Sabine Baring-Gould

“ She says to herself, ‘By nature it is true that I am feeble, but see how strong my beauty or my craft has made me! I can take that man and snap his heart as if it were a dry twig; I can bend and twist that other man about my finger as a piece of grass.’ It is not that woman delights in cruelty—far from it. She is full of sympathy and tenderness; but then, when she has power, she likes to exert it, and she can only convince herself that she is a queen when she hears the screams of her victims.
Jessie Mullins looked after Richard Duck as he walked the Knife Back, with a proud curl on her lip. ”

“ I know as much about trees as anyone. I’ve smeared their bark with treacle, and caught scores of moths off them. I ought to know trees.’
‘And what will you do when you are taken on in the woods, supposing my father does put in a word for you?’
‘I’ll marry you next day, Moth,’ said Dicky boldly.
‘Will you? It takes two to do that. If that is to be the consequence, I will not ask my father to speak for you. You! ”

“ But that time had not yet come, and when the forester or his daughter wished to go to Dartford or Stone, the way taken was over the Knife Back, which saved a long round by the lane down to the high road, and thence by the road. In fact, it formed the hypothenuse of a triangle. The companies were trying to arrive at a compromise whereby they might get through this curtain, but each demanded too much of the other, and each thought by withdrawing it could make the other accede to its terms. So the Knife Back, though menaced, remained.
Over the Knife Back came Dicky Duck one day. ”