First they learned how to manage their horses with ease and dexterity; next how to use the sword, the bow, and the lance.  They had to attend upon their lords in hunting—­the rules of which, like those of mimic war, had to be carefully studied.  The various blasts of the horn, indicating when the hounds were slipped, when the prey was flying, and when it stood at bay, had to be acquired, as also the various tracks of the wild animals—­the fox, the wolf, the bear, the wild boar.  Nights and days were frequently spent in the pathless woods, and the face of the country had to be carefully studied, while pluck and address were acquired by the necessity of promptitude when the wild beast stood at bay.

And when the deer or hart was slain they had to “brittle,” or break him up, with all precision, and during the banquet they had frequently to carve the haunch or chine, and to do it with some gracefulness.

All these arts were being acquired at the castle of Aescendune by Etienne de Malville, Louis de Marmontier, Pierre de Morlaix, and Wilfred of Aescendune, all of the age of fifteen or sixteen, but more advanced physically than boys of such years would be now; and, sooth to say, the boys had a stern preceptor in Hugo de Malville.

They slept in a common dormitory in one of the towers, on beds resembling boxes, stuffed with straw, with the skins of the wolf or bear for coverlets.  They sprang out when the morning horn blew the reveille.  First they attended the early mass in St. Wilfred’s monastic church, said at daybreak—­for the Normans were very exact in such duties—­after which they fenced, rode, or wrestled, and in mimic war gained an appetite for breakfast.

They ate dried meats, as a rule, with their cakes of bread, and washed them down with thin wine or mead, much diluted, and then the forest was generally the rendezvous.

On winter evenings, or when the weather was very bad, the chaplain was expected to teach them a little reading or writing in Latin or Norman French—­never in English; and this was almost all the learning they acquired, in the modern sense of the word.

But they knew a hundred things modern boys know nothing at all about, and every muscle and nerve was braced to be steady and true, whether for fight or sport.  Our young pages could find their way in the deep woods by observing the moss on the trees, or the sides on which the oaks or elms threw their branches the most freely; and when benighted they could sleep with patience on a couch of withered leaves, and not suffer with a cold in the head the next day.  They feared neither wolf nor bear, nor, for that matter, anything save disgrace.

The imputation of cowardice, or of any mean vice, such as lying, was only to be avenged by bloodshed.  No gentleman could bear it and retain his claim to the name.  But there were higher duties inculcated wheresoever the obligations of chivalry were fully carried out:  the duty of succouring the distressed, or redressing wrong—­of devotion to God and His Church, and hatred of the devil and his works.