United States or Pitcairn Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At last, maddened by the biting rays, I collected half a dozen copra bags, splintered a piece of kauri pine, and after rigging up one bag as an awning, I spread the others on the planks and fell asleep. But another disturbing element awakened me from a short slumber.
Another cart would appear with boards, then a third with a beam, a fourth . . . and the space before our house was gradually crowded up with horses, beams, and planks. Men and women, with their heads muffled and their skirts tucked up, would stare angrily at our windows, make an uproar, and clamour for the mistress to come out to them; coarse oaths were audible.
And there, on the other side of the heather ridge, had been their sæter, where they had driven their animals many times during the summer. And there on the hill Jacob had had his sawmill, that Lisbeth was never to touch; and farther down she had had her dairy, where he came and bought cheese in exchange for planks made out of carrots that he had sliced in his sawmill.
After a thousand feet of this I came to the top of the Grimsel, but not before I had passed a place where an avalanche had destroyed the road and where planks were laid. Also before one got to the very summit, no short cuts or climbing were possible. The road ran deep in a cutting like a Devonshire lane. Only here the high banks were solid snow.
The effort to escape which Donadieu had made had strained the boat terribly, and the water was pouring in by a number of leaks between the planks; they had to begin again bailing out with their hats, and went on at it for ten hours. Then for the second time Donadieu heard the consoling cry, "A sail! a sail!"
"As the years passed more repairs were made first a new set of oars, then some more planks, still newer oars, still more planks. Eventually Achilles, an unthinking man of action who still tried to be aware of what happened to the instruments of action he needed most, realized that not one splinter of the original ship remained. Was this, then, a new ship? At first he was inclined to say yes.
Winslow's instructions to his gunners were to fire slowly and to make every shot tell, and they did so. The men on the Alabama stripped to their shirts and drawers and fired rapidly, as if the only thing to do was to work the guns without taking pause to aim. Crashing planks and timber and exploding shells seemed to be all about them.
Again the long-eared animals stretched their muscles at his hoarse command. He paid no more attention to the woman, who, seated on a pile of planks, was eying the square end of the boat. She drew a plaid shawl close up under the baby's chin and threaded her listless fingers through his dark curls.
Planks were now cut off the chestnut trees of about an inch thick. These were dressed with the axe, but clumsily, for an axe is ill adapted for such work.
There being no wharf or dock the ship was hauled as close to the shore as her draft allowed, and a gangway of long planks on trestles set up. Nearly every passenger walked over it to say they had set foot on Canada. A number of the men went into the town to see it. In two hours one of them was brought back drunk and without a copper in his pockets.
Word Of The Day