Brier

“ A Rabbits best friend is his brier patch and he is seldom more than eight and one half hops away from it. Jenny Ragtail used to carry a copy of that beautiful poem, Brier Rose, in her reticule, so that she would always have a place of refuge in time of trouble. ”

“ Many of the boys in Blackrock school would have found a difficulty in stating the exact grounds of their regard for Mrs. Brier. To some of them she was a comparative stranger; they could not trace one direct act in which they were indebted to her. ”

“ And this tide seemed particularly copious and good. For one thing, he had dined well. He had drunk at Brierley's a satisfying quantity of some admirable Château Yquem, followed by some quite excellent old brandy. He was by no means drunk; but he was conscious of a glow, a warm contentment. Life seemed amicable and prosperous and assured. After all, he was a fortunate young fellow, Stephen Byrne. The life of a successful poet was undoubtedly a good life. ”

“ "'Bred en bawn in a brier-patch, Brer Fox—bred en bawn in a brier-patch!' en wid dat he skip out des ez lively ez a cricket in de embers." ”

“ The Briers is like a great, big, beautiful dog that lies there begging you to come and plow it and scratch it and hoe it and rake it, while it licks out green curly vegetable tongues for more. At first Sam seemed slightly overwhelmed by all the offers of help that came with me in Redwheels, dressed in business-like corduroys that had been made like mine, in a hurry, and with hoes and seed-baskets, or that Pink or Tolly drove out in their cars ”

“ Heron,' he whispered, 'or seem to see or hear me—I'm Billy Brierly, of your husband's company. He is well and unwounded, and counts every hour till he can rescue you.'
Bill then drew back, for now Buktawur Sing came hastily and suspiciously forward. Mrs. Heron looked up. Astonishment, gratitude and hope were expressed in her eyes by tears, but not a ray of joy shone in them; and honest Bill Brierly felt his heart wrung as he looked on the poor lady, and saw now that the baby she held in her lap was dead! ”

“ Ferrars, to put out my hand and help in this work? To say what I came here to say? My fortune is ample. It is mine alone. I am of age, and my own mistress. Take me into your confidence, to the utmost, make me your banker, and push on the work. Robert Brierly may be helpless for weeks or months longer. Charlie Brierly [Pg 205] was a brother to me. No one has a stronger right to do this thing. ”

“ And as Brierly silently bowed his assent, he added: "Have you formed an opinion concerning this letter?"
"I believe it is a shameful trick," declared Robert Brierly, hotly. "An attempt on the part of some person or persons to injure Miss Grant, who stands to me as a sister henceforth. If I am any judge of womankind, she is as good as she is lovely, and I believe that she mourns my brother's awful death as only a good, true and loving woman can. I wish you could and would say the same, Mr. Ferrars." ”

“ They [45] know too when I start out and when I give up and make for cover.”
“Go slow, Brierley; go slow!”
“Of course they know, Louis!” retorted Brierley in mock dejection. “Doesn’t a crow keep a watch out for the flock? Can you get near one of them with a gun unless you are lucky enough to shoot the sentry first? You can call it instinct if you choose—I call it reason—the same kind of mental process that compels you to look out for an automobile before you cross the street, with your eyes both ways at once. ”

“ BRIERLEY, BENJAMIN (1825–1896) , Lancashire dialect writer, son of James Brierley. handloom weaver, and his wife, Esther Whitehead, was born at Failsworth, near Manchester, on 26 June 1825. He learnt his letters at a village school, whence he was taken in his sixth year, when his parents, who were in very humble circumstances, removed to the neighbouring village of Hollinwood. He was then set to work as a bobbin-winder, and soon afterwards sent into a factory as a 'piecer.' As he grew up he became a handloom weaver, and ultimately a silk-warper. ”

“ The sketches made by Brierly during the voyage were exhibited at South Kensington in 1868, and he contributed the illustrations to the record of the voyage by the Rev. John Milner, published in 1869. In 1868 Brierly was attached to the suite of the Prince and Princess of Wales during their tour to the Nile, Constantinople, and the Crimea. He contributed five drawings to the Royal Academy exhibitions of 1859-61; he exhibited again in 1870-1, but ceased to exhibit at the Academy on becoming an associate of the Royal Water-colour Society in 1872. ”

“ Mr. Charles Brierly's pistol, his watch, and the foreign bijouterie were so little wanted by this remarkable boy that he will no doubt get rid of them in some way at the first opportunity. All but one thing."
"And that?" asked Brierly, breathlessly.
Ferrars walked over to the writing-desk and signed them to follow. "Observe that letter file!" he said. "There is not much upon it, bills for school books, two or three circulars, and so on, but observe that this file hangs over the top of the desk, so that anything falling from it would touch just here. ”

“ Large areas beneath the trees are covered with formidable green briers and brambles, armed with hooked claws, and almost impenetrable. Houses are far apart and uninhabited, orchards and fences in ruins—sad marks of war. ”

“ The road that we have traversed stretches very fair behind us. We see not the sharp stones. We dwell but on the roses by the wayside, and the strong briers that stung us are, to our distant eyes, but gentle tendrils waving in the wind. ”

“ I am sometimes unconscious whether I really exist. If in such moments I find no sympathy, and Charlotte does not allow me to enjoy the melancholy consolation of bathing her hand with my tears, I feel compelled to tear myself from her, when I either wander through the country, climb some precipitous cliff, or force a path through the trackless thicket, where I am lacerated and torn by thorns and briers ”

“ The cold and darkness grew more intense, and, to add to the unpleasantness of our situation, we reached the end of the ridge at last, and from that point our way lay across a bottom ten miles wide, which was covered with mud and ice, thickets of cane and blackberry briers, and studded with cypress knees, which rendered our progress slow and laborious.
“Duke,” said Sandy, at length—and I could tell by the tones of his voice that he was shaking with the cold—“strike up a whistle. It is so dark we can’t see to foller you.” ”

“ He approached to inform them it was a [pg 156] fine morning, when the great beast of a bear "rose like the steam of rich distilled perfume" from the earth in front of them, and made a mouth at him. Juniper did not run, as might have been expected; he stood for a moment peering into the brute's cavernous jaws, and then flew! He absented himself with such extraordinary nimbleness that after he was a mile distant his image appeared to be standing there yet; and looking back he saw it himself. Baffled of his dwarf, the bear thought he would make a shift to get on, for the present, with an orphan. ”

“ A breath of cold air struck Byring full in the face; the boughs of trees above him stirred and moaned. A strongly defined shadow passed across the face of the dead, left it luminous, passed back upon it and left it half obscured. The horrible thing was visibly moving! At that moment a single shot rang out upon the picket-line - a lonelier and louder, though more distant, shot than ever had been heard by mortal ear! It broke the spell of that enchanted man; it slew the silence and the solitude, dispersed the hindering host from Central Asia and released his modern manhood. ”

“ The arrival of our fresh troops and their successful passage of the river had disheartened him. Three or four of his gray cavalry videttes moving amongst the trees on [pg 256] the crest of a hill in our front, and galloping out of sight at the crack of our skirmishers’ rifles, confirmed us in the belief; an army face to face with its enemy does not employ cavalry to watch its front. True, they might be a general and his staff. Crowning this rise we found a level field, a quarter of a mile in width; beyond it a gentle acclivity, covered with an undergrowth of young oaks, impervious to sight. ”

“ The officer rose.
It would have been a sharp eye that would have recognized him. His hair, which but a few months before had been brown, was streaked with gray. His face, tanned by exposure, was seamed as with age. A long livid scar across the forehead marked the stroke of a sabre; one cheek was drawn and puckered by the work of a bullet. Only a woman of the loyal North would have thought the man handsome.
"Armisted—Captain," said the Governor, extending his hand, "do you not know me?" ”

“ And it was angels that baptized her and that gave her the name of Brigit, that is a Fiery Arrow. She grew up to be a serving girl the same as her mother. And all the food she used was the milk of a white red-eared cow that was set apart for her by a druid. And everything she put her hand to used to increase, and it was she wove the first piece of cloth in Ireland, and she put the white threads in the loom that have a power of healing in them to this day. She bettered the sheep and she satisfied the birds and she fed the poor. ”

“ Four stretcher-bearers of ours, following a sergeant with a white flag, soon afterward moved unmolested into the field, and made straight for Brayle's body. Several Confederate officers and men came out to meet them, and with uncovered heads assisted them to take up their sacred burden. As it was borne toward us we heard beyond the hostile works fifes and a muffled drum—a dirge. A generous enemy honored the fallen brave. ”

“ The brank or scold’s bridle was unknown in America in its English shape: though from colonial records we learn that scolding women were far too plentiful, and were gagged for that annoying and irritating habit. The brank, sometimes called the gossip’s bridle, or dame’s bridle, or scold’s helm, was truly a “brydle for a curste queane.” It was a shocking instrument, a sort of iron cage, often of great weight; when worn, covering the entire head; with a spiked plate or flat tongue of iron to be placed in the mouth over the tongue. Hence if the offender spoke she was cruelly hurt. ”

“ When the magician saw that miracle, he said to Brigid, “You shall have all the butter for yourself, and the twelve cows which you have milked shall be yours also.” Brigid said, “Keep your cows, and give me my mother’s freedom.” The magician answered, “The cows and the butter and your mother are yours.” Then he believed in Christ and was baptized, and Brigid gave all his gifts to the poor, and returned to Dubtach with her mother. Her father offered to sell her to the king, saying that he wished to get rid of her because she gave to the poor everything she could lay her hands upon. ”

“ Its principal wealth arises from its agriculture, and the farms in the vicinity are remarkable for their rich pastures and produce. A stranger arriving at the entrance to Briarsleigh on a spring evening, with the sunset bathing the landscape in a golden misty sheen, would pause to gaze on a scene so fair; but on the evening of which we write, the bright landscape and the glowing sunset were unnoticed by the inhabitants of Briarsleigh Rectory. The lowered blinds, the stillness, and the absence of any living object near the picturesque building, told too plainly that it was the abode of death. ”

“ If I grow better in health I shall in time feel able to extend my next foray into the Lowlands as far as Oakland and Berkeley.
Here are some fronds of maiden-hair fern that I have just brought in. The first wild flowers of the season are beginning to venture out and the manzanitas are a sight to see.
With warmest regards to all your people, I am, as ever, your most unworthy uncle, Ambrose Bierce.
Angwin,
February 5,
1893. My dear Blanche,
What an admirable reporter you would be! Your account of the meeting with Miller in the restaurant and of the "entertainment" are amusing no end. ”

“ Barr Lassiter strode to the door by which he had entered. The moonlight on the lawn was tremulous, as if the sward were a rippling sea. The trees and their black shadows shook as in a breeze. Blended with its borders, the gravel walk seemed unsteady and insecure to step on. This young soldier knew the optical illusions produced by tears. ”

“ It is the only bridle with which the Pale-Coloured Horse can be captured. The moment one slips the golden bit between his teeth, that moment the beautiful great powerful Horse is tamed, and he who fits the bit to his mouth becomes his master. Take the bridle, David, and wait patiently at the spring, to which the Horse will surely come to drink. Seize him fearlessly by the fore{109}lock and slip this over his head and the bit into his mouth. He will obey you then, and carry you wheresoever you may wish. When the creature has served your need, tell him to return to my cottage and to me. ”

“ The officer lowered his pistol, uncocked it, and thrust it into its place in his belt. Brune advanced a step, extending his right hand. "It is the hand of a traitor and a spy," said the officer coldly, and did not take it. The other bowed.
"Come," said the captain, "let us go to camp; you shall not die until to-morrow morning."
He turned his back upon his prisoner, and these two enigmatical men retraced their steps and soon passed the sentinel, who expressed his general sense of things by a needless and exaggerated salute to his commander. ”

“ As has been seen, the goddesses Belisama and Sul, probably goddesses of fire, resembled Brigit in this.227 But Brigit, like Vesta, was at once a goddess of fire and of fertility, as her connection with Candlemas and certain ritual survivals also suggest. In the Hebrides on S. Bride's day (Candlemas-eve) women dressed a sheaf of oats in female clothes and set it with a club in a basket called "Briid's bed." Then they called, "Briid is come, Briid is welcome." Or a bed was made of corn and hay with candles burning beside it, and Bride was invited to come as her bed was ready. ”