Game warden

“ And she laughed archly at the gentle old lady, who shook her head and told her she was every bit as bad as the boys.
Meanwhile the play went on, sometimes at one game, and sometimes at another; and the luck varied a little, but only a little.
Denver Van Santen warned all those who wanted to play poker with him that they had better not unless they wanted to lose their money.
“I’ll back myself,” he said quite frankly, “to play poker against anybody. Against anybody—I don’t care who it is.” ”

“ Probably in another hundred years nature will take care of the problem by wiping them out for us. Meanwhile we game wardens must make the rounds every two years and weed out any of them we can find that have intelligence." He looked up the embankment but did not notice Elf's head, concealed partially by the grass around the concrete marker. "It's an easy job. Any of them we missed seeing this time, we'll probably get next time. In the six or eight visits we make before the intelligent ones can become adults and mate we always find them." ”

“ Lord Carthew knew nothing of the doctor’s musings. One thought alone possessed him. To see Stella as soon as possible, to talk to her, to draw her out of her reserve and gradually get her to confide in him. As if divining his wishes, Dr. Graham suggested an adjournment to the drawing-room, and proposed to Lady Cranstoun, who was reclining on a sofa, a game of chess. ”

“ Denver says they’ve all been kept in with too tight a hand, and that now they have to make up for it.”
“I don’t quite understand that fellow,” said Gerard. “He’s not consistent. I heard him telling Sir William that he sometimes lost at poker to beginners at the game. But then, later, he was boasting that he could beat any poker-player in England.”
[192] “I don’t believe,” said Arthur viciously, “that he plays merely for the pleasure of the game, as he says. ”

“ I don’t think you ought to encourage a man to the extent you are encouraging that young Van Santen, and to try to encourage me—at the same time. It doesn’t matter when a girl plays that sort of game with men who don’t really care for her. ”

“ Accidental circumstances will sometimes give a player overwhelming advantages in the play, of which none but he are aware; and who shall say that he will not avail himself of the opportunity which chance has thrown in his way? Against this sort of thing, however, there is no other safeguard than the watchfulness of the players. Where, then, is the 'game,' the amusement, if one has to play, armed at all points, as it were, and living in dread of pickpockets? ”

“ He then clasps his hands and runs out, trying to tag an opponent with his clasped hands. This would be practically impossible except that the players endeavour to make him unclasp his hands by pulling at his arms and drawing temptingly near him. As soon as he has tagged a victim he runs for home as fast as possible. If he himself is tagged before he reaches home he is out, and the tagger becomes “warner.” If both the warner and the one tagged reach home safely they clasp hands, and finally the line contains all the players but one, who has the honour of being warner for the next game. ”

“ The player who is It may chase and tag any other player whom he chooses, but will aid his own ends by suddenly turning his attention from one player to another, or by doubling back on his course, or resorting to any of the other feints that give an unexpected turn to a game of chase.
The players who are being chased will add to the zest of the game by venturing as close as possible to the one who is It, calling to him and taunting him with their proximity, and suddenly dodging away. ”

“ Of course Bobolink, Jud and Nuthin immediately released their hold on Ward. The last flicker of the expiring match showed that the recent prisoner was scowling most hatefully, as if angry at the way he had been trapped.
"This isn't the last of this, you fellows!" he said, trying to keep up his customary threatening tactics, even in defeat. "Perhaps you think it smart to set up a game on me, just because you're afraid I'll organize a hike of my friends that'll walk all around that punk expedition of yours! But just wait; I'll show you that you're barking up the wrong tree. Bah!" ”

“ He may climb up one hill and go down another; spring a covey of partridges, knock over a couple or more, and then quietly re-load his gun for another shot. The only thing that seem inquisitive about, or will take any interest in, such proceedings are, not game-keepers, but game-destroyers—jackals and sparrowhawks; the one will track the blood of the wounded partridge more surely even than the dogs, the other soars high over head, and equally robs the sportsman of his game unless numbered amongst his victims. ”

“ It was no fault of his that the moose chanced to be in an ugly humor; and just then, if Phil Bradley had had any sort of firearm along he would have felt justified in dispatching that furious animal. Game laws are good things, but even they must be broken when one's life is placed in jeopardy. ”

“ If a player say check without actually attacking the King, and his adversary move his King or take the piece, the latter may elect either to let the move stand or have the pieces replaced and another move made. If, at the end of a game, the players remain, one with a superior to an inferior force, or even if they have equal forces, the defending player may call upon his adversary to mate in fifty moves on each side, or draw the game. ”

“ If he be a skilful player, however, he has managed meanwhile to occupy the fortress positions of the game, and the hosts of the enemy are probably huddled together in such situations that he will come down on them ‘like a wolf on the fold.’ If the hómam-béla is again defeated he is only allowed to play the véla form of the game until he has redeemed himself by a victory. ”

“ He was going to go monstering -- killed players could switch to playing monsters, which meant that the longer the game wore on, the more monsters there were coming after you, meaning that everyone got to keep on playing and the game's battles just got more and more epic. ”

“ Played as “Diamond Ring,” except that all sit round the fire, one man takes a button, puts it between his two hands, and goes round to each of the other players, who have their two hands held out, palms together, saying, “Don’t tell what you got,” and quietly dropping the button into one player’s hands. He then asks the first man, saying, “Who has the button?” One player is named. The master of the game says then “What forfeit will you give me that he has it?” The player gives a forfeit. ”

“ When the dramatic representation of a contest became formulated in a definite game, the individual running out and capturing a certain player on the opposite side would soon develop and become a rule of the game, instead of all on one side trying to knock down all on the other side. It may be a point to remember, too, that in primitive warfare the object is to knock down and kill as many of the enemy as possible, rather than the capture of prisoners. ”

“ But I believe, though it is so much less a thing of chance than science or skill, eager players pass whole nights in marching and countermarching their men and check-mating a successful adversary, supposing that at a certain point of the game, they had determined upon making a particular move instead of the one which they actually did make. ”

“ Not merely against par does one compete at Warwick; not against the decrepit and outlawed colonel; not even against an opponent in the flesh: the game is played against the fiendish imagination and ingenuity of Donald Ross. Witness the unexpected, hanging side-hill lies; witness the undulating greens of almost impossible keenness; witness the paucity of hazards, the infrequency of rough, the astonishing presence of both whenever a shot wanders fitfully from the line of geometrical progress. ”

“ If one or more beasts are put up by a sportsman or party of sportsmen, and these beasts, being neither wounded by them nor their dogs, are subsequently killed during their flight by another party, those who have killed the game have an equal right to it with those who first aroused and pursued it. ”

“ Have you reflected that so long as you harbor a determination to kill the warden you may be kept in the dungeon? You can't live much longer there, and if you die there you will never find the chance you want. If you say you will not kill the warden he may return you to the cells. ”

“ The one that hides can only come a little way from home—to get home you have to run and touch the piller or Post where he was hiding”.
Point is like I spy; but you need a lamp-post for it. Monkey in the wood is the same kind of game, but without a lamp-post; FORTY and INNER AND OUTER are other hide-and-seek games. Or hunting sports like WIDDY, which you play in winter to get warm with. There are different ways of playing WIDDY; one is this:
“Say there’s ten of you, one is widdy, that’s Hee. ”

“ An old writer compares the ball used in this game to an evil demon; for, says he, no sooner does a player become possessed of it than he acts as if he were possessed of a devil; flying like a madman over the country, bursting through hedges, bounding over ditches, rushing furiously against all opponents, heedless of everything but his progress towards home. ”

“ Thomas Lediard, Esq., attended by a constable and a party of guards, went this night to the Long Room, in James St., Westminster, where there was a Masquerade, in order to suppress the notorious practice of gaming, for which such assemblies are calculated. The whole was conducted without opposition, or mischief. Seventeen were committed to the gatehouse, some were discharged, and others gave sufficient bail, never to play at any unlawful game, or resort to any gaming house. ”

“ Gamekeepers lived a precarious life in holes and caves. They were perpetually harried by game and vermin; held fast in steel traps, their toes were nibbled by stoats and martens; and finally, their eyes picked out by owls and kites, they were gibbeted alive on trees, head downwards, until the termination of their martyrdom. In one especially tragic case, a naturalist in spectacles dodged about painfully among the topmost branches of a wood, while a mias underneath, armed with a gun, inflicted on him dreadful wounds. ”

“ But Carson Wildred had attempted it, I concluded, and having gone so far, there was every reason to 170 suppose he would triumph if I–who alone of all men seemed personally interested–did not set myself to the finding of a new method for blocking his game.
I could, I thought, understand what his motive for so foul a murder might have been. He had just purchased a valuable gold mine from Farnham. ”

“ Hazard, which is now practically obsolete, seems to have made an irresistible appeal to the gaming instincts of former generations, and the financial ravages for which it was responsible eventually provoked such scandals that the game was rendered illegal in 1845. It was a somewhat complicated form of gambling, and in these days, when so [Pg 76] many easy forms of speculation exist, would in all probability have died a natural death even without the intervention of the law. ”

“ They then contribute a small sum toward a joint fund, to be invested in a bribe for some argus-eyed shipmate, who shall play the part of a spy upon the master-at-arms and corporals while the gaming is in progress. In nine cases out of ten these arrangements are so cunning and comprehensive, that the gamblers, eluding all vigilance, conclude their game unmolested. ”

“ So we rose up and came to the gaming-place, where men tilt with the dice, and loudly they cursed with all the blood and thunder, wounds and damnation that they could lay their tongues to. The place was wellnigh as big as the Old Market at Cologne, spread with cloaks and furnished with tables, and those full of gamesters: and every company had its four-cornered thieves' bones, on which they hazarded their luck; for share their money they must, and give it to one and take it from another. ”

“ To produce these men was generally the most difficult part of the warden’s duty. He could not keep them in confinement until the day of truce, for, independently they were sometimes persons of power and rank, their numbers were too great to be retained in custody. The wardens, therefore, usually took bonds from the Chief, kinsmen, or allies of the accused party, binding him or them to enter him prisoner within the iron gate of the warden’s castle, or else to make him forthcoming when called for. ”

“ They may hide by climbing trees or dodging behind them, conceal themselves in underbrush, under dead leaves, etc. If played aright, the game should be a very strenuous one, the resistance offered by the robbers requiring several soldiers to overcome. ”

“ Often the player who has lost by them takes revenge by picking out the spots or smashing the dice with a stone or biting them in two to make them suffer.”444 All these circumstances combine to make gaming a fighting play not alone with men, but also with supernatural powers whose inscrutable decisions possess a peculiar power and whose favour lends to the fortunate player a special nimbus, while the vanquished does not suffer in his own esteem as if he had been conquered by a human foe. ”

“ Keuchiʾs, elders or panglimas are in the habit of attending these fighting games to prevent all serious violence. A prisoner who continues to resist through rage against his fate, they admonish to surrender; and they remind players who indulge in revengeful language through annoyance at a blow or push, that they have joined in the game of their own free will and have no right in any case to cherish revengeful feelings such as might display themselves in earnest when the game was over. ”