"All very fine," said Bernard, "but you will have other things to do besides learning how to be a knight and soldier. You will serve your masters and your mistresses at table, clean armor, hold stirrups, and do everything else they ask of you."
"Oh yes," said Louis; "but that will be only while I am a page. In a year and a half all that will be over."
"A year and a half seems to me like a long time," said Raymond; "but time always passes quickly with Louis."
This remark was made to Bernard, but the squire did not appear to hear it. He was looking back through the gate at the departing monk.
"If I only knew that he was never coming back," he said to himself, "I would not much care what else happened."
And then he followed the boys up to the chateau.
CHAPTER II.
THE good squire did not make his inhospitable remark in regard to the monk because he had any dislike for monks or priests in general. He had as high an opinion of the members of the clergy as any one, but he had a very strong dislike for this particular prior. To understand his reasons for this feeling, we must know that, not very long before the period at which our story begins, and soon after the Queen Regent had conquered the rebellious provinces, and so consolidated the kingdom, there was established in the city of Toulouse that terrible tribunal of the Romish Church known as the Holy Inquisition. Here persons suspected of holding opinions in opposition to the doctrines taught by the Church were tried, often subjected to tortures in order to induce them to confess the crimes with which they were charged, and punished with great severity if found guilty. This inquisition was under the charge of the Dominican friars, of which order the man who had just passed out of the little gate was a member.
For several weeks the frequent visits of this prior to the Countess of Viteau had given a great deal of uneasiness to Bernard. The man was not one of the regular religious instructors of the family, nor had he anything to do with the education of the boys. There was some particular reason for his visits to the chateau, and of this the household at large knew nothing; but the fact of his being a Dominican, and therefore connected with the Inquisition, made him an unpleasant visitor to those who saw his comings and goings, but who did not know their object.