got the greater part to myself, for the rest were all so busy talking and drinking cold ale, that they hardly thought of the bacon. It was nicely toasted, and the fat stood on it like small drops of honey. But I must not dwell on the recollection else I shall faint.
At our meal the yeoman offered my master a new war cloak, with belts, bands, and haversack, if he would tell him by what means he disarmed him with such[335] ease, and in so extraordinary a manner; but the other absolutely refused.
"It is allowable in chivalry," said he, "to learn and practice any mode of manual defence, and to keep that mode a secret till you prove it on your opponent. That is my secret, and by that mode I would forfeit my life, nay my character itself, to disarm any man that ever pointed a two-edged sword at my breast."
"I should have liked very much to have known that secret of his," said Charlie Scott.
I found it out privately with the most perfect certainty, continued Tam; but durst never let him know that I understood aught of the matter. It was owing to his sword's handle, which was made for the purpose. It had an inner shell of steel polished like glass; then an outer one of basket-work, formed with rounded bars in such a manner that, by turning his hand in a slight degree to humour the position of the opponent's sword, and dashing his hilt[336] against the point of it, that entered between those of the cross-bars, and, running up the polished steel within, bent and fixed itself; then by a sudden wrench against his opponent's thumb, of which he was a perfect master, he not only disarmed him to a certainty, but generally left his arm powerless. After I had discovered it, I went by myself to try the experiment, fixed my own sword, and taking my master's in my hand, I pushed the basket of that slightly against the point of the other, and behold it fixed in it so close, that with all my might, and all my art, I could not extricate it without breaking it in two, and, in that case, I saw I would leave the point sticking where it was, which I durst not do for my life. At length it came into my head to do as my master did. This had the effect at once; the vibration in the blade caused by the swing and jerk,