t 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