The duellists stepped back as the “phrase” ended, and then Sir Seymour gave an “invitation,” holding his sword-arm wide to the right of his body. Sir Matthew lunged, his sword was caught, carried out to the left, and held there as Sir Seymour’s blade slid inward along it. Just in time, Sir Matthew’s inward pressure carried Sir Seymour’s sword clear to the right again. Sir Matthew disengaged over, and, as the sudden release brought Sir Seymour’s sword springing in, he thrust under that gentleman’s right arm and scratched his side.
As he recovered his sword he held it for a moment with the point raised toward Sir Seymour’s face. Instantly Sir Seymour’s point tinkled on his hilt, and Captain Delorme murmured “Finis” beneath his breath.
Sir Stukeley Seymour’s blade shot in, Sir Matthew’s moved to parry, and the point of the advancing sword flickered under his hand, turned upward, and pierced his heart.
“Yes,” said Captain Delorme, as the stricken man fell, “if he parries outward the point goes under, if he anticipates a feint it comes straight in, and if he parries a lunge-and-feint-under, he gets feint-over before he can come up. I have never seen Stukeley miss when once he rests on the hilt. Exit de Warrenne—and Hell the worse for it——” and the boy awoke.
He kissed the sword and fell asleep again.
One day, when receiving his morning fencing and boxing lessons of Sergeant Havlan, he astonished that warrior (and made a bitter enemy of him) by warning him against allowing his blade to rest on the Sergeant’s hilt, and by hitting him clean and fair whenever it was allowed to happen. Also, by talking of “the Italian school of fence” and of “invitations”—the which were wholly outside the fencing-philosophy of the French-trained swordsman. At the age of fifteen the boy was too good for the man who had been the best that Aldershot had known, who had run a salle d’armes for years, and who was much sought by ambitious members of the Sword Club.
The Sword, from the day of that newly vivid dream, became to the boy what his Symbol is to the religious fanatic, and he was content to sit and stare at it, musing, for hours.
The sad-eyed, sentimental lady encouraged him and spoke of Knights, Chivalry, Honour, Noblesse Oblige, and Ideals such as the nineteenth century knew not and the world will never know again.
“Be a real and true Knight, sonny darling,” she would say, “and live to help. Help women—God knows they need it. And try to be able to say at the end of your life, ‘I have never made a woman weep’. Yes—be a Knight and have ‘Live pure, Speak true, Right wrong’ on your shield. Be a Round Table Knight and ride through the world bravely. Your dear Father was a great swordsman. You may have the sword down and kiss it, the first thing every morning—and you must salute it every night as you go up to bed. You shall wear a sword some day.”
(Could the poor lady but have foreseen!)