Ostler

“ Bells rang, ostlers halloed, waiters ran, or rather broke into that shambling shuffle whose secret seems to be known only to those who ‘stand and wait’—at least, no other creature practises it.
“‘Please to alight, ladies and gentlemen,’ exclaims the landlord, addressing the four insides; while the ostler, bringing a somewhat crazy ladder, makes a similar request to the eleven outsides. ”

“ And then, laughing merrily, they rode straight into the stable-yard, where they unsaddled, stalled and groomed their horses with soldierlike rapidity, and taking care to stand by while each had its feed of corn, for they knew too much of the world to trust to an ostler's nice sense of honour. ”

“ I once knew a country ostler—by name Peter Staggs—he was a lower species of the same genus—a sort of compound of my friend Tom and a waggoner—the delf of the profession. He was a character in his way; he knew the exact moment of every coach’s transit on his line of road, and the birth, parentage, and education of every cab, hack, and draught-horse in the neighbourhood. ”

“ When you come to your inn with the horses wet and dirty after hard riding, and are very hot, make the ostler immediately plunge them into water up to their bellies, and allow them to drink as much as they please; but be sure to gallop them full speed a mile at least, to dry their skins and warm the water in their bellies. The ostler understands his business, leave all to his discretion, while you get a pot of ale and some brandy at the kitchen fire to comfort your heart. ”

“ The moment he arrives where the horses are to be changed, he throws down the reins with something of an air and abandons the cattle to the care of the ostler, his duty being merely to drive from one stage to another. When off the box his hands are thrust into the pockets of his great coat, and he rolls about the inn-yard with an air of the most absolute lordliness. ”

“ Should I give up that situation, and remaining at the inn, become ostler under old Bill? There was more poetry in rubbing down horses than in keeping an account of straw, hay, and corn; there was also some prospect of glory attached to the situation of ostler, for the grooms and stable-boys occasionally talked of an ostler, a great way down the road, who had been presented by some sporting people, not with a silver vase, as our governor had been, but with a silver currycomb, in testimony of their admiration for his skill ”

“ Well, said the ostler, and I can prove your saddle to be a mule. A mule! cried one of them, how can [26] that be? Because, said the ostler, it is something between a horse and an ass.
135. A Frenchman travelling between Dover and London, came into an inn to lodge, when the host, perceiving him a close-fisted cur, having called for nothing but a pint of beer and a pennyworth of bread, to eat with a salad he gathered by the way, resolved to fit him for it, therefore seemed to pay him an extraordinary respect, laid him a clean cloth for supper, and complimented him with the best bed in the house. ”

“ By nine horrible fears oppressed him that his quest had escaped him, and he had to reconnoitre the Angel yard in order to satisfy himself. There he found the ostler (How are the mighty fallen in these decadent days!) ”

“ And with these words he hurried into the house. “That’s a nice horse, young man,” said another ostler, “what will you take for it?” to which interrogation I made no answer. “If you wish to sell him,” said the ostler, coming up to me, and winking knowingly, “I think I and my partners might offer you a summut under seventy pounds;” to which kind and half-insinuated offer I made no reply, save by winking in the same kind of knowing manner in which I observed him wink. “Rather leary!” said a third ostler. ”

“ It's coal black, and looks as knowing as possible; it's tried twice to get a kick at me, but I was down upon him, and put the bucket in his way. Howsomdever, I don't think it's a bad animal, as a animal, mind you, sir, though a little bit wicious or so."
"Well," said the publican, as he drew the ostler half a pint instead of a quart, "you're always drinking; take that."
"Blow me," said the ostler, "half a pint, master!"
"Plague take you, I can't stand parleying with you, there's the parlour bell; perhaps, after all, he will have some breakfast." ”

“ The ostler (being a fool) rushed violently down the road vociferating after them. Then he returned panting to the Vicuna Hotel, and finding a group of men outside the entrance, who wanted to know what was up, stopped to give them the cream of the adventure. ”

“ We heard my husband speaking about his horse to the ostler. It was his voice. I am sure of it. Amante said so too. We durst not move to rise and satisfy ourselves. For five minutes or so he went on giving directions. Then he left the stable, and, softly stealing to our window, we saw him cross the court and re-enter the inn. We consulted as to what we should do. We feared to excite remark or suspicion by descending and leaving our chamber, or else immediate escape was our strongest idea. Then the ostler left the stable, locking the door on the outside. ”

“ This latter observation was accompanied by a roguish leer and a chuckle, as if my landlord enjoyed the remembrance of the little farce that had been played off upon me on the night previous; and this demonstration was echoed by the series of guggles, gasps, and wheezing, which constituted the ostler Martin's peculiar style of joculation, from a dark corner of the stable, where that ancient retainer of the "Rising Sun" was smoking the pipe of repose. ”

“ Heigh-ho! an it be not four by the day, I’ll be hang’d. Charles’ wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not pack’d.—What, ostler!
OSTLER.
[within.] Anon, anon.
FIRST CARRIER.
I prithee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point; poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.
Enter another Carrier.
SECOND CARRIER.
Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned upside down since Robin ostler died.
FIRST CARRIER.
Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose, it was the death of him. ”

“ The ostlers and stable-men have the same habit as our own, of pasting or nailing up rude prints on the stable-doors, and of all those which I examined while we were changing horses, or where we stopped for food or rest, there was only one which was not on a sacred subject. ”

“ Thar was places whar the 'ostler had washed down to the foundation color, a kind o' chewed licorice! Then I knew that somebody had bin sold terrible, and I reckoned it might be me! But I said nothin' to the 'ostler, and waited until dark, when I drove him over here, and put him in the stables, lettin' no one see him. ”

“ Swarthy Spanish sailors put in sometimes, and fair-skinned, black-eyed Greeks, and broad-shouldered Norwegians, all as ripe for love as any other sailor, but that they should carry away an Island girl to their outlandish places over sea is a thing almost unheard of. The Island girls are courted by their own blue-jerseyed fisher-lads—and what a place for love-making, with the ravines and caves in the cliff-sides, and the deep glens in the heart of the Island, so lonely except for the lord's red deer and little fierce black cattle. ”

“ Glassy-smooth the water sleeps along the northern coast of our island summer resort, as the boat slowly skirts the low beach, passing bright shallows where seines of stupendous extent are hung upon rows of high stakes to dry;—but already the ear is filled with a ponderous and powerful sound, rolling up from the south through groves of orange and lemon,—the sound of that "great voice that shakes the world." For less than half a mile away,—across the narrow island,—immense surges are whitening all the long slant of sand. ”

“ Spake these measures on departing:
"Fare thee well, mine Island-dwelling,
I must sail to other borders,
To an island more protective,
Till the second summer passes;
Let the serpents keep the island,
Lynxes rest within the glen-wood,
Let the blue-moose roam the mountains,
Let the wild-geese cat the barley.
Fare thee well, my helpful mother!
When the warriors of the Northland,
From the dismal Sariola,
Come with swords, and spears, and cross-bows,
Asking for my head in vengeance,
Say that I have long departed,
Left my mother's Island-dwelling,
When the barley had been garnered." ”

“ To sail up this fjord in the sunset is to wind through devious lanes walled with these jewels, and to look off, over and above them, to fields of purple and gray and green, islands on islands on islands, to the right and to the left, with the same jewel-walled lanes running east and west and north and south among them; the sky will stream with glowing colors from horizon to horizon, and the glorious silence will be broken by no harsher sound than the low lapsing of waters and the soft whirr of gray gulls' wings. ”

“ Throughout the long line of the Aleutian Islands and the neighbouring coasts of North America, for over a century, hunters' boats—little cockle-shell skiffs made of oiled walrus-skin stretched on whalebone frames, narrow as a canoe, light as cork—rode the wildest seas in the wildest storms in pursuit of the sea-otter. Sea-otter became to the Pacific coast what beaver was to the Atlantic—the magnet that drew traders to the north-west seas, and ultimately led to the settlement of the north-west coast. ”

“ Islands of every size seem floating in a charmed atmosphere; to pass one pleasing spot is but to disclose another more beautiful than the last. Some are covered with a forest growth; others cultivated, and waving in the summer breeze with yellow ripening grain; and yet others are overgrown with varied shrubs, filled with singing birds, and wild flowers breathing perfume.
I had been fishing—had fished the river from the ferry up above and around the island. I was well satisfied with the day's sport, and was sitting in the stern of the boat in a sort of day dream. ”

“ There is no one of our island coasts so lone and forlorn that the cries of the winged newcomers have not lamented down the wind. There is not an inland valley where small brown birds from the South have not penetrated, some from Mediterranean sunlands, some from the Desert, some from the hidden homes on unknown isles, some from beyond the foam of unfamiliar shores. Not a backwater surely but has heard the flute of the ouzel, or the loud call of the mallard. ”

“ The smiling island, with its head in the mists and its feet in a sapphire sea still as a painted lake; boats full of flowers, corals, ivories, silken embroideries and unknown fruits; the burnished bodies of diving boys; the odour of spices and sandalwood; the clatter of strange tongues; the dark faces and bright clothes of the invading crowds of natives.
It was a spectacle to enchant the senses. She could not think why so many passengers were scurrying to and fro anxious to be taken ashore. ”

“ The best otter-hunting grounds in the world! A harbor as smooth as glass, mountain-girt, sheltered as a hole in a wall, right in the centre of the hunting-grounds, yet shut off from the rioting north winds that shook the rickety vessels to pieces! And best of all, along the sandy shore between the ship and the mountains that receded inland tier on tier into the clouds—the dome-roofed, underground dwellings of two or three thousand native hunters ready to risk the surf of the otter hunt at Drusenin's beck! ”

“ Once in the free spaces of the estuary I raised the sail, and the sea- winds swept into it with a rush. Over heeled the boat and began to leap toward the distant shore. With the tiller in my hand I sat by Miss Fuller and Miss Harvey, while the wretched sail obscured my view of Perdita, but under the boom I could see the lemon gold of the Maréchal Niel in her belt. I put the tiller up, and we bounded over the freshening water, and cantered up the estuary. ”

“ Many small islands were in sight to the north-east about six miles distant. The eastern part of the main bore north four miles, and Fair Cape south-south-east five or six leagues. I took the channel between the nearest island and the mainland, which were about one mile apart, leaving all the islands on the starboard side. Some of these were very pretty spots, covered with wood and well situated for fishing: large shoals of fish were about us but we could not catch any. ”

“ Exquisitely moulded islands are scattered about in the most enchanting way, all shapes and sizes, with now and then a little garden patch, and ever verdant with native woods and grasses and charming rockeries. As far out as the eye can reach the beautiful isles break the cold sea into bewitching inlets and lure the mariner to shelter from evil outside waves. ”

“ Two English vessels are approaching the island. At first the crews do not see it, but as evening draws on, the look-out man in the larger ship gives the signal that he has caught sight of land. “Land ho, land!” passes from mouth to mouth among the sailors. What land can it be? No island, no rock even, is marked on the chart, and the officers gather on deck to look over the darkening sea toward that darker point where the new land lies. ”

“ Islets lie off-shore, so full of light that they glow like bubbles blown of air and seem to float on the surface of the sea. Their shadows fall in delicious purple on the aquamarine waters and warm hues percolate their ragged, silver faces, while the gulls cluster in myriads upon them, and, black and silent among the noisy sea-fowl, stand dusky cormorants with long necks lifted. Like pale blue silk, shot and streamed over with pure light, the Channel rises to the mists of the horizon. Light penetrates air and water and earth, so that the weight of land and water are lifted off them and lost ”