The true knight placed his honour before all things. It was sacred, and he will never do a dishonourable action, such as telling an untruth or deceiving his superiors or employers. A man who is honourable is always to be trusted, and always commands the respect of his fellow men. His honour guides him in everything that he does. A captain sticks to the ship till the last, in every wreck that was ever heard of. Why? She is only a lump of iron and wood; his life is as valuable as that of any of the women and children on board, but he makes everybody get away safely before he attempts to save his more valuable life. Why? Because the ship is his ship, and he has been taught that it is his duty to stick to it, and he considers it would be dishonourable in him to do otherwise; so he puts honour before safety. So also a scout should value his honour most of anything.
Fair Play.—Britons, above all other people, insist on fair play.
If you see a big bully going for a small or weak boy, you stop him because it is not "fair play."
And if a man, in fighting another, knocks him down, he must not hit or kick him while he is down; everybody would think him an awful beast if he did. Yet there is no law about it; you could not get him imprisoned for it. The truth is that "fair play" is an old idea of Chivalry that has come down to us from the knights of old, and we must always keep up that idea.
Other nations are not all so good.
Often we hear of wounded men being again shot and killed in battle when they are lying helpless on the ground. In the South African War, when Major MacLaren, now our Manager in the Boy Scouts, was lying helpless, with his thigh broken by a bullet and his horse shot on top of him, a Boer came up and finding him alive, fired two more shots into him. Luckily he recovered and is alive to-day. But that Boer had no Chivalry in him.
Honesty.—Honesty is a form of Honour. An honourable man can be trusted with any amount of money or other valuables with the certainty that he will not steal it.
Cheating at any time is a sneaking, underhand thing to do.
When you feel inclined to cheat in order to win a game, or feel very distressed when a game in which you are playing is going against you, just say to yourself, "After all, it is only a game. It won't kill me if I do lose. One can't win always, though I will stick to it in case of a chance coming."
If you keep your head in this way, you will very often find that you win after all from not being over-anxious or despairing.