United States or Martinique ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Look! the fly must take us a long round, because of our luggage; but behind these high old walls are the canons' gardens. That high-pitched roof, with the clumps of stonecrop on the walls near it, is Canon Wilson's, whose four little girls I am to teach. Hark! the great cathedral clock. How proud I used to be of its great boom when I was a child!
Then the sound of a shrill whistle came down the water, and the strange pony at once turned and cantered away towards it; but Stonecrop only moved the faster in the same direction, giving a loud scream to call him back. And now a faint light came dancing down by the water, drawing closer and closer to the children till they could see that it was a man carrying a lantern.
The same evening, just as Diamond was feeling tired of the day's work, and wishing his father would come home, Mr. Stonecrop knocked at the door. His mother went and opened it. "Good evening, ma'am," said he. "Is the little master in?" "Yes, to be sure he is at your service, I'm sure, Mr. Stonecrop," said his mother. "No, no, ma'am; it's I'm at his service.
With an obedient mind one learns the rights of things fast enough; for it is the law of the universe, and to obey is to understand. "Look out!" cried Mr. Stonecrop, as they were turning the corner into Bloomsbury Square. It was getting dusky now.
It had been twilight in the valley, but here the wide plain was sunlit and the air was fresh and dry: in the valley even the river-aspens were almost quiet, but here there was still a sough of wind coming and going, through the dry grass thick set with lemon thyme and lady's slipper, or along the low garden wall where red valerian sprouted out of yellow stonecrop.
Wanhope was a large, old-fashioned manor-house, a plain brick front unbroken except in the middle, where its corniced roof was carried down by steps to an immense gateway of weathered stone, carved with the escutcheon of the family and their Motto: FORTIS ET FIDELIS. Wistarias rambled over both sides, wreathing the stone window-frames in their grape-like clusters of lilac bloom, and flagstones running from end to end, shallow, and so worn that a delicate growth of stonecrop fringed them, shelved down to a lawn.
The old house seemed to have grown old and mellow like a rock or crag; to have sprung up out of the ground; and nature, working patiently with rain and sun and wind, drooping the stonecrop from the parapet, fringing the parapets with snapdragons and wallflowers, touching the old roofs with orange and grey lichens, had done the rest.
Then Elsmere picked a stonecrop, quarrelled over its precise name with Rose, and waited for Catherine, who had a very close and familiar knowledge of the botany of the district. 'You have crushed me, he said, laughing, as he put the flower carefully into his pocket-book; 'but it is worth while to be crushed by any one who can give so much ground for their knowledge.
Periwinkles trailed down upon the turf, and the closely set stonecrop made a reddish bloom on the lower boulders, amidst bronze-hued moss, pale fragile scales of lichen, and glossy leaved fibrous-rooted ivy, that all went to pattern their sullen grey with delicate arabesques.
They raised huge trunks, covered with reddish-brown stonecrop, silvered grey by mosses; and several that morning were wrapped as in a mantle trimmed with pearls, gossamer threads studded with drops of dew. He sat down on a bench, but fearing a shower, for it looked threatening, he retired to his cell.
Word Of The Day