Tether

“ Sterne’s body, as if rooted on the spot, trembled slightly from top to toe with the internal vibration of the ship; from under his feet came sometimes a sudden clang of iron, the noisy burst of a shout below; to the right the leaves of the tree-tops caught the rays of the low sun, and seemed to shine with a golden green light of their own shimmering around the highest boughs which stood out black against a smooth blue sky that seemed to droop over the bed of the river like the roof of a tent. ”

“ Yet there they are, going round and round at the ends of their tethers, and being immensely sniffy about the people who stray loose trailing the broken end of their old rope, and looking for a new way through the bush. Yet so men{165} are. ”

“ I am a student, Miss Thorold, and perhaps it is not surprising that those who devote the whole of themselves to manual labour on a farm should find it difficult to keep in touch with me. It is said that if you associate with the animals you will in time assimilate their characteristics. This has already happened to Arthur, and some of the girls are following in his footsteps. Milly is the only one who has shown no outward sign of deterioration since we came to Tetherstones. It is a very insidious evil, and it spreads—it spreads. ”

“ Two masts and a funnel uprose from behind it with a great rake, as if about to fall: a solid, square elevation in the middle bore the ghostly shapes of white boats, the curves of davits, lines of rail and stanchions, all confused and mingling darkly everywhere; but low down, amidships, a single lighted port stared out on the night, perfectly round, like a small, full moon, whose yellow beam caught a patch of wet mud, the edge of trodden grass, two turns of heavy cable wound round the foot of a thick wooden post in the ground. ”

“ Lugh said ominously. "You hover on the brink of an abyss. Tethra. Send Fand and the Gateway back to us or it is war between Tuathans and Formorians that means your death."
Tethra laughed mockingly. "Will threats win that war for you? You are already defeated and you know it, Lugh. Long have you kept us barred out of that Earth from which you drove us. Now we go back there, for now we have the Gateway and soon we will have its secret." ”

“ I fancy that this narrow cove prescribes the proper limits of a sonnet; and when I count the lines of ripple within yonder projecting wall, there proves to be room for just fourteen. Nature meets our whims with such little fitnesses. The words which build these delicate structures of Petrarch’s are as soft and fine and close-textured as the sands upon this tiny beach, and their monotone, if such it be, is the monotone of the neighboring ocean. ”

“ I finished it during the whole of Monday, while Tertium and St. John went up the river to make their first experiment in our new territory. Their report was not very encouraging—they brought back at night only eight dollars; but as St. John attributed this result entirely to the rocker, which was indeed a wretched affair, and I attributed it, in part at least, to my not being there to see, Tertium was the only one seriously disturbed by their ill fortune.
The next day fully justified my expectations. The earth was a most tenacious clay mixed with stones and gravel ”

“ They’re all pretty much the same, except for the masks. The ones they use on Earth are built in. Here in Tetrarch they’re removable. They fashioned them to conceal their real structure after they investigated Earth. ”

“ In a great hurry the dwarfs caught up the link from the water and laid it on the anvil again, and then they all stood back from it. Every noise has ceased through all the forges, and the dwarfs were waiting in breathless stillness as though for something to happen.
Suddenly, in the silence, Teddy heard a faint tinkling as though of icicles struck lightly together, and at the same moment he saw that a woman all in white had entered the forge down at the other end. ”

“ Rounding up his guerillas, he led them at a fast pace to the Lake of the Spiders, around it, and to the place where the Lomarrian army had been encamped. Four fifty-man rafts were waiting, and Tedric noticed with surprise that a sort of house had been built on the one lying farthest down-stream. This luxury, he learned, was for him and his squire Rahlion and their horses and armor!
The Middle Branch was wide and swift; and to Tedric and his bowmen, landlubbers all, it was terrifyingly rough and boisterous and full of rocks. Tedric, however, did not stay a landlubber long. ”

“ Large parties of men proceed to the reef, when the sea is comparatively smooth, and hunt the Totara, or Hedgehog-fish, probably a species of Diodon; and it is a beautiful and interesting spectacle, to behold a long line of reef illuminated by the flaming torches, the light from which glares redly upon the foaming surf without, and the calm lagoon within. Each fisherman holds his torch in his left hand high above his head, while he poises his spear in his right, and stands with statue-like stillness, watching the approach of the fish. ”

“ Our druid faith will always be the consolation of strong souls and the support of the weak!" answered Tetrik. "Alas! But for the certainty of meeting again the beings whom we have loved in this world, how much more dreadful would not their departure in death be to us! Believe me, Victoria, I shall see long before you, these dear beings whom to-day we weep. Agreeable to your wishes, I shall render to them to-day, before my departure, the last homage that is due to them."
Tetrik and Captain Marion withdrew, leaving Victoria, Sampso and myself alone. ”

“ When these animals, to which sailors and the inhabitants of our coasts give the name of Pustules of the Sea, or Sea-Thorns, multiply to such an extent on the surface of wood that their disks touch, without leaving the least vacant space, the natural consequence is, that the young teredo cannot find any place where it can attach itself, and hence it is impossible for him to penetrate the wood. ”

“ The mountain-torrents leap through the morning mist; and the mists themselves creep winding through the cliffs, even as the smoke from a cottage chimney, then twine themselves like a turban round some ancient tower, while Térek ripples on among the stones, curling as a tired hound who seeks a resting-place. ”

“ Stepping to the nearest cavern he looked in, and there he saw the whole inside of the mountain was hollowed out into forges that opened into each other be means of rocky arches. In every forge were little dwarfs dressed in leather and hammering at pieces of red-hot iron that lay on the anvils.
As Teddy stood looking in he was so tall that his head almost touched the top of the doorway. He was dressed in a long red cloak, and under that he wore a robe fastened about the waist with a girdle of rubies that shone and sparkled in the light; upon his hand was a ruby ring. ”

“ The most hot and sandy tracts, which we might naturally imagine would now be parched up, are in full glory. The erica tetralix, or bell-heath, the most beautiful of our indigenous species, is now in bloom, and has converted the brown bosom of the waste into one wide sea of crimson; the air is charged with its honied odour. ”

“ As from its hard nature it turns the edge of the best-tempered tools, it serves for the construction of wharves, as well as for the keels of ships,—the attacks of the teredo, or sea-worm, being futile upon the iron network of its fibres. It can remain under water for an indefinite period without rotting, and eventually becomes petrified. ”

“ When the pieces of wood treated with oil of paraffine were taken from the water in 1862, after a sojourn of more than two years, or rather during three summers, traces of the teredo were found in the pieces of oak, but not on those of red fir; but when examined in November, 1863, fully-developed teredos were found everywhere, in the fir as well as in the oak, in the pieces whose surfaces had been removed by the adze, but not more than in those which had not been submitted to any examination. ”

“ But whatever it is that ambition fishes up from the British or the Indian sea, it is a kind of conch not more pleasing in savour than—I do not say the oyster and the sea-snail, but—even the giant muscle. ”

“ The Teton landscape is a battleground, the scene of a continuing unresolved struggle between the forces that deform the earth’s crust and raise the mountains and the slow processes of erosion that strive to level the uplands, fill the hollows, and reduce the landscape to an ultimate featureless plain. ”

“ Sprawley and all the other mermen dived off into the water and began splashing and shrieking and pulling at each other and getting farther and farther away.
“All the same, I don’t think you’ll float me off,” said Teddy to himself. ”

“ Snakes of a different species, and apparently harmless, were far more numerous—the big rock that overhung our tent was their favourite resort, and I often saw them gliding among the crevices or lying motionless in watch for some unlucky lizard.
The 1st of May, Tertium left us to return home. We had already sold two of our shares to miners on the red bank, reserving only one apiece; and as his could be worked to almost equal advantage by hired labour, and nothing could be done at present, he could no longer resist the temptation to anticipate the time fixed upon for our return. ”

“ When man goes into the marsh, the marsh retires within itself, as a turtle retreats within his shell. With the exception of a few blackbirds and marsh wrens, babbling away the nest secret, and an occasional frog’s croak, all the inhabitants have stealthily retired. The spotted turtle has slid from the decayed log as the boat pushed through the reeds. At our approach the heron has flown and the little Virginia rail has scuttled away among the reeds. ”

“ One exquisite sonnet (I’ vidi in terra) shows this to have been true.
These sonnets are in Petrarch’s earlier manner; but the death of Laura brought a change. Look at yonder schooner coming down the bay straight toward us; she is hauled close to the wind, her jib is white in the sunlight, her larger sails are touched with the same snowy lustre, and all the swelling canvas is rounded into such lines of beauty as scarcely anything else in the world—hardly even the perfect outlines of the human form—can give. ”

“ Thereupon the Neptun, giving up Ternate altogether, steamed north in view of the mountainous coast of Celebes, and then crossing the broad straits took up her station on the low coast of virgin forests, inviolate and mute, in waters phosphorescent at night, deep blue in daytime with gleaming green patches over the submerged reefs. ”

“ Teeter suddenly asked:
“How about a motor boat?”
“A motor boat?” asked Mr. Martin. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” explained the lumberman, [207] “how would you like to keep on touring in a motor craft? I suppose cruising would be a better word than touring, when you speak of a boat. But how about it?”
“A boat would be dandy fun!” exclaimed Ted.
“I think so, too,” added his sister.
“But it would take us as long to arrange to hire a boat as it would to wait for a new wheel,” objected Mr. Martin. “Besides, how could we get to Bentville by boat?”
“Very easily,” answered Mr. Teeter. ”

“ A genus without a living species, given here to preserve the family entire, having a shell thick, oval, short, very gaping posteriorly, equivalve, inequilateral; summits well marked; a spoonlike cavity in each valve.
Tube or sheath testaceous, cylindrical; anterior end open; posterior end closed, but exhibiting the two valves of the shell.
6. Teredo. The Ship Worm. Three species. This genus derived its name from the faculty it possesses of boring wood. The T. navalis can penetrate the stoutest oaken planks of a ship’s sides by means of two valves affixed to the head of the animal. ”

“ Terry went with him to get the outboard motorboat he and Deirdre had used before. He was already wearing swimming trunks.
A little later the small boat putt-putted away from the Esperance upon the glassy-rippled waters of the lagoon.
There was a very great tranquillity everywhere. The booming roar of the surf came from unseen rollers on the reef outside. Seabirds squawked. Palms along the edge of the lagoon waved their fronds very, very gently.
"How far will you go before we swim?" asked Deirdre. "All the lagoon's perfect. One place is as good as another." ”

“ So the Child took the box to his rock-pool, and laid it on a [Pg 219] ledge beneath the water, where he thought it would be safe from being washed away by the next tide. He could not bear to lose sight of his new treasure; he did not know what might be inside.
Whilst he was waiting he found the teredo a very amusing companion.
"What do you look like?" he asked.
"My own house is not so large as one of your finger-nails," replied the teredo ”

“ Along the shore of the North Sea there are found little mounds of earth called terpen, raised by the ancient inhabitants as refuges for themselves and their herds against the rising tides, and on some of these mounds there are villages. Other villages and towns are built upon piles, on land gradually conquered from the sea. ”

“ The Petrel builds its nest, a rude structure of weeds and rubbish, either in the hole of a cliff or under stones on the beach, and lays a single egg. It rarely comes abroad by day, and if disturbed ejects from its mouth an oily matter, after the manner of the Fulmar. Towards evening it comes forth from its stronghold, and skims the sea in quest of food, which consists of floating animal matter of all kinds. ”

“ In the variety of teredo described by us, we have never observed the formation of two openings surrounded by calcareous matter, situated side by side, like an eight placed sidewise, ∞, [2] and serving as a passage for the siphons, as described by Deshayes.
The calcareous tube, once formed, constitutes for each teredo his own abode, where he isolates himself from his companions, and has nothing to fear from their close proximity. ”