A swirl of remembrance gushed into Nigel's brain at the words, "Sir John Hepburn!"
"It is just that you are Sir John Hepburn that I dare not!" said Nigel. "Were you a lesser man!"
Sir John Hepburn stood on guard, a man of forty, broad-shouldered, well-knit, wary.
"Have at you, Sir John!" said Nigel, and the battle began.
They were both good swordsmen, but the fact that each had made up his mind to disarm the other without doing him much bodily hurt, engendered such an excess of caution as made it an affair of more length than bloodshed. Both men were winded before either had scored a scratch.
By mutual consent they dropped their points and took breath, but spoke never a word. Both had wrists of the hardest sinew, and both had learned most of the tricks of fence that Spain, Italy, and France could teach.
It was curious how each divined a change in the attack, and attuned his defence to meet it.
The one fact that emerged from the continual parry and thrust was that Nigel was the better able to recover his wind, and slightly the more agile, and so, given an equal fortune, would wear his opponent down.
"Faith! Nigel Charteris! ye're a wise chiel at the swords!" blurted Sir John at the end of the fourth bout.