Page:Tudor Jenks--The defense of the castle.djvu/169

Rh beard and my minstrel dress. He turned to the Count and said, 'Count, this is either no friar or no minstrel! When he came to your castle some days ago, he was a Franciscan friar; now he is a minstrel. He may be either, but he cannot be both. I believe he is a spy!"

"Luke the Lurdane is more dangerous than all the rest of the Count's forces," Hugh remarked. "If it were not for his shrewdness, we need have no fear of that fat-witted robber-baron."

"Go on—do go on." said Amabel eagerly.

"Well," the Friar resumed, "as soon as Luke had jogged the Count's memory, he remembered me, and then I was questioned and cross-questioned until I thought it wise to play another part. I admitted that I had come from the castle, and—if you will forgive me, my lord,—I said that I had been ordered to dress myself as a minstrel and to go as a spy into their camp, and that I had been bribed to do so."

"You did right," said Edgar, laughing, "and it was a shrewd and a bold device."

"It was my only chance," said the old Friar. "It was my idea to make myself out a fool so that they might think me not worth the rope to hang me. I think I succeeded. I told them that I was to have five gold pieces if I brought a true report of what was being done outside, and that I was