Wadding

“ Once there lived a farmer who had three daughters, and good useful girls they were, up with the sun, and doing all the work of the house. One morning they all ran down to the river to wash their clothes, when a hoodie came round and sat on a tree close by.
‘Wilt thou wed me, thou farmer’s daughter?’ he said to the eldest.
‘Indeed I won’t wed thee,’ she answered, ‘an ugly brute is the hoodie.’ And the bird, much offended, spread his wings and flew away. ”

“ In the taut silence of the stirless desert night, with the tension of the herd at the snapping-point, any quick, unwonted sight or sound would stampede them; the sneezing of a horse, the flare of a match, would be enough to send the whole four thousand headlong—blind, frenzied, trampling—till spent and scattered over the plain.
And so, as he rode, Wade began to sing. The rider ahead of him took up the air and passed it on until, above the stepping stir of the hoofs, rose the faint voices of the men, and all the herd was bound about by the slow plaintive measures of some old song. ”

“ Deliverance from shoes and stockings, the first thrill of pleasure and surprise at the cool touch of the water, the wild rush along the brim, the dainty advance till the sea covers the little ankles, the tremulous waiting with an air of defiance as the wave deepens round till it touches the knee, the firm line with which the dabblers grasp hand in hand and face the advancing tide, the sudden panic, the break, the disorderly flight, the tears and laughter, the run after the wave as it retreats again, the fresh advance and defiance—this is the paradise of the dabbler. ”

“ When wading it is just as well not to get your clothes wet if you can help it. Clothes that are made wet with seawater, [Pg 198] which probably has a little sand in it, are as uncomfortable as crumbs in bed. There is no reason why you should get them wet if you wade wisely. Sitting among the rocks, running through the water, and jumping the little crisping waves are the best ways to get soaked. ”

“ Things were getting too hot. I sneaked softly out of my bush and raced for the front door. I sprinted up to my room and made for the drawer where I had put the parcel. And then I found I hadn't the key. It wasn't for the deuce of a time that I recollected I had shifted it to my evening trousers the night before and must have forgotten to take it out again.
Where the dickens were my evening things? I had looked all over the place before I remembered that Jeeves must have taken them away to brush. To leap at the bell and ring it was, with me, the work of a moment. ”

“ After a certain number of hours have passed in the house, my foot seems to tingle to be in the stirrup again, and my fingers burn to take hold of the reins. Whatever the weather it is the same; I want to be away and outside and in it! ”

“ The winds at night had made a rout;
And scattered many a lusty splinter,
And many a rotten bough about.
Yet never had she, well or sick,
As every man who knew her says,
A pile beforehand, turf or stick,
Enough to warm her for three days.
Now, when the frost was past enduring,
And made her poor old bones to ache,
Could any thing be more alluring
Than an old hedge to Goody Blake?
And now and then, it must be said,
When her old bones were cold and chill,
She left her fire, or left her bed,
To seek the hedge of Harry Gill. ”

“ As I passed along the hedge a wrinkled, bony hand was thrust through the hedge, and I started back, fearing, in a sudden panic, a knife thrust, but the hand of the tongueless old man contained nothing more deadly than a scrap of paper, which I took. ”

“ Bending all day over the long rows of beets, which required quite an effort to pull out of the hard earth, their hands red and chapped, sometimes a cold wind whistling over the fields that no warm garment could keep out, and they never had any really warm garment. We met an old woman one day quite far from any habitation, who was toiling home, dragging her feet, in wretched, half-worn shoes, over the muddy country roads, who stopped and asked us if we hadn't a warm petticoat to give her. She knew me, called me by name, and said she lived in the little hamlet near the château. ”

“ Did any good fellow ever get you by the scruff of your neck and the seat of your trousers and chuck you into an evil-smelling pond? Try to think and send me the name of the man who did this, that I may send him a letter of thanks. ”

“ I was a good swimmer. I reached the ridge on the opposite side of the bay without fatigue, not changing from a powerful breast-stroke. I then sat for a while at the water's edge to rest and to drink in the thrilling glory of what my heart persisted in telling me was the morning of my life. ”

“ We are the bridegroom, engaged with him in the long, voluptuous embrace, the giving of agony, the rising and rising of the slow unwilling transport of misery, the soaking-in of day after day of wet mud, in penetration of the heavy, sordid, unendurable cold, on and on to the climax, the laceration of the blade, like a frost through the tissue, blasting it. ”

“ There are three or four girls, with a woman in the midst of them, crouched down by the ditch, and half-hidden in the hedge, and so busy that they do not notice us till some jingle of stirrup or rein—as we are passing on the grass—makes them look round all at once. ”

“ Imagine a sweet girl, who for years had been under the eagle eye of a middle-weight chaperon, suddenly espying in the moonlight a disguised man under the window on horseback, in the act of asking her to join him for a few weeks at his shooting-box in the swamp. ”

“ Perhaps I shall hear a solitary loon laugh as he dives and plumes himself, or shall see a lonely fisher in his boat, like a floating leaf, beholding his form reflected in the waves, where lately a hundred men securely labored. ”

“ Early in the morning, you know, the sun scarcely up, and the cold wind blowing my hair and my clothes all about, and then that board before the spout, that I have to stand on, is always kept wet by the spattering of the water, and it's muddy besides and very slippery—there's a kind of green stuff comes upon it, and I can't stoop down for fear of muddying myself. ”

“ The wailers do not complain that they are bereft, nor wonder how they are to get along without the departed father or husband. After an hour of wailing some near relative, not a member of the household, or an intimate friend of the family remains to watch the body, and all others leave the room. ”

“ Who ever, when he is ready for the plunge, stands lingering upon the side of the river, or the brink of the cold bath?—Who that has entered a shower-bath and closed the door, ever hesitates for a moment to pull the string? ”

“ They get all the sea air and out-of-door life that they can crowd into one month. One lady said to me one day, "I can't bathe, but I take a 'bain d'air' every day—I sit on the rocks as far out in the water as I can—take off my hat and my shoes and stockings." ”

“ At first a great fellow, the patriarch of the swamp, will put up his head, which looks very much like a small pair of bellows, with yellow leather sides, and say, in a harsh, guttural tone, "Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed." ”

“ There are three motions in hand-weaving. First: by the action of one foot-treadle one harness or heddle, holding every alternate warp-thread, is depressed from the level of the entire expanse of warp-threads. ”

“ In the salt-marshes live the lepers; they have houses of wattled reeds, and none may come nigh them. The beggars wander through the cities, and eat their food with the dogs. Canst thou make these things not to be? Wilt thou take the leper for thy bedfellow, and set the beggar at thy board? Shall the lion do thy bidding, and the wild boar obey thee? Is not He who made misery wiser than thou art? ”

“ Wading is resorted to only when the trippers, unprovided with poles, have been defeated in their effort to ascend with no other aid than their paddles. Then they leap overboard and seizing hold of the gunwales drag the craft up the rapids before it can be overcome by the turbulent water, and either driven down stream or capsized. Again, when the trippers encounter, in shallow water, such obstacles as jammed timbers, wading allows them carefully to ease their craft around or over the obstruction. ”

“ And the rowers down below, rowing hard as they could row,
Toiling at the stroke and feather through the wet and weary weather,
Even they forgot their burden in the measure of a song,
And the merchants and the masters and the bondsmen all together,
Dreaming of the wondrous islands, brought the gallant ship along ”

“ Thus we hear of starving men chewing upon an old boot, or famished desert-travellers sucking rapturously at a hole full of mud. I remember once being so absorbed in a story during sermon-time, that, coming to a word of new and queer physiognomy, and having forgotten all circumstance, I repeated it, according to my custom, quite aloud. ”

“ Still, four hours of slumber is practically no slumber to a healthy girl and she swung her pyjama-ed legs over the side of the bed and spent quite five minutes in a fatuous admiration of her little white feet. ”

“ Once or twice she used the night ware before putting on her night-gown, and I could see the rosy-lipped opening embosomed in exquisite dark curls, pouring out its full measure of water; showing a fine force of nature, and driving me wild with excitement. Yet it is singular that I never once thought of applying to my fingers for relief from the painful stiffness that nearly burst my prick asunder. ”

“ We must even wear clothing in the water, and run the gauntlet of derision, if we dare battle in the surf minus stockings! Imagine a fish trying to make headway with a water-soaked flannel garment upon it. ”

“ I will not trouble you with details of those three terrible days and nights when we drifted helplessly about at the mercy of the currents on our improvised life-raft up and down the English Channel. The first night was the worst. Slowly after that we grew used to the danger, the cold, the hunger, and the thirst. ”

“ Wadd, and such an arrival was an event in his existence. Exchanging his slippers for his boots, his mittens for gloves, and donning a furry silk hat he would leave his office, not forgetting to affix to the door a card bearing the legend, “Back presently,” and would hobble to the address of the firm, whose money he carried with exaggerated care in a special pocket inside his waistcoat. Inquiring for the head of the firm, who was usually willing to “humor old Wadd,” he would be shown into the great man's private room. ”

“ The swimming-baths are gay with fluttering pennons; the washerwomen in their barges are hard at work thumping the obstinately dirty clothes with wooden mallets; the tide keeps the clumsy wheels of the colour-grinding maching in lively motion. ”

“ Possibly in ten or twenty generations we might have worked up to the weaving of baskets. And of this, one thing is sure: if once we wove withes into baskets, the next and inevitable step would have been the weaving of cloth. ”

“ Owl Ear had to wade in the mud up to her middle to get her raft ashore; and when she was climbing out she slipped and sat down backwards again in the ooze. She came up sputtering mud from her mouth and much vexed with herself. ”

“ She never thought it quite modest to hang out your undergarments in full view of the passers-by, and she had sometimes wished that a hedge might be planted across the space, just beyond the green side-door. ”

“ I been blown out of a holly hedge. You would think there’d be protection in a holly hedge....
“Spike’s the last thing,” said the tramp. “I’d rather go bare-gutted to a doss-’ouse anywhen. Gaw!—you’ve not ’ad your first taste of the spike yet.”
But it wasn’t heaven in the doss-houses. He spoke of several of the landladies in strange but it would seem unflattering terms. “And there’s always such a blamed lot of washing going on in a doss-’ouse. Always washing they are! One chap’s washing ’is socks and another’s washing ’is shirt. ”

“ It would be a pity to see Dawn just settling down into the dull, drudging life of a farmer's wife, going to an occasional show or tea-meeting in a home-made dress, with two or three children dragging at her skirts and looking a perfect wreck, as most of the mothers do. ”

“ About five in the morning, when the men-folk turn in bed, and bury their faces in the white feather pillows, emitting at the same time strange, broken sounds through their big, stupid, red noses—at this early hour their wives have transacted half-a-day's business in the market-place. ”

“ Once, I remember, we had been all day without water, and could not find any when we stopped for the night but there was a heavy dew, and, though it was a cold night, we all sat without our shirts for an hour, laying them on the ground until they were wet with dew, and then wrung them out into our mouths. ”

“ The poor little things toiled up the steep, slippery hill, with often a cold wind that must have gone through the thin worn-out jackets and shawls they had for all covering, carrying their satchels and remnants of dinner. ”

“ They resemble, therefore, the waverers: for the wavering are neither withered nor green, being neither living nor dead. For as their blades, on seeing the sun, were withered, so also the wavering, when they hear of affliction, on account of their fear, worship idols, and are ashamed of the name of their Lord. ”

“ In the winter, I am told, they take the linen down to the river to wash it in the cold water, and though their hands, cut by the ice, are cracked and bleeding, the men, their fellow-servants, will not disgrace their manhood by carrying a tub to lighten their burden. ”

“ A girl or a man—the latter is usually my fate—invades your bedroom, shortly after you have been shown to it, with a little basin, a bottle of water, a towel, and a cake of the "Best Brown Windsor." He holds out the basin solemnly and dribbles water over your outstretched hands, for it is very dirty to wash in standing water. ”