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There was no time to throw up earthworks, but a rough cairn of stone which stood in the middle of the hollow gave at least a central rallying-ground. Then they waited, watching the fleecy night vapours blow across the peaks and straining their ears for the first sound of men. George grew impatient. "It can't be more than five miles to the pass. Shouldn't some of us try to get there?

It was very pretty to behold him plunge into the fleecy bosom of a bright cloud, and be lost in it, for a moment or two, and then break forth from the other side. Or, in a sullen rain storm, when there was a gray pavement of clouds over the whole sky, it would sometimes happen that the winged horse descended right through it, and the glad light of the upper region would gleam after him.

The wadding, picked up bit by bit from the ground, is teazled by the bird's claws and inserted, all fleecy, into the meshes of the canvas. The beak pushes it, the breast presses it, both inside and out. The result is a soft felt a couple of inches thick. Near the top of the pouch, on one side, is contrived a narrow orifice, tapering into a short neck. This is the kitchen-door.

When our fellows came along they tore open the bales and used the cotton to sleep on, and when we arrived at the place the fleecy stuff was scattered over the ground, in some places half-knee deep, all over that portion of the river bottom. It looked like a big snowfall. Cotton, at that very time, was worth one dollar a pound in the New York market, and scarce at that.

There was a movement among the sheep; the fleecy mass buckled and surged as those on the outer edge turned and sought safety by plowing toward the close-packed center. The three men stationed themselves in a triangle three hundred yards apart, hoping to steady the sheep and hold them.

After the weather had cleared, the decks dried, and the sun-beams, warming, without scorching, glanced through fleecy clouds, the greater number of the passengers remained in the cabin below, whence, the windows being small and high, there was literally nothing to be seen.

At the very last, when they have laid him upon the rude bier they have constructed for him in a hurry, she still hesitates, and regards with anguish the hard spot where she must lay her burden down. She gazes distressfully around her, and then plucks with a little mournful, helpless fashion at a dainty, fleecy thing that lies close to her throat, and is her only covering from the angry blast.

And here and there a fountain of white bloom showed itself amid the sombreness of the fields, a pear or cherry tree decked from head to foot in bridal white, like a bit of fleecy cloud dropped from the floating masses above to the discouraged earth; along the wayside the white stars of the anemone, the wasteful profusion of the eyebright, and the sweet blue of the violet; and in solemn little clusters, the curled up fronds of the ferns, uttering a protest against longer imprisonment let wind and sun look out! they would uncurl to-morrow!

Not the least beauty of the scene consists in the wondrous clearness of an atmosphere so transparent that the most distant outlines are scarcely dimmed, while the details of the nearer ground stand out in sharp, bold relief, now lit by the rays of a vertical sun, now darkened under the flying shadows thrown by the fleecy clouds which sail across the sky.

The lights of the little village, far down, dwarfed by distance, showed like bleary, winking eyes through the mists. The jagged recesses of the Mona valley were dark with shadow. The Nares Sea lay like some black monster asleep, and slowly, heavily panting. Moonlight was over me, with stars and fleecy white clouds. Calm, placid, atmospheric night was up here.