Bellowing

“ The front rank serves the rear rank as a shield from the bullets, but the cannon ball plows the whole length of the file and kills those behind as readily as those before. And, moreover, we had as soon expected to see the devil in horns and tail leading the rebels, as this cannon, for no one supposed there was a piece of artillery in all Berkshire. You must know the place we were in, was, moreover, as bad as could be; for we could only march by the road, by reason of the deep snow on either hand, which was like walls shutting us in, and leaving room for no more than eight men to go abreast. ”

“ Two sounds alone could pierce the clamour: the high bugle-call to which the French still mobilise, and the sullen fury of the drums. The horses, therefore, of the defenders in the courts of the palace, the continual clattering of their hoofs upon the paving, the clink of metal as the lines were formed, the tramp of the reinforcements arriving—all the movement of the six thousand who gathered to support the Crown, was set to this music, and the air they breathed was full of the noise of the bells. ”

“ So they lounged about and bought bread, and shifted their packs, and so the drivers stood by their horses, and so they all waited and slouched; until there came, not a man with a bugle nor anything with the slightest savour of drama but a little fellow running along thumping in his loose leather leggings, who went up to a Major of Artillery and saluted, and immediately afterwards the Major put his hand up, and then down a village street, from a point which we could not see came a whistle, and the whole of that mass of men began to swarm. ”

“ My friend, who is impatient of an affront, immediately struck the carter with his fist, who attempted to return the favour with his whip; but Monsieur Bellair, who is extremely strong and active, and who hath learnt to box in this country, presently closed in with him, and tript up his heels.
The mob now assembled round us, and being pleased with my friend for not having drawn his sword, inclined visibly to his side, and commended many blows which he gave his adversary, and other feats of activity, which he displayed during the combat, that lasted some minutes ”

“ They fell back out of the palace in order, this remnant of a high discipline; they passed down the main broad avenue of the gardens steadily: the covering volleys of their retreat came very sharp and clear just outside the windows of the Parliament. 329Those within heard their steady tramp, until at last that tramp turned to a scuffle; there were crunchings upon the gravel, confused scrambles upon the lawns, choked cries and fugitive running; they had broken by the round pond.
Far off along the river-side one could still hear a rhythm and a tramp of men. ”

“ Over the long slopes of open field which fronted the English ridge, line after line of knights were coming forward in successive waves, as though mere weight of horses and men could win home in spite of the increasing welter of flying, dead, and maddened mounts, and of fallen men and iron that now lined all the front with a belt of obstacle more formidable than earth or wall. ”

“ Bellows now cut a great figure in the newspapers. An ass, poisoned by way of experiment, was restored to life by continual blowing into his lungs; and the Houses of Parliament are going to be furnished with pure air during the whole sessions by means of a great pair of bellows. As an infallible remedy against suffocation, nothing more is necessary than to hold the patient by the nose, and blow common atmospheric air into his lungs, with the bellows out of the chimney corner. There will therefore be a greater number of puffed-up people in England now than ever. ”

“ From that mill it was that Edward watched the whole action proceeding upon the slope beneath him. He saw the head of the French charge get home but its extended line wavering, checked, and broken up on the Val aux Clercs as a continuous rain of arrows poured in. He saw all the front ranks of horses broken: the animals lashing out or fallen stampeding rearward, mounted or riderless: the heavily armoured knights fallen helpless and trampled, the whole thing a vast confusion. ”

“ Stiff and strict as lifeless things in their red and white, tight hose and muskets erect and firm, they were ready first for the volley, then for the charge, and every man (in that time, when ten rounds was thought a day’s provision) carried forty 325rounds upon him. The pale, unmoved faces of the mountaineers were here and there diversified by some livelier face, their rough-cut hair by the careful barbering of the wealthy, for there were gentry of the King’s who had borrowed uniforms of the Guard and had slipped in among them and now stood part of the silent rank. ”

“ And I remember, too, that if one of us was speaking when the fellow made as if he would touch off the gun, there was an interruption of a moment in his speech, ere he went on again. It must be that not only civilians like myself, but men of war also do find a certain discomposing effect in the stare of a cannon. Meanwhile the wind drew through the narrow path wherein we stood, with vehemence, and, whereas we had barely kept our blood in motion by our laboring through the snow, now that we stood still, we seemed freezing. ”

“ Outside, the crowd still denser but silent as ever, the berline passed, and the sections saluted—a reversed salute, on either side; it was within a furlong of its goal when, from a platform outside the Parliament building, a young member of the Royalist right, drawing himself well up that he might be observed, lifted his hat and very gravely and pronouncedly made obeisance to the Crown.
The spell was broken. There was a scuffle, a hubbub, a general war; the slowly-moving crowd crested into weapons as a deep swell at sea will crest into foam. The postillions of the berline urged their horses ”

“ The entanglement of the vineyard, the unexpected and overwhelming superiority of the long-bow over the cross-bow, the superior numbers of the English archers over their enemies’ arbalests, made the attack a slow one, but it was pressed home. The trained infantry of the vanguard, the German mounted mercenaries, swarmed up the little slope. The front of them was already at the hedge, and was engaged in a furious hand to hand with the line defending it, the mass of the remainder were advancing up the rise, when a new turn was given to the affair by the unexpected arrival of Warwick. ”

“ The weapons with which we have gained our most important victories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from father to son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bush-whack, the turf cutter, the spade, and the bog-hoe, rusted with the blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust of many a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian's corn-field into the meadow, and pointed out the way which he had not the skill to follow. He had no better implement with which to intrench himself in the land [Pg 82] than a clamshell. But the farmer is armed with plough and spade. ”

“ Once a professional athlete himself, George Bellows understood the violence of the sport. Brutality is conveyed by the angular lines of the fighters’ bodies, the boldly slashing brushwork, and the lurid glare of spotlights within the gloomy arena. ”

“ Then the slow, regular pant of the bellows fused with the clang of hammer on the anvil and seemed to him the very incarnation of energy—of a force that drives things along. The boy would sit with his ugly, [36] expressive face gazing straight in front of him. Grasping the wooden handle of the bellows firmly in both hands and stretching his legs wide apart, he would work mechanically, lost in his dreams. ”

“ So those boys who had found death at his hands had died after baptism, up on Itchen in the Gwent, when Caedwalla the King had journeyed out of Sussex to conquer and to hold the Wight with his spear and his sword and his shield, and his captains and his armoured men. ”

“ Meanwhile the mob was increasing in numbers and violence every moment, and, as the soldiers had received orders not to fire, the courtyard was soon filled with excited people who howled, and danced, and shouted for the King to be produced. Two or three times I glanced anxiously at Belloc, wondering how much longer his patience would last.
"Open the doors," cried the foremost rioters; "we will enter and see for ourselves where the King is." ”

“ As he looks about and not seeing her, says, "She does not care, she will not come," the sword loses all its sheen, and the nodding plume its charm, and his dreams of self-devotion all their exhilaration. ”

“ The fore half of the skin is held to the ground and weighted with a stone to press upon the air, which is pumped in by means of the alternate compression and expansion of the rear half. From the point of the bellows, or neck-end of the hide-bag, the air is conducted through a clay pipe or a gemsbok-horn, or, in later times, a gun-barrel, to the fire. It is obvious that only light work can be done with such a bellows ”

“ Augustus now vaulted on his Arab, a beautiful creature, with a high reputation, as I was told, as a hog-hunter (horses in India enjoy the sport as much as their masters) , and with his spear in hand gave the signal for departure. Out marched the whole cavalcade, I mounted on a sturdy little hill pony, called a tangan, as hard-mouthed and headstrong a little devil, as I afterwards discovered to my cost, as ever tumbled a griffin.
Each of us hunters was armed with a spear, whilst spare ones were carried by the syces. The spear used in this sport, by the way, is a very formidable weapon. ”

“ And the Devil, like one possessed, lashed the floor with his tail, and his eyes glared like coals of fire, and the sweat ran down his face, and he breathed hard, and pushed every imaginable thing he had into the hole so swiftly that at last his documents and parchments looked like streaks and flashes. But the loyal little imps, not to be beaten, drew them through into the cellar as fast as machinery, and whirled them to their assistants ”

“ The young men and warriors produced their spears, paddles, canoe-gear, battle-clubs, and war-conchs, and occupied themselves in carving, all sorts of figures upon them with pointed bits of shell or flint, and adorning them, especially the war-conchs, with tassels of braided bark and tufts of human hair. ”

“ Steadily, inevitably came a brilliant line, came a thin edge of intolerable effulgence that took a circular shape, became a bow, became a blazing sceptre, and hurled a shaft of heat at us as though it was a spear.
It seemed verily to stab my eyes! I cried aloud and turned about blinded, groping for my blanket beneath the bale. ”

“ I was turning away, when a blustering fellow, loudly cursing the barbarity of the robbers, set an old woman in my path, and removing her veil, exclaimed, “Look here! they have not even spared our women; they have cut off this poor woman’s nose with a sword.” ”

“ In general, therefore, we must conceive of the French position as strong entrenchments thrown across the gap and lined with infantry, the cavalry drawn up behind to pass through the infantry when occasion might demand, through the line of entrenchment, and so to charge; the two woods upon either side thickly filled with men, and the position taken up by these defended by felled tree trunks and such earthwork as could be thrown up with difficulty in the dense undergrowth. ”

“ The origin of the bellows, I know not; but a suspicion has seized me that they might have been employed in the Ark had there been a kitchen-fire there; and they may have assisted in raising a flame under the first tea-kettle put on to celebrate the laying of the first stone of the great wall of China. They are ages upon ages older than the bellows of Simple Simon's mother; and were they by him to be ripped open, they could not possibly be deteriorated in quality. The bellows which yet bear the inscription,
"Who rides on these bellows? ”

“ A warrior returning victorious from battle, with his buckler sprinkled with blood, would, in the early days of heraldry, readily have adopted the bearing afterwards called ‘guttée de sang.’ In those times the besiegers of a fortress were often assailed with boiling pitch, poured by the besieged through the machicolations of the wall constructed for such purposes. Splashes of this pitch falling upon some besieger’s shield, in all probability gave the first idea of ‘guttée de poix.’ The fusil is like the lozenge, but narrower. ”

“ Marpeet cracked his whip to mettle up his ticca [6] tit—an animal deficient in flesh and blood, certainly, but exhibiting an amazing deal of bone. Away we went. The evening gun had just boomed; the myriad crows of the Fort cawed querulously responsive from the trees; the bugles sounded; the drums beat; the guards at the gates, European and native, were turned out; captains and lieutenants, flushed with tiffin or a nap, swords under their arms, sauntered along to join them. ”

“ But those who struck from horseback had still the better of the blows, until, when this violence had continued, not yet determined, for perhaps half an hour, the less ordered and less armoured men who were the confused rearmost of John’s corps heard a shout behind them, and looking back saw, bearing down upon them, the banner of St George, [Pg 100] which was borne before the Captal, and his archers and his men-at-arms charging with the lance. ”

“ Madam, you are a woman, and may not fight, but let now some worshipful knight of our fellowship take on himself your quarrel, and call me coward, and here is my glove to prove the contrary with my hands upon his body! [Throws down his glove.]
Sir Meliogrance.
Then here am I known to all men as Sir Meliogrance, and I will take on me my lady the Queen’s quarrel, and I will joust with you, Sir Bleoberis, and you, Sir Bors, proving you recreant knights with my hands upon your bodies! [He throws down his glove.] ”