Merlin heard a bird twittering in the furze, and he guessed it was the Polecat who twittered. Fulk of the Forest was turning his horse from the vachery gate, and the cowherd went in and closed it after him. Merlin sat well back against the trunk of the thorn tree, his head bowed, his beads in his hands, his ears listening for the hoof-falls of the riding forester’s horse. Fulk, mounting the meadow slope, saw the grey friar under the thorn tree telling his beads. He had no great love for the strolling friars, holding them to be deer stealers when the chance served, and self-seeking meddlers who were breeding an insolent pride in the hearts of the lewd commons. For Fulk had an eagle scorn for the villein folk and the lower craftsmen of the town. Such creatures were to be kept under, and not puffed into a vain conceit of themselves by men who had left the dunghill to put on a friar’s frock. Fulk took a good look at the Franciscan, and from under his hood Merlin’s eyes were watching the legs of the roan horse. It was part of his plan that he should seem lost in his devotions and blind to the world till Messire Fulk rode up. “Good-day to you, Master Friar.” Merlin lifted his head with a start of pretended surprise. Fulk had reined in close to the thorn tree, and Merlin looked up at him as he sat there full in the sunlight. “Good-day, lording.” The astonishment that he had feigned lost itself in an astonishment that was real. Merlin’s eyes fell into a stare; his lower lip drooped; the beads dropped into his lap. For the moment he lost all knowledge of himself, and his subtlety was as a snake that has been stunned with a blow. “Sir, I am but a poor friar.” Fulk looked him over, and thought him a gaping, stammering fool. Merlin was trying to scramble back out of the open amazement into which he had fallen, to steady his wits, to hide what he had betrayed. He blinked, and bit his cheek. But the thing was monstrous. To whom was he speaking—to a stripling called Fulk of the Forest or to Richard the King? Merlin was shaken. For the moment he hardly knew whether the earth was real under him. “Sir,” he said, to gain time, “my name is Father Merlin, and I travel in these parts for the good of all souls.” He stood up with a humility that hid much turmoil, doubt, and wonder, yet his eyes were fiercely alive under his grey hood—eyes that snatched at every visible detail, and yet pretended to see nothing. Fulk considered him as a lord considers a beggar. “You friars are notorious busybodies. Our own priests say you take away their own alms-dish from under their very noses.” Merlin drew a step nearer. “Lording, we are much abused.” “And it is pleasant to confess to a man whose face one may not see again.” “Lording, you have a sharp tongue. Yet I will take a groat from any gentleman for the glorifying of our great house in London. And from Messire Fulk Ferrers——” “Well, I am he.”