o a town
called Beverley, which is situated in the northern part of England,
near the frontier. One day, two archers belonging to the service of
Lord Ralph Stafford, in riding across the fields near Beverley, found
two squires engaged in a sort of quarrel with Sir Miles. The cause of
the quarrel was something about his lodgings in the town. The squires,
it seems, knowing that the knights and nobles generally disliked Sir
Miles, were encouraged to be very bold and insolent to him in
expressing their ill-will, and when the archers came up they were
following him with taunts, and ridicule, and abuse, while Sir Miles
was making the best of his way toward the town.

The archers took the Bohemian's part. They remonstrated with the
squires for thus abusing and teasing a stranger and a foreigner, a
personal friend, too, and guest of the queen.

"What business is it of yours, villainous knave, whether we laugh at
him or not?" said the squires. "What right have you to intermeddle?
What is it to you?"

"What is it to us?" repeated one of the archers. "It is a great deal
to us. This man is the friend of our master, and we will not stand by
and see him abused."

Upon hearing this, one of the squires uttered some words of defiance,
and advanced as if to strike the archer; but the archer, having his
bow and arrow all ready, suddenly let the arrow fly, and the squire
was killed on the spot.

Sir Miles had already gone on toward the town. The other squire,
seeing his companion dead, immediately made his escape. The two
archers, leaving the man whom they had killed on the ground where he
had fallen, made the best of their way home, and told their master,
Sir Ralph Stafford, what they had done.

Sir Ralph was extremely concerned to hear of the occurrence, and he
told the archer who killed the squire that he had done very wrong.

"But, my lord," said the archer, "I could not have done otherwise; for
the man was coming up to us with his sword drawn in his hand, and we
were obliged either to kill him or to be killed ourselves."

The archers, moreover, told Sir Ralph that the squires were in the
service of Sir John Holland. Now Sir John Holland was a half brother
of the king, being the child of his mother, the Princess of Wales, by
a former husband. When Sir Ralph heard this, he was still more alarmed
than before. He told the archers who killed the squire that they must
go and hide themselves somewhere until the affair could be arra