United States or Finland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"You had better run downstairs first and light a couple of candles at the kitchen fire: you will find a pair standing on the parlor table. Don't be long about it; the first fellow I hit was stunned, and he may come round any moment." "I will make sure of him before I go, Squire. I have got another pair of darbys in my pocket."
The iron manufacture, for want of the art of smelting by coal, and of a supply of wood, which the march of agriculture daily diminished, dwindled away, until, in the middle of the eighteenth century, it was revived at Colebrook Dale by the Darbys. In the intermediate period, we were dependent on Russia, Spain, and Sweden for the chief part of the iron used in manufactures.
His parents, like the Darbys, belonged to the Society of Friends, and he was educated in that persuasion.
I discussed the subject once with an old French lady. The English reader forms his idea of French life from the French novel; it leads to mistaken notions. There are French Darbys, French Joans, many thousands of them. "Believe me," said my old French friend, "your English way is wrong; our way is not perfect, but it is the better, I am sure. You leave it entirely to the young people.
He then entered upon the conduct of the iron and coal works at Ketley and Horsehay, where he resided for six years, removing to Coalbrookdale in 1763, to take charge of the works there, on the death of his father-in-law. By the exertions and enterprise of the Darbys, the Coalbrookdale Works had become greatly enlarged, giving remunerative employment to a large and increasing population.
There he continued to flourish for six years more, making steel and practising benevolence; for, like the Darbys and Reynoldses of Coalbrookdale, he was a worthy and highly respected member of the Society of Friends. He was well versed in the science of his day, and skilled in chemistry, which doubtless proved of great advantage to him in pursuing his experiments in metallurgy.
But there are Darbys and Joans of real flesh and blood to be met with God bless them, and send more for our example wholesome living men and women, brave, struggling, souls with common-sense. Ah, yes! they have quarrelled; had their dark house of bitterness, of hate, when he wished to heaven he had never met her, and told her so.
Angy protested. "It looks as ef it come out o'the Ark!" "Last Sunday yew said it looked splendid"; his tone was absent-minded again. He seemed almost to ramble in his speech. "We must see that Ishmael gits fixed up comfortable in the Old Men's Home; yew remember haow he offered us all his pennies that day we broke up housekeepin'. An' we must do somethin' handsome fer the Darbys, tew.
The Darbys in particular called me that, and you're a Darby. "I'll say in the beginning I can't do for you all I'd like to do, simply because I haven't the means. The first time you saw me I was walkin' ties, and you'll see me walkin' some more of 'em before you're done.
"I took good care of that, Squire; you see I put one of his arms round the bedpost before I slipped the darbys on, and he cannot get away unless he takes the whole bed with him; and as I don't think he would get it out either by the window or the door, he is as safe here as he would be in Newgate. What is the next thing to do, Squire?" "You had better tie this fellow's legs.
Word Of The Day