What is "axmen"

Usage examples of "axmen".

With Indians all 'round them, the Warpath a-tremble with murd'rous Hopes, its emptiness feeling more and more unnatural as the hours tick on, into the End of Day, as the latent Blades of Warriors press more closely upon the Membrane that divides their Subjunctive World from our number'd and dreamless Indicative, Apprehension rising, Axmen deserting, the ghosts of '55 growing, hourly, more sensible and sovereign, as unaveng'd Fires foul the Dusk, unanswer'd mortal Cries travel the Forests at the speed of Wind.

Barnes, the Overseer of the Axmen, "for in an expedition into the Country, as upon a ship at sea, nothing destroys morale like Theft.

In March a Company of Axmen, using Polaris to keep their Meridian, clear a Visto from John Harland's farm fifteen Miles true south, to Alexander Bryant's farm.

Timothy Tox, Pennsylvaniad Through July they continue North, thro' swamps, snakes, godawful humidity, thunder-gusts at night, trees so thick that even with thirty axmen, each chain's length seems won with Labor incommensurate, waking each glaucous Dawn into sweat and stillness, to struggle another Day, with no confidence that at the correct Distance, they will pass anywhere near the Tangent Point, much less touch it exactly.

So they set off, the Chain a-jingle, Waggons a-rumble, farm Geese a-blare, heading into Farmland with a quiet Roll to it, watch'd by deer and kine, under the usual injunctions against trampling Garden patches or molesting Orchards, the Instruments, with a Tent of their own, stranger than anything the Party expects to see between here and Little Christiana, which isn't much anyway, owing to the Trees, for which eleven more Axmen hire on, the second week.

Implicit in most of his dealings with the Axmen is the threat that should they fail to comply closely enough with his Wishes, this enormous yet mobile Weight may in some way unspoken, and, 'tis further implied, unspeakable, be directed against them.

Rhys Price happens to return from his Business in town, to find merry Axmen lounging beneath his Sassafras tree, Strange Stock mingling with his own and watering out of his Branch, his house invaded by Surveyors, and his wife giving away the Larder and waving her Tankard about, crying, "Husband, what Province were we married in?

The Axmen have a need for artificial Life as perverse as any among the Parisian Haute Monde, and this French toy, conveniently invisible, seems to "Look out!

Such is the Duck's Influence in the Camp, that several Axmen approach the Revd upon the Topick of Angels in general.

Soon, how, none can say, the Axmen have assign'd to Nathanael a Character, closer to Macheath than to the diligent Factotum he knows himself to be, tho' he's tried to explain what in this Party he is and isn't, yet do they expect him to take Bribes, to wink at Gambling, to keep local Justices of the Peace and Sheriffs satisfied, above all, they continue to regard him as the Bully who protects Mrs.

This sordid haggling out in the open air, Axmen sidling by with knowing Grins, Girls peering apprehensively 'round corners, popping up from bushes to blow me Kisses of encouragement, even Mr.

As it speeds its way like a Coach upon the Coaching-Road of Desire, where we create continually before us the Road we must journey upon, the Axmen as diligent and unobtrusive as the Tailor of Gloucester's Mice.

Gaming, corn whiskey, Women able to put up with a heap of uncompensated overtime, Stages knock'd together each nightfall and lanthorn'd into view, to a Murmur as of a great Crowd in Motion, only to be struck again each dawn, as those for whom it is cheaper to follow than to abandon the Party for business elsewhere, groaning with the Night just past, hoping for a chance to sleep sometime during the Journey, prepare to follow the Axmen through another day.

The Axmen stand beneath it, no less bruised, worn or hungry than from any other day, blinking, turning away, then returning to this Radiance that flares from behind edges of Shapes uncertain, the Creation they believe they know, re-created.

They hear voices ahead, then are suddenly zooming out of Invisibility, in among the Axmen, who, believing them pitiless crazy predators in this place lonely as any in Ulster or the Rhineland, scatter for their Lives back into the Trees.