United States or Israel ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Below them from the Gull-rock rose a thousand birds, and filled the air with sound; the choughs cackled, the hacklets wailed, the great blackbacks laughed querulous defiance at the intruders, and a single falcon, with an angry bark, dashed out from beneath their feet, and hung poised high aloft, watching the sea-fowl which swung slowly round and round below.
When they saw the white intruders gathering members of the weakest tribes into villages of English type, and teaching them strange gods while clothing them in strange garments, they probably supposed that the pale-faces were simply adopting these Indians into their white tribe as a means of increasing their military strength.
In addition to these occasional intruders, there was another person, an Authority, but the most wonderful Authority of all, who came into their lives a little later with a gradual and overwhelming effect, but who cannot be mentioned more definitely just now because he has not yet arrived.
Were the comrades of Murat and Bernadotte to sit down in contentment as peers of France, among the Montmorencies and the Rohans, who considered them at the best as low-born intruders, and scorned, in private society, to acknowledge them as members of their order?
I therefore burst, though awkwardly enough, into a laugh, and, affecting to treat the affair as a friendly trial of skill between the Abbe and myself, resheathed my sword and dismissed the intruders, who, evidently disbelieving my version of the story, retreated slowly, and exchanging looks. Montreuil, who had scarcely seconded my attempt to gloss over our /rencontre/, now approached me.
The fretted sunlight made shifting figures of brightness on the ground; above the innumerable leaves rustled and whispered; a squirrel darted along a branch and watched the intruders with bright, curious eyes; the rooks cawed from the distance; the pigeons cooed in sweet, sad cadence close at hand.
On looking down to see who were these new intruders, they were able to see not many yards below them a couple of other bears that, in their prowling around and looking for their supper, had found their way to this capital supply of fish. As the watchers peered down at them it was evident by the greedy way in which they attacked the fish that they were so hungry as not to be at all particular.
Then came the French as conquerors, who expelled the lawless intruders, themselves, perhaps, quite as deserving of the title; but they did good work in clearing what had become an Augean stable of its worst filth and partially restoring the choicest work of the Moorish builders. To-day the Spanish government guards with jealous care a monumental treasure which cannot be equalled in the kingdom.
Out like magic came the jackdaws from hole and corner snapping, snarling, and barking birdily to join in a hue and cry as they formed a pack to drive away the bucolic intruders who dared to invade the precincts sacred to daws from the beginning of architectural time; and this task over, they returned to sit on corbel, leaden spout, crevice, and ledge, to erect the feathers of their powdered heads and make remarks to one another, till the chimes rang out and the big bell boomed the hour.
When anything or anybody came to prospect for house lots, or edible victims, during the still, silent, silver night, she hummed very severely, like an electric fan, to let the intruders know who she was, and they mostly backed out again in a hurry. If they took a step nearer the hum rose an octave, and became very wicked, and that, so far as most of them were concerned, finished it.
Word Of The Day