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Updated: May 12, 2025
The diver emerged from the well and came running up the steps towards us, while his companion scarecrows fled also to the top of the shaft and one after the other dropped down, too; so that in a minute or so we were surrounded by three old, dripping men, each demanding two rupees.
There he saw dazzling camellias expanding themselves, with flowers which were giving forth their last colors and perfumes, not on bushes, but on trees, and within bambooenclosures, cherry, plum and apple trees, which the Japanese cultivate rather for their blossoms than their fruit, and which queerly-fashioned, grinning scarecrows protected from the sparrows, pigeons, ravens and other voracious birds.
We passed a cabin of indescribable wretchedness; a woman who might have sat for a picture of famine stood at the door looking at us as we passed. She had a number of little children, of the raggedest they were, around her. Some time ago the father of these scarecrows was suspected of having stolen some money, and a posse of the much enduring police were sent out to search in the dead of the night.
The chief stopped before a couple of these fantastic-looking objects, and, with folded arms, gazed up at them, uttering some words which I was too far off to hear distinctly, though the sound of his voice reached my ears. He was praying, of that I could have no doubt, and these trumpery scarecrows were his idols.
These parse-volants, or scarecrows, were passed freely about from one company to another, and the indecency of the fraud was never thought a disgrace to the colours of the company. Thus, in the Armada year, the queen had demanded that a portion of her auxiliary force in the Netherlands should be sent to England.
Passing between these alarming scarecrows, one reaches the innermost court. The residence of our friends is on the right, the great hall of the pagoda is before us. In this paved court are bronze torch-holders as high as turrets.
'A Staff Orf'cer man, clean as a new rifle, rides up an' sez: "What damned scarecrows are you?" "A comp'ny av Her Majesty's Black Tyrone an' wan av the Ould Rig'mint," sez Crook very quiet, givin' our visitors the flure as 'twas. "Oh!" sez the Staff Orf'cer; "did you dislodge that Reserve?" "No!" sez Crook, an' the Tyrone laughed. "Thin fwhat the divil have ye done?"
The king nursed his chin with an amused smile as Villon answered: "The scarecrows are rogues who have fought like gentlefolk and these rags are the banners of the enemy."
They have youth and vigour in possession, and consequently the breath and favour of the world; and therefore receive these fierce and tyrannical looks mere scarecrows of a man without blood, either in his heart or veins, with mockery and contempt.
But now the army was dwindling to a ghastly array of scarecrows, and the recruits, as they came from England, were appalled by the spectacle presented by their predecessors. "Our old ragged rogues here have so discouraged our new men," said Leicester; "as I protest to you they look like dead men." Out of eleven hundred freshly-arrived Englishmen, five hundred ran away in two days.
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