Captain Blood

Book excerpt: These Straggling, Excited Groups Were Mainly Composed Of Men With Green Boughs In Their Hats And The Most Ludicrous Of Weapons In Their Hands. Some, It Is True, Shouldered Fowling Pieces, And Here And There A Sword Was Brandished; But More Of Them Were Armed With Clubs, And Most Of Them Trailed The Mammoth Pikes Fashioned Out Of Scythes, As Formidable To The Eye As They Were Clumsy To The Hand. There Were Weavers, Brewers, Carpenters, Smiths, Masons, Bricklayers, Cobblers, And Representatives Of Every Other Of The Trades Of Peace Among These Improvised Men Of War. Bridgewater, Like Taunton, Had Yielded So Generously Of Its Manhood To The Service Of The Bastard Duke That For Any To Abstain Whose Age And Strength Admitted Of His Bearing Arms Was To Brand Himself A Coward Or A Papist...FROM THE BOOKS.