In the course of the afternoon the vessels were able to come into the harbour and lie alongside the quay, when the Captain of the Wight landed in state, and was escorted to his quarters in the town. Dicky Cheke was in raptures at the size of the town, there being no place at all to compare with it in the Isle of Wight. Southampton was the only port with which he could compare it; and he was astonished at the volubility of the French children. "What scholars they be," he said. "They all talk French as easy as I talk English. But--faugh! I say, Ralph, they like it strong about here. Oh! I say, these French don’t mind rank smells. Phew!" "Humph! It is something out of the common," said Maurice. But this was their first experience of French towns and French sanitation. Not that the towns of England were much better in those days. But the English, like most Teutonic races, had a habit of spreading their towns rather more, and the love of a plot of ground, so inherent in the English mind, kept freer currents of air in their back premises than in the narrow, cooped up streets of the French municipalities, hemmed in with lofty walls, and whose enormously tall houses shut out all daylight from the streets below. The next few days were occupied in drilling the expeditionary force, and the Bretons admired the tall, stalwart figures of the men of the Wight, their martial bearing, and thorough equipment. The knights and men-at-arms gave a tourney in the level plain at the back of St Malo, in return for the jousts which the Breton knights had given in Carisbrooke Castle, and many gallant feats were done, Ralph Lisle distinguishing himself greatly. Both he and the other young men enjoyed themselves very much, and they won universal praise by their courteous bearing and gallant looks.