Griddle

“ He had not ridden an animal in twenty-five years, and dreaded the necessity of doing so, but finally made up his mind to it. We drove in a wagon as far as Clear Creek, and there mounted three mules. I led the file into the creek, my companions following me without hesitation. The water was at least a foot higher than when I last crossed, and my animal began swimming at once, wetting me up to the waist. The other beasts imitated mine. Greeley was a sight to behold. Alarmed by the sudden immersion of his mule, he had first raised his legs in order to avoid getting wet. ”

“ A long gravel roadway circled in a great sweep around a wide spread of lawn, framed in by clumps and clusters of trees and rhododendron bushes. You got a glimpse of the stream at the bottom of the slope and a fringe of willows; beyond that a strip of lawnlike paddock, another hill, and then, far away, a thread of the broad stretch of water.
The trees were bare of leaves as yet, but Gilderman could see that it would all be very beautiful in the later spring and summer. They stood for a while enjoying the view. Then they all went into the house. ”

“ Griggs, out by the ash barrel, with his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, dashed the boy’s hopes to the ground. “Got about through, Stephen? Then I guess you may hitch up, after all. The wind has gone down, and Mis’ Griggs is disappointed, and she thinks we better try it. You may get things ready as fast as you can; we ought to be off if we are going; then you’ll have a long warm day in the kitchen. ”

“ But inside the farm-house all was warm and pleasant; the great logs snapped and crackled and roared in the wide chimney-place, throwing red light up and down the walls, so that the dark night only looked in through the latticed windows. Farmer Griggs sat warming his knees at the blaze, smoking his pipe in great comfort, while his crock of ale, with three roasted crab-apples bobbing about within it, warmed in the hot ashes beside the blazing logs, simmering pleasantly in the ruddy heat.
"Farmer Georgie Griggs"
Dame Griggs's spinning-wheel went humm-m-m! ”

“ The unicorn ran against the tree with all its strength, and stuck its horn so fast in the trunk that it had not the strength enough to draw it out again, and thus it was caught. ‘Now, I have got the bird,’ said the tailor, and came out from behind the tree and put the rope round its neck, and then with his axe he hewed the horn out of the tree, and when all was ready he led the beast away and took it to the king. ”

“ Gribble."
"Took to it from a baby," said Gribble junior complacently. "He sucked in the umbrella and parasol business with his mother's milk, as a body might say. For the top of his cradle was made of two umbrellas, and when he opened his little eyes and looked up, the only roof he saw, until he could crawl, was a roof of silk and whalebone. Nothing like commencing young! That there young un's going to be a useful member of society. ”

“ Then he fetched them dressing-gowns and slippers, and himself bathed the Mole’s shin with warm water and mended the cut with sticking-plaster till the whole thing was just as good as new, if not better. In the embracing light and warmth, warm and dry at last, with weary legs propped up in front of them, and a suggestive clink of plates being arranged on the table behind, it seemed to the storm-driven animals, now in safe anchorage, that the cold and trackless Wild Wood just left outside was miles and miles away, and all that they had suffered in it a half-forgotten dream. ”

“ When the tailor had brought the water, the giant bade him go into the forest, and cut a couple of blocks of wood and bring them back. "Why not the whole forest, at once, with one stroke. The whole forest, young and old, with all that is there, both rough and smooth?" asked the little tailor, and went to cut the wood. "What! the whole forest, young and old, with all that is there, both rough and smooth, and the well and its spring too," growled the credulous giant in his beard, and was still more terrified. "The knave can do much more than bake apples, and has a wizard in his body. ”

“ But the axe was made of lead, and the mallet and wedges were of tin. When he began to cut, the edge of the axe turned back, and the mallet and wedges were beaten out of shape. He did not know how to manage, but at mid-day the maiden came once more with his dinner and comforted him. “Lay thy head on my lap,” said she, “and sleep; when thou awakest, thy work will be done.” She turned her wishing-ring, and in an instant the whole forest fell down with a crash, the wood split, and arranged itself in heaps, and it seemed just as if unseen giants were finishing the work. ”

“ Would they come boldly up the avenue and claim her from the Girdlestones, or would they endeavour to communicate with her first? Whatever they decided upon would be sure to be for the best.
She went to the window once and looked out. It promised to be a wild night. Far away in the south-west lay a great cumulus of rugged clouds from which dark streamers radiated over the sky, like the advance guard of an army. Here and there a pale star twinkled dimly out through the rifts, but the greater part of the heavens was black and threatening. ”

“ The phenomenon which had attracted their professional attention did not appear to either of the Girdlestones to be a very important one. The haze on the horizon to the north was rather thicker than elsewhere, and a few thin streaky clouds straggled upwards across the clear cold heaven, like the feelers of some giant octopus which lay behind the fog bank. ”

“ Gribble's figure.
"I—I got home—quick as I could—Henry," said Mrs. Gribble, panting.
"Where is my tea?" demanded her husband. "What do you mean by it? The fire's out and the kitchen is just as you left it."
"I—I've been to a lawyer's, Henry," said Mrs. Gribble, "and I had to wait."
"Lawyer's?" repeated her husband.
"I got a letter this afternoon telling me to call. Poor Uncle George, that went to America, is gone."
"That is no excuse for neglecting me," said Mr. Gribble. "Of course people die when they are old. Is that the one that got on and made money?" ”

“ Every man carried at his saddle an iron plate called a girdle, on which, whenever they halted, they could bake cakes of thin oatmeal. Thus armed, and thus provisioned, the Scots could speed from mountain to mountain, and from glen to glen, with amazing rapidity, advancing to pillage, or disappearing at the approach of an enemy, as if they were nowhere at hand. ”

“ It is only a groom leading up and down, on the broad gravel walk at the other side of the lawn, a fine horse, stately and impatient, which scorns its limited space, and paws the gravel disdainfully, and arches its proud neck to the infinite admiration of the Dragon and John, who stand by the holly hedge as spectators. ”

“ The wind has been blowing, and the rushes and young plants bowing and bending to it, lest it should do them harm, the cowards—and Grip—ha ha ha!—brave Grip, who cares for nothing, and when the wind rolls him over in the dust, turns manfully to bite it—Grip, bold Grip, has quarrelled with every little bowing twig—thinking, he told me, that it mocked him—and has worried it like a bulldog. ”

“ The sea is peopled with phantoms that beckon them downward to the noisome depths. The last drop of water is long gone. Their dim eyes stare out of piteous caverns. La Grive is only just alive; her companion kneels beside her, his eyes still scanning the horizon for a sail or steamship: she talks of flowing brooks and flowers and birds ”

“ If a raylet fell to earth in the forest, it was not appreciable in the sombre depths, and the juggler, with all his craft, might hardly have made shift to follow his companion but for the spark and the light luminous smoke of the mountaineer’s pipe. Suddenly, as they turned a sharp edge of a series of great rocks, that like flying buttresses projected out from the steep perpendicular wall of a crag above them, all at once growing visible, a white flare shone before their eyes, illumining all the surrounding woods. ”

“ Yiddle on his fiddle played some ragtime,
And when Sadie heard him play,
She jumped up and looked him in the eyes.
Yiddle swelled his chest way out,
Ev'ryone was taken by surprise,
When they heard Sadie shout:
Chorus
"Yiddle, in the middle of your fiddle, play some ragtime;
Get busy, I'm dizzy, I'm feeling two years young,
Mine choc'late baby, if you'll maybe play for Sadie,
Some more ragtime;
Yiddle, don't you stop,
If you do, I'll drop,
For I just can't make any eyes shut up,
Yiddle on your fiddle, play some ragtime." ”

“ Bouncer; "he's no right to interfere with the enjoyments of the animals. If they break the fences, it ain't their faults; it's the fault of the farmers for not making the fences strong enough to bear them. Come along, Giglamps! put your beast at that hedge! he'll take you over as easy as if you were sitting in an arm-chair."
But Mr. Verdant Green has doubts about the performance of this piece of equestrian upholstery; and, thinking that the arm-chair would soon become a reclining one, he is firm in his refusal to put the leaping powers of his steed to the test. ”

“ They met and sent their fly to the Sun because the people were without ropes. He told his brother to go back where he had been staying. He directed him also to take the bridle off and to leave the rope as it was, tied to the saddle. “When the Sun is in the middle of the sky we will drive the horses back. Although it is late the Sun will be in the same place. ”

“ The spectacle was indescribably sublime, and the suspense for a moment rather awful, as we were clinging to an incline at least as steep as that on the Grindelwald side of the Strahleck—to name a familiar example—and it was questionable whether escape would be possible, if the layer of snow on the portion of the slope we had just been traversing should give way before we could retrace our steps. ”

“ The sleigh was covered, but I could look out in front and see the plucky creatures scrambling up a bank after they had extricated us from the great drift at the bottom of the gully. If there had been a tree to guide us, or had it been daytime, it would not have seemed so hopeless a journey. ”

“ All day long he floated, sometimes two miles astern; sometimes hardy a mile; he saw other cabin-boats drifting down. He would attract little attention in the migration flight of shanty-boaters, before the winter which was at hand.
Toward night, he came to within a few hundred feet of the shanty-boat. Gurdle was on the bow, handling the sweeps. He was smoking a pipe—Polray's own pipe, the pursuer thought. In the sunset, Gurdle was silhouetted against the western sky, a thin, shrunken little figure, huddling over the oars. ”

“ When the others reached the level ground near the stream they threw down their packs and began to go to work. Some of the men scraped away the snow from the ground where they were to sleep; others went off into the timber, and soon returned with loads of wood on their backs, and started fires; others brought poles with which to build lodges; others, bark from old cottonwood trees, and others, still, brush. Everyone worked hard.
Presently I grew tired of sitting alone on the hill, and went down to the others. ”

“ He rolls on the ground to break it, but the yarn is strong and only binds him round and round. Now he is frightened, and begins to run and whirl and spring into the air; but with every movement the thread, unwinding from the wheel, wraps him closer and closer; and the more he spins and turns and somersaults head over heels, the more tangled he gets, till at last he cannot move a paw or even swing his indignant tail ”

“ In the same manner, and on the same principle, so soon as the fine weather sets in, and the front-gardens begin to look gay, the graveller loads his cart with gravel, and shouldering his spade, crawls leisurely through the suburbs with his companion, peering into every garden; and wherever he sees that the walks are grown dingy or moss-grown, he knocks boldly at the door, and demands to be set to work in mending your ways. ”

“ There is always a hurdle six feet long and four and a half in depth, swung by a chain at either end from an oak laid across the channel. And the use of this hurdle is to keep our kine at milking time from straying away there drinking (for in truth they are very dainty) and to fence strange cattle, or Farmer Snowe's horses, from coming along the bed of the brook unknown, to steal our substance. But now this hurdle, which hung in the summer a foot above the trickle, would have been dipped more than two feet deep but for the power against it. ”

“ At the edge of one of these hillocks far down the slope he saw the tail of a pale blue skirt, a white parasol cast upon the stubble beside it. He reined in his horse, hesitated, dismounted, tied his bridle round a sapling. He strode across the field toward the hillock that had betrayed its secret to him. ”

“ Meanwhile, the snow began to fall more and more thickly and, after breakfast, Hugh said, “Now, boys, I believe we’re going to have a real snowstorm. Let’s get these ropes, blankets and saddles covered up as well as we can, and then we’ll go down to the point where we came out of the timber and build some sort of a fence there, so as to keep the horses from going back to the prairie. We’ll have to picket them all to-day and they’re not likely to pull up their pins, but we’ll make it as hard for them to get away as we can.” ”

“ Before entering this valley they had passed up through a narrow cañon, riding for a short distance in the stream-bed, and Hugh, who had noticed two or three spruce trees standing on either side of the stream, took an axe, went down there, and felling two of the trees across the stream, made a fence that the horses could not surmount. They could possibly get around by climbing high on the hillside, but as all the loose ones were hobbled, it was not likely that they would go very far up hill. ”