“By my halidom!” said the King, “these must be hardy men to pit themselves against my archers!”
“Think you that your ten chosen fellows are the best bowmen in all England?” asked the Queen.
“Aye, and in all the world beside,” answered the King; “and thereunto I would stake five hundred pounds.”
“I am minded to take your wager,” said the Queen musingly, “and will e’en do so if you grant me a boon.”
“What is it?” asked the King.
“If I produce five archers who can out-shoot your ten, will you grant my men full grace and amnesty?”
“Assuredly!” quoth the King in right good humor. “Nathless, I tell you now, your wager is in jeopardy, for there never were such bowmen as Tepus and Clifton and Gilbert!”
“Hum!” said the Queen puckering her brow, still as though lost in thought. “I must see if there be none present to aid me in my wager. Boy, call hither Sir Richard of the Lea and my lord Bishop of Hereford!”
The two summoned ones, who had been witnessing the sport, came forward.
“Sir Richard,” said she, “thou art a full knight and good. Would’st advise me to meet a wager of the King’s, that I can produce other archers as good as Tepus and Gilbert and Clifton?”