'This is no show, my Lord King,' returned the mayor, abashed. 'This is
deadly earnest. These are two honourable gentlemen of Yorkshire, who are
come hither to fight out their quarrel before your Grace.'

'Two honourable foolsheads!' muttered Harry; then, raising his voice,
'Come hither, gentlemen, let us hear your quarrel.'

The two gentlemen were big Yorkshiremen, heavy-browed, and their native
shrewdness packed far away behind a bumpkin stolidity and surliness that
barely allowed them to show respect to the King.

'So please you, Sir,' growled the first in his throat, 'here stands
Christopher Kitson of Barrowbridge, ready to avouch himself a true man,
and prove in yonder fellow's teeth that it was not a broken-kneed beast
that I sent up for a heriard to my Lord Archbishop when my father died;
but that he of Easingwold is a black slanderer and backbiter.'

'And here,' shouted the other, 'stands honest William Trenton of
Easingwold, ready to thrust his lies down his throat, and prove on his
body that the heriard he sent to my Lord Archbishop was a sorry jade.'

'That were best proved by the beast's body,' interposed time King.

'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.