Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 18, 2025
And two big, big arms came downwards and caught little Kirl and Liesl up together into oh, such blissful safety! And little Kirl stood clinging to somebody; and what happened next he did not know. Careless, ungrateful Liesl only shook herself and frisked off, with a little squeal of relief, to join the older and wiser goats.
For it was at this place one hot day in July, when little Kirl sat clasping his knees and looking up at the mountain-tops, that he was suddenly wakened from his dream by seeing Liesl perched on the extreme edge of the precipice. It was a spot to which the goats were not allowed to go, for, sure-footed though they were, it was crumbling and unsafe.
How little Kirl loved her! He called her Liesl, as if she had been his sister. The path led upwards first through the pine-woods, with moss a foot deep on either side, where the wood was damp with the dividing arms of the stream, and the moss on the trees hung in solemn grey clusters, like banners swinging from the branches.
And there stood Liesl, the flower of the flock, her pretty snowy figure against the dark-blue sky. Even as little Kirl leaped up and called her, she threw up her graceful head as if in pride. And then there came the most dreadful thing that had ever happened in little Kirl's life.
But little Kirl had got her. It was not for nothing that little Kirl's eyes were so steady when they looked in your face and his face was so square about the chin, however much he smiled. Those stout little arms were clinging to neck and leg as if the owner of them would be dragged over the ledge himself before he would leave poor Liesl to her fate. Let her go? No!
Down there she had got her fore-foot on a ledge below the brink, and was fighting and scrambling to regain her foothold. The loose stones were slipping away under the pretty tufts of "student roses" that grew amongst the shale, and poor Liesl was slipping away too, down and down. She was staring up at him with imploring eyes, with a look that seemed to call aloud for help.
Exactly how it was he could not afterwards remember, but all in a moment Liesl, who could perch herself, as it seemed, on nothing at all, pretty, sure-footed Liesl was over the edge! Little Kirl threw himself down on his face in an agony, and peered over the edge, calling and screaming wildly in his despair, for there was no hope of saving poor Liesl. But yes, there was!
That was not the way little Kirl kept his charge; that was not the way of men on the mountains. But Liesl was not light, and Kirl was only little, and his breath came and went, and his eyes saw nothing, and the world was whirling round, and a great sob burst from him. And then a big, big voice said: "Thou little thing! Thou little, good thing!"
Word Of The Day
Others Looking