Breeching

“ Tautz and Sons, of Oxford Street, solved the difficulty by providing us with a competent female fitter, who takes careful measurements for breeches, and rectifies any faults there may be in their fit. The best kind of material for breeches is elastic cloth, which is specially made for that purpose. It is both strong and porous, and can be obtained in any shade to match the riding-habit, which, of course, is necessary. The breeches should be fitted while the wearer is seated on a wooden horse, and special attention should be devoted to their cut at the knees ”

“ As you must often have noted, there is among the breezes, a certain one that is extremely partial to animals. It is never happier than when ruffling the forelock of some big dapple-gray; teasing the tail of proud chanticleer; or cradling a gull in its wide-spreading arms. Indeed, it is the very “vagrant breeze” of which, doubtless, you have heard many times. ”

“ Brewster used first-aid on the stranger, several men of the party started for the cleft back of the Cliffs from which one could get down in to the gulch. In fact, it was the great flood of water that ran from the back of the Cliffs that caused this deep washout, or gully.
Having taken hold of the unknown man and suddenly turned him so that he hung limply over the back and shoulders of his carrier, Mr. Brewster started his horse across the shale, and then turned in on the Cliff trail. The sooner the unconscious man was treated the better, thought the ranch-man. ”

“ The animal fell as if thunderstruck, without a single motion; and, for myself, with my knees almost as high as my chin, I found myself a horseback across a corpse! I was saved! I uttered a triumphant cry, which was responded to by the colonel, and which the abyss re-echoed with a hollow sound, as if it felt that its prey had escaped from it. I quitted the saddle, sat down between the wall and the body of my horse, and vigorously pushed with my feet against the carcass of the wretched animal, which rolled down into the abyss. ”

“ Bream are rarely taken in any quantity when the waters are very clear. See “Roach.”
18. Is legering successfully practised for large bream, and what is the best modus operandi?
In such rapid waters as those at Reedham, Somerleyton, etc.—no other mode of fishing for bream can be practised with any success worth naming—ledgers for attaching to line may be purchased at any tackle shop at 1s. each, and the modus operandi is very simple, and by no means scientific. The rod requires to be very strong and of fair length, and three or four rods may be used from one boat at the same time. ”

“ Mounting quickly to a step midway on the staircase, the breeches-maker was followed by many others, who, eager to gain view of so desperate a conflict and to see the final harrying of the prey, pulled one another down from the coveted vantage-point, trampling on the weaker ones that fell. ”

“ Now the young males fight with the old, dignified, and domineering leader of the herd; now the young females throng about the sire till he is compelled to drive them away with bites; now one or another of them attempts to escape, and rushes, with head against the wind and dilated nostrils, out into the steppe. The herdsman at once urges the horse he is riding to a gallop, and pursues the fugitive in mad haste up hill and down dale; in his right hand he holds the long herdsman’s crook, with a noose attached to one end ”

“ If the animal is dangerous to handle, only, behind; the breast-band may be put on, and the breachen attached to it, in the manner just described, but without putting it over the quarters. A rope can now be fixed to the D in the centre of the breachen, which, by the aid of the rope, can be pulled over the croup into its proper position, by an assistant from behind. Before doing this, the traces should be let out, to be pulled tight, the moment the breachen slips over the tail. ”

“ This is the rule when the cast is down wind and unobstructed, and the breeze light and equable, but in practice each cast must be adjusted to the peculiar circumstances under which it is made; the force that will drive out the line in a heavy breeze will not be vigorous enough if it dies down at the next cast, and the line must be stopped short or it will not extend itself; on the other hand, if the wind suddenly increases to a gusty flaw, the flies will be driven into the water with a splash, unless the arm is extended to exhaust the additional force. ”

“ Meantime the girl and boy chased off together.
"I believe the cows have wandered through the woods to the salt-marsh," declared Elizabeth; so they turned in that direction, following a crooked path for a long time. At last a breaking of the bushes opened a way to the discovery of five of the cows. The children were pushing on for the sixth, when a distant shout was heard on the opposite shore of the marshy stream. There in the mud and mire stood a horse and rider. Each step plunged them deeper and brought them nearer to the stream. ”

“ They set to work immediately with their axes to fell the tree. It began to totter, when a dark object, they could not tell what, in the dim twilight, crawled from its place of concealment to the extremity of a branch, and from thence sprung into the next tree. Snatching up their rifles, they both fired together; when, to their astonishment, instead of a bear, a young Indian squaw, with a wild yell, fell to the ground. ”

“ It is a notion that Sutherlandshire lochs need a large gaudy fly, but year by year I have been reducing the size of flies, and fining down the gut.
Again, what is called a fishing breeze is a mistake: if it comes, of course you must make the best of it; but to kill trout cleverly and quickly let me have fine tackle, a light 10ft. rod, and just a ruffle on the water, and if rain is falling and dimpling the water, the less wind the better; of course, if you fish big gaudy flies and double handed rods, you get little without a breeze. ”

“ Then came the rattle of chains and the voices of men. A boat was lowered, and Nonowit, safe under the cover of the low branches, saw it headed for his shore. Men with white skin and hair growing on their faces landed on the very rock on which he had been sitting. Their clothes were unlike any he had ever seen before, and their speech could not be understood. Cautiously he backed into the forest until he gained the branches of the oak in which he had slept. Yet that was unsafe, for the white men looked up into every tree, breaking the branches and tasting the sap. ”

“ It sometimes happens that a foreign body, such as the breech of a gun, may be imbedded for some time in the face, with subsequent safe removal. Keith mentions an instance of the successful removal of the breech of a fowling-piece from the face, at the root of the nose, after a lodgment of four months; and Fraser cites an analogous instance in which the breech was imbedded in the bones of the face for eight years Smith records an instance in which a broken piece of tobacco-pipe penetrated the cheek, remained there for seven months, but was successfully extracted. ”

“ It was now long after nightfall, yet the interminable forest through which he journeyed was lit with a wan glimmer having no point of diffusion, for in its mysterious lumination nothing cast a shadow. A shallow pool in the guttered depression of an old wheel rut, as from a recent rain, met his eye with a crimson gleam. He stooped and plunged his hand into it. It stained his fingers; it was blood! Blood, he then observed, was about him everywhere. The weeds growing rankly by the roadside showed it in blots and splashes on their big, broad leaves. ”

“ Aimlessly they wander hither and thither, sniff at every blade of grass on the way, but scarcely crop any, lift their heads expectantly and joyously, let them droop again in disappointed sadness, bleat, and bleat again. The restlessness increases almost to frenzy, the bleating becomes a perfect bellowing. ”

“ All about were evidences of a furious struggle; small sprouts of poison-oak were bent and denuded of leaf and bark; dead and rotting leaves had been pushed into heaps and ridges on both sides of the legs by the action of other feet than theirs; alongside the hips were unmistakable impressions of human knees.
The nature of the struggle was made clear by a glance at the dead man's throat and face. ”

“ The sheep run about bleating continuously, and even the intelligent goats look longingly all around as if they wished to find out whether the expected flock is already on the way, or at least whether it is visible in the far distance. The bleating grows louder and louder, for every newly-released row excites all the sheep assembled in the neighbourhood of the aul; and the impatience of the mothers, which is increasing every minute, finds vent in piteous, almost moaning bleatings. The longer the suspense lasts the more restless do the mothers become. ”

“ One wretch is represented attempting to climb a tree, his brains being picked out by a bird from above, and his feet being torn off by dogs from beneath; another is seated on the ground, while two men are sawing him in halves, right through the head downwards, the blood all the while flowing in gallons! ”

“ This being: done, the aged manikin goes to windward of the encampment and shakes out his abundant mane in the breeze, so that the effluvia from it may be carried down to the excited draught animals. One sniff of the tainted breeze in a moment brings every ox to its feet; when standing, often trembling with fear, they gaze with dilated eyes into the impenetrable darkness. ”

“ When the last drop of molasses was poured out, and Cynthia had dropped the pitcher for the bear, little John stubbed his toe and fell just before the turn of the path to the cabin.
"Now it happened," explained Uncle Samuel, "that a few minutes before this accident word had reached me that two bears had been seen in the woods that morning, and I had rushed home to say that the children must not go out. Before I had finished speaking, their mother had grabbed the gun from the wall and had dashed down the path. ”

“ Over all the flooded shallows there is a more active life. On the margins of the pools small littoral birds have their well-chosen fighting-grounds. Fighting-ruffs, [19] now arrayed in their gayest dress, meet there in combat; with depressed head each directs his beak like a couched lance against the bright neck-collar which serves his foe for shield. The combatants stand in most defiant attitudes, irresistibly amusing to us; for a moment they look at one another with their sharp eyes and then make a rush, each making a thrust, and at the same time receiving one on his feathery shield. ”

“ The object at his feet resolved itself into a dead horse, and at a right angle across the animal's neck lay a dead man, face upward in the moonlight.
"Dunning has had the fight of his life," thought the major, and was about to ride forward. Dunning raised his hand, motioning him back with a gesture of warning; then, lowering the arm, he pointed to the place where the road lost itself in the blackness of the cedar forest. ”

“ Carrying the trailing bearskin, still warm from the touch of her body, he turned again to the right, trudging on stubbornly along the arm of the lake. There was no particular reason why he should carry the bearskin. But on he went with it, a trophy of the chase. And in his heart was as stubborn a determination as had ever grown up in that stubborn stronghold. He’d find her, he’d get the explanation of this madness, if it was the last thing in the world he ever did. ”

“ The breeze was keen and so cutting, that one felt as if that part of the person exposed to it had undergone the process of excoriation, and when a stronger blast than usual swept over the naked and desolate-looking fields, its influence actually benumbed the joints, and penetrated the whole system with a sensation that made one imagine the very marrow within the bones was frozen. ”

“ After this it quickly began to snow, and when night came on they stopped. And now down I must sit in the snow, by a little fire, and a few boughs behind me, with my sick child in my lap, and calling much for water, being now, through the wound, fallen into a violent fever; my own wound also growing so stiff that I could scarce sit down or rise up.
The Third Remove.—The morning being come, they prepared to go on their way. One of the Indians got upon a horse, and they sat me up behind him, with my poor sick babe in my lap. ”

“ Gigantic beeches, with straight trunks smooth up to the spreading crown, rise from amid mouldering leaves in which the huntsman sinks to the knee; gnarled oaks raise their rugged heads into the air as if to invite the birds of prey to nest there; dome-like limes [Pg 559] form such a close roof of leaves, that only a much-broken reflection of the sun’s rays trembles on the ground. In addition to the nightingale, which is everywhere abundant, the songsters of this forest are the song-thrush and blackbird, golden oriole and red-breast, chaffinch and wood-wren ”

“ The men in the leaking cutter, after being tossed and buffeted by the sea, drenched to the skin by the waves, and numbed by the bitter wind, were picked up by the Brixham fishing smack Providence about fifteen miles from Berry Head. ”

“ Their dress is admirably adapted to the severity of their climate. With their two pair of breeches made of reindeer or seal skin, the outer one having the hair outside and the inner one next the body, and their two jackets—of292 which the upper one is provided with a great hood—with their water-tight seal-skin boots, lined with the downy skins of birds, and their enormous gloves, they bid defiance to the severest cold, and even in the hardest weather pursue their occupations in the open air whenever the moon is in the sky, or during the doubtful meridian twilight. ”