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More "Taut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sudden strain of the fish she nearly lost her balance, scrambled hastily down from the parapet, propping the pole desperately against her body, and stood so, unbending, unyielding, her eyes fixed on the water where the taut line ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... known anything like the rapidity of its coming up. Before he knew what he was about, a squall struck him, and he had great difficulty to right the boat. (Then followed a good deal about luffing and tacking and keeping her taut to windward; that is, I think that was where he wanted to keep her.) But whatever it was, he didn't succeed in doing it, and Kilian vouchsafed to say nobody could have done it. Then something split: I really cannot say whether it was the mast, or the ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... proud, queenly, beautiful woman, how can you be so brave? In your place I should have died of hopelessness and grief years ago. But you go on with your precious head high in the air, smiling, though crushed by your agony. Day in and day out your nerves are taut—you never rest. Why hasn't something snapped years ago? Perhaps God gives an abundance of strength to those who are ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... implicitly follow it. We have the tide strong at ebb, and a good six-knot breeze is coming up at south-west. I shall weigh, with my yards square, and keep them so, until the ship has drawn out of the fleet, and then I shall luff up on a taut bowline and on the starboard tack, bringing the ebb well under my lee-bow. This will hawse the ship over towards Morlaix, and bringing us quite as far to windward as is desirable. While the ebb lasts, and this breeze stands, we shall have plain sailing; the difficulty will come ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... done. In an instant every officer and man was at his duty; and within three minutes every sail in the ship was set, and the yards braced ready for casting. The steady and active assistance of Lieutenant Turner and the other officers prevented any confusion. As soon as the cable was taut, I ordered it to be cut, and had the good fortune to see the ship start from the shore. The head sails were filled; a favourable flaw of wind coming at the same time gave her good way. Not to be retarded by the boats, I ordered them to be cut adrift as well as the French ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... you. There are men whose whole lives are a vacation. These words are not for them. From my viewpoint, such men might as well be dead. The men upon whom I am urging the wisdom of taking periods for recuperation are those who have been pulling with the team and keeping their traces taut. And I assume that you who read are one of these worth-while men. Very well! I want you ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... breath of a whimper floated to him. He grew rigid, every nerve taut. He dared not let himself believe it could be real. Of course he was imagining sounds. Presently, no doubt, he would hear voices. In this devil's caldron a man could not ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... game," retorted Stover, "and for your own good don't allow no belief to the contrary to become a superstition." Of a sudden the gangling, spineless foreman had grown taut and forceful, his long face ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... laden with forebodings. Yet she was smiling. There was something that made her afraid. He turned toward Rachel and found her standing as if in imitation of himself, her face lifted toward the window, the taut line of her neck an attitude that brought him the image of a white bird's wing soaring. He felt himself unable to speak, as if a hand had been laid threateningly on his throat. Rachel was indiscreet to stand that way, to look that way. There was no mistaking. His thought, shaking itself ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... stare with dazed, smiling eyes on the sunbeam. His hair was cropped close like a convict's, which accentuated the leanness of his face and the taut, rigid lines about his mouth. Under his discolored uniform, the body was spare almost to the point of emaciation. Through a rent in his coat, a ragged shirt revealed the bare skin. He looked at it ruefully, still smiling. "I'm ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... Rutolo would adopt this plan. He stood on guard, bent like a taut bow, watching for the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Egyptian vertical looms are very different from the Greek looms in so far as we know anything about them. The Greek looms had an upper beam only and the warp threads were bunched at the lower end and weighted with metal or clay balls to keep them taut, Fig. 15. The individual warp threads were not weighted; they were bunched and then weighted. The pyramidal shaped clay warp weights found in Egypt are I understand considered by Egyptologists to belong to the Roman period, but in the Manchester University Museum there is a mud article ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... Roger pulled the reluctant Peter to the water's edge, plunged in and was swimming violently in the current before the rope stretched taut and he realized that Peter was braced, stiff-legged on the bank. Roger swam back and climbed out ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... hear nothing in front. If Timmendiquas and Girty were gathering their men there, they were doing it with the utmost skill and secrecy. Yet the watch was never relaxed for an instant. Every finger remained on the trigger and every figure was taut for instant action. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... its point between the leaves of the first section. The needle end of silk is then behind the headband, and the shorter end in front. The needle end is brought over from the back with the right hand, passed into the left hand, and held taut. The short end is picked up with the right hand, brought over the needle end under the vellum, and pulled tight from the back. This is repeated; the back thread is again drawn up and over the band to the ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... acetates are being used for auto goggles and gas masks as well as for windows in leather curtains and transparent coverings for index cards. A new use that has lately become important is the varnishing of aeroplane wings, as it does not readily absorb water or catch fire and makes the cloth taut and air-tight. Aeroplane wings can be made of cellulose acetate sheets as transparent as those of a dragon-fly and not easy to ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... company was likewise the bearer of a toy balloon—red, yellow, blue, green or purple, as the case might be. Over the line of heads the taut rubbery globes rode on their tethers, nodding and twisting like so many big iridescent bubbles; and half a block away, at the edge of the lot, a balloon vender, whose entire stock had been disposed of in one splendid transaction, now stood, empty-handed but full-pocketed, marvelling at the ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... interweave; entangle; twine round, belay; tighten; trice up, screw up. be joined &c; hang together, hold together; cohere &c 46. Adj. joined &c v.; joint; conjoint, conjunct; corporate, compact; hand in hand. firm, fast, close, tight, taut, taught, secure, set, intervolved^; inseparable, indissoluble, insecable^, severable. Adv. jointly &c adj.; in conjunction with &c (in addition to) 37; fast, firmly, &c adj.; intimately. Phr. tria juncta in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea-gully, and the Hispaniola would go ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the taut line beyond his foot, first with one hand, then with both, and flung his whole weight suddenly on it in ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... and her neck also secured to a ring screwed into the back of the cabinet. A rope was tied round her ankles, and passed right to the front of the stage, where the Hindoo youth was located and bidden hold it taut, which he did conscientiously, his attitude being what Colman describes "like some fat ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... knees, Raffles holding the rope taut to make it easier. Once more I stood upright under the stars and the telephone wires, and leaned against a chimney-stack to wait for Raffles. But before I saw him, before I even heard his unnecessarily ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... around—out the side walls of glistening quarsteel into the sea gloom, into the thick of the smooth, lithe, brown-skinned shapes that now and again poised pressing against the submarine, peering in with their liquid seal's eyes. Dimly he could see the taut seaweed ropes stretching down from the top of the Peary to the sea-bottom. It looked hopeless, and to these men inside it was hopeless. He knew he must speak in confident, assured tones to drive away the uncaring lethargy holding them all, ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... Henry was briefer than his name would indicate, but to a certain two-room dwelling on Jackson Street he made up in importance what he lacked in height; and it was his overwhelming sense of this importance which made every thin muscle taut and strained every nerve as he stood in the forefront of the crowd, his bare feet planted on the cold asphalt, one hand gripping his remaining stock of papers, the other clutching ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... a bit. I want to get home. I may not be able to go out again to-night. Last night I was up until dawn with Clara." Gordon touched the horses with a slight flicker of the whip. He held the lines taut as they sprang forward. His face was set ahead. James glancing at him had a realization of the awful loneliness of the other man by his side. He seemed to comprehend the vastness of the isolation of a grief which concerns one, and one only, more than any other. Gordon had the expression ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... such quality as men have rarely carried since. It was a stone ax; an ax heavier than any battle-ax of mediaeval times, its haft a scant three feet in length, inclosing the ax through a split in the tough wood, all being held in place by a taut and hardened mass of knotted sinews. It was a fearful weapon, but one only to be wielded by such a man as this, one with arms almost as mighty as ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... frame, quivered through its length, and gave out an under-hum. It was as if a far away call had rung it up. One gun alone, out of all the masked artillery, had found the key, and, from seven miles away, played the taut string. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... saw the flash of a white arm and the gleam of a knife hovering over the spot where his taut rope passed out of the geyser opening into the sunshine of the outer world. Again he stifled a cry. For crying out would do no good. While the suppressed sound was still on his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... was not worth the candle. He liked to cast a fly for bass, and having deceived them with a feathery lure, play them with a slender rod and fine line, giving them the sportsman's chance to get free if only they knew how to jump out of the water and throw themselves across the taut line. ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... again the fiendish clamor shattered the echoes. Blinding flashes of agony danced down the white-hot wires strung through his head, taut ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... first, not beauty. Beauty will come of itself. Take, for example, towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns are those which have built themselves—those in which each man has built to suit his own exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which men have constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than collections of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look only ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... last I heard for a long time. I must have slept. I remember that the baby stirred and I spoke to him. It seemed to me that something struck against the guy-rope that held our tarpaulin taut, but I wasn't sure. I was in that dozy state, half asleep, when nothing is quite clear. It seemed as though I had been listening to the tramp of feet for hours and that a whole army must be filing past, when I was brought suddenly into keen consciousness ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... least one well to be safe from August draught. Cousin Benjamin found the wet depths in this fashion; perhaps it will work for me." Aaron walked, arms outstretched, for half an hour before his face grew taut. He slowed his walking and began to work toward the center of a spiral. Waziri could see the sweat springing up on the young farmer's brow and fingers, despite the cold breeze that blew. The bulldog pliers trembled as though responding to the throbbing of an engine. Suddenly, as though about to ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... the yards, rolling tackles and other gear bowsed taut, and everything made as secure as it could be. Coming down, we found the rest of the crew just coming down the fore rigging, having furled the tattered topsail, or rather, swathed it round the yard, which looked like a broken limb bandaged. There was no sail now on the ship but the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... on a slight ridge. Above the camp there floated one of a line of sausage balloons, and the cable to which it was attached stretched up taut from some point near the farmhouse behind. A triangular flag, like a burgee, flew straight out in the breeze from half-way up the cable, and the basket, looking absurdly small, hung down like a black dot ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... sent the full force of the current through the wire and kept it going steadily. Thereupon the animals became panic-stricken. They began to rear and plunge; they turned around and dashed down the tow-path toward the boat. Then the line became taut; it jerked the boat around suddenly with such force that the stern of it broke through a weak place in the bank, and before the captain could turn off his battery the mules had dashed around the other side of the toll-collector's cabin, and then, making a lurch to the ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... the apparition in the doorway with the flaming henna head and taut brown body, with long, thin, brown arms stretched down stiff as ramrods to the sides, and "Ow!" he said again, as she suddenly moved and again stood still with the gleaming orange eyes fixed on his host, who looked at her for an instant, and looked away again to the far corner, as he indifferently ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... easy to say that Chopin's was an abnormal nature, and of course it was, but when disease divides this world from another only by the thinnest veil, the mind has been known to see things with a clearness and vividness never before attained. With Chopin the strands of life were often taut to the breaking-point, but ere they snapped, their vibration gave forth ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... them in subjection. The groom at the head looked back, jerking the leading rope. And the calvalcade moved out of sight up the lane, the tail of the last horse, bobbed up tight and stiff, held out taut from the swinging great haunches as they rocked behind the hedges in a ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... a moment before the crowd realized what was about to happen; they saw it reflected first in the face of Hurley, which suddenly went taut and pale, and then, even as they looked with a smile of curiosity and derision toward Pierre le Rouge, ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... top of the hill she managed to slacken them enough for Bob to jump in. They were off again as though shot from a bow. June wound the reins round her hands and leaned back, arms and strong thin wrists taut. The colts flew over ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... rods on one corner, so that the sides make an angle of 45 degrees with the floor, pull the boxes taut—be careful that they are square to the rods—and drive three or four tacks through each end of the box into the rods. Then turn them over and tack the other sides similarly. Repeat the process with the other rods after measuring to get the ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... the slack chain's end till they got to the milestone, and then suddenly he darted ahead and took the lead, the chain stretched taut, and the boy had all his work cut out to keep up with the dog. Up the hill they went on to the downs, and in and out among the furze bushes. The night was no longer dark to Edred. His eyes had got used to the gentle starlight, and he followed the dog among the gorse and brambles without ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... at the little Sunday evenings which he holds quite regularly, goes far, I am told, towards easing the strain on the taut nerves of the Sinn Fein intellectuals who attend them. On the Sunday evening I was present the subject of jail journals was broached. Darrell Figgis had just written one. In a dim corner of the room was miniatured the ivory face and the red gold beard of the ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... all loose into a woman's lap. You should stand by yourself and learn to be by yourself. Why don't you be more like the Japanese you talk about? Quiet, aloof little devils. They don't bother about being loved. They keep themselves taut in their own selves—there, at the bottom of the spine—the devil's own power they've ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... entrance, who held the foot block, fastened its hook in a little raised hump of rock; then, grasping the hauling line, pulled the tackle taut. The result was a serviceable lifeline, waist high, across the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... closed, while Bell found every separate muscle in his body draw taut. And while his brain at first was dazed with incredulous relief, then it went dark with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... high up on the mast, and it took all the men—and boys, too—to haul it taut. Even then it hung in a heavy curve from its own weight, and the cradle dragged through the crests of the waves when it went out empty. It was more under than above the water as they pulled it back again with the first ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the laugh maddened Holman. He clutched the rope and started to climb rapidly upward. I couldn't see him, but I felt his shoes as he wriggled away into the darkness above me, and I held my breath, I gripped the rope and kept it taut so that Leith and Soma might not discover ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... had stood dazed. It was as if the twanging taut of the ropes, as the bag tore almost from his grasp the most precious being in the world, had snapped the ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... consciousness of his own being; he was aware of nothing but the objective presence of the scaffold, of an overpowering expectancy. It seemed as if something were stretched taut in his brain, at breaking point; as if some vast thing were on the point of revelation. All else had vanished,—the scene round him, the sense of the invisible; there was but the point of space ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... two harmless merchant-vessels lying on either side of the channel, the young earl bade his rowers pull between the two. Suddenly there is a stir on the quiet merchant-vessels. The capstan bars are manned; the sunken cable is drawn taut. Up goes the stern of Earl Hakon's entrapped warship; down plunges her prow into the waves, and the water pours into the doomed boat. A loud shout is heard; the quiet merchant-vessels swarm with mail-clad men, and the air is filled with a shower of stones, and spears, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... . . . from Julie Claire there came a wail of pain, And then — the rope grew sudden taut, and quivered at the strain; It slacked and slipped, it whined and gripped, and oh, I held my breath! And there we hung and there we swung right in the jaws ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... led Michael away, and after several minutes returned along the deck, Michael stretched out ahead on the taut rope seeking Steward. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... attention and stimulate the imagination. "His voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock." "I saw her sway, like something stricken by the wind." "His laugh rang false, like a cracked bell." "His voice shook like a taut rope." "My mind flying like a weaver's shuttle." "His blows resounded on the grave as thick as sobs." "The private guilty considerations I would continually observe to peep forth in the man's talk like rabbits from a hill." ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The horses were plunging on the taut reins. The lady drew her skirts in at her side and nodded. Lewis stepped into the carriage. The horses shot forward and up ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... lifted her out of her wheel chair. Harriett saw his stoop, and the taut, braced power of his back as he lifted. Prissie lay in his arms with rigid limbs hanging from loose attachments, inert, like a doll. As he carried her upstairs to bed her face had a queer, exalted look of pleasure and ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... 21). A live minnow is fastened at the end of the rod near to a rattan noose. A cord running from the noose to the end of the stick allows the fisherman to draw up the noose as he desires. The struggles of the captive fish soon attract others, and when one enters the loop the line is drawn taut, securely binding the intruder. Several fish can be taken from a single pool by this method. A berry (anamirta coccithis L.) is used in the capture of fish. It is crushed to a powder, is wrapped with ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... white, upturned face. The half-breed poised an instant and threw his rope. The wide loop fell true and a moment later Endicott succeeded in passing it under the arms of the unconscious Texan. Then the rope drew taut and the halfbreed braced to the pull as the men were forced ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... into the chamber with its atmosphere of suspense drew every nerve taut. Senator Danvers saw him and his heart sank. His efforts had been in vain! He bowed to Winifred, though he had not seen even his own sister, far in the rear of the hall—there were no galleries ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Maid in Two Minds had no accommodation-ladder hung out . . . But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail anyhow and, among other things, left the out-haul of the mizen danglin' slack and close to the water. I reached for this, shortened up on it till I had it taut, and gave it into his hand to cling by—which he had the sense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits. After that I scrambled on to the mizen-boom somehow and hauled him aboard mainly by his collar and seat of his trousers. ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... skillful seamanship could practice was put in immediate operation to increase the speed of the brig. There was but a solitary hope remaining, that they might fall in with some national vessel able to protect them from the pirate. The sails were frequently wet, the halyards drawn taut, and the captain himself took the helm. When all this was done, each sailor stood gazing upon the pirate as if to calculate the speed of his approach by the lifting of his sails above the water. The greater part of his top-sails were already in sight, and soon the heads of her courses appeared ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... getting the topmast up in another hour. You see, I have got her number-two jib on her and shifted the mizzen, but she is still a bit too lively to make it safe to get up the spar. Like as not, if we did, it would snap off before we could get the stays taut." ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... town seemed unusually still. A flag on a two-story building flapped monotonously. Then a man across the street ran out of his store and pointed upward. A rope was thrown from an upper window of the Montgomery Block. Someone picked it up and carried it to The Bulletin Building, pulled it taut. On a strip of linen had been hastily inscribed the following announcement, stretched across ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... not deflect their monotonous course about the compound, when the sky-gazers had returned indoors. Around and around they went, talking, talking, talking, with the low insistent murmur of deeply interested people. Their nerves were taut; emotion was raw; they were young, and their blood moved riotously. And there was the moon, the moon that, since man could turn his face upward, has been the symbol of the thing called love. And now all over that long line slashed across the face ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... gallop, sending the short turf flying from his unshod hoofs at every stride. Back he came again, a vision of floating mane and streaming tail, and stopped dead three yards from Ralph, his forelegs strained and taut, ploughing furrows in the grass. As Ralph moved quietly across the field the colt followed, pushing a cool moist nose over the young man's shoulder. When at last Ralph set a foot on the projecting stone which stood out from the side of the grey, lichen-clad stone dyke, the colt ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... who the men were. I found afterwards that they were idle rascals who deserved punishment, and always went about their duty in a lazy, sluggish way. However, there was no doubt that our captain was a very taut hand. The ship had just come out of harbour. He had found out that the greater part of his crew were a bad lot, and he was getting them into order. He treated us who had belonged to the Montezuma in a very different ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... have it," he growled almost sullenly, answering the reproach that was written in every line of his brother's taut body. "I had warned him not to cross my path. But to-night I think some madness had seized upon him. He affronted me, Noll; he said things which it was beyond human power to endure, and...." He shrugged ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... likely. It looked as if you might have crawled from here to the cemetery and back. Now don't say any more, Mr. Bangs. It was no trouble at all. I always used to take care of father's clothes. He used to say I kept him all taut and shipshape." ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a little angular and stiff,—her gestures and her bright lively damson-coloured eyes were all youthful enough. But one could see that her inquiet hands, which were folded on her lap, had been worn by many a washing-day. Her skin, though wrinkled, was taut over the outstanding facial bones, as if the wrinkles might have opened out and have equalized the strain, had age not hardened them to brown cracks—and the tan of her complexion had old age's lack of clearness. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... swung slowly round. The rattle of her donkey-engine was plainly audible. The warp made fast to the buoy dipped into the water, strained taut dripping, and then dipped again. Suddenly the captain on the bridge shouted. The engine stopped abruptly. The warp sagged deep into the water. A small boat with one man in her appeared close under the steamer's bows, went foul of the warp ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... as it was very taut, it would naturally part readily; and with consequences disastrous to the safety of the two boats, which must be carried off down-stream in the darkness, possibly to be driven ashore ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... night camp that day. Jerry Wilkens happened to mention it at dinner that he believed his trail needed greasing. 'Why,' said Jerry, 'you'd think that I was loaded, the way my team kept their chains taut.' I noticed Joe get up from dinner before he had finished, as if an idea had struck him. He went over and opened the sheet in Jerry's trail wagon, and a smile spread over his countenance. 'Come here, fellows,' ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... tuned ear just a shade too reasonable. It had been thought out as an excuse. Because it wasn't for the Turkish bath nor the extra hour's sleep that he was staying away from home. It was herself he was staying away from. He wanted his mind to stay cold and taut, and he was afraid to face the temptation of her eyes and her soft white arms. And in the mood of that hour, it pleased her that this should be so—that the ascetic in him should pay ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... be those of an ocean steamer, and the great leviathan, with its precious freight of human souls, plowed past the taut little yacht distant only half ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... the wood; the wind had risen, and blew against her skirts, so that her feet moved gently as though yet tracing their phantom paces upon the airy floors. Her head, like a snapped lily, lay forwards and a little to one side, so that her pale cheek rested against the taut white satin of the riband from which she hung. The wind blew the languid meshes of her hair softly, kissing her once, kissing her twice, and kissing ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... did. Once having realized that I was temporarily laid by, Jonathan put his whole mind on the pool, while I, being honorably released from all responsibility, except that of keeping my line taut, could put my whole mind on his performance. There is a little the same sort of pleasure in watching the skillful handling of a rod that there is in watching the bow-action of a violinist. Both things demand the utmost nicety of adjustment: body, arm, wrist, ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... anything. At last he believed that I was in earnest, and with a light heart I turned my back upon Brook-green, and shipped on board the old Rodney. But, I say, old fellow, what sort of a chap is our skipper? He looks like a taut hand." ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... all as taut as a ship's hawser or the spring of a watch, and as soon as he came within reach of me I had him by the ankle, plucked the feet right out from under him, laid him out, and was upon the top of him, broken leg and all, before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seemed to come from the ground at their feet. It was a sound to hold the nerves taut, to send the cold shivers up ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... down, but not fastened, and the canvas moved slightly as if trembling fingers tried to hold it taut. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... cow-punchers are rushing calves to the branding. The hubbub and turmoil increase. Taut ropes cross the ground in many directions. The cutting ponies pant and sweat, rear and plunge. The garb of the cowboy is now one of white alkali which hangs gray in his eyebrows and moustache. Steers bellow as they surge to and fro. Cows charge on their persecutors. Fleet yearlings ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... The hawser was as taut as a bowstring and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea gully, and the Hispaniola would go ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hum of work slackened—discipline is not perhaps quite so taut in the French as it is in the British Navy—for both men and officers were one and all eager to see the lady who had ventured out in the Neptune with their commander. Only those actually on board had seen Madame Baudoin embark; there ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... right angles, and were made perfectly tight by means of wedges. To avert the great danger of the mass toppling over sideways, ropes were attached to the top of the casing, at the point where the beams crossed one another, and were held taut by two parties of laborers, one on either side of the statue. Besides these, wooden forks or props were applied on either side to the second set of horizontal cross-beams, held also by men whose business it would be to resist the least inclination of the huge stone to lean to one side more than ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Calhoun mentions an instance of a little Esquimaux dog whose head was seized between the jaws of a large Newfoundland with such force as to press the left eyeball from the socket. The ball rested on the cheek, held by the taut optic nerve; the cornea was opaque. The ball was carefully and gently replaced, and sight soon returned to ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... cried to his men. "Take a strain!" The hawser was pulled taut, till it ticked. "Heave!" The building ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... up with a slightly taut movement, and she divined he did not wish for any personal praise; yet, because a tinge of red showed under the bronze, she was glad she had seized the opportunity to offer a tribute that might at some odd moment heal a passing sense of uselessness ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the teeth of the wind, which made mine chatter until I began to tingle with the rush of ozone, which always goes to my head like champagne. Our road was a mere white thread winding loosely through a sinuous valley, and pulled taut as it rose nearer and nearer to the cold, high level of les Causses, the roof of that gnome-land where we had journeyed together yesterday. From snow-covered billows which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a fierce blast pounced down on us like ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... make little impression on her heavy, close-fitting velvet dress, and in her progress against the wind she appears so trim and taut that a sailor's eye would be captivated. She bends her little turbaned head to the blast, and her foot strikes the pavement with a decision that suggests a naturally brave, resolute nature, and gives ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... by the current, came in contact with the rock; when the men, keeping the rope on a taut stretch, ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... dinner; his taut trim body was relaxed in evening luxury before the wood fire of the back parlor, and he was half way through a cigar when Alexina rose and extended one arm along the mantelpiece. She looked like a long black poplar with her round narrow ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... remained polite, intent and silent. Kenny, with his heart in the telling, went on to the tale of Conoclach and the first harp. Conoclach, he said, hating Cull, her husband, had run away from him toward the sea. There upon the sand lay the skeleton of a whale and the wind playing upon the taut sinews made sounds low and soothing enough to lull her to sleep. And Cull, coming up, marveled at her slumber, heard the murmuring of the wind through the sinews and made the first harp. Kenny liked the tale and he liked the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... you can keep me in here—with that going on out there? (Moves nearer HOLDEN, stands there before him, taut, looking him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he steps aside for her to pass. Sound of her running footsteps. The two men's eyes ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... were hauling hard, but the rope had come taut; and instead of their bringing up the diver it was plain to all that the poor fellow had got the line hitched round a piece of rock, or else one of his legs wedged in some crevice of ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. You screw up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to get your neck muscles taut and then wobble your head around like a new-born baby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all the others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. Hereafter I'll get up at the time ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... blue ocean which is not to be found in routine duty along the yellow muddy streams that flowed through the territory claimed by King Cotton. The high, tapering masts, the yards squared and gracefully proportioned, the rigging taut, and with each rope in its place, of an ocean-frigate, are not seen in the squat, box-like gunboats that dashed by the batteries at Vicksburg, or hurled shot and shell at each other in the affair at Memphis. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... thing in civilization. He introduced the beginnings of civilized life, invented the art of writing, and was to the Central Americans not wholly unlike what Thoth was to the Egyptians, and Tautus, or Taut, to the Phoenicians. If the bas-relief of the cross at Palenque were half as old as his worship in Central America, it would be far more ancient than ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... When a terminal block is reached, a loop is made of each wire, through the hole cut in the block, if the circuit is to continue in the same direction. If it is to end there, the two wires are drawn through taut, and cut off at a length of 5 or 6 inches. These end wires, or loops, are then scraped bare and spliced to the two wires coming out of the chandelier or wall bracket. This joint is then soldered and covered ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... wide. It was now a feeble rivulet, the old mouth being filled up and overgrown with willows. Approaching Mohave Canyon, a rapid was encountered, necessitating the carrying forward of an anchor, from which a line was brought to the bow, and this being kept taut, with the boat under full steam the obstruction was surmounted without damage. This was the common method of procedure at rapids. This canyon, Ives, says was a "scene of such imposing grandeur as he had never before witnessed," ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... viciously at it, and retained it in her mouth. Discovering that she persisted in holding on, and that the rope was far back in her jaws, we shortened hand rapidly, and ran round, crossing each other in a circle, keeping the rope taut meanwhile. By this means we quickly twisted the rope firmly over her snout, so that had she now desired she could not have rid herself of it. The rest was easy; we shortened hand till near enough to despatch her with our clasp knives. We cut up the beast and ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... opposite to her and leaned back, shutting his eyes while Miss Amory's rested upon him. The life and beauty which had been such ever-present characteristics of his personality seemed to have left him never to return. Miss Amory's old nerves were strung taut. She had passed through many phases of feeling with regard to him as the years had gone by. During those years she had believed that she knew a hidden thing of him known by no other person. She had felt herself a sort of silent ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ‘Edlington Scrubs’ and ‘Roughton Scrubs.’ “Reedham,” another name, indicates a waste of morass. “Toot-hill” might be a raised ground from which a watch, or look-out, was kept, in troublous times; and Dr. Oliver says, in his “Religious Houses,” Appendix, p. 166, “‘Taut’ is a place of observation; ‘Touter’ is a watcher in hiding;” but it is more likely to be from the Saxon “tot,” an eminence (“totian,” to rise), in which case the second syllable, “hill,” is only a later translation of the first. However, Toot-hill, Tothill, or ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... in size and strength, his long, clean limbs showing taut muscles and great springing power; and his neck grew thick and short, which is well for a buck, who must use it in savage thrusts when the head is a battering ram. His horns were short and bony, but they protruded in front like knobs against ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... the other man—and I observed he was not only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook, too, like a taut rope—"Silver," says he, "you're old, and you're honest, or has the name for it; and you've money, too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't; and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will you tell me you'll let yourself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on those thin and jerking ropes. Had there been a steady breeze it would not have been so bad, but the Ghost was rolling emptily in a long sea, and with each roll the canvas flapped and boomed and the halyards slacked and jerked taut. They were capable of snapping a man off like a fly from ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... come, and stood up in his place clean-limbed and taut for running. He saw the sparks of the brand stream back along the Coyote's flanks as he carried it in his mouth, and stretched forward on the trail, bright against the dark bulk of the mountain like a ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... grasping the taut and, in one sense, irresponsive mechanism of a steering-wheel governed by steam, a sailor can "feel" the movement of his ship, a seaworthy vessel being a living thing, obedient as a docile horse to the least touch of the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... starts on the trail and the others, holding fast to their staffs, carefully follow, each one cautious to keep the rope stretching out in front of her rather taut; then if one girl stumbles the others brace themselves and keep her ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... noise or fuss, and leaving behind her a wake so smooth and so little disturbed that at a distance of a quarter of a mile it vanished altogether. And when, an hour or so later, having made a good offing, the skipper ordered her to be hauled to the wind on a taut bowline for a short time, to test her speed under those conditions, and then put her about, she went to windward and tacked like ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... as if a cord in his soul had been made taut and were vibrating without making a sound. The steps of the eight people, as they died away in the distance, developed gradually into a rhythmical, musical movement. What had been confused became ordered; ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the mainmast was now the first object. I therefore took with me one of the best of the crew, and carried the end of a rope cable with us up to the mainmast head, and clenched it round the mast, while it was badly springing. We then took the cable to the windlass and hove taut, and thus effectually secured the mast.... We were then drifting directly on shore, where the cliffs were rocky, abrupt, and almost perpendicular, and were perhaps almost 1,000 feet high. At each blast of lightning we could see the surf break, whilst we heard the awful ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... all the haphazard my judgment or my good genius had faithfully stood by me. The cable reached from the anchor in deep water to the sloop's windlass by just enough to secure a turn and no more. The anchor had been dropped at the right distance from the vessel. To heave all taut now and wait for the coming tide was ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... With his head on the stone sill, The dog is lying, Gazing at his Beloved. His eyes are wet and urgent, And his body is taut and shaking. It is cold on the terrace; A pale wind licks along the stone slabs, But the dog gazes through the glass And ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... the men who were before him were entering into a struggle for life and death, or that the combat between the two beautiful frigates now sailing in sight of each other, would probably end in the destruction of one of them. Each sail was well set, every yard perfectly braced, and all the ropes taut and uninjured. Thus they stood on, slowly nearing each other, till at length the Frenchman attempted to haul across the Cynthia's bows, for the purpose of delivering a raking fire. This the ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... were squared to the satisfaction of the boatswain, the ropes were hauled taut, and coiled down, and the men sent below to their dinners. Newton walked aft, and the first person he met was the dubash who had attended the Bombay Castle. The cheeks of Newton flushed, and his heart throbbed quick, and his lips quivered, as he asked intelligence of the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... the wind through the taut cordage of the foremast, the sullen plunging of the ship's hull in the trough of the sea, the rise to a wave crest and the poising there before falling once more, the smell of the dank salt air, and the occasional spurt of spray over the leaning ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... And I'm not sure just where—but look. Hot Rod's cable is taut. There's thrust on the balloon. That probably means a ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... de predestination, de grace; cette foule de distinctions subtiles dont la theologie s'est parteut remplie dans quelques pays, ces inventions si ingenieuses, imaginees par des penseurs qui se sont succedes depuis taut de siecles, n'ont fait, helas! qu'embrouiller les choses, et jamais la science la plus necassaire aux hommes n'a jusqu'ici pu acquerir la moindre fixite. Depuis des milliers d'annees ces reveurs oisifs se sont perpetuellement relayes pour mediter la Divinite, pour deviner ses ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... crew is "setting-up'' rigging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack (which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings must be taken off, tackles got up, and, after the rigging is bowsed well taut, the seizings and coverings be replaced, which is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection between different parts of a vessel, that one rope can seldom be touched without requiring a change in another. You cannot stay a mast aft by the back stays, without ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... down. You will have the canoe upset in a moment. Hold your rod steady and keep the line taut. That's right. Now lead him round toward me. There," and grasping the line he lifted a fine rock bass over ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... assert itself. Moreover, Ramon was now caught in the inevitable reaction from a purpose which had gathered and concentrated his energies with passionate intensity for almost four months. During that time he had lived with taut nerves for a single hope; he had turned away from a dozen alluring by-paths; he had known that absorbed singleness of purpose which belongs only to lovers, artists and ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... answer and William went out. Jan and Shorty faced each other. The dog's muscles were taut, his eyes alert. The man looked at ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... of the knife severed the remaining rope, already drawn as taut as a piano wire. But, as Jack's knife fell, the place became ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... himself. It was too dark to distinguish faces, and to one who had never been on board of a ship, too dark to move, so Jack stood where he was, which was not far from the main bitts; but he did not stay long; the boat had been hooked on to the quarter davits, and the boatswain had called out—"Set taut, my lads!" ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... messages. The crew, spotless in dungarees and without a vestige of a weapon, maneuvered the schooner as Code had never in his life seen a vessel handled. At a word from the officer of the watch they jumped as one man. Every order was executed on the run, and all sails were swayed as flat and taut as boards. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... the launch of a young yacht," a tremendous swirl, and we are fast into a famous trout. Directly he feels the insulting sting of the hook he rushes down stream at a terrific rate, so that the line, instead of being taut, dangles loosely on the water. We gather the line through the rings in breathless haste—there is no time to reel up—and once more get a tight strain on him. Fortunately there are no weeds here; the current ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... "There! Now we're all taut and shipshape and nobody can get aboard to interrupt. Fire away, Zoeth. What is it you've got ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... his head to look. He's gone without a word. Here comes another, A different kind of craft on a taut bow-line,— Deacon Giles Firmin the apothecary, A pious and a ponderous citizen, Looking as rubicund and round and splendid As the great bottle in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... watching Uncle Whittier. She knew from his taut expression that he was not listening to Aunt Bessie but herding his own thoughts, and that he would interrupt her bluntly. ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... through the taut cordage of the foremast, the sullen plunging of the ship's hull in the trough of the sea, the rise to a wave crest and the poising there before falling once more, the smell of the dank salt air, and the occasional spurt of spray over the leaning bow, all made a scene ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... it skimmed along the surface, looked for all the world like a flying fish, the bristles simulating the tail. Soon the hastening dolphin fell upon it, and then became the tug-of-war, bamboo pole straining and bending, the line now taut, now relaxing, as the fish lunged, and the paddlers watching with cries of excitement until he was hauled over the side, wet and flopping, a feast for half ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... scraps of paper, shavings, and lumps of coal around a core of gasoline-soaked rags. Directly above the heaped tinder a taut rope stretched from the window post to a child's wagon, the steel bed of which contained a second heap of combustibles. The wagon hung half over the ragged edge ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... plan Like to the feathered tribes, to gather down (Walks out): From careless wings to feather their own nests. (Francos turning to Seldonskip): I must in candor voice my perturbed thoughts Anent the strained relation which doth seem To liken to a ship with cable taut Which surging waves are threat'ning quick to snap. Twixt thee and Quezox. Thou, mine eye doth speak, Art like dry powder, ready to ignite When Quezox looseth tongue which like a flint Doth spark the fuse to quick ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... he saw the flash of a white arm and the gleam of a knife hovering over the spot where his taut rope passed out of the geyser opening into the sunshine of the outer world. Again he stifled a cry. For crying out would do no good. While the suppressed sound was still on his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... white heat through the long, cold days of formal construction? Emotions seem to grow cold and set like glue. The intense power and energy called forth by the first thrilling vision grow slack for want of incentive. What engine is to generate the heat and make taut the energies by which alone significant form can be created? That is where the artistic ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... inserts the muzzle of his rifle under the front end of the ridge and holds the rifle upright, sling to the front, heel of butt on the ground, beside the bayonet. His rear-rank man pins down the front corners of the tent on the line of bayonets, stretching the tent taut; he then inserts a pin in the eye of the front guy rope and drives the pin at such a distance in front of the rifle as to held the rope taut; both men go to the rear of the tent, each pins down a corner, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... everything was spinning in and in. Ahead, above, yawned vastnesses. The Master could no longer see the gate. A second of taut thrill— ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... his gaze on the saloon-keeper, Vorse. The man's right hand was under the bar and he seemed to be awaiting the engineer's next move, taut, tight-lipped, malignant. ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... a train and cast her lasso over the stack of the locomotive. He saw her pony settle back on its haunches while the rope grew taut and the train was forced to a halt. He saw the passengers lined up by the wayside and forced to part with their valuables. Later, when the band returned to the ranche with their booty, he saw the dissolute brother, after the treasure ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... man stood there with taut drawn bow Tarzan recognized him not so much the NEGRO as the ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... plane, sections of a cone. It is an oval curve, which may be drawn by fixing two pins in a sheet of paper at S and H, fastening a string, SPH, to the two pins, and stretching it with a pencil point at P, and moving the pencil point, while the string is kept taut, to trace the oval ellipse, APB. S and H are the foci. Kepler found the sun to be in one focus, say S. AB is the major axis. DE is the minor axis. C is the centre. The direction of AB is the line of apses. The ratio of CS to CA is the excentricity. The position of the planet at ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... 'Assan at the apparition in the doorway with the flaming henna head and taut brown body, with long, thin, brown arms stretched down stiff as ramrods to the sides, and "Ow!" he said again, as she suddenly moved and again stood still with the gleaming orange eyes fixed on his ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... the lines taut, or he'll be wriggling through them and carry off the hook and line!" cried Tom. At last it was got up flush with the bulwarks, when down it came, knocking over poor Billy and two of the native crew. Had not Tom and Desmond rushed forward ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... shrieked for a dab of lard, and got it, just as they passed. The man with Bessie and the anchor on his arms—for it was his—paused in his rotations with one elbow on his lever, and one foot still behind the taut cable he was crossing. His free hand saluted; and then, his position being defined, he was placed on a moral equality with his superiors, and could converse. The old-fashioned hat-touch, now dying out, is just as much a protest against the way social order parts man from ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... against the steel rails of Winchester Road, and awnings drawn against its inroads into the window display, Mrs. Shila Coblenz, routing gloom, reached up tiptoe across the haberdashery counter for the suspended chain of a cluster of bulbs, the red of exertion rising up the taut line of throat and ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... there a resinous pine, steeped in heat, threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk scuttered across their path, clicking nervously, only to squat on his haunches and stare beadily at Rose-Marie, taut with quivering curiosity. Caroline scowled ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... away now when you're ready," Clancy came down from aloft. He was sliding down evidently by way of the jib halyards, for there was the sound of a chafing whiz that could be nothing else than the friction of oilskins against taut manila rope, a sudden check, as of a block met on the way, an impatient, soft, little forgivable oath, and then a plump! that meant that he must have dropped the last twelve or fifteen feet to the deck. Immediately ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... broad collar of Elisaveta's dress with one hand and jerked it forward; he thrust the other hand, large, hot, and perspiring, under her chemise and pressed and squeezed her taut young breast. ...
— The Created Legend • Feodor Sologub
... at the limp form of Spud hanging across his arm. He ran a hand across his eyes, dropped the dummy onto the desk. Turning back to Dr. Shalt, he began to speak in a taut, controlled voice. ...
— The Second Voice • Mann Rubin
... balances? She wavers! Now let her go about! If she misses stays and broaches to We're all"—[then with a shout,] "Huray! huray! Avast! belay! Take in more sail! Lor! what a gale! Ho, boy, haul taut on the hind ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... Hetherton, and this time he saluted with body as erect and arm as taut as if on parade. In ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... wilderness. It came again, less near, and a third time from a great distance. I thought it queer, for a hawk does not scream twice in the same hour. I looked at Shalah, who stood by the gate, every sinew in his body taut with ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... on the mast, and it took all the men—and boys, too—to haul it taut. Even then it hung in a heavy curve from its own weight, and the cradle dragged through the crests of the waves when it went out empty. It was more under than above the water as they pulled it back again with the first of the crew, a funny ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... last peg had been secured. The flap was laced down quickly. In the semi-darkness of the sudden twilight the girls and Mrs. Havel stood together and listened to the rain drum upon the taut canvas. ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... moment. She sat in an easy attitude, meeting his gaze with complete confidence. No trace of his previous dullness remained. He was alert and taut. ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... Kilda's, a stark fastness of high crag: They must keep fit or famish: their main food The Solan goose; and it's a chancy job To swing down a sheer face of slippery granite And drop a noose over the sentinel bird Ere he can squawk to rouse the sleeping flock. They must keep fit—their bodies taut and trim— To have the nerve: and they're like tempered steel, Suppled and fined. But even they've grown slacker Through traffic with the mainland, in these days. A hundred years ago, the custom held That none should take a wife till he had stood, His left heel on the dizziest ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... she brought the pile of hemmed sheets to her mother her heart swelled with joy in her own goodness. There was Mark Olivier's sister, who rejoiced in the movements of her body, the strain of the taut muscles throbbing on their own leash, the bound forwards, the push of the wind on her knees and breast, the hard feel of the ground under her padding feet. And there was Mary Olivier, the little girl of thirteen whom her mother and Aunt Bella whispered about to each other ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... line sang off his reel. He was a famous fisherman, and Clark watched him admiringly. To every ounce of pliant bamboo on his six ounce rod there was, down in the brown water, a pound of savagely fighting weight. Deeper went the big fish and further, but ever the taut line yielded by fractions, and the nearly doubled rod kept up a steady insidious strain. As the bass dashed back, the bishop recovered his nearly spent line while his lips pressed tight and the light of ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... looked farther, and saw the prince, like the princess, absorbed in the business at the auction block, his slack elegance of the raffish aristocrat forgotten, all his being tense with purpose, strung taut—as taut at least as that soft body, only half-masculine in mould and enervated by loose living, could ever be. One thought of a rather elderly and unfit snake, stirred by the sting of some long-buried passion out of the lassitude ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... a common link to bind them together. To single himself out from all other Norwood builders the landlord had devised and laid out a common lawn tennis ground, which stretched behind the houses with taut-stretched net, green close-cropped sward, and widespread whitewashed lines. Hither in search of that hard exercise which is as necessary as air or food to the English temperament, came young Hay Denver when released from the toil of the ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the windlass locked, and the strain on the rope brought it taut. The house was anchored about half way up the hill, straining at the giant cable dangerously and on a ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... the hundredth time that night, Bill's icy self-control, his really marvelous command of his impulses, was sorely tried. His enemy actually was recumbent in the snow before him, while he, taut as a strung bow, was most exquisitely poised for the attack. Why fight? Why not swift delicious murder, and the gush of the loathed one's throat-blood between his fangs? Bill knew well why it must not be. But given the knowledge, how many dogs in his ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... work enough still to be done. The rudder was to be shipped, the rigging to be made taut, sail to be set; and it proved, by the way, that the sail on the yards was much of it still serviceable, while a suit of new linen sails below were greatly injured by moisture. In a week more they had ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... d'immaterialite, de creation, de predestination, de grace; cette foule de distinctions subtiles dont la theologie s'est parteut remplie dans quelques pays, ces inventions si ingenieuses, imaginees par des penseurs qui se sont succedes depuis taut de siecles, n'ont fait, helas! qu'embrouiller les choses, et jamais la science la plus necassaire aux hommes n'a jusqu'ici pu acquerir la moindre fixite. Depuis des milliers d'annees ces reveurs oisifs se sont perpetuellement relayes pour mediter la Divinite, pour deviner ses voies ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... carlings of the upper deck, so as to stun them. Captain Pellow, however, had sufficient presence of mind to fly to the cabin windows, and seeing the two hawsers, one slack in the bit and the other taut, threw himself with an amazing leap, which he afterwards said, nothing but his sense of danger could have enabled him to take, upon the latter, and by that means saved himself from the general destruction, though his face had been badly cut against the carlings, ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... the table, the hanging cover of which had effectually concealed him, Jean Pylotte had managed to adjust the noose upon the floor about Nick's legs. At the signal given him, he had quickly drawn it taut. ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... balls of heavy twine at the corner store. Tying one end of the cord to the right side stick about three inches below the forward spreader, we stretched a strand down to the notch at the left end of the lower spreader. The strand was drawn taut, and after making several twists around it the cord was tied to the left side stick three inches above the spreader. From this point the cord was stretched to the notch at the right end of the upper spreader, twisted ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... of the kites, Benjy, and you'll soon find out. Overhaul them well and see that everything is taut and shipshape. Let Butterface help you, and send Alf and Chingatok to me. I suppose Leo is off after musk-oxen, ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... created and labelled for a tar. Five feet nine is his mark, in his socks; and not weighing over eleven stone before dinner. Like so many ship's shrouds, his muscles and tendons are all set true, trim, and taut; he is braced up fore and aft, like a ship on the wind. His broad chest is a bulkhead, that dams off the gale; and his nose is an aquiline, that divides it in two, like a keel. His loud, lusty lungs are two belfries, full of all manner ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... begin is given, and the keepers of the buffaloes let out the lines made fast to the bull's noses, and lead their charges to the centre of the green. The lines are crossed, and then gradually drawn taut, so that the bulls are soon facing one another. Then the knots are loosed, and the cords slip from the nose-rings. A dead silence falls upon the people, and for a moment the combatants eye one another. Then they rush together, forehead ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... and friends are certain little toy-boat builders, who bestow upon me from time to time boats fashioned by their knives; vessels which would not, it is true, encounter stormy seas, and therefore are not fitted for use, but which look taut and trim as they lie in the quiet harbour of bracket or slab amongst other choice ornaments. A rowing-boat, a yacht, a schooner, a man-of-war—all these varieties are somewhat commonplace. The construction of ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... bristling, he explained clearly and succinctly to that strange dog how absolutely impossible it would be for him to permit his crossing the archway. Up went the spine of the stranger, and out went his tail like a bar of steel, the feet braced, and the whole body taut as standing rigging. But the concierge kept on wagging his tail, though his hair still bristled,—saying as plainly ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... lying on either side of the channel, the young earl bade his rowers pull between the two. Suddenly there is a stir on the quiet merchant-vessels. The capstan bars are manned; the sunken cable is drawn taut. Up goes the stern of Earl Hakon's entrapped warship; down plunges her prow into the waves, and the water pours into the doomed boat. A loud shout is heard; the quiet merchant-vessels swarm with mail-clad men, and the air is filled with a shower of stones, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... before sunset. Birds were gossiping in the sycamores on the bank. At the foot of the garden, near the creek, there were some tall hydrangea bushes, flower-laden, and, beyond them, one broad shaft of the sun smote the creek bends for a mile in that flat land, and crossed the garden like a bright, taut-drawn veil. Harkless passed the bushes and stepped out into this gold brilliance. Then he ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... there grew once more upon him the feeling that he was being watched by unseen eyes. Vainly he cursed himself for his folly. He could not sleep. A twig broke near him. He lay still listening with every nerve taut. He fancied he could hear soft feet about him and stealing near. With his two guns in hand he sat bolt upright. Straight before him and not more than ten feet away the form of an Indian was plainly to be seen. ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... the strand Of sea-girt Lemnos, but with dayspring cast The hawsers loose, and heaved the anchor-stones Out of the deep. Athena sent a breeze Blowing behind the galley taper-prowed. They strained the sail with either stern-sheet taut; Seaward they pointed the stout-girdered ship; O'er the broad flood she leapt before the wind; Broken to right and left the dark wave sighed, And seething all around was hoary foam, While thronging dolphins raced on either hand Flashing along ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... held them in subjection. The groom at the head looked back, jerking the leading rope. And the calvalcade moved out of sight up the lane, the tail of the last horse, bobbed up tight and stiff, held out taut from the swinging great haunches as they rocked behind the hedges in ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... down the pulpit: 'and where are you going' - stopping abruptly: 'where are you going? Aloft!' - very softly, and pointing upward: 'Aloft!' - louder: 'aloft!' - louder still: 'That's where you are going - with a fair wind, - all taut and trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory, where there are no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' - Another walk: 'That's where you're going ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... from the Sirdar. A British band played a few bars of "God Save the Queen." Whilst all were saluting, Lieutenant Stavely, R.N., and Captain J. Watson, A.D.C., standing on the west side of the wall ran up a brilliant silk Union Jack to the top of their flagstaff, hauling the halyard taut as the flag flapped smartly in the breeze. It had barely begun to ascend when Lieutenant Milford and Effendi Bakr, at the adjacent pole, ran up the Egyptian flag. Thereupon an Egyptian band played at some length the Khedivial hymn. At its close the Sirdar called for three cheers for "The ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... rapidly in size and strength, his long, clean limbs showing taut muscles and great springing power; and his neck grew thick and short, which is well for a buck, who must use it in savage thrusts when the head is a battering ram. His horns were short and bony, but they protruded in ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... faculty for the use of pithy similes, which arrest the attention and stimulate the imagination. "His voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock." "I saw her sway, like something stricken by the wind." "His laugh rang false, like a cracked bell." "His voice shook like a taut rope." "My mind flying like a weaver's shuttle." "His blows resounded on the grave as thick as sobs." "The private guilty considerations I would continually observe to peep forth in the man's talk like rabbits from a hill." Nothing could be more ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Javel, junior, who was in the bows directing the lowering of the net, staggered, and his arm was caught in the rope which the shock had slipped from the pulley for an instant. He made a desperate effort to raise the rope with the other hand, but the net was down and the taut rope did ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... midnight, just as the ship was put about. When a ship is tacking, the tacks and sheets (ropes which confine the clews or lower corners of the sails) are let run, in order that the yards may be swung round to meet the altered position of the ship. They must then be hauled taut again, and belayed, or secured, in order to keep the sails in their place and to prevent them from shaking. When the ship's head comes up in the wind, the sail is for a moment or two edgewise to it, and then is the nice moment, as soon as the headsails fairly fill, when the mainyard ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... time previous, but this precaution did not prevent the water from gaining entrance on the main and lower decks. As she still continued to heel over to starboard, a hawser was taken on shore, and, by purchases, set taut to the mast head; but before this could be accomplished she had filled so ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... a sharp knife cutting a taut cord. The tense muscles relaxed and Keith gave a sudden laugh. True, it was a short laugh, and a bitter one; ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... hide and flesh brought in by the men, but, as a rule, the beast would be driven up close to the house to save trouble. One of the two or three mounted men engaged in the operation would throw his lasso over the horns, and, galloping off, pull the rope taut; a second man would then drop from his horse, and running up to the animal behind, pluck out his big knife and with two lightning-quick blows sever the tendons of both hind legs. Instantly the beast would go down ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... it," he growled almost sullenly, answering the reproach that was written in every line of his brother's taut body. "I had warned him not to cross my path. But to-night I think some madness had seized upon him. He affronted me, Noll; he said things which it was beyond human power to endure, and...." He shrugged to complete ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... snapped, drew on the line a little harder, and swung an eel weighing half a pound or more to the bank, where he promptly put one foot on the eel and drew the line taut. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... a slight ridge. Above the camp there floated one of a line of sausage balloons, and the cable to which it was attached stretched up taut from some point near the farmhouse behind. A triangular flag, like a burgee, flew straight out in the breeze from half-way up the cable, and the basket, looking absurdly small, hung down like a ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... the telling, went on to the tale of Conoclach and the first harp. Conoclach, he said, hating Cull, her husband, had run away from him toward the sea. There upon the sand lay the skeleton of a whale and the wind playing upon the taut sinews made sounds low and soothing enough to lull her to sleep. And Cull, coming up, marveled at her slumber, heard the murmuring of the wind through the sinews and made the first harp. Kenny liked the tale and he liked the way he ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... opened my eyes and stared about me, scarcely comprehending where I was or what had happened. Ortez called upon his men to raise me. Being placed erect the cord was drawn just taut enough to sustain me standing. Now the ghastly woman I had seen in the hall pushed her ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... of a nice place. It has private rooms, like all of these places. The cooking is simply out of sight. I think there is a bar connected with it." Then he went on to talk indifferently about the kindergarten, though his pulse was beating fast, and his nerves were strung taut. By and by ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... a bit! Whoa! Patsie! Whoa! Lady!" Elizabeth cried, coming around to them, and extending a smeary, dripping hand for the taut rein. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... from the boma gate, going full-pelt, fastened neck to neck, the chain taut and each man carrying a water-jar. The minute they had crossed the square Schubert commenced with company drill, and for two hours after that, with but one interval of less than five minutes for rest, he kept them pounding the gravel in evolution after evolution—manual exercise at the double—skirmishing ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... thatch of the hut as high up as she could reach, so that it looked as though it were made fast there. Next, Sihamba slipped off her fur cloak, leaving herself naked except for the moocha round her middle, and, clasping her hands behind her back with the assegai between them, she drew the riem taut, and leaned against the wall of the hut after the fashion of one who is about to be pulled from the ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... darkness held infinite terrors for her. Not alone the terrors of the known but more frightful ones as well—those of the unknown. She had passed through much this night and her nerves were keyed to the highest pitch—raw, taut nerves, they were, ready to react in an exaggerated form to the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the muscles of mastication, notably the masseter, so that he has difficulty in opening the mouth—hence the popular name "lock-jaw." The muscles of expression soon share in the rigidity, and the face assumes a taut, mask-like aspect. The angles of the mouth may be retracted, producing a grinning expression known ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... think you can keep me in here—with that going on out there? (Moves nearer HOLDEN, stands there before him, taut, looking him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he steps aside for her to pass. Sound of her running footsteps. The two men's eyes meet. ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... deer. But even as Jack came into sight, the strangers had mastered Me Dain, and in a second he was dragged to the ground. With incredible speed and quickness they flung loops of rope around ankles and wrists, ran them taut, and made the Burman a prisoner. Then two of them dropped on Me Dain's legs and arms, and the third seized his hair and dragged his head forward. The fourth leapt a pace back as nimbly as a panther, and swung up ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... up. She found the rope thongs which had bound her pack to her shoulders. With steel-taut nerves, she rolled the insensible ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... weather leech of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the coming ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... on the quarter, a mighty wave came a-rollin' along, boardin' us about the main riggin', floodin' the decks and dashin' out the starboard bulwarks. The minnit we got the wind onto the starboard quarter we braced the main-yard sharp up with the port-braces and bowsed the weather ones as taut as a harp string. 'Now, then,' says the old man, 'never mind that trash for'ard, let that go; git a jumper on to the main-yard and a preventer main-topsail brace aloft; lay aloft for your lives, and ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... brother—no, never that—and there was the poignant pain of it. The bond of affection rooted in his very flesh, held firm and taut, stretched to the point of anguish, and vibrating in shrill notes of sorrow as the hammer of conviction struck it. He could not cast his brother out of his inmost heart, blot his name from the book of remembrance, cease to hope ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... it wasn't an animal." Peggy's tones were vibrant with alarm—tense as a taut violin string. "What I ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... stepped back, and cried to his men. "Take a strain!" The hawser was pulled taut, till it ticked. "Heave!" The building ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... trice the men grabbed it, and made it fast. Then Tom had another difficult task—that of not allowing the rope to become taut, or the drag of the boat, and the uplift of the airship might have snapped it in twain. But he handled his delicate craft of the air as confidently as the captain of a big liner brings her skillfully to the deck against wind ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... riches and his fatness seriously. In disposition Don Mario was practical and unromantic; he boasted that he had never had an illusion, never an interest outside of his business. And yet, on the day this story opens, this prosaic personage, in spite of his bulging waistband and his taut neckband, in spite of his short breath and his prickly heat, was in a very whirl of pleasurable excitement. Don Mario, in fact, suffered the greatest of all illusions: he was in love, and he believed himself beloved. The object of his adoration was little Rosa Varona, the daughter ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... Roman, that before passing the night in the tent to which they had been taken, they examined it carefully. The tent, round of form, was decorated inside with woolen cloth, striped in strongly contrasting colors. It was fixed on taut cords which were fastened to stakes driven into the earth. The cloth of the tent did not come down close to the ground, and Albinik remarked that between the coarsely tanned hides which served as a carpet, and the lower edge of the tent, ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... long gone, of a race who now are shadows. Care should be taken that they move in exactly the right space, so that the shadows will not vary greatly in height or in bulk. First a chieftain passes, wonderful in feathers. Next a young brave, who, standing alone a moment, tries the taut string of his bow. Next an Indian maid, with a basket poised on her head. Then two young braves with fish slung on a pole between them. Then a group of Indian maidens. An Indian child or two. A squaw with fagots on her ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... from her bows; the spray breaking aft as far as the gangway. She was going at a prodigious rate. Still, everything held. Preventer braces were reeved and hauled taut; tackles got upon the backstays; and everything done to keep all snug and strong. The captain walked the deck at a rapid stride, looked aloft at the sails, and then to windward; the mate stood in the gangway, rubbing his hands, and talking aloud to ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... asked that, because of course they had. It was like asking a mountain climber if he had ever felt a taut rope over the razor edge of ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... listened. That was apparent in the animation of her face, in the way in which she would suddenly straighten herself as she sat, needle in air, the thread taut over her raised little finger. Then she would quickly resume her work, sometimes after putting in a thoughtful word, which agreed generally with the opinions of ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... went up to the hotel and oversaw the preparation of Jeff's meals and kept taut the slack housekeeping of the old Irish woman who had remained as a favor, after the hotel closed, and professed to have lost the chance of a place for the winter by her complaisance. She submitted to Cynthia's authority, and tried to make interest for an indefinite ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... moment before the crowd realized what was about to happen; they saw it reflected first in the face of Hurley, which suddenly went taut and pale, and then, even as they looked with a smile of curiosity and derision toward Pierre le Rouge, they saw ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... and writing, though having to some purpose studied the book of nature, he possessed more useful knowledge than many of his fellow-men. He, like Tom Bowling, was the darling of the crew; for although he wielded his authority with a taut hand, he could be lenient when he thought it advisable, and was ever ready to do a kind action to any of his shipmates. He could always get them to do anything he wanted; for, instead of swearing at them, he used endearing expressions, such as "My loves," "My dear boys," "My charming lads." Thus, ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... seconds, which seemed an eternity to the taut nerves of the watchers, the man turned with a guttural growl, and started cautiously to make off ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... page of many a sage, And did his mind adorn With classic sweets, and varied treats, Preserv'd ere he was born. "And now," says he, "upon life's sea, I'll steer my bark so truly;" "She is," he thought, "so trim and taut, ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... shrubs were flame-colored, copper-colored, wine-colored, differing only in their diffuseness of hue from the concentrated gorgeousness of amaranth, canna, and gladiolus. The sounds of the city were deadened here to a dull rumble, while the vibrancy of the autumn afternoon excited his taut nerves. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... spruce-lands,—dodging indomitable boulders,—grazing lax, treacherous embankments,—the great car scuttled homeward. Huddled behind his steering wheel like a warrior behind his shield, every body-muscle taut with strain, every facial muscle diabolically calm, the Senior Surgeon met and parried successively each fresh onslaught of ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... and stared at one another, the black eyes of the Jovian burning like fire in strange contrast to the cold glare of the blue ones. Then tension in the street grew taut. The Earthmen gradually closed in about them. At a word from Havenner, the Jovian guards closed up and drew from their garments long black tubes. Presently ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... Joe seems to be smitten with a sudden frenzy. I have never seen anything like it. After a preliminary canter in the laughing line he suddenly makes taut his body; his eyes bulge from his head; his face becomes crimson and his nose blue; then, with his mouth open, while he hisses like a steam-saw and roars like a bull and sends the most extraordinary imitation of throat-cutting ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... was next made taut above; and the weight of the stone—which was too heavy for Marengo to move—kept all fast below. Francois slipped down the rope first. There was but little difficulty in his doing so; as the pieces of wood formed rests, or steps, that prevented him from sliding too fast. Lucien followed next, and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... in the air, a hidden string, inside the frame, quivered through its length, and gave out an under-hum. It was as if a far away call had rung it up. One gun alone, out of all the masked artillery, had found the key, and, from seven miles away, played the taut string. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... cordage was only a bit more taut I wouldn't mind it so much," growled Hockins, as he lost his footing at one place, and swung off the face of the precipice,—holding on to a stout creeper, however, with seaman-like grip and coolness. He quickly caught hold of another creeper, ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... to thee draw nigh, How often have my glances pierced the taut, Straight fold of thine austerest drapery, Fast at the end about thine ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... four-footed animal suddenly leaped to the edge of the bank, sniffed, and disappeared noiselessly. So taut were his nerves strung that the Sergeant sank upon his knees, releasing one hand to grip his revolver, before he realized the cause of alarm—some prowling prairie wolf. Then, with teeth grimly locked, bending lower ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... garment had been torn into strips. Two or three of these he tied end to end with his teeth, lips, and tongue, tightening the knots by placing one end of the strip under his body and drawing the other taut with his teeth. In this way he made a line several feet long, one end of which he made fast to the rail with his mouth. It then began to dawn upon me that he was going to make an insane attempt—impossible of achievement without hands, feet, arms, or legs—to escape from his ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... Boneas has come into Brisbille's, and he does it complacently, for he is not above mixing with the people of the neighborhood. Here, too, are Monsieur Pocard, and Crillon, new shaved, his polished skin taut and shiny, and several other people. Prominent among them one marks the wavering head of Monsieur Mielvaque, who, in his timidity and careful respect for custom, took his hat off as he crossed the threshold. He is only a copying-clerk at the factory; he wears much-used ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... for her surcease, she darted down the familiar ways until at last her feet struck the dull solidity of the rotting pier. And then it was but a few more panting steps—and good mother East River took Liz to her bosom, soothed her muddily taut quickly, and settled in five minutes the problem that keeps lights burning o' nights in thousands ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... duty. He could feel the long-kept peace of India disintegrating all around him, and he knew—he was certain—as sometimes a brave man can see what cleverer men all overlook—that the right touch by the right man at the right moment, when the last taut-held thread should break, would very likely swing the balance in favor of peace again, instead ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... silence of darkness, the veldt awoke. Animals that had dozed through the hot hours and grazed through the cooler hours in somnolent content now quivered alert. There were runnings here and there, the stamp of hoofs, sharp snortings as taut nerves stretched. Zebras uttered the absurd small-dog barks peculiar to them; ostriches boomed; jackals yapped; unknown birds uttered hasty wild calls. Numerous hyenas, near and far away, moaned like ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... this had been hauled in he found resistance; the end of it was evidently fast on the other side. Richard passed the rope round the bottom of the iron spout, and beneath an iron clasp, that prevented its slipping upward, and then made it taut. It was a perilous bridge even then, and supposing the watcher with his musket had not been, as he was, within easy gunshot of him; but it led from prison walls to liberty, and Richard did not hesitate for a moment to commit himself to it. Hand over hand, foot after foot, he dragged himself ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... by him. She told me once that almost her earliest memory was being lifted into the air by her uncle and feeling the thick solid strength of his grasp, so that she was like a feather in the air, poised on one of his stubborn fingers; when he kissed her each hair of his beard seemed like a pale, taut wire, so stiff and resolute was it. Her Uncle Ivan was a flabby, effeminate creature in comparison. Then, as she had grown older, she had realised that he was a dangerous man, dangerous to women, who ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... enough to call it bait fishing. These were all silvery, "butter fish," excepting one, which was rather like a herring. Meantime we had the heavy sunk line baited with dough, and by and bye it began to go out into the stream, and we paid out line rapidly, and then suddenly hauled taut and were fast to a "big un." It was pull devil, pull baker for about five to ten minutes, when the big fish came alongside, and we got a noose round its tail and hauled it on ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... with the light of the stars. Everything seemed charged with electric cold; the rich soil of the garden struck fire like flint beneath your feet; the tall hillside pines, as stiff as masts of steel, would suddenly crack in the brittle silence, with a sharp report; and at intervals throughout the taut boreal night you could hear a hollow rumbling running down the length of the pond—the ice being split with the wide ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... it. We have the tide strong at ebb, and a good six-knot breeze is coming up at south-west. I shall weigh, with my yards square, and keep them so, until the ship has drawn out of the fleet, and then I shall luff up on a taut bowline and on the starboard tack, bringing the ebb well under my lee-bow. This will hawse the ship over towards Morlaix, and bringing us quite as far to windward as is desirable. While the ebb ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... little assistance when once off their feet; just a slow, steady pull from the oars, and a taut enough halter to lean on in the tight places. But others rolled over like logs when the full force of the current struck them, threatening to drag the boat under, as it and the horse raced away down stream with ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... point. When a man has got all he wants of a thing, any addition is like over-ballast. Whenever I can get fifteen knots out of the ship, I make it a point to be satisfied, especially under close-reefed topsails and on a taut bowline." ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... however, and, with a practised hand, shot his linen into one long rope, which he carefully attached to an erect and smoking pillar, perhaps of basaltic formation, perhaps an ancient altar of St. Simeon Skylites. When all was taut, Jambres approached a slanting slope, smooth and transparent, perhaps of glacial origin. On this he stamped, and the fragments tinkled as they fell into unknown deeps. Then he seized the rope, let himself ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... darkness dazzled him. He saw nothing but a moving shadow intermingled with points of fire that glowed steadily in two long rows up to the altar, where fell a single ray of golden sunshine. Helmet in hand, he moved slowly forward, every nerve strung taut with suspense. As his eyes grew accustomed to the curious half-light, he saw that the unreal shadows were men grouped on either side behind rows of torch-bearers. The red flare fell on their fixed, unmoved faces, and threw weird shadows backward and ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... into silence. As the ship ran, and lifted, and pitched and trembled, her narrow wedge shape was a blot beneath us: on each side of her white foam marked the hissing, hungry sea. But, with the sail surging before us in its gear like a mad balloon, who noted aught but the sail? I leant out upon my taut bulge of living canvas, beat it with the flat of my hand, and being the youngest waited for the word to "leech" it or "skin" it up. Being tall I was not at the extremity of the yard arm; my fellow fore-topman and a little squat ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... tone taut with impatience, "Certain sections of the Great Current are infested with dangerous forces. I shall not ...
— The Winds of Time • James H. Schmitz
... the receiver, the wall still around her brain, holding it tight and keeping her nerves taut, afraid to release them for fear they might snap. She stood there looking at the receiver as ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... of the tool-room saw Feller entering the sitting-room. He was not the bent, deferential old gardener, nor was he the Feller changed to youth as he thought of himself at the head of a battery. His features were hard-set, a fighting rage burning in his eyes, his sinews taut as if about to spring upon an adversary. When he recognized the intruders he turned limp, his head dropped, hiding his face with his hat brim, and he steadied himself by resting a hand on the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Madeline a big steer went down at the end of a lasso. The cowboy who had thrown it nimbly jumped down, and at that moment his horse began to rear and prance and suddenly to lower his head close to the ground and kick high. He ran round in a circle, the fallen steer on the taut lasso acting as a pivot. The cowboy loosed the rope from the steer, and then was dragged about on the grass. It was almost frightful for Madeline to see that cowboy go at his horse. But she recognized the mastery and skill. Then two horses ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... until it sags sufficiently to free the aerial passage-way between the cliffs. Then the aviator planes down, sweeps through the canyon, and alights on the plateau called Thusis's Garden. But now he must return; the cable must be lifted and stretched taut; and he must embark across the gulf in the little car which runs on grooved ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... in advance stood stock-still, his whole figure taut, poised, alert, in an attitude of listening. All at once he wheeled about, discovering the man close behind him. He sprang at once for his pursuer. The latter took to his heels, dashing around the corner, the man whom ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... shoving, and pulling at the rope, the nuggar was floated once more at last, and on they went again, and by-and-by the river widened, and the current was not so strong, and so long as they kept the rope pretty taut the boat came along without any ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... made a circle of the field at a full, swinging gallop, sending the short turf flying from his unshod hoofs at every stride. Back he came again, a vision of floating mane and streaming tail, and stopped dead three yards from Ralph, his forelegs strained and taut, ploughing furrows in the grass. As Ralph moved quietly across the field the colt followed, pushing a cool moist nose over the young man's shoulder. When at last Ralph set a foot on the projecting stone which stood out from the ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... aside. Foyle smiled, and although his whole body was taut in anticipation of any fresh attempt at violence, he quietly struck a match and lit ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... braces, then!" Quick as thought the lee braces are slacked off, and those on the weather side made taut. Still she is not checked. Strange, too, for the breeze is stiff. Anderson feels she is in the stream of a ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... rising billows, hauled all taut before he got outside Portland Bay. He would not delay so doing until he should pass the headland. He examined the rigging closely, and satisfied himself that the lower shrouds were well set up, and supported ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... ten having reached this stage and the binding being dry and secure, he took one again between his left arm and chest, and with his right hand drew all the feathers straight and taut, down the shaft. Here he held them with the fingers of his left hand. Having marked a similar place on each arrow where the sinew was to go, he cut the bristles off the rib. At this point he started binding with another piece of wet sinew. After a few turns ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... to remain indoors and left the others to their own devices. He walked without aim, as fast as he could go; he felt no weariness. The burning sun beat down upon him, but he did not know it. The hours passed with lagging feet. Susie lay on her bed and tried to read. Her nerves were so taut that, when there was a sound in the courtyard of a pail falling on the cobbles, she cried out in terror. The sun rose, and presently her window was flooded with quivering rays of gold. It was midday. The day passed, and ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... you be so brave? In your place I should have died of hopelessness and grief years ago. But you go on with your precious head high in the air, smiling, though crushed by your agony. Day in and day out your nerves are taut—you never rest. Why hasn't something snapped years ago? Perhaps God gives an abundance of strength to those who ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... of the joyous company was likewise the bearer of a toy balloon—red, yellow, blue, green or purple, as the case might be. Over the line of heads the taut rubbery globes rode on their tethers, nodding and twisting like so many big iridescent bubbles; and half a block away, at the edge of the lot, a balloon vender, whose entire stock had been disposed of in one splendid transaction, now stood, ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... He did not make the mistake of making the end fast to his own body as he might have done in some circumstances. Instead he threw the rope over the rock, taking one quick turn about it. He had no more than taken that turn when the slack on the rope was suddenly taken up and the rope was drawn taut. ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... straw flat down upon three or four rungs of a sector. However gentle the contact, adhesion is at once established. When I lift the straw, the threads come with it and stretch to twice or three times their length, like a thread of india-rubber. At last, when over-taut, they loosen without breaking and resume their original form. They lengthen by unrolling their twist, they shorten by rolling it again; lastly, they become adhesive by taking the glaze of the gummy ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... its total effect. In place of tightly geometrical compositions, Malwa artists preferred a more fluid grouping, their straining luxuriant trees blending with swaying creepers to create a soft meandering rhythm and only the human figures, with their sharply cut veils and taut intense faces, expressing the prevailing cult of frenzied passion.[82] Such schools of painting reflected the Rajput need for passionate romance rather than any specially strong adhesion to Krishna, the divine lover. Although one copy of the Rasika ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... were detailed to wait upon us. Uncle Parker, who brought us toddy and green nuts, was an elderly, almost an old man, with the spirits, the industry, and the morals of a boy of ten. His face was ancient, droll, and diabolical, the skin stretched over taut sinews, like a sail on the guide-rope; and he smiled with every muscle of his head. His nuts must be counted every day, or he would deceive us in the tale; they must be daily examined, or some would prove to be unhusked; nothing but the king's name, and scarcely that, would ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crossed her hands on her stomach and twirled her thumbs. A red spot was in each coffee-coloured cheek, and the mole in her scanty eyebrow jerked ominously. Her lips were set in a taut line, and her angry little eyes were fixed upon a girl who sat by the window strumming a guitar, her chin raised with an ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... bag, the beaded one on the end of the divan. The slow taut feeling for it and the floor that creaked twice, starting the sweat out ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment,—but only just a moment,—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane and ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... and while the two tugs steadily drew her off into deep water, the Maggie fought valiantly to stick to the beach and even to continue her interrupted journey overland. She merely succeeded in stretching both hawsers taut; slowly she was drawn seaward, stern first, and at the expiration of fifteen minutes' steady pulling, Mr. Gibney could restrain himself no longer. He rang for full speed astern—and got it promptly. Then, calling Neils ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... dirty little beetle Peers into motionless eyes Transfixed to their depths As by shining needles. Limbs are taut in ultimate resentment. A bare sky confronts an upturned face. Like a wheel vanishing in speed The corpse, containing ...
— Precipitations • Evelyn Scott
... and the fault that was dangerous in it was corrected, its inventor thought, by a ventilator connecting the inner bag with the outer air, which was designed to compensate for the contraction of the gas and keep the skin of the balloon taut. But No. 2 doubled up as had No. 1, while she was still held captive by a line; falling into a tree hurt the balloon, but the aeronaut escaped unscratched. Santos-Dumont, in spite of his quiet ways and almost effeminate speech, his diminutive body, and wealth ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... shoe horn is a handkerchief or any piece cloth used in the following way: Allow part of the handkerchief or cloth to enter the shoe, place the toe of the foot in the shoe so as to hold down the cloth, and by pulling up on the cloth so as to keep it taut around the heel the foot will slide into the shoe just as easily as if a shoe horn were used. —Contributed by ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... be sixty years old, and a grandpop, with twenty years of fight left in you still. It sort of makes me feel, though, as if it were almost time I had a young fellow hitched up beside me who was strong enough to pull his half of the load and willing enough so that he'd keep the traces taut on his side. I don't want any double-team arrangement where I have to pull the load and the other horse, too. But you seem strong, and you act willing, so when I get back I reckon we'll hitch for a little trial spin. A good partner ought to be like a good wife—a source of strength to a man. But ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... in heaps upon the blistering veldt, Corporal M'Kay, of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, standing in the midst of the cyclone of lead, struck up "The Campbells are coming" in order to rally the unfortunate men. These, jaded and broken as they were, drew taut their aching limbs, and, reviving with the heartening strains, once more dragged themselves towards the whirlwind of lead, determining once more either ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... the curving shore of the harbour through the cunning and counsel of prudent Tiphys son of Hagnias, who skilfully handled the well-polished helm that he might guide them steadfastly, then at length they set up the tall mast in the mast-box, and secured it with forestays, drawing them taut on each side, and from it they let down the sail when they had hauled it to the top-mast. And a breeze came down piping shrilly; and upon the deck they fastened the ropes separately round the well-polished pins, and ran quietly past the long ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... own. In front of the shaman was the musical instrument on which he had been playing. This was a large, round gourd, on top of which a bow of unusual size was placed with its back down. The shaman's right foot rested on a board which holds the bow in place on the gourd. The bow being made taut, the shaman beats the string with two sticks, in a short, rhythmical measure of one long and two short beats. When heard near by, the sonorousness of the sound ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... eyes up to the dome where he saw the canvas drawing taut. He knew that he had succeeded and he ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... raised above the back of his fellows so that Tad got a good roping sight. The lariat began curving in the air, then its great loop opened, shot out and dropped neatly over the head of the pink-eyed pony. Tad drew it taut before it settled to the animal's shoulder, at the same time throwing his full weight on ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... mended the broken strands of wire. In other places the wires had sagged and were loose. The claw-hammer fixed these like a charm. Slipping the wire into the claw, a single twist of the wrist would usually pick up the sag and make the wire taut again at that point. ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... again; and so, tense, watching with eager-burning eyes and taut muscles, the man and woman made ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... of the hill she managed to slacken them enough for Bob to jump in. They were off again as though shot from a bow. June wound the reins round her hands and leaned back, arms and strong thin wrists taut. The colts flew over the ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... frame, and after the threads, or rather the small groups of threads, in the pin lease have been disposed in a kind of coarse comb or reed, termed an veneer or radial, and arranged to occupy the desired width in the veneer, they are attached in some suitable way to the weaver's beam. The chain is held taut, and weights applied to the presser on the beam while the latter is rotated. In this way a solid compact beam of yarn is obtained. The end of the warp—that one that goes on to the beam last—contains the weaver's lease, and when the completed beam is removed from the beaming ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... was stretched across the gallop some four inches above the ground. It was taut and stout, and shone like a gossamer in the mist. He rose and followed it. It ran right athwart the course and lost itself in the gorse on either side. Silver searched and found the wire was bound about two wooden pegs that had been ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... to reassure him, she took an incautious step. The slab, relieved suddenly of her weight, tilted back and at the same instant caught on its lowered edge the weight of the following horse. He backed off, jerking the halter taut, but she kept her hold, springing again to the surface of the rock. Loose splinters of granite began to clatter down the slope; then, in the moment she paused to gather her equilibrium, she felt Tisdale's arm reaching around to take the strap. "Creep by me," he said quietly. "No, between me and ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... dishevelled head was raised threateningly. It remained poised for a fraction of time over the upturned face of the man lying in a position of disadvantage. Then it lunged downwards. And as it descended, a sound like the clipping of teeth came back to the taut strung senses of the onlookers. A sigh escaped from a ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
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