Swashbuckler

“ Quoth Zurayk, who returned at the sound, “Thy perfidy hath come to light, O gallows-bird! Wilt thou put a cheat on me and thou in a woman’s habit? Now take what cometh to thee!” And he threw a cake of lead at him, but it went agley and lighted on another; whereupon the people rose against Zurayk and said to him, “Art thou a tradesman, or a swashbuckler? An thou be a tradesman, take down thy purse and spare the folk thy mischief.” ”

“ Now, sword-and-buckler and long-sword play was no doubt a manly pursuit and a useful. But, as an every-day companion, the long-sword was incongruous to a fastidious cavalier; and, again, the buckler, indispensable adjunct to the broad swashing blade of home production, was hardly more suitable. In Elizabethan days it soon became obvious that the buckler was inadmissible as an item of gentlemanly attire. It was accordingly left to the body attendant; and the gallant took kindly to the fine rapier of Milanese or Toledan make. ”

“ Where a man was cut down or run through, some comrade would fell his slayer with the butt of a rifle. Only the terrible partisan, Butler, made his heavy sword of more weight than the clubbed rifle. [Pg 83] He raged through the fight, driving back the stoutest riflemen like children, with his enormous strength. Meeting Adrian Schuyler, when the press prevented maneuvering, he beat down his guard, and felled him to the earth with a single stroke, then turned to face De Cavannes, who was making toward him through the swaying crowd. ”

“ Jonson, in the induction to his play called Bartholomew Fair, speaks of "the sword and buckler age in Smithfield;" and again, in the Two Angry Women of Abbington, a comedy by Henry Porter, printed in 1599, we have the following observation: "Sword and buckler fight begins to grow out of use; I am sorry for it; I shall never see good manhood again; if it be once gone, this poking fight of rapier and dagger will come up; then a tall man, that is, a courageous man, and a good sword and buckler man, will be spitted like a cat or a rabbit." ”

“ I observed that the squaws drank more freely than the warriors, and again my spirits were about to be depressed, when the report of a gun was heard at a distance. The Indians all jumped on their feet. The singing and drinking were both brought to a stand, and I saw, with inexpressible joy, the men walk off to some distance and talk to the squaws. I knew that they were consulting about me, and I foresaw that in a few moments the warriors would go to discover the cause of the gun having been fired so near their camp. I expected that the squaws would be left to guard me. ”

“ Directly a young man, black with powder and fierce as a tiger, sprang in among the savages, crying out:
“Have you got him? Give me the scalp—twenty-five guineas to the man who holds his scalp!”
The Indians pointed to the struggling man, now but dimly seen in the smoky twilight; Butler uttered a fierce oath, snatched a rifle from the nearest savage, and, levelling it with deliberate aim, fired—sending an oath forward with the bullet.
The fugitive sank, and his disappearance was greeted with another yell from the savages ”

“ There is a loud crash of thunder followed, above, by the shouts of the Saxons who come charging down upon them. Attempting to rescue the priest's body, before which Bacqueur has thrown his great shield, the villagers receive the shock and are driven back fighting down the mountain, Fritz hacking at Hugh Capet's head-with his battle ax, Rudolph charging old Jacques, while Canzler with one slash of his magic sword slices in two Bacqueur's great shield which falls like paper from his hands. ”

“ Buckley's friends eat "all kinds of beasts, fish, fowl, reptile, and creeping thing." They have no notion of mechanical appliance, and a rude dam that Buckley makes astonishes them greatly. Their arms are spears, clubs, and flint-headed tomahawks, and they spear their fish and dig out their wombats. No genius among them has ever invented a net or a snare. They keep count of time by chalk-marks on the arm. They paint themselves for battle or feast. They bury their dead in mounds, or suspend them in trees. They eat their enemies, having previously grilled them between heated stones. ”

“ He was too good a fighter. And half the fun of having a girl is getting mad because they yell it at you. And, anyway, Swatty was sort of rough to have Lucy for his girl, and she didn't like to have him for a fellow very much. As soon as school was out Swatty would begin clod fighting with the Graveyard Gang, or make a bee-line for the baseball lot, or get up a good fight. ”

“ At the further end a golden swan was gliding along, and on the bank a white boar was roaming about. The swan had caught her fancy and she was anxious to get at it, but it turned off and moved along, while the boar prowled about on the bank to catch the lotus (Shaibalini) . The face of the swan could not be seen, but that of the boar gave an idea as if it resembled Foster. Shaibalini wanted to get at the swan, but her feet stuck in the water like the stalk of the lotus—her locomotion had gone. Here again, the boar had been crying out to her, “come to me, I will get you the swan.” ”

“ Buckler," he said, with some show of perplexity, "the quarrel was a private one. Wherein lies your right to meddle with the matter?"
"I was Sir Julian's friend," I replied. "He knew the love I bore him, and laid this errand as his last charge upon it."
"Really, really," said he, "both you and your friend seem strangely ill-versed in the conduct of gentlemen. You say Sir Julian laid this errand upon you. But I have your bare word for that. It is not enough. And even granting it to be true, my quarrel was with Sir Julian, not with you. One does not fight duels by proxy." ”

“ Schuyler, calm and imperturbable, watching the North, which was his trust, and utterly unmindful of self or of the pack yelping at his heels; Stark, Morgan, Murphy, and Elerson, the brave riflemen; Spencer, the interpreter; Visscher, Helmer, and the Stoners.
Into our horizon, too, move terrible shapes--not shadowy or lurid, but living, breathing figures, who turn their eyes on us and hold out their butcher hands: Walter Butler, with his awful smile; Sir John Johnson, heavy and pallid--pallid, perhaps, with the memory of his broken parole; Barry St. Leger, the drunken dealer in scalps ”

“ Buckshot had a new motive in life. Next to unlimited firewater, there is nothing so great in delight to an Indian as the "doing up" of a paleface.
Buckshot had the stride of a giraffe. He seemed to rest in the collar; when it was smooth going, I verily believe he slept as we traveled. But the two days' strain of Savarin's fierce striving handicapped him almost back to my class.
After a time we came to a long reach of red willows. Perhaps there was a tracking path through this on the eyebrows of the river bank—I even think that at times my feet did strike it ”

“ Swallow, Stevenson, and a convict named William Watts conducted me to a berth right aft on the starboard side. They told me it had been occupied by the captain, and should be mine. Here I found all I needed in the shape of navigating instruments, and went on deck with Swallow and the others.
"I could see nothing of the Swan; she was out of sight from the elevation of the brig's bulwarks. All the convicts were on deck, and the brig looked full of men. Those who had been above whilst I was in the cabin with the others, approached and stared at me, but not insolently—merely with curiosity. ”

“ The glass fell all around us and one piece cut Swatty on the hand, but he only said, “Jump! Jump!”
Maybe we would have jumped, but we didn't. The firemen had got to the back of the building and had turned the hose in at the back window, and just when Swatty said, “Jump!” the stream of water hit us like a board. It took us as if we were pieces of paper and slammed us out of the broken window and halfway across the street, and threw us head over heels in the mud, and the fashion plate, with Mamie Little's father, came flying with us. ”

“ Bony began to cry sort of funny, like a sick animal with a voice that was too weak to cry very good. All I can remember was that I put out my hands and felt Swatty and hung onto his coat with both hands.
I hung on and held my breath and waited for the explosion to come. We heard Slim cracking sticks across his knee; we could hear the sticks snap. Then we heard him piling the sticks against the outside of the powder house, and pretty soon we heard scratch! scratch!—like a match on a box. It was the hardest waiting for anything I ever did. Waiting to be blown up is always like that, I guess. ”

“ In the middle, up and down, is a kind of roller that the rope rolls onto, and the roller has to stick up above the top of the box so there can be a place to stick a pole into to turn the roller. When they move houses they set the capstan in the middle of the street a long way from the house, and carry a rope back and fasten it to the house, and then a horse that is fastened to the pole walks around and around the capstan, stepping over the rope every time he passes it, and winds up the rope, and that pulls the house. Only we didn't have any horse, so we thought maybe we'd use Swatty's cow. ”

“ He was sinking down, when he straightened himself to throw the revolver into the face of a scab who was jumping toward him. Then he began swaying, at the same time sagging at the knees and waist. Slowly, with infinite effort, he caught a gate picket in his right hand, and, still slowly, as if lowering himself, sank down, while past him leaped the crowd of strikers he had led.
It was battle without quarter--a massacre. The scabs and their protectors, surrounded, backed against Saxon's fence, fought like cornered rats, but could not withstand the rush of a hundred men. ”

“ The whole upper edge of the buckler is always surrounded by a very ornamental semicircular border, sometimes semi-elliptical, of punctures placed in the meshes of a net-work in high relief and arranged close together, in rays, passing perpendicularly from the buckler and forming at the same time when observed transversely, curved lines parallel to its upper rim or edge, excepting at the sides, where they diverge, leaving a space occupied by other lines of dottings, parallel to the former, but speedily terminating on the cheeks of the buckler. ”

“ For swift horses had been stabled at intervals of fifteen miles along the whole stretch, and in order to make sure that no one but myself should have the profit of them, as Swasfield said, or rather, as I think, in order that my name might not transpire if Count Lukstein's spies were watching the road and became suspicious at this posting of relays, it was arranged that they should be delivered only to the man who passed the word "Wastwater," that being the name of the lake in Cumberland on which my lands abutted. ”

“ We did everything we could to get ready not to be stabbed. We made daggers out of some kitchen knives I got in my kitchen, and Swatty showed us how to do it while me and Bony turned the grindstone. We sharpened them on both edges and made points on them and tied string round the handles in loops, so we could hang them on our suspender buttons and let them hang down inside our pants. Swatty showed me how to carry my target rifle stuck down one pants leg, too, so it wouldn't be visible. ”

“ That was the Sunday we were up in my room and Swatty said:
“Well, men, the Red Avengers have been true to their oath! The enemy's property lies in ruins!”
So I said:
“Yes, Chief, I carried out the orders of the band to the fullest. My trusty torch has laid the vermin's dwelling low.”
“You?” said Swatty. “You didn't do it. I did it.” Toady was sitting on the window sill, and Bony was in a chair looking at a magazine. Toady just sat and popped his eyes at us.
“Aw, now!” he said, “you didn't burn that barn down, either of you. You're just fooling.” ”

“ After giving all these details, the learned writer sums up his arguments by saying that he believes the Tzippor-deror to be the White Swallow, which is small, and has claws so sharp that by means of them it can cling to the wall. Now this action is one of the characteristics of the Swifts, who often cling to walls for a time, and then resume their flight. They do so in preference to sitting on the ground after the fashion of the Swallow, because the great length of the wings causes the Swift to find some little difficulty in rising from a level surface. ”

“ There was the thud of a bullet on the thick hide, and the crack of a rifle followed smartly on the shot. A flake or scale of parchmenty skin floated past the cave mouth, and rustled slowly into the depths below; not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did the brute show that he had felt anything. Another shot followed, with the same result. They clattered on—above a score of them—but they worried him no more than the buzzings of mosquitoes. Finally one must have hit a wart-like excrescence on his shoulder. ”

“ The prisoners numbered sixty-three—twelve bucks, twenty squaws, and thirty-one children. Each buck wore the uniform of a private soldier, and carried a Springfield rifle. The squaws wore tattered and torn calico gowns, or the remnants of army blankets. The children had to depend mainly upon their robust constitutions for protection from the extremes of heat and cold. The bucks were generally small of stature, but wiry and muscular. The young squaws inclined to embonpoint, and those past the meridian of life to bones. ”

“ Eminences in swamps are also chosen for breeding places, and the ends of promontories that jut out into the water. The spot selected is always such that the swan, when seated upon her nest, can have a view of the surrounding country, and detect any enemy long before it can approach her. The top of the dome-shaped dwellings of the musk-rat, or musquash (Fibre zibethicus) , is often selected by the swan for her nest. These curious little houses are usually in the midst of impenetrable swamps: they are only occupied by their builders during the winter ”