Fighter

“ Now three things go into the fighter—punch, endurance, but, most of all, instinct—the stuff that doesn’t let him ‘lay down’ when the going is rough, and doesn’t keep him from putting the wallop on a groggy opponent. Many a good fighter has missed championship because he was too tender-hearted to knock-out a helpless——”
“Do you like that story of mine you have, Varce?” Morning asked yawning. ”

“ O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent. ”

“ Nearly every company had a fighter and he was matched with the best man of some other company. Lively bouts of about three or four rounds were fought. The colored soldiers took to this sport keenly and they furnished some good contests among themselves. ”

“ One rather likes the optimistic fighter—purely as a fighter—of the Alvord stripe. He was so occupied with plans for the next day's battle that the dubious features of the contest were already clearing up in his mind with the forming of plans for attacking the situation. ”

“ Each fight is a spectacle by itself, entirely different from any other. I don’t mean the difference between the fighters in respect to their equipment and appearance, though that contributes to the variety also; I mean the difference in posture, method of defense and attack, style of lunge and parry, and all that; and the countless variations in form in the men, the subtle differences of character which makes them face similar situations so very differently. You’ll get the feeling for it in a half a dozen shows and be as keen on it as the rest of us. ”

“ The wearier fighters made way for them as they came on shouting, and Face-of-god was ahead of them all, and leapt at the foemen as a man unwearied and striking his first stroke, so wondrous hale he was; and they drave a wedge amidst of the Dusky Men, and then turned about and stood back to back hewing at all that drifted on them. ”

“ To cause to fight; manage or manœuvre in a fight.
Fight. A battle; an engagement; a contest in arms; a struggle for victory, either between individuals or between armies, [161] ships, or navies. A duel is called a single fight or combat.
Fighter. One who fights; a combatant; a warrior.
Fighting. Qualified for war; fit for battle; as, “A host of fighting men.” Also, occupied in war; being the scene of war; as, a fighting field.
Fight, Running. That in which the enemy is continually chased.
Figueras. A town in the northeast of Spain, province of Gerona. ”

“ I know that such fighters as these were never heard of before; for have they not, few as they are, beaten the Tlascalans? Who, as we all know, are good fighters, though they are little better than savages. ”

“ The art received a new impetus. ‘Natural fighters,’ men equipped with abundant energy and assurance, who were convinced that all that was necessary for self-defence was a general athletic training such as they possessed, called the fencer’s skill in question. ”

“ I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past. ”

“ The fighters, carefully packed in leather protectors, bolt through doors with peep-holes, or climb into a sort of crow’s-nest, curling up their ferocious opponents at the end of extremely long spears. ”

“ Stating it broadly, fighters may be said to be divided into two classes—those who are content to take two blows if they can give three in return, and those who prefer to receive as little punishment as possible, even at the expense of scoring fewer points themselves. ”

“ Sun Tzŭ said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. ”

“ Me, as a boy, or woman, wouldst thou fright, New to the field, and trembling at the fight? Thou meet’st a chief deserving of thy arms, To combat born, and bred amidst alarms: I know to shift my ground, remount the car, Turn, charge, and answer every call of war; To right, to left, the dexterous lance I wield, And bear thick battle on my sounding shield/ But open be our fight, and bold each blow; I steal no conquest from a noble foe. ”

“ A Match in Strength, in Courage, and in Age, And with keen Weapons Arm’d, alike engage Each other they assault with furious Beaks, And their twin’d Plumes distain with Bloody streaks, Each nimble Warrior from the Mat-ment bounds, And wing’d with death, their heels deal ghastly Wounds By turns they take, by turns fierce stroaks they give, And with like Hopes, and Fears for Conquest strive. ”

“ No longer could he do a fast twenty rounds, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight, from gong to gong, with fierce rally on top of fierce rally, beaten to the ropes and in turn beating his opponent to the ropes, and rallying fiercest and fastest of all in that last, twentieth round, with the house on its feet and yelling, himself rushing, striking, ducking, raining showers of blows upon showers of blows and receiving showers of blows in return, and all the time the heart faithfully pumping the surging blood through the adequate veins. ”

“ Dost thou recoil at the weight of thy arms, O delicate soldier! Before the enemy's darts the shield is no burden, nor the helmet heavy. The bravest soldiers tremble when the trumpet is heard before the battle is joined; but then hope of victory and fear of defeat make them brave. How canst thou tremble, walled round with the zeal of thy armed brethren, angels bearing aid at thy right hand, and thy leader Christ? There shalt thou safely fight, secure of victory. ”

“ Severe and early training, long habits of rigid abstemiousness, the toils of war, and, more than all, perhaps, the constant play of a restless, anxious, aspiring temper, had left, undisfigured by superfluous flesh, the grand proportions of a frame, the very spareness of which had at once the strength and the beauty of one of those hardy victors in the wrestling or boxing match, whose agility and force are modelled by discipline to the purest forms of grace. ”

“ This is the story of a fight. In the first story of this book, I said that Mary and I had seen a remarkable fight one evening at sundown on the slopes of the bare brown foothills west of the campus. It was not a battle of armies—we have seen that, too, in the little world we watch,—but a combat of gladiators, a struggle between two champions born and bred for fighting, and particularly for fighting each other. ”

“ Flamed from his martial eye;
He who seemed a soldier born,
He should have the helmet worn,
All friends to fend, all foes defy,
Fronting foes of God and man,
Frowning down the evil-doer,
Battling for the weak and poor. ”

“ I have told you, my friends, how I triumphed over the English at the fox-hunt when I pursued the animal so fiercely that even the herd of trained dogs was unable to keep up, and alone with my own hand I put him to the sword. Perhaps I have said too much of the matter, but there is a thrill in the triumphs of sport which even warfare cannot give, for in warfare you share your successes with your regiment and your army, but in sport it is you yourself unaided who have won the laurels. ”

“ At one time we descried him through the gloom by the flashing of his sword, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a host of fiends, rushing upon the foe with true chivalric enthusiasm; at another, hard pressed and well-nigh exhausted, sternly enduring the blows he could not parry or repay—exhibiting, in turn, every mood of courage to do and fortitude to endure the varied fortunes of the field. ”

“ Strike, and fear not the shaft of the foe, for the soul of the brave is immortal. Slay the warrior in battle, but spare the innocent babe and the mother. Remember a promise;—beware, —let the word of a warrior be sacred. When a stranger arrives at the tee —be he friend of the band or a foeman, Give him food; let your bounty be free; lay a robe for the guest by the lodge-fire; Let him go to his kindred in peace, if the peace-pipe he smoke in the teepee ”

“ In the raging storm of fire and blood, in the fierce torrent of shot and shell, of sword and bayonet, whether on foot or on horse, unflinching courage marked the rebel not less than the loyal soldier. ”

“ There had been several native fights on, and he said, supposing a man were hurt in a fight; if he wanted on his recovery to challenge the man who beat him, he put his knee up, and the victor, if he took up the challenge, had to stick his spear into it as an earnest that he would be willing to renew the combat. ”

“ And to resent with arms all injuries, Or snares and pit-falls for a neighbor lay, Absurd he deems, as it would be, upon The field, surrounded by the enemy, The foe forgetting, bitter war With one’s own friends to wage, And in the hottest of the fight, With cruel and misguided sword, One’s fellow soldiers put to flight. ”

“ A warrior will throw himself upon the ground, and while one friend sits on his head, and another holds his arms and prevents him from struggling, a third will scrape his chin with the shell or the broken bottle-glass till he rises, bleeding, but beardless. ”

“ In a hotly contested fight soldiers often shot fifty rounds of cartridges and their guns got so hot that they could scarcely grasp them with their hands.
Battles.—A succession of battles is by no means a monotonous repetition. Each battle has its peculiar phases. A battle is often an exhibition of the artistic skill of officers in arranging and maneuvering, and of men carefully executing, and may be a trial of physical endurance and the well trained handling of the weapons of warfare used. In any event a battle is a spectacular scene imposing and grand. ”

“ Rather the scorned—the rejected—the men hemmed in with the spears;
The men of the tattered battalion which fights till it dies,
Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries,
The men with the broken heads and the blood running into their eyes. ”

“ We have now reached a point from which we may survey the thrilling spectacle of the assault, as fencers call the mimic combat, in which desperate and brutal fighting is controlled by skill, the hazardous duel, full of fire and fury, between two combatants, who summon to their aid all that they know or all that they think they know. ”

“ Thou hast been something more familiar with the pen than the sword of late -- and thy faithful esquire likewise. Fight, then, by my side, and together we will meet and overcome the foe. They will fight like wolves, I doubt not, for they will be bitterly wrathful when they see the trick we have played upon them. Wherefore quit not my side, be the fighting never so hot, for I would have thee ever with me. ”

“ From this it was an easy step to the differentiation of the champion, the proved excellent fighting man, and to providing this man, on whom everything depended, with all assistance that better arms, armour, horse or chariot could give him. But suppose our champion slain, how are we to make head against the opposing champion? ”

“ That such men should turn encounters with an enemy into trials of skill, subject to certain rules of fairness and courtesy, though conducted with sharp weapons and in deadly earnest, is also natural. [384] And thus we are introduced to a whole series of military exercises and encounters, from the mere holiday pageant in which the swords are of parchment and the spears headless, to the wager of battle, in which the combatants are clad in linen, while their weapons are such as will lop off a limb, and the gallows awaits the vanquished. ”

“ I only ask, to make mine arms prevail,
Strength for the fight!
Still let mine eyes look ever on the foe,
Still let mine armor case me strong and bright;
And grant me, as I deal each righteous blow,
Strength for the fight! ”

“ And sets them front to front to strike.
Raised on his toes each champion stands,
And fearless lifts in air his hands.
Their heads, thrown back, avoid the stroke;
Their mighty arms the fight provoke. ”

“ To arm their lord for battle, to follow him to the tournament or to the field, where to rush in to his rescue if beaten down, to tend his hurts if wounded, to bear his messages, and guard his secrets as his own life, to wait on the ladies—these were the duties of a page in the twelfth century. ”

“ What boots the archer’s skill, if, when the foe draw near, His bowstring snap and leave him helpless in the fight?
And when afflictions press and multiply on man, Ah, whither then shall he from destiny take flight? ”

“ Courageous enough in the battle shout, in discharging their weapons, in making the first charge, they were unable to stand the foot to foot fighting and the looks of their opponents, glowing with the ardour of battle. ”

“ With swords and targets, arrows, bows, and guns,
That all the troop to men of judgment, are
The God of Wars great never conquered sons,
The sport is manly, yet none bleed but beasts,
And last the victor on the vanquished feasts. ”

“ In me you see one of the last of those wonderful men, the men who were veterans when they were yet boys, who learned to use a sword earlier than a razor, and who during a hundred battles had never once let the enemy see the colour of their knapsacks. ”

“ Fighting in the long-drawn firing-line with your nearest comrade ten yards distant, and your nearest foe a mile off; and there is fighting in the narrow street with your company shoulder to shoulder, and the enemy at the end of your swordpoint. ”

“ To this or to that other warrior sent.
The people, greedy for the fight, toward
The field is gone, and many not content
With wending thither ere the dawn of light,
Upon the place of combat watch all night.
XXVII
The foolish rabble anxiously attends
Those goodly champions' contest for the prize,
A crowd which neither sees nor comprehends
Other than that which is before its eyes.
But they who know what boots and what offends,
— Marsilius and Sobrino, and the wise —
Censure the fight, and monarch that affords
A field of combat to those martial lords. ”