Warrigal

“ It's the warrigal's [#] mob for a quid. Fifty of 'em, if there's a hoof.
[#] Warrigal—wild, savage; applied indifferently by the natives to animals and men.
"How d'yer think they horses got the rails down, Harry?"
The speaker was Denny Kineavy, who was a new chum at this kind of work.
"Why, it's the ole warrigal's work o' course. Trust 'im fur findin' out a way o' gettin' up a flirt with the ladies. He's the cutest cuss in Australia, bar none. Full o' blood he is too. New Warrior strain outer a great arab mare of Kurnel Dumaresque. ”

“ There was a stiff chase of between three and four miles, and only five dingoes were within sight when Finn pinned the rearmost kangaroo by the neck, and Warrigal darted in cautiously upon one of its flanks. In an attack of this kind two things about Finn made his onslaught most deadly: his great weight, and the length and power of his massive jaws.
Even Tufter got a good meal from this kill, for the kangaroo was a big fellow of well over five feet from nose to haunch, without mention of his huge muscular tail, the meaty root of which kept the whelps busy for hours afterwards. ”

“ In a second Harry was down, and in three seconds the slip-panels were down too.
The waiting bushrangers saw the morning sun gleaming on their carbines, as the police dashed [Pg 272] between the aloes and the prickly pears, and letting Guardsman go, were off like a shot.
Sydney banged to the stable door; and, setting his back against it, shouted for help. His mother, Gertrude, and even John Jones, as the police were close at hand, ran to his aid; and up galloped the troopers.
Warrigal fired a bullet or two through the door, and talked very big about not being taken alive ”

“ Enter Warwick, Clarence, Oxford, Somerset, and French Soldiers, silent all.
War. This is his tent; and see where stand his guard.
Courage, my masters! honour now or never! ⁠24
But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.
1. Watch. Who goes there?
2. Watch. Stay, or thou diest.
Warwick and the rest cry all, ‘Warwick! Warwick!’ and set upon the Guard, who fly, crying, ‘Arm! Arm!' Warwick and the rest following them.
The drum playing and trumpet sounding, enter Warwick, Somerset, and the rest, bringing the King out in his gown, sitting in a chair. Richard and Hastings fly over the stage. ”

“ Warwick, contrary to his custom, had been persuaded by his brother Montacute to dismount, send away his horse, and fight on foot. Was this an act of bravery on the part of Montacute, or of treason? Such was the ambiguous conduct of this nobleman, that his contemporaries and the historians were again divided on the point. If it were treason, and he meant to take the opportunity of Warwick's personal engagement, in the thick of the melée to draw off to the other side, he paid the penalty of it, for he was speedily slain. ”

“ The king ordered up these fresh troops, and led them to the assault. Warwick fronted this new peril with haughty disdain; and, in accents of encouragement, appealed to his remaining adherents to persevere. "This," said he, "is their last resource. If we withstand this one charge the field will yet be ours." But the earl's men, jaded and fatigued, could not encounter such fearful odds with success; and Warwick had the mortification of finding that his call was no longer answered by his friends, and that his battle-cry no longer sounded terrible to his foes. ”

“ And now the first three were dead, and long dead, and Warwick was with Lee at Culpeper, and Fauquier, yesterday in “the severest cavalry battle yet fought on this continent,” and Warwick’s son, Edward, fighting in a city 111besieged! Everywhere kinsmen and friends, fighting! And the gaunt and ruined country, the burning houses and the turned-out fields, the growing hunger, want no longer skulking, but walking all the highroads, care and wounds and sickness, a chill at all hearts and a lessening of the sunlight! “I have lived out of a gold world into an iron one,” thought Miss Lucy. ”

“ I love those hills of Warwick--many a glorious day have I passed in their green recesses; many a wild tale have I heard of sylvan sport and forest warfare, and many, too, of patriot partisanship in the old revolutionary days--the days that tried men's souls--while sitting at my noontide meal by the secluded wellhead, under the canopy of some primeval oak, with implements of woodland sport, rifle or shot-gun by my side, and well-broke setter or stanch hound recumbent at my feet. ”

“ A regiment of Warwickshire militia, probably commanded by the Earl, was going through its drill in the market-place; and on the collar of one of the officers was embroidered the Bear and Ragged Staff, which has been the cognizance of the Warwick earldom from time immemorial. The soldiers were sturdy young men, with the simple, stolid, yet kindly, faces of English rustics, looking exceedingly well in a body, but slouching into a yeoman-like carriage and appearance, the moment they were dismissed from drill. ”

“ Suppose we let him have The Trap To win Wargeilah Handicap!' And here, I must explain to you That, round about Wargeilah run, There lived a very aged screw Whose days of brilliancy were done: A grand old warrior in his prime — But age will beat us all in time. ”

“ I shall take leave to put you again in mind of the reducement of major-general Massey's horse; which I do the rather, because they have made a most dishonourable breach upon the articles of Worcester, by plundering and violating those that marched out of that city, and yet the regiment appointed to that service I did always take (and still do) to be the best of the whole; but besides, I am advertised that those who are quartered west do commit great robberies and insolencies in those parts. ”

“ As the words left the duke’s lips, and Warwick, one foot on his dumb friend’s corpse, gave the mandate, a murderous discharge from the archers in the covert rattled against the line of the Yorkists, and the foe, still advancing, stepped over a hundred corpses to the conflict. Despite the vast preponderance of numbers, the skill of Warwick’s archers, the strength of his position, the obstacle to the cavalry made by the barricades, rendered the attack perilous in the extreme. ”

“ As for the garrison, which, a few months earlier, could not be trusted, every man was now ready to drink the earl's health; every tongue sounded the praises of the king-maker; every cap was conspicuously ornamented with the Ragged Staff, known, far and wide, as the badge of the Countess of Warwick. ”

“ Herval fell over amidst the enemy, the Count's horse dropped at once under him, and he felt himself drawn forcibly out from beneath the dying animal, and carried along by the men in full retreat from that scene of slaughter.
"Here is a horse, Count,--here is a horse," cried a voice near him. "Mount, quick, and oh take care of my poor girl. She is on with the troops before. I have lost you the battle, and know what must come of it."
The Count turned and saw Paul Virlay by his side; but before he could reply the man left the bridle in his hand, and rushed into the midst of the enemy. ”

“ The earl of Warwick added: “You are the rightful heir to the throne. The claim of Henry VI comes through Lancaster, the fourth son of Edward III—yours through Lionel, the second. His claim comes through his father only—yours through both your father and mother. It is a better claim and it is a double claim.”
“That is true, my cousin of Warwick,” replied the duke of York, "but we must not plunge England into war.”
“Surely not if we can help it,” replied the earl. “Let us first ask for reform. If the king heeds our petition, well and good. ”

“ Fear not the bombards,— their enchanted balls swerve from the brave! The dark legions of Air fight for us! For the hour is come when the fiend shall rend his prey!" And fiendlike seemed the form thus screeching forth its predictions from under the grim head-gear; and then darting and disappearing amidst the sea of pikes, cleaving its path of blood!
But still the untiring might of Warwick defied the press of numbers that swept round him tide upon tide. Through the mist, his black armour, black plume, black steed, gloomed forth like one thundercloud in the midst of a dismal heaven. ”

“ Ill armed and untried militia, who never before saw the face of an enemy, have, at times, during the course of this war, given occasions of exultation to our enemies, but they afforded us, while at Warwick, a little satisfaction in the same way. Six or eight hundred of their picked men of light infantry, with General Arnold at their head, having crossed the river from Warwick, fled from a patrole of sixteen horse, every 307 man into his boat as he could, some pushing North, some South, as their fears drove them. ”

“ In the Armoury he was permitted to fit on some of the armour, and attempted also to wield the sword of Guy, Earl of Warwick, which weighed seventy pounds. He also examined the rest of Guy's gigantic equipments, not omitting his porridge-pot, which held no gallons and was filled every time an Earl of Warwick came of age. This Guy was not the famous King Maker, but the original Guy, who lived at a time when England was covered with thick forests in which savage beasts, now unknown, roamed at large, causing great havoc amongst the early settlers, both to their persons and their cattle. ”

“ Why, Warwick, thou art as shrewish to a jest as a woman to advice. Thy kinsman's fortunes shall be my care. Thou sayest thou hast enemies,—I weet not who they be. But to show what I think of them, I make thy namesake and client a gentleman of my chamber. When Warwick is false to Edward, let him think that Warwick's kinsman wears a dagger within reach of the king's heart day and night. ”

“ Yet the Warwick of to-day, in its summer dress, well repays the visitor who may chance upon its hospitable soil. All along its beautiful shores arise pleasant homes and hostelries for the accommodation of the summer visitor; while inland, the rolling hills, prosperous with growing grass and coming harvests, are not without a quiet and restful beauty which pleases the eye, and solaces the mind and heart. In the little hamlet of Apponaug, close by Coweset Bay, the brave new Town Hall, one of the finest in New England, testifies to the enterprise as well as to the prosperity of the people. ”

“ Their leader lost, the Volscians quit the field,
And, unsustain'd, the chiefs of Turnus yield.
The frighted soldiers, when their captains fly,
More on their speed than on their strength rely.
Confus'd in flight, they bear each other down,
And spur their horses headlong to the town.
Driv'n by their foes, and to their fears resign'd,
Not once they turn, but take their wounds behind.
These drop the shield, and those the lance forego,
Or on their shoulders bear the slacken'd bow.
The hoofs of horses, with a rattling sound,
Beat short and thick, and shake the rotten ground. ”

“ But death by a mean hand the lordly warrior would not contemplate; and with a spirit as high as his progenitor, who fought at Acre with Richard Cœur de Lion, he could hardly dream of falling by a weapon less renowned than Warwick's axe, or Edward's lance, or the sword of William Hastings, who, in the young king's track, slaughtering as he rode, was winning golden spurs and broad baronies. ”

“ Warwick did not, however, apprehend any serious results from the passive distaste of the trading towns. His martial spirit led him to despise the least martial part of the population. He knew that the towns would not rise in arms so long as their charters were respected; and that slow, undermining hostility which exists only in opinion, his intellect, so vigorous in immediate dangers, was not far-sighted enough to comprehend. More direct cause for apprehension would there have been to a suspicious mind in the demeanour of the earl's colleague in the Protectorate,—the Duke of Clarence. ”

“ Warwick, though richly and even gorgeously attired,—nay, with all the care which in that age was considered the imperative duty a man of station and birth owed to himself,—held in lofty disdain whatever vagary of custom tended to cripple the movements or womanize the man. ”

“ These Earls of Warwick appear always to have been remarkably stirring men in their day and generation, and foremost in whatever was going on in the world, whether political or religious. To begin, there was Guy, Earl of Warwick, who lived somewhere in the times of the old dispensation, before King Arthur, and who distinguished himself, according to the fashion of those days, by killing giants and various colored dragons, among which a green one especially figures. ”

“ Well; these Northumbrian Guys having lived extremely fast, and being compelled to compound with their creditors, by plundering the latter, and paying them zero in the pound, migrated southward, and finally settled in Warwickshire. Now, the head of the house had a considerable share of common sense about him, and after much suffering in a state of shabby gentility, he not only sent his daughters out to earn their own livelihood, but, to the intense disgust of his spouse, hired himself as steward to that noble gentleman the Earl of Warwick. ”

“ Think not that a soldier’s death will be left thee. Numbers will suffice to encumber thine arm, to seize thy person. Live not to be Warwick’s prisoner,—shown as a wild beast in its cage to the hooting crowd!”
“If not on thyself,” exclaimed Rivers, “have pity on these loyal gentlemen, and for the sake of their lives preserve thine own. What is flight? Warwick fled!”
“True,—and returned!” added Gloucester. “You are right, my lords. Come, sire, we must fly. Our rights fly not with us, but shall fight for us in absence!” ”