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They handed, says Lennox, one of the hammers to the King’s party, through a shattered panel, ‘and they within broke the doors, and gave them entry.’ At this time, halberts and swords were being struck, by Gowrie’s retainers, under the door, and through the sides of the door, of the chamber; this door apparently being that from the chamber to the narrow staircase.
Having had this early intimation of the doctor's removal to a better world, on the Sabbath morning when I went to join the magistrates in the council-chamber, as the usage is to go to the laft, with the town-officers carrying their halberts before us, according to the ancient custom of all royal burghs, my mind was in a degree prepared to speak to them anent the successor.
Here four yeomen of the guard, armed with halberts, and an officer, were stationed, and no one was admitted without an order from Sir Richard Hoghton.
Thus equipped at all points, they planted themselves before the door of the carriage; struck the ends of their halberts on the ground with emphasis; and stood waiting with official importance, but profound respect, to know the pleasure of the princess. She demanded to speak with the archbishop. A most reverential bow and shrug accompanied the reply, that "His Grandeur was not at home."
Our army was but small indeed; but that which was worse, they had not arms for all their number neither: the whole account, it seems, stood thus: first, as to men: 17 Spaniards. 5 Englishmen. 1 Old Friday, or Friday's father. 3 Slaves, taken with the women, who proved very faithful. 3 Other slaves who lived with the Spaniards. 29 To arm these they had: 11 Muskets. 5 Pistols. 3 Fowling-pieces. 5 Muskets, or fowling-pieces, which were taken by me from the mutinous seamen whom I reduced. 2 Swords. 3 Old halberts. 29
And in like manner we Warders in the Tower, though ready for any martial emergency that might turn up, were by no means unnecessarily afeard or distraught with anxiety; but ate and drank our fill, joked the pretty girls who came to see the shows in the Tower, and trailed our halberts in our usual jovial devil-me-care manner, as true Cavaliers, Warders in the service of his Majesty the King, should do.
Here I found him alone in a chamber; from his face there was nothing to be gleaned; yet I was not so unobservant but what I spied some halberts in the hall, and not so stupid but what I could gather he was prepared to arrest me there and then, should it appear advisable. "So, Mr. David, this is you?" said he.
While this painful task was roughly performed by the wizard's two ill-favoured assistants, the crowd of rustics who looked on, murmured and exhibited such strong tokens of displeasure, that the guard thought it prudent to keep them off with their halberts.
He showed us, too, some Minie rifles, and whole ranges of the old-fashioned Brown Bess, which had helped to win Wellington's victories; also the halberts of sergeants now laid aside, and some swords that had been used at the battle of Sheriffmuir. These latter were very short, not reaching to the floor, when I held one of them, point downward, in my hand.
They were furnished with such weapons as men grasp when despotism rouses them to insurrection, rusty battle-axes, pikes and halberts, and two-handed swords, which their ancestors, in descending into the grave, had left behind them. They drew up in the form of a solid wedge, to pierce the thick concentric wall of steel, apparently as impenetrable as the cliffs of the mountains.
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