olishing the outer wall, and much of the hold itself;
and would have completed their task, had it not been for the defeat
inflicted upon the rest of the Scots by Sir Robert Umfraville, when
they were forced to hasten back across the border. My father sent me a
message afterwards, saying that he and my mother, with their followers,
had been forced to take to the fells; and that, on their return, they
found the place well-nigh destroyed; but that he was going to set to
work to rebuild it as before, and that he hoped, some time, to demolish
the Bairds' hold in like fashion. It will be some time before the place
is restored; for, my father's means being limited, he and his retainers
would have to turn masons; but as the materials were there, he doubted
not that, in time, they would make a good job of it."

"Truly, it is a hard life on the border," the squire said, "and it is
wonderful that any can be found willing to live within reach of the
Scotch raiders. I myself have done a fair share of fighting, under our
lord's banner; but to pass my life, never knowing whether I may not
awake to find the house assailed, would be worse than the hardest
service against an open foe.

"Now, Master Oswald, we will go down to the courtyard, and see what
your instructors have done for you, in the matter of arms. With whom
have you been practising, since you came here?"

"Principally with Godfrey Harpent, Dick Bamborough, and William Anell;
but I have had a turn with a great many of the other men-at-arms."

"The three men you name are all stout fellows, and good swordsmen. As a
borderer, I suppose that you have practised with the lance?"

"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 th