Woking

“ O Warriors of the Wolfings by the token of the flame That here in my right hand flickers, come aback to the House of the Name! For there yet burneth the Hall-Sun beneath the Wolfing roof, And this flame is litten from it, nor as now shall it fare aloof Till again it seeth the mighty and the men to be gleaned from the fight. So wend ye as weird willeth and let your hearts be light; For through your days of battle all the deeds of our days shall be fair. ”

“ The peasant, weary as he was, went to bed, and soon fell fast asleep. He got up, however, before daylight, and went to the witch. He found her crouching before a fire burning herbs. The witch told him to stand quietly by. The morning was calm and beautiful, but suddenly a strong wind arose, and made the hut tremble. Then the witch took the peasant into the yard, and told him to look up. He raised his eyes and saw the wicked magician, with nothing on but his night-shirt, whirling round and round in the air.
"There is your enemy," said the witch; "he will hurt you no more. ”

“ And first this warrior's ransom in the coming fight to bear, And evermore to love thee who hast given me second birth. And by the sword I swear it, and by the Holy Earth, To live for the House of the Wolfings, and at last to die for their need. For though I trow thy saying that I am not one of their seed, Nor yet by the hand have been taken and unto the Father shown As a very son of the Fathers, yet mid them hath my body grown; And I am the guest of their Folk-Hall, and each one there is my friend. ”

“ O mother, here dwelleth the Hall-Sun while the kin hath a dwelling- place, Nor ever again shall I look on the onset or the chase, Till the day when the Roof of the Wolfings looketh down on the girdle of foes, And the arrow singeth over the grass of the kindred's close; Till the pillars shake with the shouting and quivers the roof-tree dear, When the Hall of the Wolfings garners the harvest of the spear. ”

“ She looked on the carline steadfastly, but gave no token of knowing her; but the ancient woman spoke when she came near to the Hall-Sun, and old as her semblance was, yet did her speech sound sweet to the Hall-Sun, and indeed to all those that heard it and she said:
"May we be here to-night, O Hall-Sun, thou lovely Seeress of the mighty Wolfings? may a wandering woman sit amongst you and eat the meat of the Wolfings?" ”

“ Mr Wegg nods to the face, ‘Good evening.’
The face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted by a tangle of reddish-dusty hair. The owner of the face has no cravat on, and has opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with the more ease. For the same reason he has no coat on: only a loose waistcoat over his yellow linen. His eyes are like the over-tried eyes of an engraver, but he is not that; his expression and stoop are like those of a shoemaker, but he is not that.
‘Good evening, Mr Venus. ”

“ Jacob, pressing forward, gave it her.
Effusively she thanked him; retraced her steps; dropped her glove again. But why? For whom? Meanwhile, where had the other woman got to? And the man?
The street lamps do not carry far enough to tell us. The voices, angry, lustful, despairing, passionate, were scarcely more than the voices of caged beasts at night. Only they are not caged, nor beasts. Stop a man; ask him the way; he'll tell it you; but one's afraid to ask him the way. What does one fear?—the human eye. At once the pavement narrows, the chasm deepens. ”

“ Thus we hear of starving men chewing upon an old boot, or famished desert-travellers sucking rapturously at a hole full of mud. I remember once being so absorbed in a story during sermon-time, that, coming to a word of new and queer physiognomy, and having forgotten all circumstance, I repeated it, according to my custom, quite aloud. ”

“ Now, sir, persons that's awake don't get up in meeting in that kind of style. It's only them that's waked up out of a sudden sleep, that comes up with a jerk, like the opening of a jack-knife, sir. What stronger proof do we need, or rather what stronger proof could we have, of all the outward signs of sleep, than we have from this witness? With regard to the internal evidence of sleep, another witness swears to you that he hears Wadleigh asleep every Sabbath; that he can tell when a person is asleep or awake by his breathing, as easily as he can tell whether he's asleep or awake himself. ”

“ Turning his head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutred with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his tied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was Sloppy's. ”

“ The mystery of grace, carried on by Jesus Christ in his church and people, is like a worm threshing the mountains, infallibly to issue in it threshing them away quite and clean. Briefly, worw Jacob shall thresh the mountains, and thresh them away quite and clean. ”

“ A wake in England means a festival held upon the anniversary of the saint of the parish. At these wakes, rustic games, rustic conviviality, and rustic courtship, are pursued with all the ardour and all the appetite which accompany such pleasures as occur but seldom. ”

“ There are faces gone from our feast-hall not the least beloved nor worst, But the wane of the House of the Wolfings not yet the world hath cursed. The sun shall rise to-morrow on our cold and dewy roof, For they that longed for slaughter were slaughtered far aloof. ”

“ Now as the riders of the Goths came over against the dwellings of the Withings, they saw people, mostly women, driving up the beasts from the meadow towards the garth; but upon the tofts about their dwellings were gathered many folk, who had their eyes turned toward the token of ravage that hung in the sky above the fair plain; but when these beheld the riding of the host, they tossed up their arms to them and whatever they bore in them, and the sound of their shrill cry (for they were all women and young lads) came down the wind to the ears of the riders. ”

“ And then there are other qualities in this delightful Vicar of Wakefield than merely idyllic tenderness, and pathos, and sly humour. There is a firm presentation of the crimes and brutalities of the world. The pure light that shines within that domestic circle is all the brighter because of the black outer ring that is here and there indicated rather than described. How could we appreciate all the simplicities of the good man's household, but for the rogueries with which they are brought in contact? ”

“ O rest not yet, ye Wolfings, lest void be your resting-place, And into lands that ye know not the Wolf must turn his face, And ye wander and ye wander till the land in the ocean cease, And your battle bring no safety and your labour no increase. ”

“ Watkins kept after them like a slave driver.
"That's the style; throw all the litter overboard. Bend your back, Pierre; now Ole, take hold here. What the hell are you men loafing for? Now, heave altogether." ”

“ Before I was twelve I had sat in a whitewashed room with a drowned boy, discussing with his family what they could most advantageously sell or pawn in order to pay for the expense of a funeral. And, oh! the wakes. We had wakes on Elm street; real ones; the kind that nowadays take place only{145} in Irish fiction. And I used to go to them because they were the wakes of persons I had known, and, in a childish way, cared for. After twenty-four years I can still recall the final expression of certain pallid, waxen faces, and white, crossed, emaciated hands. ”

“ The wake was an important feature in the social life of the people of Indian Lands. In ancient days, in the land of their forefathers, the wake had been deemed a dire necessity for the safeguarding of the dead, who were supposed to be peculiarly exposed to the malicious attacks of evil spirits. Hence, with many lighted candles, and with much incantation, friends would surround the body through the perilous hours of darkness. ”

“ She remembered that when she parted from the youth of her heart she had said: "When thou comest to thy kiosk, do not lie down to sleep; sit down at thy window, and look towards the island in the direction of the dawn. This night will be soon over, and the dawn will dawn more quickly than at other times. When thou seest it think of me and say for me the prayer of direction for the departing." ”

“ As far as I have known the yoke of Christ, it is indeed a sweet and easy yoke; and the chiefest sorrow which I have found during my endeavor to bear it has been from my aptness to throw it off. The worst of snares are the most secret.
We are now quietly and unexcitedly at home; and I wish industriously to do my little duties, and follow my little callings: of these the Workhouse women supply one of the most satisfactory to myself. They are a sad sight; but I feel that my small labors with them are not rejected, but desired, and I hope to a few at least they may be of some use. ”

“ Wogan wanted something hard, and it had occurred to him that the sign-board would very well serve his turn. An idea, too, which seemed to him diverting, had presented itself to his mind.
With a loud sigh and a noisy movement such as a man halfway between wakefulness and sleep may make he flung himself over onto his left side. ”

“ The question of the safe passage to the next world is perhaps even more specifically associated with the Four Nights’ Wake. The purpose of the wake is to enable the deceased to successfully overcome the four great obstacles on the road to the spirit home of his clan. ”

“ So the Vicar explained darkness to him and the art of going to bed. (The Angels, it seems, sleep only in order to dream, and dream like primitive man with their foreheads on their knees. And they sleep among the white poppy meadows in the heat of the day.) The Angel found the bedroom arrangements quaint enough. ”

“ In sooth they are a people mighty, but unhappy.”
Said Wolfkettle:
“And hast thou learned all this from the ancient story lays, O Hiarandi? For some of them I know, though not all, and therein have I noted nothing of all this. Is there some new minstrel arisen in thine House of a memory excelling all those that have gone before? If that be so, I bid him to the Roof of the Wolfings as soon as may be; for we lack new tales.” ”

“ I felt too dazed to cry:
I held him to me as I prayed
To God that I might die.
But sometimes now I seem to hear —
Just when the air grows chill —
A single whip-crack, sharp and clear,
Re-echo from the hill. ”

“ Towards daylight he woke, for one of the reasons why men do wake. It is well known, to people who know, that old campers-out (and young men new to it, too) will wake once—if in a party, each at different times—to tend to their cattle, or listen for the hobbles of their horses, or simply to rise on their elbows and have a look round—the last, I suppose, from an instinct born in old dangerous times. Mac woke up, and it was dark. ”

“ Walker, they all pop into their little houses, and slam their little street-doors, which are not opened again for the remainder of the evening, except to the nine o’clock ‘beer,’ who comes round with a lantern in front of his tray, and says, as he lends Mrs. Walker ‘Yesterday’s ‘Tiser,’ that he’s blessed if he can hardly hold the pot, much less feel the paper, for it’s one of the bitterest nights he ever felt, ’cept the night when the man was frozen to death in the Brick-field. ”

“ They go from strength to strength; every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.
Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.
For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. ”

“ Echoes of a rustic Christianity, gentle and resigned as that which the Vicar of Wakefield taught to his flock, may be heard to-day in the talk of aged men and women here and there; and though that piety has gone rather out of fashion, the taste for something like it survives in these young men. ”

“ Paul and Silas, in their prison,
Sang of Christ, the Lord arisen,
And an earthquake's arm of might
Broke their dungeon-gates at night.
But, alas! what holy angel
Brings the Slave this glad evangel? ”

“ By rights you ought to be, Mr Wegg.’
Silas looks as hard at his one leg as he can in the dim light, and after a pause sulkily opines ‘that it must be the fault of the other people. Or how do you mean to say it comes about?’ he demands impatiently.
‘I don’t know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. Hold the light.’ Mr Venus takes from a corner by his chair, the bones of a leg and foot, beautifully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness. These he compares with Mr Wegg’s leg ”

“ With a prayer that he may be on his feet and wide awake at the first sound of the horn, he sinks to his slumbers nightly.
The softest couches in the world are not to be found in the log mansion of the slave. ”

“ The wake to conclude with a fiddling-match by all the fiddlers that attend, for a piece of silver." Wakes are probably as ancient as the introduction of Christianity into this county, and were at first purely religious festivals. ”

“ The Wolfings were the tallest and the biggest made; but of those dark-haired men aforesaid, were there fewest amongst the Beamings, and most among the Elkings, as though they had drawn to them more men of alien blood during their wanderings aforesaid. ”

“ Freshly does the lulling breath of night blow in your face, until once more you relapse into snoring oblivion, and your poor neighbour turns angrily in his corner as he begins to be conscious of your weight. ”

“ But for all that you may as well lie down. The ways of the baron are incalculable. Even when he is angry he knows what he is about."
"Then we'll wait for him till morning."
"Meanwhile repose in peace. My humble dwelling is not very luxurious, but let your honour imagine that it is a hunting hut in the forest."
"But where then will your reverence sleep?"
"I'll go out to the bee-house. I can sleep there excellently well, I have a couch of linden leaves."
"Nay, but I also love to sleep on linden leaves, covered with my bunda. [44] I'll lie there to-night. ”