Rapiers

“ The world is full of old Tower armories, and dilapidated Venetian arsenals, and rusty old rapiers. But true warriors polish their good blades by the bright beams of the morning; and gird them on to their brave sirloins; and watch for rust spots as for foes; and by many stout thrusts and stoccadoes keep their metal lustrous and keen, as the spears of the Northern Lights charging over Greenland. ”

“ He then says that all the young fellows above eighteen or twenty wear a dagger; noblemen wear swords or rapiers too, while “desperate cutters” carry two daggers or two rapiers, “wherewith in euerie dronken fraie they are knowen to work much mischief.” And as trampers carry long staves, the honest traveller is obliged to carry pistols, “to ride with a case of dags at his saddlebow, or with some pretie short snapper,” while parsons have only a dagger or hanger, if they carry anything at all. ”

“ I will cut off the earth from thy rapine, And the noise of thine envoys shall no more be heard. Woe to the City of Blood, All of her guile, robbery full, ceaseless rapine! Hark the whip, And the rumbling of the wheel, And horses galloping, And the rattling dance of the chariot! Cavalry at the charge, and flash of sabres, And lightning of lances, Mass of slain and weight of corpses, They stumble on their dead! All thy fortresses are fig trees with figs early ripe: Be they shaken they fall on the mouth of the eater. ”

“ In such a conflict my rapier would have been of little use, but fortunately I had armed myself before I left Paris with a cut-and-thrust sword for the road; and though my mastery of the weapon was not on a par with my rapier-play, I was able to fend off their cuts, and by an occasional prick keep the horses at a distance. Still they swore and cut at me, trying to wear me out; and it was trying work. A little delay, the least accident, might enable the other man to come to their help, or Mademoiselle, for all I knew, might shoot me with my own pistol ”

“ The weapons used by the robbers is a short thick club, slung stone balls, and knives. They seldom use fire-arms, but dread them. The savage, dissipated negro, or Peruvian robber, may come up bravely with his dagger, intent to commit murder; but let him hear the click of a revolver and he vanishes; the noise is offensive to him. Robbers waylay travelling merchants, lonely strangers, and trains of merchandise with loads of silver. The mules are turned from the road into a wild mountain gorge, where none but robbers live, and forever lost to the owner. ”

“ Many a precious villain, and merciless marauder, was made by these midnight tales of rapine, murder, and robbery; many a stripling, in whose tender mind the seeds of virtue and honesty had never germinated, burned for an opportunity of loading his pack-horse with the beaver skins of some solitary Blackfoot trapper, who was to be murdered and despoiled of the property he had acquired by weeks, and perhaps months, of toil and danger. ”

“ In the first, which was cultivated to its highest point among the Greeks, direct immediateness rules. In the boxing of the English, a sailor-like propensity of this nation, fist-fighting is still retained as a custom. Fencing with a stick is found among the French mechanics, the so-called compagnons. Men often use the cane in their contests; it is a sort of refined club. When we use the sword or rapier, Sexual Education.35 the weapon becomes deadly. The Southern Europeans excel in the use of the rapier, the Germans in that of the sword. ”

“ Nay, so bold do these robbers become, that ’tis their custom even to break into houses, and strip the inhabitants of their moneys and other goods, and kill those that resist them, wherefore every prudent person is wont to sleep with pistols at his bed’s head and sword by his side. And after this manner had I laid myself down on this same night, with Loll Duss a-sleeping on the threshold of my chamber, and was fallen asleep in great contentment, expecting no harm nor fearing none, that peril from the unruly brawlers alone excepted. ”

“ In war a rapier could never have been of any service.
Rapine. The act of plundering; the seizing and carrying away of things by force; spoliation; pillage; plunder. Violence; force; also, to plunder.
Rappahannock. A river of Virginia, formed by the union of the North Fork and the Rapidan, 40 miles above Fredericksburg. On the Rappahannock and the Rapidan occurred some of the most sanguinary battles of the war of Secession, at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and the Wilderness.
Rapparee. A wild Irish plunderer, so called from his being generally armed with a rapary, or half-pike. ”

“ ROBBERS. 'Tis a deed of hell! After this, who shall call us villains? No! by all the dragons of darkness we never have done anything half so horrible.
CHARLES. True! and by all the fearful groans of those whom your daggers have despatched—of those who on that terrible day were consumed by fire, or crushed by the falling tower—no thought of murder or rapine shall be harbored in your breast, till every man among you has dyed his garments scarlet in this monster's blood. It never, I should think, entered your dreams, that it would fall to your lot to execute the great decrees of heaven? ”

“ But in all armies, in war-time, there are robbers, who have thrown themselves into the ranks for no other purpose than to take advantage of the licence of a stolen foray.
We were within less than a league of Don Cosmé’s rancho, and still the evidence of ruin and plunder continued—the evidence, too, of a retaliatory vengeance; for on entering a glade, the mutilated body of a soldier lay across the path. ”

“ There is a certain old Italian tyrant, now living, who, though he has by studied rapine converted into a wilderness a country which nature has made a paradise, yet is not weary nor ashamed of his rapine, but goes on to suck and squeeze the remaining blood of his ghostly subjects ”

“ In 1720 ladies going to Court were escorted by servants armed with blunderbusses “to shoot at the rogues.” Wright gives a detailed account of five-and-twenty robberies perpetrated within three weeks in January and February of the year above mentioned. A few of the most daring cases may be quoted. Three highwaymen stopped a gentleman of the Prince’s household in Poland Street, and made the watchman throw away his lantern and stand quietly by while they robbed and ill-used their victim. ”

“ But he laid the rapier down. After all, the rapier is scarcely a thing of this century. Cleggett, for the first time, felt a little impatient with the rapier. It is all very well to dream with a rapier. ”

“ Now how is this corroborating Evidence to be obtained in this Case? Street Robberies are generally committed in the dark, the Persons on whom they are committed are often in Chairs and Coaches, and if on Foot, the Attack is usually begun by knocking the Party down, and for the Time depriving him of his Senses. But if the Thief should be less barbarous, he is seldom so incautious as to omit taking every Method to prevent his being known, by flapping the Party's Hat over his Face, and by every other Method which he can invent to avoid Discovery. ”

“ All on a sudden Robbers rushed from their hiding-places upon them, and in the scuffle with their owners, wounded with a sword the Mule carrying the treasure, which they greedily seized upon, while they took no notice of the grain. ”

“ One evening, a party of my companions carried me along with them, and, opening the door of a certain house, conveyed from thence some trunks, which a faithful dog perceiving, he gave the alarm. The people of the house attacked the robbers, who threw down their burdens to defend themselves: meanwhile, I skulked into a corner all trembling. The watch made their appearance, and seeing three trunks in the street, two men dangerously wounded, and myself standing at a small distance, they seized me as one concerned in the robbery. ”

“ They sit down to table; the robbers lay their knives with the points turned round towards themselves; the huntsman's is laid with the point turned from him, as it ought to be. The robbers say, "Why do you not lay your knife as we lay ours?" "I lay mine like a huntsman, but you lay yours like thieves!" They jump up, and are about to kill him, when the hare knocks at the window, and immediately the deer opens the door, and the three dogs rush in, and the bear likewise, and tear the twelve thieves to pieces. ”

“ To overrun with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms—never, never, never! ”

“ They had not gone very far, when, riding across a mountain, they caught a glimpse of several armed men hiding amongst some trees in their path, and remembered suddenly some talk they had heard of a band of twelve robbers who lay in wait for rich travellers. The robbers were more like savage beasts than men, and lived somewhere at the top of the mountain in caves and holes in the ground. ”

“ Many officers exerted themselves to preserve order, many men were well conducted; but the rapine and violence commenced by villains soon spread, the camp-followers crowded into the place, and the disorder continued until the flames, following the steps of the plunderer, put an end to his ferocity by destroying the whole town. ”

“ In the country regions the soldiers rush with impunity from one farmhouse to another leaving everywhere the traces of their rapine. The military authorities encourage the soldiers to send home to their families packages of provisions, knowing well enough that such have not been bought, but have been seized by violence. ”

“ A single robber, or a few associates, are branded with their genuine name; but the exploits of a numerous band assume the character of lawful and honourable war. The temper of a people thus armed against mankind, was doubly inflamed by the domestic license of rapine, murder, and revenge. ”

“ Robbery was their profession, murder their pastime. Except within the precincts of their camp, no friend, unless connected by the sacred ties of blood, was secure. They devoured the flesh of enemies slain in battle. Deceit always excepted, cruelty was their most prominent national characteristic. ”

“ At this moment, when all eyes were directed to the passing whirlwind of men and beasts, the trapper caught the knife from the hands of his inattentive keeper, with a power that his age would have seemed to contradict, and, at a single blow, severed the thong of hide which connected the whole of the drove. ”

“ All the city was on the tip-toe of expectancy, but the hours glided slowly along and no news was brought in from the skirmish lines or outposts. Reports, it is true, were rife, and many a thrilling tale of manly courage and sanguinary encounter was whispered by mani-tongued rumor. At one time the robbers were all slaughtered, at another, a brave citizen was sacrificed, but enquiry proved them to owe their existence to fertile imaginations. ”

“ Banded together for rapine and acts of violence, they have stolen large herds of horses and mules. Many of these men, maddened by intemperance, or rendered desperate by losses at the gaming table, or by various other causes, have shed each other’s blood in frequent conflicts, and secret assassinations. ”

“ At this the robber ran back as fast as he could to his comrades and told the captain "how a horrid witch had got into the house, and had spit at him and scratched his face with her long bony fingers; how a man with a knife in his hand had hidden himself behind the door and stabbed him in the leg; how a black monster stood in the yard and struck him with a club, and how the devil sat upon the top of the house and cried out, 'Throw the rascal up here!'"
After this the robbers never dared to go back to the house ”

“ They serve their orders in the dark, as if they were ashamed of their deeds. They break doors at midnight, strangle the victim prior to interrogating him and, pistol at the belt, hunting knife in hand, line up quietly around the accused, hidden under the mysterious and sinister cape of the black-robed penitents. ”

“ The fear inspired by our guns and revolvers was a protection against thieves; our skill in shooting birds on the wing, or bringing down antelope with the rifle at long distances, instilled into them a wholesome dread, and every robber knew that he would pay the penalty of his life if caught in the act of stealing. ”

“ Robbery and plunder became common, and that not only on the track of armies or the route of smaller bodies of soldiers, for bands of mere marauders, taking up the cry of the faction that happened in any neighbourhood to have the ascendancy, plundered houses, robbed travellers, and were guilty of all sorts of violence. ”

“ In all the towns where there had been risings, the gates of the gaols had been thrown open, and convicts, released from their fetters, joined themselves to men of their caste—robber tribes, who had of late years been compelled to earn their bread by honest toil, but who had never lost their longing for the dear old days of rapine. ”

“ There were single-handed men flying from bands of ruffians, who pursued them with naked weapons, and hunted them savagely; there were drunken, desperate robbers issuing from their dens and staggering through the open streets where no man dared molest them; there were vagabond servitors returning from the Bear Garden, where had been good sport that day, dragging after them their torn and bleeding dogs, or leaving them to die and rot upon the road. Nothing was abroad but cruelty, violence, and disorder. ”