FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125  
126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   >>   >|  
ex: Unner t' beech and t' yow Nowt 'll grow. Well, as years passed, Mr. Hermann-Postlethwaite became fonder and fonder of the wood. He began towards 1885 to think it the nicest thing on his estate--which it was; and he would often ride out to look at it of a morning on his grey mare "Betsy." When he rode out like this of a morning his mount was well groomed, and so was he, however early it might be, and he would carry a little cane to hit the mare with and also as a symbol of authority. The people who met him would touch their foreheads, and he would wave his hand genially in reply. He was a good fellow. But the principal thing about him was his care for the old wood; and when he rode out to look at it, as I say, he would speak to any one around so early--his bailiff, as might be, or sometimes his agent, or even the foreman of the workshop or the carpenter, or any hedger or ditcher that might be there, and point out bits of the wood, and say, "That branch looks pretty dicky. No harm to cut that off short and parcel and serve the end and cap it with a zinc cap;" or, "Better be cutting the Yartle Bush for the next fallow, it chokes the gammon-rings, and I don't like to see so much standard ivy about, it's the death of trees." I am not sure that I have got the technical words right, but at any rate they were more or less like that, for I have heard him myself time and again. I often used to go out with him on another horse, called Sultan, which he lent me to ride upon. Well, he got fonder and fonder of this wood, and kept on asking people what he should do, and how one could make most use of it, and he worried a good deal about it. He reads books about woods, and in the opening of 1891 he had down to stay with him for a few days a man called Churt, who had made a great success with woods on the Warra-Warra. But Churt was a vulgar fellow, and so Hermann-Postlethwaite's wife, Lady Gywnnys Hermann-Postlethwaite, would not have him in the house again, which was a bother. Her husband then rode over to see another man, and the upshot of it was that he put up a great board saying "Trespassers in this wood will be prosecuted," and it might as well not have been put up, for no one ever went into the wood, not even from the little town, because it was too far for them to walk, and, anyhow, they did not care for walking. And as for the doctor's son, a boy of thirteen, who went in there with an air-gun to shoot things, h
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125  
126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

fonder

 
Hermann
 

Postlethwaite

 

people

 
fellow
 

called

 

morning

 
worried
 

Sultan


things

 

thirteen

 

opening

 

husband

 

bother

 

Trespassers

 
prosecuted
 

upshot

 

Gywnnys


walking

 

doctor

 
vulgar
 

success

 

authority

 
symbol
 

foreheads

 

principal

 

genially


groomed

 

passed

 

estate

 

nicest

 

bailiff

 

chokes

 

gammon

 

fallow

 
Better

cutting
 

Yartle

 
standard
 

technical

 

ditcher

 

hedger

 
carpenter
 
foreman
 
workshop

branch

 
parcel
 
pretty