of an invitation to come in in the evening and take a stoup of ale, and
tell of the battles and sieges he had gone through, and in the course of
the evening would be asked to have a bout of arms with the young
apprentice, whom Geoffrey represented as being eager to learn how to use
the sword as well as how to make it.

Thus Walter became accustomed to different styles of fighting, but found
that very few, indeed, of their visitors were nearly so well skilled with
their arms as his master. Some of the soldiers were mortified at finding
themselves unable to hold their own with a boy; others would take their
reverses in good part and would come again, bringing with them some comrade
known to be particularly skilled with his weapons, to try the temper of the
armourer's apprentice. At the age of fifteen Walter had won the prize at
the sports, both for the best cudgel play and the best sword-and-buckler
play among the apprentices, to the great disgust of many who had almost
reached the age of manhood and were just out of their time.

On Sundays Walter always spent the day with Giles Fletcher and his wife,
going to mass with them and walking in the fields, where, after service,
the citizens much congregated. Since Walter had gone to work he had taken
no part in the fights and frolics of his former comrades; he was in fact,
far too tired at the end of his day's work to have any desire to do aught
but to sit and listen to the tales of the wars, of the many old soldiers
who pervaded the country. Some of these men were disabled by wounds or
long service, but the greater portion were idle scamps, who cared not for
the hard blows and sufferings of a campaign, liking better to hang about
taverns drinking, at the expense of those to whom they related fabulous
tales of the gallant actions they had performed. Many, too, wandered over
the country, sometimes in twos or threes, sometimes in large bands, robbing
and often murdering travelers or attacking lonely houses. When in one part