United States or Colombia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


We conversed freely about whatever chanced to enter our minds of things past, present, and to come. We spoke of God the Saviour, of redemption and of sin. Then, with that discursive tendency to which most minds are prone, we diverged to home and civilised lands, contrasting these with life in the wild-woods of the Great Nor'-west.

'Gold-mane, she said, 'thou art not slain, so little story need be made of that: for the rest, belike he knew thee not at that moment. So it falls with us, that we look to see foes rather than friends in the wild-woods. Many uncouth things are therein.

The muddle o' the Grampians iss but a wildish place, an' it wass there my father had his sheep-farm an' that I first made the acquaintance o' the muir-cock an' the grouse. O man! but there's no place like the Heeland hills after a', though the wild-woods here iss not that bad. Tonal', man, catch hold o' that bush an' draw close in to the bank. There's a flock comin', an' they're fleein' low."

Henri Coppet and his men swung their great axes, and trees began to fall around, and to take unwonted shapes. The ring of Marcelle Dumont's anvil was heard from morn till eve, echoing through the wild-woods; and powerful bands, and nuts, and screws, of varied size and form, were evolved from our bundle of iron bars.

Ten days they abode in the house of Littledale in all good cheer, and Joanna led Goldilind here and there about the woods, and made much of her, so that the heart within her was full of joy, for the freedom of the wild-woods and all the life thereof was well-nigh new to her; whereas on the day of her flight from Greenharbour, and on two other such times, deadly fear, as is aforesaid, was mingled with her joyance, and would have drowned it utterly, but for the wilfulness which hardened her heart against the punishment to come.

"In New Brunswick, doing the wild-woods and shooting bears. Poor wretch! With all his eight thousand a year, and that paradise in Scotland, Glen Keith, I don't envy him. I never saw anyone so hopelessly hard hit as he." "You're a fortunate fellow, Stanford; but I doubt if you know it. Sir Ronald would be a far happier man in your place." The face of the young Englishman darkened suddenly.

Or, what if it had been abandoned? Barney shook himself free from these thoughts, and seizing his mandolin, went to join Bruce and Timmie on saxophone and rudely-devised Indian kettledrums in a wild-woods symphony, while the children danced wild steps the boys had never seen. "Well, we're off!" Barney said this, as he buckled on his harness and touched the starting lever.

The howling of the wolves in the surrounding wild-woods, the screaming of the catamounts in the near-by tree-tops, the sterile dog-star drying up the crops, the marching of my father to fight in the threatened Aroostook war, all conspired for months before this fateful night to awaken a restlessness, discontent, and gloomy forebodings in the lonely mother's heart which prenatal influences impressed upon the mind of the baby yet unborn.

It was the face and figure of a man tall, gaunt and worn. I give you the key to the supposed miracle now in hand, by asking you to accompany me deep into the wild-woods, and backward in time to about an hour before noon of the day preceding Christmas.

True it is also that now dark night was coming on, and the land was unknown to the Romans, who moreover trusted not wholly to the dastards of the Goths who were their guides and scouts: furthermore the wood was at hand, and they knew not what it held; and with all this and above it all, it is to be said that over them also had fallen a dread of some doom anear; for those habitations amidst of the wild-woods were terrible to them as they were dear to the Goths; and the Gods of their foemen seemed to be lying in wait to fall upon them, even if they should slay every man of the kindreds.