ant answered only by a grunt.

"If this good fellow had not been in front----"

This time the sergeant cut him short with an imperious gesture, and the
young man seeing that the guard also had fallen stiffly into rank,
turned to the tailor. He was overflowing with good nature: he must speak
to some one. "If you had not been in front," he began, "I----"

But the tailor also cut him short--frowning and laying his finger to his
lip and pointing mysteriously to the ground. The stranger stooped to
look more closely, but saw nothing: and it was only when the others
dropped on their knees that he understood the hint and hastened to
follow the example. The soldiers bent their heads while the sergeant
recited a prayer for the safety of the city. He did this reverently,
while the evening light--which fell grey between walls and sobered those
who had that moment left the open sky and the open country--cast its
solemn mantle about the party.

Such was the pious usage observed in that age at the opening and the
closing of the gates of Geneva: nor had it yet sunk to a form. The
nearness of the frontier and the shadow of those clutching arms, ever
extended to smother the free State, gave a reality to the faith of those
who opened and shut, and with arms in their hands looked back on ten
years of constant warfare. Many a night during those ten years had
Geneva gazed from her watch-towers on burning farms and smouldering
homesteads; many a day seen the smoke of Chablais hamlets float a dark
trail across her lake. What wonder if, when none knew what a night might
bring forth, and the fury of Antwerp was still a new tale in men's ears,
the Genevese held Providence higher and His workings more near than men
are prone to hold them in happier times?

Whether the stranger's reverent bearing during the prayer gained the
sergeant's favour, or the sword tied to his bundle and the bulging
corners of squat books which stuffed out the cloak gave a new notion of
his condition, it is certain that the officer eyed him more kindly when
all rose from their knees. "You can pass in now, young sir," he said
nodding. "But another time remember, if you please, the earlier here the
warmer welcome!"

"I will bear it in mind," the young traveller answered, smiling.
"Perhaps you can tell me where I can get a night's lodging?"

"You come to study, perhaps?" The sergeant puffed himself out as he
spoke, for the fame of Geneva's college and its great professo