And the forefront of the head, when gained, is stiff with brambles, and stubbed with sloes, and mitred with a choice band of stanch sting-nettles.
"It would take a better Frenchman," said the Admiral, with that brevity which is the happy result of stoutness up steep hill, "than any of 'they flat-bottoms,' as Swipes, my gardener, calls them, to get through these prickles, Stubbard, without Sark-blewing.

Such a wonderfully thin-skinned lot they are! Did I ever tell you the story of our boatswain's mate?
But that takes a better sailing breeze than I've got now.

You see where we are, don't you ?" "Certainly, Admiral," replied Captain Stubbard, disdaining to lay hand to his injured side, painfully as it yearned for pressure; "we have had a long pull, and we get a fine outlook over the country for leagues, and the Channel.

How close at hand everything looks! I suppose we shall have rain, and we want it.

I could thump that old castle among the trees into smash, and your church looks as if I could put a shot with a rifle-gun into the bell-chamber." "And so you could.