Men of Iron

by Howard Pyle

  CHAPTER 15

  From the long, narrow stone-paved Armory Court, and connecting it withthe inner Buttery Court, ran a narrow arched passage-way, in which wasa picket-gate, closed at night and locked from within. It was in thisarched passage-way that, according to little Robert Ingoldsby's report,the bachelors were lying in wait for Myles. Gascoyne's plan was thatMyles should enter the court alone, the Knights of the Rose lyingambushed behind the angle of the armory building until the bachelorsshould 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 quicklythan it was wont, and he gripped his cudgel behind his back, lookingsharply this way and that, so as not to be taken unawares by a flankmovement of his enemies. Midway in the court he stopped and hesitatedfor a moment; then he turned as though to enter the armory. The nextmoment he saw the bachelors come pouring out from the archway.

  Instantly he turned and rushed back towards where his friends layhidden, 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 afterhis 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, andthe next moment he was surrounded by them. Then he turned, and swinginghis cudgel, rushed back upon his foes.

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

  One of them turned for a moment, and flung his knife at Myles with adeadly aim; but Myles, quick as a cat, ducked his body, and the weaponflew clattering across the stony court. Then he who had flung it turnedagain 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 heentered the passage-way, knocking him over like a bottle, stunned andsenseless.

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

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

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

  They were not a moment too soon in this retreat, either, for the nextinstant the pickets flew open, and a volley of stones flew after theretreating 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 thoughtat first the limb was broken.

  "Get ye behind the buttresses!" shouted those who looked down upon thefight from the windows--"get ye behind the buttresses!" And in answerthe lads, scattering like a newly-flushed covey of partridges, fledto and crouched in the sheltering angles of masonry to escape from theflying stones.

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

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

  "Ho, Falworth!" he cried. "Wilt thou hold truce whiles we parley withye?"

  "Aye," answered Myles.

  "Wilt thou give me thine honor that ye will hold your hands from harmingus 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 laydown our knives. Lay ye by your clubs, and meet us in parley at thehorse-block yonder."

  "So be it," said Myles, and thereupon, standing his cudgel in the angleof the wall, he stepped boldly out into the open court-yard. Those ofhis 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 bothparties 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 thedormitory. Then thou didst put a vile affront upon me, for the which Iha' brought on this battle to-day, for I knew not then that thou wertgoing to try thy peasant tricks of wrestling, and so, without guardingmyself, 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 givingtime to answer, "Thou canst not deny that I met thee then at thybidding, canst thou, Falworth?"

  "Nay," said Myles, "nor haply canst thou deny it either." And at thiscovert reminder of his defeat Myles's followers laughed scoffingly andBlunt 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 outbetween our two selves, with sword and buckler and bascinet as gentlesshould, and not in a wrestling match like two country hodges."

  "Thou art a coward caitiff, Walter Blunt!" burst out Wilkes, who stoodby with a swelling lump upon his head, already as big as a walnut. "Wellthou knowest that Falworth is no match for thee at broadsword play. Ishe not four years younger than thou, and hast thou not had three timesthe practice in arms that he hath had? I say thou art a coward to seekto 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 stoodlooking upon the ground without once lifting his eyes, not knowing whatto answer, for he was well aware that he was no match for Blunt with thebroadsword.

  "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 triflewhiter than usual. "Nay," said he, "I am not afraid, and I will fightthee, Blunt."

  "So be it," said Blunt. "Then let us go at it straightway in the armoryyonder, for they be at dinner in the Great Hall, and just now therebe'st no one by to stay us."

  "Thou shalt not fight him, Myles!" burst out Gascoyne. "He will murtherthee! 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 thewindows as the crowd of boys passed beneath.

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

  The brawling of the squires was a jest to all the adjoining part of thehouse. So the heads were withdrawn again, some laughing at the "sparringof the cockerels."

  But it was no jesting matter to poor Myles.