Trepanning

“ Nowhere have such rare tastes in food been developed as among the Romans in ancient times and the Chinese. There may be found in the bills of fare of the latter people addled eggs, fat grubs, caterpillars, sharks' fins, rats, dogs, Indian birds' nests, and—the finest of all their delicacies—trepang. What is trepang?
Trepang or tripang is a collective name by which a considerable number of species of most curious sea animals are designated; they are also known as sea rollers, sea cucumbers, in French as cornichons de mer, and scientifically as holothurias. ”

“ As a rule, only one set of teeth is kept in use, this set working for twelve hours, the alternate twelve hours being employed in raising the débris. This time is divided in about the following proportions;—Boring, twelve hours; drawing the rods, one hour to five hours, according to depth; raising the débris, two hours; and lowering the rods one hour to five hours. [105] The maximum speed of the larger trepan may be taken at about 3 feet a day. The ordinary distance sunk is not more than 2 feet a day, and in flint and other hard rocks the boring has proceeded as slowly as 3 inches a day. ”

“ The men in the pass twisted the pine-boughs and snagged the trunks to form a rough chevaux-de-frise. Before an hour had passed they heard footfalls crushing the snow, and then Penfold smiled and rose to his feet. The old man had been resting beneath a tree.
"Comrades," he said, "I lead by the privilege of age. Not more than one can make a stand in this narrow pass. Do you ascend the cliff, one on either side, and as the enemy attempt to climb the barrier cast snow into their faces. The rest you shall leave to me."
"Out on you, old Simon," said Hough strongly. ”

“ To provide against a shock to the spears when the trepan strikes the rock on the down stroke, at the upper part of the frame a slot motion is arranged, the play of which amounts to about half an inch. The teeth of the large trepan are not horizontal, but are deeper towards the inside of the pit, the face of the inside tooth being 33⁄4 inches lower than the outside. The object of this is to cause the débris to drop at once into the small hole, by the face of the rock at the bottom of the pit being somewhat inclined. ”

“ Thus the passion of excited feeling extended itself. For a{363} moment John Trevanion sobbed too, and the girl felt, with a sensation of awe which calmed her, the swelling of the man’s breast. He put her down in her chair next moment with a tremulous smile. “No more, Rosalind—we must not all lose our senses. I promise you if there is any truth in your imagination you shall not want my sympathy. But I am sure you are exciting yourself unnecessarily; I know I should have heard had there been anything wrong. My dear, no more now.” ”

“ The unwieldy vessel fell into the breath of the wind, and, righting herself after a sudden lurch, settled down into the water, ploughing a deep white furrow, every mast bending and every rope straining, every inch of canvas bellying mightily.
The Dutchman came out to avoid the mud flat. She began to make the bend, and her helmsman already saw the wide reach of river beyond, when a terrible shout ascended from the men who were caged between decks. At the same moment a pungent odour tainted the free air, and a thin blue vapour began to leak from the cracks and joinings of the planks. ”

“ Mary—it rains!
Brightly knew all about that rain. He had often played the Seal upon that wild road, and had felt the water trickling down his back and making reservoirs of his boots; while people would stand at their windows and laugh at him. Nobody had ever asked him to come in and take shelter. Such an idea would never have occurred to them. Ponies and bullocks were out upon the moor in all weathers, and every winter some died from exposure. Brightly was nothing like so valuable as a pony or bullock, and if he were to die of exposure nobody would be out of pocket. ”

“ He had hardly settled down when the otter and her cubs hurried by along the opposite bank, on their way to a reedy marsh a mile above. Then all was quiet till, at peep of day, a kingfisher came and fished from a branch of the alder overhanging the inflow; the tinkle of the water as she struck it made a pretty sound in the silent dawn. Later, just as the smoke rose from the miller’s chimney, a moorhen led out her brood as if to teach them the geography of the pool, for she kept taking them from creeklet to creeklet till the miller came to raise the hatch and drove them all away. ”

“ To satisfy himself that he was mistaken he kept raising his head and looking round until, unable to endure the misery any longer, he stole from the seat and hurried back to the highest part of the farm, where a hedge had taken his fancy as he had crossed from the barley to the oats.
There, amongst the coarse grasses, beneath the fronds of a solitary brake-fern, he sat with his face to the dawn-wind, which played with his whiskers, swayed the ears of the barley, and buffeted the smoke rising from the chimney of the homestead. ”

“ His first home was amidst a clump of rushes bordering a lonely pool on the high ground between two of the Cornish heights. Even when maternal instinct is strongest, fear of detection kept doe and leveret apart during the day; but she never failed to suckle him at nightfall and before sunrise, on her way back from the feeding-ground on the lowland. From dawn to dusk the leveret lay in the snuggest of couches in the trough between the hills, and when not asleep would watch the reeds waving over the shallows, or the moor-hen, whose nest was on the opposite bank, swim on the open water. ”

“ The trees went back and the rocks heightened. La Salle heard water rolling up a beach and the sweep of wind across an open surface. The freshet widened and grew more shallow; the keel of the canoe scraped across a ridge of silt. With a deft turn of her paddle Onawa shot the prow upon a sand bank, and signed to him to land.
She led him along a cliff path, across a flat, again into sage brush, and finally into more forest. They moved stealthily under cover, until the trees thinned, and willow scrub sprang thickly out of a grey soil. ”

“ He turned round with furious impatience, and flung open the door into the ante-room—to find himself, breathing fire and flame as he was, and bearing every sign of his agitation in his face, in the midst of the family party streaming in from different quarters, for luncheon, all in their ordinary guise. For luncheon! at such a moment, when the mere outside appearances of composure seemed impossible to him, and his blood was boiling in his veins.
“Why, here is Rivers,” said John Trevanion, “at a good moment; we are just going to lunch, as you see.” ”

“ She could not find a hover quite to her liking, but in lack of a better, she chose a ledge where, in an angle of the stream that drained the bog, the bank furnished a screen from the biting wind which blew up the valley and soughed over the uplands. After enlarging the ledge into a shelf, she shaped the excavation for the nest, which she fashioned out of dead rushes and withered grasses, and which she lined with the softest products that Nature offered her—tattered reed-plumes and seed-down of the bulrush. ”

“ I'll give ye two vases, sir, purty vases, if yew lets I go."
Pendoggat struck his horse, and the animal started back. Brightly reached his raw hand up the hedge and lifted his basket tenderly. It was like losing flesh and blood to part with his vases, but freedom from persecution was worth any ransom. He removed the oil-cloth. What was left of the light softened the hideous ware and made the crude colouring endurable.
"Tak' two, sir," said Brightly piteously. "Them's the best, sir." ”

“ Trevorrick River was but a little stream to have fretted so deep a cleft between the hills as that which sloped from the main road of Tregols parish to the sea. From the source to the engulfing sands was barely a mile, and the twinkling waters, if full and fierce in winter, showed a summer fear of their own broad stepping-stones. Nevertheless the sharp declivities, the juttings of rock, even the shelves and crags and walls of Dark Head, had been formed by the gnawing of this tiny but persistent flow. ”

“ So they continued, until wild islets stood out, their banks humped with beaver mounds, and the lost waters began to shout with the mourners, and the swelling north wind shook the shore. The paddlers wrenched the canoes round, chanting as they worked, and the whitecap waves slapped the frail birch-bark sides.
No man stood beside young Richard's grave. A flock of noisy birds pecked amid the fresh-turned soil and flung themselves away before the carriers. ”

“ Two soldiers rushed out and flung themselves upon the locked trees, jostling each other in the constricted space. A lump of snow hit the foremost between the eyes, he gasped, and would have turned, but a sword-thrust sent him to his doom, and his comrade, blinded in the self-same manner, shared his fate.
"There are men in hiding yonder," rang a voice. "The villains shelter behind the trees."
"Find me a way round," roared an angry voice, and La Salle pushed along the pass. "Are we to be held here by one man behind a fallen tree?" ”

“ Trevannion had suggested keeping “in shore” and under the shadow of the tree-tops.
“No use,” said the tapuyo; “in ten minutes more there will be light over the water. We’ll be seen all the same, and by following the line of the forest we should give our pursuers the advantage; they, by keeping straight across, would easily overtake us. The trees go round in a circle, don’t you see?”
“True,” replied Trevannion; “I did not think of that. It is to be hoped we shall not have pursuers.”
“If we have they will soon come up with us, for they have more paddles, and are better skilled in the use of them ”

“ The boy stood leaning forward, his ears drinking in the shuddering noises of the bush, his face sharp with cold. The smoke stood upright in the clearing like a swathed mummy. Now and again a spark drifted, or a flurry of white wood-ash circled. There was yet no voice from the lungs of the forest.
"Blood smelt no animal," said the resolute Richard. "He does but tongue softly when he follows a bear. That howl he gives when he runs on the track of a man."
"A wanderer lost in the forest. A spy from the fortress. One of Roussilac's creatures," his father muttered. ”

“ It was by no means improbable that the creature was laid up in the plantation; for not only does human foot seldom disturb the sylvan quiet there, but in an angle of the stream, just below the waterfall, under a tall elm there is as inviting a hover as nature’s sappers can tempt the eye of otter with. ”

“ Trevaskis is holding a tubbal in one hand and—yes, a furze-chopper in the other; picks and shovels are piled in front of the miners; Shellal is holding two buckets, no doubt containing water for the terriers; and, by all that’s good, it is a pair of badger-tongs that the Squire has just brought out of the house, his fingers fidgeting with the guard. In short, a more completely equipped party for an assault on a badger’s fortress and, judging by the laughter, a more merry one, it would be difficult to imagine. But the high spirits of Squire, farmer, and miner are not shared by the Earthstopper. ”

“ Any one of several species of large holothurians, some of which are dried and extensively used as food in China; — called also bêche de mer, sea cucumber, and sea slug. [Written also tripang.]
The edible trepangs are mostly large species of Holothuria, especially H. edulis. They are taken in vast quantities in the East Indies, where they are dried and smoked, and then shipped to China. They are used as an ingredient in certain kinds of soup.
Trep"an*ize (?) , v. t. To trepan. [Obs.] "By trepanizing the skull." Jer. Taylor.
Tre*pan"ner (?) , n. One who trepans. " ”

“ John Trevanion looked into the young, ingenuous countenance with anxiety: “Then, Rosalind,” he said, “where is it that she goes? Why does she go out at that hour of all others, in the dark? Whom does she meet? If you know all this, I think there cannot be another word to say; for nothing that is not innocent would be intrusted to you.” ”

“ Hidden amidst the flotsam caught by the boughs, with the deep pool just below them, they felt safe, and at length slept as soundly as they had done in the morass.
They repaired to the same hover the next day and the day following. In their waking hours they would watch the eddying water and rising trout, and at times cast a glance at the belt of timber beyond, as if attracted by the crimson blossom of the elms. ”

“ On, on the untiring creatures sped, more like agents of darkness executing some urgent commission than beasts of prey speeding to a new fishing-ground. Mile after mile of the desolate upland they traversed: at one spot skirting a cairn whence came that weirdest of all wild cries, the shrill chattering of badgers; at another, passing the only road over the moor, where they left their footprints between the fresh wheel-marks of the doctor’s trap. ”

“ Once I lay in a swamp to hide myself from a band of French explorers. Once I was attacked by six men. One I killed, and the remainder fled, frightened by lightning which struck down a tree between us. Another time I concealed myself in a hemlock while the soldiers made their camp beneath its branches. So I fought my way on towards the east with an Englishman's longing for the sea, and when winter drew on I made me a shelter in the pine woods on the westward side of Acadie, and there mourned for you and for Simon Penfold as for comrades who had fallen in the battle. ”