PEATS As there are practically no trees in Orkney, wood is not available for fuel, but fortunately peat is very plentiful, and is used almost universally for heating purposes.
A day at thepeats can be recommended to anyone who wants to know what it is to feel really tired after a hard day's work!
The peats are cut in the spring, and a peculiar-shaped form of spade, known as a toysker, is employed to cut the turfs, which are stacked on the side of the bank as shown in the photograph.
This term also denotes the ground on which peats are laid out to be dried, ibid.
And now Master Semple spoke up: "God send, sir, they suffer for no worse a crime than burning mypeats and firewood.
You, Henry, make a few holes in the wall here, outside, and we'll set live peats in them.
Her voice was fierce, and her eyes were like two live peats flaming at us!
Everywhere stood piles of peats set up to dry, with many openings through and through, windy drains to gather and remove their moisture.
They cut turf for their walls and peats for their fires; they loaded the carts from the driest piles, and made new piles of the fresh wet peats they dug.
Then they scooped holes in the turf walls, inside to leeward, outside to windward, and taking live peats from the hearth, put them in the holes.
What good will thepeats be to you, woman," said one of them not unkindly, "when you have no hearth?
He struck a light, kindled the peats on the hearth, and went for water.
For the first suitable day Alister had arranged an expedition from the village, with all the carts that could be got together, to bring home as many peats as horses and men and women could together carry.
You have no right to cut peats there without my permission!
They turned in despair, and with their outcry filled the hollows of the hills as they went, bemoaning the loss of their peats and their creels, and raging at the wrong they had received.
He brought in the peats off the stack—enough to do for all the following day.
He has chappit the firewood, fetched the water, brocht in the peats and stalled the kye, soopit the yaird—and he is coming back the morn to clean the lum.
Once he kissed her by force as, hand-tied, she carried in the peats from the stack.
After this, Alexander always carried in the peats for Mary McArthur, and, in spite of the taunts and gibes of his brothers, did such part of her work as lay outside the house.
The late minister had accepted a call to a moorland congregation of sixty members, where nothing had happened within the memory of man, more stirring than the wheel coming off a cart of peats opposite the manse.
Then we listened, breathless, like men that wait for a marvel, and through the hush the peats on the grate suddenly fell inward with a startling sound, bringing my heart into my mouth.
Matilda Sabiston sat on the hearthstone grumbling at the cold, while the man-servant who had brought her so far was piling the peats upon the fire to warm her feet and hands.
Yet for half an hour he sat by the window and never opened his mouth; and Barbara sat on the hearth, and raked the smoldering peats together, and kept a like silence.
Put a few peats on the fire; death is cold, and my feet are in the grave already; so I may tell the truth now, for at this hour no man can make me afraid.
Through the stormy days when it was impossible to go to sea, and in the long winter nights, when he stretched himself before the red peats with a little oil-cruse, he and the Bible were friends and companions.
The peats were burning fine, and on the white board there was a supper set fit for a prince and princess.
At length, weary with weeping and with her own restlessness, she sat down before the red peats upon the hearth, for once, in her sorrowful preoccupation, forgetting her knitting.
It was quite midnight when he reached his home, but Margaret was sitting by a few red peats knitting.
A bright fire of peats glowed on the ample hearth, and the Udaller sat eating and drinking before it.
Until then thy men can carry peats and groceries, and such store of dried meats as will be necessary.
Her mother and I sat by the fire so wrapt in thought that we did not observe how it was beginning to fail; but at last I noticed it and picking up fresh peats laid them upon the embers.
She stooped over the hearth and casting fresh peats upon it said: "And what's yer pleesure, gentlemen?
An odour of burning peats filled the place; the sound of the sea-breakers was to be heard in a murmur as one hears far-off and magic seas in a shell that is held to the ear.
The peats sunk upon the hearth, crumbling in hearts of fire: on the outer edges the ashes grew grey.
When she woke the table had nothing on it but the woman's knitting; the woman was putting peats on the fire, and she made no remark, then or afterwards, on the disappearance of the food.
They then began to cut their peats as usual, thinking they were after all to be allowed to get the benefit.
The dog lay down weary, but Steenie set about lighting the peats ready piled between the great stones of the hearth.
Then she assailed the peat-stack in spite of the wind, making to it journey after journey, until she had heaped a great pile of peats in the corner nearest the hearth.
What would you be throwing away the good peats into the dark for, letting that swallow them they should swallow!
Its warmth was comforting, and she sat there on a low stool until the peats glowed hot and the kettle began to boil.
I saw that some person had been there, however; for the peats were still hot, and there was some roasted potatoes on the table, forbye a cloth that had blood on it.
Nobody was in the cottage, but there were signs of some one having been there very recently, for the peats were yet smouldering on the hearthstone, and on a little table lay a towel stained with blood.
A rousing fire of peats and dried heather was blazing on the hearth, around which the family were gathered in a half circle.
The accident happened almost within sight of his mother, who was casting peats at no great distance.
Crotal-coat, crotal-coat, there are peats in your brogues!
Wind and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind that came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a beady slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings.
To see him do the heavy work of the house and carrying in the peats was a sorry sight.
But it would be a' found out at any rate," she remembered, "when I go for the peats and things at Hogmanay.
McQueen, because it claimed to distribute "Peats and Potatoes with Propriety," but he was one of its heartiest supporters nevertheless.
The oldest, ripest peats are those which contain the most carbon, and have at the same time the greatest compactness.
The peats were extremely hard, and dried in a few days sufficiently for use.
Karmarsch has carefully investigated more than 100 peats belonging to the kingdom of Hanover, with reference to their heating effect.
Peats produced principally from grasses are grayish in appearance at the surface, being full of silvery fibres--the skeletons of the blades of grasses and sedges, while below they are commonly black.
In peats containing sulphate of the protoxide of iron, the loss that occurs during ignition is partly due to the escape of sulphuric acid, which is set free by the decomposition of the above mentioned salt of iron.
Carbonate and sulphate of lime are large ingredients of the ashes of about one-half, of the thirty-three peats and swamp mucks I have examined.
The complete drying is, on the other hand, by this method, a much slower process, since the dense, fissureless exterior of the peats hinders the escape of water from within.
At each stroke of the plunger a block is formed, and when the channel e is once filled, the peats fall continuously from its extremity.
Such peats need the addition of some alkaline body, as ammonia, lime, or potash, to render them salutary fertilizers.
Around these poles the peats are placed endwise, in concentric rows to the required width and height, leaving at the bottom a number of air-channels of the width of one peat, radiating from the centre outwards.
There are peats which will ferment of themselves in warm moist weather--even in the bog, giving off ammonia in perceptible though small amount.
In some villages the lads collected the peats in a cart, some of them drawing it along and the others receiving the peats and loading them on the cart.
Along with thepeats they accumulated straw, furze, potato haulm, everything that would burn quickly, and when they had got enough they piled it all in a heap and set it on fire.
He crawled backward, now scuttling from one little rickle of peats left forlornly out on the moor to the next sodden whin bush, the prickles of which yirked him as he threw himself down.
His curiosity was aroused, and he looked into the gloomy kitchen with the heaped peats filling all the space even to the roof.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "peats" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
