None of their stories were true;
but the king believed all of them, and this became very depressing.
They created the most preposterous romances; and could not get
the credit of creating them. Their true ambition was sent empty away.
They were praised as archers; but they desired to be praised as poets.
They were trusted as men, but they would rather have been admired
as literary men.
At last, in an hour of desperation, they formed themselves into a club
or conspiracy with the object of inventing some story which even
the king could not swallow. They called it The League of the Long Bow;
thus attaching themselves by a double bond to their motherland of England,
which has been steadily celebrated since the Norman Conquest for its
heroic archery and for the extraordinary credulity of its people.
At last it seemed to the four archers that their hour had come.
The king commonly sat in a green curtained chamber, which opened by
four doors, and was surmounted by four turrets. Summoning his champions
to him on an April evening, he sent out each of them by a separate door,
telling him to return at morning with the tale of his journey.
Every champion bowed low, and, girding on great armour as for awful
adventures, retired to some part of the garden to think of a lie.
They did not want to think of a lie which would deceive the king;
any lie would do that. They wanted to think of a lie so outrageous
that it would not deceive him, and that was a serious matter.
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