United States or France ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As I went up again through the village a great sale of old clothing was going on from booths at each side of the road, and further on boots were set out for sale on boards laid across the tops of barrels, a very usual counter. In another place old women were selling quantities of damaged fruit, kippered herrings, and an extraordinary collection of old ropes and iron.
The States, on the contrary, were determined to screw these garrisons out of her grip, as an additional subsidy. Each party complained with reason of the other's closeness. No doubt the states were shrewd bargainers, but it would have been difficult for the sharpest Hollander that ever sent a cargo of herrings to Cadiz, to force open Elizabeth's beautiful hand when she chose to shut it close.
Their lives were so irregular, and their means of living so precarious, that they were alternately rioting in debauchery, or encountering and struggling with the meanest necessities. Two or three lost their lives by a surfeit brought on by that fatal banquet of Rhenish wine and pickled herrings, which is familiar to those who study the lighter literature of that age.
Despite their protests they were packed like herrings in a barrel had hardly enough room to use their hands. Altogether it was a trying journey. Jinny, worked on by excitement and fatigue, took a fit of hysterics; Trotty, frightened by the many rough strangers, cried and had to be nursed; and the whole burden of the undertaking lay on Polly's shoulders.
Rolf had continued his kind offices to the old couple with the utmost respect and propriety, to the end refusing to go out of call during the last few days of Ulla's decline: but he had observed, with some anxiety, that there was certainly a shoal of herrings in the fiord, and that it was high time he was making use of the sunny days for his fishing.
Indeed, there was a sound of veiled intimidation in his voice as he said: "You leave your mother to see to the herrings, young 'un, and just you listen to me. You be done with your kidding and listen to me. You can tell me as much as I want to know. Sharp young beggar! you know what's good for you." An intimidation of a possible douceur perhaps?
"Run ahead. Turn the corner and run like a lamp-lighter, and let mama know what is toward. Hide the herrings. Bundle the children to bed. Fling mama's Irish lace over her head. I can hold him fifteen minutes. Speed!" 'Tis much to be said in one kick, and it takes a woman to say and a woman to hear; but Miss Maria was a woman, though but eighteen. She smiled like Truth's self.
* Scaddhan, a herring, a humorous nickname bestowed upon him, because he made the foundation of his fortune by selling herrings. "An' if Barney Scaddhan keeps good whiskey, is that any rason why I should break my word, or would you have me get dhrunk because his liquor's betther than another man's?"
Erik had children all over the place! Erik could put his finger into the barrel of a gun, and hold the gun straight out at arm's length! Erik could drink as much as three others! And now Erik was sitting and eating twenty salt herrings after his hunger was satisfied.
While between Cape Verd and Bonavista on the 26th, we saw many flying fishes of the size of herrings, two of which fell into the boat which we towed at our stern. The 28th we fell in with Bonavista, one of the Cape de Verd islands, which is 86 leagues from that cape. The north side of that island is full of white sandy hills and dales, being somewhat high land.
Word Of The Day