Slat

“ The old rock stands for the mountains of the Old World, like the Welsh mountains, or the Mendip Hills. The slates stand for the new rocks, which have been piled up against these, one over the other. But, you see, each slate is lower than the one before it, and slopes more; till the last slate which you are putting on is the lowest of all, though it overlies all. ”

“ On account of the difficulty of access, the workmen take their provisions for the week, and sleep in temporary huts on the summit. During the winter months they are generally involved in clouds, and not unfrequently blocked up by the snow. The slate is conveyed on sledges down a zigzag path cut in the rock, one man attending to prevent the acceleration of the descent. When the slate is emptied at the bottom the sledge is carried back on the man’s shoulders to the summit. ”

“ He walked with the swing of an athlete, and only looked mean and small when he was stooping and dabbling in the snow.”
“His clothes. Describe his clothes.” There was an odd sound in Mr. Slater’s voice.
“He wore a silk hat and there was fur on his overcoat. I think the fur was black.”
Mr. Slater stepped back, then moved forward again with a determined air.
“I know the man,” said he.
III. THE MAN
“You know the man?”
“I do; or rather, I know a man who answers to this description. He comes here once in a while. ”

“ For a long time the road is all up hill, but then we come to a deep slope down, when the Elf and the Imp sit on the sledge, and I give them a push off, and away they slide, quicker and quicker all the way to the bottom; and then, instead of going straight on to the wood, they drag the sledge up and go down again, and then once more, and then we all go down together and sometimes end in a heap on the snow. ”

“ The slope of the waters was ex- cessive. I began to feel that we were no longer go- ing down a slope; we were falling. I felt as one does in a dream, going down bodily— falling ; falling; falling I I felt that the hands of my uncle and Hans were vigorously clasping my arms. Suddenly, after a lapse of time scarcely appreciable, I felt something like a shock. The raft had not struck a bard body, but had suddenly been checked in its course. A water- spout, a liquid column of water, fell upon us. ”

“ A glance down at the sled with its canvas mail-bags was necessary to reassure him of the reality of those sixty days and the two thousand miles over the ice. As in a dream, he shook the hands that were thrust out to him. He felt a vast exaltation. Life was magnificent. ”

“ And O, the happy hours that we have had with our clumsy old sled! Away we would go, the wind stinging our faces until crimson roses blossomed in our cheeks, and the shining crust snapping and creaking under our sled, and the hill flying away behind us!
If a damp clinging snow came, it made lovely snowballs; and it was such fun to catch hold of the long clothes-lines and shake them and see little clumps of snow hop like rabbits from the line into the air. ”

“ Much of the time we had to tramp and make road before we could move along. Sometimes the whole bottom was covered with willows, the tops sticking out and holding the snow up so light that we had to cut and tramp them into the snow before we could move our sled along. While passing the narrows, we had to make a dug way for quite a distance, still we pressed forward. Neither could we abandon our sled or goods, for the sled was our salvation to sleep in. Almost any night we would have perished with cold without our bed-room. ”

“ I can picture one man whose hands were tied to the handles of a birch sled, moving, stumbling in blindness wheresoever he was dragged. I see a swerving, uncertain figure, a scarecrow, a half-dead lunatic in front, cursing through frostbitten lips the dogs, the man behind, and the cold topaz of arctic skies, and striving to lead the way.
But I can vividly recall a time when, with bent head, I saw traces in the snow—human traces—the sign of a sled pulled by dogs, the faint impact of moccasin-clad feet behind. ”

“ Men were passing and re-passing on every hand, and in the darkness no one saw a small figure, in whose cap the lamp was not lighted, run swiftly from the foot of the slope up the drift where the sentinels should have been. ”

“ We're going your way, and we'll draw you home. We're on our way over to Black Hill, coasting, and say, any time that you come out to the hill, you come to us, and we'll take you down on our sled as many times as you want to go. ”

“ It runs upward, downward, skirts great white swales, clings to narrow places where if a sled were to skid or sway, both sled, men, and panting dogs might fall a thousand feet. And always their eyes are on that far peak. A funnel of the world this! A place where if comes a wrathful wind it sweeps men, dogs, sleds, everything to eternity. Natives have died on that pass within a hundred yards of security. ”

“ Besides the chance that a visitor has of receiving on his head one of those magnificent stalactites 1 meter or 2 meters long which fall continually from the roof, it is perfectly disagreeable to him to arrive at the base of the slope otherwise than on the sole of his boots, and to face thus the frequent and painful meeting with rocks whose angular edges dot the surface of the descent, smooth as a mirror set at an angle of 30°. ”

“ Each one of us grasped the cordage which held the cushions together, and the rapidity of the motion forced us almost to hold our breath.
Down the smooth, white slope we sped as a bird skims through the air. It seemed to me as if we passed over miles and miles of snow. Sometimes my face was turned down the mountain where the snow surface seemed to stretch out illimitably, and then it was turned upward towards the apparently illimitable slopes over which we had passed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There wilt thou find my dogs and my sled, packed for the trail. This night we go down to the Yukon; and since we go fast, lay thou hands upon what dogs come nigh thee, by the scruff of the neck, and drag them to the sled in the curve of the creek. ”

“ From the drear slope of a hill a wail goes up, and from another hill, or the cheerless hollow between, the sad sound is answered. Or one will fly wailing whilst the other wails and sits, or the two will follow each other along the ground, but without coming very near. ”

“ When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside the beaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him and trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, striving to leap inside his traces and get between him and the sled, and all the while whining and yelping and crying with grief and pain. ”

“ But he who would reach a serener air must press forward strenuously; for as a mountain may have one bare and northern slope, and another sunlit and clothed with verdure, and yet there may be a path on each side to the summit, so it is with the ascent to this felicity. One [109] lingers amid pleasant groves and laughing waters; another, undistracted by the beauty of any lower zone, but fixing his eyes upon the far summit, crosses the chill rocky slopes, never feeling the warmth of the sun and only seeing his brightness reflected from the highest peak. ”

“ Stall, masculine, ‘stall, stable, sty,’ from Middle High German stal (ll) , masculine and neuter, ‘standing or dwelling place, spot, stable,’ Old High German stal (ll) , masculine, ‘stable, spot’; properly identical with Stelle. The two senses of the Old High German word are ramifications of a primary meaning, ‘standing-place.’ Corresponding to Dutch stal, ‘stable, stall,’ Anglo-Saxon steall, ‘stable, standing-place,’ English stall. ”

“ Couldn’t leave the trail between the Cache and the bend. Ask any one in the crowd. It’s all straight rock-wall on one side, and there’s been a snow-slide hanging hair-triggered for thirty-six hours on the other. No sane man would sneak out and hide under a slide. And if he had sneaked out, he’d have brought down the slide. I tell you no sane man would try it. ”

“ Just a sled lying in the moonlight. But the change that can be wrought in a man's heart upon sight of a human sign! it may be idle to speak of that to any but those who have travelled the desolate ways of the North.
Side by side the two went down the slope, slid and slipped and couldn't stop themselves, till they were below the landmark. Looking up, they saw that a piece of soiled canvas or a skin, held down with a drift-log, fell from under the sled, portière-wise from the top of the terrace, straight down to the sheltered level, where the camp fire had been. ”

“ I was coming up to the sled, when I saw you streaking it through the vines and briers, and then I squatted down awhile to see what would turn up next.”
“Ha! ha! ha! is it you, Sneak? I thought you was an Indian! Come on, I’ll tell now. ”

“ By now the light was growing fast, as it does when once it comes in these latitudes. Three more minutes, and through the grey mist of the dawn we saw dozens of black figures struggling up the slope towards us. ”

“ They shot across the wide expanse, round the four sides, sticking notices at every corner, and down the middle where the two centre stakes were to be planted. Then they sprang for the sleds on the frozen bed of the creek. ”

“ Schlitten, masculine, ‘sleigh, sledge,’ from the equivalent Middle High German slitte, usually slite, masculine, Old High German slita, feminine, slito, masculine; compare Dutch slede, Middle English slede, English sled, sledge, Old Icelandic sleðe, masculine, ‘sleigh.’ From High German is derived Italian slitta, ‘sleigh.’ The Teutonic cognates are based on a Teutonic root slī̆d, ‘to slide,’ which is preserved in the English verb and substantive slide ”

“ On these streets, when there is any snow, it is very dangerous for carriages or teams to pass; that is, when the boys have made up their minds to keep the track for their sleds. I have seen sleds of all sizes, from those that would hold one or two, to those that would carry twenty-five, going down these streets. Sometimes there are as many as two or three hundred at a time. Persons of all ranks and denominations will stand and look on to see the boys enjoy the sport. ”

“ The line of sledges, the horses in tandem, glide quickly along the narrow road that lies through the forest, now between high trees, now between low firs weighed down by the snow, caked in heavy lumps on their branches. ”

“ We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile: a being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, sat in the sledge, and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress of the traveller with our telescopes, until he was lost among the distant inequalities of the ice. ”

“ We are not in a street or a road or any of those abominations you like to shun, but our little châlet, hardly accessible save on foot, is just tucked down on the side of the gentle slope leading up the mountain. ”

“ And we can acknowledge and admire the bravery and faithfulness of the men of the sledge-parties who, for days and weeks, drew the sledges and their comrades, with gloom above and around them, ice and snow everywhere bounding the prospect, and in a temperature which seemed to freeze the blood and benumb the heart. ”

“ But the verandah, deserted at this hour by the consumptives, had attractions for Justine, for Roland as well; and presently, in a corner of it that leaned to the south, both were seated, and, at the moment, both were dumb. On the horizon, vague now and undiscerned, the peach-blossoms and ochres of sunset had long since disappeared; but from above rained down the light and messages of other worlds; the sky was populous with stars that seemed larger and nearer than they do in the north ”

“ And each day when the shadows of the northern night crept out over the white river from the timbered shores and the killing pace began to lag, the weak voice of the benumbed sick man on the sled would urge them on into the twilight. ”

“ Thus down the ten miles of slope between mountain range and river passed a continuous stream of men bearing burdens, like ants on return to their hills; the same men soon after going back upward, unweighted, and with light elastic step. ”

“ It was a matter of constantly and smoothly gliding one past the other with utmost care and evenness of pressure, and from every man as he slid a snowshoe forward, undulations went out in every direction through the thin film incrusting the black water, The sledge was preceded and followed by a broad swell. ”

“ Wherever there is a hill, you see a large number of boys and girls enjoying themselves. Down the slope they come at a rapid rate on a little sledge, which the owner guides with his foot used as a rudder behind. ”

“ When a mast is to be drawn on the snow, one end is placed on a sled, shorter, but higher than the common sort, and rests on a strong block, which is laid across the middle of the sled.
In descending a long and steep hill they have a contrivance to prevent the load from making too rapid a descent. ”

“ Each mountain, as if its firm and immutable form were flexible and varying, altered in appearance, like that of a shadowy apparition, as the position of the strangers relative to them changed with their motions, and as the mist, which continued slowly though constantly to descend, influenced the rugged aspect of the hills and valleys which it shrouded with its vapoury mantle. ”

“ Some streets and roads are flat and level. Others slope like hills. Can you name a street which is level, and one that slants or slopes? Which road is easier to walk on? Why? Do you prefer the level or the sloping street when roller-skating? Why? Which is the best when you are coasting?
You may have noticed that some of the fields in the park or in the country are nearly flat. Other fields lie on slopes or hills. We call the flat part of the land a plain, whether it is in the city or in the country. The sloping part of the land forms a hill. ”