Being rather high-wrought, I would willingly have faced a little danger for Madeleine's sake.
I kissed her soft cheek unrebuked, and followed my father through the dark with a happy heart Mechanically, rather than from either devotion or defiance, I began to hum "Chantez de Dieu," when my father's warning hand plucked my sleeve, and, at the same instant, a rough voice beside me said, "Hold your peace! Have you not heard of the _arret ?_" and passed on.
We had heard nothing of any _arret_; but next morning, when I went to the glazier's, he told me that an order had been issued forbidding the Reformed to sing psalms in the streets and public walks, or even within their own houses loud enough to be heard outside.

And he told me he was so full of work that he hardly knew which way to turn, in consequence of the many windows broken over night by evil-disposed men suborned to interrupt psalmody.

I asked him, half jesting, if he thought any of the suborned men were glaziers; but it hurt him, for he was as good a Huguenot as any in Nismes.
Going home with him, I saw a horrid sight--a dead body that had been some time buried, torn from the grave, stripped of its shroud, and lying in the gutter.

I shuddered, and asked the glazier if we had not better tell the authorities; but he hurried on, saying, "Better let it be.

The authorities doubtless know all about it." So there had we to leave the ghastly object, though its remaining there was equally prejudicial to decency and to health.
Men's tongues were very busy that day; every one foreboding calamity and nobody knowing how to meet it.
My mother sent me, after breakfast, to visit my uncle Chambrun, who had fallen sick; and as the distance was about seven leagues, I went to him on a small but active horse.