Page:Lacrosse- The National Game of Canada (New Edition).djvu/65

 48 on the alert for the ubiqitous ball—here and there they move out and in, while some run as fast as their legs can carry them. The ball flies through the air from one point to another; there are innumerable close contests and hard struggles in attack and defence, all of which appear in quick succession. From the red flags to the blue, the men are full of life—not one is useless—the grass has no time to grow where they run—and the result is an apparent amount of intense exertion, which the spectators invariably magnify.

Pity it is that gunpowder should rob us of such glorious fights as Hastings and Naseby, and, as Don Quixote laments, give men now no chance for individual valor; for what grand training Lacrosse would have been for sword and battle-axe encounter—for splitting helmet from crown to chin—for storming redoubts without fear of flying shot or shell; in fact, for hand to hand conflict. Confound the man who first invented breech-loaders! Are those splendid bayonet charges of the "thin red line" to become traditionary because any scarecrow can lie on his belly and pop a dozen bullets at it in the same time as he used to fire one? But a truce to war