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As soon as the horsemen were stationed the exciting part of the sham-fight began, by the lines being wheeled backwards and forwards in wings from the centre, and into zigzag formations from central points, with a slow 'stamp-and-go' march, the spears being flourished with each motion and pointed high and low, and right and left, as in our bayonet exercise.
If Oxford had a good deal of Jacobitism hidden decorously away in its ancient colleges, if there were a good many disloyal toasts drunk in the seclusion of scholastic rooms, there was apparently only a feeling of curious indifference at the rival university, for Gray has put it on record that at Cambridge "they had no more sense of danger than if it were the battle of Cannae," and we learn that some grave Dons actually were thinking of driving to Camford to see the Scotch troops march past, "as though they were volunteers out for a sham-fight, or a circus procession."
The cannon and the musket were already in use; and it only required one blast of gunpowder to turn the sham-fight of courtly, traitorous, finessing captains of adventure into something terribly more real.
She saw the children of the settlement, on the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashion as the Puritanic nurture would permit; playing at going to church, perchance; or at scourging Quakers; or taking scalps in a sham-fight with the Indians; or scaring one another with freaks of imitative witchcraft.
Germany, with a larger population, a vigorous and irreconcilable proletariat, a bolder intellectual training, a harsher spirit, can scarcely fail to drive us at last to a realisation of intolerable strain. So we may never fight at all. The war of preparations that has been going on for thirty years may end like a sham-fight at last in an umpire's decision.
"Have you noted another thing?" went on Flambeau eagerly, "this Hawker hears his love insulted, but doesn't strike till he's got to the soft sand-hills, where he can be victor in a mere sham-fight. If he'd struck amid rocks and sea, he might have hurt his ally." "That is true again," said Father Brown, nodding. "And now, take it from the start. It lies between few people, but at least three.
On 8th March, I reviewed the troops, and having given the natives warning of my intention, I had a sham-fight and attack of the Fatiko mountain.
But, on the other hand, it was no less clear that the man who could suppose that in a sham-fight it was in the least desirable to delay or embarass any one was quite out of place in an army like ours.
Ah, Rajah Hamet," he continued, as he caught sight of the young man, who approached to hold out his hand, "what did you think of our sham-fight? Did you see it all?" "Magnificent, sir; every bit." "Where were you?" "Down yonder, sir, in front of my elephants and men." "Then you didn't run?" "No, sir; I have been to Aldershot and seen a review before."
There was also a "sham-fight," before the breaking up of the encampment, and it was really terrifying to me, who had never seen a battle fought, to witness two columns of troops drawn up, and, at the roll of the drum, behold them engage in deadly conflict, to all appearance, and the smoke curling up in a blackened mass toward heaven; and, above all, the neighing of horses, with the feigned groans of the wounded and dying.
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