Farrier

“ During the greater part of the day the animal had been much heated, walking amidst a throng of at least a hundred pony mares. He now began to shiver violently. I procured a quart of anise [365] brandy, with which, assisted by Antonio, I rubbed his body for nearly an hour, till his coat was covered with a white foam; but his cough increased perceptibly, his eyes were becoming fixed, and his members rigid. “There is no remedy but bleeding,” said I. “Run for a farrier.” The farrier came. “You must bleed the horse,” I shouted ”

“ The Worshipful Company of Farriers—one of those ancient City Guilds which had survived their original vocation and usefulness—has wakened up, and is striving to resume its proper function as the head and director of the trade over which it ought to preside. Agricultural Societies have also taken the matter up, and fostered a healthy emulation amongst farriers by instituting practical competitions at their shows. ”

“ I'll have no disobedient daughter in my house. I've had a talk to Farry about it. Thou first will not have him for a husband at my bidding; now thou art taking up with this pestilent preacher Bunyan——"
"But, father, thou didst take me thyself to hear him, and said he was a godly man. It is Farry's evil tongue that hath wrought this change in thee. Prithee, pardon my boldness, but I dare not promise what is against my conscience!"
"It is against thy conscience to obey thy father, girl?" raved the angry farmer. "A pretty conscience in all sooth. ”

“ Medical men, as physiologists, are able to judge to a great extent as to the value or non-value of the foregoing remarks upon the horse’s foot and its shoe; they, at least, have no excuse for tacitly admitting that grooms and farriers should have any advantage over them. Perhaps some of them may think it worth while to pick up their horses’ feet and examine them, and turn things over in their minds. Some of them will admit that they have become ‘groovey’ to an extent that is inexcusable, especially in men of science. Medical men are all masters of comparative anatomy ”

“ And the baby’s favorite game when awake is to play horsey astride of his back.”
“How cunning!” Jacqueline murmured. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a pet woofus to take care of Stuart?” Stuart being my own youngest.
But Mrs. Farley was a bit incredulous.
“Mr. Cabot,” she asked, “how could Baby Kew know anything about playing horse, seeing as there are no horses on Poros?”
Myles laughed good-naturedly.
“I said ‘horse’,” he explained, “merely to give an earthly allusion. What the little king thinks he is riding on is a whistling bee.” ”

“ Farrer, pausing at the door, "is one thing —you have to obey orders and you can't help yourself; but going to a lonely cottage two miles off to see the ghost of a man that hanged himself is another."
"Do you mean to say I'm afraid?" blustered the other.
Mr. Farrer shook his head. "I don't say anything," he remarked; "but even a cockroach does a bit of thinking sometimes."
"Perhaps you'd like to go," said the sergeant-major.
"I don't mind," said the young man; "and perhaps you'll think a little better of me, Mr. Ward. If I do what you're afraid to do—"
Mrs. ”

“ I submitted accordingly, Monsieur le capitaine, to the torture of seeing the mother of my only child perish before my very eyes, while, all along, I could have preserved forever the smile of her lips and the sweetness of her caresses. Such a price the continuance of our lives as Living Men exacted. And twenty years thereafter, my son, in his turn, to prevent the Secret of Long Life from becoming entangled in skirts, sacrificed his wife. ”

“ For thirty years, we need hardly tell the reader of sporting literature, that the Major had been a master of harriers—for well has he blown the horn of their celebrity during the whole of that long period—never were such harriers for finding jack hares, and pushing them through parishes innumerable, making them take rivers, and run as straight as railways, putting the costly performances of the foxhounds altogether to the blush. ”

“ When they were come into the Faery's Court
They rang—no one at home—all gone to sport
And dance and kiss and love as faeries do
For Faries be as humans lovers true.
Amid the woods they were so lone and wild,
Where even the Robin feels himself exil'd,
And where the very brooks, as if afraid,
Hurry along to some less magic shade.
'No one at home!' the fretful Princess cry'd;
'And all for nothing such a dreary ride,
And all for nothing my new diamond cross;
No one to see my Persian feathers toss,
No one to see my Ape, my Dwarf, my Fool,
Or how I pace my Otaheitan mule. ”

“ The Count François stopped and looked at his father who still sat, or lay, motionless as a corpse in that singular dormeuse, half chair, half couch. Had there appeared on those utterly blank features some expression which I had not perceived? The count, at any rate, turned at once toward me, and said:
“Monsieur, we are almost ready. Think again, I beg of you. Is there really nothing you would like before the operation begins? Is there anything we can do for you within the limits you now know? Our earnest wish is to satisfy your slightest desire, if possible ”

“ Speak low, Jeremiah. Miser Farebrother is as cunning as a fox. For all his lameness, he can creep about the house as soft as a cat. I was awake last night with a bad toothache, and I heard his bedroom door creak, and then I heard him go softly, softly down-stairs. ”

“ Francis and his Order. Thus, the Friar was crying to the butcher for mercy on the one hand, and the butcher to the Friar on the other, in such sort that a quarter of an hour went by before they felt safe from each other.
Perceiving at last that the butcher intended him no hurt, the good father told him the reason why he had hidden himself in the sty. Then was their fear turned to laughter, except, indeed, that the poor Friar’s leg was too painful to suffer him to be merry. However, the butcher brought him into the house, where he caused the hurt to be carefully dressed. ”

“ The fairy, for such she proved to be, made known her presence to the agriculturist by suddenly crying in a distressed tone—“I have broken my speet,” and then held out in her hands the useless instrument with a hammer and nails. No sooner had she received her property, restored to a state of utility, than she vanished into the earth, but not, however, without leaving a substantial acknowledgment of his skill and kindness in the palm of the astonished husbandman. ”

“ The good fairy looked at Henry most compassionately and then, without saying a word, she approached the poor woman, bent over her, examined her attentively, breathed upon her and said:
"It is not in my power, my poor child, to cure your mother; her life depends upon you alone, if you have the courage to undertake the journey I will point out to you."
"Speak, madam! I entreat you to speak! there is nothing I will not undertake to save the life of my dear mother."
The fairy replied,
"You must go and seek the plant of life, which grows on top of the mountain that you see from this window. ”

“ What passed between her and the prisoner, the incident of the knife with the horn handle with which the deed was done, the high words in the grounds between the prisoner and her father, especially those uttered by the prisoner: 'I will do as I please, and go where I please. You ought to have been dead long ago! You had better be careful!'—all this has been fully reported. The visit of a strange man to Miser Farebrother on this night is still a mystery. ”

“ Abandon that young Fairy for me. I will revenge thee on thine enemies, and on all whom thou wouldst injure."
"Thy favours are useless to me," answered the young shepherd, with a smile; "I have no enemies, and I would injure no one; I am too well satisfied with my own lot; and if the charming Fairy I adore were but a simple shepherdess, I could be as happy with her in a cottage as I am now in the loveliest palace in the world." At these words the wicked Fairy became suddenly as tall and as large as she had hitherto been diminutive, and disappeared making a horrible noise. ”

“ He is the Vicomte Antoine, at your service, Sir; and here is Count François, his father, if you please. And I—you will pardon me—am the Marquis Gaspard, father of Count François and grandfather to Vicomte Antoine. There [Pg 84] you have us all; and now, I trust, you will not impose upon me the hardship of remaining longer standing. Let us be comfortable! Will you not please take a chair!”
The door behind me was wide open still, as I satisfied myself with a glance in that direction. ”

“ He made a face like a bear troubled suddenly with symptoms of internal commotion! one who had eaten a bee-hive for the sake of the honey, and began to have inward misgivings that there must have been bees mixed up along with it. And Farren possesses the gift too—a most valuable one in playing to an English audience—of exhibiting the suffering without exciting the smallest sympathy! Whenever there is any thing the matter with him, you hope he’ll get worse with all your soul ”

“ I thought they were sheep, and I asked the Lapp whether they were his sheep.
‘A sheep,’ said the Lapp; ‘that isn’t a sheep, it is a jenesiä; that is to say, a hare.’
‘Well,’ I thought, ‘what a scrimmage, what an awful scrimmage there would be if one were suddenly to let loose in this place a couple of spirited Christiania harriers!’ At any time of the year, hares are to be found in almost incredible numbers, and at eleven o’clock at night, when all is calm and quiet, and the sun is still above the horizon, they may be seen coming out of their hiding-places, and feeding and playing about. ”

“ The beautiful Rainbow informed Fairer-than-a-Fairy that he was young, the son of a powerful king, and that the Fairy, Lagree, who owed his parents a grudge, had revenged herself by depriving him of his natural shape for some years; that she had imprisoned him in the palace, where he had found his confinement hard to bear for some time, but now, he owned, he no longer sighed for freedom since he had seen and learned to love Fairer-than-a-Fairy. ”

“ After ten days of useless pursuit of me, they were changed into so many animals during the day; but at night we resume our human forms: and you, charming Princess, if you had not delivered me, would have been changed into a white rabbit." "A white rabbit!" exclaimed Fairer. "Ah, Madam, it is indeed better that I should preserve my ordinary form, and that so wonderful a person as you should be no longer a deer." "You have restored us all to liberty," replied the Fairy ”

“ Where he had been prepared to face fang and claw, this inanimate foe had caught him completely off-guard and was swiftly fulfilling the purpose for which it had been placed here—the destruction of interlopers who sought the secret of immortality by way of the jungle.
A less determined man than Farr would have succumbed to that compelling force, would have fallen back on the stone and let the life flow from his exhausted body. But Farr was made of stern stuff, and as long as there was life in him, there was fight. ”

“ Mass’r Richard got powerful high temper, Miss Phill.”
“Then take care and not anger him, Harriet.”
“You see, when I bring in de letter, I bring in wid me some fresh myrtles and de tube roses for de vases, and as I put dem in, and fixed up de chimley-piece, I noticed Mass’r Richard through de looking-glass—and he bit his lips, and he drew his brows together, and he crush’d de letter up in his hand.”
“Harriet, you have no right to watch your master. It is a very mean thing to do.” ”

“ The count meanwhile held his gaze intently fixed upon his father’s face, interpreting to me the decision he found written there:
“Monsieur,” he repeated, “we shall do as you propose. We shall have the honor of escorting you to the room where Madame de X.... is sleeping. We shall leave you alone with her. As soon as we are gone, she, according to your request, will regain consciousness, and you will be free to converse with her on any subject without any restriction whatsoever. ”

“ But he had not been speaking long, when from the narrow entrance which led into the sandpit—for the Christians had barricaded every approach but one—there arose first a cry of surprise, then a sound of struggling, and a clash of arms, and a tramp of feet. The youths to whom was entrusted the guardianship of the approach were borne back by numbers, and flying into the assembly raised a shout of ‘Fly, brethren, fly! the Prætorians are upon us.’ The lamps flashed on the gilded armour of a centurion, who leapt, sword in hand, into the midst of the worshippers. ”

“ Who is this with holly stick cut from an alpine hedge and large drugget cloak draped over his shoulder? It is the head shepherd, the one responsible for the flock. At his heels come the rams, leaders of the stupid common sheep. Their horns, twisted into a pointed spiral, make three and four turns. They have deal collars like those of the he-goats and asses; but their large bells, sign of honor, have a wolf’s tooth for tongue. Tufts of red wool, another sign of distinction, are fastened to their fleece on the sides and back. ”

“ Another life of Fabre that we ought to have is one by his family. They were not devoted to insects; they probably loathed them; and yet they had to get up every morning and spend the whole day nursing bugs. I picture them, yawning and snarling over the tedious experiments, and listening desperately to Fabre's coleopterous chatter. The members of every famous man's family ought to give us their side of it. ”

“ The gentleman, being now convinced of the Friar’s wickedness, returned to his wife’s room, and said to her—
“Of a certainty, sweetheart, the man who lay with you and did such fine things was our Father Confessor.”
The lady, who all her life long had held her honour dear, was overwhelmed with despair, and laying aside all humanity and womanly nature, besought her husband on her knees to avenge this foul wrong; whereupon the gentleman immediately mounted his horse and went in pursuit of the Friar. ”