Said he: “Let us pretend to be messengers from the king, with urgent letters to the justice. Surely that should win us admission. But alas! I forgot. How can we bear out our pretence, for I am no learned clerk. I cannot write.”
Quoth Adam Bell: “I can write a good clerkly hand. Wait one instant and I will speedily have a letter written; then we can say we have the king’s seal. The plan will do well enough, for I hold the gate-keeper no learned clerk, and this will deceive him.”
Adam Bell writes the letter
Indeed, the letter which he quickly wrote and folded and sealed was very well and clearly written, and addressed to the Justice of Carlisle. Then the two bold outlaws hastened up the road and thundered on the town gates.
They Enter the Town
So long and loud they knocked that the warder came in great wrath, demanding who dared to make such clamour.
Adam Bell replied: “We are two messengers come straight from our lord the king.” Clym of the Cleugh added: “We have a letter for the justice which we must deliver into his own hands. Let us in speedily to perform our errand, for we must return to the king in haste.”
“No,” the warder replied, “that I cannot do. No man may enter these gates till a false thief and outlaw be safely hanged. He is William of Cloudeslee, who has long deserved death.”