es, and after taking counsel with honest Malcolm, who had a
great liking for the boys, they put themselves under the instruction of
a capable swordsman, who undertook to teach them the art of using those
weapons with skill and grace. As their natural quickness of eye and
strength of hand made them quickly proficient in this exercise, they
became anxious to try their skill at the more difficult sport of
tilting, then so much in vogue with both knights and gentlemen -- a
sport which the King greatly encouraged as likely to be excellent
training for those charges of his picked horsemen which so often turned
the fortunes of the day in his favour in the sterner game of war.

Both the Gascon youths were good horsemen; not that they had ever owned
a horse themselves, or had ridden upon a saddle after the fashion of
knights and their esquires, but they had lived amongst the droves of
horses that were bred upon the wide pasture lands of their own country,
and from childhood it had been their favourite pastime to get upon the
back of one of these beautiful, unbroken creatures, and go careering
wildly over the sweeping plain. That kind of rough riding was as good a
training as they could have had, and when once they had grown used to
the feel of a saddle between their knees, and had learned the right use
of rein and spur, they became almost at once excellent and fearless
riders, and enjoyed shivering a lance or carrying off a ring or a
handkerchief from a pole as well as any of their comrades. So that the
month they passed in the seaport town was by no means wasted on them,
and when they took to horse once again to accompany Sir James on his way
to Windsor, they felt that they had made great strides, and were very
different from the country-bred Gascon youths of two months back.

There was one more halt made in London, that wonderful city of which
time fails us to speak here; and in that place a new surprise awaited
the young esquires, for they and their comrades who wore Sir James
Audley's livery were all newly equipped in two new suits of clothes, and
these of such a sumptuous description as set the boys agape with wonder.

Truly as we read of the bravery in which knights and dames and their
servants of old days were attired, one marvels where the money came from
to clothe them all. It could have been no light thing to be a great man
in such times, and small wonder was it that those who lived in and about
the Court, whose duty