Claque

“ With smoke by day, and fire by night, the power
Of Kings and Priests, those dark conspirators,
He called; they knew his cause their own, and swore
Like wolves and serpents to their mutual wars
Strange truce, with many a rite which Earth and Heaven abhors. ”

“ The scowl of the opposing parties, the blanched cheeks, the knit brows, and the grinding teeth, not pretermitting the deadly gleams that shoot from their kindled eyes, are ornaments which a plain battle between factions cannot boast, but which, notwithstanding, are very suitable to the fierce and gloomy silence of that premeditated vengeance which burns with such intensity in the heart, and scorches up the vitals into such a thirst for blood. ”

“ Rebels, who have outraged your King, to-morrow morning the church bells will be calling the faithful to the Holy Sacrifice: the truce which you refuse to hold with us we will grant you of our own free will. We will not fight you on the day of the feast of the Holy Redeemer. ”

“ And thus agitation at this time was calmness, perfect halcyon peace, in comparison with the confusion, the chaos, the tremendous storm of indignation, opposition, and persecution, that afterwards arose and hurtled around him. There are no wars so bloody as civil wars; there are no feuds so deadly as family feuds; there are no enemies so bitter, so cruel, so unrelenting, as those of our own blood, when they are enemies! Others may spare, but they will never spare! Others may in time become sated with vengeance, but they never! ”

“ A prolonged shout of acclamation mingled with the roar of disapproval rises from the multitude. The clamor dies away, for the sturdy bodies of these iron heroes, who can give and take such blows, can endure no longer and the struggle ends with lifelong feuds. ”

“ Does such an one as you march in the ranks of rebels? Does a minister of the Gospel preach war, and that against the Lord’s anointed?”
“Against the person of the King we do not war: we fight against his false and dangerous friends. The sword of the Lord is with us, and it must go through the land; but we march as mourners to the field of blood. ”

“ Softly and sweetly the sky overarches,
⁠Sheltering a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country's derangement,
⁠Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
⁠God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn. ”

“ The men dance with enthusiasm, and the girls, dressed in their best, look on. Before the assembly breaks up, the men play a sort of game of hockey with wooden balls.432 In this ceremonial contest or “tug of war” between two parties of the people, we may conjecture that the one party represents the expelled demons of the plague; and if that is so, we may perhaps assume that in the struggle the representatives of the demons generally allow themselves to be overcome by their adversaries, in order that the village may be free from pestilence in the coming year. ”

“ In a full recital of the civil war, as of every other great conflict, there would stand out in naked relief feats of wonderful daring and self-devotion, and, mixed among them, deeds of cowardice, of treachery, of barbarous brutality. Sadder still, such a recital would show strange contrasts in the careers of individual men—men who at one time act well and nobly, and at another time ill and basely. ”

“ Every now and again a group of lackeys, with drawn swords and lighted torches, would pass us, escorting the litter of some court lady or priest of rank, and almost at every hundred paces we met a party of mounted men, who went by us with a clattering of arms, and a flashing of steel, while above the insistent hum of voices we often caught a word or phrase, that told us what was the one subject of conversation. ”

“ Many a word was spoken that struck like a club, many a smile stung like a whip-lash, many a glance stabbed like a knife; even in the midst of recitations a wounded one would sometimes break into sobs or silent tears while the aggressor crimsoned and palpitated with the proud indignation of the master caste. ”

“ Happily it is unknown in our day. A blood feud—a quarrel 'twixt kith and kin, a feud oftentimes bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, handed down from generation to generation, getting more bitter in each; a feud that not even death itself seems enough to obliterate; an enmity never to be forgotten while hills raise high their heads to meet the clouds.
Such a feud is surely cruel. It is more, it is sinful—it is madness. Yet just such a feud had existed for far more than a hundred years between our family of M'Crimman and the Raes of Strathtoul. ”

“ More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high,
And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction,
In battle we wax cold:
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old. ”

“ Rebel helping royalist, and royalist helping rebel. And always, here and there, down through those ages, the delicate girl standing with her back to a door and her arms outstretched across it, and facing, with flashing eyes, the soldiers of the king or of the church—or entertaining and bluffing them with beautiful lies—to give some poor hunted devil time to hide or escape, though she a daughter of royalists and the church, and he a rebel to his king and a traitor to his creed. ”

“ Why should there be feud, ever feud, ever bloodshed, useful blood poured out by both sides? Why ever dream of a past that is no more, and can nevermore be? You vanquished, despoiled, dominated, exploited and tortured us fifteen centuries at a stretch! ”

“ These grateful off'rings on my grave bestow;
Nor league, nor love, the hostile nations know!
Now, and from hence, in ev'ry future age,
When rage excites your arms, and strength supplies the rage
Rise some avenger of our Libyan blood,
With fire and sword pursue the perjur'd brood ”

“ Now was the work—the moment of interest—men and women groaning, staggering, and lying insensible; others shouting, leaping, and huzzaing; some singing, and not a few able-bodied spalpeens blurting, like over-grown children, on seeing their own blood; many raging and roaring about like bulls;—all this formed such a group as a faction fight, and nothing else, could represent. ”

“ It is as if they [85] could not, even for one evening, forget the struggle for existence, and as if they regarded a dinner or a dance as an engagement with the enemy; a brisk assault to carry by storm some place that has long stood a regular siege—a lively skirmish in which everything that comes to hand is a weapon for either attack or self-defence. ”

“ So the strife redoubled and the weapons together clashed and ceased not bate and debate and naught was to be seen but blood flowing and necks bowing; nor did the swords cease on the napes of men to make play nor the strife to rage with more and more affray, till the most part of the night was past away and the two hosts were aweary of the mellay. ”

“ For our part, we regret the word riots as being too wide, and consequently too convenient, and make a distinction between one popular movement and another; we do not ask ourselves whether a riot costs as much as a battle. In the first place, why a battle? Here the question of war arises. Is war less a scourge than riot is a calamity? ”

“ A good double thrashing was the inevitable penalty, but all without avail; fighting went on without the slightest abatement, like natural storms; for no punishment less than death could quench the ancient inherited belligerence burning in our pagan blood. ”

“ Then was every dirk plucked from the board by the right hand of its owner, and the clash which was thus made among the beakers and flagons was terrific; and the savage looks which each man darted upon his neighbour, in his apprehension of treachery, where each almost fancied that the saving of his own life might depend on the quick dispatching of him who sat next to him, presented a spectacle which might have frozen the blood of the stoutest heart that witnessed it. ”

“ The loyal came from their hiding places, and those who had fled to the neighbouring continent hurried back again to share in the struggle. The battle-cry of one was, ‘God and the King’—that of the other, ‘God and the People;’ and, with increased animosity, the contending armies rushed to the conflict, till the whole country seemed flowing with blood. ”

“ VIII We have now passed through the long avenue which led to the building, and we tread freely and firmly upon the vast arena which men call the assault; that is to say, the image of battle, the trained and gladiatorial struggle; difficult, full of fever and passion, between the men who bring to their aid everything that they know, and whatever they think likely to turn in their favour the scales of combat. ”

“ Neither faction-fight nor party-fight ever stained the streets with blood. The whoop of strife was never raised by neighbor against neighbor, nor the coat trailed, or the caubeen thrown up into the air to challenge an opposite faction. ”

“ Claps when, with greasy gauntlets on his hands,
He swaggers past in cloak and slouch-plumed hat.
Aggression marches armies in his words;
And in his oaths great deeds ride cap-à-pie;
His looks, his gestures breathe the breath of swords ”

“ From time to time a sound of battle comes to you from the ends of the earth, where you are repelling the Goth, the Moor, or the Arab. But soon that sound is dispersed like a dream. Other are the rivalries and different the conflicts which you excite through the universe. ”

“ But further, if they are gone forth to battle—for often high swelling discord rises between two kings, and at once and afar thou mayest foreknow the raging of the multitude and the hearts beating fast for war ”

“ O comrades! enemies no more, let us take a mournful hand together as we stand by this royal corpse and call a truce to battle! Low he lies to whom the proudest used to kneel once, and who was cast lower than the poorest—dead whom millions prayed for in vain. ”

“ Such counsels of force are in the court of passion, not of reason. Imagine such a conflict, imagine a victory, no matter by which side. Can the victors rejoice in the blood of brethren shed in a family brawl? ”

“ That once gained the day is won; and on the brave fellows go, great gaps tearing through their ranks—answering every fresh shock with a savage yell. Line after line of the enemy gives way before that terrible charge. ”

“ Yet, though many of these rebels seemed not to comprehend the why and the wherefore of their demonstration, there were not a few who looked very much—nay, cruelly—in earnest, who talked vehemently and scowled, and seemed, by the way they gripped their arms, determined to enforce their demands against any man, be he noble, or baron, or king. ”

“ The other is in the terrors of a siege; the hostile armies glitter under the walls, the women and children press into the defence, and crowd to the battlements. [Pg 349] In the first city, a quarrel rises, and wrong is made right, not by violence and fresh wrong, but by the majesty of law and order. ”

“ Coats off, fists clenched, and there, whilst two savages were trying the issue as to which could knock the other into a jelly, or, if luck would have it, into a coffin, we, the enlightened public, formed a ring and stood round, nominally to see fair-play, but virtually to back one or the other of the combatants, goading both on to fight like devils, and finally rejoicing over the survival of the fittest. ”

“ The rebellion of the son against the father, or of the vassal against his lord, is punished by blinding or death; the blasphemer or liar, taking the name of God or of the king in vain, is punished with the loss of his tongue ”

“ I have often had occasion to remark—and few men, let me tell you, had finer opportunities of doing so—the differential symptomatics between a Party Fight, that is, a battle between Orangemen and Ribbon-men, and one between two Roman Catholic Factions. There is something infinitely more anxious, silent, and deadly, in the compressed vengeance, and the hope of slaughter, which characterize a party fight, than is to be seen in a battle between factions. ”

“ Deliberating in this sort, a species of hysteria communicated itself after a time from one to another of the little Council, until it definitely came to perceive in the episode a daring ruse for bringing about a reaction in popular sentiment. What if the meeting were actually to occur, and the Champion to be overthrown? It was not to be doubted that the event would have been provided for, and those engaged in bringing it about forearmed. Defeat might result in riot, and riot in revolution. ”

“ When their first surprise was past, a common despair seemed to animate all these men, naturally fierce and intrepid. Frantic with rage to be thus overwhelmed without the possibility of defence, the rebels uttered a simultaneous shout,—a shout which in an instant drowned the clamor of their triumphant foes ”

“ And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.—The savage application in the world-wide war of the rod of the Divine authority of rulers will cause revolt, revolution and anarchy to spring up, like a fire, which will bring to an utter end the denominational clusters, the fruit of the vine of the earth. ”

“ These groups of men, but yesterday, perhaps, engaged in loud quarrels, wounding each other in wrath, now gathered peacefully together, docile as lambs in the hands of the man whom they felt they could trust, formed a striking scene, not soon to be forgotten. ”