Scull

“ Single scullers, contemptuously independent, shot by like large water-beetles in slim skiffs. On the far towpath the idle people streamed blissfully along, marvelling at the gratuitous exertions of the oarsmen. ”

“ I turned by an effort, stumbled over the curate, and stopped at the scullery door. The tentacle was now some way, two yards or more, in the room, and twisting and turning, with queer sudden movements, this way and that. For a while I stood fascinated by that slow, fitful advance. Then, with a faint, hoarse cry, I forced myself across the scullery. I trembled violently; I could scarcely stand upright. I opened the door of the coal-cellar, and stood there in the darkness staring at the faintly lit door-way into the kitchen, and listening. ”

“ A full spread Cariola shews a well-shaped horse behinde, handsome formed sculls, give some analogy of flesh resemblance. A critical view of bones makes a good distinction of sexes. Even colour is not beyond conjecture, since it is hard to be deceived in the distinction of Negro’s sculls. ”

“ This, although a hard matter to explain, is partly accounted for by what I have said above, in that sculling is so greatly a matter of delicate touch and handling. Even good oars are as often as not clumsy and wanting in a quick light touch. Very few really big men have ever been fine scullers. ”

“ The origin of the word Scullion was the Norman-French esculle, a porringer or dish. The place where the dishes are cleansed is still called a Scullery, while the domestic who performs such work bears the name of Scullery Maid. A rascal or sharper is designated a Blackleg, because such a one was generally to be found among the lower orders of turf and sporting men at the time these were especially characterized by the wearing of black top-boots. A Plunger is one who bets heavily either on the turf or at the gaming-table, without consideration for the risks he incurs. ”

“ It is often found difficult to keep one hand clear of the other in pulling a pair of sculls. This is so much the case, indeed, that the inexperienced frequently suffer more from the knocking and rubbing of the backs and sides of the hands against each other, than from the friction of the handles of the oars in the palms of the hands. ”

“ Man Woman or Child, that here pass by, Remember Death, learn well to dye, These Pictures see, these Figures View, The Sculls below, the Truth tell you.
Underneath were three sculls, the first with teeth, to signify youth; the second with only two teeth in the lower chap, to signify advanced age; and the third without any teeth at all, to represent old age ”

“ Hilda gave a shriek of terror and clung wildly to the gunwale.
"O Charlie!" she cried, "take us back. I don't like sailing. I want to go home."
"Oh! why did we ever come?" shrieked Belle, jumping up in her seat and wringing her hands. "You'll send us to the bottom."
"Sit still, dear," cried Isobel. "You'll upset the boat if you move so quickly.—Charlie, I think you'd better take down that sail and try the sculls again. If you'll let me steer perhaps I could manage better than Hilda, and we could turn out of the current; it's taking us straight to sea. ”

“ It was Aransas Joe, the first boatman out that morning, moving like a seal to the sea and laden with a huge can of bait, a spare spar, two sculls, and a gaff.
Anything more unlovely than Aransas Joe in contrast with the fair morning and the fresh figure of the girl, it would be hard to imagine. Wall-eyed, weather-stained, fish-scaled, and moving like a plantigrade, he was a living epitome of longshore life and an object lesson in what it can do for a man. ”

“ He was unpopular at the sealing grounds because he wore gloves. Gloves are a woman's garment; mittens the badge of a man. The Sculpin wore gloves always, eating, hunting, or sleeping. Even now, as he humped his back to the gale and stripped to the hide to wring the freezing water from his clothes, he kept on his gloves.
"We're caught," shouted O'Neil, above the moan of the wind, as the storm drove down upon them.
The Sculpin looked at the cloud of flakes waltzing among the ice-hummocks. "Better'n gas," he yelled. "I ain't afraid." ”

“ If, on the other hand, the paauw passed and remained unaware of our presence, the oryx would have inferred that the coast in our direction was clear, and accordingly have come unsuspiciously within easy range. So we lay as still as mummies, Hendrick and I,—almost afraid to breathe.
The crisis passed. The paauw was soon well beyond us, and the bull, accelerating his pace slightly, advanced to his doom. O! you of the swift feet, the tireless thews and the long, sharp horns that even the hungry lion dreaded,—you had run your last course, you had fought your last fight ”

“ The squall that rose up, covering half the heavens, and swept down upon us, as likely as not split into two squalls which passed us harmlessly on either side while the tiny, innocent looking squall that appeared to carry no more than a hogshead of water and a pound of wind, would abruptly assume cyclopean proportions, deluging us with rain and overwhelming us with wind. ”

“ Then there were treacherous squalls that went boldly astern and sneaked back upon us from a mile to leeward. Again, two squalls would tear along, one on each side of us, and we would get a fillip from each of them. Now a gale certainly grows tiresome after a few hours, but squalls never. The thousandth squall in one’s experience is as interesting as the first one, and perhaps a bit more so. It is the tyro who has no apprehension of them. The man of a thousand squalls respects a squall. He knows what they are.
It was in the doldrums that our most exciting event occurred. ”

“ SPURGE LAUREL.—The Spurge Laurel, called in Denmark Ty-ved, is sacred to Tyr, the god of war. This plant is the badge of the Scottish Clan Graham.
SQUILL.—The Scilla maritima, or Sea Onion, was of old consecrated in Egypt to the god Typhon. The mummies of Egyptian women often hold the Squill in one hand, probably as an emblem of generation. The Egyptians planted the Squill in groves, and hung it in their houses to preserve them from evil spirits. In Arcadia, at the festival of the god Pan, the statue of the deity was decorated with Squills. ”

“ Over mountain, dale and river,
At the dawning of the day.
As the eagle, on wild pinion,
Is the king in realms of air,
So the hunter claims dominion
Over crag and forest lair.
Far as ever bow can carry,
Thro' the trackless airy space,
All he sees he makes his quarry,
Soaring bird and beast of chase.
WILL. (runs forward) .
My string has snapped! Oh, father, mend it, do!
TELL.
Not I; a true-born archer helps himself.
[Boys retire.]
HEDW.
The boys begin to use the bow betimes.
TELL.
'Tis early practice only makes the master.
HEDW.
Ah! Would to heaven they never learned the art! ”

“ To see if she were in earnest, I lifted the spear as if to strike, still keeping up the semblance of anger—but she just closed her eyes, smiled, and leant slightly towards me, I then saw she was in earnest, so I flung down the spear and said in a kinder voice that she should remain, and that Lukwazi might keep his cattle. When I had said this, she flung herself to the ground on her face, and wept as though she would die. ”

“ The man then lifted his shield from where he had placed it leaning against a rock, put his arm through the loop-thong, and turned towards the ten, who stood struck dumb and rigid by what they had seen. Those who were living when the sun went down that day said that the face of Gweva was like a thunder-cloud, and that red flashes darted out of his eyes. He lifted his spear and sprang upon the ten like a wounded lion. ”

“ Some had partly rotted away, and showed like the sunken eye-sockets of a skull—blank and lidless beneath the staring heavens; others still retained the undesecrated seal of death, and were as the closed eyes of one lately dead. ”

“ Bodies have been dug up, and human bones carried off as trophies. The skull of a gallant Massachusetts soldier has been converted into the drinking-cup of a Georgia colonel, that he may, far away among his slaves, renew the festive barbarism of another age under the name of “The Feast of Skulls.”
It is obvious, Sir, that we are now in conflict with beings who belong to a different plane of civilization from ourselves, and it is important that this unquestionable [Pg 302] fact should be made known to the country and to the world. ”

“ Not a bit of it. Reflections from the rising sun on the concrete which filled the skulls to the bone-level? Not a bit of it; such reflections would not come in a scarlet flame from the eyes of each and every skull. They were reflecting the lurid sunrise squarely at me, of course; but those hollow eye-sockets were filled with red fire.
I dropped the glasses, seized the paddle, and spurted for home, savagely determined to run down the uncanny hoodoo which had settled on this house of mine. As I drew nearer to my landing. I could see those red skull-eyes flaming more and more distinctly. ”

“ You sat on the ground in the crescent, and laid
⁠Your shield down flat when Dingaan spake loud—
His vitals pierced by the murderer's blade—
⁠To his warriors fierce, in dread anguish bowed.
And now to this: to cringe for a shilling,
⁠To skulk round the mission-house, hungry and lone;
To carry food to the women tilling
⁠The fields of maize! For ever have flown
The days of the spear that the rust has eaten,
⁠The days of the ploughshare suit you not;
Time hath no gift that your life can sweeten,
⁠A living death is your piteous lot. ”

“ The skua saw red, and the herring-gull saw mainly red skua, as he was hurled back and down under the first rush, and instantly, without a second to recover, was hurled, equally helplessly, the other way, shrieking for his very life, and decorating the air and the old-gold sand with a pretty little cloud of his spotless feathers.
He fought with the desperation of almost all the wild-people, when there is no help for it; hammering, too, but wildly and clumsily. The skua fought with the cunning and precision of the professional, plus such a rage as can only be described as berserk. ”

“ For how far has the Devil been chasing you?”
“Baas must hasten,” replied the Hottentot, breathlessly, “or it will be too late. My master has got a bullet in the shoulder and he has bled plenty.”
“A bullet in the shoulder—that’s bad. What an accident! Let’s see,—to which of the loving brothers do you belong?”
“Baas Gideon is my baas. But it was not an accident; baas Stephanus shot my baas with his own gun.”
Uncle Diederick gave a long, low whistle. “Well, I always said it would come to murder between those two. Here, Danster,—saddle up my horse. Is the bone broken?” ”

“ Just beyond the outskirts of the town were herds of wildebeeste, blesbuck, and quagga grazing quietly about, like so many herds of cattle. But they were not so tame as they looked, as I found later in the day, when I went towards them with my rifle.
In passing through the High Veld, as the country to the north-east of Nazareth was called, I first saw the spoor of a lion. I left the wagon, which had been obliged to make a very wide detour for the purpose of avoiding swampy ground, and was making straight across country towards a point close to which I knew the road passed. ”

“ The little dwarfs who live under the mountains had pity on poor Cluck-cluck, and they gave her a great heap of red iron-ore from their mines.
Then she gave the iron to the Blacksmith, and the plow to the Farmer, and the corn to the ox, and the leather to the Shoemaker, and the shoes to Maid Marian; and Maid Marian shook the Oak-tree, and the Spring got the acorn cup, and Cluck-cluck carried it full of water to her little chick Tuppen. ”

“ Old Slugs was a bulldog to fight, and, for that reason, the watchers were confident that he would be the victor in the end. For all that the stranger rained blow after blow upon the wiper’s face and body, Slugs continued the fight as if he had not been hit. ”

“ As a square measure, it was the smallest division of the jugerum, which contained 288 scrupula. [Jugerum.]
SCŪTUM (θυρεός) , the Roman shield worn by the heavy-armed infantry, instead of being round, like the Greek Clipeus, was adapted to the form of the human body, by being made either oval or of the shape of a door, (θύρα) , which it also resembled in being made of wood or wicker-work, and from which consequently its Greek name was derived. Polybius says that the dimensions of the scutum were 4 feet by 21⁄2.
Scuta, shields. (Bartoli, Arcus Triumph.) ”

“ All this is delightful in sensation and description; but he who, like me, has made his first sleigh-ride in the weird power of a murderer, who has sat during it with an open knife in his hand as his only hope of life, knows the power of a first impression to kill for years all enjoyment from such a source. I never entered a sleigh for many winters which did not conduct me in thought to the banks of the Susquehanna. ”

“ The Search for Meat—Death of the Oryx—The Flank of the Dune—Outwitting a Jackal—Hendrick, My Guardian—Thirst—The Distant Rain—Typhon—The Southern Simoom. Daybreak found us sitting close to the candle-bush fire, for the air of morning was chill. Soon the kettle boiled and coffee was prepared. Meat was badly needed; we had eaten the last of the sand-grouse on the previous day, and a diet of unrelieved rusks is apt to pall. So we decided that I was to take my rifle and, accompanied by Hendrick, go forth in search of something to shoot. ”

“ The change in my character began to act upon my form. From a robust and vigorous infant, I grew into a pale and slender boy. I began to ail and mope. Mr Squills was called in.
“Tonics!” said Mr Squills; “and don’t let him sit over his book. Send him out in the air—make him play. Come here, my boy—these organs are growing too large;” and Mr Squills, who was a phrenologist, placed his hand on my forehead. “Gad, sir, here’s an ideality for you; and, bless my soul, what a constructiveness!” ”