ng's messengers
waiting thus! Canst thou not see the king's seal? Canst thou not read
the address of the royal letter? Ah, blockhead, thou shalt dearly
abide this delay when my lord knows thereof."

Thus speaking, he flourished the forged letter, with its false seal,
in the porter's face; and the man, seeing the seal and the writing,
believed what was told him. Reverently he took off his hood and bent
the knee to the king's messengers, for whom he opened wide the gates,
and they entered, walking warily.

They Keep the Gates

"At last we are within Carlisle walls, and glad thereof are we," said
Adam Bell, "but when and how we shall go out again Christ only knows,
who harrowed Hell and brought out its prisoners."

"Now if we had the keys ourselves we should have a good chance of
life," said Clym, "for then we could go in and out at our own will."
"Let us call the warder," said Adam. When he came running at their
call both the yeomen sprang upon him, flung him to the ground, bound
him hand and foot, and cast him into a dark cell, taking his bunch of
keys from his girdle. Adam laughed and shook the heavy keys. "Now I am
gate-ward of merry Carlisle. See, here are my keys. I think I shall be
the worst warder they have had for three hundred years. Let us bend
our bows and hold our arrows ready, and walk into the town to deliver
our brother."

The Fight in the Market-place

When they came to the market-place they found a dense crowd of
sympathizers watching pityingly the hangman's cart, in which lay
William of Cloudeslee, bound hand and foot, with a rope round his
neck. The sheriff and the justice stood near the gallows, and
Cloudeslee would have been hanged already, but that the sheriff was
hiring a man to measure the outlaw for his grave. "You shall have the
dead man's clothes, good fellow, if you make his grave," said he.

Cloudeslee's courage was still undaunted. "I have seen as great a
marvel ere now," quoth he, "as that a man who digs a grave for another
may lie in it himself, in as short a time as from now to prime."

"You speak proudly, my fine fellow, but hanged you shall be, if I do
it with my own hand," retorted the sheriff furiously.

Now the cart moved a little nearer to the scaffold, and William was
raised up to be ready for execution. As he looked round the dense mass
of faces his keen sight soon made him aware of his friends. Adam Bell
and Clym of the Cleugh stood at one corner of the market-place