"Mast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... belly, at the tail, lies the Centaur. Near the Bowl and the Lion is the ship named Argo. Her bow is invisible, but her mast and the parts about the helm are in plain sight, the stern of the vessel joining the Dog at the tip of his tail. The Little Dog follows the Twins, and is opposite the Snake's head. The Greater Dog follows the Lesser. Orion lies aslant, under the Bull's hoof; in his left ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... fabulous magnitude had been made by lucky privateersmen during the last war; and was there not even then living in Weymouth the heroic Captain Tizard, who had captured a Spanish Plate ship and sailed into Plymouth Sound with his prize in tow, and a massive gold candlestick glittering at each mast-head? And if others had done such things, why not we? I knew Captain Winter for a man who not only had every detail of his profession at his fingers' ends, but who also combined the highest courage with the nicest discretion and ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... bring to a crisis, drive matters to an extremity; take a decisive step &c. (choice) 609; take upon oneself &c. (undertake) 676. devote oneself to, give oneself up to; throw away the scabbard, kick down the ladder, nail one's colors to the mast, set one's back against the wall, set one's teeth, put one's foot down, take one's stand; stand firm &c. (stability) 150; steel oneself; stand no nonsense, not listen to the voice of the charmer. buckle to; buckle oneself ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... forward with a gentle impulse. We were opening the broad mouth of the Canning, when Meliboeus pointed out two other pelicans fishing in-shore on the lee-bow. Gently we edged away towards them; Meliboeus standing before the mast with his double-barrel ready, and motioning to me how to steer, as the main-sail hid the birds ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... bark. Their usual methods are modified a little by the requirements of the material and the size of the beam upon which it was used. Each scale was about 4-1/2 inches high, and according to the calculations of M. Place, the whole mast must have been from five-and-thirty to forty feet high. Working for spectators on a lower level and at some distance, the smith thought well to make his details as regular and strongly marked as he could; to each scale or leaf he gave a raised edge to mark its ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... dreamed a moment of the danger to which we had exposed ourselves. That pleasure was soon followed by another; for I saw at anchor in this same place 2 ships, of which one had the glorious flag of His Majesty hoisted upon his main mast, that I recognized to be the one that was commanded by Captain Outlaw when the one in which I was passed had been separated from the 2 others. At the same time I made the shallop approach & I perceived the new Governor with all his men under arms upon the deck, who demanded of us ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... abeam of the brig he gave his orders, and Wasub hurried off to the main deck. The helm was put down, the yards on the main came slowly square and the wet canvas of the main-topsail clung suddenly to the mast after a single heavy flap. The dazzling streak of the ship's wake vanished. The vessel lost her way and began to dip her bows into the quick succession of the running head seas. And at every slow plunge of the craft, the song of the wind ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... said the captain, gravely. "I have already learned something of his antecedents—that he is a disgraced and broken-down naval officer; but, as he has sailed three voyages with us, I had credited his willingness to work before-the-mast to his craving for liquor, which he could not satisfy without money. However—as you think—he may be following you. Was he able to learn of your movements—that you were to take passage ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... and determined decision. Like Cortes, he must burn his ships behind him, and make retreat forever impossible. When he draws his sword he must throw the scabbard away, lest in a moment of discouragement and irresolution he be tempted to sheath it. He must nail his colors to the mast, as Nelson did in battle, determined to sink with his ship if he cannot conquer. Prompt decision and sublime audacity have carried many a successful man over perilous crises where deliberation ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... mean little to me, for even though my men might overcome the enemy, none would know of my predicament until long after it was too late to succor me. The top of the conning-tower was now awash. I clung to the wireless mast, while the great waves surged sometimes completely ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 1 ou 2 singes." The ou was so badly written that the captain read "1002 singes;" and the result was that the owner, three months after, found his ship returning, to his utter stupefaction, overrun with monkeys from keel to mast-head. However, inflexibly just even in his surprise, he recognized the fault to be that of his own hasty handwriting, and praised the scrupulous captain who had executed his apparent order even to the odd pair of monkeys over the thousand. For a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... having to help Mr. Godfrey down,' laughed Pete, as he lashed the flag-staff to the topmost bough; 'why, if one's to believe Uncle Kiah, he can a'most run up the mast with his eyes shut, and stand on his ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... sprinkled one whilst reading below. Finished the "Vicar of Wakefield." One of the sails tore down. At one P.M. observed a brig going westerly; the wind heavy and the canvas gradually taken in, till we had only a part of two sails of 1st and 2nd mast; fine waves that broke most beautifully curiously ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... and almost shipwrecks. "The almiranta suffered eleven hurricanes, and all had already lost hope of life. The vessel miraculously made the voyage through the courage of the pilot Toral, and that of father Fray Esteban Carrillo—who, lashed to the mizzen-mast, with a crucifix in his hands, consoled the crew, and animated and encouraged them. He always shared his food with the sick." Of the other two vessels of the fleet, the flagship runs aground in Japan, but the crew are saved. "It was one of the greatest losses sustained by these islands. Don Rodrigo ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... saw close ahead of them a large boat, which, with its sail hanging idly by the mast, was drifting downstream. Two boatmen were sitting by the ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold, And ice, mast high, came floating by As green as emerald. Through the drifts, the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen; Nor shapes of men, or beasts we ken, The ice was all between. With sloping masts, and dipping prow, As who pursued with yell and blow, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... about 150 feet in length with a beam of 20 feet. The beam was therefore only 2/15 of the length. (A merchant ship of the same period was about 180 feet long with a beam of 1/4 its length.) The trireme was fitted with one mast and square sail, the latter being used only when the wind was fair, as auxiliary to the oars, especially when it needed to retire from battle. In fact, the phrase "hoist the sail" came to be used colloquially like our "turn tail" as ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... colonel was standing on the upper deck; he gripped the handrail tightly and looked across the harbour basin. Overhead the Red Cross ensign was at half-mast, and at half-mast hung the Union Jack at the stern. And so it was with every ship in port. A great silence lay upon the harbour; even the hydraulic cranes were still, and the winches of the trawlers had ceased their screaming. Not a sound was to be heard save ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... went below. The wind was on the quarter, strong and steady. Almost immediately the good steamer felt the canvas, leaning gently over to leeward, adding another mile to her great speed. The sea was black, and the air seemed to be full of the sounds of waves breaking and hissing. Ahead the mast-head and the side-lights shone down on the face of the waters and lighted up an occasional white-capped wave. In the air, brisk and masterful, there was a sense of purpose and tension which sailors understand, ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... in use, One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy's main-mast, Two well serv'd with grape and canister silence his musketry ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... at the first shot he split our rudder's head in pieces, and the second shot he struck us under water, and the third shot he shot us through our foremast with a culverin shot, and thus, he having rent both our rudder and mast and shot us under water, we were enforced ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... had come safely home, and in forest stretches where fallen leaves lay crisp and thick under foot the razor-backs were fattening on persimmons and mast. Along the horizon slept an ashen mist of violet. "Sugar trees" blazed in rustling torches of crimson and in the sweet-gums awoke colour flashes like those which glint in a goblet ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... becomes the regular blast of a high pressure engine, and I recognise the exceedingly explosive steamer in which I ascended the Mississippi when the American civil war was not, and when only its causes were. A fragment of mast on which the light of a lantern falls, an end of rope, and a jerking block or so, become suggestive of Franconi's Circus at Paris where I shall be this very night mayhap (for it must be morning now), and they dance to the self-same time and tune as the trained ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... not near the station, and to reach it you walk or drive along winding roads just now sodden with rain, but smelling of the good wet Sussex leaves and mast and soil, with the Downs rising not too many miles away in the South. Then a turn into a narrow lane, with the bare trees of a copse on either side and a scurrying pheasant in front of you, and behold the white gate! There is no lodge—the house is just too small for that, ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas
... suffered much damage in the fearful storm. The crashing and wrenching that had so overwhelmed poor Hal with terror, had been the destruction of mast and yard and bulwark. Yet, though sorely dismantled, the good ship was able to keep ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... preserve the officers and crew from the common Arctic maladies. The vessel was furnished with a heater, in order to preserve an even temperature, and also with a portable observatory called a "raven's nest," which they could hoist to the top of the highest mast, in those regions where they meet with floating ice, to signal the ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... that his bearlets was sorer than a dog about something. Presently in came a woman, and none of the true lovers seemed to know who she was. Some said it was Melba, others Nordica. Bud and I decided that it was May Irwin. We were mistaken, though, as Irwin has this woman lashed to the mast at any time or place. As soon as Mike the Dago espied the dame it was all off. He rushed and drove a straight-arm jab, which had it reached would have given him the purse. But shifty Sadie wasn't there. She ducked, side-stepped, and landed a ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... down across the wall where a hull and mast gleamed indistinctly through the falling night, swinging at the side of the quay. "That's mine, yonder," he said, nodding toward it. And then, with the graceful, engaging frankness that I already knew as ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... thole, probably by means of a button. The remainder of the crew comprised the captain, the steersman, the petty officers, and the sailors proper, or those whose office it was to trim the sails and look to the rigging. The trireme of Persian times had, in all cases, a mast, and at least one sail, which was of a square shape, hung across the mast by means of a yard or spar, like the "square-sail" of a modern vessel. The rudder was composed of two broad-bladed oars, one on either side of the stern, united, however, by a cross-bar, and managed by a single ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... the part of the Captain, and more clawing on the part of Tommy, before he could be convinced that the cabin was as safe as the mast. At last he gave in and came down, and as the boat left the harbor he was purring contentedly, folded safely in the arms ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... the mast, letting two silvery bloaters slip through his hands overboard. His handsome, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... out of a tarpaulin, and stepped a mast well forward, and with other things we took signal-pennants and a British ensign, and from the foremast of the Kut Sang he flew a signal of distress and a message in the international code about pirates or some such thing, so that, in case Thirkle should get away in the ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... became colloquially holm, whence generally Holmes. Homewood is for holm-wood. The holm oak, ilex, is so called from its holly-like leaves. For Birch we also find Birk, a northern form. Beech often appears in compounds as Buck-; cf. buckwheat, so called because the grains are of the shape of beech-mast. In Poppleton, Popplewell we have the dialect popple, a poplar. Yeo sometimes represents yew, spelt yowe by Palsgrave. [Footnote: The yeo of yeoman, which is conjectured to have meant district, cognate with Ger. Gau in Breisgau, Rheingau, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... put David to bed. There was some delay in the process, because the little boy wished to look at the stars, and trace out the Dipper. That accomplished however, he was very docile, and willing to get into bed by shinning up the mast of a pirate-ship—which some people might have called a bedpost. After he had fallen asleep, Helena still sat beside him in the darkness, her absent eyes fixed on the little warm body, where, the sheets kicked ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... of Moll and her husband, telling him of their complete happiness, Moll's increasing womanly beauty, and the prosperous aspect of our affairs (for I had that day positive assurance our seal would be obtained within a month), I concluded by asking if his mast might not now be stepped, and he be in a position to come to Chislehurst and see her ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... sunny; sea and sky Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. 310 Following his eager soul, the wanderer Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea Like a torn cloud before ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... placed in it; but, just as he was rowed off he heard the cries of the ladies who were left behind, and caused the oarsmen to turn back for them. So many drowning wretches crowded into it, as soon as it came near, that it sank with their weight, and all were lost. Only the top-mast of the ship remained above water, and to it clung a butcher and the owner of the ship all night long. When daylight came, and the owner knew that the king's son was really dead, and by his fault, he lost heart, let go the mast and was drowned. Only the butcher was taken off alive; and ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a picnic, I can tell you. It blew like hell from the N.E., and the foretopmast—she was a barque—went like a carrot the second day. We hove to, trying to rig a jury mast, when up popped a Fritz."[1] The speaker laughed, a pleasant, deep laugh of complete enjoyment. "I thought we were in for a swim that would knock the cross-Channel record silly! However, I borrowed a suit from the skipper—and he wasn't ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... these little ones. Daytimes I am an interior decorator. This is a thirty-six. Next winter—if my wife will stand the muss (My God! How it litters up the dining-room!) I am going to build a forty-two. All of the boys bring out a new boat each spring!' The old fellow squinted at his mast and tightened a cord. Then he continued. 'If you are interested, come around any Sunday morning until the pond is frozen. And if you want to try your hand at a boat this winter, just ask any of us boys and we will help you. Your first boat or two will be ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... gybed, while the fore-topsail slatted a bit against the mast; and all the other sails remaining full and drawing, a slight shift of the helm sufficed to put the ship on her proper course. Still, the captain, now his blood was up, could not afford to lose such a good ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a roaring rose the mighty fire, And the pile crackled; and between the logs Sharp quivering tongues of flame shot out, and leapt Curling and darting, higher, until they lick'd The summit of the pile, the dead, the mast, And ate the shrivelling sails; but still the ship Drove on, ablaze above her hull with fire. And the gods stood upon the beach, and gazed; And while they gazed, the sun went lurid down Into the smoke-wrapt sea, and night came on. Then the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... us no good fortune. The very day after we left Kamtschatka, one of our best sailors fell from the mast-head into the scuttle, and immediately expired. He had climbed thither in safety in the most violent storms, and executed the most difficult tasks with ease; now, in fine weather, on a tranquil sea, he ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... said: By the driven snow-white and the living blood-red Of my bars and their heaven of stars overhead— By the symbol conjoined of them all, skyward cast, As I float from the steeple or flap at the mast, Or droop o'er the sod where the long grasses nod,— My name is as old as the glory of God So I came by ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... press this key," he said, "an electrical spark is sent up into the antenna, the big wire that you see suspended from the mast over the station, and is flung ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... of late autumn was in the air—delicately acrid—the scent of frost-killed brake and ripening wild grasses, of brilliant dead leaves and black forest loam pungent with mast from beech and oak. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... German, rushed below in a rage, thrust a burning fuse into a powder barrel, and sprang through a porthole into the sea. The whole of the deck was blown up, with two hundred sailors and soldiers; but the ship was so strongly built that she survived the shock, and her mast still stood. ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... across the square I looked up at the cathedral spire. It was swaying and rocking in the air like the mast of a ship at sea. The lace-work fell from it in blocks of stone. The people rushed screaming through the rain of death. Many were struck down, and lay where ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... went out to the extreme end of the bowsprit and gazed down into the deep blue sea, wondering whether its color was really due to excess of salt, or the presence of cuprate of ammonia. HORACE climbed to the top of the mast, where he sat sadly, observing the swindling waves, which came all the way from Europe, and didn't pay a cent of tax when they landed. Mr. HAGGARTY went to the stern, where he employed his time in cleaning out the sailor-man's pockets, while DELANO dived into the hold, to see if he couldn't ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 14, July 2, 1870 • Various
... cooked food and ate and rested two days. Then we set out again and sailed other twenty days, without seeing land; but the currents carried us out of our true course, so that the captain lost his reckoning and finding himself in strange waters, bade the watch go up to the mast-head and look out. So he climbed the mast and looked out and said "O captain, I see nothing to right and left save sky and water, but ahead I see something looming afar off in the midst of the sea, now black and ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... down, tak down the mast of gowd, Set up the mast of tree, It sets not a forsaken lady To ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fore and after braces, Mr. Broadrick; brace the fore and mizzen yards sharp up, leave the main braces fast, and lay the main topsail to the mast. As she comes to the wind let the jibs run down." He turned to the man at the wheel, ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... are all built in the same form and from a common model. They carry a mast and sail, although for the greater part of their journeys they are towed by their owners, or rather by the familles, wife and children, of the owner. Mynheer, the barge-owner, is usually to be seen smoking his pipe and taking his ease near the tiller. Formerly it was otherwise, for the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... Keer-Weer he fairly gives in that he could see nothing approaching a cape, but a slight projection being visible from the mast-head, out of respect to antiquity, he puts it down on his map. The "Vereenidge River" he concludes, has no existence, and the "Nassau River" turned out to be a lagoon at the back of a beach. Still the existence of anything approaching the reality of what was indicated on ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... the fringes. No, the Ghetto was all his world, and a mighty universe it was, full of everything that the heart of a child could desire. What an eager swarm of life in the great sunny square where the Venetian mast towered skywards, and pigeons sometimes strutted among the crowd that hovered about the countless shops under the encircling colonnade—pawnshops, old-clo' shops, butcher-shops, wherein black-bearded men with yellow ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... may be said to some extent of the Dupr or Du Pr family, 1486-1775; the two first, Jean or Jehan and Galliot, were the most celebrated. Of the dozen Marks employed by this family, the most original, it being the evident pun on his name, has a Galiote, at the head of the mast of which is the motto, "Vogue la Guallee," or sometimes "Vogue la Gualee" (see p.5). Jehan Du Pr the Lyons printer, used the accompanying Mark formed of his initials. The first as well as the most noted member of the Le Rouge family of printers was Pierre, ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts
... 1860 to 1864, he had in this brief period so won the hearts of men that in honor of his funeral the legislature and all the courts adjourned, the national authorities fired minute guns in the bay, while all the flags in the city and on the ships hung at half-mast, including those of the foreign consuls and those on the vessels of England, Russia, Hamburg, Columbia and France. It is believed that in American history no private individual has been so honored by the federal army ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... does fly a square red flag astern with a white edge. Her bows are viking or saucer-shaped, prettier than the usual fiddle-bow we see here, and her high bulwarks on her long sloping quarter deck you feel must conceal brass guns. From beyond her the afternoon sun sends the shadows of her mast and stays in fine curves down the bend of her sail, the jib-boom is inboard and the jib flat against the lee of the main sail. She brings up the breeze with her, and our bamboo oars are pulled in and we go slipping across the water in silence, only the bows talking to the small waves. Now, ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... With Quin, who wanted him to stay another bottle; but he pleaded my lord's business. "Then," said Quin, "only stay till I have told you a story. A vessel was becalmed: the master called to one of the cabin-boys at the top of the mast, 'Jack, what are you doing?' 'Nothing, Sir.' He called to another boy, a little below the first, 'Will, what are you doing?' 'Helping Jack, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... barge I'll surely have, the same as Egypt's Queen, And it will be the finest barge that ever you have seen; With polished mast of stout pitch pine, tipped with a ball of gold, And two green trees in two white tubs placed just abaft ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 5, 1917 • Various
... information, he took his sister for a drive through the town. There for the first time Rena saw great ships, which, her brother told her, sailed across the mighty ocean to distant lands, whose flags he pointed out drooping lazily at the mast-heads. The business portion of the town had "an ancient and fishlike smell," and most of the trade seemed to be in cotton and naval stores and products of the sea. The wharves were piled high with cotton bales, and there ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... in further proof thereof, shall, on said first day of February, at noon, cause the Spanish flag to be hoisted over Fort Columbus, in New York Harbor; Fort Warren, in Boston Harbor; the Navy Yard, in Washington; and at the mast-head of the flag-ship of the North Atlantic squadron—then and there to be saluted ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... in use, arranged in groups of five,—three below and two above,—the five persons occupying them also eating together. The Moravians chose their places in the center of the ship, on either side of the main mast, where the ventilation was best, and there would be most fresh air when they reached warmer latitudes. "The number of people on the ship is rather large, for we are altogether one hundred and fifty ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... stocks, in the ports of Brest or Toulon. The vessels in process of construction are under a bell-glass there, as it were. This colossal beam is a yard; that great column of wood which stretches out on the earth as far as the eye can reach is the main-mast. Taking it from its root in the stocks to its tip in the clouds, it is sixty fathoms long, and its diameter at its base is three feet. The English main-mast rises to a height of two hundred and seventeen feet above the water-line. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... midnight. There appeared to be an occult understanding between it and the blue-jackets. Years ago there was a young Bilkins, one Pendexter Bilkins—a sad losel, we fear—who ran away to try his fortunes before the mast, and fell overboard in a gale off Hatteras. "Lost at sea," says the chubby marble slab in the Old South Burying-Ground, "aetat. 18." Perhaps that is why no blue-jacket, sober or drunk, was ever repulsed from the ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... erratic officer, had lost half a year's pay. The magnitude of the disaster was almost national, he felt, and sadly, shyly, he said: "Will you have the flag at half-mast, Colonel?" ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... mouth of the bay and a quarter of a mile from the shore, when the wind suddenly stopped. Finding that the current was carrying the ship towards the mouth, an anchor was thrown overboard, after having made it fast to the big mast so that if it did not catch the bottom it would not be lost. It was found that the anchor held. Two more anchors were made ready to drop in case the big one should drag. When the wind stopped and the current ceased, the vessel was found to be ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... who so merry as we? I passed three years in that charming profession, and then, signor, I grew ambitious. I caballed against the captain; I wanted his post. One still night we struck the blow. The ship was like a log in the sea,—no land to be seen from the mast-head, the waves like glass, and the moon at its full. Up we rose,—thirty of us and more. Up we rose with a shout; we poured into the captain's cabin,—I at the head. The brave old boy had caught the alarm, and there he stood at the doorway, ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... little sympathy for that folly," said Taffril"indeed I cannot be supposed to have any; for, speaking of my relations, I may be said to have come myself from before the mast, and I believe I shall very soon form a connection, which the world will think low enough, with a very amiable girl, to whom I have been attached since we were next-door neighbours, at a time when I little thought of the good ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... accustomed way. The low velvet band of forest against the sky; the dim squares of the log-houses punctuated with their dots of lamplight; the masses of the Storehouse, the stockade, the Factory; the long flag-staff like a mast against the stars; the constant impression of human life and activity,—these anodynes of accustomedness steadied these men's faith to the supremacy ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... thy name spoken When down came the mast; His hold was then broken, That word was his last. A picture is lying, Lorn maid! on his breast— That picture in dying ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... beating over the deck of the bark. It was clear enough that she must go to pieces before morning. Her bulwarks were stove on the weather side of her; and while I was looking at her the foremast went by the board. I saw that the step of the mast must have been torn away by ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... again, but it did not blow as hard as it had during the night and early morning. I ventured a little more canvas and although the mast and rigging strained loudly, nothing got away. The speed of the sloop was increased, especially so as I kept at the pump and ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... is found to affect the harvest, it may too often betoken scarcity, discontent, and turbulence, as such are the times when all grievances, either real or imaginary, are brought forward for redress. The origin of the superstition of sailors, of nailing a horse-shoe to the mast, is to me unaccountable, unless it may have been, like the following trial of the credulity of the superstitious by some person for amusement:—Sailors sometimes make a considerable pecuniary sacrifice for the acquisition of a child's caul, the retaining ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... not. Maybe he's that way with every girl under forty. I've never seen him work, but I've seen him in the midst of that Newport bunch and they've got me lashed to the mast for ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... crowd was waiting round a new boat decorated all over with garlands; its mast, sail, and ropes were covered with long ribbons which fluttered in the breeze, and its name, "Jeanne," was on the stern in gilt letters. Old Lastique was the master of this boat that the baron had had built, and he advanced ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... the eye of the hurricane," Captain Fairclough shouted, in Lindsay's ear. "The men at the wheel tell me she has been twice round the compass, already; but this broken sea would, alone, tell that. We must get a little sail on the main mast, and try ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... course, made up the crews. The boats were loaded in the evening of Jan. 6th, as it had been necessary to give the paint a little time to dry. On the 4th, I had sent Clayton and Mulholland to the nearest cypress range for a mast and spar, and on the evening of that day some blacks had visited us; but they sat on the bank of the river, preserving a most determined silence; and, at length, left us abruptly, and apparently in great ill humour. In the disposition of the loads, I placed all the flour, the ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... the Blue Peter that fluttered from the fore-mast, and then at Spike. The Bowery boy's face was stolid and expressionless. He was smoking a short wooden pipe with an air ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... proved to be Ellsworth's famous Zouave Regiment, made up largely of the firemen and "Bowery boys" of New York City. Ellsworth, while marching through the streets at the head of his command, saw a Confederate flag floating from a mast on top of a dwelling. With two of his men he proceeded to enter the house, go on the roof, and tear down the flag. As he came down the stairs, a man carrying a gun stepped from a doorway, and demanded what he did there. "This is my trophy," cried Ellsworth, flourishing the bit of striped bunting. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... in triumph. "That broken mast is a trick of the artist. There lies the story. You instantly think of a wrecked ship; you see men, catastrophes, weeping widows and sweethearts; the spar becomes the central point of the picture, and you forget ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... usher in the sunrise Mass of this memorable Christmas day. The royal standards of the mighty Lion drooped at half-mast before the dimmed magnificence of San Marco, their glowing gold and scarlet deadened to shades of mourning steel; and low, muffled tones, like the throbbings of the heart of a people, dropped down ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... indeed, appear as if von Kluck was right. A big cargo steamer, now dimly discernible to the boys, was rolling in the trough of a heavy sea, urged on by a vicious wind from the northwest. Her range lights showed clearly at the mast heads. A gleam of red indicated that the vessel was showing her port side. With every roll great masses of water boarded the weather rail, sweeping the decks of every ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... contention at present," interposed Pym, "is not, even if veracious, inconsistent with the lunatico-criminal view of I. Smith, which we have nailed to the mast. Science has long anticipated such a complication. An incurable attraction to a particular type of physical woman is one of the commonest of criminal per-versities, and when not considered narrowly, but in the light of ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... Sweet-Alice-Ben-Bolt, because it very nearly weeps with delight when you give it a smile and trembles with fear at your frown. The Deacon is of that large and austere order of persons who "like dogs, in their place"; S.A.B.B. wears his stumpy, little tail at half mast whenever the head of the house ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... only a common man afore the mast, so it's like impidence for me to offer to share the responsibility with a young gent like you. But being half as old again, I may say I know a little of what a man ought to do in a case like this; and I say that as you're ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... east and facing the door of the pagoda, has some structures like verandahs, small and low, where sit some JOGIS;[385] and inside this enclosure, which has other little pagodas of a reddish colour, there is a stone like the mast of a ship, with its pedestal four-sided, and from thence to the top eight-sided, standing in the open air. I was not astonished at it, because I have seen the needle of St. Peters at Rome, which is ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... little squadron to turn back; but she had to fulfil her destiny. This same day, a fog, a very unusual occurrence in summer-time, extended all over the Channel, and caused her to escape the fleet; for it was such a dense fog that one could not see from stern to mast. It lasted the whole of Sunday, the day after the departure, and did not lift till the following day, Monday, at eight o'clock in the morning. The little flotilla, which all this time had been sailing haphazard, had got among so many reefs that if the fog had lasted some ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the crowned sword, To bear it would break my vow; And fetch ye hither a vessel's mast, I'll ...
— The King's Wake - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... of the water, so high that it could not come down again. Then they came to another island, round and shining. Here they found Hippogypi, men riding upon vultures—birds so large that each of their feathers was like the mast of a ship. The voyagers join the Hippogypi in a battle against the inhabitants of the sun, and have various allies—some mounted on fleas about the size of twelve elephants, and spiders, each as ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... the ship. He cleared the decks, and plied the bailing-scoop, and stood long tedious watches. He helped to tent over the vessel's decks at night, and to stow away the huge canvas in the morning. He ground grain for the hungry crew, and kept the great mead-vat filled that stood before the mast for the shipmates to drink from. He prepared the food and carried it around and cleared the remnants away again. He was at the beck and call of forty rough voices; he was the one shuttlecock among ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... boldly on board for the purpose of obtaining knives, hatchets, or any thing they can get. They have a few canoes of small dimensions, capable of containing ten or twelve people, but are not very expert in the management of them, although they are so far advanced as to make use of a mast and sail, which latter is constructed of a sort of mat. They seem to be little addicted to the water, and none were seen amongst them; who could swim. In their fishing excursions, the natives are generally very successful, and those who pursue this mode of obtaining their livelihood, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Grasmere, in the Lake country, and the next year republished the Lyrical Ballads with a new volume, both of which passed to another edition in 1802. With this edition, Wordsworth ran up his revolutionary flag and nailed it to the mast. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... corner of many of the squares, or blocks of buildings, as they are termed here, is erected a very high mast, with a cap of liberty upon the top. The only idea we have of the cap of liberty is, the bonnet rouge of the French; but the Americans will not copy the French, although they will the English; so they have a cap of their ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... devil tempting him by the worldly suggestion of fitting out his desultory, miraculous trough with mast, sail, and rudder for swifter progression (the idea of haste has sprung from the pride of Satan), the simple old saint lent his ear to the subtle arguments of ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... second base and with our headquarters at the home plate and our artillery support at third. Our readers will at once grasp the fact that, with our advance pivoted on the pitcher's box and with adequate cover at short, the thing is a lead-pipe cinch, —in fact, we have them lashed to the mast. ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... trench, no man will put a rampart round, nor keep watch, nor expose himself to danger, but will appear to be useless for the purposes of an army. Again, in a vessel if you go as a sailor, keep to one place and stick to it. And if you are ordered to climb the mast, refuse; if to run to the head of the ship, refuse; and what master of a ship will endure you? and will he not pitch you overboard as a useless thing, an impediment only and bad example to the other sailors? ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... stores, and get to sea tomorrow before dark!" That's what I said. "That's good enough," says the consul, "and you can count yourself damned lucky, Brown," says he. And he said it pretty meaningful-appearing, too. However, that's all one now. I'll ship Huish before the mast—of course I'll let him berth aft—and I'll ship you mate at seventy-five dollars and ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... type Sorgfaltigkeit Spalatin Spenlein, Georg "Spiritual" authority birth contrasted with temporal when to be resisted estate finery wickedness Spirituales Spiritualia Staupitz Still Mass Suffering sanctified by Christ second step of faith Sunday Superstition in the Mast ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... of our arrival there, and the room was not yet quite rearranged; but the boys were roaming unrestrained about a large and airy yard, as any other schoolboys might have done. Some of them had been drawing large ships upon the schoolroom wall; and if they had a mast with shrouds and stays set up for practice (as they have in the Middlesex House of Correction), it would be so much the better. At present, if a boy should feel a strong impulse upon him to learn the art of going aloft, he could only gratify it, I presume, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... Madeira, surveying through his spy-glass a stranger of suspicious appearance making sail towards him. On his firing a gun ahead of her to bring her to, she ran up a flag, which he instantly recognised as the flag from the mast in the back-garden ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
... all he had been called upon to do, and was standing leaning against the mast, when Ike ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... comfort you with chance, Assure yourself, after our ship did split, When you, and those poor number sav'd with you, Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother, Most provident in peril, bind himself, Courage and hope both teaching him the practice, To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea; Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back, I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves So long ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... the sails!" shouted Donadieu. Instantly Langlade and Blancard jumped forward to carry out the order. The sail slid down the mast and fell in a heap in the bottom ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of "victory!" the sight of the Christian standard at the mast-head of Ali's ship, the news of his death, which spread from ship to ship, gave new courage to the allies and robbed the Turks of spirit. They fought on, but more feebly. Many of their vessels were boarded and taken. Others were sunk. After ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... Australian and South African savages, we need feel no doubt on this head. The inhabitants of Switzerland during the Stone-period largely collected wild crabs, sloes, bullaces, hips of roses, elderberries, beech-mast, and other wild berries and fruit.[526] Jemmy Button, a Fuegian on board the Beagle, remarked to me that the poor and acid black-currants of Tierra del Fuego were too sweet for ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... and ingenious as he was brave. He fastened weatherboards along the rim of the canoe to prevent shipping water; he fitted it with a mast and sail, and coated it with tar; and while he was doing it the Admiral wrote a brief, businesslike letter to Ovando, telling of the sad plight they were in; he also wrote a long, rambling letter, full of evidence ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... comrades as I have journeyed around the world, before the mast and in the trenches, but loyal and true as they were, none have ever done, or could ever do, as much as you have done for me. So as a little token of my gratitude for your love and sacrifice I dedicate ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... stray, lolling mast of steel, here or yonder, thrusting up from the desolation, like a mute appealing hand raised to ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... they tread the beech-mast, Now the ploughland's clay, Now the faery ball-floor of her fields in May. Now her red June sorrel, now her new-turned hay, Now they keep the great road, now by sheep-path stray, Still it's "England," ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... Greater Panathenaea a garment, embroidered with gold, called the Peplus, was specially woven by Athenian maidens, on which was represented the victory gained by Athene over the Giants. This garment was suspended to the mast of a ship which stood outside the city; and during the festival, which was characterized by a grand procession, the ship (with the Peplus on its mast) was impelled forward by means of invisible machinery, and formed the most conspicuous feature of the pageant. The whole population, bearing ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... It was a strange account, and one filled with surprising adventures. In most of the vessels in which she had served, Jack had acted in the steward's department, though she had frequently done duty as a fore-mast hand. In strength and skill she admitted that she had often failed; but in courage, never. Having been given reason to think her husband was reduced to serving in a vessel of war, she had shipped on board a frigate bound to the Mediterranean, and had actually made a whole cruise as a ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... suffered, and repent of his premature determination. To which remark he answered, the proof of my innocence would make his bowels vibrate with joy; "but till that shall happen," continued he, "I mast beg to have no manner of connection with you—my reputation is at stake. I shall be looked upon as your accomplice and abettor—people will say Jonathan Wild was but a type of me-boys will hoot at me as I pass along; and the ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... success of the experiment was proof of his genius. The body of his artificial bird, boat-shaped, was 13 1/2 ft. in length, with a breadth of 4 ft. at the widest part. The material was cloth stretched over a wooden framework; in front was a small mast rigged after the manner of a ship's masts to which were attached poles and cords with which Le Bris intended to work the wings. Each wing was 23 ft. in length, giving a total supporting surface of nearly 220 sq. ft.; the weight of the whole apparatus ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... sound, a purring rustle of leaves, stopped me instantly as I climbed the beech ridge, one late afternoon, to see what wood folk I might surprise feeding on the rich mast. Pr-r-r-r-ush, pr-r-r-r-ush! a curious combination of the rustling of squirrels' feet and the soft, crackling purr of an eagle's wings, growing nearer, clearer every instant. I slipped quietly behind the nearest tree to ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... wreck, and appeared to be completely deserted. The chief hold of the fire was amidships, and the lower deck was one mass of flame. Here and there were great charred rifts and gaps in her sides, and the red-hot fire glowed through these as through the bars of a grate. The main-mast had fallen on the starboard side, and trailed a blackened wreck in the water, causing the unwieldy vessel to lean over heavily. The fire roared like a cataract, and huge volumes of flame-flecked smoke poured up out of the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... nights are nearly equal, and their seasons differ little in temperature; and as no outrageous winds swell their seas into storms, navigation among them is safe and easy. Their small barks called catamorans have only a large bough of a tree set up in the middle, serving as mast and sail; the master steers only with an oar, and the passengers sit on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... decided to go on; but the masterly way in which Mr. Rowe spoke of the world made me think he must have seen a good deal of it, and when we had looked our last upon the island, and had crept with lowered mast under an old brick bridge where young ferns hung down from the archway, and when we were once more travelling between flat banks and coppices that gave us no shelter, I said to the barge-master—"Have you ever been at ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... greatest want is, you want much of meat: Why should you want? Behold, the Earth hath Rootes: Within this Mile breake forth a hundred Springs: The Oakes beare Mast, the Briars Scarlet Heps, The bounteous Huswife Nature, on each bush, Layes her full Messe before you. Want? why Want? 1 We cannot liue on Grasse, on Berries, Water, As Beasts, and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... shiver into thousands of fragments, others pass our vessel's side, hard as iron, to be wafted on to the Gulf Stream, there to come under a warmer influence. This Arctic scene causes our captain and his officers to look rather serious, and they mount at times to the fore-topgallant mast. Did we but know the dangers which beset us through yielding to the allurements of the world, how often would we also mount aloft, and get upon, our watch-tower and ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... voluntary pen-work), I lose all presential memory of what I had intended to say, and say what I can, talk about Vincent Bourne or any casual image, instead of that which I had meditated (by the way, I mast look out V. B. for you). So I had meant to have mentioned "Yarrow Visited," with that stanza, "But thou that didst appear so fair:" [1] than which I think no lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry. Yet the poem, on ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... superior to the French in vessels and weight of metal; the fight lasted ten hours; the French squadron was broken, disorder ensued in the manoeuvres; the captains got killed one after another, nailing their colors to the mast or letting their vessels sink rather than strike; the flag-ship, the Ville de Paris, was attacked by seven of the enemy's ships at once, her consorts could not get at her; Count de Grasse, maddened with grief and rage, saw all his crew falling around him. "The admiral is six foot every ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... assist in propelling the ship. The City of Rome is rigged with four masts; and here the handsome full-ship rig of the Inman line has been adhered to, with the addition of the fore and aft rigged jigger mast, rendered necessary by the enormous length of the vessel. It will be seen that the distinctive type of the Inman line has not been departed from in respect to the old fashioned but still handsome profile, with clipper bow, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 303 - October 22, 1881 • Various
... "Raleigh" hoisted her colors and the headmost frigate "hoisted St. George's ensign." "We gave her a broadside which she returned, tacked and came up on our lee quarter and gave the "Raleigh" a broadside," which carried away its foretopmast and mizzentop gallant mast, which, to "the unspeakable grief" of Captain Barry, caused him, "in a great measure, to lose command" of the "Raleigh," "determined to victory" as he was. "The enemy plied his broadsides briskly, which was returned ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... sort of wharf. All this was black in the falling dusk, and I could just distinguish the whitish ruts of a cart- track stretching over the marsh towards the higher land, far away. Not a sound was to be heard. Against the low streak of light in the sky I could see the mast of Powell's cutter moored to the bank some twenty yards, no more, beyond that black barn or whatever it was. I hailed him with a loud shout. Got no answer. After making fast my boat just astern, I walked along the bank to have a look at Powell's. Being so much bigger ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... beautifully-constructed instruments, and have been the scene of a series of observations and discoveries of the greatest interest and value. The stray holiday visitor to Greenwich Park, who feels tempted to look over the wooden paling, sees only a series of deal sheds, upon a rough grass-plat; a mast some eighty feet high, steadied by ropes, and having a lantern at the top, and a windlass below; and if he looks closer, he perceives a small inner inclosure, surrounded by a dwarf fence; an upright stand, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... And this it was: (for other meanes was none) The Sailors sought for safety by our boate, And left the ship then sinking ripe to vs. My wife, more carefull for the latter borne, Had fastned him vnto a small spare Mast, Such as sea-faring men prouide for stormes: To him one of the other twins was bound, Whil'st I had beene like heedfull of the other. The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I, Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fixt, Fastned our selues at eyther end the mast, And floating straight, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... weary tramp,—through bogs and sloshes, where the cypress knees stood up like sugar-loaves in the shallow water, or sometimes his steps were bent to some open glade, where the great oaks dropped sweet mast among the brown leaves. ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... in which he found himself was not by any means what we should style clipper-built—quite the reverse. It was short for its length, bluff in the bows, round in the stern, and painted all over, excepting the mast and deck, of a bright red colour, like a great scarlet dragon, or a gigantic boiled lobster. It might have been mistaken for the first attempt in the ship-building way of an infatuated boy, whose acquaintance with ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... been running day and night. That which poured, like pulverized snow, from the mouth of the flues into the pick-room—where the cotton fell before being pressed into bales—scarcely had time to be tramped down and packed off in baskets to the tall, mast-like screws which pressed the bales and bound them with ties, ere the seed cotton came pouring in again from wagon bed ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... and a lazy sea, And a wind so far from fast It barely floats the owner's flag That flutters at the mast— That flutters at the mast, my boys; So while the sky is free Of cloud we'll take a yachtsman's chance ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... the moon has been shining over the sea, making a long, broad pathway of brightness, a ship, as it sails along, suddenly come into that bright track? It is a beautiful sight; just for one moment every mast and sail all stand out with such distinctness that you say, "Oh, I can see her now perfectly!" Then, while you look, she has crossed the shining path, and you can but just trace her dim outline, and know that a ship is ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... vncoue e clowde[gh] ful nere Cast to kingdoms uncouth the clouds ful near, Hit waltered on the wylde flod, went as hit lyste It tossed on the wild flood, went as it list, Drof vpon e depe dam, in daunger hit semed It drove upon the deep dam, in danger it seemed, With-outen mast, oer myke, oer myry bawe-lyne Without mast, or mike,[16] or merry bow-line, Kable, oer capstan to clyppe to her ankre[gh] Cable or capstan to clip to their anchors, Hurrok, oer hande-helme hasped on roer Oar or hand-helm hooked on rudder, Oer any sweande ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... offices were performed in the most scrupulously private manner, the feelings of the community could not be repressed. From nine till eleven o'clock that day all the British shipping in the docks and the river, from London Bridge to Gravesend, hoisted their flags half-mast high, and minute guns were fired from appointed stations along the Thames. The same mournful ceremony was observed in all the ports of England and Ireland; and not only in these, for the flag was half-mast high on every British ship at Antwerp, ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... simple in construction, the base consisting of an equilateral triangle made of beams and provided at the corners with runners. The two front runners are fixed, but the one at the apex of the triangle is pivoted, and serves as a rudder. The mast is on the front cross beam, and between the front cross beam and the side beams sufficient space is left for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... feet had been heard along the Gold City streets. The soldiers from Camp Sheridan had marched in line with the local militia, and a few trembling veterans who knew more of real war than either. "Old Glory" on the court house had been at half-mast, the children had scattered flowers on a few flag-marked graves, while faltering voices of age read the Grand Army Ritual. The public exercises in ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... stories of their own knowledge at table of their masts being shivered from top to bottom, and sometimes only within and the outside whole, but among the rest Sir W. Rider did tell a story of his own knowledge, that a Genoese gaily in Leghorn Roads was struck by thunder, so as the mast was broke a-pieces, and the shackle upon one of the slaves was melted clear off of his leg without hurting his leg. Sir William went on board the vessel, and would have contributed towards the release of the slave whom Heaven ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Ethne spoke she raised her eyes from the ground. She saw that the little boat which she had noticed tacking up the creek while she hesitated upon the terrace had run its nose into the shore. The sail had been lowered, the little pole mast stuck up above the grass bank of the garden, and upon the bank itself a man was standing and staring vaguely towards the house as though not very sure ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... achieved. One night, when they were all out in Bliss Bridge's single-sticker—a fast-sailing saucer—Stephanie and Forbes Gurney sat forward of the mast looking at the silver moon track which was directly ahead. The rest were in the cockpit "cutting up"—laughing and singing. It was very plain to all that Stephanie was becoming interested in Forbes Gurney; and since he was charming and she wilful, nothing ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... all to go back—the longest afternoons must end, and the letter B, a square flag with a red middle, which is hoisted to recall them, is already displayed on the Britannia's mast. ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... Does she know her port, Though she goes so far about? Or blind astray, does she make her sport To brazen and chance it out? I watched when her captains passed: She were better captainless. Men in the cabin, before the mast, But some were reckless and some aghast, And some sat ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... upon the seas. "But where," and I turned to our crew—"where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of flowers and clustering corymbi? Whither have fled the noble young men that danced with them?" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the mast-head, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried out, "Sail on the weather beam! Down she comes upon us: in seventy seconds she also ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... been depressing in the extreme. Boston had hung her flags at half-mast for the brave dead. But suddenly a report came that the Constitution had been victorious, and that the Guerriere after having been disabled beyond any power of restoration, had been sent to ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... the water which a given measure of air contains by absorbing it in tubes with chloride of calcium, calcined sulphate of copper, or sulphuric acid. It would be easy to arrange an instrument for this purpose so that the whole work could be done under deck, the air from any stratum under the mast-top being examined at will. If I had had the means to make such an examination at the Vega's winter quarters, it would certainly have appeared that the relative humidity of the air at a height of some few metres above the surface ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... inevitable bitterness of awakening sobriety, when the dying down of the flames into sullen embers coincided with the frenzied entrance of Aunt Eliza on the scene. It was not so much that she was at once and forever disrated, broke, sent before the mast, and branded as one on whom no reliance could be placed, even with Edward safe at school, and myself under the distant vigilance of an aunt; that her pocket money was stopped indefinitely, and her new Church Service, the pride of her last birthday, removed from her own custody and placed ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... of the vessel, began to call upon him for assistance. Not immediately obtaining their request, they took the image out of the shrine, abused it, called it every vile name that they could think of, and ended with tying it against the main-mast, and beating ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Gruft, die fiel ihr nach,[5] schlung mich in ihren Schoss. Ich gab mich in die See, in der es grausam wittert' Der Sturm flog klippenhoch. Mein Schiff, das ward gesplittert, Ward leck, ward Anker[6] quit, ward Mast[6] und Segel[6] bloss. Vor, um und hinter mir war nichts als eine Noth; Von oben Untergang, von unten auf der Tod, Es war kein Muttermensch, der mit mir hatt' Erbarmen. Ich aber war mir gleich, zum Leben frisch und froh, Zum Sterben auch ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... rooms, a black picture of a storm, in which there appeared on the near sea, just about to be overwhelmed by an enormous breaker, curling right over it, an object at first sight liable to be taken for a walnut shell, but which, on close examination, proved to be a ship with mast and sail, with Christ and his twelve disciples in it. This is childish exaggeration, because it is impossible, by the laws of matter and motion, that such a breaker should ever exist. Again in mountains, we have repeatedly ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... beginning of the fight for the first pass, yet all the rest of the day my Lord was in the van, and continued so. That notwithstanding all this noise of the Prince, he had hardly a shot in his side or a man killed, whereas he above 30 in her hull, and not one mast whole nor yard: but the most battered ship of the fleet, and lost most men, saving Captain Smith of the Mary. That the most the Duke did was almost out of gun-shot: but that, indeed, the Duke did come up to my Lord's rescue after he had a great while fought with four of them. How poorly Sir ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... Francisco; Yankee whalers, seal- hunters, and fur-traders sought the northwest coast and passed on to China to bring back to Boston and Salem the products of the far east. [Footnote: R. H. Dana, Two Years before the Mast.] But Spain's possession was not secure. The genius for expansion which had already brought the Russians to Alaska drew them down the coast even to California, and in 1812 they established Fort Ross at Bodega Bay, a few miles below the mouth of Russian River, north of San Francisco. This ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... amazement, I saw that the boat had stopped entirely, although the sail was full and the small pennant fluttered from the mast-head. Something, too, was tugging at the rudder, twisting and jerking it until the tiller strained and creaked in my hand. All at once it snapped; the tiller swung useless and the boat whirled around, heeling in the stiffening ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... on the 19th day of March 1694-95, when we spied a sail, our course SE. and by S. We soon perceived it was a large vessel, and that she bore up to us, but could not at first know what to make of her, till, after coming a little nearer, we found she had lost her main-topmast, fore-mast, and bowsprit; and presently she fired a gun as a signal of distress. The weather was pretty good, wind at NNW. a fresh gale, and we soon came to speak with her. We found her a ship of Bristol, bound home from ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... say in New England that few and fewer pigeons visit us every year. Our forests furnish no mast for them. So, it would seem, few and fewer thoughts visit each growing man from year to year, for the grove in our minds is laid waste,—sold to feed unnecessary fires of ambition, or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a twig left for them to perch on. They ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... still a wilderness, with boundless forests stretching westward, broken only here and there by the clearings of the pioneers. He was taken from college (Yale) when still a lad, and sent to sea in a merchant vessel, before the mast. Afterward he entered the navy and did duty on the high seas and upon Lake Ontario, then surrounded by virgin forests. He married and resigned his commission in 1811, just before the outbreak of the war with ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Ancona sang half a dozen songs, Barnes did his darling imitations, Handing Davis sang the hanging of Danny Deever, which was of course good, but he followed it with that mast fascinating (for what reason I don't know) of all Kipling's poems, "On the Road to Mandalay," sang it tenderly, & it searched me deeper & charmed me more than ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... before I got into the air, that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... "That kind of building has been suggested as ultra-modern architecture. They don't have an external steel frame. There's a central mast from which all the floors are hung. They have to be braced by cables, which make catenary curves like ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... with ropes on the shore; but I only saw, as the tempest moaned, to swell again, one figure on a bending mast, between sea and sky, and one in a frail ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... concern had been for the boys, brought his hand down on his knee earnestly. "Then I'm with you, lads, till the last mast carries away. You're the pilot in these waters, Charley. What course ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... with a resolve of the Provincial Congress to prevent Tories from conveying out their effects, the inhabitants of Falmouth, in the north-eastern part of Massachusetts, had obstructed the loading of a mast ship. The destruction of the town was determined on as a vindictive punishment. Captain Mowat, detached for that purpose with armed vessels by Admiral Graves, arrived off the place on the evening of the 17th of October. He gave notice to the inhabitants that he would give them two hours 'to remove ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Navy, whose career at his entrance upon the duties of his office, would have been nobly maintained by that ability and vigor of which his whole previous life had been the guaranty, the flags of all vessels in commission, navy-yards, and stations are to be hoisted at half-mast on the day after the receipt of this order, minute guns to the number of seventeen are to be fired between sunrise and sunset, and crape is to be worn on the left arm and upon the sword for the space ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson |
