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Updated: May 31, 2025
For this they substitute, when travelling, 'country umbrellas, thatches of plaited palm-leaves in umbrella-shape; further down coast we shall find the regular sun-hat of Madeira, with an addition of loose straw-ends which would commend itself to Ophelia.
Although they are much of the same size and pattern, an observing eye would have picked out the Binnie cottage as distinctive and prepossessing. Its outside walls were as white as lime could make them; its small windows brightened with geraniums and a white muslin curtain; and the litter of ropes and nets and drying fish which encumbered the majority of thatches, was pleasantly absent.
Thatches!" cried the boy, and every time the whirligig brought his assailant into view the shout was repeated. In the year of grace 1877 some traces still remained of an ancient feud between the school and the boys of the town.
Falling walls, rotting thatches, dirt and wretchedness were to be seen on all sides; cottages were broken-paned and noisome, men and women who should have been hale were drawn with rheumatism from mouldering dampness, or sodden with drink and idleness; children who should have been rosy and clean and studying their horn books, at the dame school, were little, dirty, evil, brutal things.
One well-meant warning they gave me as I went the old man was not reliable. And late that evening I saw the thatches of Lingwold sheltering under the edge of that huge hill that Atlas-like held up those miles of moor to the great winds and heaven. They knew less of the city in Lingwold than elsewhere but they knew the whereabouts of the man I wanted, though they seemed a little ashamed of him.
When next morning dawned there was confusion and ruin on every side: the cross had tumbled from the chapel, the tombstones were overturned in the graveyard, trees and branches blocked the roadways, cabins were stripped of their thatches, and cattle found dead in the fields; so it is small wonder old Mrs. Hoey remembers the day of Ellen's birth, weak as she is on all other dates.
On the same occasion they beat the walls of their huts, the grass thatches, and the walls of their enclosures in order to drive away the devil or evil spirits. The beating of the walls and roofs is accompanied by the firing of guns, the shouting of men, and the shriller cries of the women. Thus these people combine an annual expulsion of demons with an annual lighting of a new fire.
The name "Thatches" had been invented by the latter on account of the peculiar pattern of straw hat worn by their adversaries; while the answering taunt always used in those warlike times was, "Hey, Johnny, where's your apron?" a remark which greatly incensed the small sons of toil, who usually wore this garment.
Ten or more of Fuegian canoes lie alongside her, while on a broad, grassy flat, above water-mark, stands alike number of wigwams, their smoke-blackened thatches in strong contrast with the white, weather-bleached boat-sail, which is again serving as a tent.
Each village we passed was a picture far beyond my art to paint; and hayricks under their thatches or piles of corn stacked in rows close to the water's edge, shone like a spray of fireworks as the darkening sky above slowly turned to a bank of hyacinths. Passing sails were gold at first, then brown, then pansy-purple, piercing the water with their sharp and deep reflections.
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