"Aft" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lang our fae, M'Gill^7 has wrought us meikle wae, An' that curs'd rascal ca'd M'Quhae,^8 And baith the Shaws,^9 That aft hae made us black an' blae, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the land, we knew to be the right one, the Griper was exactly astern of the Hecla, at the distance of about a quarter of a mile. The weather being fortunately not so thick as to prevent our still seeing her at that distance, the quartermaster was directed to stand aft, near the taffrail, and to keep her constantly astern of us, by which means we contrived to steer a tolerably straight course to the westward. The Griper, on the other hand, naturally kept the Hecla right ahead; and thus, however ridiculous it may appear, it is nevertheless ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... we were away on a voyage round the world. Get all sail upon her! With a will, my lads! Lay out upon the main-yard there! Look alive at the weather earring! Cheery, my boys! Let go the sheet, now! Stand by at the braces, you! With a will, aloft there! Belay, starboard watch! Fifer! Come aft, fifer, and give 'em a tune! Forthwith, springs up fifer, fife in hand—smallest boy ever seen—big lump on temple, having lately fallen down on a paving- stone—gives 'em a tune with all his might and ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... wet, but that it did not matter as they were bare; then wash, wash went the water on both sides as the great black and his boy waded out. I was dropped into the boat, the two blacks ran it out a little and stepped in, Morgan came aft to me, and the others backed water a while, and after turning, rowed out a little but kept pretty close, so as to be out of the swift current running ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... out of the south about nine o'clock we weighed anchor, and got under sail. It gradually increased until we had drifted through the Highlands, which is regarded as no small advantage whenever they wish to sail up or down the river; because, if they do not have a fresh breeze aft, they cannot have much favorable wind, as in blowing crosswise over the Highlands it blows above the vessel, and sometimes comes down in whirlwinds which are dangerous. In the evening we sailed before ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... says my uncle, "'longside a emerald. Aft o' that you'll be like t' find two more di'monds. ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... out forward at the pirate vessel, which they were now steadily nearing under half sail. He could see that there were signs of bustle aboard and of men running around upon the deck. Then he walked aft and around the cabin. The sloop was some distance astern. It appeared to have run aground, and they were trying to push it off with the sweeps. The lieutenant looked down into the water over the stern, and saw that the schooner was already raising the mud in her wane. Then he went ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... fairly creepin' in, I hear the auld cock craw; Fu' aft I've banned him for his din, An' wauk'nin' o' us a'! But welcome noo's his lichtsome cry Sin' bed-fast I ha'e been, It tells anither nicht's gane by- ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... laid on raised pillows in her swingcot under an awning aft, and watched the sailors, the splendid offspring of old sea-fights, as I could observe her spirited fancy conceiving them. They were a set of men to point to for an answer to the margravine's strictures on ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... have since adapted the same principles on all my boats. The well I had put into the Grace Morgan is what is termed a "box well," that is, without any well deck. The well is built from the sides of the steamer directly to the hatch on the main deck, with bulkheads forward and aft and tops running directly to the deck. . . . You will see at once that this well has many advantages over the old style with flat well decks, like those of sailing vessels: (1) It affords a much larger carrying capacity in same space of vessel. (2) ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb
... the bridge of his dusky-coloured vessel as she soused through the waters of the grim North Sea, his keen eyes ever on the alert fore and aft, and occasionally on the sister ship to his, coupled along with the "broom." They were "carrying on," as usual. This skipper was a man just in his thirties. His face was cheery and round, and body was muscular and thick-set. In spite of the watch ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... the saloon, and after dinner, it being a fine evening, we sent for our Hindoo friend and his bear to give us a private performance—which had, however, to be suddenly nipped in the bud, the pilgrims insisting on coming aft en masse and ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... routine by bugle-call on troopships, with a guard, police, and fatigues. The Tommies sleep on bales of forage in the after well-deck and all over the place. We have one end of the 1st class cabin forrard, and the officers have the 2nd class aft for sleeping and meals, but there is a sociable blend on deck all day. Two medical officers here were both in South Africa at No. 7 when I was (Captains in those days), and we have had great cracks on ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... the hat since that day?—the civilian's hat we mean. Who remembers the overlapping crowns which came into fashion soon after the great peace, at a time when Frenchmen wore their brims extravagantly pinched up at the sides, and deeply pulled down fore and aft? Sometimes the hat rose up in pyramidal majesty; sometimes it was shut in like a telescope wanting to be pulled out. And then every kind of fancy man had a fancy hat: there was the Neck-or-nothing hat, the Bang-up, the Corinthian, the Jerry, and the Logic; or else distinguished leaders of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... makes he with a lilac dove This Corsair desperate and daft? Behold the conning tower above The big stern chasers pointing aft! This is not he that saved mankind With pards and pigs from tempests blind, But rather he that forged a flood, And not of water but of blood, And filled with worse than ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 16, 1914 • Various
... places where they were to be found; but he made fair progress, and when he had tossed the gaskets into the cockpit was ordered forward to help hoist the mainsail. After that the anchor was hove in and the jib set. Then they coiled down the halyards and put everything in order before they returned aft. ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... destroyed. From time to time there were other inventions. As the submarine fleet grew the means of communicating with each other while submerged at sea were perfected. Copper plates were fastened fore and aft on the outside of submarines, and it was made possible for wireless messages to be sent through the water at a ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... the 'Chesapeake,' beating in her stern ports, and sweeping the men from their quarters. The shot from the 'Shannon's' foremost guns, at the same time, entering the 'Chesapeake's' ports from the mainmast aft, did considerable execution." This describes a semi-raking fire, which lasted four minutes, from 5.56 to 6 P.M., when the ships ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... in the mean time, orders to bring two guns to bear fore and aft, out of the steerage, to clear the deck, and load them with musket-bullets and small pieces of old iron, and what next came to hand; and thus we made ready for fight; but all this while kept out to sea, with wind enough, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... commissioned him a trawler with a high and raking bow, Black and workmanlike as any pirate craft, With a crew of steady seamen very handy in a row, And a brace of little barkers fore and aft; And he blessed the Lord his Maker when he faced the North Sea sprays And exceedingly extolled his lucky star That had given his youth renewal in the evening of his days (With the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... article aboard a submarine which never leaves an officer's hands. For of all oily, grimy, greasy places the inside of the submarine is supreme. The steel walls, the doors, the companion-ladders all sweat oil, and the hands must be wiped dry at every touch. Through a narrow hole aft the commander descends by a straight iron ladder into a misty region whose only light comes from electric glow-lamps. The air reeks with the smell of oil. Here is the engine-room and, stifling as the atmosphere ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... his long form on a carpet-covered folding chair near by. He was tired. His sailor, Poul Halvard, moved about with a noiseless and swift efficiency; he rolled and cased the jib, and then, with a handful of canvas stops, secured and covered the mainsail and proceeded aft to the jigger. Unlike Woolfolk, Halvard was short—a square figure with a smooth, deep-tanned countenance, colorless and steady, pale blue eyes. His mouth closed so tightly that it appeared immovable, as if it had been carved from some obdurate material that opened for the necessities ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and turned in. They were not interested in the workings of the deck department in the dark; they could not know that the vessel's course had been changed; they thought only of getting to sleep. Mr. Reardon waited until one-thirty A. M. to provide against possible sleepless ones, and then crept aft on velvet feet. The Narcissus had very commodious quarters in her stern, where her coolie crew had been housed in the days when she ran in the China trade; and when the Blue Star Navigation Company took her over these quarters had been fitted up ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... Witt, followed close by Ted and Jack, and in another moment they found themselves in the engine room. Electric lights glowed behind wired enclosures. Well aft were the motors and oil engines, around them switchboards and other electrical apparatus—-a maze of intricate machinery that filled all the stern space. The air was hazy and smelled strong of oils and gases. Huge electric fans swept the foul air along ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... think of the early bridges over the Thames as wooden bridges. Aft older generation was accustomed to many that still remained. This was true of the later Middle Ages, and of the torpor and neglect in building which followed the Reformation. But it was not true of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The bridge at Henley, like the bridge of ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... at the wheel; the captain, lashed aft, was yelling out orders which no one could understand, or, understanding, obey. The night, as yet, was not particularly dark, and I shivered at sight of the white, scared faces of the crew. They could do nothing more; in the face of such a gale they were helpless as babies; ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... but the whole was cut away as if done with a blunt-edged tool." A piece of the rock was found wedged in the hole, and had greatly assisted in arresting the influx of water. The sheathing and false keel were very badly damaged, but it was believed that she was not much injured aft, as she made but little water when once the ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... the motion of the abandoned brig in the storm, the water cask was overturned and rolled about at every heave of the waves, first to port, and then to starboard, Now aft, and again forward. As luck would have it, not long after those in the cabin fell under the deadly influence of some queer, stupefying fumes, the water cask was rolling about close to the trunk roof of the cabin, a roof that had side windows ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... the jail-bird, made him confess that he had served his term fully, and then told him to step down and out. His evidence was not needed. Mr. Rosenberg was raked fore and aft, but he stuck to his story. When the diminutive counsellor intimated that he was worse than the prisoner, the witness smiled serenely and winked at the magistrate as if it was a ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... favorable, we, after some hard words with the rais, persuaded him to get under way, the wind being about the same as in the morning, and very strong. In about an hour we arrived at a bend in the river, which enabled us to bring the wind aft. ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Dongola and Sennaar • George Bethune English
... merchantman usually is on quitting port. Now everything was clean, in its place, snugly fastened, and in order. The sails appeared to have undergone some modification. I fancied, too, that the masts raked aft a good deal more than they had done, and round the foot of them were ranged muskets, pistols, cutlasses, and boarding-pikes, where masses of cordage and handspikes had been before. The hencoops had vanished, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... his brown hands clutched the spokes of the weather-worn wheel. "I'm runnin' this packet from now on, and it's without conversation. Understand? Don't you open your yap. And you go for'ard and tell them steer calves that I'll kill the first one that steps foot aft the mainmast." ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... to watch the men sitting here and there on deck, or talking idly around the forecastle, while Captain Whidden and the chief mate conferred together aft. I was so much taken with it all that I had no eyes for my own people who were there to see me off, until straight out from the crowded wharf there came a young man whom I knew well. His gray eyes, firm lips, square chin, and broad shoulders ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... between the voices of the men and women; and at last a wild mellow tenor, which we discovered after much searching to proceed from the most unlikely-looking lips of an old dry, weather-bleared, mummified chrysalis of a man, who stood aft, steering with his legs, and showing no sign of life except when he slowly and solemnly filled his ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... he rakes them fore and aft for their gambling and that sort of thing. But they don't mind it much. They swear by him, for he is really a fine fellow. In sickness or in trouble Father Mike is on the spot. But as to influencing their lives, I fear Father Mike is no ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... certainly not more than five feet high, about three or four and twenty years of age, dressed with great care, with his trousers sticking to his legs, with a French chimney-pot hat on his head, very much peaked fore and aft and closely turned up at the sides. He had a bright-coloured silk handkerchief round his neck, and a white shirt, of which the collar and wristbands were rather larger and longer than suited the small dimensions of the man. He wore a white greatcoat tight buttoned round his waist, but so arranged ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... paid off and returned an ineffectual broadside, but rendered ungovernable by the loss of her head-sails and tiller, he immediately broached-to again, and the privateer poured in another terrible discharge of grape and canister, raking him fore and aft, then heaving-to and taking up a position on his bow, she fired broadside after broadside into him in rapid and deadly succession. The main-mast now fell over the side, and the pirate at the same time fell off before the wind, and drew out of the deep mantle of smoke ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... imp won't say where he picked up this notion of his about the dead body," continued the captain. "It's not my place to pry into secrets; but I advise you to call the crew aft, and contradict the boy, whether he speaks the truth or not. The men are a parcel of fools who believe in ghosts, and all the rest of it. Some of them say they would never have signed our articles ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... fleet. The ketch, often referred to in early annals, was a two-master, sometimes rigged with lanteen sails, but more often with the foremast square-rigged, like a ship's foremast, and the mainmast like the mizzen of a modern bark, with a square topsail surmounting a fore-and-aft mainsail. The foremast was set very much aft—often nearly amidships. The snow was practically a brig, carrying a fore-and-aft sail on the mainmast, with a square sail directly above it. A pink was rigged like a schooner, but without a bowsprit or jib. For the fisheries a multitude of smaller types ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... Sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty revolutions at last, my little engine tears away. The even black rope comes straight out of the blue heaving water: passes slowly round an open-hearted, good-tempered looking pulley, five feet diameter; aft past a vicious nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong; through a gentle guide; on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him round his body and says "Come you must," as plain as drum can speak: the chattering pauls say "I've got him, I've got him, he can't get back:" ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... honour, in no time," replied the sailor, once more resuming his hat, and moving a pace or two forward. Then addressing two or three men in the starboard gangway in the authoritative tone of command:—"Bear a hand there, my men, and cast off the lashings of that black Ingian, and send him aft, here, to the officer." ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... pommel is encased in silver; the corners of the aprons are tipped with silver; the stirrups are faced and edged with silver half an inch thick, elaborately chased and carved. The saddle-tree is hung with silver rings, fore and aft, to answer all the requirements of the vaquero in lacing up his riata. The girth, which passes under the horse's belly and cinches the saddle in place, is woven of hair from horses' manes by a native artisan, and is fully ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn
... "roufle" was at the end of the deck. There was no stern cabin, then, to receive the passengers. She was obliged to be contented with Captain Hull's cabin, situated aft, which constituted his modest sea lodging. And still it had been necessary for the captain to insist, in order to make her accept it. There, in that narrow lodging, was installed Mrs. Weldon, with ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... will not, I dare say; and here is a cutlass for him, wherewith to carve a name and fame," said Mariano, coming aft at the moment and presenting the weapon to Bacri, who took it with a half-humorous smile, and laid it on the seat ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... etiquette of a man-of-war. The one they sung was peculiarly musical, although not refined; and the chorus of "Oh! Sally Brown," was given with great emphasis by the whole crew between every line of the song, sung by an athletic young third mate. I took my seat on the knight-heads—turned my face aft—looked and listened. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... flats and the narrow roadway stretching white across them. What a time they had yesterday keeping the jumper on the track, and what a shrewd device they had for steering! A hole had been bored down through the heel of each thick runner, and on each aft corner of the jumper had a boy been stationed armed with a sharpened hickory stick. To swerve the jumper to the left, the boy on the right but pressed his stick down through the hole beneath him, and the sharp point scraping along ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... charging bullocks gave way, and in an instant poor Peter was tossed up in the air by Bawley and as he descended was caught up again and tossed about on the ground; invariably the brute caught his horns against the large canteen and saved the poor fellow's life. I was obliged to leave the black then aft with the cart, and with Sambo started on for water; travelled and spelled during the whole night and got to the lake early Sunday 29th, party all right; lots of blacks, apparently peaceably inclined. ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... and Cleburne's corps supporting us. The Yankee lines seemed routed. We followed in hot pursuit; but from their main line of entrenchment—which was diagonal to those that we had just captured, and also on which they had built forts and erected batteries—was their artillery, raking us fore and aft. We passed over a hill and down into a valley being under the muzzles of this rampart of death. We had been charging and running, and had stopped to catch our breath right under their reserve and main line of battle. When General George Maney said, "Soldiers, you are ordered to go forward and charge ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... told one of my men, a sturdy, splendid specimen of a native of the Gilbert Islands named Te Manu Uraura ("Bed Bird") to come aft and take the steer oar, knowing that his eyesight, like that of all Polynesians, was better than that of any ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... consist of the following: A hatch to the fo'castle, followed by; the emplacement for the rapid-fire gun. Following this is the steering shelter containing duplicate controls, &c., for the engine room and for the steering. Immediately aft of the steering shelter is the bridge deck, located on top of the engine room trunk house. The entire after half of the vessel is a clear sweep of deck with the exception of a booby hatch to crews' ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... themselves were laid snug against each side of the ship. As great care had been taken, by means of marks on the vessel, as well as in forming the skids themselves, the fit was perfect. No less than five pairs were secured in and near the bilge, and as many more were distributed forwards and aft, according to the shape of the bottom. Fore-and-aft pieces, that reached from one skid to the other, were then placed between those about the bilge of the ship, each of them having a certain number of short ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the yacht carefully alongside the duck, Sprague twined one foot around the bob-stay, reached over and lifted the bird into the boat. As soon as it was set on deck the duck shook its feathers, gave one defiant waggle of the tail, and paddled aft, remarking: "Quack! quack! qua-a-a-ck!" ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... wharf was down, of course, and getting on board was an easy matter. When he reached the deck and looked about him, the great size of the ship was still more apparent. The bulwarks were as high as a short man's head. She was decked over aft, and, as the captain said afterwards, "her cabins had nigh as many stories as a house." From the roof of the "first story," level with the bulwarks, extended a series of bridges, which could be hoisted or ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a load, and she's rather deep; but I think we shall manage,' he reflected. 'You sit right aft, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Figure 299 is a restoration of an archaic shark from a somewhat higher horizon. Note the seven gill slits and the lappetlike paired fins. These fins seem to be remnants of the continuous fold of skin which, as embryology teaches, passed from fore to aft down each side ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... largest of the gunboats (of which there are four) belonging to the Sarawak Government. She is about 200 tons, schooner rigged, and carries two 32-pounders, fore and aft. Her accommodation, state rooms and saloon, are forward, a good plan in the tropics, as the smell of steam and hot oil from the engine-room are thus avoided, and it is also cooler than aft when the vessel is under weigh. The quarters of the crew are aft; and I was surprised to see how clean ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt
... appearance, when fitted to carry seventeen Bowdoin men in her hold in place of the lime and coal to which she has been accustomed. Descending, then, the forward hatch, protected by a plain hatch house, the visitor turns around and facing aft, looks down the two sides of the immense centreboard box that occupies the centre of our wardroom from floor to deck. Fastened to it are the mess tables, nearly always lighted by some four or five great lamps, which serve to warm as well, as the pile of stuff around and ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... his heel and hastened aft. They followed him in a wondering group. Reaching the German's stateroom the captain threw open the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... two hundred yards from shore, a figure emerged from a small cabin aft. The stern of the ship had been carried completely about by the violence of the waves. It had left this little cabin, formerly the wireless ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... your honour, d' ye see, [Scratching his head.] I think we have gallows-looking dogs enough on board already—the scrapings of Newgate, and the refuse of Tyburn, and when the wind blows aft, damn 'em, they stink like polecats—but d' ye see, as your honour pleases, with submission, if it's Lord Paramount's orders, why it must be so, I suppose—but I've done ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... with great pebbles, stowed under the thwarts, to be used as ammunition in case of boarding; and over them the barrels of ale and pork and meal, well covered with tarpaulins. They stowed in the cabins, fore and aft, their weapons,—swords, spears, axes, bows, chests of arrow-heads, leather bags of bowstrings, mail-shirts, and helmets, and fine clothes for holidays and fighting days. They hung their shields, after ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... aft, and took the helm. He loosened it, so as to be ready to unship it in a moment, and use it as ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... MacDonald stood bare-footed in the shallow water. When Thompson had stepped awkwardly aboard and seated himself amidships, they lifted on the canoe and slid it gently off the shingle, leaped to their places fore and aft and gave way. A hundred yards off shore they lifted the dripping paddles in mute adieu to old Donald McPhee, smoking his pipe at the gable end of his cabin. MacLeod watched the gray canoe slip past the first point. When it vanished beyond that he turned back into his quarters with a shrug of his ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the helm, Jack; the anchor is free. That is enough. Keep her jib just full and no more till we have stowed all away here." When the chain was stowed below, and the anchor securely fastened, Tripper went aft and hauled in the main-sheet. "Up with the foresail, Tom. That is it. You keep the tiller, Jack." The two men now proceeded to coil down all the ropes, and get everything ship-shape and tidy. By ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... long as we are able, and then have recourse to our small arms: and when both these fail us, then retire to close quarters, when perhaps the enemy wanting materials, can neither break open our bulk heads, nor get in upon us. Meantime, the gunner was ordered to bring two guns to bear fore and aft out of the steerage, and so load them with musket-bullets and small pieces of old iron; and the deck being cleared, we prepared for the engagement, still, however, keeping out at sea. The boats followed us, with all the sail they could make, and we could perceive the two foremost ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... down the wind to have a sail suddenly hoisted on one side, what happens? The balloon will simply swing till this sail is in front, and thus continue its straightforward course. Suppose, however, that as soon as the side sail is hoisted a trail rope is also dropped aft from a spar in the rigging. The tendency of the sail to fly round in front is now checked by the dragging rope, and it is constrained to remain slanting at an angle on one side; at the same time the rate of the ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Delia had the sense to put a finger to her lip. The man wheel'd round without another word, led us aft over the blocks, cordage, and all manner of loose gear that encumber'd the deck, to a ladder that, toward the stern, led down into darkness. Here he sign'd to us to follow; and, descending first, threw open a door, letting out a faint stream of light in ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... Tom Coxswain. "There was a woman in our aft-scuppers when I went a-whalin in the little 'Grampus'—and Lord love you, Pumpo, you poor land-swab, she WAS as pretty a craft as ever dowsed a tarpauling—there was a woman on board the 'Grampus,' who before we'd struck our first fish, or biled our first blubber, ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... after a time to Bigley's place in answer to a sign from him, for we had grown very silent; and as he resigned his oar to me and I went on pulling, while he crept aft to sit in the stern, it seemed as if it had all at once grown dark above us. The shore died away, all but one spot of light—a tiny spot that shone out like a star, one that we knew to be in the cottage where Mother Bonnet had no doubt a good hot cup of tea waiting ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... for her appearance when she should come out of Gosport Harbor. Her powers and capacity were utterly unknown. She was made out of the former United States steam-frigate Merrimac, cut down so as to make her fore and aft decks nearly flat, and not much above the water, while the guns were mounted in a covered central battery, with sloping flanks. Her sides, deck, and battery were coated with iron, and she was armed with formidable rifle-guns, and, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... ha'e ye roos'd my rosy cheek, Aft praised my sparkling e'e, laddie, Aft said nae bliss on earth ye'd seek, But love and live wi' me, laddie. But soon those cheeks will lose their red, Those eyes in endless sleep be hid, And 'neath the turf the heart be laid That beats for love ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that spoke so politely had travelled some distance aft, and found itself all mixed up on the deck amidships, which was a well-deck sunk between high bulwarks. One of the bulwark plates, which was hung on hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the bulk of the water back to the sea again with a ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... the water it was hard to imagine. Moored along the side of the Westminster Pier was, if not the Great Eastern, at all events as large a steamer as it was practicable to bring there. Awnings were stretched both fore and aft above decks, the snowy whiteness of which would have done no discredit to a man-of-war. In the bows of the boat a band was pouring forth all sorts of popular melody, inciting the fashionable crowd to "Haste to the Wedding," "Down among the Coals," "When Johnny comes marching ...
— Belles and Ringers • Hawley Smart
... I made my way aft without rejoinder. "Invalid's pessimism," was my private comment. And yet the sick man was whole for the time being; the virile spirit was once more master of the recreant members; and it was with illogical relief that I found those I sought standing ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... aft soon afterwards, and the Scarrowmania was smoothly sliding seawards with the first of the ebb when Agatha met Wyllard. He glanced at the Lancashire sandhills, which were fading into a pale ochre gleam amidst the haze over the starboard hand, and then at the long row of painted ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... was of another form, indeed; Built for freight, and yet for speed, A beautiful and gallant craft; Broad in the beam, that the stress of the blast, Pressing down upon sail and mast, Might not the sharp bows overwhelm; Broad in the beam, but sloping aft With graceful curve and slow degrees, That she might be docile to the helm, And that the currents of parted seas, Closing behind, with mighty force, Might aid and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... very good counsel, for certain it is, if we had delayed that night, we should all have been lost. We took the wind aft, and during the night and next day the storm increased so much that we were apprehensive for our safety, and made many vows of pilgrimage, and the performance of other ceremonies usual with [superstitious] mariners in such weather. We ran five days, ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... the deck, and standing aft and conversing are two men, one of whom is the captain. The latter manifests no surprise at seeing me, and indicates my presence to his ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... his sturdy independence of character, being rightly regarded as dangerous to Louis Philippe's regime. His reward, therefore, took the form of practical banishment. The wily advisers of Louis Philippe used the gloved hand. But the best-laid schemes of mice and courtiers "gang aft agley." Cabet, in Corsica, joined the radical anti-administration forces, and became a thorn in the side of the government. Removed from office, he returned to Paris, whereupon the citizens of Dijon, his native town, elected ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... aft to where they were baling, and asked what they would he should do; they said he would do mighty ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... "Snaefell" was lying by the red pier in the harbor, getting up steam, and sending clouds of smoke over the old "Imperial." Cars were rattling up the quay, passengers were making for the gangways, and already the decks, fore and aft, ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... passed through the cabin on the way to his stateroom and office. He gave Phil a significant glance, to which the Circus Boy did not respond. A few minutes later, however, Phil strolled out to the deck. Reaching it he turned quickly and hurried aft, entering the passageway there and going directly to Mr. ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... they were scant enough—must surely have been there beforehand, and bidden him both sell it cheaply, so that Elias might get it, and stipulate besides that the boat should not be looked at too closely. In this way it escaped the usual tarring fore and aft. ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... conveyed in tubs to prevent breakage. These keels are of a very ancient model,—perhaps the oldest extant in England: they are even said to be of the same build as those in which the Norsemen navigated the Tyne centuries ago. The keel is a tubby, grimy-looking craft, rounded fore and aft, with a single large square sail, which the keel-bullies, as the Tyne watermen are called, manage with great dexterity; the vessel being guided by the aid of the "swape," or great oar, which is used as a kind of rudder at ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... extend from the upper deck of the ship to her keel, and slope aft to facilitate release. Having completed with fuel at Bruges, we took in a store of provisions and Alten went up to the Commodore's office to ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... later, the time came to go watch the Pallas Castle maneuver in. In fact, it had somehow gotten past that time, and they were late; but they didn't hurry their walk aft. Blades took Ellen's hand; and she raised no objection. Schoolboyish, no doubt—however, he had reached the reluctant conclusion that for all his dishonorable intentions, this affair wasn't likely to go beyond the schoolboy stage. Not ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
... would call it—and I remember that the barometer went lower than had ever been recorded before on the western ocean. The piano in the saloon carried away, and frolicked down the aisle between the tables: it was an ideal stage set for "Typhoon." The saloon was far aft, and a hatchway just astern of where I sat was stove in by the seas. By sticking my head through a window I could see excellent combers of green sloshing ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... went aft in her boat and pushed along our side till she had brought the stern close to Dick's hand. He knelt down in our boat and she in hers, and the usual fumbling took place over hanging the rudder on its hooks; for, as you may imagine, no change had taken place ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... steam-taps, without taking off the whole of the cabin. The cabin is kept in place by the funnel, which slips off just above the roof. The slit in the cabin top just back of the hatch is where your engine lever comes through. The bitts, B, fore and aft, are made of Spanish cedar, running through the deck to the hull. Your tiller may be made of steel wire running through the head of the rudder-post, which is made of iron wire; the man who makes your engine will do ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in his ship depended mainly upon her sailing qualities and the master's willingness to risk being dismasted or hulled by the pursuer's shot. Granted a capful of wind on his beam, a fleet keel under foot, and a complacent skipper aft, the flight direct was perhaps the means of escape the sailor loved above all others. The spice of danger it involved, the dash and frolic of the chase, the joy of seeing his leaping "barky" draw slowly away from her pursuer ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... conversation the Captain had had enough before supper—a very short colloquy with his Olimpia. In it he was brought to confess that he had seen his patron that morning. "Well?" had been Olimpia's commentary—a shot which raked the Captain fore and aft. Well, he desperately admitted, there was nothing actually arranged: patienza! His most noble master had been greatly harassed with affairs—the Duke's approaching visit to Rome, the precise forms which must be observed, the punctilios, the hundred niceties ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... night, and I began on him. I tried him with mild jokes, then with severe ones; I dosed him with bad jokes, and riddled him with good ones; I fired old, stale jokes into him, and peppered him fore and aft with red-hot new ones; I warmed up to my work, and assaulted him on the right and left, in front and behind; I fumed and sweated and charged and ranted till I was hoarse and sick, and frantic and furious; but I never moved him once—I never started ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... arrangements had been destroyed, especially towards the bows. Partitions and stanchions were smashed, as if some tremendous shell had burst in the interior of the brig. The colonists could easily go fore and aft, after having removed the cases as they were extricated. They were not heavy bales, which would have been difficult to remove, but simple packages, of which the stowage, besides, was no ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... skirt was tied so lightly back that it was impossible to take a long step, and the under one was so loaded with plaited frills that it "wobbled" no other word will express it ungracefully, both fore and aft. A bunch of folds was gathered up just below the waist behind, and a great bow rode a-top. A small jacket of the same material was adorned with a high ruff at the back, and laid well open over the breast, to display some lace and a locket. Heavy fringes, bows, puffs, ruffles, and revers finished ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... rows of pale spots across the tip of the fore wings. There is a black scent-pouch on the hind wings. The caterpillar, which is bright yellow or greenish yellow, banded with shining black, is furnished with black fleshy 'horns' fore and aft." ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... one peculiarity. With a white-painted hull, her bridge and the whole of her upper structure, except the masts and funnel, were also white, giving to her general features a certain flatness which masked her fine proportions. Her bridge, instead of being well forward, was placed so far aft that it was only a few feet from the funnel. The object of this departure from custom was to prevent any walking over Mr. Pulitzer's head when he sat in his library, which was situated under the spot, where the bridge would have ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... Crouched aft of the engine hood was Sam Redding, who held the wheel. Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender were in the stern. They sat tandem-wise in the ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... given a fair representation, I suspect, of what a ship was in those early days. She probably had another mast aft, and some more head sail of a square shape. What are called fore and aft sails were not generally used till comparatively modern times. She looks as if she really was fitted to cross the channel, to carry a number of men, and even to contend with heavy seas. The tall masts, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... Mousie, thou art no thy lane,[7-13] In proving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley,[7-14] An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain, For ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Captain. You mean he got red-mad and raked them all, fore and aft. They deserved it too—a pack of incapables. But what would you expect of a committee of men? That building committee held twenty-seven meetings, and at the end of the twenty-seventh weren't no nearer having a church than when they begun—not so near, for a fact, for in one fit of hurrying things ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Aft hats auf mi an Schmutza gmacht, An Hoescheza darzue; O warst du mein, hoan i gedacht, Werst wol a munter Bue. Dahoam in meiner Kachelstub Liess i brav hoazen ein, Do in den Stal kimt ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... coming aft, but almost double as he couched under the beams, and taking large strides ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... that the contents of the cells may become mixed or transposed; and I am saved the trouble of keeping a laborious watch. Each insect can hatch at its own time, in my presence or not: I am sure of always finding it in its place, in its proper order, held fast fore and aft by the cotton barrier. A cork or sorghum-pith partition would not fulfil the same purpose: the insect would perforate it and the register of births would be muddled by changes of position. Any reader wishing to undertake similar investigations will ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... companion at first, but gradually he grew melancholy, and at times inapproachable. One day John met him at the gangway, and he took the young man's arm and, leading him aft, said: ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... "lend me the choo-choo for half an hour, will you? I have my sister and a dream cousin of ours from Hartford here this aft. and I'm eager to show them how I can pound a public road with a rowdy-cart. I'll take good care of the machine and be back in ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... it extended, I brought out a line of goods suitable for kings, and a nobby thing for duchesses and that sort, with ruffles down the forehatch and the running-gear clewed up with a featherstitch to leeward and then hauled aft with a back-stay and triced up with a half-turn in the standing rigging forward of the weather-gaskets. Yes, it was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and the sick were specially fed in the saloon. The others were taken down in relays to the dining-room on the main deck aft. Corinna's and Evan's task came to an end at last. As he carried the last cup back to the galley Evan said to himself: "Now's ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... out on to the pier at Dover she dared not look back at the white cliffs, but kept her eyes resolutely seaward. The wind was high, and she heard that the crossing would be rough. Caesar was close behind her, and she caught a glimpse of him going aft as she made her way to the ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... broken-winded—she must have run without wind after the first half mile. She had the old racing instinct in her strong, and whenever I rode in company I'd have to pull her hard else she'd race the other horse or burst. She ran low fore and aft, and was the easiest horse I ever rode. She ran like wheels on rails, with a bit of a tremble now and then—like a railway carriage—when she ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... was not yet broken when the 'watch' of the ship Vulcan, lying becalmed off the —— coast, was roused by a peculiar noise aft. Going to the spot he was surprised to find a much-bedraggled monkey rubbing itself on a pile of sail-cloth. The creature had evidently swum or drifted a long distance, and was now endeavouring to restore circulation. ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... by moonlight; one singer placed himself forwards and the other aft, and thus proceeded to St. Georgio. One began the song: when he had ended his strophe, the other took up the lay, and so continued the song alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same notes invariably returned; ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... of that," replied Lindsay, with a frown. "Come, it's not a bad idea; I'll try! Hallo! Suliman, come aft, ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... to burst upward, reaching out angry fingers of shattered rock as they ripped by, rocking and bucking with the blasts. Tulan's viewer swivelled aft to hold the scene. Secondary blasts went off like strings of giant firecrackers. Great black-and-orange fungi-like clouds swirled upward, dissipating fast in the thin atmosphere. Then Tulan spotted what he was looking for: three small ships flashing over the area, to get damage-assessment pictures. ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps
... ye, that sic as you and I, Wha drudge and drive thro' wet an' dry, Wi' never-ceasing toil; Think ye, are we less blest than they, Wha scarcely tent us in their way, As hardly worth their while? Alas! how aft, in haughty mood God's creatures they oppress! Or else, neglecting a' that's guid, They riot in excess! Baith careless and fearless Of either heaven or hell! Esteeming and deeming It's a' an ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... mile from the landing, when the heavy flap of the Caesar's main-top-sail was heard, as, close-reefed, it struggled for freedom, while her crew drew its sheets down to the blocks on the lower yard-arms. A minute later, the Gnat, under the head of her fore-and-aft-main-sail, was seen standing slowly off from the land, looking in the darkness like some half-equipped shadow of herself. The sloop of war, too, was seen bending low to the force of the wind, with her mere apology of a top-sail thrown aback, in waiting ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... panted the youth, as he shoved off for at least the fourth time. "With the lines forward and aft pulling one way and another it's rather difficult to keep to the channel, especially in ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... was to be seen idly lounging in the neighbourhood of a life-buoy suspended against the rails, further aft. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... Going aft, the captain found his passengers on deck waiting anxiously to learn the cause of the commotion they had already noticed. He told them the worst at once, and advised them to go below and pack up their things ready for instant removal in ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... cables and tried to bring her round, while some of his toiling men fell dead at every haul. She began to wind round very slowly; and, when exactly at right angles to Macdonough, was raked completely, fore and aft. At the same time an ominous list to port, where her side was torn in over a hundred places, showed that she would sink quickly if her guns could not be run across to starboard. But more than half her mixed scratch crew had been already killed or wounded. ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... winter season the Clint of Drumore is the forlornest spot in God's universe—twelve miles from anywhere, the roads barred with snowdrift, the great stone dykes which climb the sides of apparently inaccessible mountains sleeked fore and aft with curving banks of white. In the howe of the hill, just where it bends away towards the valley of the Cree, stood a cottage buried up to its eyes in the snow. Originally a low thatch house, it had somewhat incongruously added ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... This chap'll burst like a bubble presently. Meanwhile, there's no use in stopping here. Suppose you go below and brew some coffee and bring it up on deck while I go and see how things are looking aft. It doesn't do you any good, you know, to be looking at monsters of this sort. You can see what's left of them later on. You might bring the ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... and Malcolm; one of them shall go down and take their tickets. Of course, they will take their passages in the fore cabin, as the danger, if there is danger, may come from there, and you will have your other two men with you aft. I fancy myself that there is hardly any chance of your being in any way troubled while on board. It will be considered that there will be a vastly greater chance of carrying out any plan they may have formed at Amsterdam than there would be on board a ship; you ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... said, "but I will bring a couple of blankets up and lie down aft. I promised the Major that I would let him know if there was any change in the wind, or in the brigantine's course, so wake me directly there is anything to tell him. I have put his bell within reach. I have no doubt I shall hear ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... "to in all studding sails! Down with them!" he added, scarcely giving his former words time to reach the ears of his subordinates. "Down with every rag of them, fore and aft the ship! Man the top-gallant clew-lines, Mr Earing. Clew up, and clew down! In with ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the Grey Worm and other caterpillars beloved of the Ammophilae? Here are victims accessible to the sting underneath, on the back, on the sides, fore and aft, everywhere with the same facility, excepting the top of the head. And of this infinity of points, which are equally penetrable, the Wasp selects ten, always the same, differing in no way from the rest, unless it be by the close ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... name in several places on the boards. The lucky ones got breakfast during the forenoon, those who were lazy dodged fatigues and slept in out-of-the-way corners in the sun, and so Mac and his cobber Bill might have been found comfortably dozing on a great pile of onions on the aft boat deck. They found such seclusion most satisfactory on these turbulent days of movement, except for occasional visits to see that no blighted trooper was trying to beat a fellow for his "possie" in the hold. Trains kept rumbling out of the tunnel beneath the great hills, bringing ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... Bagley, who had a yard where he turned out small craft, at the north end of the old Clark Street bridge, and we often felt a sense of gratitude to him for doing his work so well. They were three in number, of well-seasoned, clear-grained, half-inch oak, smooth-built, double-ribbed fore and aft, square-sterned, and all practically the same, the former trip having shown the needlessness of taking any smaller or frailer boat for piloting purposes. These were each twenty-two feet long over all, and about twenty on the keel. They were rather narrow ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... over the ship's decks, one forward, one aft, and blew clear again. But this time we heard no shrieking shells. She was firing, not at the town, but at the guns on the hill which threatened and wounded her. Then her signal flags ran up again. Before the answer came from the other ships the sea was broken ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... his bound feet. The detective slipped the bandage back to position and placed his hands behind him again. Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a heavy overcoat but no hat, came aft. He was dragging Karamaneh by the wrists. He seated himself on the cushions near to us, pulling the girl down beside him. Now, I could see her face—and the expression in her beautiful eyes made ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... filled the Petite Jeanne's decks flush with the rails; and, as her stern sank down and her bow tossed skyward, all the miserable dunnage of life and luggage poured aft. It was a human torrent. They came head first, feet first, sidewise, rolling over and over, twisting, squirming, writhing, and crumpling up. Now and again one caught a grip on a stanchion or a rope; but the weight of the bodies behind tore such ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... walked aft, pondering on what had just been said. His situation was delicate, and demanded decision, as well as prudence. The manner in which Daggett had stuck by him, ever since the two vessels took their departure from Block Island, is known to the reader. The Sea ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... French frigate Magicienne aground and deserted on the Bombay shoal; Captain Page boarded her, and discovered every thing as it had been left by the crew—provisions, water, &c., in abundance. The day after, the Sultana met with a worse fate, being struck, and the cotton in the hold, fore and aft, fired by the electric fluid. They had scarcely time to hoist out the boat when the flames burst forth, and they quitted her very short of provisions, and saving only some money and jewels. Captain Page bore up for the wreck of the French frigate, intending to refit ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... ower yon dowie knowe, As aft he'd dune before, O; Nine arm-ed men lay in a den, Upo' the ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... luxe up in this country that I ever found," replied the miner. "We shall be lucky if we can get along without a 'carry.' First thing we've got to know is how much water we're drawing on each boat fore and aft. Gerald, you're nominated boat measurer, and you can take Pepper with you. You will find two or three lumber gauges in the dunnage in the rear boat. Each of you take one, and let me know at once what each boat is drawing. Rand, you and Dick are leadsmen of this voyage, and you will each take ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... displaced, brush them to the outside of the wall. A few seconds more, and I was able to bring the machine to rest with the front of the platform jutting out beyond the Tower wall. Here I anchored her fore and aft with clamps ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... canoes one sees the first step towards a fixed rudder and tiller, a modified form of paddle being fixed securely to one side of the stern, in such a way that the blade can be turned so as either to have its edges fore and aft, or its sides presented at a greater or less angle to the water, according to the direction in which it is desired to steer ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... seat, with very brief greeting, broke out with the exclamation, 'There he is again!' I did not understand what this meant, but it was soon explained to us that, for a week or ten days past, some person, or figure, or whatever it might be, had been observed walking fore and aft, in front of the house opposite the meeting-house, at a certain hour of the evening, and though many had passed, no one had recognized him, nor did he take any notice whatever of any one whom he met. He was said to wear a pea-jacket buttoned ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... was able to trace her lines clearly from where he sat. The craft had evidently been constructed for comfort as well as speed. He noted two short masts unrigged, a bridge forward of the wheel-house, together with a decidedly commodious cabin aft. The deck space between was clear, except for the hatchway leading down to the engine. The planking was clean, as though newly scrubbed, while every handrail glistened in the sun. The cabin appeared tightly closed, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... skiff alongside a battered old schooner and his passengers clambered aboard. There was a tiny cabin aft and on it, sheltered from the night dew by a loose fold of the mainsail, were two sleeping men. The new-comers followed Morin down into the evil little cabin, where he warned them in ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... adopted in subsequent years by captains in the merchant service when racing, which always created excitement amongst the crew; the order was given to knock the wedges out of the deck coamings, ease the strain off the fore and aft stays, and when it was judicious to do it the pinch on the main rigging was also eased to give the masts more play. The windjammer seamen knew when this order was given that they were in for a time of "cracking on," and really enjoyed both the sport ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... her and went aft. The sailor was still at the helm, having volunteered a double watch to see us through the night. All behind was ship-shape and trim. Ludar had been busy, clearing the decks and bringing back to order the confusion left ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... yarning right quickly passed the evening in the captain's cabin; but everywhere fore and aft to-night both officers and crew were hearty. They had already bidden farewell to friends and home, soon their country too would fade far away from sight, and then—the glories of war. Ah! never mind about its horrors; what brave young British sailor ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... and Stripes," said Captain Knox. "We don't ask too many questions here as to what folks have been before they come aboard the Molly. If you can obey orders and handle a rope, this is the place for you to make your fortune. Go aft, and Derry Duck our first-mate will find something for you to do in short order. He knows how to take the stiffness out ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... end, from end to end, from one end to the other, from Dan to Beersheba, from head to foot, from top to toe, from top to bottom, de fond en comble [Fr.]; a fond, a capite ad calcem [Lat.], ab ovo usque ad mala [Lat.], fore and aft; every, whit, every inch; cap-a-pie, to the end of the chapter; up to the brim, up to the ears, up to the eyes; as a as can be. on all accounts; sous tous les rapports [Fr.]; with a vengeance, with a witness. Phr. falsus in uno falsus in omnibus [Lat.], false in one thing, false in everything; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... with a panikin from the cask, with which they regaled themselves, while Newton stood at the helm. In half an hour Newton called the boy aft to steer the vessel, and lifted the trunk into the cabin below, where he found that Thompson had finished the major part of the contents of the mug, and was lying in a ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... fatal ledge the boarders, thrust on by those behind, fell headlong between the beams to the main-deck below, to be slaughtered helpless in that pit of destruction, by the double fire from the bulkheads fore and aft; while the few who kept their footing on the gangway, after vain attempts to force the stockades on poop and forecastle, leaped overboard again amid a shower of shot and arrows. The fire of the English was as steady as ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... made his appearance deliberately enough and examined our patient with the lantern. He made little of the case, had the man brought aft to the dispensary, dosed him, and sent him forward to his bunk. Two of his neighbours in the steerage had now come to our assistance, expressing loud sorrow that such 'a fine cheery body' should be sick; and these, claiming a sort of possession, took him entirely ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other herbivora appeared, but no carnivora. We raked the reed bed fore and aft, and combed the long grass in every direction. A young rhino was startled in his morning nap, ran around excitedly for a while, and then trotted off. Birds of many varieties fluttered up and wondered what the racket was about. At ten o'clock we decided that the lions had failed to do their part ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... the cabin to select a spear from their assortment of fishing gear, Rick surveyed the Water Witch with satisfaction. It was a thirty-five-foot craft with a small cabin forward and a spacious cockpit aft. It had been used as a diving tender before, apparently, because there was a ladder that could be swung outboard for a diver to use. There was also a small boom that could be rigged quickly for lowering or lifting gear from ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... now bore Bremilu, the strong, and Zangamon, most expert of all the fishermen. Slung in the baggage-crate aft lay a large seine, certain supplies of fish, weed and eggs, and—from time to time noisily squawking—some half-dozen of the strange sea-birds, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... darkness amidst tremendous splashing of paddles and blowing of steam whistles. A few minutes later the launch ran alongside of the Vinegar Sellers' Landing on the Stamboul shore, and the kavass came aft to inform the brothers that the carriage was ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... leaving his cabin when Jake returned. But neither high nor low, fore nor aft, could Tom be found, nor had he been seen since the main-topsail had ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... (apparently a person of religious bias) said something heartfelt about the sacred name of his pipe and, crawling from under the apron, turned aft to assess damages. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... what I would do," said the captain: "I would have none of your fancy rigs with the man driving from the mizzen cross-trees, but a plain fore-and-aft hack cab of the highest registered tonnage. First of all, I would bring up at the market and get a turkey and a sucking-pig. Then I'd go to a wine-merchant's and get a dozen of champagne, and a dozen of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a glorious one—not a cloud in the sky, and the sea almost oily in its smoothness. As the hospital was full of cases of measles, it was decided to operate on deck a little aft of the hospital. A guard was placed to keep inquisitive onlookers at a distance, and the two operations were carried out successfully. It was a novel experience to operate under these conditions. When one looked up from the work, instead of the ...
— Five Months at Anzac • Joseph Lievesley Beeston
... engagement. The enemy's large ship, the Florissant, though of much greater force than the Buckingham, instead of lying-to for his coming up, made a running fight with her stern-chase, while the two frigates annoyed him in his course, sometimes raking him fore and aft, and sometimes lying on his quarter. At length he came alongside of the Florissant, within pistol shot, and poured in a whole broadside, which did considerable execution. The salutation was returned with equal vivacity, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the garden, an old woman, between fifty and sixty, passed us, striding with sturdy intention if somewhat rickety action, with two bulky bundles, covered with sacking, slung fore and aft upon her. She was a woman tramp, a houseless soul, too independent to drag her failing carcass through the workhouse door. Like the snail, she carried her home with her. In the two sacking-covered bundles were her household goods, her wardrobe, linen, ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... "Lay aft here with your men now, Horry. Tail on to those mainsheets. All together! Get away on her so we can cast loose as soon as possible from ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... deputation of the seamen, in what was deemed a mutinous spirit, he was laid hold of, and was in the course of being ironed down to the deck under a tropical sun, when his quieter comrade, with his blood now heated to the boiling point, stepped aft, and with apparent calmness re-stated the grievance. The captain drew a loaded pistol from his belt; the sailor struck up his hand; and, as the bullet whistled through the rigging above, he grappled with him, and disarmed ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... sky and water were so identically blue that they met in perfect horizon, the S. S. Rowena, sleek-flanked, mounted fore and aft with a pair of black guns that lifted snouts slightly to the impeccable blue, slipped quietly, and without even a newspaper sailing-announcement into a frivolous midstream that kicked up little lace edged wavelets, undulating flounces of them. A blur of faces ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... them, lay bare and empty to them! Out and still out they rowed and drifted till the coast began to open up beyond the headlands on either side. There a light breeze was waiting them. Up then went three short masts, and three dark-brown sails shone red in the sun, and Malcolm came aft, over the great heap of brown nets, crept with apology across the poop, and got down into a little well behind, there to sit and steer the boat; for now, obedient to the wind in its sails, it went frolicking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... Anyone w'd think you was rowing the bloomin' boat by yourself. Why, man, I'm pulling you round every dozen strokes. The skipper, aft there, is steerin' all he ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... pride in this picture, and it was commonly believed that he had had a hand in the painting of it. When it was praised he was profuse in his acknowledgments; but if a critical captain asked him how it was that, though the ship was sailing before the wind, yet her colours were all flying aft, or inquired whether it was grass or cabbages she sailed upon, Oliver was less eager to claim any artistic ability, and hurried the critic into the house lest he should also discover that the shrouds had been omitted ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... city of hills twinkled at them, striped with long, sloping lines of dotted light; out of the blackness above, the crown of the Spreckels building made a circlet like a halo over St. Francis and his city; across the bay slid the mysterious, luminous honeycombs of the silent ferry-boats. Far aft, the band was trying to cheer things up with a Sousa march. That very tune was being played, probably, down there where the Quadrangle, softly glowing with the faint edging of lanterns, shimmered in the fairy-land mystery of long palm-studded ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... was with qualified approval that Mrs. Simpson, amid the confusion of the Coromandel's preparations for departure at London Docks, heard the familiar strains of the Salvation Army rising aft. Laura immediately cried, "I shall have friends among the passengers," and Mrs. Simpson so fair forgot herself as to say, "Yes, if they are nice." The ladies were sitting on deck beside the pile of Laura's very superior cabin luggage. Mrs. Simpson ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... appeared to amuse his cousin also, for he could be heard laughing heartily, even above the purr of the now steadily going motor that sent the propellers whizzing around so rapidly; for there was one fore and aft, as is the case with all biplanes, the engine being behind the ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... a nature so intense as his was sudden and violent. He who could not be a poet if he would, angrily resolved that he would not if he could. Full-sail verse was beyond his skill, but he could manage the simpler fore-and-aft rig of Butler's octosyllabics. As Cowleyism was a trick of seeing everything as it was not, and calling everything something else than it was, he would see things as they were—or as, in his sullen disgust, they seemed to be—and call them all by their right names with a resentful emphasis. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... them. The ladder was for the purpose of ascent,—the ascent for the purpose of elevation,—and the elevation for the purpose of "look out." The top of the ladder, in short, rendered the same service as the top of a ship's mast at sea. This "tug" had also, a little further aft, a funnel-like sort of chimney, for the emission of steam. The whole structure was—like a forge below, and a palace above. In the lower story were the boiler, engine, fuel, &c., all exposed to view; while, the upper contained ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... still motionless, save only as she rolled with the sea, which was still calm. Captain Falcon found that to proceed would be to drive the smoke aft into the cabins, and he did not want to do this. So he had the ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope |
