Merlin stood yet closer. His dark eyes seemed to search every line of Fulk’s face with a fascinated and greedy eagerness which could not be hid. Fulk took it to be a notorious hunger for money, for no beggars could beg like the preaching friars. “Maybe you have been in London, Messire Fulk, and have seen the great and noble church of St. Francis, near to Newgate. Kings and great lords and ladies have given us money, and jewels, and plate, and rich stuffs, not for our glory but for the glory of St. Francis and the good of their souls. Doubtless, when you have tarried at my Lord of Lancaster’s Palace of the Savoy——” Fulk took him up. “I have never been in your city of London, Master Friar.” A bird twittered in the furze, and Merlin threw up his arms of a sudden, and cried in a loud voice: “Peace—peace! All honour to St. Francis, and let all men love one another.” Fulk looked at him as at one gone mad. Merlin waxed explanatory. “Sir, at times the spirit stirs in me so strongly that I have to leap and cry out. And assuredly it is a marvellous thing that such a bachelor as Fulk Ferrers should never have ridden thirty miles and crossed London Bridge! Yet you are not altogether the loser, for in a city lurks much wickedness.” Fulk’s horse began to fidget, and his master was in sympathy with him. “We forest folk keep our wits and our money about us, Father Merlin, nor have we much of the latter to lose. I wish you a good journey, plenty of alms, and many sinners.” Merlin showed his teeth and grinned. “_Pax tecum_, my son.” And so they parted. The Polecat came wriggling out of the furze as soon as Fulk of the Forest had disappeared over the hill. He rubbed one finger along his nose and spat into the grass. “Father Merlin is merciful to-day.” Merlin turned on him with the savage impatience of a fierce spirit wantonly disturbed in the midst of some marvellous meditation. “Back into the grass, you snake. And by the Wood of the Cross, do not budge thence till nightfall.” The Polecat wriggled back, and Father Merlin went on his way, staring at the ground. He had walked a mile or more before he threw up both hands with a snapping of the thumbs and fingers and shouted aloud with exultation. “A bastard, a prince’s bastard! How would it serve to steal and use the likeness of a king?” CHAPTER VI