Jousting

“ It was near the close of the third day's journey when she remembered Phil's book and took it out of its wrappings. She was not in a reading humour, but time hung heavy, and he had said to open it when she reached the desert. Besides, she was a trifle curious to see what kind of a book he had chosen for her. It was a very small one. She could soon skim through it.
"The Jester's Sword" was the title. Not a very attractive subject for any one in her mood, she thought. It would be a sorry smile at best that the gayest of jesters could bring to her. ”

“ Emerging into an open field two hundred yards from Bull Run, by a movement by the right flank, we were in line advancing towards the stream, the banks of which were covered with timber, the opposite bank sloping from the stream, high and precipitous. Within one hundred yards of the stream, from the opposite bank the enemy poured into our ranks, or rather at us, a volley of musketry, which, thanks to his bad marksmanship, went high, doing little or no damage, but causing us, by common impulse, as is usual with soldiers in their first battle, to fall flat on the ground, and down we went. ”

“ The limbs of a dead tree seemed to be long gray arms reaching out to seize him, while to his ears, strained to catch the slightest sound, the crackle of the leaves in the breeze was the smothered laughter of certain ladies supposed to ride on broomsticks, who were amusing themselves at the jester's expense. ”

“ Early in the morning a party of herders, with Josephine's father ahead, rode into sight. They were hunting for her. Josephine got up on the tender to attract their attention, and soon she was in her father's arms. Her frightened pony had gone home244 as fast as his legs would carry him, and a relief party swam their horses at the ford and rode forward at once.
The old Don was profuse in his thanks, and would not leave us until Billy and I had agreed to visit his ranch and enjoy a hunt with him, and actually set a date when we should meet him at the big corral. ”

“ She proved a very “wicked” animal, and a few yards prancing and capering made me heartily wish that I was safely on terra firma. Suddenly a volley was fired, and as suddenly the horse gave such a lurch that I was within an ace of being pitched where I wanted to get—though not quite so precipitately. Volley after volley was fired, and I lost all command over the snorting steed, which was flitting along at the rate of so many miles an hour. ”

“ But in proportion as the bird makes so insufficient and unguarded a nest, so all the greater is the anxiety, both of herself and her mate, about the eggs. Hence, whilst she is sitting, he exercises all kinds of little arts to entice away every intruder from the nest, wheeling round and round in the air near him, so as to fix his attention, screaming mournfully his incessant peewit till he has drawn him ever further and further from the point of his anxiety and love. ”

“ And the next day, as we sat upon our little rock together, as was our custom after the hunting or the fishing, Black Bow told me of the noose, and later we talked again of the taming, and then the thought of the two things came together!
If the noose at the end of a rope could entrap and hold a child or a man, why could it not as well tighten upon and hold, alive and unharmed, any of the wild creatures, and why could we not thus capture them, and tame them? ”

“ A Wooster can stand a good deal, but he cannot stand having his name bandied in a public place. Picking my feet up softly, I was in the very process of executing a quiet sneak for the door, when I perceived that the bearded bloke had at last decided to apply the closure.
Why he hadn’t done so before is beyond me. Spell-bound, I take it. And, of course, when a chap is going like a breeze with the public, as Gussie had been, it’s not so dashed easy to chip in. However, the prospect of hearing another of Gussie’s anecdotes seemed to have done the trick. ”

“ Josie and her mamma walked slowly along, not knowing how angry the kingbirds were getting, until they came to the apple-tree. "Here is the nest, Josie," said mamma; and they went close to the tree. But the mother-bird began to scream, and fly about, and seemed to feel so badly, that mamma said, "We will go away from the nest, Josie; for we are making the old bird unhappy." But Josie said, "Oh! do let me take just one peep at the little birdies. Do, mamma, hold me up to the nest just once!" ”

“ So Prince was flung back to the operator at Fort Morgan, and that high-souled scion of the railway was sent out like a common delivery boy to take a message. Prince waited in an agony of suspense for the report from the garage. It was not favorable. No man in town would go out on a wild goose chase into the plains on a night like that. ”

“ But this occasional fault on the part of the setter, may be counterbalanced by the larger quantity of game that he usually finds in a day's hunt, owing to his enthusiasm and swiftness of foot. Setters require much more water while hunting than the pointer, owing to their thick covering of fur, encouraging a greater amount of insensible perspiration to fly off than the thin and short dress of the pointer. Consequently they are better calculated to hunt in the coldest seasons than early in our falls, which are frequently quite dry and warm. ”

“ Peregrine raised his eyes.
“You like not the thought. That I have long known. Yet, what will you? Fate made of me a Jester, as she made a Jester of my father and his sires before me, as she now makes one of you. I accepted my rôle as in the nature of things. With you it is otherwise. Submitting outwardly to the decree of fate, inwardly your spirit rebels. It will be hard for you. The rôle of Jester is no easy one. Dogs are we, waiting with a dog’s wistfulness on the smile of our master’s lips, the pat of our master’s hand. ”

“ The grey, as the blue, had some acquaintance with Panic, had occasionally met her in the road. But to-day Panic meant not to stop at a bowing acquaintance. She aimed at a closer union and she attained her end. Each man there felt her bony clutch upon his throat and her arms like a Nessus shirt about his body....
Up—up—up! and the dark tree-stumps got always in the way. Men stumbled and fell; rose and went blindly on again—save those whom the black hail from the guns had cut down forever. These lay stark or writhing among the stumps. ”

“ In the Fatherland and Austria these courses were known respectively as the Gestech or Stechen, Scharfrennen or Rennen, and the Welsch Gestech or Italian joust.
The type of joust run in the lists without a barrier or tilt, the lances tipped with coronals, is a very old one, though it had been subjected to a gradual modification and the application of safeguards as the centuries had advanced. The horses were blindfolded, so that they should not flinch or jib at the moment of impact, and so deflect the aim of the rider ”

“ No man but the owner may clip the wings of that bird.”
“You speak seriously for a Jester.”
“Serious words, Madam, cloak light fancies. Light words cloak serious fancies. Therefore you perceive my fancies, being light of wing, can soar.”
“Ah!” She threw him a swift glance, read something sombre in his eyes; remembered, since a woman’s heart should surely hold some thought for others, that death’s hand had but lately touched one near to him.
Peregrine read her glance; had no mind for pity in that direction. Death had come as a good friend to his sire, had flung the cell door open. ”

“ Far better [54] that I crawl away from haunts of men where I need never be tormented by such contrasts."
The Jester looked down on Aldebaran's wan face. It was as white and drawn as if he had been tortured by the rack and thumbscrew, so he made no answer for the moment. But when the fire was kindled, and they had supped the broth set out in [55] steaming bowls upon the table, he ventured on a word of cheer.
"At any rate," he said, "for one whole day thou hast kept thy oath. No matter what the anguish that it cost thee, from sunrise to sunsetting thou hast held Despair at bay. ”

“ The fishes said to the king's son: "The queen's eye is on you; up, and swim to shore, and away for your life! For if they come and find you here, when you wake to-morrow you will certainly be dead."
"Where shall I go?" asked the king's son. "Wherever I go, she finds me." "Go to the old fox who gets his poultry from the palace, and ask him to hide you in his burrow!"
When the queen's messengers came to the pool they found the fishes playing at alibis all about in the water; but nothing of the king's son could they see. ”

“ Nevertheless, I found myself blaming Gussie. On discovering that he was stressing the newt note in this manner, he ought, of course, to have tuned out, even if it had meant sitting there saying nothing. No matter how much of a twitter he was in, he should have had sense enough to see that he was throwing a spanner into the works. No girl, when she has been led to expect that a man is about to pour forth his soul in a fervour of passion, likes to find him suddenly shelving the whole topic in favour of an address on aquatic Salamandridae.
“Bad, Jeeves.”
“Yes, sir.” ”

“ You kinder stand on your feet, and lean forward, as if your bein' oncomfortable, and standin' up, helped the horse some.
I had a good deal of that restless feelin', and oneasy. And as I told Josiah time and time again, “that for stiddy ridin' I preferred a mare to a mystery.”
Wall, it run along for a year; and Josiah said he s'posed he'd have to write on, and get the pass renewed. As near as he could make out, it run out about the 4th day of April. So he wrote down to the head one in New-York village; and the answer came back by return mail, and wrote in plain writin' so we could read it. ”

“ See, one has now arrived with his supply before the other has finished: he is impatient to disburden himself, and wants to drive off the worker, who rather snappishly retorts, and he, poor fellow, goes off for a while with the mud sticking to his bill. Now she has finished; there is room for him, and he goes back again and works hard in his turn. They never alight on the nest without twittering. At noon, if the weather be hot, they betake themselves to the fields, or, after a dip in the pond, sun themselves on the house-top for half-an-hour or so. ”

“ The Judge's setter came in one morning, wagging her tail. She had had her puppies, and she now took us to where they were housed, in between the floor of a building and the hollow ground. Em'ly was seated on the whole litter.
"No," I said to the Judge, "I am not surprised. She is capable of anything."
In her new choice of offspring, this hen had at length encountered an unworthy parent. The setter was bored by her own puppies. ”

“ Here all the men stand round, and make a noise as if blowing something out of their mouths, and then shout whish to rouse the creature up, this being the sound made by them when digging it out of the ground. It is supposed to distract its attention from its burrowing out of sight in the ground. One of the medicine-men, while this is going on, dances round the figure, producing a white frothy substance out of his mouth having the appearance of soap. This is said to be a deadly Joïa if blown over a person or put into his food. ”

“ But the arrow gave real substance to his hand: when he drew it out a few true drops of blood flowed after. Suddenly the hunter knew all he had done. "Oh, white doe, white doe!" he cried, and fell down with his face to hers.
At the first light of dawn he covered her with dry ferns, that the children might not see how she lay there dead. "Run out," he cried to them, [151] "run out and play! Play as the white doe used to do!" And the children ran out and leapt this way and that across the stream, crying, "She was like this, and she did this, and this was the way she went!" ”

“ I had spotted it all along.
“But Gussie isn’t a parrot.”
“No, sir, but——”
“It is high time, in my opinion, that this question of what young Gussie really is was threshed out and cleared up. He seems to think he is a male newt, and you now appear to suggest that he is a parrot. The truth of the matter being that he is just a plain, ordinary poop and needs a snootful as badly as ever man did. So no more discussion, Jeeves. My mind is made up. ”

“ And if I portrayed the scene with anything like adequate skill, the picture you will have retained of this Fink-Nottle will have been that of a nervous wreck, sagging at the knees, green about the gills, and picking feverishly at the lapels of his coat in an ecstasy of craven fear. In a word, defeatist. Gussie, during that interview, had, in fine, exhibited all the earmarks of one licked to a custard. ”

“ Jizz may be applied to or possessed by any animate and some inanimate objects, yet we cannot clearly define it. A single character may supply it, or it may be the combination of many; it may be produced by no one in particular. As a rule it is character rather than characteristics, the tout ensemble of the subject. Perhaps the outdoor naturalist, and in particular the field ornithologist, realises the full value of jizz better than most people. At a distance, too far away to see details of form, colour, or pattern, so precious in the eyes of the systematist, he sees a bird and recognises it. ”