most.

"Take that, beast of a Laurence!" cried a voice behind him.

And the lad received a jolt from behind which loosened his teeth in
their sockets and discomposed the dignified stride with which in
imagination he was commanding the armies of the Douglas.

CHAPTER IX

LAURENCE SINGS A HYMN

Laurence turned and beheld his brother. In another instant the two
young men had clinched and were rolling on the ground, wrestling and
striking according to their ability. Sholto might easily have had the
best of the fray, but for the temper aroused by Laurence's recent
degradation, for the elder brother was taller by an inch, and of a
frame of body more lithe and supple. Moreover, the accuracy of Sholto
MacKim's shape and the severe training of the smithy had not left a
superfluous ounce of flesh on him anywhere.

In a minute the brothers had become the centre of a riotous, laughing
throng of varlets--archers seeking their corps, and young squires sent
by their lords to find out the exact positions allotted to each
contingent by the provost of the camp. For as the wappenshaw was to be
of three days' duration in all its nobler parts, a wilderness of tents
had already begun to arise under the scattered white thorns of the
great Boreland Croft which stretched up from the river.

These laughed and jested after their kind, encouraging the youths to
fight it out, and naming Laurence the brock or badger from his
stoutness, and the slim Sholto the whitterick or, as one might say,
weasel.

"At him, Whitterick--grip him! Grip him! Now you have him at the
pinch! Well pulled, Brock! 'Tis a certainty for Brock--good Brock!
Well done--well done! Ah, would you? Hands off that dagger! Let
fisticuffs settle it! The Whitterick hath it--the Whitterick!"

And thus ran the comment. Sholto being cumbered with his armour,
Laurence might in time have gotten the upper grip. But at this moment
a diversion occurred which completely altered the character of the
conflict. A stout, reddish young man came up, holding in his hand a
staff painted with twining stripes of white and red, which showed him
to be the marshal of that part of the camp which pertained to the Earl
of Angus. He looked on for a moment from the skirts of the crowd, and
then elbowed his way self-importantly into the centre, till he stood
immediately above Laurence and Sholto.

"What means this hubbub, I say? Quit your hold there and come with me;
my Lord of Angus will set