Guns are lost or won, hills or villages stormed or held; suddenly it grows clear that the scales are tilting beyond recovery, and the loser has nothing left but to contrive how he may get to the back line and safety with the vestiges of his command.... But let me, before I go on to tell of actual battles and campaigns, give here a summary of our essential rules. III THE RULES HERE, then, are the rules of the perfect battle-game as we play it in an ordinary room. THE COUNTRY (1) The Country must be arranged by one player, who, failing any other agreement, shall be selected by the toss of a coin. (2) The other player shall then choose which side of the field he will fight from. (3) The Country must be disturbed as little as possible in each move. Nothing in the Country shall be moved or set aside deliberately to facilitate the firing of guns.
Instead of retreating his whole force, he charged home with his mounted desperadoes, killed five of the eight men about the gun, and so by the rule silenced it, enabling the rest of his little body to get clean away to cover at the leisurely pace of one foot a move. This was not like any sort of warfare. In real life cavalry cannot pick out and kill its equivalent in cavalry while that equivalent is closely supported by other cavalry or infantry; a handful of troopers cannot gallop past well and abundantly manned guns in action, cut down the gunners and interrupt the fire. And yet for a time we found it a little difficult to frame simple rules to meet these two bad cases and prevent such scandalous possibilities. We did at last contrive to do so; we invented what we call the melee, and our revised rules in the event of a melee will be found set out upon a later page. They do really permit something like an actual result to hand-to-hand encounters. They abolish Horatius Cocles. [Illustration: The war game in the open air] [Illustration: Fig. 1--Battle of Hook s Farm. General View of the Battlefield and Red Army] We also found difficulties about the capturing of guns.
Janvier’s Anderson. Bowen’s Bristol. Bowen’s Cross. Bowen’s Fife. E.T. Baker’s Alma. Scattergood’s Game of Draughts. Lyman’s Selected Problems. Backgammon and Draughts, by Berkeley.
For instance: A-B are partners against Y-Z. B has bid to make 8, and named hearts for trumps. A-B make 10, which is 2 more than they bid, Y-Z getting the other 4; which leaves A-B 6. These are scored by placing one red and one white counter in the pool. But suppose A-B got only 5 points, Y-Z getting 9. A-B would score nothing, as they did not make good their bid; while Y-Z would score the 9 points actually won, and the 8 points bid in addition, or 17 altogether. The old way of scoring was to _=set back=_ the side that failed to make the number bid; but that system of counting entirely destroyed the interest in the game when one side got much behind; because it could not recover in time to prevent the other side from _=sweating out=_, as it is called. Suppose A-B have been set back 18 points on two failures, Y-Z having made 16 points on those two deals, and 23 on their own bids. The score will stand: A-B 64 to go; Y-Z, 12 to go. Even if we suppose that A-B make 11 on each of the next four deals, they will still have 20 to go, while Y-Z will be out.
--Jamieson. Castles A game at marbles. Each boy makes a small pyramid of three as a base, and one on the top. The players aim at these from a distant stroke with balsers, winning such of the castles as they may in turn knock down (Lowsley s _Glossary of Berkshire Words_). In London, the marble alluded to as balser was called bonsor or bouncer (J. P. Emslie). See Cockly Jock, Cogs. Cat and Dog An ancient game played in Angus and Lothian. Three play, and they are provided with clubs.
Only those squares upon which the men stand are numbered, and the black men are always supposed to be originally placed upon the lower numbers, from 1 to 12; the white men being placed upon the squares numbered from 21 to 32. Diagrams Nos. 4 and 5 show the method of numbering the board, and the men placed in position. [Illustration: No. 4. +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | 1 | | 2 | | 3 | | 4 | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | 5 | | 6 | | 7 | | 8 | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | 9 | |10 | |11 | |12 | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |13 | |14 | |15 | |16 | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | |17 | |18 | |19 | |20 | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |21 | |22 | |23 | |24 | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | |25 | |26 | |27 | |28 | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ |29 | |30 | |31 | |32 | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ ] [Illustration: No. 5. +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | ⛂ | | ⛂ | | ⛂ | | ⛂ | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | ⛂ | | ⛂ | | ⛂ | | ⛂ | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | ⛂ | | ⛂ | | ⛂ | | ⛂ | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | ⛀ | | ⛀ | | ⛀ | | ⛀ | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | ⛀ | | ⛀ | | ⛀ | | ⛀ | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | ⛀ | | ⛀ | | ⛀ | | ⛀ | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ ] In checker notation the number of the move is never given, as it is in Chess. The moves of the black men are distinguished from those of the white men by being hyphenated, but there are no marks to show when pieces are captured. Letters or figures in the margins are used to refer to possible variations in the play.
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_=PLAYERS.=_ Four persons cut for partners, the two highest playing against the two lowest, the lowest cut having the choice of seats and cards and dealing the first hand. _=DEALING.=_ The cards shuffled and cut, thirteen are given to each player, one at a time in rotation to the left. No trump is turned, as every hand is played without a trump. _=MISDEALING.=_ In case of any irregularity in the deal, the same dealer must deal again. The laws governing misdeals are the same as at whist or bridge. _=OBJECTS OF THE GAME.=_ The play is for tricks alone, but whether the players try to win them or to lose them depends on the declaration.
, ix. 477. Cope (_Hampshire Glossary_) calls the game I spy I. Lowsley (_Berkshire Glossary_) says, In playing this game, the seeker has to call out I spy! to the one he finds before he may start for home. It is called Hy Spy in Patterson s _Antrim and Down Glossary_; Evans _Leicestershire Glossary_, Hide and Wink; Barnes _Dorset Glossary_, Hidy Buck. In Pegge s _Alphabet of Kenticisms_ the game is given as Hide and Fox. _Cf._ Hide Fox, and all after, _i.e._, let the fox hide and the others go to seek him; Hamlet, iv.
O. Addy) a boy is chosen to fetch the girl away; and in the Earls Heaton version the line runs, We ll have a girl for nuts in May. (_e_) There is some analogy in the game to marriage by capture, and to the marriage customs practised at May Day festivals and gatherings. For the evidence for marriage by capture in the game there is no element of love or courtship, though there is the obtaining possession of a member of an opposing party. But it differs from ordinary contest-games in the fact that one party does not wage war against another party for possession of a particular piece of ground, but individual against individual for the possession of an individual. That the player sent to fetch the selected girl is expected to conquer seems to be implied--first, by a choice of a certain player being made to effect the capture; secondly, by the one sent to fetch being always successful; and thirdly, the crowning in the Symondsbury game. Through all the games I have seen played this idea seems to run, and it exactly accords with the conception of marriage by capture. For examples of the actual survivals in English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish customs of marriage by capture see Gomme s _Folk-lore Relics of Early Village Life_, pp. 204-210. The question is, How does this theory of the origin of the game fit in with the term Nuts in May ? I attribute this to the gathering by parties of young men of bunches of May at the May festivals and dances, to decorate not only the Maypole, May kissing-bush, but the doors of houses.
If neither of the others score, either through each making 65, or one failing to claim 66, the dealer scores one point, and the others get nothing. The dealer cannot go out on his own deal. He must stop at six, and win out by his own play. There are two ways to settle: Each may pay a certain amount to the pool, and the first man out take it all; or, after one is out, the two remaining finish the game, and the loser pays both or settles for the refreshments, as the case may be. If the first man goes out when it will be his turn to deal, he must deal the next hand. FOUR-HANDED SIXTY-SIX This game is sometimes called _=Kreutz-mariage=_, owing to the German fashion of dealing the cards in the form of a cross; but as the cards are not dealt that way, and marriages are not scored in America, the name is not appropriate in this country. The pack is increased to thirty-two cards by the addition of the Sevens and Eights. After the cards are cut by the pone, the dealer gives three to each player on the first round, then two, and then three again, turning up the last card for the trump. In Germany the dealer first gives two cards to his partner, then two to his left hand adversary, then two to his right hand adversary, and finally two to himself. This is continued for four rounds, so that each player receives eight cards, and the last is turned up for the trump.