United States or Guatemala ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Five and forty and still robust, his chin and cheeks bristling, and his cassock, overlarge, hanging loosely about his big projecting bones, he suggested a bandit in disguise. Still there was nothing base about him; the expression of his face was proud. And in one hand he carried a small wicker basket carefully covered over with fig-leaves.
And what a mountain of empty wicker bottles had to be cleared away from the little square yard with the solitary lemon-tree at the back of the house!" "Come, Müller no fond memories!" cried a student in a holland blouse. "Get on with the story." "Ay, get on with the story!" echoed several voices. To which Müller, who took advantage of the interruption to finish his grog au vin, deigned no reply.
Almost every darned one of 'em had made it a point to stroll past the Price mansion that afternoon where Wilfred was setting out on the lawn, in a wicker chair with some bottles of beer surveying Nature with a look of lofty approval and chatting with Henrietta about the real things of life.
"I want to see her alone," he muttered. "I will see what I can do," I answered. "Lady Dennisford and I are old friends." We reached the great sweep in front of the house. I pointed to the terrace, on which were several wicker chairs. "The windows from the drawing-room, where I shall probably see Lady Dennisford, open out there," I remarked.
Others looked as though drunken woodsmen with axes from roots to topmost branches had slashed them in crazy fury. Some shells had broken the trunks in half as a hurricane snaps a mast. That no human being could survive such a bombardment were many grewsome proofs. In one place for a mile the road was lined with those wicker baskets in which the Germans carry their ammunition.
The ivy wreathed itself about the little wicker house, as was its wont, but Marie was not there. The cows came as usual to the bars to be milked, but there was a lamenting in their lowing call. They missed the small, soft hand that used to milk them, and never more heard the blithe, glad voice singing from La Claire Fontaine.
"Ho! ho!" laughed Gabriel Grub, as he sat himself down on a flat tombstone which was a favourite resting-place of his, and drew forth his wicker bottle. "A coffin at Christmas! A Christmas box! Ho! ho! ho!" "Ho! ho! ho!" repeated a voice which sounded close behind him. 'Gabriel paused, in some alarm, in the act of raising the wicker bottle to his lips, and looked round.
A green glade that ran up to the foot of the hill, was covered with the preparations for the approaching festivities wood was splitting, fires lighting, fifty or sixty sheep were spitted, pyramids of bread, dishes of all sorts and sizes, and jars of wine in wicker baskets were mingled with throat-cut fowls, lying on the banks of the stream aide by side with pigs at their last squeak.
The poor man's club is a genial place if the poor man has the price; there's a balmy smile on the barkeep's face, and bottles of goods on ice; the poor man's club is a place designed to brighten our darkened lives, and send us home, when we're halfway blind, in humor to beat our wives. So hey for the wicker demi-john and the free-lunch brand of grub!
If there were a real ceremony of an idol or prayer to it, of course it would be comparatively easy to act in the matter; but the ceremony consists in sticking a curious sort of mitre, pointed and worked with hair, on the head of the candidate, and covering his body with a sort of Jack- in-the green wicker work of leaves, &c., and they joke and laugh about it, and attach, apparently, no religious significance to it whatever.
Word Of The Day