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A vessel supposed to be of his time has been discovered in the bed of a river in Kent, and after the lapse of so many centuries it is as sound as ever and as hard as iron." "Do oak trees ever have apples on 'em?" asked Clara. "In a story that I read there was something about 'oak-apples." "They are not apples such as we eat, or fruit in any sense," said her governess.
Jack walked on and on through the forest, turning to the right and left, forward and backward, hither and thither, on and on he went, poor boy, trying to find some path that led home. He was so hungry and thirsty that he sucked the dew from the leaves and ate the oak-apples and acorns he found on the ground; then he grew tired and cross and frightened.
She makes dear little chairs, Una, out of oak-apples and chestnuts and things like that; and little picture-frames with grey lichen and acorns and bits of twigs stuck all round; and mother bought a chair for Norah's doll, because, she says, it's much better for them to try and make things like that and try to sell them than just to come round begging, as so many of them do."
An old woman came forward into the light of the lamp. Her eyes were fine and black her mouth was toothless and folded away for ever, lost in a crevice under her nose. When she smiled the oak-apples of her cheeks rose up and cut the black eyes into hoops. "We are on a long journey, madame, to Chantilly. We are cold; can we have coffee?"
But, from circumstances, the main portion of my harvest is still on the ground, ripe indeed and only waiting, a few for the sickle, but a large part only for the sheaving and carting and housing-but from all this I must turn away and let them rot as they lie, and be as though they never had been; for I must go and gather black berries and earth-nuts, or pick mushrooms and gild oak-apples for the palate and fancies of chance customers.
He had a bunch of oak-apples in one hand, plainly the object of his climb, and was furtively watching Lady Constantine with the hope that she might not see him. But that she had already done, though she did not reveal it, and, fearing that the latter words of their conversation had been overheard, they spoke not till they had passed the next turning. She stretched out her hand to his.
There were some oaks hard by, and from under these the bird had wandered into the quiet sequestered garden. The oak in the copse on which the squirrel was last seen is peculiar for bearing oak-apples earlier than any other of the neighbourhood, and there are often half-a-dozen of them on the twigs on the trunk before there is one anywhere else.
Gradually the background of green comes to the front, and the oak-apples swell, streaked with rosy stains, whence their semblance to the edible fruit of the orchard. All unconscious of the white or red cross daubed on the rough bark, the tree prepares its glory of leaf, though doomed the while by that sad mark to the axe.
He makes stands with wires to put flowers in for the farmers' parlours, and strings the dry oak-apples on wire, which he twists into baskets, to hold knicknackeries. He is witty, and has his jest for everybody. He can do something of everything turn his hand any way a perfect treasure on the farm. In the old days there was another character in most villages; this was the rhymer.
All these oak-apples and nut-galls are of importance, but the latter more especially, and they form an important article of commerce. A substance called "gallic acid" resides in the oak; and when the puncture is made by the cynips, it flows in great abundance to the wound.
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