His astonishment and delight upon finding the Countess and her family safe within his walls, and on hearing that Viteau was free from every robber and in the possession of its rightful owner, and that for all this no ransom or price of any kind was to be paid, can well be imagined. And when he and the Countess talked the matter over, it became evident to the lady that to repay the Count the sums he intended to advance—which payment she most certainly would have made—would have impoverished her for years. All was now happiness and satisfaction at the castle, but no one was happier or better satisfied than the ex-robber, Jasto. Now that his enemy, Michol, was dead, he felt that his own life was safe; for it would be no longer necessary to sacrifice him for the good of others. He sat down in a corner of the court-yard, and thought the matter over. "As to that ransom," he said to himself, "which was due me for returning the boy Louis to his sorrowing mother, I must make some proper settlement about it. Half of it I remitted when the boy saved me from the hands of the bloody-minded _brabancois_, and one-half of what was left I took off when these good people gave back to me again my brave and noble master, Sir Charles. And now that that great knight, Sir Hugo de Lannes, has killed Michol and saved my life, I do remit what is left, which is only a quarter of the whole sum—after all, hardly equal to the benefit received; for when a man's life is in danger as much from his friends as his enemies, it is a very great benefit, indeed, to have it saved. But, as I have no money with which to make up the balance, I will e'en call the account settled, and so it is." As Jasto took so much credit to himself for this generous determination, it was not to be expected he should keep the matter secret, and he therefore communicated it to Louis the first time he saw the boy, giving him in careful detail his reasons for what he had intended to do, and what he had done. All this Louis very soon told to his mother; and the Countess, remembering that she had promised Jasto a reward, and feeling a little ashamed that it had passed out of her mind, took the hint which Jasto had undoubtedly intended to throw out, and sent him a sum of money which, if used with ordinary economy, would make it unnecessary for him ever again to wear a suit of clothes resembling a map of a country with the counties and departments marked out with borderlines of red silk. A week afterward, when Jasto left the castle with Sir Charles, his education had progressed sufficiently to enable him, with the assistance of his alphabet and his little manuscript book, to write a short and simple message so that it could be read. But he intended to persevere in his studies until he had become as good a scribe as his master formerly supposed him to be.