United States or Bahamas ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their common relative, the water-rat, as he was.
Rowe could give us no names for the aquatic plants at which we clutched as we went by, nor for the shells we got out of the mud; but his eye for a water-rat was like a terrier's. It was the only thing which seemed to excite him. About mid-day we stopped by a village, where Mr. Rowe had business.
He trembled to think what knavery his wicked kinsfolk meant, though he himself was their helpless slave; the target of kicks, cuffs, and the robbery of all his earnings. La Frochard led the way to their dank and noisome den, opening from a street trap-door and giving at the other extremity on a sort of water-rat exit underneath the pier.
Here, too, come millions of industrious bees, and in the dusk the big pencil-tailed water-rat, which the masterful dog kills with as little ceremony as he does the bird-scaring snakes.
However, all went well; the mouse became a water-rat, it wagged its tail in derision at the poor blind old hawk, and it dived down into a nice safe green, quiet world where there was nothing to injure it. It was on the Wednesday night that the Iota crossed to Etretat. It was Friday afternoon before we had reached our new cruising ground. Only one large steamer did I see upon our way.
It was evidently some furred animal, and presented all the appearance either of a large water-rat or a beaver, the latter of which it was pronounced to be as a nearer approach rendered its shape more distinct. Ever and anon, too, it disappeared altogether under the water; and, when it again came in sight, it was always several yards nearer.
Between them lies a whole pile of flowers dandelion stems made into rings, and the rings joined together so as to form a chain, rushes plaited, blue-bells, cowslips tied up in balls, and cowslips loose, their yellow petals scattered over the sward. The brook flows murmuring by, with an occasional splash, as a water-rat dives from the bank or a fish rises to an insect.
Out of the east came a soft summer breeze, stealing silently across the valley, and tilting the balance of each dripping leaf. So the great drops of moisture slipped off them to swell the river, and the drying of the earth commenced. That is what brought them all out together. The water-rat came from a hole five feet above the river-level. An overhanging grass-tuft masked her exit.
And over all, the sun hung in the sky, pouring down life; shining on the roots of the willows at the bottom of the stream; lighting up the black head of the water-rat as he hurried across to the opposite bank; glorifying the rich green lake of the grass; and giving to the whole an utterance of love and hope and joy, which was, to him who could read it, a more certain and full revelation of God than any display of power in thunder, in avalanche, in stormy sea.
While I watched, the curé slept soundly, his body shrouded in the blankets like some carved Gothic saint of old. The silence was intense a silence that could be heard broken only by the brisk ticking of the curé's watch on the narrow shelf. Occasionally a water-rat would patter over the sunken roof, become inquisitive, and peer in at me through the slit within half a foot of my nose.
Word Of The Day