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But the moment Clare saw how the bull's horns were mixed up with the spokes and fellies of the wheel, a glad suspicion flashed across him: that was old Nimrod's way! could it be Nimrod himself? If it were, the trouble was as good as over! The suspicion became a certainty the instant it woke. But never could Clare altogether forgive himself for not at first sight recognizing his old friend.
It seemed like the gun-carriage of an enormous cannon. The ruts of the road had bestowed on the wheels, the fellies, the hub, the axle, and the shaft, a layer of mud, a hideous yellowish daubing hue, tolerably like that with which people are fond of ornamenting cathedrals. The wood was disappearing under mud, and the iron beneath rust.
Meanwhile the miller had already stopped the mill, item, turned off the water, and some four or five fellows had gone with the constable down to the great water-wheel to take the Sheriff out of the fellies, wherein he had till datum still been carried round and round.
Thim's the times ye'll find out what masons arre made av, me b'y." I confess this probability did not seem as brilliant to me as it did to him, but it had its humor. I expressed wonder that he would hire them if they were such a bad lot. "Where else will ye get min?" he demanded to know. "The unions have the best, an' the most av thim. Thim outside fellies don't amount to much.
A half-mile further, midway of a flat stretch of road, on one side of which was an expanse of swampy ground, varied with pools bordered by sedge, reeds and bushes, with areas of tussocks and with clumps of willows and alders, we came on Bambilio's and Vedia's carriages, their gilded decorative carvings, coral-red panel-bars, pearl-shell panel-panes, gilded rosette-bosses, silver-plated hubs and gilded spokes and fellies glittering in the late sunshine.
Stout bands of burnished bronze reinforced the hubs, otherwise very light; the spokes were sections of ivory tusks, set in with the natural curve outward to perfect the dishing, considered important then as now; bronze tires held the fellies, which were of shining ebony.
The Barbarians found it impossible to resist; the Greek foot-soldiers alone had brazen armour, all the rest had cutlasses on the end of poles, scythes taken from the farms, or swords manufactured out of the fellies of wheels; the soft blades were twisted by a blow, and while they were engaged in straightening them under their heels, the Carthaginians massacred them right and left at their ease.
This they could not do until they had first sawn out one of the fellies; and when at last they brought him to the bank, his neck was found to be broken, and he was as blue as a corn-flower. Moreover, his throat was frightfully torn, and the blood ran out of his nose and mouth.
"What's the matter?" said Sim Gage. "Lemme up. I fell down Who hit me?" He felt something at his chest, raised a hand, and in turn passed it before his face in wonderment. "Well, look at that!" said he. "Did that feller shoot me? Say, did I get him?" "Sure, boy!" said Flaherty. "You got him. And so did a dozen more of the fellies. He's deader'n hell this minute, so don't you worry none over that.
For a while nought could be seen for the white foam, until the Sheriff his legs and body were borne up into the air by the wheel, his head being stuck fast between the fellies; and thus, fearful to behold, he went round and round upon the wheel. Naught ailed the grey charger, which swam about in the mill-pond below.
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