into the wild chapter 2

into the wild chapter 2 —_Isaiah_. A moment later the boys were afloat. As they got near to the dark entrance they saw that the jagged rocks which fringed the arch came very near to the water.,"My dear Major Jen:,The Admiral spoke with a steady face and with a steady voice. He was giving a version of the story which to all intents and purposes was true, and there was nothing in the relation, as previously devised, to alarm his conscience as a gentleman and a man of honour by inaccuracy.,"Well, belief, however strong, goes a short way sometimes. An uncommon short way with us.","Don't go tasting too many new ones around here," she cautioned with a kiss. "You might hit on the wrong one, and they wouldn't understand that it was merely a game with you."，"I think so, Mona. There is one thing I shall never get."，“It was just that stupid Tellef Olsen. He bragged so much about being the strongest of all the boys”—，"Barbadoes."She has reason," says the old man, earnestly and approvingly, rounding his sentence after the French fashion, as the Irish so often will: "she has said it," he goes on, "she always does say it; she has brains, has my colleen. Ye don't stir out of this house to-night, Mr. Rodney; so make up yer mind to it. With Tim Ryan abroad, an' probably picked up and carried home by this time, the counthry will be all abroad, an' no safe thravellin' for man or baste. Here's a cosey sate for ye by the fire: sit down, lad, an' take life aisy."

To the questions put by the duke to the several persons he met, he received answers that encouraged him to proceed. At noon he halted at a village to refresh himself and his people. He could gain no intelligence of Julia, and was perplexed which way to chuse; but determined at length to pursue the road he was then in, and accordingly again set forward. He travelled several miles without meeting any person who could give the necessary information, and began to despair of success. The lengthened shadows of the mountains, and the fading light gave signals of declining day; when having gained the summit of a high hill, he observed two persons travelling on horseback in the plains below. On one of them he distinguished the habiliments of a woman; and in her air he thought he discovered that of Julia. While he stood attentively surveying them, they looked towards the hill, when, as if urged by a sudden impulse of terror, they set off on full speed over the plains. The duke had no doubt that these were the persons he sought; and he, therefore, ordered some of his people to pursue them, and pushed his horse into a full gallop. Before he reached the plains, the fugitives, winding round an abrupt hill, were lost to his view. The duke continued his course, and his people, who were a considerable way before him, at length reached the hill, behind which the two persons had disappeared. No traces of them were to be seen, and they entered a narrow defile between two ranges of high and savage mountains; on the right of which a rapid stream rolled along, and broke with its deep resounding murmurs the solemn silence of the place. The shades of evening now fell thick, and the scene was soon enveloped in darkness; but to the duke, who was animated by a strong and impetuous passion, these were unimportant circumstances. Although he knew that the wilds of Sicily were frequently infested with banditti, his numbers made him fearless of attack. Not so his attendants, many of whom, as the darkness increased, testified emotions not very honourable to their courage: starting at every bush, and believing it concealed a murderer. They endeavoured to dissuade the duke from proceeding, expressing uncertainty of their being in the right route, and recommending the open plains. But the duke, whose eye had been vigilant to mark the flight of the fugitives, and who was not to be dissuaded from his purpose, quickly repressed their arguments. They continued their course without meeting a single person.,"Lies, lies, lies!" said Jen, scornfully. "If I could only--but enough of this for the time being," he added, abruptly. "We will talk of these things on a more fitting occasion.",The girl put the bone on the ground and covered it with her robe and began to sing. After she had sung she took the robe away, and there under it lay her father's body, as if he had just died. Once again she covered the body with the robe and sang, and this time when she took the robe away the body was breathing. A third time she covered the body with the robe and sang, and when she again took away the robe, the body moved its arms and legs a little. A fourth time she covered it and sang, and when she took away the robe her father stood up.,"Oh, Mona, do you mean that?" he says. But Mona, who is very justly incensed, declines to answer him with civility.,"It would be rude to deny that," he says, with a slight shrug. "I am sure you are always in the right.","He seems to have been very confidential," said Isabella, scornfully, "and from what I have seen, Dido, he has some influence over you.","I do not wish to lay claim to anything," says Mona, throwing up her head with a little proud gesture,—"least of all to what does not by right belong to me. To be Mrs. Geoffrey is all I ask.",She shivered. "Nothin' out'a the ordinary. What's that limb allars doin' to scare the daylights clean outa me an' the neighbors? If you'd spend a little more of your spare time in the house with your wife an' less in the barn with your precious stock you wouldn't need to be askin' what he's been adoin'. But I'll tell you what he did only this evenin' afore you come home from changin' words with Cobin Keeler.,For that was just the way the trouble began. He had been walking on his tallest stilts the whole afternoon—the stilts that were exactly, to the dot, one yard fifteen inches and a half tall—and then had sat himself on the fence along the back alley. He was facing the yard, with his back toward the alley, and that disgusting Olsen boy came past and gave him a dig in the back with that sharp stick. Just think of it! Wouldn’t anybody say it was unbearable?,"Where have you put that man-eatin' swamp coon?" asked his father as he followed. "I believe he's gettin' cross. You'll have to watch him.","You are not really going there, Geoff?","Why, Molly," he said, flaring his astonished blue eyes at me, "'tisn't me to be took care of! I'm not going to leave you here for maybe a a bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and father gone. 'Sides, father isn't very useful and maybe wouldn't help me hold the rope right to keep the whale from gitting away. He don't know how to do like I tell him like you do.".