If they fire it, one or other will certainly be killed at its tail in Blue s subsequent move, and then the gun will be neither movable nor fireable. Red s left gun, with four men only, is also in extreme peril, and will be immovable and helpless if it loses another man. Very properly Red decided upon retreat. His second gun had to be abandoned after one move, but two of the men with it escaped over his back line. Five of the infantry behind the church escaped, and his third gun and its four cavalry got away on the extreme left-hand corner of Red s position. Blue remained on the field, completely victorious, with two captured guns and six prisoners. There you have a scientific record of the worthy general s little affair. V EXTENSIONS AND AMPLIFICATIONS OF LITTLE WAR Now that battle of Hook s Farm is, as I have explained, a simplification of the game, set out entirely to illustrate the method of playing; there is scarcely a battle that will not prove more elaborate (and eventful) than this little encounter. If a number of players and a sufficiently large room can be got, there is no reason why armies of many hundreds of soldiers should not fight over many square yards of model country. So long as each player has about a hundred men and three guns there is no need to lengthen the duration of a game on that account.
Hardy once thought it was the remnant of a goblin story of a hoary man of the gable or house-roof, who presided over the destinies of poor cottagers, and he had begun to make out the folk tale. The fairy would sometimes come down, and, playing his antics, compel whomsoever observed him to follow him in a mimicking procession. Miss Hope writes of Holy Gabriel that the game is played at Mead Vale, a small village in Surrey, but is unknown at larger villages and towns a few miles off. Some of the women who played it in their youth say that it began in the Primitive Methodist school at Mead Vale. It is played at Outword, also a remote village, and was introduced there by a stonemason, who stated that he had learned it from a cousin who had been in America. Further inquiry by Miss Hope elicited the fact that the cousin had learned the game, when a boy, in his native place in Lancashire. He did not know whether it was a well-known game there. This information points perhaps to a modern origin, but in such cases it must be borne in mind that people are very fond of suggesting recent circumstances as the cause of the most ancient traditions or customs. The obvious analogy to the incident in the myth of the Pied Piper, and to the Welsh custom at St. Almedha Church, near Brecknock, recorded by Giraldus Cambrensis, where the imitation of a frenzied leader is carried out as a religious ceremony, rather suggests that in this game we may have a survival of a ceremonial so common among early or uncultured people, the chief incident of which is the frenzied dancing of a god-possessed devotee.
In all cases where a penalty has been incurred, the offender is bound to give reasonable time for the decision of his adversaries. NEW CARDS. 95. Unless a pack be imperfect, no player has the right to call for one new pack. When fresh cards are demanded, two packs must be furnished. When they are produced during a rubber, the adversaries of the player demanding them have the choice of the new cards. If it be the beginning of a new rubber, the dealer, whether he or one of his adversaries call for the new cards, has the choice. New cards cannot be substituted after the pack has been cut for a new deal. 96. A card or cards torn or marked must be replaced by agreement or new cards furnished.