United States or United Kingdom ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As for the Thrums Auld Lichts, only heavy wobs prevented their walking erect like men who had done their duty. If no prayer was volunteered for Pitlums before his burial, there was a great deal of psalm-singing after it. By early morn on their fast-day the Tilliedrummers were straggling into Thrums, and the weavers, already at their looms, read the clattering of feet and carts aright.
It's not decent.... But, O Lord! I'm bound to confess how pretty, how devilish, how seductive you are! And I hate it." "Jim, I hate it, too. But we must stand it. Try not to shame me any more.... And now good-by. Keep watch for me as I will for you all the time." Joan broke from him and glided out of the grove, away under the straggling pines, along the slope.
By dint of struggling the ponies covered the short remaining distance and, a little later, the party found itself on the summit. They were among a lot of stunted trees and straggling bushes, on top of the flat expanse that stood so high above the surrounding country. "Oh, what a view!" cried Alice, as she looked off to the west, toward the foothills and mountains. "Isn't it?" agreed Ruth.
It was as if all had orders to move to the same point. The pigeons came only when there was beech-mast in the woods. How did they know we had had a beech-nut year? It is true that a few straggling bands were usually seen some days in advance of the blue myriads: were these the scouts, and did they return with the news of the beech-nuts?
Through muddy roads and lanes, over fields, slushy and sodden, up hill and down dale, they plodded steadily along. At the rear of the column marched Barry with the M. O. Long before they reached their destination, their conversation had given out, the M. O. sucking sullenly at his pipe, the bowl upside down. The rear end of the column was very frayed and straggling.
It was about the dullest dreariest little town to which his destiny had ever brought Gilbert Fenton, consisting of a melancholy high-street, with a blank market-place, and a town hall that looked as if it had not been opened within the memory of man; a grand old gothic church, much too large for the requirements of the place; a grim square brick box inscribed "Ebenezer;" and a few prim villas straggling off into the country.
The village that I see a mile away, on a further promontory of the old Isle, has the look of a straggling seaport town, dipping down to wharves and quays; and the eye almost expects a fringe of masts and shipping at the base of the steep streets. Then, too, the encircling plain is like water in its tracklessness. There are no short cuts nor footpaths in the fen.
There were cavalcades of red hussars, cavalcades of blue hussars, cavalcades of Uhlans, with glittering lances and pennons with or without a band formally parading; there were straggling "fatigues" or "details" coming round the corners; there were dusty, businesslike columns of infantry, going nowhere and to no purpose.
Particularly if your stitches would always look crooked and straggling, and when the thimble hurt your finger, and the needle got sticky, and the thread broke when you least expected it. It was quite as bad as music in its way. Penelope would sigh wearily over her task, and envy the people in the Waverley novels, who, she felt sure, never sewed seams or had music lessons.
The long figure dropped into a chair and doubled with laughter. He rose and walked to his window, looking out on the trees swaying beneath the storm, still laughing. "They say that every cloud has its silver lining!" he laughed again. "I'll remember that fellow Sherman." Late in the day a report reached him of a beautiful young woman serving refreshments without pay to the straggling, broken men.
Word Of The Day