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Updated: May 25, 2025
"Heh, Jenkin, fetch out the cob!" cried the worthy Wat. "May my right hand lose its cunning if I do not send you into battle in your father's suit! To-morrow I must be back in my booth, but to-day I give to you without fee and for the sake of the good-will which I bear to your house. I will ride with you to Tilford, and before night you shall see what Wat can do."
"It is not only that I loved your father, Squire Loring, but it is that I have seen you, half armed as you were, ride against the best of them at the Castle tiltyard. Last Martinmas my heart bled for you when I saw how sorry was your harness, and yet you held your own against the stout Sir Oliver with his Milan suit: When go you to Tilford?" "Even now."
"Now you can see it for yourselves." "And his clothes fit him," added Dan Tilford, as a special mark of approval. "Oh, they imagine they're having no end of sport," whispered Atkins. "Look at Harrington. He's half seas over, too." He was so far over, indeed, that he was very ill for a time. It was a fearful scene.
So it came about that there was a busy evening at the old Tilford Manor-house, where the Lady Ermyntrude planned and cut and hung the curtains for the hall, and stocked her cupboards with the good things which Nigel had brought from Guildford.
The Knight of Duplin leaned his weight upon the young man's arm and limped his way across the great high-roofed hall to his capacious oaken chair. "Come, come, the stool, Edith!" he cried. "As God is my help, that girl's mind swarms with gallants as a granary with rats. Well, Nigel, I hear strange tales of your spear-running at Tilford and of the visit of the King. How seemed he?
"A nobler sport than either." "Is this a riddle, John? What mean you?" "Nay, to tell all would be to spoil all. I say again that there is rare sport betwixt here and Tilford, and I beg you, dear lord, to mend your pace that we make the most of the daylight." Thus adjured, the King set spurs to his horse, and the whole cavalcade cantered over the heath in the direction which Chandos showed.
May they be of great heart and high of enterprise when we all meet once more within the castle wall of Calais!" The King had come and had gone. Tilford Manor house stood once more dark and silent, but joy and contentment reigned within its walls. In one night every trouble had fallen away like some dark curtain which had shut out the sun.
Presently as they came over a slope they saw beneath them a winding river with an old high-backed bridge across it. On the farther side was a village green with a fringe of cottages and one dark manor house upon the side of the hill. "This is Tilford," said Chandos. "Yonder is the house of the Lorings." The King's expectations had been aroused and his face showed his disappointment.
The Prince laid his hand upon his shoulder. "It is the little cock of Tilford Bridge," said he. "On my father's soul, I have ever said that you would win your way. Did you receive the King's surrender?" "Nay, fair lord, I did not receive it." "Did you hear him give it?" "I heard, sir, but I did not know that it was the King. My master Lord Chandos had gone on, and I followed after."
A friendly Squire at Nigel's elbow whispered the names of the famous warriors beneath. "You are young Loring of Tilford, the Squire of Chandos, are you not?" said he. "My name is Delves, and I come from Doddington in Cheshire. I am the Squire of Sir James Audley, yonder round-backed man with the dark face and close-cropped beard, who hath the Saracen head as a crest above him."
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