A week later a party of knights and court gallants, riding across the fields without the walls, checked their horses to look at a struggle which was going on between two parties of boys.

One, which was apparently the most powerful, had driven the other off from a heap of rubbish which had been carried without the walls.

Each party had a flag attached to a stick, and the boys were armed with clubs such as those carried by the apprentice boys.

Many of them carried mimic shields made of wood, and had stuffed their flat caps with wool or shavings, the better to protect their heads from blows.

The smaller party had just been driven from the heap, and their leader was urging them to make another effort to regain it.
"That is a gallant-looking lad, and a sturdy, my Lord de Vaux," a boy of about ten years of age said.