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He strutted in his stately fashion over to where a rapier and dagger hung upon the wall, and began to make passes at the door, darting in and out, warding off imaginary blows with his poniard, and stamping his feet with little cries of "Punto! reverso! stoccata! dritta! mandritta!" and all the jargon of the fencing schools. Finally he rejoined them, breathing heavily and with his wig awry.
And I would teach these nineteen the special rules, as your punto,* your reverso, your stoccata, your imbroccata, your passada, your montanto; till they could all play very near, or altogether, as well as myself. This done, say the enemy were forty thousand strong, we twenty would come into the field the tenth of March, or thereabouts, and we would challenge twenty of the enemy.
The English knight was master of all the mystery of the stoccata, imbrocata, punto-reverso, incartata, and so forth, which the Italian masters of defence had lately introduced into general practice. But Glendinning, on his part, was no novice in the principles of the art, according to the old Scottish fashion, and possessed the first of all qualities, a steady and collected mind.
Changing his purpose, therefore, Sir Giles, in place of attempting to cross his antagonist's sword, rapidly disengaged his point, and delivered a stoccata, or in modern terms of fence, a thrust in carte, over the arm, which was instantly parried. For some minutes the conflict continued without material success on either side.
'Thy fincture, carricade, and sly passata, Thy stramazon, and resolute stoccata, Wiping maudritta, closing embrocata, And all the cant of the honorable fencing mystery." "Rowland Yorke? Who's he, then?" "A very roystering rascal, who is making good profit in London just now by teaching this very art of fence; and is as likely to have his mortal thread clipt in a tavern brawl, as thy Frenchman.
In general, the English understand conversation well. There is that ready deference for the claims of every one who wishes to speak time about, and it is seldom now-a-days that "a la stoccata" carries it away thus. I should have gone to the Duchess of Northumberland's to hear music to-night, but I felt completely fagged, and betook myself home to bed.
I am run, as it seemed to me, through the body, with a very sufficient stoccata, and faint on the spot; and yet, when I recover, I find myself without either wem or wound, and, lacking nothing of my apparel, saving my murrey-coloured doublet, slashed with satin, which I will pray may be inquired after, lest the devil, who transported me, should have dropped it in his passage among some of the trees or bushes it being a choice and most fanciful piece of raiment, which I wore for the first time at the Queen's pageant in Southwark."
To do Sir Piercie justice, it was an idea which never entered into his head; and he would probably have dealt the most scientific imbroccata, stoccata, or punto reverso, which the school of Vincent Saviola had taught him, to any man who had dared to suggest to him such selfish and ungrateful meanness.
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