United States or Belarus ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Is it any o' this lot?" he inquired, dropping a small haycock of flowers at her feet. "Don't ye know one from t'other?" asked Phoebe, with round eyes of reproach.
"Your dahlias must have suffered dreadfully from these early frosts," said Cousin Amelia, shaking her ringlets at the poor man in what she fancies her most bewitching style. "Beautifully," was the bewildered reply, "particularly the shorthorns." "You never sent us over the Alderney calf you promised, Mr. Haycock," pursued the lady, now adroitly changing her ground.
"That indeed you cannot," answered the other; "we have hardly room to turn round as it is, with all Amelia's dirty frocks." "Ah, bah!" said the dwarf; and he walked on to the next haycock, Amelia cautiously following. Here he blew again, and a head was put out as before; on which he said, "Can we hold revel here to-night?"
Although I was on the sick list at the time I could not resist the chance to secure a glimpse of new surroundings and a few strange faces. It was on this occasion that I made my first, but abortive, attempt to escape. The sentry was dozing in the hot afternoon sun, having found a soft couch on a haycock. I slunk off towards the trees which surround the camp. Presently I spotted a sentry.
In the foreground was a haycock, where the grave grass had been mown. I do not know how the artist, whose resources were of the slenderest, contrived to get his overwhelming but fascinating effect of moorland solitude, of black-grey nakedness and abiding gloom. But he certainly got it and gave it. There was one other picture, representing a memorial tablet.
She had no time to feel disappointed, for the haycock began to stir, and, looking nearer, she beheld two silvery gray mites, who wagged wee tails, and stretched themselves as if they had just waked up. Nelly knew that they were young field-mice, and rejoiced over them, feeling rather relieved that no fairy had appeared, though she still believed them to have had a hand in the matter.
"Amelia's broken gimcracks are everywhere." "Pshaw!" snorted the dwarf, frowning terribly; and when he came to the fourth haycock he blew such an angry blast that the grass stalk split into seven pieces. But he met with no better success than before. Only the point of a hat came through the hay, and a feeble voice piped in tones of depression "The broken threads would entangle our feet.
"Shall we kick it into the house?" asked the goblins. "No," said the dwarf; "lay it down by the haycock. The father and mother are coming to seek her now." When Amelia heard this she began to shriek for help; but she was pushed into the haycock, where her loudest cries sounded like the chirruping of a grasshopper. It was really a fine sight to see the inside of the cock.
Well, first she made Sir Hercules throw over her his two boat cloaks, but that wouldn't do; so he threw the green cloth from off the table, but that warn't enough for her delicate sensibility, and she hollered from under the clothes for more kivering; so Sir Hercules sent for two of the ship's ensigns, and coiled away the bunting on her till it was as high as a haycock, and then we were permitted to come in and hoist her ladyship up again to the battens.
The curly heads of children project from each haycock; crested hens are searching in the hay for gnats and small beetles; a white-toothed puppy is sprawling among the tangled blades of grass. Ruddy-curled youths in clean, low-girt shirts, and heavy boots with borders, are bandying lively remarks as they stand with their breasts resting on the unhitched carts, and display their teeth in a grin.
Word Of The Day