, lying beside him, must be dreaming with eyes wide open. Bishop Cautin, on the other hand, will be leaning with both his elbows on a table, and face to face with a bowl of old wine and one of his favorite boon companions, cracking jokes." "First to the count; he will be in bed." "Brothers, let us first call on the bishop; he will be found up; there is more sport in surprising a prelate at his wine than a seigneur at his snores." "Well said, Ronan! The bishop first!" "March! I know the house!" Who was it that said this? A young and handsome Vagre of about twenty-five years of age. He went by the name of "Master of the Hounds." There was no more accurate marksman than he with his bow and arrow. His arrow simply traveled as he wished. Once the forester slave of a Frankish duke, he was caught in an amour with one of the women of his seigneur's household, and escaped death by flight. He thereupon ran the Vagrery. "I know the episcopal house," repeated the daring fellow. "Feeling it in my bones that some day or other we would be holding communion with the bishop's treasury, like a good master of the hounds, I went one day and took observations around his lair. I saw the dear old man there. Never did I see a buck with blacker or more fiery eyes!" "And the house, Master of the Hounds, the house; how is it arranged?" "Bad! The windows are high; the doors heavy; the walls strong." "Master of the Hounds," replied Ronan the Vagre, "we shall reach the heart of the bishop's house without crossing either the door, the windows or the walls--on the same principle that you reach your sweetheart's heart without penetrating by her eyes--the night is favorable." "Brothers, to you the treasures--to me the handsome bishopess!" "Yours, Master of the Hounds, be the bishopess; ours, the booty of the episcopal villa! Long live the Vagrery!" CHAPTER II. BISHOP AND COUNT.