"Tarpaulin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... found nothing. Then Julia begged them to be silent. She whispered, "Alfred!" And instantly a faint voice issued from the top of a waggon laden with hay and covered with a tarpaulin. "Julia." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... and which passed on one side of our cottage. My father had cut from a cellar in the cottage into the drain, and as it was large enough for a man to kneel down in, he used to come in at low water with his coble, and make fast the goods, properly secured from the wet and dirt in tarpaulin bags, to a rope, which led from the cellar to the sea through the drain. When the water had flowed sufficiently to cover the mouth of the drain, he then threw the bags overboard, and, securing the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... through the tumbling waters. But Bill soon saw that if she was to handle in such a sea he would have to reduce speed or risk getting swamped. He therefore throttled down the engine and rigged a tarpaulin over the bow to keep out the wave crests, part of which came ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... rate, was the creed of her who sat now on the deck of this labouring steamer as it ploughed its passage home, where were her friends and her lover. The tarpaulin had proved unnecessary, for she was sheltered by the deck-buildings from spray. Her book was also unnecessary, for she was more congenially occupied in this pleasant web of thought, and she sat there in her big fur cloak—for the wind ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... settle his father's portion on him" The young ladies, who thought themselves too much concerned to contain themselves any longer, set up their throats all together against my protector—"Scurvy companion—saucy tarpaulin—rude, impertinent fellow, did he think to prescribe to grandpapa? His sister's brat had been too well taken care of. Grandpapa was too just not make a difference between an unnatural, rebellious son and his dutiful, loving ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... though irreverent, was decidedly peaceful. He was unarmed, and wore the ordinary cape of tarpaulin and sea boots of a mariner. Except a villainous smell of codfish, there was little ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... backs on the cove, the pier, the white tents of the quartermasters, the tarpaulin-covered piles of provision-boxes, and the throng of soldiers, insurgents, and refugees on the beach, we climbed a steep bank, crossed the railroad-track just west of the red-iron bridge, and joined a company of the Second Infantry on its way ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... the winter appeared, with its cold winds, its ghost-like mists, and the damps and shiverings that cling about the sepulchre in which Nature lies sleeping. The boat was carefully laid up, across the rafters of the barn, well wrapped in a shroud of tarpaulin. It was buried up in the air; and the Glamour on which it had floated so gaily, would soon be buried under the ice. Summer alone could bring them together again—the one from the dry gloom of the barn, the other from the cold ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... intending to ride for the point where the tarpaulin was being waved before it was too late. But as he wheeled Streak he realized that the havoc had been wrought, for the cattle nearest him were on their feet, snorting with fright—a sensation that had been communicated ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... erect the hut at Sanzey, but within an hour the field range was set up, and a piece of tarpaulin stretched over it to keep the rain off ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... breakfasted this morning, we prepared to cross, to assist us in which undertaking we contrived to construct a sort of punt by taking the wheels and axletrees off one of the carts. We then placed the body of the cart on a large tarpaulin, the shafts passing through holes cut for them, the tarpaulin tightly nailed round them. The tarpaulin was then turned up all round, and nailed inside the cart; by this means it was made almost water-tight. We then fastened our water-bags, filled with air, to the sides of the cart, six on ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... had arrived the eight men who were discovered to be in various stages of diphtheria were comfortably housed in a roomy building rudely constructed of logs, tar paper, and tarpaulin, with a small cook-house attached and Tommy Tate in charge. And before night had fallen the process of disinfecting the bedding, clothing, bunk-house, and cookery was well under way, while all who had been in immediate contact with the ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... here blessed tarpaulin go and do,' said Mr. Peggotty, with his face one high noon of enjoyment, 'but he loses that there art of his to our little Em'ly. He follers her about, he makes hisself a sort o' servant to her, he ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... to Mr. Cledd, Roger then instructed him to throw down a tarpaulin, which he did, and this we made fast about the twenty bags. Having taken several turns of a rope's end round the whole, Roger, carrying the other end, climbed hand-over-hand the rope by which we had lowered ourselves, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... the peaks were storm-hid, the afternoon was joyous. Berrie was a sweet companion. Under her supervision he practised at chopping wood and took a hand at cooking. At her suggestion he stripped the tarpaulin from her father's bed and stretched it over a rope before the tent, thus providing a commodious kitchen and dining-room. Under this roof they sat and talked of everything except what they should do if the father did not ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... brother had got his clothes on, he helped to hoist the sail, and again they flew onward and shoreward, along with the waves that seemed to be racing them; but all the same he kept grumbling and growling to himself in Gaelic. Meanwhile Macleod had got a huge tarpaulin overcoat and wrapped Johnny Wickes in it, and put him in the bottom ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... provided with a waterproof cloak and a sailor's tarpaulin hat, as a defence against the rain, which frequently falls. An umbrella would be totally useless, as the rain is generally accompanied by a storm, or, at any rate, by a strong wind; when we add to this, that it is necessary in some places to ride quickly, it will ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... ascends from the crew, instinctive and simultaneous. Nor does the loss of her lee-quarter boat, dipped under and torn from the davits, hinder them from adding a triumphant hurrah, the skipper himself waving his wet tarpaulin ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... long in getting the remainder of the oysters on board, and soon afterwards we had the cutter back at her old berth. Our first task, as soon as the craft was at anchor again, was to transfer our booty to the shore, where we spread them out on a large tarpaulin on the sand to die. The method pursued by the regular pearl-fishers, I believe, is to allow the fish to remain until they are in an advanced stage of decay, when the pearls are sought for amongst the putrid ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... has matches about him. Helped by my little short-lived lights, I examined the interior of the boat. There was absolutely nothing in it but a strip of old tarpaulin—used, as I guessed, to protect the boat, or something that it carried, ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... lay with her stem down-stream, and her after-part—her habitable quarters—covered by a black tarpaulin. A solitary man was at work shovelling coal out of her middle hold into a large metal bucket. As Tilda hobbled towards him he hoisted the full bucket on his shoulders, staggered across the towpath with it, and shot its contents into a manhole under the brick wall. Tilda drew near ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... somewhere on the firm flesh, in the robust spine, wherever I can penetrate or find foothold on the person, in the soul, of Moggridge the man. The enormous stability of the fabric; the spine tough as whalebone, straight as oak-tree; the ribs radiating branches; the flesh taut tarpaulin; the red hollows; the suck and regurgitation of the heart; while from above meat falls in brown cubes and beer gushes to be churned to blood again—and so we reach the eyes. Behind the aspidistra they see something: ...
— Monday or Tuesday • Virginia Woolf
... the beat of the waves, but I did not like the smell of the tent. It was stuffy. I had been generously given that shelter for my own, while the male members of the party slept by a log (not like one, J—— confessed to me) under a tarpaulin—I mean "tarp"—with stars above them except when obscured by fog. My cot was short and low and I am not, so that I spent the night tucking in the blankets. The puppies enjoyed it all thoroughly. Though they must have been surprised by the ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... ration had been taken to a covered hand-cart. The guard told them to push it, and at the same time handed them shovels and picks. Under escort they dragged this mysterious load, which was carefully covered with a tarpaulin, for about three miles to a very lonely spot. At last they came to a deep hole. They were compelled to back the cart to the brink of the pit, and were then curtly bidden to tip ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... reality so destructive of life. While working like Turks unloading the shells, some of the drivers were talking about a strange sight they had seen down the road near Albert (pronounced Albare), when loading up at the ammunition dump. They told us that huge contraptions covered with tarpaulin were lying on the side of the road, with six-pounder guns protruding from their sides; in conversation the drivers referred to them as land boats, and some, as land dreadnaughts. Speculation ran rife as to their purpose. We were soon to see. Next morning as dawn was breaking, "Stand ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... shouted to Will to stop that foolishness. He snatched both pipes and threw them overboard. The thought of being seen from shore was almost incitement enough for murder. They refused to turn a hand to anything that night, but sat sulking below the sloping roof of reeds and tarpaulin that did duty for a deck, wedged ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... mission are the gardens, cut up into small squares by strong board fences to prevent the soil from blowing away, each with a tarpaulin near by to spread over it at night. In this laborious way potatoes, cabbages and turnips are raised. In a large hothouse the missionaries raise tomatoes, lettuce, and also flowers, but for everything ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... provincial capital and had emerged into the open again last summer for a town-booming Rodeo twenty miles down the steel from Buckhorn. It looked like the dinosaur skeleton in the Museum of Natural History, with every vestige of its tarpaulin top gone. But Whinnie has already sewed together a canvas covering for its weather-beaten old roof-ribs, and has put clean wheat-straw in its box-bottom, so that it makes a kingly place for my two kiddies to play. I even spotted Dinkie, enthroned high on the big driving-seat, with a broken ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... the gate. There were three men in the waggon, and one of them was the Grinstun man, as cheerful as ever. What was in the waggon could not be seen, as it was covered over with buffalo robes and tarpaulin, but the detective could have sworn he saw it move, and give forth a sound not unlike a groan. Mr. Rawdon jumped down, telling a certain Jones of truculent countenance to drive on, as he guessed he'd walk the rest ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... shoes sticking out past the donkey-engine, just abaft the foremast; but the machinery hid the man from me. Presently a strip of canvas fluttered in the breeze, and Long Jim stood up, with a sail-needle and a length of sail-twine in his teeth, and cut out a square of tarpaulin on ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... the cellar as to attract the notice of the Algerines, who are insufferably suspicious about their wives and slaves. Therefore, we provided as much canvas as would cover the boat twice over, and as much pitch, tar and tallow, as would make it a kind of tarpaulin; as also earthen pots in which to melt our materials. The two carpenters and myself were appointed to this service in the cellar. We stopped up all chinks and crevices, that the fumes of these substances might not betray us. But we had not been long at work, when the smell of the melting ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... He was thought to be dead, but soon re-appeared at his post, with a strip of canvas about his waist, and fought bravely until the end of the action. Some days before the battle, a gentleman of Oswego gave one of the sailors a glazed tarpaulin hat, of the kind then worn by seamen. A week later the sailor re-appeared, and, handing him the hat with a semi-circular cut in the crown and brim, made while it was on his head by a cannon-shot, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... me on my mettle. I even went ashore for a moment to borrow a tarpaulin to lay over her knees, knowing I should have to make a voyage all the way back to-morrow to restore it. Then, when I had her tucked in, and set the ballast trim, I hoisted the sail, and sat beside her, with the tiller in one hand and the sheet in ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... got a small gun—yes, it's a twelve-pound carronade, under the tarpaulin, for'rard of their foremast, and they're clearin' it away for sarvice. We shall have something doin' 'fore ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... last trip was made and the goods piled on the beach and covered with a large tarpaulin, it was dark and all were utterly worn out by their labors. The girls had prepared an extra good supper, and of this they ate heartily and then sat around a little while, when they went ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... escapes and tragic scenes. There was a shipwreck in it, and passengers were brought ashore in the breeches buoy, just as she had seen sailors brought in on practice days over at the Race Point Lifesaving station. And there was a still form stretched out stark and dripping under a piece of tarpaulin, and a girl with long fair hair streaming wildly over her shoulders knelt ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... man. The windows have no glass; the door is a crazy affair; there is an unevenness in the setting of the lateral logs which compose its walls; the reed thatching has been patched where the weather has rotted it; and here and there small spreads of tarpaulin lend their aid in keeping out the snows of winter and the storms of summer. It occupies its place, a queer, squat sentry, standing midway between the cattle ford and the newer log wagon-bridge lower down the river toward its mouth, where it joins the giant Missouri some two hundred ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... found all right, in its great tarpaulin cover, and Tom had the latter taken off that he might go over every bit of mechanism. He made a few slight changes, and then got ready for the ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... sun beat down on the sand-hills in no gentle manner. The perspiration ran down the men's faces as they carried, and the flies were beginning to come. After lunch Job set up two impromptu wigwams, stringing a tarpaulin over each, and under these shelters the men rested till 4 P.M. By camping time the outfit had been moved up over the portage about a mile, and I had learned something more about what ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... when I was off guard I slept on the top of one of our armored trucks, under a tarpaulin. It's wonderful how we can sleep now anywhere, and we often have our clothes on for three days at a time. Many a time I sleep with all my equipment on. Get wet and dry it by keeping it on. We all have to do it. The idea of pajamas or baths as necessities seems funny. At one time I would sooner ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... will ye?" cried a fellow in a banged tarpaulin. "Did ye get a ball in the windpipe, that ye cough that way, worse nor a broken-nosed old bellows? Have done with your groaning, it's ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... swiftly, though looking just a little tired for a while until its decks and sails were dry and clean again, and I thought it was just like a bird that has shaken and plumed itself. I was sorry to leave it. The captain and the mate and the sailors, who had wrapped me up in their great, stiff tarpaulin coats and placed me in a safe corner where I could sit out and look, were also sorry that I ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... indifferent to it. They had already come to regard the vagaries of the weather as matters of no import. Mosquitoes and Indians were all they feared. On such nights many of them slept in the open under a tarpaulin, and when the water grew deep about them scooped out a drainage canal with a hand ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... young men, rangy in build, lean and hard from life in the saddle, bronzed like Indians, still-faced, and keen-eyed. Two of them appeared to be tired out, and lagged at the camp-fire duties. When the meager meal was prepared they sat, cross-legged, before a ragged tarpaulin, eating and drinking ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... the barn attending to the cattle. He had on a tarpaulin straw hat, and a farmer's frock of blue mixture that hung down below the tops of his cowhide boots. I looked sharply at the man, and found it was Mr. George Ripley. The "second horn" sounded; it aroused the dog, who howled ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... In fact, its roof was nearly a thousand feet thick. But since we had spread our blankets, the persistent waters had soaked down and through. The thousand-foot roof had a sprung a leak. Three separate and distinct streams of water ran as from spigots. I lowered my torch. The canvas tarpaulin shone with wet, and in its exact centre glimmered a pool of water three inches deep and at least two ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... down a sob, reached a little summer-house, into which she turned, pulled down some tarpaulin to cover her, and, crouching in the corner, lay still, her heart ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... rich a domain as any in the land!" The attempts of this poor sailor to obtain his rights were then represented. "He learned the bitter truth, gentlemen, that a poor seaman, a foremast hand, with a tarpaulin hat and round-jacket, stood little chance of being heard, as the accuser of the rich and the powerful—the men who walked abroad in polished beavers, and aristocratic broad-cloths." Aristocracy having once been brought upon the scene, was made to figure largely in several ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... the red comforter and tarpaulin hat of one of the breakmen showed itself a moment. Presently after, "Can't get on," was repeated by several voices in the various tones of assertion, interrogation, and impatience. The women folks, having nobody ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Dark-skinned, wild-eyed, ragged, very dirty, they had never seen the sea before, and the sight of a porpoise held them spellbound. They lived on the after-deck, mostly cooking their own food, the women and children sleeping beneath a large tarpaulin that the sailors stretched for them across the width of deck. At night they played their pipes and danced, singing, shouting, and waving their arms—always the same tune over ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... in which we assisted, produced something a trifle more nautical and seaworthy than the first craft. The ground with a few boards spread upon it was the deck. Tarpaulin sheets were arranged on sticks to represent sails, and we located the vessel so cleverly that two slender trees shot out of the middle of it and served as ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... dress coat, silk cap, and kid gloves of an undergraduate at Cambridge, to the loose duck trowsers, checked shirt and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation, was soon made, and I supposed that I should pass very well for a jack tar. But it is impossible to deceive the practised eye in these matters; and while I supposed myself to be looking as salt as Neptune himself, I was, no doubt, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... it with a suspicion that it was to be our last on board, we were ordered on deck. Here we found the schooner hove-to, and all our people assembled, while alongside lay one of the schooner's boats, with oars and masts and sails, a water cask, and some hampers and cases of provisions. There was a tarpaulin, and the boat was fitted in other respects, as far as she could be, to perform a ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... the big shed attached to the gymnasium,—a place usually used for housing carriages and automobiles during athletic contests. Here one end was cleaned out and the Dartaway was rolled in, and the engine was covered with a tarpaulin brought ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... into Flanders, and presently to Gallipoli, but it seemed to have no effect upon the multitude in training at home. He was pleasantly excited by the evident increase in the proportion of military material upon the railways; he liked the promise and mystery of the long lines of trucks bearing tarpaulin-covered wagons and carts and guns that he would pass on his way to Liverpool Street station. He could apprehend defeat in the silence of the night, but when he saw the men, when he went about the land, then it was impossible to believe in any end ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... work. They lifted me, as it were, to an upper floor removed from the treacherously sighing Priscilla. But I came down quickly with a crash; no dexterous management of my mental resources could save me from the hemp-like smell of the ship, nor would leaning over the taffrail, nor lying curled under a tarpaulin. The sailors heaped pilot-coats upon us. It was a bad ship, they said, to be sick on board of, for no such thing as brandy was allowed in the old Priscilla. Still I am sure I tasted some before I fell into a state of semi-insensibility. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more-or-less indefinite purpose which had brought him hither. He joined a cluster of watchful persons who hopefully had collected before the scrolled and ornamented wooden entrance of a tarpaulin structure larger than any of the rest. From beneath the red-and-gold portico of this edifice there issued a blocky man in a checkered suit, with a hard hat draped precariously over one ear and with ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... day's march went well enough, though it covered no more than a few miles. At night they camped upon great squares of tarpaulin and in the morning resumed their webfooted way. But the night had not proved restful, for over the edges of every tarpaulin the eager grass had thrust impatient runners and when the time came to decamp more than half the canvases had been left in possession of the weed. The second day's ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... had asked permission from Captain Stuart to spend the night on shore with his brother, and just as he was going off from the ship for the last time. Simmonds, who had obtained his acting commission in place of Mr. Pascoe, said, "Archer, I should advise you to take a tarpaulin and a couple of bottles of rum. They will be useful before morning, I can tell you, for we are going to have ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... tarpaulin across the cheese, Jock, to keep them frae melting in the heat," came another voice. "And canny on the top there wi' thae big feet o' yours; d'ye think a cheese was made for you to dance on wi' your mighty brogues?" Then the voice sank to the hoarse, warning ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... or so below, he left Wilson on the sidewalk and vanished into a store whose windows were cluttered with ship's junk. Anchor-chains, tarpaulin, marlinspikes, ropes, and odd bits of iron were scattered in a confusion of fish nets. Stubbs emerged with a black leather bag so heavy that he was forced to ask Wilson to help him lift it ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... pleasant to reach the cool burrow, which served as our Battalion Headquarters. Here I found Colonel Canning, P.H. Creagh and Fawcus sitting on the yellow, dusty ground beneath a tarpaulin. It was thrilling once again to walk among our Manchester men, now very thin and sunburnt, in shirt-sleeves and shorts, making the best of life in narrow trenches, and watching day after day the serried Turkish lines and broad, brown mass of Achi Baba. ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... gulls come circling about the scene, and the ducks that live at the fishermen's houses come waddling down to see about any little fishes that may be thrown away upon the sand; and men with tarpaulin coats and flannel shirts sit on old anchors and lean up against the boats, smoking short pipes while they talk about cod, and mackerel, and mainsails and booms; and, best of all, the delightful sea-breeze comes sweeping in, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... of the new tote-road, the first man they saw was Orcutt, resplendent in striped mackinaw, Stetson hat, and high-laced boots. As the banker came toward them, McNabb stared about him in evident perplexity, his glance shifting from the piles of tarpaulin-covered material, to the loaded trucks that with a clash and grind of gears were just pulling out upon the new tote-road that stretched away between the tall balsam spires to ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... tree. Apparently it belonged to the structure of the cottage, but he could not, in the imperfect light, and the dazzling of the sun-spot at which he had been staring, make out what it was, or how it came to be up there—unsupported as far as he could see. He rose to examine it, lifted a bit of tarpaulin which hung before it, and found a rickety box, suspended by a rope from a great nail in the wall. It had two shelves in ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... and, holding up the lantern, looked down, to find an oldish man with sharp features, dark eyes, and grizzled beard, lying under a tarpaulin in the bottom of the boat. He was clothed only in a dressing gown and a blood-stained ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep.... At nine o'clock every night "the gun fired," the gun being mounted in a separate fortress made of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by a tarpaulin ... umbrella.— C. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... for women and children!" said the honest tar, drawing a large tarpaulin over the mother and child. Blinded and drenched by the pelting of the pitiless shower, Flora crouched down in the bottom of the boat, in patient endurance of what might befal. The wind blew piercingly cold; and the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... horses, Kermode," directed one of the party, and the team moved on again while the leader, walking beside the sled, hastily examined its load. Several small cases lay beneath a tarpaulin. ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... A tarpaulin of heavy canvas 17 x 6 feet goes under you, and can be, if necessary, drawn up to cover your head. We never used a tent. Since you do not have to pack your outfit on your own back, you can, if you choose, include a small pillow. Your other personal belongings are those you would ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... group of other men, standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... a.m. I was able at last to march on to join General Coke's Brigade in Colenso, and to get my guns into position. I was very exhausted and was feeling rather ill, but I was able to dine with the General under a tarpaulin and had much talk over old times in the Mauritius in 1898. It was a very wet evening, and my men who were bivouacking with no tents had a bad time of it. The sudden cessation of firing most of the day seemed to foreshadow some change at the front, and we found afterwards to our joy ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... China was a far cry from the China of my dreams ... the Cathay of Marco Polo, with its towers of porcelain.... I crept, to escape a cold drizzle, under the huge tarpaulin which covered a great stack of tinned goods—army supplies. A soldier on guard over the stack, an ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... note-books and entered the needful particulars. The lanky individual who had driven the coroner out brought forward a tarpaulin and spread it on the ground. With some difficulty the over-shoed foot was disengaged from the imprisoning stirrup, the body rolled in the tarpaulin and deposited in the rear of the doctor's cutter. The saddle and bridle were flung into the ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... humanity as to be strongly reminiscent of the lower troop-deck in stormy weather, when all the ports are shut and all the hatches are battened down! The excess of brilliancy which must not stream from the windows had been boarded in, and a tarpaulin was drawn over the skylight, in case the gunners of Meisje should be tempted to rouse the monster from her Sabbath quiet, and send in a ninety-four-pound shell to break up an orgy of godless Englanders. But the stuffiness made it all the snugger. You could fancy yourself in the pit of the Theayter ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a horse when much startled are highly expressive. One day my horse was much frightened at a drilling machine, covered by a tarpaulin, and lying on an open field. He raised his head so high, that his neck became almost perpendicular; and this he did from habit, for the machine lay on a slope below, and could not have been seen with more distinctness ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... down in Ratcliff Highway, and the sound of squeaking fiddles and trampling feet in many public-houses tell of festivity provided for Jack-along-shore. The emporiums of slop-sellers are illuminated for the better display of tarpaulin coats and hats, so stiff of build that they look like so many sea-faring suicides, pendent from the low ceilings. These emporiums are here and there enlivened by festoons of many-coloured bandana handkerchief's; and on every pane of glass in shop or tavern ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... dinner was a most gorgeous affair. We were determined to do everything in the best possible style, and everybody helped. We first rigged up a trestle table beside the train and stretched a tarpaulin above it to shelter us from the fierce heat. Three of our number were then despatched to secure all the green stuff they could for decorative purposes, and as the good people of De Aar were quite ready to give us some of their scanty flowers and allow us to dismember ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... speak, but now everything was done, even to having a quantity of coal on deck, and the clean white planks besmirched with the same black fuel. The paint-pots had altered everything; the figure-head was hidden with tarpaulin; the rigging, instead of being all ataunto, was what Smith called "nine bobble square," and one sail had been taken down and replaced by an old one very much tattered, so that up aloft we looked as if we had been ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... fat, red-faced man sitting bolt upright on the top of his 'bus in a driving storm of snow, fast asleep with a huge waterproof over his great-coat which descended with sweeping lines on to a tarpaulin. All this rose out of a cloud of steam from the horses. He had a short clay pipe in his mouth but, for the moment, he looked ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... that would fetch ye," she said, dragging away the hay and disclosing a long trough-like box covered with tarpaulin. It proved to contain powder, shot, and two guns. He ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... ship on the voyage to Cape Town: it was caused by an overturned lamp and easily extinguished. The second was during our first winter in the Antarctic, when there was a fire in the motor shed, which was formed by full petrol cases built up round the motors, and roofed with a tarpaulin. This threatened to be more serious, but was also put out without much difficulty. The third and fourth cases were during the winter which had just passed, and were both ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... gathered my hay crop, which was to form the chief sustenance for "Eddy," and the goat, "Corny," for the next five or six months. This I made into a neat stack close to the house, and thatched thickly with brakes, beside which I covered it with tarpaulin, and girded it about with old chain-cable to prevent its being blown away: also I guarded the base with a surrounding of wire-netting to preserve it from ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... Austrian mortar, covered with tarpaulin, by the side of the road, and again two big 20-centimetre guns, which had not had time to get up to Brest-Litovsk. This is where you find the heavy artillery nowadays, quite as likely as in a fort, on some hard highway, where it can easily be moved and sheltered, ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... down and drag other barges with her, she was detached and a line passed to the shore, then luckily near. A crew shoveled the coal from the ugly rent. The snag was cut away and vain attempts were made to pass a tarpaulin under and so stop the hole. Paul stood near his friend Tom, and suggested that he dive under, take a rope with him, and so enable them to ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... of goods he came upon a small derrick, set firmly into the solid rock at both top and bottom. It had a substantial block-and-fall attachment, and was swung inward. At this point also a heavy tarpaulin, reaching from floor to ceiling, was hung completely ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... the intended voyage; collected together such things as we should require, and laid out on the deck provisions sufficient to maintain us for several weeks, purposing to load the canoe with as much as she could hold consistently with speed and safety. These we covered with a tarpaulin, intending to convey them to the canoe only a few hours before starting. When night spread her sable curtain over the scene, we prepared to land; but first kneeling along with the natives and the teacher, the latter implored a blessing on our enterprise. Then we rowed quietly to the shore and ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... to a full sense of the unpleasant task before him, and, after irritably giving orders for the removal of the tarpaulin from the skylight, a substitution of the ingenious cook's for the drawn blinds ashore, sat down to a solitary breakfast and the composition of a telegram to Captain Barber. The first, a beautiful piece of prose, of which the key-note was resignation, contained two shillings' worth of sympathy and ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... in his big, cheery voice, as he unwound the gorgeous worsted comforter from about his throat, and shook off the sleety rain from his tarpaulin. "Waal, this fire's a purty sight, I vum, for it's a dirty night out, an' no mistake. But we'd better all turn in naow, for we must be stirrin' early to-morrer; we've got our orders, an' I'm second mate ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... voice while my mind was intent on fish. I could see her all the time, as I thought, out of a corner of my eye, tethered to a tree twenty yards away. After a couple of hours I began to think of food. I collected my fish in a tarpaulin bag, and moved down the stream towards the mare, trolling my line. When I got up to her I flung the ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... have nothing better than these bird guns," cried Standish contemptuously touching with his foot the pile of weapons covered with a tarpaulin lying in the bottom of the boat. "And it drives down upon us like a charge of horse. Here, let me ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... day there was a deal of mysterious coming and going aboard the brigantine, and in the afternoon a sailboat went up to the town, carrying the captain, and a great load covered over with a tarpaulin in the stern. What was so taken up to the town Barnaby did not then guess, but the boat did not return again ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... six weeks in Balaclava, spending my days on shore, and my nights on board ship. Over our stores, stacked on the shore, a few sheets of rough tarpaulin were suspended; and beneath these—my sole protection against the Crimean rain and wind—I spent some portion of each day, receiving visitors ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... loose, while Balt and the guide fell to unlashing the sled, the tails of their parkas meanwhile snapping like boat sails, their cap strings streaming. As they freed the last knot the hurricane ripped the edge of the tarpaulin from their clumsy fingers, and, seizing a loosely folded blanket belonging to the native, snatched it away. The fellow clutched wildly at it, but the cloth sailed ahead of the blast as if on wings, then, dropping to the surface of the snow, opened out, whereupon some twisting current bore ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... morning the lee cutter had been in imminent danger of being lifted right out of the davits and carried away. About two o'clock the topmasts were struck; an hour later the skylights were covered over with tarpaulin, and a good deal of battening down took place on deck. Below, the stewards were employed in tautening up things which had been allowed to get rather slack during the long spell of smooth weather which we have ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... at last it joins the broad vast sea—where some halt to rest from heavy loads and think as they look over the parapet that to smoke and lounge away one's life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness unalloyed—and where some, and a very different class, pause with heaver loads than they, remembering to have heard or read in old time that drowning was not a hard death, but of all means ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... his visit to the factory, Lister sat one morning under a tarpaulin they had stretched across the hulk. The paint on the canvas smelt as if it burned, but the awning gave some shade and one could not front the sun on the open deck. The sea breeze had not sprung up and dazzling ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... were complete the rainy season of our fall set in. They resolved to wait until the weather was settled and as soon as the rainy season was over to set out. They ran their boat well up into the creek and covered it over with a large tarpaulin made of ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe - for American Boys and Girls • Samuel. B. Allison
... little white tent was gone! Hastily, her eyes swept the plateau. The buckskin was gone, and the saddle was not hanging by its stirrup from its accustomed limb-stub. Crossing the creek, the girl stared at the row of packs, the blanket roll, and the neat tarpaulin-covered bundles that were ranged along the ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... more chill, now. Kirk decided that it must be night, though he didn't feel sleepy. He crawled under the tarpaulin which Ken kept to cover the trunks in foul weather. In doing so, he bumped against the engine. There was another maddening thing! A good, competent engine, sitting complacently in the middle of the boat, and he not able to start it! But even if he had known how to run it, he reflected ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... time, which always works in true taste. The mystery of tile-laying is not known to every one; for to all appearance tiles seem to be put on over a thin bed of hay or hay-like stuff. Lately they have begun to use some sort of tarpaulin or a coarse material of that kind; but the old tiles, I fancy, were comfortably placed on a shake-down of hay. When one slips off, little bits of hay stick up; and to these the sparrows come, removing it bit by bit to line their nests. ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... swept the breast of his blue jersey. He was seldom seen without a tarpaulin on his head, and this had made his crown as bare and polished as a shark's tooth. Under the bulk of his jersey he might have been either thin or deep-chested, for the observer could not easily judge. And nobody ever saw the storekeeper's ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... she had nothing but one grass-plot of the width of her house, has paved that whole plot with black and white marble in diamonds, exactly like the floor of a church; and this curious metamorphosis of a garden into a pavement has cost her three hundred and forty pounds:-a tarpaulin she might have had for some shillings, which would have looked as well, and might easily have been removed. To be sure, this exploit, and Lord Dudley's obelisk below a hedge, with his canal at right angles with the Thames, and a sham ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... before him, and countermanded his order, directing the stableman to get the buggy ready. He himself carefully stowed Presley's bicycle under the seat, covering it with a couple of empty sacks and a tarpaulin ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... rather, a sort of scow, for it was larger than a boat though oars lay along its thwarts, was moored. It was partly decked over, and she could see a small black opening into the forward end of it, though the opening itself was almost hidden by a heap of tarpaulin, or sailcloth, or something of the kind, that lay in the bottom of the craft. She nodded her head. They might all of them use that boat ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... which bound the mouth of the sack was now cut. The officer laid the bag on its side, seized it by the bottom, and jerked forth the contents. A large package was disclosed, carefully wrapped up in impervious tarpaulin, also well tied. He was on the point of pulling open the folds at one end, when a light coloured thread of something, hanging on the outside, arrested his eye. He put his hand upon it; it felt stringy, and adhered to his fingers. 'Hold the light ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... slept under a great tarpaulin canopy, originally used for covering commissary stores from the rain. Our meals were taken in the open air, and prepared by Skyhiski; but there was a second tent, provided with desk and secretary, where Mr. Fogg performed his clerk duties, daily. When I had relieved my Pegasus of ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... at the windlass and comparing his papers with the slips of the customs officer, the one making a blue check on the bill of lading and the other taking note of each article on his long list. Suddenly a small box comes to light, which has been waiting patiently since yesterday under the sheltering tarpaulin. "A box of optical instruments," says the customs officer, making a blue check. "A box of optical instruments," repeats the overseer, making a mark with his moistened pencil-stump: "Careful!" he adds, as a workman is on the point of tipping the heavy box over. Then ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... what he meant, Andrew blushed through all his bronze—knowing well enough, for had he not gone below in a mighty hurry and tricked himself out in his best toggery so soon as he understood there was no escape from the visit? Louie would have been glad enough to see him in his red shirt and tarpaulin! ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... of perished tarpaulin that had once been a sou'-wester on his head, and set off slowly across the shingle towards the village. Young Jarge followed, staring at his ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the helm, Tom," Tripper said; "and get those hatchways up and cover the well, and lash the tarpaulin over it. It is bad enough here, it will be worse when we get into broken water near the wreck." Most of the bawleys are provided with hatches for closing the long narrow place known as the 'well,' but it is only under quite exceptional circumstances that they are ever used. Jack and the ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... subterranean passages crossed the mind of the listener, and he thought of tall boots and a tarpaulin. ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... sight of a stage which had been erected beside a cottage. It stood only eighteen inches out of the water, and here several women and children were found engaged in singing Watts' hymns. They seemed quite comfortable, under a sort of tarpaulin tent, with plenty to eat, and declined to be taken off, though their visitors offered to remove them one at a time, the canoe being unable to take more. Further up, the voyagers came to the hut of ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... credit for saving the situation, and that my battalion, though it had been almost wiped out, had not died in vain. He was completely worn out, so I gave him and his officers a place under a piece of tarpaulin after they had had something to eat. They had not had any rest or sleep since Thursday morning, and in a few minutes everyone was fast asleep except the ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie |
