"Hah!" said the other softly. "That's very pitiful; but," he added, with more animation, "it is very grand as well.--No, no, no: be quiet! I'm here, and what's the good of making your arm worse? You're a visitor; and you wouldn't like me to go away and send one of our fellows. I shall be a knight some day, I hope; and it's a knight's duty to fight, of course, but he ought to be able to help a wounded man. Now you're a wounded man and I'm going to help you, wash you and all, and I say, you want it too. You look as if you had been down in the dust. And what's this? Why, there's clay matted in the back of your neck!" "Well," said Denis, smiling, "I am such a cripple I can't help myself, and so I must submit." "Of course you must. I'll feed you too, if you like, by-and-by." "But what did you mean," said Denis, to change the conversation, as he smilingly yielded himself to the busy helpful hands of his new friend. "What did I mean? Why, to help you." "No, no; I meant about those fellows riding roughshod over you and wanting to pick quarrels." "Oh, I see. I meant, I'm waiting my time. Can you fence--use a sword well?" "Not very, but I'm practising hard." "Are you? So am I. We've got a French _maitre d'armes_ at Court, and he's helping me and teaching me all he knows. He's splendid! He likes me because I work so hand, and pats me on the back, and calls me `grand garcon' and dear pupil. Ah, he's a wonder. Only he makes me feel so stupid. He's like one of those magician fellows when you cross swords with him. Yes, it's just like magic; for when he likes he can make his long thin blade twist and twine about yours as if it were a snake and all alive; and before you know where you are it tightens round, and then _twit, twang_, yours is snatched out of your hand and gone flying across the room, making you feel as helpless as a child. Ah, you don't know what it is to feel like that. I say, hold still. How am I to wipe you? That's better." "But I do know what it is to feel like that," cried Denis, as soon as he could get his face free from the white linen cloth his new friend was handling with great dexterity. "You do?" cried the latter. "What, have you got a _maitre d'armes_ over where you came from?" "Yes, and he's here in this house now. You should have seen him in a desperate fight we had last night against about a score--" "Of the road outlaws coming through the forest?" "Yes, and they attacked us." "And you got away." Denis nodded. "My word! You were lucky!" "It was through my fencing master," said Denis warmly, as his dressing was hurried on. "He can do all you say when he's teaching; and when he fights as he did last night--" "Oh, I do wish that I had been there!" "--his point seems everywhere at once." "That's the sort of man I love," cried the English lad excitedly, and he gave his visitor so hearty a slap on the shoulder that Denis changed colour and reeled.