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Updated: May 2, 2025
It is the custom of the ladies to assemble in the house of the sultana, and indulge in it in her company. The women, as has been said, are employed in the cultivation of the grain from which it is made. When it is green, they cut off the ears with a knife. These are then conveyed to the village in baskets, and spread out in the sun to dry. The men next thrash out the grain with long, thin flails.
We had then in the house a Cappadocian, a tall fellow, stout and hardy, that would not have stept an inch out of his way for Jupiter. We heard a pitiful groan, but not to lye, saw none of them. Our champion came in and threw himself on a bed, but all black and blue, so he had been trosh'd with flails; for it seems some ill hand had touched him.
God help poor Ireland! when its inhabitants are so pugnacious, that even the grave is no security against getting their crowns cracked, and their bones fractured! Well, any how, skulls and bones flew in every direction stones and brick-bats were also put in motion; spades, shovels, loaded whips, pot-sticks, churn-staffs, flails, and all kinds of available weapons were in hot employment.
Already one or two gorgeously draped litters had been seen winding their way in from the Sacra Via or the precincts of the temples, their silken draperies making positive notes of brilliant colour against the iridescent whiteness of Phrygian marble walls. The lictors now had at times to use their flails against the crowd.
It brought wild shouts from outside and the rush of many feet, the hurried clanging of a bell, the beating of a drum, and then everything was drowned in a furious downpour of rain which beat on the roof like whips and flails. What was happening I could not tell, but there was confusion without, and confusion meant chances.
Many of them still reaped with scythes and thrashed on the barn floor with old-fashioned flails, and one afternoon there was a curious plaintive singing under my window a party of harvesters, oldish men and brown, barefooted peasant girls, who had finished their work on a neighboring farm, and were crossing our village on their way to their own.
"I doubt not that they would," Albert agreed, "though methinks that a blow with one of those flails would make a head ring even under a steel casque." "I doubt whether they would think of anything but running away, Albert," Edgar said. "I am sorry for the poor fellows; they have great grievances, but I fear they are not setting about the righting of them the best way.
'Faith, sir, answered the husbandman, 'to tell you the truth, I am going to town about a business of mine and am carrying these things to Squire Bonaccorri da Ginestreto, so he may help me in I know not what whereof the police-court judge hath summoned me by his proctor for a peremptory attendance. The priest was rejoiced to hear this and said, 'Thou dost well, my son; go now with my benison and return speedily; and shouldst thou chance to see Lapuccio or Naldino, forget not to bid them bring me those straps they wot of for my flails. Bentivegna answered that it should be done and went his way towards Florence, whereupon the priest bethought himself that now was his time to go try his luck with Belcolore.
He found Stephen in the barn, where the men were making the flails beat with a rhythm and regularity as exhilarating as music. Stephen left them at once; but, when he told Ducie what word had been brought him, he was startled at her look and manner. "I have been looking for this news all day: I fear me, Steve, that the squire has come to 'the passing. Last night I saw your grandfather."
Yet despite all his efforts the English line of defence remained unbroken. That linked wall of shields stood intact. From behind it the terrible battle-axes of Harold's men swung like flails, making crimson gaps in the crowded ranks before them. Hours had passed in this conflict.
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