"Fend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... let me follow you, master!" cried Serge, passionately. "Oh, master, master! Young Marcus isn't a suckling; he's big and strong enough to fend himself. I've been waiting all these years for you to take your place as a soldier and a general once again! Don't— ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... buffaloes felt their kinship with Henry, he felt his kinship with them as strongly. Since they had sunk into silence they were like so many friends around him, ready to fend off danger or to warn him. From the crest of the low mound upon which he lay he saw the big black forms dotting the prairie, a ring about him. Then he calmly composed himself for the slumber which ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in the mother bird's body till the shell has hardened and is fit to be laid, when she warms it with her own breast, patiently sitting on it for days, while the father bird feeds her, till the little chick is strong enough to break the walls of its tiny house, and come forth and peck and fend for itself. You can explain how the little kitten the child plays with has in the same way a safe place provided for it in the mother's body, where it grows and grows till all its organs are formed, and it can breathe ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... her with a movement that almost seemed to indicate impatience "He preferred not to. There isn't much accommodation here. Besides, he can very well fend for himself. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... time there was a man and his wife who were not over rich. And they had so many children that they couldn't find meat for them; so, as the three youngest were girls, they just took them out to the forest one day, and left them there to fend for themselves as best ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... not make so much as he has been led to think he would. There are lots of bleeders here, but we mean to fend them off from him ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... Beg have just come in; I will go and join them." She naturally expected Dan to escort her, and he probably would have done so had he waited to hear what she was saying; but his marital manners were such that he had taken himself off while she was speaking, and left her to fend for herself. She was too glad, however, to see her charming new acquaintances, who had been so kindly, to care much, and she crossed the room to them, smiling confidently. As she approached, she saw that they ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... it grew, the more milk and fish it needed each day. At last, this food was not to be easily obtained, and so the boy had to get rid of his pet. He rowed out to sea, taking the Seal, and let it free in the ocean to fend for itself; but the Seal would not leave him; it swam swiftly round the boat, calling pitifully. Needless to say, it was taken back again, ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... easier to give up drink than to forget Lida. To put away thought of her was like trying to fend the sunlight from his cabin window with his palm. He was entirely and hopelessly enslaved to the memory of her glowing face and smiling eyes. What was there in all his world to console him for the ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... spoke the word bitterly. "God! What does God care for women? It's the men as God made things for, and us-all has to fend them off—men and God ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... men that they kept cool and self-possessed from the mere force of habit. Seeing this, the captain ordered Mitford to get into the boat first, and help to stow the others, for it would be a tight pack, he said, to stow them all. Dr Hayward was ordered to assist. Ned Jarring volunteered to help to fend the boat off during the operation, and, without waiting ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... to think, letting her thoughts wander as the old lady rambled on, was an unfortunately misplaced person. She had none of the qualities of the great lady, nothing spiritual or mental with which to fend off the vacuity of old age. As a girl, a bride, a young matron, she had not shown her lack so pitiably. But now, at sixty-five, Mrs. Saunders had no character, no tastes, no opinions worth considering. ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... companions had already buckled the wide webbing belts intended to save them from crash shock. Dane saw the pilot push the button to release fend cushions. In spite of his pounding heart, a small fraction of his brain recognized the other's skill as the Khatkan took a course to bring them down on a relatively level ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... she lost her mate in the dying struggle of his race, she never took another, but set her wit to fend for herself and her young son. No doubt she was often put to it in the beginning to find food for them both. The Paiutes had made their last stand at the border of the Bitter Lake; battle-driven they ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... thing occurs with children: they hang on to the mother's apron-string and the father's coat tails as long as they can, often baffling those sensitive parents who know that children should think for themselves and fend for themselves, but are too kind to throw them on their own resources with the ferocity of the domestic cat. The child should have its first coming of age when it is weaned, another when it can talk, another when it can walk, another when it can dress itself without ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... they discussed life and love seemed capable of a double intent, and whether by freedom she meant to yield or to escape something he had never made out. All he knew was that at times she seemed to beckon him on and at others to fend him away. She was fickle as fortune which, as he plunged and covered, sometimes smiled and again wore ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... hand across her eyes as if to fend off a sudden storm of tears; then threw her arms round my neck and pressed me close to her bosom. She kissed me a thousand times, eagerly and warmly. "I love you, my lord, I love you, my saviour and king. If you are kind to me, I shall die. Beat me, misuse me, neglect me, be unfaithful—it is ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... trail was getting warm. The canoes had to be hauled by tow-lines, with Sacagawea proudly riding in one of them and helping to fend off with a pole. She had not been here since she was a girl of eleven or twelve, but she caught ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... pleasant sensations than this! How thankful we were that the sea was calm and the Titanic lay so steadily and quietly as we dropped down her side. We were spared the bumping and grinding against the side which so often accompanies the launching of boats: I do not remember that we even had to fend off our boat while we ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... bin sadly tewed wi' mother leavin' him an' all," replied Mary, "and there's them fits that he has to contend wi'. If he wants me I mun go. There's nobody left on t' farm to fend for him." ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... and a queer one it is, I swan. He brings his right arm up, jist across his face, and passes on, with a knowin' nod of his head, as much as to say, how do you do? but keep clear o' my wheels, or I'll fetch your horses a lick in the mouth as sure as you're born; jist as a bear puts up his paw to fend off the blow of a stick from his nose. Well, that's the way I pass them 'ere bare-breeched Scotchmen. Lord, if they were located down in these here Cumberland marshes, how the mosquitoes would tickle them up, wouldn't they? They'd set 'em scratching thereabouts, as an Irishman ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... girl's life among the sheep and the rough characters of the range, no wonder in him over her impatience to be away from it. It seemed to him that Tim Sullivan might well spare her the money for schooling, as well as fend her against the dangers and hardships of the range by keeping her at home these ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... in—a' my things riven aff my back, forby the four lily-white shillings that it cost us—and then in came three frightsome carlines wi' besoms, and they wad bewitch a sailor's wife—I was lang eneugh there—and out I wad be, and out John Blower gat me, but wi' nae sma' fight and fend.—My Lady Penelope Penfitter, and the great folk, may just take it as they like; but in my mind, Dr. Cacklehen, it's a mere blasphemy for folk to gar themselves look otherwise than their Maker made them; and then the changing ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... on my first visit to Caleb's native village that there was no magnate, or other big man, and no gentleman except the parson, who was not a rich man. It was, so to speak, one of the orphaned villages left to fend for itself and fight its own way in a hard world, and had nobody even to give the customary blankets and sack of coals to its old women. Nor was there any very big farmer in the place, certainly no gentleman farmer; they were mostly small men, some of them hardly to be distinguished in speech ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... fast asleep, David Kildare in the processes of bath and toilet, Phoebe at her desk down-town and Mrs. Matilda away on her mission, and thus it happened that nobody was near to fend the blight from the flower ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... which actuates the men. After the gale the main deck under the forecastle space in which the ponies are stabled leaked badly, and the dirt of the stable leaked through on hammocks and bedding. Not a word has been said; the men living in that part have done their best to fend off the nuisance with oilskins and canvas, but without sign of complaint. Indeed the discomfort throughout the mess deck has been extreme. Everything has been thrown about, water has found its way down in a dozen places. There is no daylight, and air can come ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... Noel made unconcerned response. He was accustomed to fend for himself, and the prospect of such an adventure ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... teaching and ruling by virtue of office: and this office whereunto they do belong is that of elders, as is undeniably attested, Acts xx. 17, &c. All that belongs unto the care, inspection, oversight, rule, fend instruction of the church, is committed unto the elders of it expressly. For elders is a name derived from the Jews, denoting them that have ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... swift and silent. Calumet was puffing abstractedly at a cigarette when he became aware of a rush of air as the gray shape flashed up from the ground. Calumet dodged involuntarily, throwing up an arm to fend off the shape, which catapulted past him, shoulder-high. The beast had aimed for his throat; his long fangs met the upthrust arm and sank into it, crunching ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... almost all his bird neighbors and was especially kind and helpful when they were in trouble, nothing pleased him more than to sing their songs. Knowing as they did that he was always ready to feed any nestlings that were left to fend for themselves, and that he was quick to help any of the small feathered folk to fight an enemy, his neighbors did not care how much Mr. Catbird mocked them. It was only his way of having fun; so ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... his wife for these words—as some men do when their wives so beseech them—the goodman put his hand on her shoulder and said, 'Nay, nay, my dear; the boy is only a boy; let him stay with us another year until he can fend for himself. Now, I'll tell you what: let the man who looks after the sheep come in here and do the work about the house, and Jack will take his place in the field. The man can have Jack's bed, and Jack will be delighted to sleep in the outhouse. ...
— Edmund Dulac's Fairy-Book - Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations • Edmund Dulac
... and groans, whilst the waters shiver her frail bulwarks with their cruel message of destruction, which might mean her very death-rattle. I get landed in the stomach with the end of a gigantic bamboo boat-hook, used by one of the men standing in the bows whose duty is to fend her off the rocks. He falls towards the river. I grab his single garment, give one swift pull, and he comes up again with a jerky little laugh and asks if he has hurt me—yelling through his hands ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... beyond all bearing. The Council of the Dutch West India Company issued a proclamation to the effect that all women and children in the towns, whose husbands and fathers were rebels, were to be evicted from their houses and left to fend for themselves. The idea seems to have been that these people would flock to the insurgents and thus hamper their movements. The result was that the unfortunate women and children were exposed to the mercy of the ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... Chante-en-hiver, Monte-a-l'assaut, Fend-l'air, and La Giberne, to him, gave each of them fifty men, and each with his men disappeared like shadows in the heavy mist, giving the well-known hoot, as they vanished. Cadoudal was left with a hundred men, Branche-d'Or and ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... long ago when castles grim did frown, When massy wall and gate did 'fend each town; When mighty lords in armour bright were seen, And stealthy outlaws lurked amid the green And oft were hanged for poaching of the deer, Or, gasping, died upon a hunting spear; When barons bold did on their ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... moment's hesitation. 'An' though I've come back to Glesca, I'm no' seeking onything frae ony o' ye; I can fend for mysel'.' ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... upon herbivores of medium or smaller size, which they are active enough to surprise or run down. Carnivora of much larger size would be too slow and heavy in movements to catch small prey, while the larger herbivores by intelligent use of their defensive weapons could still fend them off successfully. In consequence giant carnivores would find no field for action in the Cenozoic world, and hence they ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... the welcome of every thing which comes from you. With its opinions on the difficulties of revolutions from despotism to freedom, I very much concur. The generation which commences a revolution rarely completes it. Habituated from their infancy to passive submission of body fend mind to their kings and priests, they are not qualified, when called on, to think and provide for themselves; and their inexperience, their ignorance and bigotry, make them instruments often, in the hands ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... another in regular succession, as though firing a salute by watch. The Culloden's course led so direct upon a Spanish three-decker, that the first lieutenant reported a collision imminent. "Can't help it, Griffiths," replied Troubridge; "hardest fend off." But the Spaniard, in confusion, put his helm up and went clear. By this time the Spanish division on the right, or west, of the British had changed its course and was steering north, parallel but opposite to its foes. As the Culloden went through, the admiral signalled ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... gallows'. From the Covenanters he passed to politics. He was a weaver and did not like the government, telling me, seeing where I came from, I must grow up to be a Glasgow radical. Seeing I was homeless, he said he would fend me for the night, and, going into the house, he brought out a coggie of milk and a barley scone. When I had finished, he took me to the byre and left me in a stall of straw, telling me to leave early for his wife hated gangrel bodies and would not, when she came in, rest content, ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... in him a little of the uneasy fear and uneasy attraction that a creature whom a man feels to be greater than himself often wakes in him. That evening, while Julian sat with her, he had been seized with curious conflicting desires to fall before her or to strike her, to draw her close or to fend her off from him, all dull, too, and vague as in heaviness of dreaming. Those feelings, vague in the house, were scarcely clearer in the cold and in the open spaces of the night, and Julian was conscious of a sense of irritation, of anger against himself. He felt as if he were an oaf, a lout. ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... an' mine; An' now my dying charge I gie him, [give] My helpless lambs, I trust them wi' him. 'O bid him save their harmless lives Frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives! [foxes] But gie them guid cow-milk their fill, Till they be fit to fend themsel: [look after] An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, [tend] Wi' teats o' hay an' ripps o' corn. [bunches, handfuls] 'An' may they never learn the gates [ways] Of ither vile wanrestfu' pets— [restless] To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... deeds and belike it shall be in this world a provision and a good work for which thou shalt be repaid one of these days, and a treasure laid up to thine account with Allah in the world to come. Pardon me, therefore, and fend off evil from me, so shall Allah fend off from thee the like evil." When the king beard this, it pleased him and he pardoned the page, albeit he had never before pardoned any. Now this page was of the sons of the kings and had fled from his sire on account of a sin he had committed: then ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. We both serve the same Master, and are striving after the same gifts; and I'd never be the husband to make a claim on you as could interfere with your doing the work God has fitted you for. I'd make a shift, and fend indoor and out, to give you more liberty—more than you can have now, for you've got to get your own living now, and I'm strong enough to ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... on easily with Leo Ulford because she was experienced in the treatment of his type. She knew exactly what to do with it; how to lead it on, how to fend it off, how to throw cold water on its enterprise without dashing it too greatly, how to banish any little, sulky cloud that might appear on the brassy horizon ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... come to say good-bye," said Will (Flora's eyes opened wide with astonishment), "I am going—fend off, men, fend off, mind what you are about—I am going," he said, looking up with a smile, "to sail with you ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... scarcely stand. One of them, indeed, would have lost his life but for Simpson and Maxwell; for the boat was steered alongside stem-on, and the shock of her collision with the brigantine completely upset the balance of the man who was standing in the bows to fend her off, so that he fell overboard between the boat and the brigantine's side. The fellow was partially sobered by his sudden immersion, and finding himself overboard, began at once to sing out lustily for help, fully aware that there were probably several sharks still hanging about the two vessels, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... afore, but that's no to bind ither folk, an' it's no to be thought that at my years I'm to be puttin' up wi' a' ther new fangled English fykes an' nonsense maggots. Na, na, Maister Colin, his lordship'll fend weel aneugh wantin' Tibbie; an' what for suld I leave yerself, an' you settin' up wi' a house o' yer ain? Deed an' my mind's made up, I'll e'en bide wi' ye, an' ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... up, I turned and descended to the left. My idea was to let that chain-gang get out of sight before I climbed the hill. You know I am not particularly tender; I've had to strike and to fend off. I've had to resist and to attack sometimes—that's only one way of resisting—without counting the exact cost, according to the demands of such sort of life as I had blundered into. I've seen the devil of violence, and ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... for himself out of what was left. Then when we came again he gave us the meat we came for, taking certain fine fleeces and lambskins for himself. We stole as the wild creatures do, for food; we have no use for parchments or carded wool. We killed as they kill, to fend off our enemies. The Danish sea-wolves and the armored wild beasts of Strongbow and de Lacy hunted us as if we were wolves indeed. What could we do but hunt as the wolves hunt, snatch our meat where we could, hide like foxes in the holes of the mountain, make ourselves dreaded ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... of serrated teeth, razor-sharp, opened wide to take in the tarpon, which leaped wildly ten feet in the air, and turning, plunged head-down straight for Ned as he sat in the canoe, paddle in hand. Dick started up from his seat, while Ned tried to fend off with the paddle, but the hard, pointed head of the big tarpon tore through the bottom of the fragile canoe as if it had been paper. A minute later the shattered canoe was floating down the river, while everything sinkable had gone ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... sort of reception was given Steve when he once got ashore. He could be seen trying to fend off the many hands that were outstretched to seize upon his digits, and give them a squeeze of approval, for deeds like this arouse the warmest sentiments in the human heart. In vain did Steve declare that it had been Max who had taken all the risks ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... quaint, yet magnificent spectacle. Maida in her regal robe; Georg looking every inch a ruler. Their barge of white leading the procession—a barge of white flowers, its sides lined with maidens to fend off the deluge of blossoms with which the onlookers assailed the bridal couple. The arrival at the marriage island, where on an altar the quaintly garbed holy man immersed them; and the solemn men of law united them ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... Thomas. But his very laughter was new and very dreary. He picked Thomas up in his arms and held him close, a warm little whimpering bundle. Then it was as if the touch of the small live thing that was his own and had no one in the world but him to fend for it woke in him a new instinct. There sprang up in him swiftly, new-born out of the travail of great bitterness, a sharp anger against life, against fate, against the whole universe of nature and man. To lose and lose and lose—how that goes ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... against the time of my setting up, the siller which was got by selling the bit house of granfaither's, on the death of my ever-to-be-lamented mother, who survived her helpmate only six months, leaving me an orphan lad in a wicked world, obliged to fend, forage, and look out ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... the Oyster gets rid of its numerous family. It opens its shells, then shuts them rapidly; and, each time this happens, a cloud of young Oysters is puffed out like smoke. Now these mites must fend for themselves in ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... shapes, illusive and shadowy, appeared to float before her eyes. She shrank from what seemed the contact of actual bodily forms. Unnerved and overwrought she yielded to the horror of her own imagination. With a stifled cry she turned and fled, her arms outstretched to fend from her the invisible host that seemed so real, not daring even to look again at the pitying Christ whose calm serenity formed such a striking contrast ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... was steering with his left hand, while his viselike right arm still encircled the protesting collie. As the Mistress ran alongside and grasped frantically for her doomed pet, he let go of Bruce for an instant, to fend off her hand—or perhaps to thrust her away from the peril of the fast-moving mud-guards. At the Mistress's cry—and at the brief letup of pressure caused by the Doctor's menacing gesture toward the unhappy woman—Bruce's long-sleeping ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... what parents call the "sheltered life system" is, if the boy must go into the world and fend for himself, not wise. Unless he be one in a thousand he has certainly to pass through many unnecessary troubles; and may, possibly, come to extreme grief simply from ignorance of the ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... my face and neck. "I don't know what you are talking about," I bluntly tried to fend off his implications. I felt as if I were helplessly strapped down and that he was about to probe me mercilessly with some sharp instrument. I strove to turn the direction of his thoughts by saying, "I understand that the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... remain in this abandoned state so long. This day and another night passed. I went to bed and slept well. The whale's carcass might roll over and crush my boat, or some other accident happen to the Wavecrest during my retirement. But I could do nothing to fend off Fate did I keep awake and had already made up my mind that I had ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... at Dalar. When he anchored, he saw a little blue scarf fluttering on the verandah of the hotel: then he knew that it was she. But there was so much to do aboard that it was evening before he could go ashore. He saw her from his gig on the landing-stage as the bow held out his oar to fend off; she was every bit as young, as pretty and as strong as she had been when he left her; it was exactly as if they were re-living the first spring days of their love. A delicious little supper waited for him ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... down its nose, they croaked and cried and screamed to drive it to the edge of a precipice and then over to its death in the gulf beneath, there to feast on its carcass. It was no easy thing to fend off the cruel birds when in sight of their prey, but, running and capturing the poor lamb, Ralph snatched it up in his arms at the peril of his own eyes, and swung a staff about his head to beat off the birds as they darted and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... in the smoky cabin he talked freely for once. "I never had a wife or bairn, and I lean on no man. I can fend for myself, and cook my dinner, and mend my coat when it's wanting it. When Bacon died I saw what was coming to this land, and I came here to await it. I've had some sudden calls from the red gentry, but they havena ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... the domestic animals brought to the Colony, in the first few years of its settlement, were turned out in the woods to fend for themselves. The original breeding stocks were of ordinary quality and the lack of care given them contributed to their inferiority. Predatory animals such as wolves, bears, panthers and wild cats exacted a heavy ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... dwelt,— The carriages were coming. Hastening up, She was in time to meet them at the door, And lead the sleepy little ones within; And some were cross and shivered, and her dames Were weary and right hard to please; but she Felt like a beggar suddenly endowed With a warm cloak to 'fend her from the cold. "For, come what will," she said, "I had ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... direction. Symes was lying flat on his back, snoring loudly enough to drown out all but a few notes from the steam calliope, which was singing itself loudly to sleep somewhere in the distance. Near the prone figure, Gerda was trying to fend off the advances of good old Alvin Sherdlap, but it was obvious that the sheer passage of time, plus the amount of liquor she had ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... stern-cabin with nervous strides. All that human forethought could do to prepare the ship had long been done. The slim hull one hundred and fifty feet long had been stripped of every superfluous rope and spar. The masts had been lowered. On the cat-heads hung the anchors weighted with stone to fend off an enemy, astern towed the pinnace ready to drag alongside and break the force of the hostile ram. The heavy-armed marines stood with their long boarding spears, to lead an attack or cast off grappling-irons. But the true weapon of the Nausicaae ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... also, that repining was useless. Her mother begged for peace at any cost. "Put up with it," she said, "for a little while, Charlotte. I cannot bear quarrelling. And you know how Sophia will insist upon explaining. She will call up the servants, and 'fend and prove,' and make complaints and regrets, and in the long end have all on her own side. And I can tell you that Ann has been queer lately, and Elizabeth talks of leaving at Martinmas. O Charlotte! put up with things, my dear. There is only you ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... said Forester, "keep a sharp lookout ahead for rocks and snags, and fend off well ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... which seemed very near a curse, and clutched at my throat. I loosened my grasp to fend away his hand, and he broke away from my other arm, and sprang to his feet. Just as he did so there was a blow, a splintering of wood. The door was carried off its hinges, and Brutus leapt beside him. The floor had not been clean. My father brushed ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... low in his throat; 'the arms of Werner! Where got he money to mount his men? Why, this is daring all Cologne in our very teeth! 'Fend that he visit me now! Ruin smokes in that ruffian's track. I 've felt hot and cold ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... after place by day and sleeping in the same stead by night, in the way we have described, for the space of four months, after which time the soul of the Wazir Ja'afar waxed sad and sorry, and one chance day of the days, he sat him down and wept. Seeing him in tears Attaf asked him, saying, "Allah fend from thee all affliction, O my lord! why dost thou weep and wherefore art thou grieved? An thou be heavy of heart why not relate to me what hath oppressed thee?" Answered Ja'afar, "O my brother, I find my breast sore straitened and I would fain stroll about the streets of Damascus and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... For they were loitering close on that side, not expecting any such manoeuvre; the sharp turn drove the bow of Carroll's canoe straight for the waist of Scarborough's, and Westby with an excited laugh undertook to fend off with his pole, lost his balance, and trying to recover it, ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves. Instead, we must go forward as one America, one nation working together to meet the challenges we face together. Self-reliance and teamwork are not opposing ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... you draw from the legitimate views of marriage," said I, "prove that those who hold them, fend to the same end as two ordinary lovers, perhaps, even in better faith, with this difference only, that they wish an extra ceremony ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... loathe the accursed thing, It is given to you to foreknow the end. But they who the unwise challenge fling Shall startle foe at the risk of friend As yet unready to endure - And can ye fend Goliath's swipe? The slowly grinding mills are sure, Let terror alone till the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... he'd be safer without it," I said, "we'll decide that when the time comes, anyway. But personally—the trailmen are used to running along narrow ledges, and we're not. Their first tactic would probably be to push us off, one by one. If we're roped, we can fend them off better." I dismissed the subject, adding, "Just now, the important thing is to ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... I noticed a stream of men flowing from De Beers towards the north-west, and at once correctly inferred what had happened. Diamonds had been discovered by the Ortlepp party, and a "rush" was in progress. Leaving the cattle to fend for themselves, I started at a run across the veld towards the objective of the rushers. My burrow! on that my thoughts were centered; I longed to reach the spot before any one else had pegged it out. Three or four tunes I paused to take breath, and each tune I managed ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... presently backed off, and blithely kicking up the water astern, disappeared down the river. Her going out severed their last bond with the world of civilization and henceforth they must fend for themselves in the wilderness. Natalie looked around at the grim, empty woods, and at the strange, alien boys who were to conduct them; and instinctively put out ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... demands of its implacably urgent theme. Each page could readily be expanded into a volume. It suggests but the beginning of the beginning now being made to raise men's thinking onto a plain which may perhaps enable them to fend off or reduce some of the dangers ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... knows the feeling that sometimes calls us to a life where we fend and cater for ourselves in the fields and rivers, such as William Morris knew when he shot fieldfares with his bow and arrow and cooked them for his supper. Shakespeare knew it too, in the mind of Caliban, and his business was to realise this subject-matter for us in such a way that it could not ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... began to drop further away, and then the Sea Monster loomed up suddenly right over us, and Jerry had to fend the boat off with an oar. We had never guessed how big the thing really was,—not big at all for an island, but very large for a bare, off-shore rock. I should say that it was just about the bigness of ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... is Freedom,— Choose him to be your king; He shall cut pathways east and west And fend you with ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... was halting now the line of a jagged cliff seemed to cut the air, and fend off the light from its edges. You can only see such a thing from the level of the sea, and it looks very odd when you see it, as if the moon and you were a pair of playing children, feeling round a corner for a glimpse of one another. But plain enough it was, and far too plain, that the doubling ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... expose himself or let his barques engage in the venture. So that what he did has borne no fruit until four years ago, when we made our settlement at Quebec, after which I ventured to pass the fall to help the savages in their wars, and fend among them men to make the acquaintance of the people, to learn their mode of living, and the character and extent of their territory. After devoting ourselves to labors which have been so successful, is it not just that we should enjoy their fruits, His Majesty not ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... battles, occurred to this fine ship. The course of the Culloden brought her directly on board one of the enemy's three-deckers. The first lieutenant, Griffiths, reported to her captain, Troubridge, that a collision was inevitable. "Can't help it, Griffiths—let the weakest fend off," was the hero's reply. The Culloden, still pushing on, fired two of her double-shotted broadsides into the Spaniard with such tremendous effect, that the three-decker went about, and the guns of her other side not being even cast loose, she did not fire a single shot, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... I only know that I heard a splash as I waited under the bows there, and then began with my hands to fend the boat around the schooner for dear life. I had to be very silent. At first I could see nothing, for it was dark towards the shore; but I cried to Heaven to spare you for vengeance on that man, and then ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... their health and never losing their employment. When a reverse does come they are at once plunged into discouragement, and feel that something must be done immediately. There is only one way to fend off such an embarrassment, and that is to resolve, whatever may be the amount of the income, to lay aside some part to serve as a reliance in time of trouble. A little economy—though it involves privation—will be well repaid by the feeling ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... kept many such camps occupied by men whose duty it was to look after the Sawtooth cattle that grazed near; to see that stock did not "bog down" in the tricky sand of the adjacent water holes and die before help came, and to fend off any encroachments of the smaller cattle owners—though these were growing fewer year by year, thanks to the weeding-out policy of the Sawtooth and the cunning activities of ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... deck the cheerful trees, And dazzling fruits depend, The north wind sighs a summer breeze, The nipping frosts to fend, ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... did not attempt to define his thoughts in any way. The girl had interested him, and startled him out of the even tenor of his beliefs. He hated to think of her turned adrift and left, as the possibility was she had been left, to fend for herself. He had not seen the elder Miss Rutherford since his visit, but rumour in the village ran that Miss Joan had got into disgrace of sorts and been sent away. The servants from the Manor spoke with bated breath of the change which had come ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... had been disconnected so there was nothing to hinder a prompt boarding of the captured boat when Jack gave the word. With the glorious flush of victory thrilling his whole frame Perk stood by to fend off as they drew close to the squatty stern. It would be his duty to clamber out on one wing and get aboard, carrying a rope by means of which the floating airship could be ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... blocked up on all sides by the Miscreants?" Quoth the accursed hag, "Allah will veil me from their eyes and they shall not sight me;[FN432] nor, if any saw me, would he dare to attack me at that time, for I shall be as one non existing, absorbed in Allah, and He will fend off from me His foes." "Thou sayest sooth, O holy man," rejoined Sharrkan, "for indeed I have been witness of that; so, if thou can pass out at the first of the night, 'twill be best for us." Replied she, "I will set out at this very hour and, if thou ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... they have the Norsemen met, By sea, by land, with steel, with fire, Thrice have they felt the Norse king's ire. Fiona's maids are slim and fair, The lovely prizes, lads, we'll share: Some stand to arms in rank and row, Some seize, bring off, and fend with blow." ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... a very miserable one; for she had to fend for the aged father and bedridden mother of Edward Hall, and there were no beasts left but only a few geese and ducks that the rebels could not lay their hands on. And the only home that they had was the farmhouse that was upon Edward Hall's other ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... for we are inclined to take them as a whole and to take them for granted; hence the trouble experienced by educated foreigners in catching the characteristics of English style, and their surprise in finding that we have no authentic guides to English composition, fend that the court of final appeal is only the standard Of the best use. The words of a German critic on a Collection of English portraits in Berlin are very happily pointed and might be as aptly applied to ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... demon-haunted isle. A year passed, two years,—a child was born. The soldier lover died of heartbreak and despondency. The child wasted away. The old nurse, too, was buried. Marguerite was left alone to fend for herself and hope against hope that some of the passing sails would heed her signals. No wonder at the end of the third year she began to hear shrieking laughter in the lonely cries of tide and wind, and to imagine that she saw fiendish arms snatching through ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... not to smash the brig. We would be lost indeed if—fend off there, John; fend off, old reliable, if you care a pin for your salty hide. I like the old chap," he said, when he stood by Lingard's side looking down at the boat which was being rapidly cleared by whites and Malays working shoulder to shoulder in silence. "I like him. He don't ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... along this line if it takes all summer," is one of his typical remarks, and one most often quoted. It was toward the last of the hard-fought war, when the Southern forces under Lee were doing their utmost to fend off the inevitable. Grant, now the commanding General of the Union forces, was still putting into practise the quiet, bull-dog qualities that had led his armies ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... nuts be them, Peter Coamings?" said the coxswain to a new hand who had been lately impressed, and was now standing at the bow ready to fend off. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... a hair, sir; he cudna stan' the disgrace half sae weel 's me! I reckon the man the waiker vessel, sir; the woman has her bairn to fend for, and that taks her aff o' ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... joints stood ready to be carved and distributed. For save on Gaudy Days and great festivals of the Church, the Brethren dine in their own chambers, not in Hall; and on three days of the week must fend for themselves on food purchased out of their small allowances. But on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays they fetch it from the kitchen, taking their turns to choose the best cuts. And this was Thursday and, as it happened, Brother Copas ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as I might be, then I resolved to defend myself as well as I was able. I had an ammonia gun in my pocket which I carried to fend off ugly dogs by the roadside, which infest the country. And this I carried in my hip pocket. It resembled somewhat a forty-four caliber revolver. I put my hand behind me, drew it forth, eying him the while, and ostentatiously toyed with it before placing it ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... comparatively calm, had since then rapidly become more and more agitated, and heavy rollers were seen coming over the ocean towards the ship. As the people were getting into the second cutter, the sea struck her, violently dashing her against the ship's side; while some were attempting to fend her off, she was swamped and upset, the unhappy people in her being cast struggling into the foaming waters. Two seamen only managed to ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... I will tell you more, Reilly—it was she who principally engaged me to protect you as far as I could, and so I shall, you may rest assured of it. I had only to name you a few minutes ago, and your fate was sealed. But, even if she had never spoken to me on the subject, I could not fend myself to the cruel plots of that villain. God knows, in consequence of my official situation, I am put upon tasks that are very painful to me; levying fines from men who are harmless and inoffensive, who are peaceable members of society, who ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... on they did until young Dick and Prudence were married; until young Dick died. Then old Dick stayed on and Mrs. Knight died and his daughter-in-law and the little flame-haired Judith were left to fend for themselves. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson |
