Giant Blow is kind, whimsical, mischievous, and dangerous, by fits. One day, as I went by the common, he was good-naturedly helping a group of school boys to fly their kites. I hardly think they could have managed without his assistance; but, in ten minutes after, he tore two of their kites all to shivers. The same day he snatched widow Woodward's shawl from her back, and went off with it, broke half a dozen clothes lines, tossed about the clothes, and then, all at once, violently pushed down a large stack of chimneys. You see by these actions how little he is to be relied on.
Giant Blow is a great traveler, for he sailed round the world with Captain Cook, and helped Columbus to discover America. Indeed Columbus could not have gone without him. Were he and Giant Roar to withdraw the assistance they give to seamen, it would at once put an end to all merchandise, and not a single ship would be able to sail upon the seas.
But though Giant Blow is one of the best friends in the world to sailors, he often treats them very harshly, knocking their vessels to pieces, and flinging them into the raging deep. Hundreds of gallant ships, and thousands of hardy tars, has he destroyed in his time.
Giant Blow grinds a great deal of corn, and has a method of his own for cooling the earth in hot weather. Common report says that, on some occasions, he has removed the plague; and no physician on the earth has effected such extraordinary cures as he has done. If every one that he has kept in health were to give him a fee, of all doctors in the world he would be the richest.
Giant Blow is well known in the West Indies, where he has, at different times, made great confusion. When once his loud voice is heard, a general terror and consternation are spread around; for it is well known that, in his passions, he spares neither friend nor foe. With his great strength he lays about him in all directions, stripping the trees of their foliage, and furiously tearing them up by the roots, flinging the roofs of the houses in the air, and battering down the walls on the heads of those who dwell in them. On he goes, till loud cries of distress are heard, and heaps of rubbish and rafters, and the dead bodies of men, women, and children, lie mingled together in confusion on the ground.
You have not, from what I have told you, I dare say, formed the highest opinion of Flare, Roar, and Blow; and I fear that the characters of Giants Bounce and Rush will be very far from perfect in your estimation. You shall have, however, the best account of them that I can give you, and then you will be able to judge more correctly.
Giant Bounce, of all the family of the giants, is certainly the most peppery in his temper. His brothers usually give some notice of their outbreaks, and rise in their position by degrees; not so Giant Bounce: at one moment he is quiet as a lamb, and at the next much fiercer than a lion.
In complexion, he is much darker than the others; indeed he has an ugly, grim, and very forbidding appearance, which well suits his disposition. He is the friend of duelists and highwaymen, and this of itself would be bad enough, if I had nothing else to bring against him. He has done some good, certainly, in his day; but take him for all in all, it might have been well if his friend the monk, who first introduced him into society, had been otherwise employed.
You would hardly think, from the kind way in which he amuses children, by making them squibs and crackers, and other fireworks, that he was half so mischievous as he is; but as I have told you the truth about his brothers, so will I tell you the truth about him. I cannot say that he does not make himself useful at times, for, in deep mines, he often does more work, in one hour, than the miners could do without him in a whole day; yet still he is a dark, designing, cruel character.
It is true that, some years ago, he went against a terrible pirate and robber, who lived on the coast of Barbary, destroying his ships, knocking his fortifications about his ears, compelling him to give up all the Christian slaves he had in his dungeons, and making him promise to behave better in future. It is true also that he helped Nelson, Napoleon, Wellington, and Washington, to win their victories; but it was not because he had any special love for either of them that he did these things. No! whatever other people say of him, I say that he is a hasty, cruel, treacherous, blood-thirsty monster. It was he who first persuaded people to make guns, pistols, and cannon mortars, bombshells, and congreve rockets, so that widows and orphans have been multiplied by him, and millions of men, by his means, have been destroyed.