"We call it by no such knightly term. With us it is a spear, and nought else; but all borderers carry it, both for fighting and for pricking up cattle; and from the time that I could sit a horse I have always practised for a while, every day, with some of my father's troopers, or with himself, using blunt weapons whitened with chalk, so as to show where the hits fell. Although in a charge upon footmen, our border spearmen would couch their weapons and ride straight at their foe; in skirmishes, where each can single out an enemy, and there is a series of single combats, they do not so fight, but circle round each other, trusting to the agility of their horses to avoid a thrust, and to deliver one when there is an opening. Our spears are nothing like so heavy as the knightly lances, and we thrust with them as with the point of a sword." "But in that way you can hardly penetrate armour," one of the other esquires said. "No, it is only in a downright charge that we try to do so. When we are fighting as I speak of, we thrust at the face, at the armpit, the joints of the armour, which in truth seldom fits closely, or below the breastplate. The Scotch use even less armour than do our borderers, their breast pieces being smaller, and they seldom wear back pieces. It is a question chiefly of the activity of the horses, as of the skill of their riders, and our little moor horses are as active as young goats; and although neither horse nor rider can stand a charge of a heavily-armed knight or squire, methinks that if one of our troopers brought him to a stand, he would get the better of him, save if the knight took to mace or battle-axe." "Have you your horse with you, Oswald?" "Yes, it is in the stable. I have gone out with it, every morning, as soon as the castle gates were opened, and have ridden for a couple of hours before I began my exercises." "Do you take him in hand first, Marsden," Allonby said to one of the younger esquires, a young man of two or three and twenty. Light steel caps with cheeks, gorgets, shoulder and arm pieces, and padded leathern jerkins were put on; and then, with blunted swords, they took their places facing each other. The squire took up a position of easy confidence. He was a good swordsman, and good-naturedly determined to treat the lad easily, and to play with him for a time before scoring his first hit. He soon, however, found that the game was not to be conducted on the lines that he had laid down. Oswald, after waiting for a minute or two, finding his opponent did not take the offensive, did so himself; and for a time Marsden had all his work to do, to defend himself. Several times, indeed, it was with the greatest difficulty that he guarded his head. The activity of his assailant almost bewildered him, as he continually shifted his position, and with cat-like springs leapt in and dealt a blow, leaping back again before his opponent's arm had time to fall.