nature every one. But what do you think of my plans, my lord? Will you not approve them?"
"Plans?—I meddle with no plans," the Count replied with a lazy yawn. "I think with my sword, and argue with my battle-ax! With those steel counselors, I can take enough to pay clerk's brains to do my thinking and save me the headache! Do as you please, but let us come to blows as soon as may be, for I long for a chance to slit the weasand of that young Edgar Mortimer, and be rid of the breed."
"You might find him a tougher morsel than you imagine," Luke remarked, "if he is anything like the father. Was it not Baron Mortimer who overthrew you in a tourney a year or more ago? I heard something of it from a wandering minstrel."
"Enough of that, if you would not have a broken head to nurse!" growled the Count. "A man may have bad luck in the lists, though a good fighter in the battlefield. I set little store by lance- play, with grinning heralds and bedizened wenches cackling fit to deafen one. Let us get on with the siege, so that we may sooner measure swords with these cowards that skulk behind their stone walls. You find me a way into the castle, and I will answer for the rest. So set up your tackle and your slings, and we will push the attack upon the gate. When Baron Mortimer comes home from the Cru-
