"Certainly not!" Croisette retorted with contempt. "Even the
Vidame would not dare to do that in time of peace. Besides, he
has not half a score of men here," continued the lad, shrewdly,
"and counting old Gil and ourselves we have as many. And
Pavannes always said that three men could hold the gate at the
bottom of the ramp against a score. Oh, he will not try that!"

"Certainly not!" I agreed. And so we crushed Marie. "But for
Louis de Pavannes--"

Catherine interrupted me. She came out quickly looking a
different person; her face flushed with anger, her tears dried.

"Anne!" she cried, imperiously, "what is the matter down below
--will you see?"

I had no difficulty in doing that. All the sounds of town life
came up to us on the terrace. Lounging there we could hear the
chaffering over the wheat measures in the cloisters of the
market-square, the yell of a dog, the voice of a scold, the
church bell, the watchman's cry. I had only to step to the wall
to overlook it all. On this summer afternoon the town had been
for the most part very quiet. If we had not been engaged in our
own affairs we should have taken the alarm before, remarking in
the silence the first beginnings of what was now a very
respectable tumult. It swelled louder even as we stepped to the
wall.

We could see--a bend in the street laying it open--part of the
Vidame's house; the gloomy square hold which had come to him from