The Justice Suggests a Compromise
The hint of violence made the abbot furiously angry, and, secure in his position and the support of the justice, he shouted loudly: “Out, thou false knight! Out of my hall!” Then at last Sir Richard rose to his feet in just wrath. “Thou liest, Sir Abbot; foully thou liest! I was never a false knight. In joust and tourney I have adventured as far and as boldly as any man alive. There is no true courtesy in thee, abbot, to suffer a knight to kneel so long.” The quarrel now seemed so serious that the justice intervened, saying to the angry prelate, “What will you give me if I persuade him to sign a legal deed of release? Without it you will never hold this land in peace.” “You shall have a hundred pounds for yourself,” said the abbot, and the justice nodded in token of assent.