"Adrift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The enemy must be driven back with loss and confusion each time such an attempt is made. That will discourage them, and inspire our men with hope and courage. We have also prepared fire ships at no small cost, to be launched and fired at convenient seasons, and sent adrift amongst the enemy's ships. The sight of their burning vessels will do something to discourage the English. They put their trust in their ships. We will show them what a warm welcome we have waiting for ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... there was a watch on the quarter-deck with loaded arms, he was not discovered by them till the noise of his oars in the water gave notice of his escape, after he had put off from the ship, when it was too late either to prevent or pursue him. Besides, as their boats were all adrift, it was some time before they could contrive the means of getting on shore to search for their boats. By this effort, besides regaining his liberty, the Indian was in some measure revenged on those who had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... was hull down on her way to the Islands, and folk at Dartmouth stared to see the Dittisham ferry boat adrift in the harbour; but presently there came Jimmy Fox calling on all the law and the prophets for vengeance; and then the nation heard about his troubles and the terrible adventure that had overtook the poor man and his wife. But both were tolerably well known up ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... bound the children on that funny raft and set them adrift, probably thinking they would be able to get ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... explanation the huge carcass of the whale had been distended to almost twice its natural size, and now it floated high out of the water. The steel tube was pulled out and a buoy with a flag was attached to the whale, which was then set adrift to be picked up and towed ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... sustain his drooping spirit. He was mentally adrift upon the Hints and Helps to Young Men in Business and Social Relations, which had suggested to him his present enterprise, when the appearance of a second youth, taller and broader than himself, with a shock of light ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... present. That is to say, he has, like myself, been trained to no special profession, and the failure of the firm in the counting-house of which we have both served for some months has cast us adrift at ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... but as his name had not been mentioned he dared not take it upon himself to move so much as one of his tightly braced feet. He seemed to feel that if he did so it would be at the risk of his life; and the thought of being cast adrift on that raging sea filled him ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... natives, and at nightfall I was still a long way from my camp. When the darkness became so dense that I could not see even faint outlines I took a star for guidance till clouds blotted it out. Then I was completely adrift in a sea of mountains. I could not tell one direction from another. Throwing the reins on the broncho's neck I sat back in my saddle to see what would come of it. Slowly, cautiously the animal plodded over broken, rocky ground succeeded by ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... outward sensations, and inward thoughts, we should have no reason to prefer one thought or action to another; negligence to attention, or motion to rest. And so we should neither stir our bodies, nor employ our minds, but let our thoughts (if I may so call it) run adrift, without any direction or design, and suffer the ideas of our minds, like unregarded shadows, to make their appearances there, as it happened, without attending to them. In which state man, however furnished with ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... a cavern of the high rock, and hastily dressed herself: the steps held on right to the boat. Peeping out, half-dead with terror, she saw there four men, two of whom had just leaped from their horses, and turning them adrift, began to help the other two in ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... circumstances of grave suspicion, as learned from themselves, and this suspicion gathers strength from various circumstances related on Schwatka's journey. Be this as it may, I take my stand on far higher ground. Of course such things have happened. Strong, shipwrecked mariners, suddenly cast adrift on the ocean, have endeavored to extend life in this way when they were in hourly expectation of being rescued. But how different the case in point! The crews of the 'Erebus' and 'Terror', when they abandoned their ship, were, doubtless, for the most part, suffering from exhaustion ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... pressure of one ounce to the square foot, a thimbleful of air will inflate a sizeable globe to that pressure. Jones was arranging tiny Dabney field robot-generators with tiny atomic batteries to power them. Each such balloon would be a Dabney field "plate" when cast adrift in emptiness, and its little battery would keep it in operation for twenty years ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... wall," he cried, "is downe, The rising tide comes on apace, And boats adrift in yonder towne Go sailing uppe the market-place." He shook as one that looks on death: "God save you, mother!" straight he saith ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... the religious instinct regained possession of her. It was as if her soul had been flung adrift, had gone out with the ebb of the spiritual sea, and now rocked, poised, waiting for the turn ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... seduce, although not to satisfy. Hence death and judgment are unwelcome subjects of reflection to the rich and powerful; for death takes from them those comforts which habit has made necessary to them, and throws them adrift on a new order of things, of which they know nothing, save that in it there ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... was his confidential friend, and would think, with an anxious heart, could her struggling tendency to dislike and fear him be a part of that misfortune in her, which had turned her father's love adrift, and left her so alone? She dreaded that it might be; sometimes believed it was: then she resolved that she would try to conquer this wrong feeling; persuaded herself that she was honoured and encouraged by the notice of her father's friend; and hoped that patient observation ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Those of us who believe in the fundamental soundness of the character of the Chinese people, and are aware of the high dignity and value of a large part of their inherited civilization and culture, are awaiting with deep anxiety an answer to this question: Is the New China about to cast herself adrift from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... towards the water, and the pater deposits the supposed devil on board the raft, on which the palongs row off with the greatest possible expedition, dragging the captive out to sea, to a considerable distance, when, having turned him and his vehicle adrift, they row back with the utmost speed to shore. For two days the enemy may survive this rough usage, and again land in safety, if driven on shore by the tide or wind, but on the third day he must die. Should he land at another village, he then does the mischief there, which he was ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... knots in a string and words unlearnable, and others who can alter the course of a waterspout by a secret spell, and a captain who made a floating beacon of junk soaked in petroleum in a tar-barrel and set it adrift and stood up on the quarter-deck calling on all the three hundred and sixty-five saints in the calendar out of the Neapolitan almanack he held—and got a breeze, too, for his pains, as Ruggiero adds with a quiet and somewhat incredulous smile when he has finished the yarn. All these ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... getting a scare from something big and flimsy that was drifting loose, I got my hand on the cord quite close to the studs, and reached them. I lit the little lamp first of all to see what it was I had collided with, and discovered that old copy of Lloyd's News had slipped its moorings, and was adrift in the void. That brought me out of the infinite to my own proper dimensions again. It made me laugh and pant for a time, and suggested the idea of a little oxygen from one of the cylinders. After that I lit the heater until I felt warm, and then I took food. Then ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... she could see the steamer's yawl swinging from its tackle at the stern-staff; and after many minutes it was slowly borne in upon her that the ropes were working loose. When it became evident that the boat would shortly fall into the river and go adrift, she got up and put the book aside, meaning to go forward and tell the captain. But before she had taken the first step a man came aft to make the loosened tackle fast, and she stood back to let ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... centre of it; a blue world that slid through degrees of latitude and longitude, but held us, its inhabitants, at ever the same distance from realities. The past was miles away at the end of the white path astern; the future did not yet so much as smudge the forward horizon; we were adrift, lost ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... me!" Mrs. Montague exclaimed, flushing hotly. "If I had only acted upon my first impressions, I should have sent you adrift at once—I should not have tolerated your presence a single hour; but you were so demure and innocent that you deceived me completely, and I never found you out until the morning after my high-tea. Then I understood your game, and resolved to so effectually ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Ames, that's the man who hired me, found out about my doings down here at Stanley Junction, and he has set me adrift." ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... and lost—the bells rung in William's victory, in the very same tone with which they would have pealed for James's. Men were loose upon politics, and had to shift for themselves. They, as well as old beliefs and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble almost everybody gambled; as in the Railway mania—not many centuries ago—almost every one took his unlucky share; a man of that time, of the vast talents and ambition of Swift, could scarce do otherwise than grasp at his prize, and make his spring at his ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... continued, "acts on different natures in different ways. Your mother's death must have been a great blow to you. It was to me." He looked fixedly at his nails. "I understand fully what it must mean to be thrown adrift on the world at the age you were. I don't wish you ever to think that we knew of your condition at the time. We didn't—not for a moment. I did not learn of your mother's death until long afterward, and only of your ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... the Government would be compelled to place the military power of the state at their disposal, to evict the whole population in the queen's name, to drive all the families away from their homes, to demolish their dwellings, and turn them adrift on the highway, without one shilling compensation. Villages, schools, churches would all disappear from the landscape; and, when the grouse season arrived, the noble owner might bring over a party of English friends to see ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... stem, feeling rather dizzy and headachy when, all at once, the captain shouted to me to "cut shark adrift; we're making too little way. That schooner's too far-off for my liking." I drew my knife, and after hauling the fish as closely as I could to the side I divided the thin line, and as I did so the boat seemed to ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... comparison in harmony with its occasion, so that when it is completed it shall fall back easily into the emotional key of the narrative, has been the study of the great epic poets. Milton's description of the rebel legions adrift on the flaming sea is a fine instance of the difficulty ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... to-night since there was born, at Clonmel, in Ireland, a son to a subaltern in an English regiment just home from the Low Countries. "My birthday," Laurence Sterne tells us, "was ominous to my poor father, who was, the day after our arrival, with many other brave officers, broke and sent adrift into the wide world with a wife and two children." The life of the new baby was one of perpetual hurry and scurry; his mother, who had been an old campaigner, daughter of what her son calls "a noted suttler" called ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... Faulkner fell to the deck—a musket ball had pierced his heart. That was no time for grieving, even for one well-beloved as the captain. A hawser was being got up from below to secure the enemy's ship; but before it could be used she broke adrift, to the disappointment of the British tars. A cheer, however, burst from their throats as, directly afterwards, the "Blanche," paying off for want of after-sail, the "Pique," while attempting to cross her stern, ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... very well satisfied with them, until, a week after, he was bidden to the wedding of the Queen of the Golden Mountains; for when he came there who should the bridegroom be but the beggar whom he had set adrift in the wooden box a ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... there. She was the girl of the stolen meetings once more, the girl whose eyes reflected the open beauty of what Martin had called the big cathedral. For all that, she was the girl who had hurt him to the soul, shown him her door, played that trick upon him at the Ritz and sent him adrift full of the spirit of "Who cares?" which was her fetish. It was in his heart to say: "Because I adore you! Because I am so much yours that you have only to think my name for me to hear it across the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... vessels, including commercial shipping and pleasure craft, have been attacked and hijacked both at anchor and while underway; hijacked vessels are often disguised and cargoes stolen; crew and passengers are often held for ransom, murdered, or cast adrift ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... ourselves. Still there are degrees. HARTINGTON given up something; CHAMBERLAIN chucked himself away; JAMES might have been on the Woolsack. But think of me, dear TOBY, and all I've sacrificed. Four years ago a private Member, adrift from my Party; no chance of reinstatement; not even sure of a seat. Now Chancellor of the Exchequer, with L5000 a-year, and a pick of safe seats. Too much to expect of me, TOBY; sometimes more than I can bear;" and JOKIM hid his face in his copy of the Orders of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various
... are a stranger here," said one gentleman to me. This was Jack O'Conor, Tom's eldest son, my bosom friend for many a year after. Poor Jack! I fear that the Encumbered Estates Court sent him altogether adrift ...
— The O'Conors of Castle Conor from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope
... a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... express a hope that he was coming to tennis to-morrow, at which he brightened up a little. I do not wish to be uncharitable—least of all to a charming young lady—but my opinion is that Miss Trix did not wish to set the curate altogether adrift. I think, however, that Lady Queenborough must have spoken again, for when Jack did come to tennis, Trix treated him with the most freezing civility and a hardly disguised disdain, and devoted herself to Lord Newhaven with as much assiduity as her mother could ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... tragic in the history of exploration than the desertion of Henry Hudson and his boy in their newly discovered bay. Every detail of the conspiracy is given by Prickett. We know how the rumour spread, how the crew resolved to turn the "master" and the sick men adrift and to share the remaining provisions among themselves. And how in the early morning Hudson was seized and ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... places that lure us:— "The Old Wood Bridge" just west Of town we know—and the creek below, And the banks the boys love best: And "Beech Grove," too, on the hill-top; And "The Haunted House" beyond, With its roof half off, and its old pump-trough Adrift ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... dislike, Mr. Twist disliked Uncle Arthur. Patriotism was nothing at any time to Mr. Twist compared to humanity, and Uncle Arthur's particular kind of patriotism was very odious to him. To wreak it on these two poor aliens! Mr. Twist had no words for it. They had been cut adrift at a tender age, an age Mr. Twist, as a disciplined American son and brother, was unable to regard unmoved, and packed off over the sea indifferent to what might happen to them so long as Uncle Arthur knew nothing about it. Having flung these ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... up one of Mr. Gordon's Key West night-sticks and cuts adrift on the railroad business. That made the boss kind of sick at first. Railroads was something he was tryin' to forget for the evenin'. But there wasn't any shuttin' the old jay off. And say! he knew the case-cards all right. There was too much high finance about ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... New York City in 1866, where he wrote his first book for boys, Ragged Dick, which had a wonderful sale. This was followed by Fame and Fortune, and many others, of which the best-known titles are: Andy Grant's Pluck, Adrift in New York, Ben's Nugget, Charlie Codman's Cruise, Chester Rand, Five Hundred Dollars, Grit, Helping Himself, The Young Adventurer, The Young Explorer, The Young Miner, The Young Musician, The Store Boy, The Tin Box, Walter Sherwood's ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... sudden turn where the current almost fetched me ashore on the south bank. There from the slip nearly overhead, as the boat whirled around, I heard a sentinel call out, "Stop there, or I fire!" I remained motionless, feeling sure that he would not risk an alarm by reason of a skiff gone adrift. As he called again the boat slewed around, and shot, stern first, far out into the great flood of the Delaware. Never had it seemed to me a dearer friend. I was free. Cautiously using the paddle without rising, ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... the wake of the locomotive. Whole mountainsides in Alaska are dyed crimson with it. Beginning at the bottom of the long spike, the flowers open in slow succession upward throughout the summer, leaving behind the attractive seed-vessels, which, splitting lengthwise in September, send adrift white silky tufts attached to seeds that will one day cover far distant wastes with beauty. Almost perfect rosettes, made by the young plants, are met with on ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... I hadn't meddled; I'm meddling some more I suppose when I say to you, don't give Howard his conge for the present. It is a horridly common thing to dwell upon, but Howard is too materially important to be cut adrift on the impulse of ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... pains. Francos: My liege, I grasp the thought: a burden dark, Which now each year a golden tribute calls, Must be disposed of quickly, but so sly That watching nations may not fling a slur Upon our honor as we cast adrift This alien race to face the world alone. Caesar: Sweet Francos, truly thou hast quick discerned The thought which wisdom fathered in my mind. "Be wise as serpent, harmless as the dove," Should be our watchword as we scuttle ship, For there be those who speak with venomed tongues Of serpents, as ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... good nature, his practicality, and the multitude of his acquaintances, all manner of shiftless or luckless fellows were in the habit of looking to him for advice and help. As soon as they found themselves adrift they turned to Gammon. Every day he had a letter asking him to find a "berth" or a "billet" for some out-at-elbows friend, and in a surprising number of cases he was able to make a useful suggestion. It would have paid ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... burden, and each carries from thirty to fifty pounds. They are then much better kept than in the winter; for they have the remains of the whale and sea-calf, which their masters disdain to eat. The majority, however, are sent adrift in the summer, and they live on the produce of the chase or of their constant thievery. The exactness with which, the summer being past, each returns to his master, is an admirable proof of sagacity, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... his arm in exaggerated dread. "Don't set me adrift again. I've thought about it; it's settled. This is the only way of making money, that I ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... under the impulse of pride, covetous of good food. Greedy I was of wealth, I never dedicated, with faith and reverence, any food to the deities and the Pitris although duty required me to dedicate food unto them. Those men that came to me, moved by fear, for seeking my protection, I sent adrift without giving them any protection. I did not extend my protection to those that came to me with prayers for dispelling their fear. I used to feel unreasonable envy at seeing other people's wealth, and corn, and spouses ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... find him adrift, apparently with thought of having his bird drawings published, after he shall have further added to them by going through many of the southern and ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... can only reply that beauty is almost always dumb. Male beauty in association with female beauty breeds in the onlooker a sense of fear. Often have I seen them—Helen and Jimmy—and likened them to ships adrift, and feared for my own little craft. Or again, have you ever watched fine collie dogs couchant at twenty yards' distance? As she passed him his cup there was that quiver in her flanks. Bowley saw what was up-asked Jimmy to breakfast. Helen must have confided in Rose. For my own part, ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... with small snow, and as disagreeable and dangerous for people adrift upon floating ice as can well be imagined. If the women, however, gave their husbands a thought, or spoke of them to us, it was only to express a very sincere hope that some good news might shortly arrive of their success. ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... adrift in South Bay last night, containing one oar and a woman's hat. The hat belonged to Miss Randall, and as she is missing, it is feared that she either drowned herself ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... not. They are local and only earth phenomena, yet the benefaction of the sun is as if it shone for us alone. It is as great as if this were the case, and yet the fraction of his light and heat that actually falls upon this mote of a world adrift in sidereal space is so infinitely small that it could hardly be computed by numbers. In our religion we appropriate God to ourselves in the same way, but he knows us not in this private and particular way, though we are all sharers in the ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... here, and in some way the loneliness of water and plain soothe me as human speech cannot. I used to love to stand yonder by the eastern wall and gaze out over the Great Lake, watching the green surges chase each other until they burst in spray along the beach. But since I went adrift in the little boat, and felt the cruelty of the water, I have shrunk from looking out upon it. Monsieur, have you never known how restful it ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... nothing could dim? Had he suggested some personal relation to that past which her father preferred to keep unexplained? These questions crowded into her mind speculatively. They were seeking a form of conveyance when she realized that she had been adrift with imaginings. He was getting older. She must expect his preoccupation and his absent-mindedness to become ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... next morning all were relieved at the rest afforded them. The savages had too much respect to venture near the camp, and a consultation was held as to a wise course to follow. The captive was of no use to them, but it would have been inhuman to turn him adrift, so that he should fall into the hands of the besieging party. Eventually he might be ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... a frank laugh: "No, no, I can't cast Taboureau adrift at this moment—people would make too much sport of it—a ministry wrecked or saved ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Mr. Douglas had been discarded, Mr. Lincoln made a formal proposal for the hand of Miss Todd, but it appears that the young lady was not willing to capitulate at once. She believed that she could send her lover adrift to-day and win him ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... you do then, brother? And what shall I do? for I am almost as bad as you. The people where I lodge are all gone into the country but a maid, and she is to go next week, and to shut the house quite up, so that I shall be turned adrift to the wide world before you, and I am resolved to go away too, if I knew ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... islands are very high. We sailed along the shore of the island of Pico, under a stately green pyramid that rose up with one unbroken sweep from our very feet to an altitude of 7,613 feet, and thrust its summit above the white clouds like an island adrift in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... had again to make his escape. At first he only dismissed his military suite; afterward he separated from his faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the poor animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his way alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a while, looking down from the top of a piece of elevated ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... do that easily enough," was the answer. "Bring around the big motor boat. We'll have to tow the Fairy back here. I don't see how she ever got adrift," went on Mr. Brown. "I'm sure neither Bunny nor ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Christmas Tree Cove • Laura Lee Hope
... it's all about," said Mr. Brown, when he and Uncle Tad were fully dressed. "We'll find out if we are adrift on the Atlantic or Pacific ocean, and how ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on an Auto Tour • Laura Lee Hope
... a sailor; That's what Renzo was, tiddy hi! He surely warn't a tailor, So haul the bowline, haul! He went adrift in Casco Bay, Mate to a mud-scow haulin' hay, And he come home late for his weddin' day, So haul ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... Tory and a Protestant, I have discarded both the creeds of my youth. But with this difference in the result: in religion I have found sure anchorage; in politics I am still adrift. ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... inflicted upon each other an appreciable amount of damage, and threatened to do a great deal more if prompt preventive measures were not taken. Marshall therefore called upon Winter, one of his lieutenants, to take a party of twenty men, and with them return to the Adventure, cast her adrift from the prize, and lie off within easy hailing-distance of the latter. This was done at once, Dick Chichester being one of those called upon by Winter to follow him aboard the Adventure, and as soon as the two ships were parted an investigation ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... he contemplated such a possibility. He could easily imagine his feelings upon being cast helplessly adrift in the midst of a raging gale, with his tried and true chums hidden from his sight by the rain and ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... workers laid off from state-owned enterprises, migrants, and new entrants to the work force; (b) reduce corruption and other economic crimes; and (c) contain environmental damage and social strife related to the economy's rapid transformation. From 100 to 150 million surplus rural workers are adrift between the villages and the cities, many subsisting through part-time, low-paying jobs. One demographic consequence of the "one child" policy is that China is now one of the most rapidly aging countries ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... interest, though years and years have interposed to shroud it in the dull dust of forgetfulness, that still remains vivid and bright and beautiful. Whether an orphan child only, or with a father that could thus lightly send her adrift, I do not know now, nor do I care to ask, but I do recall distinctly that on a raw bleak day in early winter she was brought to us, from a wild country settlement, by a reputed uncle—a gaunt round- shouldered man, with deep eyes and sallow cheeks ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... barbarism; nor is it extraordinary that a writer already quoted, and who is not to be suspected of any pro-slavery tendencies, puts the question, "Is it enough that they [the Americans] simply loose their chain and turn them adrift lower," as he is pleased to say, "than they found them?"[21] It is not enough. They need to be prepared for freedom. "Immediate emancipation," as he says, "solves only the ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... the course of the vessel was altered; dangling spars were cut away and thrown adrift, sail was taken in, and our friends on the shore could see that they were endeavoring to bring the ship to haven ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... visits of the Malays on their voyages after trepang, before mentioned by Captain Flinders, and also could tell from the boldness and cunning of the natives that they were well used to visitors; they even had the audacity to swim off after dark and cut the whale boat adrift, fortunately the theft was detected before the boat drifted ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... both! I meant no harm. I speak of our blessed Saint Catherine of Sienna!—may God forgive me that I spoke so lightly, and made you do a great sin and a great blasphemy. This was her nunnery, in which there were twelve nuns and an abbess. My aunt was the abbess, till the heretics turned all adrift." ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... them. As I passed up the crowded river in my launch on the morning after the first night's bombardment we seemed to be followed by a wave of sound—a great murmur of mingled anguish and misery and fatigue and hunger from the homeless thousands adrift upon the waters. ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... mode of torture. One day, some of us, while walking the poop, had our attention directed to a sucking-fish, about two and a half feet in length, which had been made fast by the tail to a billet of wood, by a fathom or so of spun-yarn, and turned adrift. An immense striped shark, apparently about fourteen feet in length, which had been cruising about the ship all the morning, sailed slowly up, and turning slightly on one side, attempted to seize the seemingly helpless fish; but the sucker, with great dexterity, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... paid a retaining fee of ten thousand crowns, besides great sums in lands and money. "He maintained over Louis unbounded influence, by using to him the most disrespectful harshness and insolence. 'I know,' he said to the suffering King, 'that one morning you will turn me adrift like so many others. But, by Heaven, you had better beware, for you will not live eight days after you ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the day before gracefully riding safely at their moorings, decked out in all their pride and glory and lined up alongside the Strand, three and four abreast from the Pepper Box to the Eden Gardens, one alone was left, all the others having been violently torn adrift and swept clean away to the four winds of heaven. Besides these were all the country traders moored to the south of the Pepper Box known as Coolie Bazar, extending as far as Tackta Ghat, ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... wisdom. I could scarcely keep from laughing at the look of perplexity and indignation in Tullus's face when he quoted Propertius's reply. The boy actually asked them if they thought the poor flute ought to be set adrift just because swelled cheeks weren't becoming to Pallas! The long and short of it is that he wants me to interfere, and convince Propertius of his public duty. That public duty may conceivably take the form of writing poetry is beyond ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... beneficial. He, at the same time, always taught that Ireland was utterly unfit for democracy, and that under her peculiar conditions no policy could be more disastrous than one which would 'destroy the influence of landed property'; 'set population adrift from the influence of property'; subvert or weaken the guiding influence of the loyal and educated. When the United Irishmen proposed a Reform Bill which would have made the Irish Parliament a purely democratic body, Grattan denounced it with ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... captain was somewhat in dread of Jabez and Jabez's opinions; but Milly had no fear that the strangers would be sent adrift in ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... contemptuously at the heaps of white muslin piled up beside it. The boys' shirts, you know,—but wasn't it a mercy she had made enough to buy them before muslin went up? There were three of the boys asleep now, legs and arms adrift over the floor, pockets gorged with half-apples, bits of twine instead of suspenders, other surreptitious bits under their trousers for straps. There were the twins, girls of ten, hungering for beaux, pickles, and photographic albums. They were gone to a party ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... 'now he's angry. What have I done?' She buried her face in her hands, entered the arbor, threw herself on the settee, and began sobbing with convulsive grief. Here was a situation for an unsophisticated youth like myself. Egad! my heart bounced about in my breast like a shot adrift in the cook's biggest copper. I approached the lady softly, and, grown wiser by experience, knelt before I took her hand. She started, screamed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... had a confidential conversation with Mrs. Monckton. He told her he had been very secret with her for her good. "I saw," said he, "this Monckton had no deep regard for you, and was capable of turning you adrift in prosperity; and I knew that if I told you everything you would let it out to him, and tempt him to play the villain. But the time is come that I must speak, in justice to you both. That estate he left your son half in joke is virtually his. Fourteen years ago, ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... and the Roosevelt was in the same position, with the ice crowding against her; but at the crest of the high tide the grounded floe-berg to which we were attached by cable went adrift, and we all hurried on deck. The lines were hastily detached from the berg. As the ice went south, it left a stretch of open water before us about a mile long, and we steamed northward along the shore, pushing our way behind the grounded bergs, trying to find ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... when I found myself fairly adrift. Delicious sunshine came pouring over the hills, lighting the tops of the pines, and setting free a steam of summery fragrance that contrasted strangely with the wild tones of the storm. The air was mottled with pine-tassels and bright green plumes, that went flashing past in the sunlight ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... they were seen to back or shiver their topsails for the purpose of doing this with more precision.[20] The two Midshipmen of the Victory had just boarded the Redoutable, and got their men out of the boat, when a shot from the Enemy's van ships that were making off cut the boat adrift. About ten minutes after taking possession of her, a Midshipman came to her from the Temeraire; and had hardly ascended the poop, when a shot from one of those ships took off his leg. The French Officers, seeing the firing continued on the prize by their own countrymen, entreated the ...
— The Death of Lord Nelson • William Beatty
... shrubbery. One night the officers landed on this island after he had gone into hiding, and after diligent search discovered his boat drawn up in a covert. They pushed it into the lake, where the winds sent it adrift, and, his communication with the shore thus cut off, the outlaw perished miserably of hunger. His skeleton was found in the cavern ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... to re-live the dreaming, Adrift in my canoe? To watch my paddle blade all wet and gleaming Cleaving the waters through? To lie wind-blown and wave-caressed, until Your ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... spoke, while still his greeting kiss Ached in her hair. She did not dare to lift Her eyes to his—her anguished eyes to his, While tears smote crystal in her throat. One rift Of weakness humored might set all adrift. ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... the forge where a piece of the discarded gumbo should fall amongst the coke, the helper who should pump the bellows for another and verifying bake: and last, and best of all, it gave me a "curtain" for a second act; when, perturbed and adrift after being temporarily rejected by the girl, Goodwin should turn in an undefined but natural sympathy to the crippled dog in his box ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... class of Economists which Parliament contained, now Gentlemen, solicits the honour of representing you; and merit may perhaps be claimed for him for his exertions upon that occasion. If it be praiseworthy to have contributed to cast shoals of our deserving countrymen adrift, without regard to their past services, that praise cannot be denied him; if it be commendable to have availed himself of inordinate momentary passion to carry measures whereby the general weal was sacrificed, whether designedly for the attainment of popularity, or in the self-applauding ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... I have seen in old cathedrals, lighting up the beauty of a saintly face. A light which the poet tells was never seen on land or sea. I thought of this beautiful and defenseless girl adrift in the power of a reckless man, who, with all the advantages of wealth and education, had trailed his manhood in the dust, and she, with simple, childlike faith in the Unseen, seemed to be so good ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... he was wisest and most skilled in the use of courteous words. "We are from Suddenne, sire, of good lineage and Christian faith. The pagans came to our land, and slew my father and many others, and drove us from our homes. We thirteen whom you see were set adrift in a boat, to be the sport of the sea; a day and a night have we travelled without sail or rudder, and our boat brought us to this land. We are in your hands, sire: slay us, or keep us bound as prisoners; do ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... floating rocks. Here are several broken-up ones floating about in the Waigat, a narrow strait between the island of Disco and the mainland of Greenland, and in close vicinity to several fjords noted for sending big bergs adrift in the channel way to float southward. These are the 'ice- mountains' of the fancy artist. One ashore close into the land, and yet not stranded or on account of its depth in the water getting into any very shallow soundings, you may see in your mind's eye, as I've seen them ...
— Tom Finch's Monkey - and How he Dined with the Admiral • John C. Hutcheson
... towing a revenue cutter with stores for a new lighthouse, and cast her adrift at the point where we anchored, and the Resident and Mr. Daly went ashore with thirteen policemen, and I had a most interesting and instructive conversation with Mr. Syers. Afterward we steamed along the low wooded coast, and then up the Langat river till we ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... so may have sailed away to the Barbadoes or the Mediterranean, and there have met his death and scuttled his ship in a last fight against odds, or perhaps been marooned by a mutinous crew, or set adrift in an open boat to die of hunger and thirst, or been stabbed in a drunken scuffle over a ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... giving up his authority (which would have shaken the foundations of the Monarchy), to delegate so much of it as would enable the fire to be laid and lighted by the same power. We fancy, however, that even since the Stockmarian reconstruction, we have heard of guests finding themselves adrift in the corridors of Windsor. There used to be no bells to the rooms, it being assumed that in the abode of Royalty servants, were always within call, a theory which would have been full of comfort to any ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... to—to let her know that she has friends. Will you let me help. Fifty pounds or a hundred pounds won't hurt me... and I've been stone-broke myself. But a man can always peg along in the bush; and it's an awful thing for a child like that to be adrift ...
— In The Far North - 1901 • Louis Becke
... no good in that; for they wouldn't know what to do with the crew. Of course they don't want the bother of prisoners here, and they wouldn't want to turn them adrift in the boats. They might land on some island near and see us going and coming here, and carry the news to some of your cruisers. No, I expect they will take what is valuable and let them go—that is if the ship isn't worth sending home. I suppose that is so in this ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... rolling the body with my hands: 'God hath judged between us, Hirnam Singh, that thy blood might not be upon my head. Now, whether I have done thee a wrong in keeping thee from the burning-ghat, do thou and the crows settle together.' So I cast him adrift into the flood-water, and he was drawn out to the open, ever wagging his thick black beard like a priest under the pulpit-board. And I saw no more ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... quick sharp words with Captain Luke, my step backward with my arms up as he and the mate pressed upon me, the smasher that I got in on the mate's jaw, the crack on my own head that stunned me—and then my revival of consciousness as I found myself adrift in the ocean and saw the brig sailing away. And while these thoughts crowded upon me my boat went onward through the weed slowly—and presently I had again parted company with the Golden Hind, and this ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... which he started in pursuit of a great treasure ship known as the Cacafuego, which he learnt had sailed a few days before. A couple of ships were sent after him; so he cleared out his prize, left it adrift for his pursuers to recover, and showed them a clean pair of heels. After a long pursuit, and the capture of more minor prizes—which he let go, after taking what he wanted, leaving intact the private property of those ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... suddenly he ceased altogether, and Pat, acutely conscious of the silence which descended upon them, was relieved when it was broken by sounds of laughter ahead. Still the pair above him did not speak. Each appeared to be adrift on a sea of thought the like of which he had never known. And it continued, this ominous silence, and became heavier, until he saw the ranch loom up ahead. Then he felt his mistress urge him into a canter ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... and happy enough we were (those that were left of us), and we were spending our money like the devil. Bill Harness had a wife, who was very fond of he, and he was very fond of she, but she was a slatternly sort of a body, never tidy in her rigging, all adrift at all times, and what's more, she never had a shoe up at heel, so she went by the name of Slatternly Sall, and the first lieutenant, who was a 'ticular sort of a chap, never liked to see her on deck, for you see she put her hair in ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... bringing out the word with a prolonged hiss, and then—before I could even guess at his intention—there was the swift gleam of a knife, a splash of the severed painter, and caught by the tide the old boat swung out, and was adrift. ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... and he could no longer carry his liquor with his former assurance. While outwardly he was the same suave, debonair old beau, he was beginning to have inner doubtings and despairs. And Joe, who had, as it were, taken up the pen when he had cast aside the sword, became for him a potential straw adrift on ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... skate on the channel- scoured bottom, we were sucked against a big dock and smashed and bumped down a quarter of a mile of its length before we could get clear. Two hours afterward, on San Pablo Bay, the wind was piping up and we were reefing down. It is no fun to pick up a skiff adrift in a heavy sea and gale. That was our next task, for our skiff, swamping, parted both towing painters we had bent on. Before we recovered it we had nearly killed ourselves with exhaustion, and we certainly had strained the sloop in every part from keelson ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... entertaining. The Indians who have turned guides are unexcelled when it comes to following trails that are dim, or in tracking down runaway horses. Indians have a subtle sense of humor, even during the most serious situations. "Injun not lost, trail lost," one said when adrift in the woods. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... ascertain. There were strong temptations to restlessness besetting the early Christians. The great change from heathenism to Christianity would seem to loosen the joints of all life, and having been swept from their anchorage in religion, all external things would appear to be adrift. It was most natural that a man should seek to alter even the circumstances of his outward life, when such a revolution had separated him from his ancient self. Hence would tend to come the rupture of family ties, the separation ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... nick o' time," the husband said. "Steve's going away—East. He'll be back in awhile. Maybe a year. Maybe more. And when he comes back he—wants the boy. He wants to take him right away, and to raise him as his own. He reckons he's kind of adrift now, and the kiddie looks like handing him an anchor. He's yearning to make good for him, in a way that, maybe we, with our own two, couldn't hope to. We're guessing it's up to you. A year or so, and then you—hand ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... child. See this: when I stood in the pillory a maid one day brought the child to the foot of the platform, lifted it up in her arms and said: 'Your father put that villain there.' That woman was sister to one of the dogs we'd set adrift. The child stared at me hard, and I looked at her, though my eyes were a little the worse for wear, so that she cried out in great fright—the sweet innocent! and then the wench took her away. When she saw my face to-night—to-day—it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... progress is made. We are grasping opportunities and compelling adverse circumstances and forces to work together for our profit. Under the wise leadership of Booker T. Washington, we are finding our bearings and casting anchor in the dark and muddy waters of industrial conditions in which we were sent adrift without rudder, compass or means of existence less than ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... started off towards the bridge of boats. Galloping on alone, he found that the gap in the bridge made by Thornton had not been repaired, which proved that the rebels had not crossed by that passage, at all events. He widened the gap by cutting adrift some more boats, and then had himself ferried across the river, in order to ascertain the exact state of affairs at Philour. He learnt that no tidings had been received of any British troops having been sent from Jullundur in pursuit of the mutineers, who, having failed to get across the ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... to a drowning person or one who has just met with some mishap in a boat—such for instance as losing an oar. A board or a plank should not be thrown toward a person in the water but launched toward them. When adrift in an unmanageable boat cast anchor and wait for assistance. Never rock a boat for fun. A Scout who so far forgets herself as to do such a foolhardy act should be forbidden to go into a boat again for some time as a punishment. Most drowning accidents ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... atmosphere so pure and full of love, that on it never gloomed one domestic storm. She almost wished that Christal had not come with them to Farnwood. But then it seemed such an awful thing for this young and headstrong creature to be adrift on the wide world. She determined that, whether Christal desired it or no, she would never lose sight of her, but try to guide her with so light a hand, that the girl might never even feel ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock) |
