The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Volume 1 (of 2)Paltock, Robert
Science
The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, Volume 1 (of 2)
Paltock, Robert
Adventure stories; Fantasy fiction
way, and incline to it, your graundee directs you as readily as your
feet obey you on the ground, without thinking of every step you take; it
does not require labour, as your boat does, to keep you a-going."
After we had composed ourselves, we walked to the verge of the wood, to
see what cargo my wife had brought from the ship. I was astonished at
the bulk of it; and seeing, by the outside, it consisted of clothes, I
took it with much ado upon my shoulders and carried it home. But upon
opening it, I found far more treasure than I could have imagined; for
there was a hammer, a great many spikes and nails, three spoons, about
five plates of pewter, four knives and a fork, a small china punchbowl,
two chocolate cups, a paper of needles, and several of pins, a parcel
of coarse thread, a pair of shoes, and abundance of such other things
as she had heard me wish for and describe; besides as much linen and
woollen, of one sort or another, as made a good package for all the
other things; with a great tin porridge-pot, of about two gallons, tied
to the outside; and all these as nicely stowed as if she had been bred a
packer.
When I had viewed the bundle, and poised the weight, "How was it
possible, my dear You-warkee," said I, "for you to bring all this?
You could never carry them in your hands."--"No, no," replied she, "I
carried them on my back."--"Is it possible," says I, "for your graundee
to bear yourself and all this weight too in the air, and to such a
height as the top of these rocks?"--"You will always," replies she,
"make the height a part of your difficulty in flying; but you are
deceived, for as the first stroke (I have heard you say often) in
fighting is half the battle, so it is in flying; get but once fairly on
the wind, nothing can hurt you afterwards. My method, let me tell you,
was this; I climbed to the highest part of the ship, where I could stand
clear, having first put up my burden, which you have there; and then
getting that on my back near my shoulders, I took the two cords you see
hang loose to it in my two hands, and extending my graundee, leaped off
flatwise with my face towards the water; when instantly playing two or
three good strokes with my graundee, I was out of danger; now, if I
had found the bundle too heavy to make my first strokes with, I should
directly have turned on my back, dropped my bundle, and floated in my
graundee to the ship again, as you once saw me float on the lake." Says
I, "You must have flown a prodigious distance to the lake, for I was
several days sailing, I believe three weeks, from my ship, before I
reached the gulf; and after that could be little less than five weeks
(as I accounted for it), and at a great rate of sailing too under the
rock, before I reached the lake; so that the ship must be a monstrous
way off." "No, no," says she, "your ship lies but over yon cliff, that
rises as it were with two points; and as to the rock itself, it is not
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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