Showdown

“ 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. ”

“ Now, in duels, where both parties shoot, it is generally the rule that a snap is a fire; and if such is the rule, where the party has a right to fire back again, it seems to me unreasonable, to say that a man may stand snapping at that turkey all day. ”

“ The action being a direct frontal attack, with no feints or flank diversions, and carried to its triumphant conclusion along its whole front, on schedule time and in precise accord with orders, the story of it does not afford that intense dramatic interest, those soul-racking fluctuations, those moments of terrible suspense, those snatchings of victory out of defeat, which may be found in the accounts of many lesser engagements. ”

“ However amused by the dwarfs exhibition, a feeling of impatience began to manifest itself among the mob, who felt that, by any longer delay, it was possible time would be given for fresh troops to arrive, and the glorious opportunity of popular sovereignty be lost in the very hour of victory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And although at first the spectators shouted their disapproval of manifest violations of rule, yet when they saw that the blood of both combatants was up, and that they were resolved on something more serious than a wrestling match, they were quite prepared to encourage the new direction taken, for to them the greater the violence employed and the greater the danger to life and limb in those engaged, the more acute was their pleasure, and the more interesting the sport. ”

“ The cannon of the Resolution were now fired at the crowd, and this produced an almost instantaneous retreat; though the savages, mindful even in the midst of danger of the gratification of their appetite, took care to carry along with them the bodies of their fallen enemies, in order, by feasting upon them at their leisure, to derive some trifling comfort from their disaster. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the old days, when she had gone out into camp with her husband, and had sat silent in the tent amid the coming and going of troopers and mysterious spies, she had always divined when a great coup, resulting in the death or capture of some notorious malefactor, was vexing his brain. ”

“ There were men and boys, a multitude. There was much angry talk and much confusion. Then I heard the roll of the drum and the regular tramp of an armed force. A band of British soldiers, all resplendent with scarlet, and gold, and burnished muskets that glittered in the moonbeams, were formed into line at the command of an officer, and confronted the dark array of citizens. Then came an angry discussion—orders on the part of the commander for the multitude to disperse, which were unheeded or disobeyed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There may be skill displayed—I am told there is,—but it is not apparent. The mere fighting is like nothing so much as a broadsword combat at a Richardson’s show; the display as a whole a successful attempt to combine the ludicrous with the unpleasant. ”

“ To run from our quarters would have been certain death from the hands of our own officers; to give way to gloom, or to show fear, would do no good, and might brand us with the name of cowards, and ensure certain defeat. ”

“ In front of all was a very young warrior, who seemed the most emulous of the party to secure the honor of the capture, for the leaps he took were prodigious, and it was evident that nothing but the clearing of the fence could save the closely-pursued officer from capture. ”

“ I knew enough of such matters from old conversations with my father, to be able to grasp that if a party did get in over the stockade they would desperately attack one of our defending companies in the rear, and the others in response to their yells would come on at the same moment, when our numbers and discipline would be of little value in a hand-to-hand attack with the lithe savages, whose axes and knives would be deadly weapons at close quarters. ”

“ The entire atmosphere of the place, with its imminent sense of danger from an invisible enemy and fierce expectation of damaging that enemy, brought home to me the grand essential truth of the front, namely, that the antagonists are continually at grips, like wrestlers, and straining every muscle to obtain the slightest advantage. ”

“ Often in that blazing weather, divisions were so footsore that they could go no farther. Then they would take position and lie down and fight. The only rest they had was when they could lie down to fight. ”

“ The taunt is coupled with the triumph—the spoil follows the victory—and the captive is chained to the chariot-wheel of his conqueror, and must adorn the march of his superior by his own shame and sorrows. ”

“ If we are seeking a like and larger, bloodless and better, conquest, we can properly pass to our quarters over the same path. It may be ominous of a bloody retreat under the uprisings and assaults of reigning superstition, but it will only thus be prophetic of ultimate and perfect victory. ”

“ A truly classic conflict in which the competitors were mostly men of mark, where the spectators were friends, relatives, and sympathisers, and where divine personages in the shape of various ladies of the period, lovely and beloved, were to gaze upon our prowess, thrill at our daring, and "weep when a warrior nobly falls." ”

“ The ring-fence used to be stronger in days when the lust of combat induced disputes between a couple of men to result in an assault on the domicile of one of them, though, if blood did not boil too rapidly, the disputants usually agreed to fight out their differences at a suitable spot away from the dwellings, so that the friends of each party could have a hand in the fun. ”

“ Accustomed as we are to revolutions, we never thought of being frightened.' For all that, they resumed their return home, On the way they saw men running and vociferating, but nothing to indicate a general disturbance, until, near the Duke's palace, they came upon and passed a shouting mob dragging along with it three cannon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It’s our turn now!” for brute instinct has triumphed and the savage is uppermost with all of us. For a moment or two the men stand and fire at will, as rapidly as it is possible to reload, and then the Confederate fire seems to slowly slacken; so, with a universal shout of “Forward! forward!” we press towards the enemy’s line. ”

“ Don’t you know what a feud is?”
“Never heard of it before—tell me about it.”
“Well,” says Buck, “a feud is this way. A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in—and by-and-by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud. But it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.”
“Has this one been going on long, Buck?”
“Well, I should reckon! It started thirty year ago, or som’ers along there. ”

“ The conquest, however, is not obtained without a determined resistance from their rightful lords, which occasions fierce combats between the rivals. When any stranger approaches, the whole troop boldly advances towards the object of their alarm, neighing, snorting, and throwing their slim and beautiful forms into the most graceful attitudes. ”

“ Do you understand it, warriors?—Who will take it up?’—And the challengers grow more and more impassioned and violent, if there is any hesitation, until some warrior from the crowd, steps out into the vacant space, and begins to dance, time-keeping with the drum, with his eye fixed upon the gauntlet, but reluctant, refusing to take it up. ”

“ The result is, that a riot, in a small way, is pretty sure to follow, which ends in the appearance of the captain, and the extinction of the lights, when the prudent ones once more turn in, chuckling over their triumph. ”

“ War and spoliation seem to be universal and continuous, and the direction of the march of events to be subject to the caprices of a licentious soldiery, led by rapacious adventurers, who can keep hold of their troops only by extravagant largess and promises of plunder. ”

“ Change ran riot in the ordering of the world, and its aspect was utterly transformed when Casper Girard, no longer bearing the guidon of Dovinger's Rangers, came out of the war with a captain's shoulder-straps, won by personal fitness often proved, the habit of command, and a great and growing opinion of himself. ”

“ Some one in the crowd — threw a torch in at the window — there is a great crowd — a throng of strikers — watching — cheering the flames — hissing the firemen. They’ve begun early — and this is only the beginning! ”

“ Seek not elsewhere than in a profound transformation of the human mind the cause of the tranquillity of a strike in which we behold the placid confrontation of the workingman and the soldier. For all observers endowed with reason and sang-froid, to whatever party they belong, the spectacle is that of the toiling mass reconnoitring the ground and testing its strength. ”

“ Even from the spectators, even from the combatants themselves, a certain mist and confusion will always veil the crucial moment, when, against all reasonable calculation, the final stroke was given by intervening fate, wrapped in that obscure cloud which by epic rule closes round the end of a contest. ”

“ Weapons were hidden, and the spirit of the rebellion seemed to have quite evaporated, so that thousands of those who had been ready to fight desperately in the second king's cause eagerly returned to their daily avocations as soon as the news spread after the defeat that their leader and those who had headed the conspiracy had fled up the country to try and escape to safety in another land. ”

“ In minutes, perhaps seconds, the enemy’s support or reserve, taking advantage in turn of our disorder, will be upon us; we who have ceased to be a wall, and are now scattered masonry, must be built up, so as at any rate to look formidable and to make those of the enemy, who as individuals still bravely dispute the ground, turn and fly, and perhaps throw into disorder35 the ranks of those who are coming to their support. ”

“ For it was felt that if another encounter took place, it would only be after due warning, and then that we had ordinary enemies to contend against, not the savages, who had received a severe enough lesson to perhaps check further attack.
A strong desire too was manifested to make the best of things in our enemies’ sight, and stores were attacked, rations served out, and every man who was wounded was disposed to treat it lightly. ”

“ Their force, also, before it breaks out into open revolt, consists either in an eye or a tooth; for all faction, alienated from a state, is both watchful and biting; and this eye and tooth are, as it were, common to all the disaffected; because whatever they learn and know is transmitted from one to another, as by the hands of faction. ”

“ The collect in which they have petitioned to be defended from the fear of their enemies, and that their time might be passed in rest and quietness, may hardly have passed their lips, before they are eagerly and joyfully scampering up the rigging to shake the reefs out in chase of an enemy, with whom, in the next hour, they will perhaps be engaged in hot fight! ”

“ Such a system could only answer in a country like that which I have been describing, where the theatre of war is almost always within certain limits, so that whatever be the fortune of the contest, the soldier is seldom removed above two, and never more than four days' march from his own abode. ”

“ The most celebrated coups d'éclat in general military history, have mostly been, so to speak, the children of inspiration, seizing Time by the forelock,—thus using opportunity which sometimes exists but for a few minutes, and thus a doubtful struggle terminates in a brilliant success. ”

“ And from all the long streets that stretched away into the darkness there came the sound of many running feet, and the cries of excited men. Certainly the riot which our friends had kindled to aid us was no mean one. ”

“ The imminence of the end nerves them for a last despairing rally. Through the gaping joints of the battered shields they make so sudden and trenchant an attack on the foe that for a brief moment the upward movement is checked. ”

“ As Want was the prime foe these hardy exodists had to fortress themselves against, so it is little wonder if that traditional feud is long in wearing out of the stock. The wounds of the old warfare were long ahealing, and an east wind of hard times puts a new ache in every one of them. ”