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The subject of nests has been sadly neglected by naturalists, most of whom have been chiefly interested in the owners or the contents; but when the whys and wherefores of the homes of birds are made plain we shall know far more concerning the little carpenters, weavers, masons, and basket-makers who hang our groves and decorate our shrubbery with their skill.
There were but few in it who did not know and picture the meaning of all that had been imparted by the courier the desperate alarm, the haggard, sobbing women in front of a hoist, the relays of men who were ready to descend and beat hammer on steel and tear madly at slow-yielding rock, the calls for a rest while carpenters hastily propped up tottering roofs and walls, the occasional warning shouts when men fell back to watch other huge masses of rock fall into the black drift, and the instants when some rescuer, overwrought, thought he heard sounds of "rock telegraphing" and bade the others pause and listen.
Thus, upon a guild of sake-brewers a tax of a thousand gold ryo was imposed, and a guild of wholesale dealers in cotton had to pay five hundred ryo. There was a house-tax which was assessed by measuring the area of the land on which a building stood, and there was a tax on expert labour such as that of carpenters and matmakers.
Even the sullen old carpenters admitted that they did, but presently things were adjusted and the workmen had departed bearing the offending trelliage with them with absurd little newspaper patterns pinned to the tops. Felicia was flushed and panting from having cut those ridiculous patterns. She waved her shears slowly to and fro, and the Architect shouted with boyish glee.
In all levies, a just preference was given to the climates of the North over those of the South: the race of men born to the exercise of arms was sought for in the country rather than in cities; and it was very reasonably presumed, that the hardy occupations of smiths, carpenters, and huntsmen, would supply more vigor and resolution than the sedentary trades which are employed in the service of luxury.
The curtain rose again, a lantern was lowered from the ceiling, and firemen and stage carpenters departed on their rounds. The fairy scenes of the stage, the rows of fair faces in the boxes, the dazzling lights, the magical illusion of new scenery and costume had all disappeared, and dismal darkness, emptiness, and cold reigned in their stead. It was hideous. Lucien sat on in bewilderment.
The carpenters however continued to work under her bottom in the evening till they were prevented by the tide; the morning tide did not ebb out far enough to permit them to work at all, for we had only one tolerable high and low tide in four-and-twenty hours, as indeed we had experienced when we lay upon the rock.
We secured the prisoners below, and commenced putting the schooner in order. In half an hour, we had completed our knotting and splicing, and having two of the carpenters with us, in an hour we had got up a small jury mast forward, sufficient for the present.
The whole of Lent and the whole of April after it, I shall have to be busy again with carpenters and so on. I am building a school again. A deputation came to me from the peasants begging me for it, and I had not the courage to refuse. The Zemstvo is giving a thousand roubles, the peasants have collected three hundred, and that is all, while the school will not cost less than three thousand.
Then the carpenters landed, who had great axes in their hands, and planes and adzes hung at their sides. They took counsel together, and sought for a good spot to place a castle on.
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