Crupper

“ These can be conveniently made of webbing, like a common single longeing rein, but the lead reins of a tandem will also answer the purpose. The horse should have a body roller on with two rings or loops about half way down each side, though an ordinary single-harness driving pad with the tugs on, or a saddle with the stirrup irons fixed up for loops, can be substituted. In all cases a crupper should be used. ”

“ I’ll tell you everything when I come back, dad. We’ll follow every ring, and cover every yard, and struggle together through every spiky fence. You’ll feel as though you’d tramped every inch, you’ll see, instead of sitting quietly in your own arm-chair. And you’ll be able to correct Mr. Callander about all sorts of things when he comes for his next lesson in Crump geography. Nothing is so upsetting to your sense of locality as running rings round the same hill and crossing the river every ten minutes. ”

“ What an ugly monster! cried Jack, as he stood over him: but far from being terrified by his ugliness, it only served to quicken my ardour:—one must always be glad to deliver the earth of such a monster.
You would have something to do, my young Hercules, said I, tapping him on the shoulder; no animal is so common as the crab on the shores of the sea: they are of numerous kinds, and may be seen by millions, all equally ugly. This, if I mistake not, is distinguished by the name of the poet’s crab. ”

“ I like very much to have the sticks for lame walking,––what you call––the crutch? Yes. I have for so long time spoken only the Polish that I forget me greatly the English. You must talk to me much, and make me reproof of my mistakes. Do you know for why I like the crutch? It is that I would go each day––many times to see the water fall down. Ah, how that is beautiful! In the sun, or early in the morning, or in the night, always beautiful!”
“You shall have the crutches, Amalia, and until I get them made, I will carry you to the fall each day. ”

“ You’ll find a pitchfork in that shed yonder. Be sprack and get it, and follow the rest o’ the folks up along.”
He chuckled as he watched her cross the yard and dive into the shed, reappearing in a twinkling with a pitchfork as tall as herself. Having seen her shoulder this and hasten away with it, he put his horse to a trot, and presently forgot all about Mrs Crumpler in attending to more weighty matters.
The little woman’s appearance in the field was greeted with a shout of laughter; but, nothing daunted, she made her way to the nearest waggon. ”

“ Very dark, very fast, it grew; Murphy rode pitilessly ahead, and I crept patiently along, keeping my eye on the ghostly winding white of his horse among the trees. Suddenly I saw a light to the left, and Murphy wheeling towards it. I hurried up. Never shall I forget the picture I saw. A smouldering fire, two evil-looking men crouching over it; their mules tied to a tree; and a third still more villainous-looking man leading up a third mule. ”

“ The wizard of Finland greets thee and bids me say that thou mayest free the maiden thus: Go to the river and smear thyself all over with mud; then say: ‘From a man into a crab,’ and thou wilt become a crab. Plunge boldly into the water, swim as close as thou canst to the water-lily’s roots, and loosen them from the mud and reeds. This done, fasten thy claws into the roots and rise with them to the surface. Let the water flow all over the flower, and drift with the current until thou comest to a mountain ash tree on the left bank. ”

“ The word has many transferred meanings, as a rough, small hut or dwelling, from which comes the slang use of “crib” as a berth or situation, or, as a burglar’s term for a house to be broken into; also, technically, in engineering for a timber framework for masonry constructed with a caisson in laying foundations below water, or in mining for a timber lining to a shaft. “Crib-biting” is a vicious habit in horses, probably due in the first instance to indigestion; the horse seizes the manger or other object in its teeth, and draws in the breath, known as “wind-sucking” ”

“ Crawling, springing from stone to stone, always in the brush, covering his rare tracks carefully, he climbed diagonally up across the face of the hills for several hours; and the afternoon sun struck him in a warm wave as at last he came out upon a round plateau, crowned with a circle of black pines; running to the centre, he thrust his face into the cool tufts of water-cress and drank, in long sucking gulps, like a horse. ”

“ She longed to go down to the shore and play in the row-boat, and dabble her bare toes in the water, and indulge in the eternally fascinating experiment of catching crabs with a piece of meat tied to a string and her father's old crab-net. What was the use of living when one was doomed to drag out a wonderful afternoon on a tiny, hopelessly uninteresting porch out in the backwoods? Existence was nothing but a burden. ”

“ Does not Paul Crubach say that he has had visions of grey warriors riding along the steepest cliffs of Craigrostan and Benvenue, where mortal horseman never rode, nor living horse could keep its footing?"
"Likely enough, good wife; for poor Paul sees that which others never see," said Rob, laughing. ”

“ Shortly before leaving the city, I was taking my usual stroll, when, turning the corner of Broadway and Fulton street rather abruptly, I accidentally planted my crutch fairly upon the unfortunate toes of an elderly gentleman. He proved to be one of the irascible sort—and no doubt it did hurt like the deuce—and he turned angrily toward me, brandished a cane, and vociferated:
“****’* fire and ***nation! If you were not a one-legged man I’d knock your head off!” ”

“ A little girl, quite a little girl in a blue-hooded cape, and a white apron, was walking with crutches over a plain. With every step she took her crutches grew and raised her like stilts. They soon became higher than the poplars on the river's bank. A woman who saw my surprise said to me: "Don't you know that in the spring crutches grow? But there are times when the size increases with alarming rapidity." ”

“ To-day, because it is mid-winter, and the wind blows from the west, the sea is clearer than ever, and far down below will be discerned lazily swimming to and fro great reddish-brown or bright blue groper, watching the dripping sides of the rock in hope that some of the active, gaily-hued crabs which scurry downwards as you approach may fall in—for the blue groper is a gourmet , disdaining to eat of his own tribe, and caring only for crabs or the larger and more luscious crayfish. Stand here when the tide is high and the surf is sweeping in creamy sheets over [pg 15] the lower ledges of rocks ”

“ That was foolish, of course; but every human has a foolish streak in him. The saddler put his mark on the leather and even on the tree and stirrups. That mark was famous, naturally. After the capture of the saddled horse it was only a question of time when they would pick up Libra Cruvan, asking explanations.
So they took Cruvan back, and confronted him with the bank teller, the fat girl from behind the café cash register, the thin, spindly waitress, two of the mine company stenographers and lots of others. ”

“ Spread out over those treacherous rocks, adhering by every finger in our endeavour to distribute our weight, we slowly wormed ourselves upwards. Such situations are always trying. The most brilliant cragsman finds his skill of little avail. Unceasing care and patience alone can help him here. Throwing down the most insecure of the blocks, which fell sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other of the ridge, we gradually advanced. ”

“ Suddenly, just as my companion had thrown another handful of 'burley' into the water, three big blue groper rose to the surface almost together, and, swallowing the crushed-up crab, began swimming round and round the edges of the pool eagerly seeking for more. This was my first view of this species of groper at close quarters, and these three presented, a very beautiful sight, the very dark blue of the whole of their closely-scaled, shining bodies, and the very light blue of their fins and tails making a pretty contrast. ”

“ This is the only place in the rock basin where such a foothold is possible. Behind us the crags rise, covered with tiny clumps of mountain-sage, and fringed at their tops with waving bracken fronds. Beyond, higher and higher, rise the stony ridges to the crags, which strike the eye in whichever direction it is turned. The beck tumbles into the small cleft, and as yet its unbroken descent is out of sight, but the soft, liquid, churning sound betrays its presence.
As other venues fail us, a tough scramble up the grass-hung bank commences. ”

“ The burrows are made by crayfish belonging to the genera Engaeus and Astacopsis, which are popularly known as land-crabs.
1848. Letter by Mrs. Perry, given in Canon Goodman's `Church in Victoria, during Episcopate of Bishop Perry,' p. 72:
"Full of crab holes, which are exceedingly dangerous for the horses. There are holes varying in depth from one to three feet, and the smallest of them wide enough to admit the foot of a horse: nothing more likely than that a horse should break its leg in one. ”

“ Goring was moving on when the hag hastily clutched him by the sleeve, and added in a rasping whisper—
“If you see her face—you die!”
“She is mad,” he said to himself, as he hastened to join Mr. Gregson, who had arrived at the great iron-studded gates in a state of crimson fury.
“You say we have land—true!” shouted a haggard, wild-eyed ryot; “but what is land without crops? What is a remission of five per cent. to wretches like us? It is but as a carraway seed [189] in a camel’s mouth! The wild beasts take our cattle and destroy our grain, and yet we must work and pay you, and starve! ”

“ Naturally I would have turned up the creek, never would have dreamed of going down into the overflow. As it turned out, I came to a raft just in the creek. It had broken loose, I suppose, from a mill above and had lodged there. By wading in, waist deep, I climbed on it, but found I was still some distance from the bank on the other side. I had not looked around since I left the Yankee, so standing on the raft I eased myself around and saw [142] no one. When I measured the water on the other side I found it too deep for me to wade and I couldn't swim a lick. ”

“ You don’t have to bait any hooks when you catch crabs.”
“I know you don’t,” said the little girl. “You just tie a chunk of meat to a string and put it in the water. Then Mr. Crab grabs hold of the meat in his claws and you lift him up and then you slip a net under him and you catch him.”
“You do if he doesn’t let go the meat or wiggle out of the net,” returned Teddy, with a laugh.
“Come on—let’s go!” cried Janet. “It will be more fun than playing on the sand. ”

“ So they are quite traveled, you see, and great favorites among the crabs. While they were on land they saw a great many curious things, and so I suppose they saw automobiles."
"We did, we did!" cried Harry Hustle, an awkward crab with one big claw and one little one. "And we saw earth people with legs, awfully funny they were; and animals called horses, with legs; and other creatures with legs; and the people cover themselves with the queerest things—they even wear feathers and flowers on their heads, and—"
"Oh, we know all about that," said Trot. "We live on the earth ourselves." ”

“ Crump is a better man, with his grunting resistance to all his native devils." True enough. Yet Crump may really be the better Crump, for his inner discords and second birth; and your once-born 'regal' character, though indeed always better than poor Crump, may fall far short of what he individually might be had he only some Crump-like capacity for compunction over his own peculiar diabolisms, graceful and pleasant and invariably gentlemanly as these may be. ”

“ The tide was nearly at its lowest and but a little way out, at the side of the reef, these rocks ended altogether, giving place to the wrinkled sand, and in among them were delectable rock-pools with torpid strawberry-looking anemones, and sideways-scuttling crabs with a perfect passion for self-effacement, which, if effacement was impossible, turned themselves into wide-pincered grotesques, and tried to make themselves look tall. ”

“ Then the Crab said to the old fisherman, 'Now take this rod; go and knock with it on a certain mountain; then a black man will come out and ask you what you wish for. Answer him thus: "Your master, the King, has sent me to tell you that you must send him his golden garment that is like the sun." Make him give you, besides, the queenly robes of gold and precious stones which are like the flowery meadows and bring them both to me. And bring me also the golden cushion.'
The fisherman brings the crab on the golden cushion. ”

“ Hideous sounds tortured the air—crackling, snapping, spitting sounds like the laughter of animals with steel throats. Never was ill work better done than when, on that radiant veld, the sky one vast turquoise vault, beneath which quivered a shimmer of quicksilver light, the pom-poms, the maulers, and the shrapnel of Kruger's men mowed down Stafford and his battery, showered them, drowned them in a storm of lead. ”

“ He then took off his coat and threw it on the crab's head, while I made an end of him with an axe. I told them that these crabs climb the trees and break off the nuts, as we had seen, and then come down to feast on them at their ease.
"But how do they crack the nuts?" said Jack.
"They make a hole through the shell at the thin end, and then suck them dry."
The dead crab was put in the sledge, and we went on through the wood. When we came to the Gourd Wood, we sat down to make some more bowls and flasks to take back with us. ”