can be got away safely, there is still a shaft
that you may shoot more deadly than any that ever left Grey Dick's
quiver. But yesterday I told you for your comfort--when we spoke of his
wooing of Red Eve--that this Norman, for such he is, although his mother
was English and he was English born, is a traitor to King Edward, whom
he pretends to serve."

"Ay, and I said as much to him this afternoon when he prated to me of
his knightly honour, and, though I had no time to take note of faces, I
thought he liked it little who answered hotly that I was a liar."

"I am sorry, Hugh; it may put him on his guard, or perhaps he'll pay no
heed. At least the words are said, and there's an end. Now hearken. I
told neither you nor any one all the blackness of his treachery. Have
you guessed what this Acour is here to do?"

"Spy out the King's power in these parts, I suppose."

"More than that"--and he dropped his voice to a whisper--"spy out a safe
landing-place for fifty thousand Normans upon our Suffolk coast. They
are to sail hither this coming summer and set the crown of England
upon their Duke John, who will hold it as vassal to his sire, Philip of
France."

"God's name! Is that true?"

"Ay, though in such a devil's business that Name is best left out. Look
you, lad, I had warning from overseas, where, although I am now nothing
but a poor old priest of a broken Order, I still have friends in high
places. Therefore I watched and found that messengers were passing
between Acour and France. One of these messengers, a priest, came a week
ago to Dunwich, and spent the night in a tavern waiting for his ship to
sail in the morning. The good wife who keeps that tavern--ask not her
name--would go far to serve me. That night this priest slept sound,
and while he slept a letter was cut from the lining of his cassock, and
another without writing sewn there in place of it, so that he'll never
know the difference till he reaches John of Normandy, and then not where
he lost it. Stay, you shall see," and he went to the wall and from some
secret place behind the hangings produced a writing, which he handed to
Hugh, who looked at it, then gave it back to him, saying:

"Read it to me, Father, English I can spell out, but this French puzzles
my eyes."

So he read, Hugh listening eagerly to every word:

My Lord Duke:

This by a faithful hand that you know to tell you all goes well with
your Grace's business, and with that of your royal f