United States or Hungary ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Popples had in the meantime, by great exertions, managed to get the master on board; and his next attempt was to save Captain Cranley. He, however, was much further out, hanging on to one of the topmasts. None of the ropes near him which we could reach would come home. There appeared to be no means of saving him. Two other men were, however, got in.
It had shut her in with a wall of green, and hurry in whatever direction she would, Barbara was always inclosed in apparently the same little cell of leaves. Frightened, but with determination, she commenced to walk rapidly in the direction she believed would lead her out. The bushes now caught at her unheeded. She tore through briers, popples, moose-maples alike.
Looking forward, I saw another head rising from the fore-hatchway; it was that of old Popples, the boatswain. "What! are they all gone?" he shouted; "then I'm captain. Lend a hand, Mr D'Arcy, and we'll try and get the ship before the wind." "Captain of a sinking ship you may be, Mr Popples," I answered, amused, even in that moment of horror, at the old man's extraordinary ambition.
Far below, at their feet, they saw that vast assemblage of birches and "popples," yellow as gold in the brooding noonday, and slender spires rising out of the glowing mass. Without another word, Phelps sat a long time in silent content: it was to him, as Bunyan says, "a place desirous to be in." Is this philosopher contented with what life has brought him?
Then down came the wave; and as the ship was hurried on before it, its broken waters tore away his already failing grasp, and in a moment he was buried from our sight. We had no time to mourn for him then. Mr Pullen instantly took command, and Popples was fain to act as his first-lieutenant; while Sharpe and I did our utmost to make ourselves useful.
People are apt to have a foreboding of evil; but on the present occasion there were ample reasons for dreading mischief. "To my mind, if we were to furl every stitch of canvas, and send down our topmasts, we should be acting like seamen," said old Popples, as I was forward, attending to some duty. "Why do you say that?" I asked.
This, Dick informed me, marked the limits of the "farm." We burst through the screen of popples definitely into the clear. A two-storied house of squared logs crested a knoll in the middle distance. Ten acres of grass marsh, perhaps twenty of ploughed land, and then the ash-white-green of popples. We dodged the grass marsh and gained the house. Dick was at once among friends.
Word Of The Day