Men of Iron

In answer to his cry for help, Myles’s friends started to his aid. But the bachelors shouted, “Stand back and let them fight it out alone, else we will knife ye too.” And as they spoke, some of them leaped from the benches whereon they stood, drawing their knives and flourishing them.

For just a few seconds Myles’s friends stood cowed, and in those few seconds the fight came to an end with a suddenness unexpected to all.

A struggle fierce and silent followed between the two; Blunt striving to draw his knife, and Myles, with the energy of despair, holding him tightly by the wrist. It was in vain the elder lad writhed and twisted; he was strong enough to overbear Myles, but still was not able to clutch the haft of his knife.

“Thou shalt not draw it!” gasped Myles at last. “Thou shalt not stab me!”

Then again some of his friends started forward to his aid, but they were not needed, for before they came, the fight was over.

Blunt, finding that he was not able to draw the weapon, suddenly ceased his endeavors, and flung his arms around Myles, trying to bear him down upon the ground, and in that moment his battle was lost.

In an instant – so quick, so sudden, so unexpected that no one could see how it happened – his feet were whirled away from under him, he spun with flying arms across Myles’s loins, and pitched with a thud upon the stone pavement, where he lay still, motionless, while Myles, his face white with passion and his eyes gleaming, stood glaring around like a young wild-boar beset by the dogs.

The next moment the silence was broken, and the uproar broke forth with redoubled violence. The bachelors, leaping from the benches, came hurrying forward on one side, and Myles’s friends from the other.

“Thou shalt smart for this, Falworth,” said one of the older lads. “Belike thou hast slain him!”

Myles turned upon the speaker like a flash, and with such a passion of fury in his face that the other, a fellow nearly a head taller than he, shrank back, cowed in spite of himself. Then Gascoyne came and laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Who touches me?” cried Myles, hoarsely, turning sharply upon him; and then, seeing who it was, “Oh, Francis, they would ha’ killed me!”

“Come away, Myles,” said Gascoyne; “thou knowest not what thou doest; thou art mad; come away. What if thou hadst killed him?”

The words called Myles somewhat to himself. “I care not!” said he, but sullenly and not passionately, and then he suffered Gascoyne and Wilkes to lead him away.

Meantime Blunt’s friends had turned him over, and, after feeling his temples, his wrist, and his heart, bore him away to a bench at the far end of the room. There they fell to chafing his hands and sprinkling water in his face, a crowd of the others gathering about. Blunt was hidden from Myles by those who stood around, and the lad listened to the broken talk that filled the room with its confusion, his anxiety growing keener as he became cooler. But at last, with a heartfelt joy, he gathered from the confused buzz of words that the other lad had opened his eyes and, after a while, he saw him sit up, leaning his head upon the shoulder of one of his fellow-bachelors, white and faint and sick as death.

“Thank Heaven that thou didst not kill him!” said Edmund Wilkes, who had been standing with the crowd looking on at the efforts of Blunt’s friends to revive him, and who had now come and sat down upon the bed not far from Myles.

“Aye,” said Myles, gruffly, “I do thank Heaven for that.”

CHAPTER 14

If Myles fancied that one single victory over his enemy would cure the evil against which he fought, he was grievously mistaken; wrongs are not righted so easily as that. It was only the beginning. Other and far more bitter battles lay before him ere he could look around him and say, “I have won the victory.”

For a day – for two days – the bachelors were demoralized at the fall of their leader, and the Knights of the Rose were proportionately uplifted.

The day that Blunt met his fall, the wooden tank in which the water had been poured every morning was found to have been taken away. The bachelors made a great show of indignation and inquiry. Who was it stole their tank? If they did but know, he should smart for it.

“Ho! ho!” roared Edmund Wilkes, so that the whole dormitory heard him, “smoke ye not their tricks, lads? See ye not that they have stolen their own water-tank, so that they might have no need for another fight over the carrying of the water?”

The bachelors made an obvious show of not having heard what he said, and a general laugh went around. No one doubted that Wilkes had spoken the truth in his taunt, and that the bachelors had indeed stolen their own tank. So no more water was ever carried for the head squires, but it was plain to see that the war for the upperhand was not yet over.

Even if Myles had entertained comforting thoughts to the contrary, he was speedily undeceived. One morning, about a week after the fight, as he and Gascoyne were crossing the armory court, they were hailed by a group of the bachelors standing at the stone steps of the great building.

“Holloa, Falworth!” they cried. “Knowest thou that Blunt is nigh well again?”

“Nay,” said Myles, “I knew it not. But I am right glad to hear it.”

“Thou wilt sing a different song anon,” said one of the bachelors. “I tell thee he is hot against thee, and swears when he cometh again he will carve thee soothly.”

“Aye, marry!” said another. “I would not be in thy skin a week hence for a ducat! Only this morning he told Philip Mowbray that he would have thy blood for the fall thou gavest him. Look to thyself, Falworth; he cometh again Wednesday or Thursday next; thou standest in a parlous state.”

“Myles,” said Gascoyne, as they entered the great quadrangle, “I do indeed fear me that he meaneth to do thee evil.”

“I know not,” said Myles, boldly; “but I fear him not.” Nevertheless his heart was heavy with the weight of impending ill.

One evening the bachelors were more than usually noisy in their end of the dormitory, laughing and talking and shouting to one another.

“Holloa, you sirrah, Falworth!” called one of them along the length of the room. “Blunt cometh again to-morrow day.”

Myles saw Gascoyne direct a sharp glance at him; but he answered nothing either to his enemy’s words or his friend’s look.

As the bachelor had said, Blunt came the next morning. It was just after chapel, and the whole body of squires was gathered in the armory waiting for the orders of the day and the calling of the roll of those chosen for household duty. Myles was sitting on a bench along the wall, talking and jesting with some who stood by, when of a sudden his heart gave a great leap within him.

It was Walter Blunt. He came walking in at the door as if nothing had passed, and at his unexpected coming the hubbub of talk and laughter was suddenly checked. Even Myles stopped in his speech for a moment, and then continued with a beating heart and a carelessness of manner that was altogether assumed. In his hand Blunt carried the house orders for the day, and without seeming to notice Myles, he opened it and read the list of those called upon for household service.

Myles had risen, and was now standing listening with the others. When Blunt had ended reading the list of names, he rolled up the parchment, and thrust it into his belt; then swinging suddenly on his heel, he strode straight up to Myles, facing him front to front. A moment or two of deep silence followed; not a sound broke the stillness. When Blunt spoke every one in the armory heard his words.

“Sirrah!” said he, “thou didst put foul shame upon me some time sin. Never will I forget or forgive that offence, and will have a reckoning with thee right soon that thou wilt not forget to the last day of thy life.”

When Myles had seen his enemy turn upon him, he did not know at first what to expect; he would not have been surprised had they come to blows there and then, and he held himself prepared for any event. He faced the other pluckily enough and without flinching, and spoke up boldly in answer. “So be it, Walter Blunt; I fear thee not in whatever way thou mayst encounter me.”

“Dost thou not?” said Blunt. “By’r Lady, thou’lt have cause to fear me ere I am through with thee.” He smiled a baleful, lingering smile, and then turned slowly and walked away.

“What thinkest thou, Myles?” said Gascoyne, as the two left the armory together.

“I think naught,” said Myles gruffly. “He will not dare to touch me to harm me. I fear him not.” Nevertheless, he did not speak the full feelings of his heart.

“I know not, Myles,” said Gascoyne, shaking his head doubtfully. “Walter Blunt is a parlous evil-minded knave, and methinks will do whatever evil he promiseth.”

“I fear him not,” said Myles again; but his heart foreboded trouble.

The coming of the head squire made a very great change in the condition of affairs. Even before that coming the bachelors had somewhat recovered from their demoralization, and now again they began to pluck up their confidence and to order the younger squires and pages upon this personal service or upon that.

“See ye not,” said Myles one day, when the Knights of the Rose were gathered in the Brutus Tower – “see ye not that they grow as bad as ever? An we put not a stop to this overmastery now, it will never stop.”

“Best let it be, Myles,” said Wilkes. “They will kill thee an thou cease not troubling them. Thou hast bred mischief enow for thyself already.”

“No matter for that,” said Myles; “it is not to be borne that they order others of us about as they do. I mean to speak to them to-night, and tell them it shall not be.”

He was as good as his word. That night, as the youngsters were shouting and romping and skylarking, as they always did before turning in, he stood upon his cot and shouted: “Silence! List to me a little!” And then, in the hush that followed – “I want those bachelors to hear this: that we squires serve them no longer, and if they would ha’ some to wait upon them, they must get them otherwheres than here. There be twenty of us to stand against them and haply more, and we mean that they shall ha’ service of us no more.”

Then he jumped down again from his elevated stand, and an uproar of confusion instantly filled the place. What was the effect of his words upon the bachelors he could not see. What was the result he was not slow in discovering.

The next day Myles and Gascoyne were throwing their daggers for a wager at a wooden target against the wall back of the armorer’s smithy. Wilkes, Gosse, and one or two others of the squires were sitting on a bench looking on, and now and then applauding a more than usually well-aimed cast of the knife. Suddenly that impish little page spoken of before, Robin Ingoldsby, thrust his shock head around the corner of the smithy, and said: “Ho, Falworth! Blunt is going to serve thee out to-day, and I myself heard him say so. He says he is going to slit thine ears.” And then he was gone as suddenly as he had appeared.

Myles darted after him, caught him midway in the quadrangle, and brought him back by the scuff of the neck, squalling and struggling.

“There!” said he, still panting from the chase and seating the boy by no means gently upon the bench beside Wilkes. “Sit thou there, thou imp of evil! And now tell me what thou didst mean by thy words anon – an thou stop not thine outcry, I will cut thy throat for thee,” and he made a ferocious gesture with his dagger.

It was by no means easy to worm the story from the mischievous little monkey; he knew Myles too well to be in the least afraid of his threats. But at last, by dint of bribing and coaxing, Myles and his friends managed to get at the facts. The youngster had been sent to clean the riding-boots of one of the bachelors, instead of which he had lolled idly on a cot in the dormitory, until he had at last fallen asleep. He had been awakened by the opening of the dormitory door and by the sound of voices – among them was that of his taskmaster. Fearing punishment for his neglected duty, he had slipped out of the cot, and hidden himself beneath it.

Those who had entered were Walter Blunt and three of the older bachelors. Blunt’s companions were trying to persuade him against something, but without avail. It was – Myles’s heart thrilled and his blood boiled – to lie in wait for him, to overpower him by numbers, and to mutilate him by slitting his ears – a disgraceful punishment administered, as a rule, only for thieving and poaching.

“He would not dare to do such a thing!” cried Myles, with heaving breast and flashing eyes.

“Aye, but he would,” said Gascoyne. “His father, Lord Reginald Blunt, is a great man over Nottingham way, and my Lord would not dare to punish him even for such a matter as that. But tell me, Robin Ingoldsby, dost know aught more of this matter? Prithee tell it me, Robin. Where do they propose to lie in wait for Falworth?”

“In the gate-way of the Buttery Court, so as to catch him when he passes by to the armory,” answered the boy.

“Are they there now?” said Wilkes.

“Aye, nine of them,” said Robin. “I heard Blunt tell Mowbray to go and gather the others. He heard thee tell Gosse, Falworth, that thou wert going thither for thy arbalist this morn to shoot at the rooks withal.”

“That will do, Robin,” said Myles. “Thou mayst go.”

And therewith the little imp scurried off, pulling the lobes of his ears suggestively as he darted around the corner.

The others looked at one another for a while in silence.

“So, comrades,” said Myles at last, “what shall we do now?”

“Go, and tell Sir James,” said Gascoyne, promptly.

“Nay,” said Myles, “I take no such coward’s part as that. I say an they hunger to fight, give them their stomachful.”

The others were very reluctant for such extreme measures, but Myles, as usual, carried his way, and so a pitched battle was decided upon. It was Gascoyne who suggested the plan which they afterwards followed.

Then Wilkes started away to gather together those of the Knights of the Rose not upon household duty, and Myles, with the others, went to the armor smith to have him make for them a set of knives with which to meet their enemies – knives with blades a foot long, pointed and double-edged.

The smith, leaning with his hammer upon the anvil, listened to them as they described the weapons.

“Nay, nay, Master Myles,” said he, when Myles had ended by telling the use to which he intended putting them. “Thou art going all wrong in this matter. With such blades, ere this battle is ended, some one would be slain, and so murder done. Then the family of him who was killed would haply have ye cited, and mayhap it might e’en come to the hanging, for some of they boys ha’ great folkeys behind them. Go ye to Tom Fletcher, Master Myles, and buy of him good yew staves, such as one might break a head withal, and with them, gin ye keep your wits, ye may hold your own against knives or short swords. I tell thee, e’en though my trade be making of blades, rather would I ha’ a good stout cudgel in my hand than the best dagger that ever was forged.”

Myles stood thoughtfully for a moment or two; then, looking up, “Methinks thou speaketh truly, Robin,” said he; “and it were ill done to have blood upon our hands.”

CHAPTER 15

From the long, narrow stone-paved Armory Court, and connecting it with the inner Buttery Court, ran a narrow arched passage-way, in which was a picket-gate, closed at night and locked from within. It was in this arched passage-way that, according to little Robert Ingoldsby’s report, the bachelors were lying in wait for Myles. Gascoyne’s plan was that Myles should enter the court alone, the Knights of the Rose lying ambushed behind the angle of the armory building until the bachelors should show themselves.

It was not without trepidation that Myles walked alone into the court, which happened then to be silent and empty. His heart beat more quickly than it was wont, and he gripped his cudgel behind his back, looking sharply this way and that, so as not to be taken unawares by a flank movement of his enemies. Midway in the court he stopped and hesitated for a moment; then he turned as though to enter the armory. The next moment he saw the bachelors come pouring out from the archway.

Instantly he turned and rushed back towards where his friends lay hidden, shouting: “To the rescue! To the rescue!”

“Stone him!” roared Blunt. “The villain escapes!”

He stopped and picked up a cobble-stone as he spoke, flinging it after his escaping prey. It narrowly missed Myles’s head; had it struck him, there might have been no more of this story to tell.

“To the rescue! To the rescue!” shouted Myles’s friends in answer, and the next moment he was surrounded by them. Then he turned, and swinging his cudgel, rushed back upon his foes.

The bachelors stopped short at the unexpected sight of the lads with their cudgels. For a moment they rallied and drew their knives; then they turned and fled towards their former place of hiding.

One of them turned for a moment, and flung his knife at Myles with a deadly aim; but Myles, quick as a cat, ducked his body, and the weapon flew clattering across the stony court. Then he who had flung it turned again to fly, but in his attempt he had delayed one instant too long. Myles reached him with a long-arm stroke of his cudgel just as he entered the passage-way, knocking him over like a bottle, stunned and senseless.

The next moment the picket-gate was banged in their faces and the bolt shot in the staples, and the Knights of the Rose were left shouting and battering with their cudgels against the palings.

By this time the uproar of fight had aroused those in the rooms and offices fronting upon the Armory Court; heads were thrust from many of the windows with the eager interest that a fight always evokes.

“Beware!” shouted Myles. “Here they come again!” He bore back towards the entrance of the alley-way as he spoke, those behind him scattering to right and left, for the bachelors had rallied, and were coming again to the attack, shouting.

They were not a moment too soon in this retreat, either, for the next instant the pickets flew open, and a volley of stones flew after the retreating Knights of the Rose. One smote Wilkes upon the head, knocking him down headlong. Another struck Myles upon his left shoulder, benumbing his arm from the finger-tips to the armpit, so that he thought at first the limb was broken.

“Get ye behind the buttresses!” shouted those who looked down upon the fight from the windows – “get ye behind the buttresses!” And in answer the lads, scattering like a newly-flushed covey of partridges, fled to and crouched in the sheltering angles of masonry to escape from the flying stones.

And now followed a lull in the battle, the bachelors fearing to leave the protection of the arched passage-way lest their retreat should be cut off, and the Knights of the Rose not daring to quit the shelter of the buttresses and angles of the wall lest they should be knocked down by the stones.

The bachelor whom Myles had struck down with his cudgel was sitting up rubbing the back of his head, and Wilkes had gathered his wits enough to crawl to the shelter of the nearest buttress. Myles, peeping around the corner behind which he stood, could see that the bachelors were gathered into a little group consulting together. Suddenly it broke asunder, and Blunt turned around.

“Ho, Falworth!” he cried. “Wilt thou hold truce whiles we parley with ye?”

“Aye,” answered Myles.

“Wilt thou give me thine honor that ye will hold your hands from harming us whiles we talk together?”

“Yea,” said Myles, “I will pledge thee mine honor.”

“I accept thy pledge. See! here we throw aside our stones and lay down our knives. Lay ye by your clubs, and meet us in parley at the horse-block yonder.”

“So be it,” said Myles, and thereupon, standing his cudgel in the angle of the wall, he stepped boldly out into the open court-yard. Those of his party came scatteringly from right and left, gathering about him; and the bachelors advanced in a body, led by the head squire.

“Now what is it thou wouldst have, Walter Blunt?” said Myles, when both parties had met at the horse-block.

“It is to say this to thee, Myles Falworth,” said the other. “One time, not long sin, thou didst challenge me to meet thee hand to hand in the dormitory. Then thou didst put a vile affront upon me, for the which I ha’ brought on this battle to-day, for I knew not then that thou wert going to try thy peasant tricks of wrestling, and so, without guarding myself, I met thee as thou didst desire.”

“But thou hadst thy knife, and would have stabbed him couldst thou ha’ done so,” said Gascoyne.

“Thou liest!” said Blunt. “I had no knife.” And then, without giving time to answer, “Thou canst not deny that I met thee then at thy bidding, canst thou, Falworth?”

“Nay,” said Myles, “nor haply canst thou deny it either.” And at this covert reminder of his defeat Myles’s followers laughed scoffingly and Blunt bit his lip.

“Thou hast said it,” said he. “Then sin. I met thee at thy bidding, I dare to thee to meet me now at mine, and to fight this battle out between our two selves, with sword and buckler and bascinet as gentles should, and not in a wrestling match like two country hodges.”

“Thou art a coward caitiff, Walter Blunt!” burst out Wilkes, who stood by with a swelling lump upon his head, already as big as a walnut. “Well thou knowest that Falworth is no match for thee at broadsword play. Is he not four years younger than thou, and hast thou not had three times the practice in arms that he hath had? I say thou art a coward to seek to fight with cutting weapons.”

Blunt made no answer to Wilkes’s speech, but gazed steadfastly at Myles, with a scornful smile curling the corners of his lips. Myles stood looking upon the ground without once lifting his eyes, not knowing what to answer, for he was well aware that he was no match for Blunt with the broadsword.

“Thou art afraid to fight me, Myles Falworth,” said Blunt, tauntingly, and the bachelors gave a jeering laugh in echo.

Then Myles looked up, and I cannot say that his face was not a trifle whiter than usual. “Nay,” said he, “I am not afraid, and I will fight thee, Blunt.”

“So be it,” said Blunt. “Then let us go at it straightway in the armory yonder, for they be at dinner in the Great Hall, and just now there be’st no one by to stay us.”

“Thou shalt not fight him, Myles!” burst out Gascoyne. “He will murther thee! Thou shalt not fight him, I say!”

Myles turned away without answering him.

“What is to do?” called one of those who were still looking out of the windows as the crowd of boys passed beneath.

“Blunt and Falworth are going to fight it out hand to hand in the armory,” answered one of the bachelors, looking up.

The brawling of the squires was a jest to all the adjoining part of the house. So the heads were withdrawn again, some laughing at the “sparring of the cockerels.”

But it was no jesting matter to poor Myles.

CHAPTER 16

I have no intention to describe the fight between Myles Falworth and Walter Blunt. Fisticuffs of nowadays are brutal and debasing enough, but a fight with a sharp-edged broadsword was not only brutal and debasing, but cruel and bloody as well.

From the very first of the fight Myles Falworth was palpably and obviously overmatched. After fifteen minutes had passed, Blunt stood hale and sound as at first; but poor Myles had more than one red stain of warm blood upon doublet and hose, and more than one bandage had been wrapped by Gascoyne and Wilkes about sore wounds.

He had received no serious injury as yet, for not only was his body protected by a buckler, or small oblong shield, which he carried upon his left arm, and his head by a bascinet, or light helmet of steel, but perhaps, after all, Blunt was not over-anxious to do him any dangerous harm. Nevertheless, there could be but one opinion as to how the fight tended, and Myles’s friends were gloomy and downcast; the bachelors proportionately exultant, shouting with laughter, and taunting Myles at every unsuccessful stroke.

Once, as he drew back panting, leaning upon Gascoyne’s shoulder, the faithful friend whispered, with trembling lips: “Oh, dear Myles, carry it no further. Thou hurtest him not, and he will slay thee ere he have done with thee.”