The whole company, indeed, though it moved in some fashion of array with an avant and a rear-guard, the ladies riding together, and Count Hannibal proceeding solitary in the midst, formed as peaceful a band, and one as innocently diverted, as if no man of them had ever grasped pike or blown a match.  There was an old rider among them who had seen the sack of Rome, and the dead face of the great Constable the idol of the Free Companies.  But he had a taste for simples and much skill in them; and when Madame had once seen Badelon on his knees in the grass searching for plants, she lost her fear of him.  Bigot, with his low brow and matted hair, was the abject slave of Suzanne, Madame St. Lo’s woman, who twitted him mercilessly on his Norman patois, and poured the vials of her scorn on him a dozen times a day.  In all, with La Tribe and the Carlats, Madame St. Lo’s servants, and the Countess’s following, they numbered not far short of two score; and when they halted at noon, and under the shadow of some leafy tree, ate their mid-day meal, or drowsed to the tinkle of Madame St. Lo’s lute, it was difficult to believe that Paris existed, or that these same people had so lately left its blood-stained pavements.

They halted this morning a little earlier than usual.  Madame St. Lo had barely answered her companion’s question before the subject of their discussion swung himself from old Sancho’s back, and stood waiting to assist them to dismount.  Behind him, where the green valley through which the road passed narrowed to a rocky gate, an old mill stood among willows at the foot of a mound.  On the mound behind it a ruined castle which had stood siege in the Hundred Years’ War raised its grey walls; and beyond this the stream which turned the mill poured over rocks with a cool rushing sound that proved irresistible.  The men, their horses watered and hobbled, went off, shouting like boys, to bathe below the falls; and after a moment’s hesitation Count Hannibal rose from the grass on which he had flung himself.

“Guard that for me, Madame,” he said.  And he dropped a packet, bravely sealed and tied with a silk thread, into the Countess’s lap. “’Twill be safer than leaving it in my clothes.  Ohe!” And he turned to Madame St. Lo.  “Would you fancy a life that was all gipsying, cousin?” And if there was irony in his voice, there was desire in his eyes.

“There is only one happy man in the world,” she answered, with conviction.

“By name?”

“The hermit of Compiegne.”

“And in a week you would be wild for a masque!” he said cynically.  And turning on his heel he followed the men.

Madame St. Lo sighed complacently.  “Heigho!” she said.  “He’s right!  We are never content, ma mie!  When I am trifling in the Gallery my heart is in the greenwood.  And when I have eaten black bread and drank spring water for a fortnight I do nothing but dream of Zamet’s, and white mulberry tarts!  And you are in the same case.  You have saved your round white neck, or it has been saved for you, by not so much as the thickness of Zamet’s pie-crust—­I declare my mouth is beginning to water for it!—­and instead of being thankful and making the best of things, you are thinking of poor Madame d’Yverne, or dreaming of your calf-love!”