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These laughed and jested after their kind, encouraging the youths to
fight it out, and naming Laurence the brock or badger from his
stoutness, and the slim Sholto the whitterick or, as one might say,
weasel.
"At him, Whitterick--grip him! Grip him! Now you have him at the
pinch! Well pulled, Brock! 'Tis a certainty for Brock--good Brock!
Well done--well done! Ah, would you? Hands off that dagger! Let
fisticuffs settle it! The Whitterick hath it--the Whitterick!"
And thus ran the comment. Sholto being cumbered with his armour,
Laurence might in time have gotten the upper grip. But at this moment
a diversion occurred which completely altered the character of the
conflict. A stout, reddish young man came up, holding in his hand a
staff painted with twining stripes of white and red, which showed him
to be the marshal of that part of the camp which pertained to the Earl
of Angus. He looked on for a moment from the skirts of the crowd, and
then elbowed his way self-importantly into the centre, till he stood
immediately above Laurence and Sholto.


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