"Sir Cuthbert," he said, "has been in grievous straits before now, and
has gone through them. Sir Rudolph does not know the nature of the man
with whom he has to deal, and we may trick him yet."
At eleven o'clock the next day from the walls of Evesham Castle a body
of archers one hundred and fifty strong were seen advancing in solid
array.
"Think you, Sir Rudolph," one of his friends, Sir Hubert of Gloucester,
said to him, "that these varlets think of attacking the castle?"
"They might as well think of scaling heaven," Sir Rudolph said. "Evesham
could resist a month's siege by a force well equipped for the purpose;
and were it not that good men are wanted for the king's service, and
that these villains shoot straight and hard, I would open the gates of
the castle and launch our force against them. We are two to one as
strong as they, and our knights and mounted men-at-arms could alone
scatter that rabble."
Conspicuous upon the battlements a gallows had been erected.
The archers stopped at a distance of a few hundred yards from the
castle, and Sir Cuthbert advanced alone to the edge of the moat.
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