The sense of the cruel injustice of that act will never quite depart.
But they could not burn the barrel, and we almost succeeded in fitting it to a stock of elder.

Elder has a thick pith running down the centre: by removing that the gouge and chisel had not much work to do to make a groove for the old bell-mouthed barrel to lie in.

The matchlock, for as such it was intended, was nearly finished when our hopes were dashed to the ground by a piece of unnatural cunning.

One morning the breechpiece that screwed in was missing.

This was fatal.