Agnes Castle and Egerton Castle

“ When the last inch of the smartly cocked rapier scabbard, neatly draping a fold of the cloak, had disappeared round the corner, he himself called for his bilbo and cape; and as he flung the patched folds with noble gesture about his old shoulders, he found Dick Wyatt at his elbow.
"Ah, fare ye well, young sir," said he genially. "Shall ye take advice? Then, till your locks are blanched and rare, like these, never believe you have that skill, not only in your rapier play but in any art military, which is not some day to be caught in a trap. ”

“ An unformed thought quickly took possession of the Englishman's mind; in practise with such a one, cunning strokes of fence would assume a new purpose; would savor more of cruelty and treachery than of skill!
As a fact, Maître Todescan's face displayed anything but cordiality at that moment. It was with the air of him who finds his time trespassed upon at a decidedly inopportune moment that he turned upon the visitor, looking deeply at him. With an engaging glibness, cultivated on repeated occasions, the youth fell to explaining his presence. For a while Todescan listened in silence ”

“ To the Bastion de Rive, every man! Every man, I say! The attack at the Tertasse is but a feint. The enemy is at the Rive Gate! That is where men are wanted! Back!" He ran, flinging out his arms; and the whole posse turned before him as the flock before the sheep-dog. The light of a lantern fell upon a harsh thin face, upon gleaming small eyes. 'Twas Todescan the Provost.
Dick Wyatt's soul leaped to the splendid mastery of the soldier in the emergency. Here was the champion in his right place; here the leader for him; here a gorgeous chance to take his first lesson from the terrible blade! ”

“ By the curse of Mahound, and who may this Vincent be that ye all should be gathering, in thought, like so many rats to-day round his carcass? Let us be talking of living men, my springalls, and let the dead go rot; for, by your laments, I take it that he's dead in his bed even as any old woman—this same gallant Vincentio Saviolo! ”

“ Anyhow he is a great man in Geneva, provost-of-arms, trainer of the town companies, accepted citizen.... Aye, aye, those long-head burghers, ever thinking of their ravening neighbors in the mountains of Savoy, have gaged the worth of such a man! Espingola was a good rogue, stuffed with fighting tricks as a brush is with bristles, and the simplest of them worth a Jew's eye.... Todescan sings psalms, hath no variety in his swearing, and holds an even prospect of not dying in his boots after all! And the youth of Geneva sucks knowledge out of him as a weasel sucks an egg! ”

“ He could not look on a blade without shudder. Nay, if he had to knight a man, he must needs avert his eyes so doing.
Dick and the Templar stared at each other. Were the friendly rivals glad or sorry? They scarce knew. Dick took a deep breath.
And now, from the head of the table—his place by rights it seemed to have become—up spoke Captain Strongi'th'arm. From the moment he had recognized the young men, he had remained watching and listening in unwonted silence. His single eye was more commanding than ever. ”

“ A man may be no more for jaunty quarrels, yet he may speak. Ho, there! Thomas the drawer! Bring a quart of burnt sack; and put me a toast in it, and place it me by my young friend's elbow! Nay sir," he added with a kind of paternal authority, "but you shall have a nooning cup with me."
"Oh, sir!" cried Beckett, and his lips trembled upon words of regret that failed to form themselves. ”

“ Queries assailed them on every side; but, by tacit agreement, they kept their own counsel. True Englishmen, whose prowess was so soon to be tested in loyal public contest, they had no mind for boasting of knowledge acquired, after the fashion of your tavern-haunting gull. But, at length, so much leaked out: they had been preparing, each after his own fancy, for the great day of my Lord of Pembroke's prize-playing, in honor of Saviolo.
It was Beckett dropped the information—a trifle loftily, perhaps, from the height of his traveled experience. He thought to impress his stay-at-home friends. ”

“ Having heard you, sirs, there even comes to me a regret that I knew not this Master Vincent. (It was soon after the great year of Cadiz that I sailed from home.) God, no doubt, made him a good man, since the youth of England loved him so greatly. Nathless, what know you of other lands where cunning at tricks of point and edge is as common as potency at ale-potting among us? What know ye of lands where the long rapier is the true staff of life? ”

“ A heavy-looking youth had just drawn on his doublet and was adjusting its points, ever and anon wiping his face and the back of his neck, spite the icy blast pouring through the windows.
"Maître Todescan," cried mine host from the threshold, all professional cheeriness, "again I bring an English admirer—one, too, mark you, that can not wait another hour before saluting you! What a man you are, aha! ”

“ Men moved like shadows. Here and there a lantern made a narrow circle of light. More shirts, vaguely white in the all but complete darkness, were to be met than doublets or cloaks; many a foot went bare, to save that priceless minute of time at the rampart that might decide between success or massacre. ”

“ And Dick Wyatt, escorted down-stairs, politely but firmly shaken off at the kitchen door, as he watched the fencing-master wrap himself up scientifically in his great cloak and stride out into the night, had a fantastic impression as one who has just passed by an unknown personal danger. ”

“ He stretched out his left hand as he spoke and laid it, not unkindly but with some authority, on Master Beckett's arm. Ere the lad could fling off the touch, he caught sight of the maimed stumps, and reddened.
"Aye," went on the old soldier resignedly, "that was my dagger hand, a halbert at the infall of the Pamplona palisadoes. 'Tis gone, fit for naught but the holding of a pipe, or the ringing of a coin! And without your dagger, these days, your rapier's best strokes in counter-time are naught. ”

“ No gallant worth looking at that has not killed his man! Beyond seas, every captain of fortune and eke every private gentleman, if he weathers the thirtieth year unscathed, must needs be indeed a master sword. ”

“ But rather he marveled how a man of martial renown, such as the great Todescan, could find congenial dwelling among people where psalming and grave converse rather than the ringing of spurs and the cocking of beavers seemed the chief assertion of manliness. ”

“ Cockayne is fair enough—'tis not the world. How old are you, boy? Thinkest thou, because thou hast achieved fair London skill in thy rapier, could'st already have the whole art and mystery of fence under that saucy cap?—which same thou mayest as well remove at this stage, lad, for I will not fight thee. ”

“ Half-dressed men, many in naught but shoes and shirts, came hastening out of their houses, halbert or matchlock in hand, feverishly concerting as they scurried toward the west ramparts, whence the clamor upwelled. ”

“ Wrapped in his traveling-cloak, he began to rehearse the tale of his fencing knowledge, in preparation of the morrow's ordeal, when he should face, foiled rapier in hand, "the king of them all," as Captain Strongi'th'arm had dubbed this Todescan of Geneva.
After the manner of men enamored, living in dreams of their lady; of poets, haunted by rhymes and hits and metaphors ”

“ Ah, Her Grace knows a right proper man!" added he and smiled as one who has his reason for saying so.
"Aye, aye," commented mine host genially, glad to see the vexed question like to be settled by wag of tongue only, "and Master Vincent was likewise a friend of my good Lord of Pembroke."
"And I'll tell you more," interposed a raffish blade from the "Friars," much bedizened if somewhat out at elbows; "one who first put a rapier in Master Will Shakespeare's hand—one who was himself the butcher of a silk button (Oh, rare!) ”

“ A gleam of new appreciation appeared in the veteran's solitary orb. For a while he gazed upon the Templar; then, slowly smiling, raised his tankard and saluted.
"'Twas right gallantly done, young sir," he said. "Don Lewis Pacheco de Narvaez"—Spanish pronounced with exaggerated lisp—"Don Lewis, who follows the footsteps of the great Carranza (mirror of cavalier perfection) , never put the counter-check quarrelsome with better grace! You mind me of him, fair youth," he went on paternally. "Hast traveled, doubtless? Nay, I'll swear thou hast met him. ”

“ Why, 'tis the sole talk in Paul's Walk this morning. Have you never heard? Robert Beckett and Dick Wyatt are, by Signor Vincentio's dying wish, expressed to my Lord of Pembroke himself, to contend for the reversion of the Master's honors in the 'Friars,' aye and of the mastership itself at the Academy! ”