"Tug" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way of warning us of the approach of the sentry within earshot. He tied a string to Joe's leg, and gave it a tug when he heard the tramp of footsteps above. Then we desisted for a minute or two, resuming our work when the footsteps had ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said: "No eye at all is better than ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... to seek safety in flight, when suddenly he felt a bite in his left calf, and saw the brute Bismarck tug away at his leg as if it had been a mutton-chop. He had scarcely recovered from this surprise when he heard a sharp report, and a bullet whizzed away over his head, after having neatly put a hole through the right ear. Paul concluded, with reason, ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... whole is to-day conducted on a different plane. The struggle of the classes is no longer a vague, undefined, and embittered battle. It is no longer merely a contest between the violent of both classes. It is now a deliberate, and largely legal, tug-of-war between two great social categories over the ends of a social revolution that both are beginning to recognize as inevitable. The representative workers to-day understand capitalism, and labor now faces capital with a program, ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... Barere apologised for his former speech, and implored his colleagues to abstain from disputes which could be agreeable only to Pitt and York. On the next day, the ever-memorable ninth of Thermidor, came the real tug of war. Tallien, bravely taking his life in his hand, led the onset. Billaud followed; and then all that infinite hatred which had long been kept down by terror burst forth, and swept every barrier before it. When at length the voice of Robespierre, drowned by the President's ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... whirlpool on its far side. There was really no choice: stay and be killed, or try for the cave. Ross fastened on his flippers and lowered his body into the narrow stream. The fact that it was narrow and guarded on either side by the ledges tamed the waves a little, and Ross found the tug against him not so great as ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... when a cockchafer flew in at the open window and began buzzing over his bed, he could bear it no longer and gave a violent tug at the bellrope. ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... monster balloon of yellow sand, a balloon that swelled until it burst, obscuring first the firmament and then the earth. But the mind of Vanheimert was so busy with the fate he feared that he did not realize he was in another dust-storm until Stingaree, at the end of the rope, was swallowed like a tug in a fog. And even then Vanheimert's peculiar terror of a dust-storm did not link itself to the fear of sudden death which had at last been put into him. But the moment of mental enlightenment ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... eyes opened as wide as was possible, which was not saying much; he was not used to such lavishness on the part of customers. However, he was cautious, for such was his nature. He held up the bill to the light and then gave it a slight tug. This nettled Jim, who did not sympathize with his friend's extravagance ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... fact, I find there's only one way of going ahead with my Poll, and that is right before the wind! I used to yaw about a good deal at first, but she tuck that out o' me in a day or two. If I put the helm only so much as one stroke to starboard, she guv' a tug at the tow-rope that brought the wind dead aft again; so I've gi'n it up, and lashed the tiller ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... going up the steps of his hotel, faced me once or twice, and almost gained my sympathy by observing, 'When we're boys, the old ones worry us; when we're old ones, the boys begin to tug!' He rarely spoke so humanely,—rarely, at least, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... giants which the giant Republic sends down to the waterside to welcome us, behold, we have crept up abreast of the Cunard wharf, and there stands a little crowd of human welcomers, waving handkerchiefs and American flags. An energetic tug-boat butts her head gallantly into the flank of the huge liner, in order to help her round. She glides up to her berth, the gangway is run out, and at last I set foot ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... and for want of other and better amusement walked to the drawers in the dressing-bureau and examined their contents. They were empty and unlocked save one, which refused to respond to her tug. She remembered she had a small bunch of keys ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... boy to go to sea. My big brother was already an officer then. We. got on board about eleven in the morning, and found the ship ready to drop out of the basin, stern first. She had not moved three times her own length when, at a little pluck the tug gave her to enter the dock gates, she made one of her rampaging starts, and put such a weight on the check rope—a new six-inch hawser—that forward there they had no chance to ease it round in time, and it parted. I saw the broken end fly up high in the air, and the next moment that ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... clothing and such other things as seemed to us necessary. At last the ship was ready, and was towed down abreast of Fort Columbus, where we were conveyed on board, and on the 14th of July, 1846, we were towed to sea by a steam-tug, and cast off: Colonel R. B. Mason, still superintendent of the general recruiting service, accompanied us down the bay and out to sea, returning with the tug. A few other friends were of the party, but at last they left us, and we were alone upon the sea, and the sailors were busy ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... endure the wooden shed in which most people landing in America have to struggle with the custom-house officials—a struggle as brutal as a "round in the ring" as Paul Bourget describes it. We were taken off the "Britannic" in a tug, and Mr. Abbey, Lawrence Barrett, and many other friends met us—including ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Frau, straining at the waist buckle and giving him a little pull here, a little tug there. "Rosa, come ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... voice, and all eyes were turned to the gaudy swaying globe. Before anyone could speak, Elinor gave another hard tug, tearing out the bottom of the lantern, and down came the shower of gay little gauze bags with their cargoes of bonbons, pell-mell on the ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... the real tug of war. In a few weeks the poor Modernists will be all camping in tents, it seems, by the wayside. Very touching and very exciting. But I am getting too sleepy to think about it. Dear Cathie—I run on—but I love you. Please ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... When she had put him in an easy chair, and brought him his slippers, and built up the fire, she sat down on a little stool by his side. After a long silence she stroked the back of his hand and then gave him a little tug. He looked down ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... tug which carried the Pinkerton men circled round the Laurada several times, and saw the men being transferred from the barge to the steamer. These men, in their pleasure at having outwitted the Spanish detectives, beguiled ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 20, March 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... laugh the clerk turned away, and Wrinkle caught Henley's suspender and gave it a familiar tug. "I didn't want to discuss family affairs before a third party," he explained. "The truth is, Alf, I've always been interested in yore little ups an' downs with Het, an' right now I'm curious to see how prosperity will affect her. Up to now, you see, she ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... yet, not haughty—held Her head like a young blood-mare, that's mettlesome Without a touch of vice. She'll gan her gait Through this world, and the next. The bit in her teeth, There'll be no holding her, though Jim may tug The snaffle, till he's tewed. I've kenned that look In women's eyes, and mares', though, with a difference. And Jim—yet she seemed fond enough of Jim: His daffing's likely fresh to her, though his jokes Are last ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... pulling at the levers of respiration,—which, rising and falling like so many oars, drive us across an unfathomable ocean from one unknown shore to another. No! Never was a galley-slave so chained as we are to these four and twenty oars, at which we must tug day and night ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... they go?" said the Lieutenant, with an oath, "if by the mail-boat I will have General Van Vliet despatch a tug to overhaul her." ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... of our being able to get to sea in two or three hours. We hove short, and sheeted home, and hoisted the three topsails; but the anchor hung, and the people were ordered to get their breakfasts, leaving the ship to tug at her ground-tackle with a view to loosen her hold of ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... both lines gave way and were retreating briskly towards the camp, when they were met by a reinforcement under Colonel Field,[13] and rallied. The engagement then became general, and was sustained with the most obstinate fury on both sides. The Indians perceiving that the "tug of war" had come, and determined on affording the Colonial army no chance of escape, if victory should declare for them, formed a line extending across the point, from the Ohio to the Kenhawa, and protected in ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... actually let her get nearly to the top of the ladder before he regained his presence of mind. Then, in obedience to a powerful tug at the hem of her skirt, she came down again, and accompanied him ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... Invented Machine for carrying vessels or ships out of or into any Harbour, Port or River, against Wind or Tide or in a Calm"; London, 1737. He described a large barge equipped with a Newcomen engine to be employed as a tug, fitted with fan (or paddle) wheels, towing a ship of war, but nothing further appears to have been done. Writing on this ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... pardon me, gentlemen, if I confess that to compliment me as Secretary of Howard University touches me in a tender and vulnerable spot. "I love old Howard," and always have been and am now anxious to be in the team to tug at the administrative phase of Howard's movements. Accept then, my ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... felt a tug at my heartstrings when June came around and it was time for her and the children to go to Mattapoisett for the summer; when I accompanied them, on the evening of their departure, to the smoky, noisy ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... us "the soft myrtle:" for rocks, and seas, and mountains, artificial grass-plats, gravel-walks, and tinkling rills; for earthquakes and tempests, the breaking of a flower-pot, or the fall of a china jar; for the tug and war of the elements, or the deadly strife of the passions, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... he sits with lowering front, He clasps his chin, his beard his fingers tug, Good word nor bad, his nephew not one. Franks hold their peace, but only Guenelun Springs to his feet, and comes before Carlun; Right haughtily his reason he's begun, And to the King: "Believe not any one, My word nor theirs, save whence your good ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... Bridge, made melancholy by the lemon-coloured light of the lamps which surmounted them, cast big, black shadows on the water. They could hear little lapping waves splashing against the pillars, and presently a tug went swiftly down to the Pool. Neither of them spoke. Behind them the tramcars went whirring by, and once when John looked round, he felt as if he must cry because of the beauty of these swift caravans of light, gliding easily through the misty darkness ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Harrington and Savoy had had their fresh teams placed a couple of miles beyond those of the others. In the confusion of changing sleds they passed full half the bunch. Perhaps thirty men were still leading them when they shot on to the broad breast of the Yukon. Here was the tug. When the river froze in the fall, a mile of open water had been left between two mighty jams. This had but recently crusted, the current being swift, and now it was as level, hard, and slippery as a ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... affections that have grown irksome. The bands that were silken once are apt to become iron fetters when we desire to shake them off. Our souls, after all, are not our own. We convey a property in them to those with whom we associate; but to what extent can never be known, until we feel the tug, the agony, of our abortive effort to resume an exclusive sway over ourselves. Thus, in all the weeks of my absence, my thoughts continually reverted back, brooding over the bygone months, and bringing up incidents that seemed hardly to have left a trace of themselves ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... planks a couple of field guns, dragged by hand, rolled by. Then, after a small body of men had marched past escorting four or five figures which walked in advance, with a jingle of steel scabbards, he felt a tug at his arms, and was ordered to come along. During the passage from the wharf to the Custom House it is to be feared that Captain Mitchell was subjected to certain indignities at the hands of the soldiers—such as jerks, thumps on ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... of events, gave a defiant tug to her new sailor-hat. She considered that she looked very nice to-day, and she did. She, too, had been patronizing the midsummer sales, and beside the sailor, she had on a new linen skirt which she had got for $1.75, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... by him watching the ease with which he quickly brought order out of chaos, she privately resolved to hunt up her old arithmetic and perfect herself in the four first rules, with a good tug at fractions, before she read ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... of the green slopes which led down to the valley, and shorter still of the beach below. He jumped into a boat with a scant apology to Jack Harris, the owner, who with a delighted smile of recognition, and a polite tug at his cap, took the oar and sculled ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... at Toledo was 2 minutes and 28 seconds, and at 7.04.07 the train was sliding out of the yards again. Coming out of Toledo the railway runs over a drawbridge; and boats on the river below have right of way. But not on such an occasion as this; for there, waiting patiently, lay a tug tied up to a pier of the bridge, with her tow swinging on the stream ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... day in May during the recent year the converted tug Uncas left Key West to join the blockading squadron off the northern ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... our barricade and slowly wormed my way along the ditch. At last I reached the Turkish barricade and cautiously slid my hand over the top until my fingers encountered Ibrahim's toque. Then I gave a gentle tug. Horror! he had the flap down under his chin. Unmanned for a moment I recovered, and I slowly slid my fingers down his hirsute neck and with a gentle titillation slid the flap clear. Ibrahim merely stirred in his sleep and resumed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various
... the ground, drills had to be held in the gymnasium, and several contests were also arranged. The cadets got up a tug-of-war between one team headed by Pepper and another headed by Dale, and the excitement over this contest waged so high, that the thefts were, for the ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... and then a cross growl. Evidently he had discovered that his meal had been messed over. As a whole the big bear could be seen distinctly, but only in outline and color. The distance was perhaps two hundred yards. Then it looked as if he had begun to tug at the carcass. Indeed, he was dragging it, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... "Magnalia"? Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries, who make barn-door-fowl flights of learning in "Notes and Queries"!—ye Historical Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while other hands tug at the oars!—ye Amines of parasitical literature, who pick up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, having gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the great minds Goethe speaks of, you have "made a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... his "Kerry cow," a scraggly runt that lived on the commons, with his pail so full he had to carry it cautiously lest it spill over. But after our full-blooded had been in clover to her eyes all day, Bridget would go out to the barnyard, and tug and pull for a supply enough to make two or three custards. I said, "Bridget, you don't know how to milk. Let me try." I sat down by the cow, tried the full force of dynamics, but just at the moment when my success ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... the strong tug of the canvas wagon-covers behind, there was nothing for the sheep to do but to take the plunge, and as his brawny herders tumbled them head over heels into the deep current Swope and his helpers waded out in a line below, shunting each ewe and wading toward the farther shore. There on the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... reached the opening of Isle Ornsay; and as it was still a dead calm we had to tug in the Betsey to the anchoring ground with a pair of long sweeps. The minister pointed to a low-lying rock on the left-hand side of the opening,—a favorite haunt of the seal. "I took farewell of the Betsey there last winter," he said. "The night had worn late, and was pitch dark; ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... a step forward, and the ex-convict gave a fierce tug to draw his weapon, but stopped, for Brettison seized his friend, and held ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... six-inch rifled gun on the Socapa battery, which was then being mounted, was not ready until the following day; and the St. Louis held her ground without injury until a piece had been cut out of the cable. In this work she was assisted by the tug Wompatuck, Lieutenant-Commander Jungen. The two vessels then moved away to Guantanamo Bay, having been off Santiago nearly forty-eight hours. It may certainly be charged as good luck to Cervera that their departure ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... unfilled, her streamers were drooping, she had neither side-wheel nor stern-wheel; still she moved on, stately, in serene triumph, as if with her own life. But I knew that on the other side of the ship, hidden beneath the great hulk that swam so majestically, there was a little toiling steam-tug, with heart of fire and arms of iron, that was hugging it close and dragging it bravely on; and I knew, that, if the little steam-tug untwined her arms and left the tall ship, it would wallow and roll about, and drift hither and thither, and go off with the refluent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... but he puffed away like a tug-boat against the tide, and went on. His bright new boots whetted and creaked together, the warm wind lifted the broad brim of his sombrero, and his bright new red shirt was really beautiful, with the green grass and oaks for ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... Russian fleet were scattered over the sea. Nebagatoff with 4 battleships and 2 cruisers surrendered at 10.30. Of the 37 ships all told that entered Tsushima Straits, only the following escaped: the cruisers Oleg, Aurora, and Jemschug reached Manila on June 3; a tug and a supply ship entered Shanghai, and another transport with plenty of coal went clear to Madagascar; only the fast cruiser Almaz and two destroyers ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... he only knew himself yesterday. He's had a hard tug of it, and not a scrap or a card could we find about him, only the letters R. B. P. ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... strain upon the young runner, for a moment, and then his hands were on the back-board of the bouncing wagon. A tug, a spring, a swerve of the wagon, and Jack Ogden was in it, and in a second more the loosely flying reins were ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... (starting up). Help, Michelotto, help! Begone! Begone! Fiends! torments! devils! Gandia! What, Gandia? O turn those staring eyes away. See! See He bleeds to death! O fly! Who are those fiends That tug me by the throat? O! O! ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... put his great profession from him, as one puts a beggar into the night. But these were only moments, and they passed quickly. And the little doctor was always bitterly ashamed of them, as a brave man is ashamed of a secret tug of cowardice at his heart. For it seemed to him the greatest thing in all the world to help to make the unhappy ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... animal gifted with wings is, that around the height he soars to he can see no barriers nor any of the fences raised by men. And here again he differs from Passion, which may tug against common sense but is never, in a great nature, divorced from it: In air on Hippogriff, desires wax boundless, obstacles are hidden. It seemed nothing to Wilfrid (after several tremendous descents of humility) that he should hurry for Monmouth away, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... dressing-case, and ascertained that the scent-bottle and a novel from Mudie's were both handy (the young man was standing up with his back to her, putting his bag in the rack). She would throw the scent-bottle with her right hand, she decided, and tug the communication cord with her left. She was fifty years of age, and had a son at college. Nevertheless, it is a fact that men are dangerous. She read half a column of her newspaper; then stealthily looked over the edge to decide the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... "It is not necessarily true that the greatest and most constant display of energy accompanies the greatest presence of energy. The tug-boat on the river is constantly blowing off steam and making a tremendous display of energy, while the ocean liner proceeds on its way without noise and without commotion. The man who frets and fumes, who is nervous and excited, is strung ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... from head to foot. Then he unbuckled his scabbard, laid it and the sword aside, and walked deliberately over to the oak thicket. Choosing from among the shoots and saplings he found a stout little tree to his liking, when he laid hold of it, without stopping to cut it, and gave a tug. Up it came root and all, as though it were a stalk of corn, and the stranger walked back trimming it as quietly as though pulling up trees were the easiest thing ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... shore; a little steam-tug put out from the land; she was an object of thrilling interest; she would climb to the summit of a billow, reel drunkenly there a moment, dim and gray in the driving storm of spindrift, then make a plunge like a diver and remain out ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... its blades do not conform to the lines of a true screw, but it is an oblique paddle, where the acting portions of its blades were set at 48 deg. to the keel of the ship or 42 deg. to the plane of rotation. Again, taking a screw tug boat on the river Thames, with blades of a totally different form to those used by Mr. Griffiths, we still find them set at the same angle, namely, 48 deg. to the keel or 42 deg. to the plane of rotation. An examination of other screws tends only to confirm these figures, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... to cheer us all. Life must be full of toil and of failure. We are on the midnight sea, and have to tug, weary and wet, at a heavy oar, and to haul an often empty net. But we do not labour alone. He comes to us across the storm, and is with us in the night, a most real, because unseen Presence. If we ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... safely hoisted up into her berth, her legs hanging helplessly down for some time after the rest of her was in it, and Anna-Rose, who had already neatly inserted herself into her own berth, after watching these legs in silence and fighting a desire to give them a tug and see what would happen, had to get out at last on hearing Anna-Felicitas begin to make sounds up there as though she were choking, and push them up in after her. Her head was then on a level with Anna-Felicitas's berth, and she could see how Anna-Felicitas, having got her legs again, didn't ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... bridge itself. One day I cast a yellow-body fly, (a clumsy affair, but the best I had, having lost my fly book on the cars) and as it fell on the water I let it drift under the bridge, more in carelessness than by intent, and as it reached the rich bank of green weeds out of my sight, I felt the tug and magnetic vibration that every angler knows so well. Quick as a flash I dropped from the bridge to the bank, ran knee deep into the stream, and fighting the fish clear of the structure and reeds, landed a three-pound five-ounce beauty at my side on the bank. ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... the moment pale. It was just after one of his most vigorous attacks upon the supporter of the great mantelpiece, one which ended in a really successful thrust delivered with a suppressed "Ha, ha!" followed by a dull thud, and a tug on the lad's part to extricate the point of his sword from its new sheath, quite a couple of inches being firmly thrust into the hard old wood right in the centre ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... about him. When she threw herself upon the divan and lay resting, he still stared, holding his breath. His nerves were so on edge that a sudden noise made him start and brought out the sweat on his forehead. The dog would come and tug at his sleeve, knowing that something was wrong with his master. If he attempted a mournful whine, those strong ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... clenched unrelentingly on the throat of the dead savage; but seeing the new danger threatening his master, he had at last released his hold, and with a growl and a bound was at the enemy's skirts, which he seized with a violent backward tug, just as the tomahawk was on the point of being hurled, and with a force and an aim which else had sent the black giant rolling in his turn to the bottom of the hill. Again had the war-dog turned the scale of ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... prophesying that the war would not last more than ninety days, and foolish ones were bragging of their own powers and questioning the courage of their opponents, quite oblivious of the adage that when Greek meets Greek there comes a tug of war. But Lee did not concern himself with such childish exhibitions ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... the brook was too small and brushy for that. You had to use a very short line, and wind it around the end of the rod, and work it through the branches, and then carefully, very carefully, unwind and let the hook drop lightly on the water. Then as likely as not there would be a swift, tingling tug, and, if you were lucky, an instant later you would have a beautiful red-speckled fellow landed among the grass and field flowers, his gay colors ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and watched the sails playin' Isick and Josh, Isick and Josh, till, honest, I could feel the soul creakin' inside me with tiredness. I expect the sun kind o' scrambled my brains, same as a dish of eggs; for bumbye a tug come along, goin' to the city, and I wasted good money by gettin' a tow and pullin' into port two days ahead of schedule time. Now see what I got for it! I went to the office, and there was a letter from a lawyer sayin' my owner ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... hung over them all. The dinner dragged wearily on. Orlowski at times became wrapt in thought, and would then knit his brows, angrily tug at his beard, and fling murderous glances at ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... The 'longshoreman leaped over the side of the ship and landed on the dock. There was a puffing from the tug that had been engaged to pull the Eagle out into ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... the drawbridge swung to slowly, the steam-tug blackened the dull air and roiled the turbid water as it dragged its schooner on towards the lumber-yards of the South Branch, and a long line of waiting vehicles took up their interrupted course through the smoke ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... switched on the light, and went to the dressing-table. The drawer was locked, but in his present mood Spennie, like Love, laughed at locksmiths. He grasped the handle, and threw his weight into a sudden tug. The drawer came out with a report ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... determined manner to break it, stretching himself away from his kennel with all his might, but so noiselessly—for he had all the cunning of his kind—that even the chicken, who was uneasy and restless, heard not a sound. But, strain and tug as he would, Jinks could not break the rope, for it was a strong one, and, although he possessed good muscles and sinews, and pressed every nerve into service, there was only a funny little squeak caused by the strands of the rope rubbing ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... knife was laid aside, and I commenced pulling out the pieces. It was no light labour, getting out the first three or four. Unfortunately, the ends of the webs were towards me, and this rendered it more difficult to separate them; but I continued to tug and pull until I had extracted a few; and ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... time, came screaming alongside. There was a hiss from its wave-splashed deck, and a rocket with a blue light flashed up into the sky. A man who had formed one of the long line of passengers, leaning over the rail, watching the tug since it had come into sight, now turned away and walked briskly to the steps leading to the bridge. As it happened, the captain himself was in the act of descending. The passenger accosted him, and held out what seemed to ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... They did take my remaining sick men out of the vessel, after two days' delay; my agent procuring a tug, which towed them in the ship's boat three hundred fathoms astern. In this way they were taken to Flores Island, where, days and days before, they had been refused admittance! They were accompanied this time by an order ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... John sitting on a stump. He said nothing, but handed me a note written in lead-pencil on a card. It was from our ex-boarder, and informed me that early that morning he had found that there was a tug lying in the river, which would soon start for the city. He also found that he could get passage on her for his party, and as this was such a splendid chance to go home without the bother of getting up to the station, he had just bundled his family ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... The big coastwise tug Hydrographer slid stern-ward into a slip cluttered with driftwood and bituminous dust, stopping within heaving distance of three coal-laden barges which in their day had reared "royal s'ls" to the wayward winds of the ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... menacing figure wielding its heavy club above Ta-den. There was a momentary pause of the rope-hand as the noose sped toward its goal, a quick movement of the right wrist that closed it upon its victim as it settled over his head and then a surging tug as, seizing the rope in both hands, Tarzan threw back upon it all the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... harnessed to a great car, a Juggernaut, ponderous and crushing, upon which was enthroned Mammon, or the Goddess of Liberty, or Reason, as you like. Nothing further was demanded of them than their collective physical strength—just to tug the car forward, to cut a wide swath, to leave behind a broad path along which could follow, at some later date, the hordes of Progress and Civilization. Individual nobility was superfluous. All the Idealists demanded was physical endurance ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... wearied of pulling against the powerful current, dodging the steamers and the tug-boats with their strings of barks signaled by constellations of colored lanterns high in air. Perhaps they would have borne up better had we been able to obtain some Astrakhan watermelons from the steamer wharves, which we besieged in turn as we passed. They proposed ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... Quocunque trahunt, 'tis our doom. 460 This is the same numeric crew Which we so lately did subdue; The self-same individuals that Did run as mice do from a cat, When we courageously did wield 465 Our martial weapons in the field To tug for victory; and when We shall our shining blades agen Brandish in terror o'er our heads, They'll straight resume their wonted dreads. 470 Fear is an ague, that forsakes And haunts by fits those whom it takes: And they'll opine they ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... it, and I dragged the conversation out until I felt a little tug on my ear. Pheola had completed her scan of ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... ladies' saloon night and day, sleeping on a sofa. After a passage of eleven days we landed at Southampton, March 2, 1890. It was a beautiful moonlight night and we had a pleasant ride on the little tug to the wharf. We reached Basingstoke at eleven o'clock, found the family well ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... a tug at his horse's rein; but it was not needed, for the stout cob had cocked its ears forward and stopped short, just as the mules in front whisked themselves round, and the men who drove them began to huddle together in ...
— Young Robin Hood • G. Manville Fenn
... as idly flung them away, goes on her listless way through the gardens. A whole long month, and not one word from him! Are his social duties now so numerous that he has forgotten he has a ward? "Well," emphatically, and with a vicious little tug at her big white hat, "some people have strange views ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... angry tug at his sleeve. He looked around and beheld Janet Hosmer's eyes distended ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... work at St. Dunstan's. Sports were encouraged and fostered in every way; but rowing and tug-of-war were by far the most popular. Fully sixty per cent. of the men went in for rowing, and some very skilful and powerful oarsmen were turned out. There were two regattas each year. The preliminary heats of each regatta were pulled off on the lake that runs into the grounds ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... car!" gasped Deputy Simmons after finding Prescott's submerged body and giving it a hard tug. "Valden, help me lift the car on this side! You two boys pull your friend out when we ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... hope. It is the flimsiest of all possible arguments to say that their sorrows are trifling, to talk about their little cares and trials. These little things are great to little men and women. A pine bucket full is just as full as a hogshead. The ant has to tug just as hard to carry a grain of corn as the Irishman does to carry a hod of bricks. You can see the bran running out of Fanny's doll's arm, or the cat putting her foot through Tom's new kite, without losing your equanimity; but their hearts feel the pang of hopeless sorrow, or foiled ambition, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... laughed two or three more women, closing round as the girl gave a tug which nearly upset Tim and broke half-a-dozen teeth out of ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... one could do many things. Memory clings ever to a man's coat-tails and drags him back to where he was before. There was a tug upon the coat-tails of John Appleman. He was homesick at times. The musky odors of the coast in blooming time often oppressed him. The fragrance of the tropic blossom had never become sweeter in his nostrils than the breath of northern pines. He wanted to go home, but feared to do so. Mrs. ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... made a selection, you began to try to get Russell into all these things that were too tight or too loose for him. The socks were the worst. The right-hand one had to be put on very carefully, by quarter inches at a time; the least tug on the sock would give Russell an excruciating pain in his wounded knee; and Russell was all for violence and haste; he was so afraid ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... a powerful tug at his body, he was whirled completely around, and then there was a steady pull. He was being catapulted down the ray to the mysterious point of brilliance in the Great Red Spot. The girl was right beside him. The space-liner was passed ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... Ruby Gillis, her old school-chum, dying? Could it be possible? Of late years they had grown apart; but the old tie of school-girl intimacy was there, and made itself felt sharply in the tug the news gave at Anne's heartstrings. Ruby, the brilliant, the merry, the coquettish! It was impossible to associate the thought of her with anything like death. She had greeted Anne with gay cordiality after church, and urged her to come ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... was a mask of weariness of the soul, which kills so vastly more efficiently than weariness of the body. You could see that weariness in the tired frown of the black brows, the narrowing of the dark eyes, the downward tug of the lips. Wrinkles of stagnation had began to creep into forehead and cheeks—wrinkles that no amount of gymnasium, of club life, of careful shaving, of strict hygiene ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... court of honor, and while awaiting an answer to my tug at the bell, stood, broken with fatigue, depressed, chilled and aching, questioning the wisdom of my proceedings and the amount of comfort, physical and moral, that was likely to await me in a tete-a-tete visit with a well-mannered savage in ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Another tug came at Frank's sleeve, at which signal he bent his head low so that his chum might say what he wanted ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... controversy, which had been underlying the whole course of the previous debating, emerged in express terms before the end of January 1643-4. Then began the real tug of the verbal war. It is unnecessary to enumerate all the items of the controversy. The battle was essentially between two principles of church-organization. Was every individual assembly, or association of Christians (it might be of hundreds of persons, or it might ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... out what they had on them.... It's a curious sport, this body fishing. You have a sort of triple hook on a rope, and you throw it and drag. They do the same. The other day one body near Hooghe was hooked by both sides, and they had a tug-of-war. With a sharpshooter or so cutting in whenever our men got too excited. Several men were hit. The Irish—it was an Irish regiment—got him—or at least they got ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... doubtful, timid, distrustful. His hand was actually on the latch when, to Thor's surprise, he wheeled away, returning to his "team" with head bent and stride slackened thoughtfully. By the time he had mounted the wagon, however, and begun to tug at Maud he was whistling the popular air of the moment with no more than a ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... person, however, whom Julie found less easy to deal with, and that was an Aunt, whose liberality even exceeded her own. When Greek met Greek over Christmas presents, then came the tug of war indeed! The Aunt's ingenuity in contriving to give away whatever plums were given to her was quite amazing, and she generally managed to baffle the most careful restrictions which were laid upon her; but Julie conquered at last, by yielding—as ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... before him, &c., &c., &c. And then Mr. Nogo ended with so vehement an attack on Sir Gregory, and the Government as connected with him, that the dogs began to whet their teeth and prepare for a tug at the ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... itself would have been ineffectual. The spear clanged harmlessly from the commander's armor, and the warrior who had attempted to pull him from the carrier died before he could give much of a tug. But the combination, plus the fact that the heavy armor was a little unwieldy, overbalanced him. He toppled to the ground with a clash of steel as he and the carrier ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... strife into which we of the North have been driven by those who will eventually rue the necessity, is by no manner of means the first in which brother has literally been pitted against brother in the deadly 'tug of war.' The fiercest conflict of the kind, however, which we can at present call up from the memory of past readings, was one in which THEODEBERT, king of Austria, took the field against his own brother, THIERRI, king of Burgundy. Historians ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... conduct, and my determination to drink no more; and, to conclude, my wife slowly recovered, and, I may add, I recovered also; but I was very far down the hill, and consequently found it a long and hard tug to get up again; but Mrs. Mason encouraged me, Mrs. Wright helped me, the doctor cheered me, Mr. Armstrong praised me, our kind minister instructed me, my wife assisted me, and, as a crowning point of all, the blessing ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... Pier No. 9, and it was here that all energies were focused. A large tug from Mare Island, two fire patrol boats, the Spreckels tugs and ten or twelve more, had lines of hose laid into the heart of the roaring furnace and were pumping from the bay to ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... sort of tug-of-war when everybody's got to pull, and mustn't let go!" added Cissie Barnes, "Do you remember playing 'Oranges and Lemons' once with the Sixth? We all held on to each others' waists like grim death, and Janie Potter gave way and broke their ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... the under-foremen came in. "Oh, Mr. Bannon," he said, "I've been looking for you. There's a tug in the river with a big, steel cable aboard that they said was for us. I told 'em I thought it was ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... who was hardly to indent her life and whose interest in the clean-eyed girl was little more than a leaf upon his consciousness, and whose feet were already feeling the tug of the quicksands of mediocrity which were to suck him out of her reckoning, should have been the innocent source of this neurosis, is ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... being altogether too dismal to tempt me out on deck at so early an hour. As I did so there was a loud cry or command, the chorussing at the windlass abruptly ceased, and in the silence that temporarily ensued I caught the muffled sound of the steam blowing-off from the tug's waste-pipe, mingled with the faint sound of hailing from somewhere ahead, answered in the stentorian tones of Mr Murgatroyd's voice. Then the windlass was manned once more, and the pawls clanked slowly, sullenly, irregularly, for a ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... stout Norse rowers; tighter and tighter pulled the cables; fast down upon the straining war-ships rained the Danish spears and stones; but the wooden piles under the great bridge were loosened by the steady tug of the cables, and soon with a sudden spurt the Norse war-ships darted down the river, while the slackened cables towed astern the captured piles of London Bridge. A great shout went up from the besiegers, and "now," says the chronicle, "as the armed troops stood thick ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... you think me strong enough? You should see me lacing up my mistress. There's many a peasant couldn't tug ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... in fact, seemed turning away from the rest. They were heading straight after the Bozra. A long race it would be, but with the gale so light the chances were against the sea-mouse. Hasdrubal had no need to urge his crew to rig out the oars and tug furiously, if they wished to escape a Greek prison ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... rage; for some of his friends had come down to see him off, and having his orders contradicted so flatly was too much for him. However, the delay was sufficient. I took a race and a good leap; the ropes were cast off; the steam-tug gave a puff, and we started. Suddenly the captain walks up to me: 'Where did you come from, you scamp, and ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... are transported there. And whereas it is written of that fairy structure that it never moved without two shocks—one when it rose, and one when it settled down—I can say of mine that, however sharp a tug it took to pluck it from its native ground, it struck at once an easy, and a deep and lasting root into this soil; and loved it as its own. I can say more of it, and say with truth, that long before it moved, ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... off to my uncle, forbidding me ever to mention her name in a letter; and,—" "Well! well!" rejoined the father, somewhat softened, "but he need not have turned puppy and coxcomb because he was crossed in love. Pshaw!" added the good farmer, giving a mighty tug with his paddle at a tough mullein which happened to stand in his way, "I was crossed in love myself, in my young days, but I did not run off and turn tailor. I made up plump to another wench—your poor mother, Susan, that's ...
— Town Versus Country • Mary Russell Mitford
... the Pacific was in his eighteenth year. He was a fine, broad-shouldered, fair-haired, medium-sized youth. He had been dividing his attentions amongst a number of girl admirers, and was told to come aboard to unmoor and give the tug the tow-rope. While these orders were being carried out the lad caught sight of a young girl who had just arrived in a great state of excitement. She was dressed in dazzling finery, and carrying something in a basket. The boy sprang on to ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... hard time, don't you?" said Aunt Patience, looking down over his shoulder; "to slave and tug and scrape to get a house over your head, and then to have to turn square 'round, and stay to home with a sick woman, and eat ...
— Eli - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... cloud of tern that had been routed from their nesting place on the margin of white sand that bordered the path to the open sea. Mingling with their cries and the rhythmic pulsing of the surf, the clear voices of the men aboard the tug reached her ear. It was flood tide, and the water that surged over the bar stained its reach of pearl to jade green and feathered its edges with ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... "I have always thought the lady we will not woo we have no right to pretend to. If the Bruces will not be at the pains to snatch Scotland from drowning, I see no reason for making them a present of what will cost us many a wet jacket before we tug her from the waves. He that wins the day ought to wear the laurel; and so, once for all, I proclaim him King of good old Albin,** who will have the glory of driving her oppressors beyond ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... on either side of the river, but deep pine forests that she did not know. There was no sound but the rush of the river; and she wished her little boat would go near the bank. Perhaps it would catch on that bit of rock sticking out. No, the river gave it a wicked tug and swept it round the point with a triumphant gurgle. Could Rosa catch an overhanging tree? She tried to, but the effort nearly jerked her into the water, and left nothing but a few crumpled ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... of a tug was heard somewhere in the river and they concluded to go over to the bridge and see what it was. There was a mystery anyway about how those big boats got ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... time refused to get into the boats. There was a bear (a trophy from Fort Garry), and a terrible nuisance he proved at the embarkation; for a long-time previous to the start he had been kept quiet with un limited sugar, but at last he seemed to have had enough of that condiment, and, with a violent tug, he succeeded in snapping his chain and getting away up the bank. What a business it was! drunken Iroquois stumbling about, and the bear, with 100 men after him, scuttling in every direction. Then when the ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... sun-set, The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening, The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite store-houses by the docks, On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank'd on each side by the barges—the hay-boat, the belated lighter, On the neighboring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night. Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... from the ankles it proceeds to the knees, that is, somewhat higher than the ankles; and signifieth that the Christian groweth from a child to a young and strong man, one that is now gotten deeper into the things of God, and that is able to tug with and overcome the wicked ones (1 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... scenes in the world—the gateway to the Western Hemisphere. They could see the great steamships of all the nations threading their way through the Narrows and passing in procession up the glorious expanse of New York Bay, to which the incessant local traffic of tug-boats, river steamers and huge steam-ferries lent an ever-shifting animation. In the foreground lay Robbins Reef Lighthouse, in the middle distance the Statue of Liberty, in the background the giant curves of Brooklyn Bridge, and, range over range, the mountainous buildings of "down ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... yet, had Wesley Marrs. There was a tug and a barge and another big seiner in his course. He clipped the tug, scraped the barge, and set the seiner's boat a-dancing, and two lengths more he put down the wheel and threw her gracefully into the wind. ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... "A lumber tug," observed Vane. "She seems to have a raft in tow, and it will probably be for Drayton's people. If you'll edge in toward her I'll send him word that ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... could not be replaced for L9000. I therefore determined upon a "Safer Khoriyyah," that is, steaming by day and anchoring at night in some snug bay. It was also agreed, nem. con., to tow the Sambuk El-Musahhil, in order that, should accidents happen, it might in turn act tug to the steamer; or even, at a pinch, serve ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... tug of war, so to speak. I braced the landlord! I invited him to take a chair beside me and began ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... passed listening to stories and incidents like those just given, until it was time to go and see the sports. [36] These, with one exception, presented no peculiarity, races, jumping, tug-of-war, and a wheelbarrow race by young women, most of whom tried to escape when they learned what was in store for them. But the crowd laid hold on them and the event came off; the first heat culminating in a helpless mix-up, not ten yards from the starting-line, ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox |
