"Whipcord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... four-wheeler in my life! The harness is tied up with string, and the rein's broken. The idiot says if he had a stout bit of whipcord, he could make it square." No sooner have the words passed the doctor's lips than Miss Sally is ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... should assuredly take us back to the far-off schoolboy times when we used to "snatch a fearful joy" by surreptitious visits to the mill stream, and when, with a little hazel rod, length of whipcord, and rude hooks whipped to twisted horsehair, we would hurry home to breakfast with a dozen roach strung through the gills upon a twig of osier. They were ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... patent-leather boots. This latter is merely modern dandyism; the still invariably worn "dokoljenice" are white gaiters, fastened at the back with hooks and eyes, which reach to the "opanki"—shoes made of a flat leather sole, bound over with a thick network of whipcord. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... particularly distinguished himself. He moved an address on the subject to the prince regent, in doing which he remarked:—"There are but few persons who know what is the dreadful manner in which this torture is inflicted. The instrument, formed of pieces of whipcord, each as thick as a quill, and knotted, is applied by the main strength of fresh men, relieving each other, until human nature can bear no more; and then, if pains are taken to recover the unhappy sufferer, it is only that he may undergo ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that the stockman was dubious, as he himself was, about being able to make the return trip in safety. The horses were tired; so, too, were the men who had broken the heavy trail for so many miles, with the exception of Sam himself, who seemed built of whipcord and elastic. They would be greatly encumbered by the woman, for she would certainly give out during the journey. The one point in their favor was that they could follow a trail which ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... earlier day. With all their faults they at least did not overlook the value of standard realistic stories. In these readers was found the very moral story of the boy who won the day because of his forethought in providing an extra piece of whipcord. There was also "Meddlesome Matty," and the honest office-boy, the heroic lad of Holland, and the story of the newly liberated prisoner who bought a cage full of captive birds and set them free. These and many others still persist in memory, and point with unerring aim ...
— All About Johnnie Jones • Carolyn Verhoeff
... celebrated humorist of Coventry, whose library of ballads, almanacs, and penny histories, fairly wrapped up in parchment, and tied round for security with a piece of whipcord, remains still the envy of antiquaries, being himself the ingenious person under whose direction the pageant had been set forth, rode valiantly on his hobby-horse before the bands of English, high-trussed, saith Laneham, and brandishing his long sword, ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... his numbness, Rupert Venner fought back furiously, humiliated, and ashamed. Whether he would or not, he forgot all his chivalry, and strove to meet this appalling woman with strength against strength; but in Dolores he met a thing of wire and whipcord where moments before had been a creature of warm softnesses; a being of feline agility, and devilish skill that reflected the devilish skill of her teacher, Milo. The chain-links tinkled and clashed against their swaying bodies, but she never let them fall; they hung from her girdle; ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... hired for the year at the annual mop. The word "mop" is derived from an old custom which ordained that the maid-servants who came to find situations should bring their badge of office with them to the fair. They came with their brooms and mops, just as a carter would tie a piece of whipcord to his coat, and a shepherd's hat would be decorated with a tuft of wool. Time was when the labouring man was never happy unless he changed his abode from year to year. He would get tired of one master and one village, and be off to Cirencester ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... waiting for me to perform my great feat. I raised the cross-bow amid the breathless silence of the crowded audience,—consisting of seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way in with a clothes-pin. I raised the cross-bow, I repeat. Twang! went the whipcord; but, alas! instead of hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper Whitcomb's mouth, which happened to be open at the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... would risk horses in a place where they would probably be stolen before the morning, he replied, "True, true, you have perhaps done right." He then refastened his macho, adding for additional security a piece of whipcord, which he said rendered ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... region of his heart, a tentacle had budded. It was as long as his arm, but thin, like whipcord, and ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... pride consists in having everything made of silver; I have seen a cacique with his spurs, stirrups, handle of his knife, and bridle made of this metal: the head-stall and reins being of wire, were not thicker than whipcord; and to see a fiery steed wheeling about under the command of so light a chain, gave to the horsemanship a ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... parcels were exactly alike, both of them well tied up with good whipcord. Ben took his parcel to a table, and, after breaking off the sealing-wax, began carefully to examine the knot, and then to untie it. Hal stood still, exactly in the spot where the parcel was put into his hands, and tried, first at one ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... into small locks, which they woold or cue round with the rind of a slender plant, down to about an inch of the ends; and, as the hair grows, the woolding is continued. Each of these cues or locks is somewhat thicker than common whipcord; and they look like a parcel of small strings hanging down from the crown of their heads. Their beards, which are strong and bushy, are generally short. The women do not wear their hair so, but cropped; nor do the boys, till they approach manhood. Some few men, women, and children, were seen, who ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... the broadest of English churchmen. Truly Gibbie got no fat out of his food, but he got what was far better. What he carried—I can hardly say under or in, but along with those rags of his, was all muscle—small, but hard, and healthy, and knotting up like whipcord. There are all degrees of health in poverty as well as in riches, and Gibbie's health was splendid. His senses also were marvellously acute. I have already hinted at his gift for finding things. His eyes were sharp, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... the buyers insisting on the drovers letting them alone, while the drovers will not let them stand. I have seen a clever man keep some of the best beasts always in view of the buyers, a stick with a whipcord ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... covered them. Her withered face more resembled an old skull than the countenance of a living being, even to the hollow, darkened sockets, at the bottom of which glittered her little black eyes. Her arms had dwindled away into nothing but whipcord and wire. Her hair, half black, half gray, hung in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole garment consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalo robe tied round her waist with a string of hide. Yet ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... takes to tell Hayle had complied with the other's request, and was hard at work picking out the earth which held the enormous flagstone in its place. A state of mad excitement had taken hold of the men, and the veins stood out like whipcord upon Hayle's forehead. It was difficult to say how many feet separated them from the treasure that was to make them lords of all the earth. At last the stone showed signs of moving, and it was possible for Kitwater to insert his bar beneath one corner. He did so, prized it up, and leant upon it ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... mast-heads and washing everything off the decks, but who that has not experienced it can imagine what it is to see gigantic yards being whipped to and fro as a light cane might be switched by a strong man, to see top-masts snapping like pipe-stems, to hear stout ropes cracking like pliant whipcord, and great sails flapping with thunder-claps or bursting into shreds? Above all, who can realise the sensation caused by one's abode being lifted violently with every surge and dropped again with ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... pit coal reflected the ship's slow progress over the sea; showers of rain like whipcord occasionally lashed the deck, followed by a flaming sun that was soon blotted out by a new downpour. These clouds, pregnant with cataracts, this night descending upon the full daylight of the Atlantic, had been the terror of the ancients, and yet, thanks to just such phenomena, the sailors ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... caught a glint of moving color through the fringe of brush. Instantly he was strung like a whipcord. ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... when we alighted. Do not imagine that it was at the door of her old house. It was in a wide street opening on a splendid square, and pillars were before the houses, and inside there was the enchantment of a little fountain playing thin as whipcord, among ferns, in a rock-basin under a window that glowed with kings of England, copied from boys' history books. All the servants were drawn up in the hall to do homage to me. They seemed less real and living than the wonder of the sweet-smelling chairs, the birds, and the elegant dogs. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... entered it, and when the Weather grew fair the Man. This was done by the Help of a Bit of Catgut, which shrinks in wet Weather, and stretches again when it is fair. This appears better by a Line and Plummet, especially if the Line be made of good Whipcord, that is well dried, for then if it be hung against a Wainscot, and a Line drawn under it exactly where the Plummet reaches, in very moderate Weather it will be found to rise above it before Rain, and to sink below when the Weather is like to become fair; but the best Instrument of all is a ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... his body, but he gave a jerk of his will-power which brought the veins out like whipcord upon his forehead, and drove the nails deep into the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... that waltz rang in Nobili's ear. It mounted to his brain like fumes of new wine tapped from the skin. A green door of faded baize faced him on the upper landing, and another bell—a red tassel fastened to a bit of whipcord. He rang it hastily. This time a servant came promptly. He carried in his hand ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... I rode in grey whipcord breeches, tan boots, a blue serge coat, white stock, and never a hat or cap till the snow blew. I used to laugh when the peasants asked leave to lend me a cap or to run back and find the ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... Ogilvy; but more especially it is held fatal to the whole clan of Grahame. It is remembered of an aged gentleman of that name that when his horse fell in a fox-chase, he accounted for it at once by observing that the whipcord attached to his lash was of this unlucky ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... the whipcord crack As angry shearers galloped by, In vain they tried to fetch him back. A little dust along the track Was all ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Caius Nepos took to his heels and fled like one possessed, with hands pressed to his ears, trying to shut out the awful sounds that pursued him all down the corridors: the shrieks of pain, the whizzing of whipcord through the air, and, rising above all these, that awful laugh which must have found ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... like whipcord on Granet's flushed forehead. He swayed on his feet. Twice he had seemed as though he would spring at ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... eyes that Steve encountered that evening were those of Archibald Wickersham. While shaking hands with the girl, he bowed in grave welcome to the tall figure in leather puttees and whipcord riding-breeches, and Wickersham, from the far side of the room, bowed back in equal gravity. Then Caleb Hunter grasped Steve's elbow and spun him around toward the light and peered at him accusingly. Barbara had not noticed until then how tired ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... form of this Hercules had increased in width. He was habited like Alcides; his enormous limbs, furrowed with veins as thick as whipcord, were covered with a close-fitting flesh-colored garment, to which a pair of red drawers formed a ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... dishes were washed and put away when Cheyenne and Bartley appeared. Clean-shaven, his dark hair brushed smoothly, a small, dark-blue, silk muffler knotted loosely about his throat, and in a new flannel shirt and whipcord riding-breeches—which he wore under his jeans when on the trail—Bartley pretty well approximated Little Jim's description of him as a dude. And the word "dude" was commonly used rather to differentiate an outlander from a native ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... In each was a small wooden bedstead about a foot and a half high, with nothing upon it but a very thin paillasse, a black blanket (the colour of the wool), and a little bolster. Upon a nail hung a small cat-o'-nine-tails of knotted whipcord. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... recently written by a woman who mothered an intellectual child of cormorant appetite. That child learned everything in sight from fairies to grease-traps. What was difficult to manage in that mass of whipcord mental fibre, was put into verse and sung. The book told how the child was nourished on all things that only specialists among men cared to litter their minds with. Then there was a supplement of additional ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy broke One whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-blade Of the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... Berline?"—"Gone with it an hour-and-half ago," grumbles responsive the drowsy Porter.—"C'est bien." Yes, it is well;—though had not such hour-and half been lost, it were still better. Forth therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy; then Eastward along the Outward Boulevard, what horses and whipcord can do! ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... less than five minutes; the clamour deepens, the hubbub seems increasing; but ere the last sixty seconds expire, a sharp winding of warning bugles begins. Coachee flourishes his whip, greys and chestnuts prepare for a run, the reins move, but very gently, there is a parting crack from the whipcord, and the brilliant cavalcade is gone—exeunt omnes! Lombard Street is a different place now, far more imposing, though still narrow and dark; the clean-swept roadway is paved with wood, cabs pass ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... a weak-eyed boy with a chronic headache, had a deal of whipcord fiber in his make-up. He stood the test and grubbed at his books every night until the clock tolled twelve. He was born at a peculiar time, being a child of the Reformation married to the Renaissance. The toughness and grimness of Calvin were united in him ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... squire? Alive yet? Ah, well-a-day! well-a-day!" said she, in a feeble, mournful tone, slowly rubbing together her long, skinny, wrinkled hands, on the backs of which the veins stood out like knotted whipcord. She repeated the last words several times, in a truly doleful tone, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... have I," said Yvonne in her odd drawl, "and I'm tired too." Mrs. Jack Bendish was made of whipcord: she had been brought up to ride Irish horses over Irish fences and to dance all night, after tramping the moors all day with a gun. "I'll stay with you and rest. Jack, you run on. Bring me some big ones in a cabbage leaf. And, Captain Hyde, you'll find them excellent with bread and butter." By which ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... tail alone being twenty-two inches; but the diameter of the thickest part of the body is little more than a quarter of an inch. It is of light-brown colour, with iridescent shades variegated with obscurer markings, and looks like a piece of whipcord. One individual which I caught of this species had a protuberance near the middle of the body. Upon opening it, I found a half-digested lizard which was much more bulky than the ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... door, and crossed to the stairs. There he stopped. From his pouch he had drawn a fine length of whipcord, attached at one end to a tiny bodkin of needle sharpness. That bodkin he drove into the edge of one of the panels of the wainscot, in line with the topmost step; drawing the cord taut at a height of a foot or so above this step, he made ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... had walked a hundred leagues together from the hot plains of Syria, through the snow-swept passes of the Taurus mountains, and over the sun-scorched levels of the high plateau.[5] Their muscles were as tireless as whipcord. Their courage had not quailed before robber or blizzard, the night yells of the hyena or the ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... liveries in town. In the country they wear gray or even their ordinary whipcord with a black band on the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... sharp as whipcord. "Keep down!—keep down!" I bent almost double and walked fast at the same time. My mind turned to September 1916, when I walked along Pozieres Ridge, just before the Courcellette fight, and was shouted at for not crouching ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... provided for thrice the usual number of cartridges told one tale; flannel paddings which sought to make of the military appointment a winter garment told another. The Boers, I suppose, envied us our serge and whipcord, but to examine their homely makeshifts was to realise that even the art of Stohwasser may leave something to be desired. Although they eyed us diligently they had now fallen strangely silent; they offered us little conversation, ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... to die here like a rat in a trap?" he groaned, the veins standing out like knotted whipcord on his forehead, the perspiration pouring down his face ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... bore us. Life isn't half long enough, and we're going to talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more, and dwell less on any subject than you can possibly imagine. We are "the best"—made of wire and whipcord.' And Val was unconsciously forming himself on a set whose motto was: 'We defy you to interest or excite us. We have had every sensation, or if we haven't, we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with living that no hours are too small for us. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... read this notice, he laughed to himself, twisted his mustaches, looked proudly at his brawny arms, whose swollen veins looked like so many pieces of blue whipcord, swung his axe twice around his head, and with one blow chopped off one of the biggest branches of the enchanted tree. To his horror and dismay, however, there immediately sprang forth two more branches, each bigger and thicker than the first; and the ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... It was not the reeds alone we had to pass through; a peculiar serrated grass, which at certain angles cut the hands like a razor, was mingled with the reed, and the climbing convolvulus, with stalks which felt as strong as whipcord, bound the mass together. We felt like pigmies in it, and often the only way we could get on was by both of us leaning against a part and bending it down till we could stand upon it. The perspiration streamed off our bodies, and as the sun rose high, there being no ventilation among the reeds, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... prayer-book which asks blessings upon a king instead of a queen. She often keeps the village "confectioner's" shop—i.e., a few bottles of sweets and jumbles in the window, side by side with "twists" of whipcord for the ploughboys and carters, and perhaps has a license for ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... the streets of New York every day with thirty-five or forty sightseers on its broad back, while a groom in whipcord blows an incongruous coaching-horn in ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... hair upon them, standing about fifteen-two in height, perfectly shaped, with fine, clean, sinewy legs not too long, splendid shoulders and haunches, skins like satin, perfect in temper, courageous as lions, speedy, easy-paced. They jumped like cats, and were tough as whipcord, as they found to their great satisfaction before many days were past; they were, in fact, perfect specimens of the exceptionally fine breed of horses peculiar to the Makolo country. Mounted on these magnificent animals, which seemed to carry ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... which Ayscough drew forward and sat down, throwing open his heavy overcoat, and revealing a whipcord riding-suit of ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... chatted with a cobbler, inspected the complete workshop on the sidewalk, priced the work,—"real, artistic, high-priced jobs were worth thirty to forty kopeks,"—had promised to fetch our boots to be repaired with tacks and whipcord,—"when they needed it,"—and had received an unblushing appeal for a bottle of vodka in which to drink the health of ourselves and the cobblers. With true feminine faith in the efficacy of a man's presence, we now enjoyed the prospect of going through the middle of it, for its entire length. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... was unused to oaths at that time and they cut me like whipcord, but all the same ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... at his only passenger, touched the nigh leader with the most delicate hint of a whipcord, and said confidentially to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... let me deal with him," said Pearson, who was a true soldier of fortune, and had been a buccaneer in the West Indies, "I think that, by a whipcord twitched tight round their forehead, and twisted about with a pistol-but, I could make either the truth start from their lips, or the eyes from ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... trotted toward the city. He did not wish to disturb the plots and counterplots that he was confident were forming in Clay's brain, and his devotion would have been severely tried had he known that his hero's mind was filled with a picture of a young girl in a blue shirt-waist and a whipcord riding-skirt. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... me begon, trolly lo Over a Whinny Meg, Hey ding a ding, Bony lass upon a green, My bony on gave me a bek, By a bank az I lay; and two more he hath fair wrapt up in parchment, and bound with a whipcord!" It is no wonder that Ritson, in the historical essay prefixed to his collection of Scottish Songs, should speak of some of these ballads with a zest as if he would have sacrificed half his library to untie the said ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... glance that he was a man well over six feet tall, with whipcord muscles and a keen, eager, domineering air. Unlike any of the other Folk, his hair (snow-white) was not twisted into a fantastic knot and fastened with gold pins, but hung loose and was cut square off at about the level of his shoulders, forming ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... one a Hottentot named Ventvoegel, or "windbird," and one a little Zulu named Khiva, who had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventvoegel I had known before; he was one of the most perfect "spoorers," that is, game trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never seemed to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race, drink. Put him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust him. However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this little weakness of his did not so ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... of Government not many years ago, an officer of the Royal Household was chatting with one of the Queen's old coachmen (whose name and location I, for obvious reasons, forbear to indicate). "Well, Whipcord, have you seen your new Master of the Horse yet?" "Yes, sir, I have; and I should say that his lordship is more of an indoors man." The phrase has a touch of genial contempt for a long-descended but effete aristocracy which tickles the democratic palate. It was not old Whipcord, but a brother ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... better than had been represented. The latest weather had done it good. Drivers, both of horses and mules, had come in that evening after dark, and had reported nothing more difficult to be overcome than trials of patience, harness, wheels, axles, and whipcord. A bargain was soon struck for a carriage and horses, to take them on in the morning, ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... some of the cottage folk were quite up to the value of appearances. Old Aaron had a little shop; he and his wife sold small packets of tea, tobacco, whipcord, and so forth. Sometimes while his wife was weighing out the sugar, old Aaron—wretched old deceiver—would come in rustling a crumpled piece of paper as if it were a banknote, and handing it to her with much impressiveness of manner whisper ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... Orkney Isles to clean, but were apprehended by a gentleman of that country, brought up to London, and tried before a Court of Admiralty, in May, 1725. When the first indictment was read, Gow obstinately refused to plead, for which the Court ordered his thumbs to be tied together with whipcord. The punishment was several times repeated by the executioner and another officer, they drawing the cord every time till it broke. But he still being stubborn, refusing to submit to the court, the sentence was pronounced against him, which the law appoints in such cases; that is, "That ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... are soundly built, stranger; you are made of iron and whipcord, finely formed, quick and alert." He threw a word to one of his heavy-faced attendants, then suddenly stood up and descended from his throne. He came up and ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... was a man of singular temperament. He was good-looking and more intelligent than any native I had ever before seen. His habit was spare, but his muscles were firm, and his sinews like whipcord He must indeed have had great confidence in his own powers to have undertaken a journey of more than 200 miles from his own home. He was very taciturn, and would rather remain at the officers' ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... shepherd and dog, were all the living things I saw. The ground was iron, the colour of what had once been herbage a glaring brown. Of the flowers none but the hardiest had outlived the visitation of the sun. I saw rest-harrow which has a root like whipcord, and the flat thistle which thrives in dust. The harebells floated no more, the discs of the scabious were shrivelled husks; ladies' bedstraw was straw indeed, but not for ladies' uses. Three miles away from anywhere we came upon a clump of dusty sycamores whose leaves were spotted and ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... This good belly of mine, this broad, easy gullet, these hands, this portly beard, which may now get as white as it can, since I have done with gossip Fra Clemente—a wrist of steel, fingers as hard as whipcord, and legs like anchor-cables; all these were fostered and made able by brown St. Francis' merry sons. Fra Palamone, dear unknown, Fra Palamone, ever your servant! And now—"here, with another revolting change, he turned his lips back to show his tooth—"And ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... man's forearm and ran the other down the plump body beneath the coat. "My goodness!" said he to Torpenhow, "and this gray oaf dares to be a thief! I have seen an Esneh camel-driver have the black hide taken off his body in strips for stealing half a pound of wet dates, and he was as tough as whipcord. This thing's ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... recognise him. His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines, while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated upon the matter before him that a question or remark fell unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... bank, and so avoiding the force of the current, they sped swiftly along, for both Amos and De Catinat were practised hands with the paddle, and the two Indians worked as though they were wire and whipcord instead of flesh and blood. An utter silence reigned over all the broad stream, broken only by the lap-lap of the water against their curving bow, the whirring of the night hawk above them, and the sharp high barking of foxes away in the woods. When at last morning broke, and the black ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wheel sat a damsel of extraordinary beauty. The massive proportions of the enormous car only accentuated the perfection of her streamline figure. Her chassis was admirable; she was upholstered in a sports suit of fawn-colored whipcord; and her sherry-brown eyes were unmodified by any dimming devices. Before Bleak could say anything she cried eagerly, "Get in, Mr. Bleak! I've been looking for you everywhere. What a happy ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley |
