Ladle

“ The water, running through wet places, could be heard distinctly trickling among roots and coarse grasses and patches of rush, as well as the quick cropping of sheep and occasional scuttering of their feet over muddy bits of path; and along the track from the direction of Llangarth came the dull thud of a horse’s advancing hoofs and the constant sneezing of the animal as he tried in vain to blow the clinging damp from his nostrils. ”

“ What cannot a shepherd's dog understand, when, at his master's bidding, he will hunt up, collect and bring home, a whole flock of lost and scattered sheep, without missing a single one?
The party returning from the old Man were coming along the pathway which led to Scarf Beck Farm, when Laddie saw them at a distance—dark figures on the white snow—and rushed wildly up to them, entreating them by every argument, short of speech to follow him. ”

“ As for Laddie, he was fond of asking riddles such as:
“You can have a house full and a hole full but you can’t keep a bowl full. What is it?” The answer, of course, is “smoke,” but nothing gave Laddie more pleasure than to find some one who couldn’t answer that or some [Pg 17] other riddle he asked. Sometimes he made up riddles himself, or he might ask one that came out of a book. A queer little chap was Laddie.
Then there was Margy, who was seldom called by her real name of Margaret, and Mun Bun, otherwise known as Munroe Ford, as I have mentioned. ”

“ The yellow-haired laddie is low on the bier.
The maidens are wailing in rocky Glencoe,
There's gloom in the valley,—at sunrise 'twill go,
But no sun can the gloom from their hearts chase away,
The yellow-haired laddie lies cauld in the clay. ”

“ Please don't object to my beginning this morning."
"You try yourself all winter to get as far as you have, and then upset the bowl like this?" cried mother.
"Softly, mummy, softly!" said Laddie. "What am I to do? I've definitely decided on my work. I see land and life, as you and father taught me, in range and in perspective far more than you've got from it. You had a first hand wrestle. The land I covet has been greatly improved already. I can do what I choose with it, making no more strenuous effort than plowing; and I am proud to say that I LOVE to plow. I like my feet in the soil. ”

“ A horseman who had not joined the hunt, who had dexterously kept the others in sight, sheltering himself from observation under the fringe of the wood which crowned a small hill in the neighbourhood of the meet, was watching all the evolutions of Lionel Dale's horse closely through a small field-glass, and soon, perceived that the animal was beyond the rider's skill to manage. ”

“ A cow has horns. A horse doesn't," Laddie declared scornfully.
"A colt," guessed Russ.
"No, no!" rejoined the eager Laddie. "A colt is a little horse, so that could not be the answer, Russ Bunker."
"A giraffe," suggested Vi again.
"I wish you wouldn't, Vi," complained the riddle-maker. "Does a giraffe look like any horse you ever saw?"
"A carpenter's horse," said Rose.
"Pooh! That's made of wood. Can a wooden horse run?" cried Laddie.
"I guess that is a pretty good riddle," said Russ soberly. "What is the answer, Laddie?" ”

“ A moon ago I fared afoot from Mid-mark through Upper-mark into the thicket of the south, and through it into the heath country; and I went over a neck and came in the early dawn into a little dale when somewhat of mist still hung over it. At the dale's end I saw a man lying asleep on the grass under a quicken tree, and his shield and sword hanging over his head to a bough thereof, and his horse feeding hoppled higher up the dale. ”

“ Lad, one eye ever on his foe, saw the onrush. Fiercely he redoubled his efforts to bite through the rope, before the bear should be upon him. But the task was not one to be achieved in a handful of seconds.
Moving with a swiftness amazing for an animal of his clumsy bulk, the bear swarmed up the hillock. He gained the summit; not three yards from where Laddie struggled. And the collie knew the rope was not more than half gnawed through. There was no further time for biting at it. The enemy was upon him.
Fear did not enter the big dog's soul. ”

“ This is the severest use to which a lariat can be put on mule or horse. The person using it, however, should be careful to see that it sets well back to the shoulder of the animal. I refer now to the part of the loop that is around the neck. The end of the lariat should always be held by a man, and not made fast to any part of the wagon, so that if the animal falls or throws himself, you can slack up the lariat and save him from injury. ”

“ The resistance experienced by the tail when in the positions indicated by g h, k l, is increased by the tail being divaricated, by its being moved with increased energy, and by the fish re-rotating on its long axis, so as to present the flat of the tail to the water. The movements of the tail are slowed when the tail is carried away from the line a b, and quickened when the tail is forced towards it. ”

“ A very good idea of the structure of the rattle may be formed by slipping a number of thimbles loosely into each other.
`The rattlesnake lies coiled with its head flat, and the tip of its tail elevated; when alarmed or irritated it gives a quivering movement to the tail which causes the joints of the rattle to shake against each other with a peculiar sound, not easily described; all animals, even horses newly brought from Europe, tremble at this noise, and try to escape.'
`What is the best thing to be done for the bite of a serpent?' inquired Fritz. ”

“ Lallie shook her head.
"No, I'm not hunting--yet."
"Not hunting, Miss Clonmell! What on earth is the matter? Have you lost your nerve?"
"No," snapped Lallie, "but I've lost my horse. Dad's in India, as you know; the horses are in Ireland; and I'm staying with friends who don't hunt and won't let me hunt without them."
"Oh, but that's nonsense! Were you going this way--may I walk with you? I've got a little mare here that would carry you perfectly if you would honour me by riding her to-morrow. She has been ridden by a lady, and I believe she has excellent manners and is a good jumper. ”

“ Being out one day with a party of hunters, I saw at a distance a thick bush moving slowly, as by magic, along the top of a dense copse of gum cistus. No horse or man could be seen. One of the hunters exclaimed, ‘a boar has been caught in a noose! See the bush to which it is fastened moving along the top of the copse.’ We decided to take the animal alive, so approaching the bush and long rope to which the noose was attached, we laid hold of the rope and pulled it tight, until the boar was half-strangled. ”

“ Nothing to do but hitch your rope-ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the moat—because a rope-ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know—and there's your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and fling you across a saddle and away you go, to your native Langudoc, or Navarre, or wherever it is. ”

“ In a second his voice rose in a tone that braced me like a glass of brandy.
“See!” he cried. “Thank Heaven! It is only a poor, cringing dog—a shaggy hound. Here, you poor beast. Did I hurt you? Come, Laddie, come, boy!”
257“Laddie” he had called him, and it was the same “Laddie” that lived with us so long.
“Margaret!” cried the Judge, as he pulled the dirty creature into the kitchen. “A light! The thing is half-starved. Bring some food upstairs to the library.” ”

“ The stump was partly filled with dried leaves, which made a soft bed on which Laddie had really gone to sleep. He had just curled up in a sort of nest and there he had stayed while the others were hunting for him.
"Are we going to play hide-and-go-seek any more?" asked Laddie, when he had climbed out of the stump and brushed the pieces of leaves off his clothes. [208]
"I'm hungry," announced Mun Bun. "I want some bread and peaches."
"So do I!" added Margy. ”

“ That most ancient and most original of all ladders, a bough with some pegs driven through it, reared against a tree for the keeper to reach the nests of hawks or magpies, or to fetch down a brood of young jackdaws for a pie, quite as savoury a dish as one made with young rooks or pigeons; or for him to sit aloft amongst the foliage, and watch for the approach of deer, or fawn, when he is commissioned to shoot one. The profound and basking silence all around you, as you sit on some dry ferny mound, and look far and wide through the glimmering heat, or the cool shadow. ”

“ Laddie went on. He was always ready to do that. "This one is going to be about a barrel. When does a barrel feel hungry?"
"Pooh! There can't be any answer to that!" declared Russ. "A barrel can't ever be hungry."
"Yes it can, too!" cried Laddie. "When a barrel takes a roll, isn't it hungry? A roll is what you eat," he explained, "I didn't think that riddle up," he added, for Laddie was quite honest. "Jerry Simms told me. When is a barrel hungry? When it takes a roll before breakfast—that's the whole answer." ”

“ Instead of the compact concentration of animal strength visible in the massive form, nervous limbs, short neck, and majestic port of a European bull—English, Spanish, or Swiss—you see animals turned into the arena, with a demeanour unworthy of even a decent cow—hollow-backed, long-legged, long-horned, nerveless animals, whose first impulse is to get out of the way, and whose courage is the courage of desperation. ”

“ Oh, that tail—that awful, writhing, lashing tail! I can stand Indians, bears, wolves, anything but that tail, and a rattler is all tail, except its head. If that tail touches me I shall let go. It did touch me, I did not let go. Pride held me there, for I heard the sound of galloping hoofs. Whiskers' empty saddle had alarmed the rest of the party. ”

“ Then I came to tell you, 'cause I saw you playing on the sand."
"I'm glad you did," said Russ. "I'm sorry the men got upset, but I like to see 'em."
"So am I. Will they lose all their fish?" demanded Laddie.
"Most of 'em," said George. "They can scoop up some in nets, I guess, but a lot [Pg 222] that wasn't quite dead swam away and the waves took the others out to sea. The fish hawks will get 'em and lots of boys and men are taking fish home. The fishermen can't save 'em all and when a boat upsets anybody that wants to, keeps the fish." ”

“ The whole back part of the body, including the tail, is moved from side to side as the fish swims. It moves its tail as a paddle is used at the stern of a boat, and so the fish paddles himself along. The fins are used more as balancers. They keep the fish upright in the water. ”

“ Wherefore the sheep were nimble in their feeding, and led him on long, till they and he were come into a grassy little dale with a stream running through it. There they were neither to hold nor to bind, but strayed all up and down the dale and over the crest of the bent thereof, and would not come to his call; and his dog was young and not very wise, and could do little to help him: so he began to think he had best gather what of the sheep he could, and drive them home and fold them, and then come back and hunt for the rest, perhaps with the help of his grandsire ”

“ One day when Cousin Redfield was looking at the jug he had an idea. Just outside of the cave his father had made a bear-ladder for Reddie to learn to climb on. A bear-ladder is a piece of a tree set up straight in the ground. It has short, broken-off limbs, and little bears like to run up and down on it, and big bears, too, for it gives them exercise and keeps them in practice for climbing real trees. ”

“ She and Russ expected every moment to hear the bull dash against the hen-house door. The boy was afraid, if this happened, that the shaky door would be broken so the bull could get in.
But, to his surprise, a moment later Laddie cried:
“Look! He ran right past here!”
And that is just what happened. The bull, charging head down, had carried himself well past the hen-house, but could be seen to one side rushing around.
That is one difference between a bull and a cow. A bull charges with his head down and cannot well see where he is going, so that if one is very active he can leap out of the way. ”

“ The rattles from which these serpents take their name, are a number of hollow, horny, button-like structures at the tip of the tail, which rattle together, with a peculiar humming sound, when the creature shakes its tail, as it is sure to do when disturbed or angry. It thus gives a warning to the man who might not have noticed the sluggish creature in his path in time to jump aside. Not all of the tribe have a rattle, however ”

“ A lot of trouble we should have if the men did not look after such things for us; but that is what men are for, they say,—to look after us Sheep."
"But won't they laugh at me when my tail is shorter?" asked her son. [Pg 19]
"They would laugh at you if you wore it long. No Lamb who pretends to be anybody would be seen in the pasture with a dangling tail. Only wild Sheep wear them long, poor things!" ”

“ His body is lithe and supple, and his feet are furnished with a broad web, which connects the toes, and is of infinite service Page 187 in propelling the animal through the water when in search of his finny prey. His long, broad and flat tail serves as a most effectual rudder, and the joints of his powerful legs are so flexible as to permit of their being turned in almost any direction. ”

“ My wife, after milking the cow and goats, harnessed the cow and ass, and set out to search for drift-wood for our use. In the mean time, I mounted the ladder with Fritz, and we set to work stoutly, with axe and saw, to rid ourselves of all useless branches. Some, about six feet above our foundation, I left, to suspend our hammocks from, and others, a little higher, to support the roof, which, at present, was to be merely sailcloth. My wife succeeded in collecting us some boards and planks, which, with her assistance, and the aid of the pulley, we hoisted up. ”