Treadle

“ Next cut a stick long enough to come just to the outside of last two stakes driven. Then whittle the ends off square so it will work easy between the treadle stakes and the two inside stakes that your fall works in; next raise your fall pole about three feet high. Get a stick about one inch thru, cut it so that it will be long enough to rest against your treadle and that short stick is your treadle when it is raised above the bed a piece, cut the end off slanting so it will fit against the treadle good. ”

“ Now when you work the treadle with your foot it produces a reciprocating motion and this is changed by the pitman into rotary motion which it imparts to the drive wheel. Since the grooved, or driven, wheel is smaller than the drive wheel it revolves faster and this gives the pitman connected with it a very rapid rotary motion on one end but as it is pivoted to the frame which in turn is pivoted at the rear end it is changed into an up and down or reciprocating motion exactly like the treadle but many times faster. ”

“ The post on her left was occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he had to say before he was thirty. ”

“ Only the poor, pale, worn-out ones, like Emma Hollen, who coughed and breathed short, and could not spend strength even in listening, amidst the conflicting whirr of the feeds and wheels,—and the old, sobered-down, slow ones, like Miss Bree and Miss Proddle, button-holing and gather-sewing for dear life, with their spectacles over their noses, and great bald places showing on the tops of their bent heads,—kept time with silent thoughts to the beat of their treadles and the clip of their needles against the thimble-ends. ”

“ The season was dry, and, feed being scarce, Treloar had concluded that, at such a time, a bullock would be better able to eke out a living than a horse. Therefore, a working bullock drew our tilted cart about the country.
‘You see, my boy,’ said Treloar, when deciding on the purchase, ‘an ox is a beggar that always seems to have something to chew. Turn a horse out where there’s no grass, and he’ll probably go to the deuce before morning. ”

“ Then shall ye hear thrice repeated the cry of a horned owl. When the last echo has died, gather ye yourselves round the sad death tree, where ye shall find me awaiting, and there will I separate ye into two bands. Those who are young and strong upon their feet shall descend the valley along by the way of the river-pool, and these shall wait at the foot of the cliff beneath the fort of the white men. And at the sound of the first report of a gun, ye shall ascend, each man bearing dry branches of the fir. ”

“ If I would remain with my head above the well-rim—which, I freely admit, I had an unphilosophic desire to do—I must swarm as persistently up the rope. That was an eerie and airy sort of treadmill. To climb, and climb, and always climb, paying out the cord beneath me, that I might remain in one place! ”

“ And His face was sorrowful.
'Men are but little children: if they had but the heart of a child!'
And He went down the loft out into the morning.
And presently the lame man woke up and found that he was alone with Mr. Treadman. So he began to scramble down the ladder. As he went, because of his haste and his lameness, he stumbled and fell. The noise of his fall woke Mr. Treadman, who hurried down the ladder also. At the foot he found the lame man, who was rising to his feet. ”

“ Where did you sleep last night?'—'Under a hedge, sir,' was my answer.—'Ah! I thought so,' he exclaimed: 'a rogue and vagabond evidently.' And this excellent specimen of the 'Great unpaid' committed me forthwith to the treadmill for one month as a rogue and vagabond.
"The treadmill is a horrible punishment: it is too bad even for those that are really rogues and vagabonds. The weak and the strong take the same turn, without any distinction; and I have seen men fall down fainting upon the platform, with the risk of having their legs or arms smashed by the wheel, through sheer exhaustion. ”

“ The figure of the Stranger appeared at the door which led into the loft; and He spoke to Mr. Treadman, saying:
'You know not what are the things of which you speak, as is the manner of men. Are you, then, so ignorant as not to be aware that God's ways are not as men's? Let your soul cease from troubling. God asks not to learn of you. He made you; He holds you in the hollow of His hand; you are the dust of the balance. Come, and sleep.'
Mr. Treadman went up into the loft, crying like a child. ”

“ Regardless of his mother’s monitions and the whispers of instinct, he leapt the rill and raced about the moonlit green like a thing possessed.
Instantly he was joined by his sister, and never perhaps did two leverets enjoy their stolen freedom more. They bounded over each other’s back; they leapt the rock by the thorn, clearing it by a good foot; they galloped round and round like performers in a circus. Tiring of this, they rose on their hind legs and sparred with their pads, moving about the fairy ring and patting each other’s face like boxers. ”

“ Tredel sensed the inner struggle of the man, felt the sheer strength of the ego that had come back in time, fought now for control of a body. Tredel stretched his arm forward, touched a finger to the floor close to Del's head, realized for the first time that blood was there, had formed a small pool under the neck arch. ”

“ Reaching the first rise of ground, the youth felt compelled to rest and threw himself at the foot of a large tree with his musket across his knees, ready for use should he be surprised. Once or twice his eyes closed in spite of his efforts to keep them open. ”

“ She had watched the hare leave the wood, but so great was her dread of man that she feared to follow till the dusk deepened. As soon as she dared, however, she came down from the tree and took to the trail, following it up the long slope and along the heights past the Liddens to the chantry, where, with her breath coming quickly, she stood eagerly scrutinising the hillside and the flooded lowland all agleam in the moonlight. ”

“ Once he put his hand to his brow, as though he could already feel a mitre pressing there; he fingered his ring, and moved his foot, to frown when his eyes sighted a rough boot instead of the scarlet shoe of his dreams. Then he was awakened by a noisy rattling and a shock. ”

“ He stared upwards at the ceiling, hundreds of feet above him, then looked to the far walls, a thousand or more feet from him.
Then he rolled again, so that he was under the belt. Small protection—
The belt was going only one way. It was coming into the—room? What was it? The belt was coming in, but there was no return. An endless belt going one way only.
There was a lot to think about, now. Now that it was too late even to begin to think. There was no use starting with the obvious fact that he was in too deep.
What, Tredel wondered, had he thought he was up against? ”

“ Thar's a track marked out in a cirkle like a little racecourse for the hosses to gallop on. This course runs between two poles pinned into the ground; or mebby it's two trees. Thar's a rope stretched from pole to pole,—taut an' stiff she's stretched; an' the gander who's the object of the meetin', with his neck an' head greased a heap lavish, is hung from the rope by his two hind laigs. As the gander hangs thar, what Colonel Sterett would style 'the cynosure of every eye,' you'll notice that a gent by standin' high in the stirrups can get a grip of the gander's head. ”

“ Their stealthy tread—taking care to plant the foot lightly upon the fallen leaves—the precaution to keep inside the shadow—the frequent pauses, spent in looking ahead and listening—the silent gestures with which these movements are directed by him who appears to be the leader—all proclaim design, to reach the jacalé unperceived by whoever may chance to be inside it. ”

“ Opposite to the door, was the vaulting-horse, on whose wooden back the gymnasiast sprang at a bound, and over which the tyro (with the aid of the spring-board) usually pitched himself headlong. Then, commencing at the further end, was a series of poles and ropes—the turning pole, the hanging poles, the rings, and the trapeze,—on either or all of which the pupil could exercise himself; and, if he had the skill so to do, could jerk himself from one to the other, and finally hang himself upon the sloping ladder, before the momentum of his spring had passed away. ”

“ The treble hath a direct hunting course as in plain changes; and every time it hunts up, it makes two singles together, and the like when it hunts down: when it leads the single is behind, but when 2 lies next it an extream is made in the 3d and 4th places. Every time the treble goeth to lead and leaves leading, the double is on the two first and two last bells, and every bell except the treble leads four times together. ”

“ I took my feet out of the stirrups, which I then crossed above the saddle—a precaution no dragoon or other horseman should ever forget when about to cross a river mounted; for if the horse should sink his hind-legs to seek for footing, or, worse still, should he "turn a turtle," while the rider's feet are in the stirrups, the most fatal results may ensue, and he will be helplessly drowned. ”

“ A great rat had run out on the spoke of the wheel and when he reached the broad rim had started a treadmill of his own—which made the ghostly sound as it whirred around. Soon this rat grew so tame that he would come out on the spinning-wheel in the daytime, and several others were seen to run around in the wheel as if it were a pleasant recreation. ”

“ Thus, handcuffed and pinioned, and bound with a rope, the ingenious horse-stealer, by another effort of his unfailing ingenuity, akin to his mock-sickness, in the gaol, had effected a second escape from his keepers, leaving it as a matter of choice, whether to institute a hopeless search for him in darkness of the night, or sit down in sullen consultation on what plan they had best pursue in the morning. ”

“ Cheered by the sight he sped bravely on across the waste of furze and heather to the foothills, and bounded up the slope with a vigour that showed little sign of fatigue. He was making for the form. There he believed he would be safe when shielded by a ruse, for he meant after going nearly to the foot of Chapel Carn Brea to return on his line and leap aside into his seat. ”

“ At that moment the moon lit up the scene, silvering the sea, revealing the narrow track and the pack clustered there with heads directed to their leader. Her attitude tells them something has excited her curiosity. Her eyes are scrutinising the strange object on the ledge, and though it lies completely shadowed by another ledge above, she presently recognises the hare, and in some way communicates her discovery to her followers. ”

“ It must be that the stoking of the furnace below all winter, or else my absorption in Visconti's, has banished reflection upon events from out of my mind. It is not reflection that was banished, however, but only the energy to record it. The folk who work the treadmill leave few records behind them. And I am of the treadmill, occupant of an office chair, one of the gray mass of dwellers in the suburbs of life. ”

“ Tread′-mill, a mill in which a rotary motion is produced by the weight of a person or persons treading or stepping from one to another of the steps of a cylindrical wheel, used chiefly as an instrument of prison discipline; Tread′-wheel, a form of tread-mill with steps on its exterior surface, by treading on which the wheel is turned.—Tread down, to trample to destruction; Tread in one's footsteps, or steps, to follow one's example ”

“ Even his uncertain stride as he moves along the track betrays his disquietude, and the blind way he stumbles over the wall of the croft is as unlike him as the smothered oath he vents on the unoffending stones. ”

“ Then with the veil he seeks the trysting-tree,
And to its cherished folds gives kisses, tears,
And to his sword, “Drink now my blood,” he cries,
And sinks it in his heart, and draws it forth,
And falling, lies at length with upturned face.
The blood spurts forth, as when a pipe that’s burst
Throws from the hissing gap a slender jet,
Beating the obstant air with watery blows.
The trysting-tree is sprinkled with his blood,
Till its fair fruit is changed to gloomy black. ”

“ His companion's irresponsive mood did not appear to trouble Mr. Treadman. He never ceased to talk and write, except when he broke into the words of a hymn, which he sung in a loud, clear voice, as if he wished that all the country-side should hear.
'There,' he cried, after they had gone some distance, 'is the place I told you of. The village is just round the bend in the road. If I remember rightly, the post-office is on the left as you enter. Soon the telegraph shall be on the side of the Lord, and the glad tidings be flashing up to town. We're not twenty miles from London. ”

“ At once they took up the chase of the pursuer where it followed its prey from tangle to rock and from rock to tangle and presently, when a sudden turn brought them within striking distance of the unsuspecting fish, they rose from beneath, careening over so as to fasten on the fleshy throat. ”

“ Now, the “treacler” has many enemies. Slugs of the most portentous dimensions descend from their hiding places in the tree, and absorb the treacle just as if they were so many hungry leeches fastening on a plump and thin-skinned patient. Toads sit in a row round the trunk of the tree, waiting to snap up any moth that falls. The bats soon learn the value of a treacled tree, and sweep rapidly by it, whipping off the pre-occupied moths as they pass by.
On one occasion my son caught sight of a bank-vole, which had climbed up the tree and was taking its share of the spoil. ”

“ The boy crossed into the moonlight, and knelt within the smoke, rubbing the palms of his hands upon the warm ground. His father stood in the shadow, and watched every moving line of his son's body, muttering as he listened to the outside:
"At his age I was learning how to figure and spell in Tonbridge school. Quarterstaff and tennis were my sports, with mumming and chess at home. His sport is to hunt the wild beast, to track the deer, to lie in wait for men. The sword is his pastime. ”