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Being among them at shore, the 4th of July, one of them, making a long oration, began to kindle a fire, in this manner: he took a piece of a board, wherein was a hole half through; unto that hole he puts the end of a round stick, like unto a bed staff, wetting the end thereof in train, and in fashion of a turner, with a piece of leather, by his violent motion doth very speedily produce fire; which done, with turfs he made a fire, into which, with many words and strange gestures, he put divers things which we suppose to be a sacrifice.
Enterprising settlers had perched themselves upon the naked shoulders of the hills, or were more snugly ensconced below by the side of the brawling stream, which was crossed here and there by primitive bridges, consisting of a log or two thrown from one heap of stones to another, with a few turfs laid upon them.
By the side of each of these batteries other workmen were strengthening gabions filled with earth, the lining of another battery. The latter had embrasures, and the overseer of the works called successively men who, with cords, tied the saucissons and cut the lozenges and right angles of turfs destined to retain the matting of the embrasures.
She had sat down in the big rush chair, by the still burning turfs, and she was looking round her with the critical eye of a person who is calculating the capabilities of a place. Maggie left her sitting there, and began to tidy up the house. In half an hour Janet re-appeared, and went to her kist a great wooden box painted light blue and began to undo its many cords and lock.
It had been the same on the other side of the pile, but the peat was cold and dead, not having burned so long. Then we moved the wagon from the after end of the penthouse, and cleared that. Here again was peat, and more of it, and it had been lighted, and had only been out for a short time. Some of the turfs may still have had fire within them, but we did not wait to see.
So he arose from the stone and did off his war-gear, casting Throng-plough down into the grass beside him, for he had been minded to bathe him, but the slumber was still on him, and he stood musing while the stream grew stronger and pushed off first one of his turfs and then another, and rolled two or three of the stones over, and then softly thrust all away and ran with a gush down the dale, filling all the little bights by the way for a minute or two; he laughed softly thereat, and stayed the undoing of his kirtle, and so laid himself down on the grass beside the stone looking down the dale, and fell at once into a dreamless sleep.
"Nature!" he cried, catching up the word; "talk to me of Nature! Talk of her, the wondrous blissful mother! Mother I may well call her. I am her spoiled child, her darling! But oh, to die, ever to die, ever to lose sight of Nature! to rot senseless, whether under these turfs or within those dead walls " I could not resist the answer, "Like yon murdered man! murdered, and by whom?" "By whom?
Where is the Caroline I loved? YOU are my Lady Montfort! Look round. On these turfs, you, then a child, played beside my children. They are dead, but less dead to me than you. Never dreamed I then that a creature so fair would be other than a child to my grave and matured existence. Then, if I glanced towards your future, I felt no pang to picture you grown to womanhood another's bride.
The moucher searches for small shell snails, of which quantities are sold as food for cage birds, and cuts small 'turfs' a few inches square from the green by the roadside. These are in great request for larks, especially at this time of the year, when they begin to sing with all their might.
From long experience experience older than his own, and traditional amongst his people he knew the soil of the fields and its variations almost foot by foot; he understood the springs and streams; hedgerow and ditch explained themselves to him; the coppices and woods, the water-meadows and the windy heaths, the local chalk and clay and stone, all had a place in his regard reminded him of the crafts of his people, spoke to him of the economies of his own cottage life; so that the turfs or the faggots or the timber he handled when at home called his fancy, while he was handling them, to the landscape they came from.
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