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Updated: May 9, 2025
Instead of the tournament being a healthy mêlée into which any ordinary man would rush and take his chance, it has become a fenced and guarded tilting-yard for the collision of particular champions against whom no ordinary man would pit himself or even be permitted to pit himself.
With responsibility not merely for commas and niceties and literary kickshaws, but in its old sense disappears also a portion of the interest of editorial labour. One would suppose it must be more interesting to command a man-of-war than a trading vessel; it would be more interesting to lead a regiment than to keep a tilting-yard. But the times are not ripe for such enterprises.
Count William was a gallant and courtly knight, learned in all the ways of chivalry, the model of the younger cavaliers, handsome in person, noble in bearing, the surest lance in the tilting-yard, and the stoutest arm in the foray. Like "Jephtha, Judge of Israel," of whom the mock-mad Hamlet sang to Polonius, Count William had "One fair daughter, and no more, The which he loved passing well;"
I need hardly say that we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves: the impressions of that good old time were deep and durable. Amongst other things, Governor Farrobo indulged his fair friends with a display of the old jogo de canas, or running at the ring. The Praca Academica had been rigged out to serve as a tilting-yard, with a central alley of palisading and two 'stands, grand and little.
In such combats, as well as in the more formal sports of the tilting-yard, Tranter had won a name for strength and dexterity which had caused Norbury to utter his well-meant warning. On the other hand, Alleyne had used his weapons in constant exercise and practice for every day for many months, and being by nature quick of eye and prompt of hand, he might pass now as no mean swordsman.
In the final bout, however, Sir Nigel struck his opponent with so true an aim that the point of the lance caught between the bars of his vizor and tore the front of his helmet out, while the German, aiming somewhat low, and half stunned by the shock, had the misfortune to strike his adversary upon the thigh, a breach of the rules of the tilting-yard, by which he not only sacrificed his chances of success, but would also have forfeited his horse and his armor, had the English knight chosen to claim them.
Her heart went out to the Duke's Daughter as it had never gone out to any of her sex since her mother's death, and she showed her admiration in her glance. The other saw it and smiled, slipping a hand in hers for a moment; and then a look, half-debating, half-triumphant, came into her face as her eyes followed Leicester down the green stretches of the tilting-yard.
"You have done what you could to save him, Harcomb," said he. "We had best settle at once." "So say I," cried Alleyne. "The council will not break up until the banquet," remarked a gray-haired squire. "You have a clear two hours." "And the place?" "The tilting-yard is empty at this hour."
To be able, therefore, to conduct himself with dignity, to know how to win the favor of his master and to secure the good-will of his peers, to retain his personal honor and to make himself respected without being hated, to inspire admiration and to avoid envy, to outshine all honorable rivals in physical exercises and the craft of arms, to maintain a credable equipage and retinue, to be instructed in the arts of polite intercourse, to converse with ease and wit, to be at home alike in the tilting-yard, the banquet-hall, the boudoir, and the council-chamber, to understand diplomacy, to live before the world and yet to keep a fitting privacy and distance, these and a hundred other matters were the climax and perfection of the culture of a gentleman.
Her heart went out to the Duke's Daughter as it had never gone out to any of her sex since her mother's death, and she showed her admiration in her glance. The other saw it and smiled, slipping a hand in hers for a moment; and then a look, half-debating, half-triumphant, came into her face as her eyes followed Leicester down the green stretches of the tilting-yard.
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