if it doesn't turn out just
what we expected, you cannot blame yourself for that. Why, if you
were to ask me to come for a walk, and a tree fell on me as we were
going along and killed me, you would hardly blame yourself because
you asked me to come; and this is just the same.

"At any rate, if I do get killed, which I don't mean to be if I can
help it, there is no one else who will take it very much to heart,
except yourself. There are plenty of them at home and, now that I
have been away nearly two years, they must almost have forgotten my
existence."

"I consider you a very foolish boy," Patsey said, gravely. "You
talk a great deal too much nonsense."

"Very well, Patsey; abuse is not argument, and almost every word
that you have said applies equally well to your folly, in leaving a
comfortable home in a quiet country to come to such a dangerous
place as this.

"Now, I hope that supper is ready, for I am as hungry as a hunter."

Chapter 3: The First Successes.

The next morning, at twelve o'clock, Jean Martin reached home.

"The war has begun," he said, as he leaped from his horse. "Henri
de la Rochejaquelein has accepted the leadership of the peasants,
at Clisson. Lescure would have joined also, but Henri pointed out
to him that it would be better not to compromise his family, until
it was certain that the insurrection would become general. The
young count was starting, just as I got to the chateau. He is a
splendid young fellow, full of enthusiasm, and burning to avenge
the misfortunes that have fallen upon his family. A peasant had
arrived the evening before, with a message from his aunt, who lives
farther to the south. He brought news that the chevalier de
Charette--formerly a lieutenant in the navy and a strong Royalist,
who had escaped the massacres at Paris, and was living quietly on
his estate near Machecoul--had been asked several times, by the
peasants in his neighbourhood, to take the command, and had
accepted it; and that the rising was so formidable, there, that it
was certain the authorities in that part of Poitou would not
succeed in enforcing the conscription.

"I have told Lescure that I shall be prepared to join, as soon as
there is a general movement here; but that I should attach myself
to whoever took the direction of affairs in this part, for that in
the first place I knew nothing of war, and in the second place I
have resided here so small a portion of my time that I am scarcel