ABSTRACT
IT was a custom more frequent in the old days than it is now for soldiers standing in the line of battle or engaged in assaults on strongholds and army encampments to use long, tapering shields as if these were walls or bulwarks, so that, as chance or need offered, while they were running fast they might hold them out against arrows and sling-shots, either to the right or to the left, in valiant attack or discreet flight.
