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.
"Sir Rudolph of Eresby, false knight and perjured gentleman," he shouted in a loud voice, "I, Sir Cuthbert of Evesham, do denounce you as foresworn and dishonored, and do challenge you to meet me here before the castle in sight of your men and mine, and decide our quarrel as Heaven may judge with sword and battle-ax." Sir Rudolph leaned over the battlements, and said: "It is too late, varlet.

I condescended to challenge you before, and you refused.

You cannot now claim what you then feared to accept.