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He turned, and ran for his life, leaving the cattle to their fate, while the steam mitrailleuse of the Titans to which all man's engines of destruction are but pop-guns roared on for three days and nights, covering the greater part of the island in ashes, burying crops, breaking branches off the trees, and spreading ruin from which several estates never recovered; and so the 30th of April dawned in darkness which might be felt.
Of course, Horace soiled his clothes sadly: "that was always just like him," his aunt Louise said. This was not all. A little neighbor, Gilbert Brown, came to the house at all hours, and between the two boys there was a noise of driving nails, firing pop-guns, shouting and running from morning till night.
Of these the most acrid, namely, those of Peltier's paper, "L'Ambigu," had already received the reprobation of the British Ministry; but, as had been previously explained at Amiens, the Addington Cabinet decided that it could not venture to curtail the liberty of the Press, least of all at the dictation of the very man who was answering the pop-guns of our unofficial journals by double-shotted retorts in the official "Moniteur."
For three or four hours I was engaged in manufacturing pop-guns, but at last made over my good-will and interests in the concern to a lad of remarkably quick parts, whom I soon initiated into the art and mystery. Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop, now resounded all over the valley. Duels, skirmishes, pitched battles, and general engagements were to be seen on every side.
When we spoke of our pistols, and of our determination to use them, before we would let our convoy come to harm, these chaps laughed at our pop-guns, and told us they had such things as 'rifles. This was true enough, and had we come to broadsides, I make no doubt they would have knocked us over like so many snipes.
Germans do not desire the truth so far as their own country is concerned; they do not will the truth; they will Deutschland über alles, and all information, knowledge, or propaganda contrary to their will is prohibited. In like manner it may be said that German professors are bound by the Staatseid either to discreet silence, or to employ their intellectual pop-guns in defending Germany.
Up stairs and down, round semicircles, up lifts, through nooks, corridors: saw the guns, and how by hydraulics everything was done the hoisting of ammunition, loading, training: guns intact, guns wrecked by the Dreadnoughts; and shimmering kitchens, which reeked a smell of heat, and the dairy-maids, and the line of kine, and the row of prison-doors, and the mechanism of ventilation, fans and blowers, the drainage-system, and the dynamos for lighting, for supplying power to motors, for heating, and for shimmering forth rich in the search-lights; and the central ballroom, the clothes store, the original one-ninety-sixth model, the Ambassador-region, the steaming laundry, and the roof, where Rebekah saw her initials on the breeze, and the vertical pop-guns under shields for dealing with aeroplane attack, and the cream theatre, and the paymaster's suite, and the bunkers, the Government-offices, and the tax- receiving rooms, the telephone system, and the lady-telegraphists till all were tired, though half had not been seen.
Nathan had also enlisted under the banner, for he was thinking of starting a theatre, and not unreasonably held that it was better to have the licensing authorities for him than against him. "We will pay the Liberals out," cried Merlin. "Gentlemen," said Nathan, "if we are for war, let us have war in earnest; we must not carry it on with pop-guns.
We had three field-batteries engaged, the naval twelve-pounders, Joey, and the pop-guns; about thirty guns altogether." We slept that night by the side of the railway, tethering our horses to the wire fence that runs down it. Rain fell heavily all night. Most of us had no blankets, and we lay bundled up, shivering under our greatcoats on the sopping ground.
I thank you for your directions for my ears against the noise of the guns, but I have found that I could endure it; nor is it so intolerable as most conceive; especially when men are earnest, and intent upon their business, unto whom muskets sound but like pop-guns. It is impossible to express unto another how a smart sea-fight elevates the spirits of a man, and makes him despise all dangers.
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