Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A hundred yards up the tracks, on a siding, a squad of men with a derrick and crane were hoisting captured French field guns upon flat cars to be taken to Berlin and exhibited as spoils of conquest for the benefit of the stay-at-homes. A row of these cannons, perhaps fifty in all, were ranked alongside awaiting loading and transportation.
It's better that the beast under you should be a Lion rather than a Donkey, but let it once fling you off its back and you're done for. And Maradick had said these things! Maradick whom once Peter had considered the dullest of his acquaintances. Well, one never knew about people most of the Stay-at-homes were Explorers and vice versa, if one only understood them. How still the house was!
But beneath her namesake as beforetime in the Hall sat the Hall-Sun, the maiden, on a heap of faggots, and she was wrapped in a dark blue cloak from under which gleamed the folds of the fair golden-broidered gown she was wont to wear at folk-motes, and her right hand rested on a naked sword that lay across her knees: beside her sat the old man Sorli, the Wise in War, and about her were slim lads and sturdy maidens and old carles of the thralls or freedmen ready to bear the commands that came from her mouth; for she and Sorli were the captains of the stay-at-homes.
The stay-at-homes were mostly elderly folks and children, but here and there a young labourer, whom hesitation or duties had kept back, was so carried away by our martial appearance, and by the visible trophies of our victory, that he snatched up a weapon and joined our ranks. The skirmish had reduced our numbers, but it had done much to turn our rabble of peasants into a real military force.
The corporal turned around suddenly; with a face the color of boxwood, and his blue eyes shining with rage and defiance, he cried in a hoarse voice: "Go and see for yourselves, you stay-at-homes!" Saddened and heart-broken at the demoralization of the soldiers, the National Guards withdrew. "Behold the army which the Empire has left us!" said the dressmaker's husband, who was a fool.
The boys she encouraged and inspired, and the children were shamed out of their childish tears by mother's bright face and cheery talk. Then she set them all to work. There was corn to plant, wheat to sow, potatoes to set; flax and wool to spin and weave, for clothes would be needed for all, both absent and stay-at-homes.
There still hung the more part of the stay-at-homes round about the Roof. But on the plain beneath the tofts were all the wains of the host drawn up round about a square like the streets about a market-place; all these now had their tilts rigged over them, some white, some black, some red, some tawny of hue; and some, which were of the Beamings, green like the leafy tree.
"You've said yerself that the folks who stayed to home would live one day longer than the fellow that went round. Now, ef that feller travelled round as fast as the sun, the stay-at-homes would only be one day older by the time he got back ain't that a fact?" Both sisters nodded. "Well, an' the traveller would be one day younger than they'd be.
Though the five war commissioners, with the assistance of Sir John, had carried through the war without the loss of a single battle and had driven the Pope's legate from Tuscan territory, the campaign had not been conducted in accordance with the great courage and generalship of the stay-at-homes of the other faction.
On the whole, it was almost a relief when the hour for departure arrived. Rex and Edna drove over to see the last of their friend and cheer the stay-at-homes by their presence; but it did not seem as though they could be very successful in their errand of mercy, since Edna cried steadily behind her handkerchief, and Rex poked holes in the garden walks with gloomy persistence.
Word Of The Day