United States or Paraguay ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At the back of a low, damp room, on a wretched straw mattress, flung on the floor itself, lay a man fully dressed. "Gaffer Charel!" cried the mayor. "Is he dead, too?" The old man's hands were cold, his face terribly pale, but his heart was still beating, with a faint, slow throb, and he seemed not to be wounded in any way.
Boffin offering a large reward for the conviction of the murderer of John Harmon; by that honest water-side character, Rogue Riderhood, anxious to earn "a pot o' money" in the sweat of his brow by swearing away the life of Gaffer Hexam; by Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam; by "Mr. Dolls," negotiating for "three-penn'orths of rum."
Hardly had the little gang of Fairburn colliers turned the corner of the lane when they were met by an excited mob carrying a huge sheet on which was rudely printed in big characters, "Down with all Whigs!" "An insult to the gaffer, that's as plain as the nose on a man's face," cried one of the Fairburn fellows, and without more ado, he dashed forward and made a grab at the offending canvas.
For, as our good Gaffer Swanthold sayeth, 'He who is fat from overliving must needs lose blood." All this time the youth had been sniffing at the rose that he held betwixt his thumb and finger. "Nay," said he with a gentle smile, when Robin Hood had done, "I do love to hear thee talk, thou pretty fellow, and if, haply, thou art not yet done, finish, I beseech thee.
In the meantime, the gaffer had recovered his weapon, and as the big fish was brought to the side of the boat, he struck again, this time succeeding in holding against the rush of the fish, though he was pulled elbow-deep into the water.
"Well, I'll be danged!" exclaimed Job. "I knowed it! I knowed it!" cried the Ancient, rubbing his hands and chuckling. "Knowed what, Gaffer?" inquired Black George, as we came up. "Why, I knowed as this young chap would come out a-walkin' 'pon his own two legs, and not like Job, a-rollin' and a-wallerin' in the dust o' th' road like a hog."
But this is a zeed-toime which shall have a harvest o' blood if my right hand can compass it. 'If you go to t' wars, Gaffer Swain, we'll look to your homestead, said the farmer who had spoken before. 'As to t' greenstuffs as this gentleman asks for he shall have not one wainload but three, if he will but gi' us half-an-hour to fill them up.
And then just at this time of all others, when the horse was the only interest of those around him, from Lord Norton and his whole household down to the youngest stable-boy and oldest gaffer in the village, he had come into his money.
The waggoner, stout, red-faced, and jolly-looking, nodded an emphatic assent. "I'd do it for 'arf the money!" he said. "Gi' us yer 'and, old gaffer!" The "old gaffer" obeyed, and was soon comfortably seated between the projecting corners of two flour sacks, which in their way were as comfortable as cushions.
I can't show you the start, a long way behind that hill, Portslade way; then they come right along by that gorse and finish up by Truly barn you can't see Truly barn from here, that's Thunder's barrow barn; they go quite half a mile farther." "And does all that land belong to the Gaffer?"
Word Of The Day