United States or Gibraltar ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When the lopper had laid it bare and the woodcutters had sapped its base, five men commenced hauling at the rope attached to the top. The tree resisted; its powerful trunk, although notched to the centre, was as rigid as iron. The workmen, all together, with a sort of simultaneous motion, strained at the rope, bending backward and uttering a cry which timed and regulated their efforts.
Two woodcutters standing close to the giant remained with axes in their grip, like two executioners ready to strike once more, and Renardet, motionless, with his hand on the trunk, awaited the fall with an uneasy, nervous feeling. One of the men said to him: "You are too near, Monsieur le Maire. When it falls it may hurt you." He did not reply and did not move away.
For how is the man to live, to obtain his food, without attracting attention? He will have found a job." "We can't make sure of that." "We might, by questioning the woodcutters whom we can hear." The car took them by a forest-road to another cross-roads where they entered on foot a track which was deeply rutted by waggon-wheels. The sound of axes ceased.
Smith knew that in this world, new or old, men get what they work for, and in the long run no more than that; and he made his gentlemen colonists take off their coats and blister their gentlemanly hands with the use of the spade and the ax. It is said that they excelled as woodcutters, after due instruction; and they were undoubtedly in all respects improved by this first lesson in Americanism.
Presently he broke from his reflections. "'About the time you mention, he began, 'just before the first rains, a stranger was brought into this town by some woodcutters. Their story was that the wounded man had been attacked by his servant when travelling, and left for dead in the jungle. "I started, and leaned toward him eagerly. "'A clue! I cried. 'A clue! Where is he now?
These native mountaineers are rough and uneducated savages, but they are honest and healthy. We feel on easy terms with them, as we do with our own peasantry. In the village street of Chuzenji I have seen a young English officer instructing the sons of boatmen and woodcutters in the mysteries of cricket."
Alcasto went; and he went farther than the rest, and the trembling woodcutters once more prepared their axes; but, on a sudden, there sprang up between them and the trees a wall of fire which girded the whole forest. It had glowing battlements and towers; and on these there appeared armed spirits, with the strangest and most bewildering aspects.
Now the remarkable thing about this child was his great strength, and as he grew older he grew stronger and stronger, so that by the time he was eight years of age he was able to cut down trees as quickly as the woodcutters.
As the woodcutters, slightly stupefied by this unexpected attack, submitted with tolerable grace, and said nothing in reply, the izzard-hunter at length cooled down, and the party proceeded on their way; Pouchskin, as he rode off, shaking his clenched fist at the staring log-choppers, and hissing out in angry aspirate another Russian shibboleth, which neither could nor should be translated.
19th April, 1866. The people, especially the women, are very rude, and the men very eager to be employed as woodcutters. Very merry they are at it, and every now and then one raises a cheerful shout, in which all join. I suppose they are urged on by a desire to please their wives with a little clothing.
Word Of The Day