rusty, the other small and glittering. These he tossed carefully, one
after the other, into the Orge. They were just upon the famous bridge
across which the postillion of Longjumeau so often took his way. The
keys flashed a moment on the water as the drops rose and fell. Then
Cabbage Jock turned on his companions and smiled his broad simpleton's
smile as he waved his hand in the direction of the inn.

"Let there be peace," he said solemnly--"peace between Jew and Gentile.
Will it please you to put on your coat now, Sir Professor?"

And as the air bit shrewdly, it pleased the Professor well enough.

CHAPTER VII.

THE GREAT NAME OF GUISE

Claire had indeed seen little of her father. All her life she had been
accustomed to be left in the charge of strangers while Francis Agnew
went about his business of hole-and-corner diplomacy. Claire was
therefore no whit astonished to find herself with two men, almost
strangers to her, alone upon the crowded road to Orleans.

She mourned sincerely for her father, but after all she was hardly more
than a child, and for years she had seen little of Francis Agnew. He
had, it is true, always managed to take care of her, always in his way
loved her. But it was most often from a distance, and as yet she did not
realise the difference.

She might therefore be thought more cheerful than most maids of a
quieter day in the expression of her grief. Then, indeed, was a man's
life on his lip, and girls of twenty had often seen more killing than
modern generals of three-score and ten. It was not that Claire felt
less, but that an adventurous present so filled her life with things to
do, that she had no time for thought.

Also, was there not Jean-aux-Choux, otherwise Cabbage Jock, but with an
excellent right to the name of John Stirling, armiger, jester to three
kings, and licentiate in theology in the Reformed (and only true) Church
of Geneva? Jean-aux-Choux was a fatalist and a Calvinist. Things which
were ordained to happen would happen, and if any insulted his master's
daughter, it was obviously ordained that he, Jean-aux-Choux, should set
a dagger between the shoulder-blades of the insulter. This in itself was
no slight protection. For the fool's sinews were reputed so strong that
he could take two vigorous men of the King's Guard, pin them with his
arms like trussed fowls, and, if so it pleased him, knock their heads
together.

So through the press the four made their way in