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The ministers of Frederick William II. were externally religious, but those of Frederick William I., by whom the Polish question had been so justly decided, were so in reality. The king led his troops in person into Poland. In June, 1794, he defeated Kosciuszko's scythemen at Szczekociny, but met with such strenuous opposition in his attack upon Warsaw as to be compelled to retire in September.
The flanking squadron had ridden boldly at the hedge, and a dozen or more had forced their way through, in spite of the showers of stones and the desperate thrusts of the pikemen and scythemen.
Poul, seeing them approach from under cover of the wood, charged them at once, shouting to his men, "Charge, kill, kill the Barbets!" But "the Barbets," though they were only as one to three of their assailants, bravely held their ground. Those who had muskets kept up a fusillade, whilst a body of scythemen in the centre repulsed Poul, who attacked them with the bayonet.
Several of these terrible scythemen were, however, slain, and three were taken prisoners. Laporte, finding that he could not drive Poul back, retreated slowly into the wood, keeping up a running fire, and reascended the hill, whither Poul durst not follow him.
The clear metallic sound of the "strake" or sharpening strop, covered with pure white Loch Skerrow sand set in grease, which scythemen universally use in Galloway, cut through the slumberous hum of the noonday air like the blade itself through the grass.
For on this vastly thicker bulk the smoky fingers of flame had no more effect than did the exertions of the scythemen, hacking futilely away at the tough intricacies, or the rattling reapers entangling themselves to become like waterlogged ships. But greatest hopes were now being pinned on a new weapon.
They harangued, however, with some force on the great superiority of a regular army to a militia. One of them tauntingly asked whether the defence of the kingdom was to be entrusted to the beefeaters. Another said that he should be glad to know how the Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion before Monmouth's scythemen, would have faced the household troops of Lewis.
Harvest began, but the customary barrel of whisky was not purchased, and the song of the scythemen in the wheatfield languished. In lieu of whisky, there was a beverage most innocuous, unstimulating and unpalatable to the army of dusky laborers. The following morning, Mr. Madison called in his head-man to make the usual inquiry, "Nelson, how comes on the crop?" "Po'ly, Mars' Jeems monsus po'ly."
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