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Among the most distinguished of the court rufflers of the period was the Comte de Lauraguais, noted for his personal beauty, wit, and daring, and for having written some very bad plays, which were instantly damned by the audience.
To draw swords for trifles had become the obligatory accompaniment of good manners; and as gallantry had its finished fops, so the duel had its refined rufflers. In the comparatively short period of a few years, nine hundred gentlemen perished in these combats.
They were the Louisiana Tigers, Wheat's Battalion, upgathered from levee and wharf and New Orleans purlieu, among many of a better cast, not lacking rufflers and bravos, soldiers of fortune whom Pappenheim might not have scorned. Their stone wall leaped fire again. Steve looked to heaven and earth and as far around as the dun cloud permitted, then moved with swiftness across the potato patch.
Giles Gosling made some sort of apology to a solitary guest who had sat apart for their license; they would be to-morrow a set of painstaking mechanics, and so forth, though to-night they were such would-be rufflers, and prevailed on him to join them.
You would not like it if he were one of the rattling, roaring blades that such irresponsible single fellows are here, usually." "Mighty sprightly company, some of these rufflers," remarked Captain Stuart, with a twinkling eye. "Rarely good company," he averred.
They were, as I surmise, of the same breed as those of whom the excellent John Milton wrote: "The sons of Belial, flown with insolence and wine." Alas! my memory is not what it was, for at one time I could say by rote whole books of that noble and godly poem. 'And, pray, how fared ye with these rufflers, sir? I asked.
And as he was coming homeward, on Blackheath, at the end thereof next to Shooter's Hill, he overtook two Rufflers, the one mannerly waiting on the other, as one had been the master and the other his man or servant, carrying his master's cloak. This old man was very glad that he might have their company over the hill, because that day he had made a good market.
"But what of the discontented you were to bring to a head?" d'Albigny retorted, remembering with relief another head of complaint, on which he had been charged to deliver himself. "The old soldiers and rufflers whom the peace has left unemployed, and with whom the man Grio was to aid you? Surely waiting will not help you with them!
I be's the cove, the merry old cove, Of whose max all the rufflers sing; And a lushing cove, I thinks, by Jove, Is as great as a sober king! CHORUS. Is as great as a sober king! Whatever the noise as is made by the boys At the bar as they lush away, The devil a noise my peace alloys As long as the rascals pay! CHORUS. As long as the rascals pay!
At last, in desperate mood, they sought once more The Temple's porches, searched in vain before; They found him seated with the ancient men, The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen, Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near; Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear, Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise That lips so fresh should utter words so wise.
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