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Many a day when the snow was drifting over their roofs, and hanging heavy on the tree- boughs, and the wind was roaring through the trees aloft and rattling about the close thicket, when the boughs were clattering in the wind, and crashing down beneath the weight of the gathering freezing snow, when all beasts and men lay close in their lairs, would they sit long hours about the house-fire with the knife or the gouge in hand, with the timber twixt their knees and the whetstone beside them, hearkening to some tale of old times and the days when their banner was abroad in the world; and they the while wheedling into growth out of the tough wood knots and blossoms and leaves and the images of beasts and warriors and women.
The two sisters were like a pair of scissors, snipping off everything that came athwart them; or like a knife and a whetstone, the one sharpened against the other. 'Of course, cried Ursula suddenly, 'she ought to thank her stars if we will go and see her.
"To-day, as Jesus looks out upon humanity, his spirit must leap to see the souls responsive to his call. They are sown broadcast through humanity, legions of them. The harvest field is no longer deserted. All about us we hear the clang of the whetstone and the rush of the blades through the grain and the shout of the reapers.
Private charity has to keep a beggarly half-dozen going where there ought to be forty or fifty, as a matter of right, not of charity. Call it official conservatism, inertia, treachery, call it by soft names or hard; in the end it comes to this, I suppose, that it is the whetstone upon which our purpose is sharpened, and in that sense we have apparently got to be thankful for it.
Was it possible that the cruel boy-god "who sharpens his arrows on the whetstone of the human heart" had found the moment to avenge himself for the neglect of his altars and the scorn of his power? Must that redoubted knight-errant, the hero of this tale, despite the Three Fishes on his charmed shield, at last veil the crest and bow the knee, and murmur to himself, "She has come, my queen"?
He waved his hand, to assure her, but she did not seem to read the friendly signal, for she rode on again, disappearing over the hill before he reached the crest. He plunged down after her, not sparing his horse where he should have spared him, urging him on when they struck the level again. There was no thought in him of Whetstone now only of Grace.
I have not told the commonalty lest it cast them down, but I know that adversity will be but the whetstone to give your ardour a finer edge. Argyle's rising has failed, and he and his companions are prisoners in the hands of the man who never knew what pity was.
Exasperated at the treachery of his captains, he granted a commission to rear-admiral Whetstone and other officers, to hold a court-martial and try them for cowardice.
And the ox stood upright behind him, and followed him with his halter trailing on the ground. And King Khufu said, "And is it true what is said, that thou knowest the number of the designs of the dwelling of Tahuti?" And his majesty said, "Where is that?" And Dedi replied, "There is a chest of whetstone in a chamber named the plan-room, in Heli-opolis; they are in this chest."
"Of course I can." Likhachev got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Petya heard the warlike sound of steel on whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and sat on its edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon. "I say! Are the lads asleep?" asked Petya. "Some are, and some aren't like us." "Well, and that boy?" "Vesenny? Oh, he's thrown himself down there in the passage.
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