'But how?' I asked.
'Viscount, you are mad!' exclaimed Cheyne and others.
'How so, gentlemen?' said he, mounting; 'I am the grandson of a commendator.'
'The devil!' exclaimed the Chevalier, laughing; 'dost think the nuns will esteem you the more for that?'
'But how will you enter?' I asked.
''Tis very simple. I fall sick at the gate or am thrown from my horse, and the sympathizing abbess, the kind nuns and pretty little novices, carry me in; they remove my helmet—they bathe my temples with perfumes, and with their own soft hands, and thus the fortress is taken by stratagem.'
'Beware, Viscount, I beseech you,' said I; 'such pranks may bring you to the Bastille.'
'Viscount, you are incorrigible!' said Sir Quentin Home.
'Ten crowns to one, you don't get entrance,' said the reckless Chevalier Livingstone.
'You shall see, gentlemen—my ten crowns are won,' cried the madcap Viscount, as he galloped away with all his brilliant accoutrements flashing in the sun; and the waggish maire rubbed his hands with glee, as he saw him cross the bridge and ascend the height on which the sequestered convent stood.