United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Nay, he was between whiles like a raven, croaking presages of more ill-luck from the deceit of the minister, the dissimulation of his patron, the folly of the projector, for whom he was bound, the uncertainty of the seas, and the villainy of those with whom he had entrusted his cash, for Crabtree saw and considered everything through a perspective of spleen, that always reflected the worst side of human nature.
I crept forward, saying "Good dog!" very softly; but he suddenly withdrew his head and disappeared. I listened I was not deaf but certainly the pit was still. I heard a sound like the flutter of a bird's wings, and a hoarse croaking, but that was all. For a long while I lay close to the peephole, but not daring to move aside the red plants that obscured it.
The grim, silent man beside him lifted something on to his knees, and there was a faint click like the safety-catch of a gun being released. A frog in the ditch near by set up a low, meditative croaking. Uncle Bill raised his head abruptly. Their straining ears caught the sound of someone running, stumbling along the uneven track that wound in from the shore.
The settlement, composed of mean hovels, with a few large structures of mud, or plastered wattle, thatched with palm leaves, was surrounded by water, marsh, and forest, the breeding-place of myriads of croaking frogs and of clouds of mosquitoes; even to one in perfect health existence in such a place would have been a burden.
I was busying myself setting up the mast, when the governor passes the remark: "'I think he wants to say something. "I had heard a sort of croaking going on for some time, only I wouldn't take any notice; but then I got out of the boat and went up to him, with some water. His eyes were red red and black and half out of his head.
"A miss, or a hit too weak to bring him down, Nat," said my uncle smiling. "Better luck next time. Load again, my boy." I hastily reloaded, and we went on again, rising higher and higher over very difficult ground; and then we entered another grove of high trees and heard the same soft croaking noise as before. "Pigeons, Nat, without doubt," said my uncle.
But here the very gleams of sunshine seemed melancholy, for the autumnal leaves and grass were shivering, and the wind was turning up the feathers of a cock and two croaking hens which had doubtless parted with their grown-up offspring and did not know what to do with themselves.
But while I'm no such wonder myself I can hear those bullfrogs croaking down there at the edge of the water. Think of their cheek, calmly singing their night songs between two armies of twenty or thirty thousand men each, who are going to fight tomorrow." "But it's not their fight," said St. Clair, "and maybe they are croaking for a lot of us."
"You see!" exclaimed the disguised boy. "Who could recognize me. You even have failed to recognize me!" Then Macko looked at the lovely figure carefully and exclaimed: "In the name of the Father and Son! It is a true carnival! You also here, croaking thing. Why?" "Yes! Why? Those who are on the road have no time to lose." "Is it not to-morrow at dawn, that you were to leave?"
"A 'dead muzzler'! She'll not put t' sea tonight, even if she has all her 'crowd' aboard." "No, worse luck! mebbe she'll lie over till Saturday after all. They say Bully's dead set on getting th' Cup. He might hang back. . . . Some excuse short-handed or something!" Gregson was the one for "croaking." "No hands?" said Fatty. "Huh!
Word Of The Day