‘And,’ proceeded the doughty Kitson, as though repeating a lesson, ‘having vainly pleaded the matter these nine years, we are come to demand licence to fight it out, with lance, sword, and dagger, in your royal presence, to set the matter at rest for ever.’
‘Breaking a man’s head to prove the soundness of a horse!’ ejaculated Harry.
‘Your licence is given, Sir King?’ demanded Kitson.
‘My licence is given for a combat à l’outrance,’ said Henry; but, as they were about to flounder back on their big farm-horses, he raised his voice to a thundering sound: ‘Solely on this condition, that he who slays his neighbour, be he Trenton or Kitson, shall hang for the murder ere I leave Thirsk.’
There was a recoil, and the mayor himself ventured to observe something about the judgment of God, and ‘never so seen.’
‘And I say,’ thundered Henry, and his blue eyes seemed to flame with vehement indignation, ‘I say that the ordeal of battle is shamefully abused, and that it is a taking of God’s name—ay, and man’s life—in vain, to appeal thereto on every coxcomb’s quarrel, risking the life that was given him to serve God’s ends, not his own sullen fancy. I will have an end of such things!—And you, gentlemen, since the heriard is dead, or too old to settle the question, shake hands, and if you must let blood, come to France with me next month, and flesh your knives on French and Scots.’
‘So please you, Sir,’ grumbled Kitson, ‘there’s Mistress Agnes of Mineshull; she’s been in doubt between the two of us these five years, and she’d promised to wed whichever of us got the better.’
‘I’ll settle her mind for her! Whichever I find foremost among the French, I’ll send home to her a knight, and with better sense to boot than to squabble for nine years as to an old horse.’
He then dismounted, and was conducted into the town-hall, where a banquet was prepared, taking by the hand Sir James Stewart, and followed by his brother John, and by Malcolm, who felt as though his brain were turning, partly with amazement, partly with confusion at his own dulness, as he perceived that not only was the free-spoken Hal, Henry of Monmouth, King of England, but that his wandering benefactor, the captive knight, whose claim of kindred he had almost spurned, was his native sovereign, James the First of Scotland.