United States or Croatia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He wore boots, buckskins, and a small-sword, and round his waist there was a tricolour sash, in his hat a tricolour cockade, which gave him an official look extremely sinister to the eyes of that old retainer of feudalism, who shared to the full his master's present fears. "Monsieur desires?" he asked, between respect and mistrust. And then a crisp voice startled him. "Why, Benoit! Name of a name!
When our carriage entered the square, a magnificent chariot was driving in front of us, drawn by four horses covered with trappings embroidered in gold, and all wreathed in artificial roses, upon which there were fourteen or fifteen gentlemen masquerading as gentlemen at the court of France, all glittering with silk, with huge white wigs, a plumed hat, under the arm a small-sword, and a tuft of ribbons and laces on the breast.
His love of actual battle was intense: he had punched heads with many a hard-fisted school-boy in England; he bore the scar of a German schläger high up on his forehead; and later, in Paris, he had deliberately invaded the susceptibilities of a French journalist, had followed him to the field of honor, and been there run through the body with a small-sword, to the satisfaction of both parties.
He despatched a messenger with a 'good morrow' to his mother, and then went to a fencing-saloon that was fitted up in the house of Count Medole, where, among two or three, there was the ordinary shrugging talk of the collapse of the projected outbreak, bitter to hear. Luciano Romara came in, and Ammiani challenged him to small-sword and broadsword.
"How the devil should I know? Go and find out." He was gone, and Andre-Louis stood there a moment deep in thought. Then he turned and went back to resume with his pupil, the Vicomte de Villeniort, the interrupted exposition of the demi-contre of Danet, illustrating with a small-sword the advantages to be derived from its adoption.
"Only another weapon, Sweetheart, besides this prick-point small-sword!" said I, looking at the thing in my hand I doubt not a trifle scornfully. Helene shut to the door, and for a space I heard no more. Presently, however, she opened it again, and thrust an axe with a long handle through to me. It was the very fellow of the weapon I had used on the pendent calf in the kitchen.
He accepted the challenge, but having no knowledge of the small-sword, refused to fight unless with pistols. To this the colonel raised no objections, and Captain Tartar despatched his coxswain with a note to his second lieutenant, for he was not on good terms with his first.
He was a tiny fellow, about three inches short of the proper height for a man he was exactly three inches shorter than myself but both with the sabre and with the small-sword he had several times almost held his own against me when we used to exhibit at Verron's Hall of Arms in the Palais Royal.
I am ready to fight one, two, three, or twenty of them, at broad-sword, small-sword, single-stick, with fists if you please. By the holy piper, fighting is like mate and dthrink to Ga to Bobbachy, I mane whoop! come on, you divvle, and I'll bate the skin off your ugly bones."
Indeed I cannot help thinking that if two men fought, one armed with the small-sword or light rapier and the other with the rifle and bayonet, the swordsman would win always supposing that they were equally expert in the use of their respective weapons.
Word Of The Day