"Against the wind" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... presently sought out and summoned by a gardener, who told him that his balloon had torn away, and was now completely out of control, dragging his men about the bushes. On reaching the scene, the men, in great strength, were about to attempt a more strenuous effort to drag the balloon back against the wind, which Coxwell promptly forbade, warning them that so they would tear all to pieces. He then commenced, as it were, to "take in a reef," by gathering in the slack of the silk, which chiefly was catching the wind, and by drawing in the net, mesh by mesh, until ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... of, and six Porthoustock fishermen, taking the best boat they could find, went out from their cove across the wind-torn sea towards the rocks barely discernible in the early morning light. Little it was that they could do, though, and worn out with their strivings against the wind and sea, they returned with only one boy and the news that the vessel disappeared almost immediately after she struck, at five o'clock, and all except the boy were lost." In those two wrecks that morning about two hundred lives were lost. The noble heroism of the Porthoustock men came to ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... and toward the garage, her white apron like a flag of truce flapping against the oncoming storm. He watched her put the shovel into the little wagon and pull the wagon into the blacksmith shop. The door creaked loudly as she closed it. Back to her cabin she hurried, leaning against the wind. Tail tucked, the dog crawled deep into his kennel and listened to the roar ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... close. If for a single moment he lights upon the water to seize some object of food, there is a trifling exertion evinced in rising again, until he is a few feet above the waves, when once more he sails with or against the wind, upon outspread, immovable wings. With no apparent inclination or occasion for pugnacity, the albatross is yet armed with a tremendous beak, certainly the most terrible of its kind possessed by any of the ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... slowly through the halls and up to her room. From a window she could see her father making his way across the campus labouriously against the wind and whirling snow. She watched it, this little black figure, bent forward, patient, steadfast. It was an inferior fact that her father was one of the famous scholars of the generation. To her, he was now a little old man facing the wintry winds. Recollect. ing herself and Rufus Coleman she began ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... the discerning few, who can penetrate the secret windings of the heart; who know that nature may be directed, but can never be inverted; that instruction should ever coincide with the temper of the instructed, or we sail against the wind; that it is necessary the pupil should relish both the teacher and the lesson; which, if accepted like a bitter draught, may easily be sweetened to his taste: to these valuable few, who, like the prudent florist, possessed of a choice root, which he cultivates with care, adding ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... tell by starlight, sir," replied Nicholls, "but I should say there's about that number. There can't be less, for she is pulling two oars, and one man wouldn't be likely to attempt the job of pulling a heavy boat like a gig ashore, much less pull her back again against the wind. And I don't think there's likely to be more than two of 'em, otherwise they wouldn't be pulling ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... one after another, without omitting one, till he has his fill, and is therefore the most pernicious animal to this corn. The corn, as soon as shot out of the earth, is weeded: when it mounts up, and its stalks are an inch big, it is hilled, to secure it against the wind. This grain produces enough for two negroes to make fifty barrels, each weighing ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... want of food, Mr. Evans yielded to the boy's suggestion, and walked in at the door which the maid held with difficulty against the wind. She took Mr. Evans for a visitor, as indeed he was, and showed him into the room on the ground-floor. Diamond, who had followed into the hall, whispered to her ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... ami, seems to have little influence; for as long as the fire finds fuel from the dry bushes and grass, it drives on, even against the wind." ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... from the east, and had the salt smell of the sea. All the white-flowering bushes in the yards and the fruit trees bowed toward the west. There was a storm of white petals. Lois, as she and her mother walked against the wind, kept putting her hand to her hair, ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... probably too long. Be sure to have plenty of string, carefully wound, so that there will be no hitches in paying it out. When starting a kite you need the help of some one who will stand about thirty yards away, holding the kite against the wind, and throw it straight up when you have the line tight and give the signal. If it does not rise it may be well for you to run a few yards against the wind. At first you must not pay out line very rapidly, but when the kite is flying steadily you may ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the wall," I screamed against the wind to my companions. "If we don't find one in a ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... enough to the laziness of fallen man, is that of fishing down-stream, and not up. What Mr. Stewart says on this point should be read by every tyro. By fishing up-stream, even against the wind, he will on an average kill twice as many trout as when fishing down. If trout are out and feeding on the shallows, up or down will simply make the difference of fish or no fish; and even in deeps, where the difference in ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... and turn in that direction; they strained their eyes in the endeavor to descry something beyond, but could see nothing. However, those nearest the point in question evidently could, and so they turned back and pulled against the wind with all their might, and in a few minutes the boatswain sung out, "A sail ahead"! causing their hearts to jump for joy. It was indeed a vessel which was rapidly coming towards them. It proved to be an American brig called "Frances Smith," which ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... with a will, I for my part finding plenty of tree-ferns, whose fronds did capitally, and Uncle Dick soon had laid sloping against the pole a sufficiency of leafy branches to form an ample shelter against the wind and ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... the park, avoiding the house, looking for mushrooms, which were very plentiful that summer, and marking them so as to pick them later with Genya. A warm wind was blowing. I met Genya and her mother, both in bright Sunday dresses, going home from church, and Genya was holding her hat against the wind. They told me they were going to have tea on ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... off against the wind and immediately assumed a strong offensive along the whole line, forcing the enemy to evacuate his positions. When we reached their Twenty-five it became clear, after a furious struggle, that a decision was inevitably ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... general sentiments of mankind on that subject; and the consequence of printing this piece will be, a great deal of odium drawn upon yourself; mischief to you and no benefit to others. He that spits against the wind, spits in his ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... Salute my brothers for me; and say to them That I die innocent; witness thou hast been Of all my deeds and thoughts—thou knowest it. Tell them that I did never stain my sword With treason—I did never stain it—and I am betrayed.—And when the trumpets blow, And when the banners beat against the wind, Give thou a thought to thine old comrade then! And on some mighty day of battle, when Upon the field of slaughter the priest lifts His hands amid the doleful noises, offering up The sacrifice to heaven for the dead, Bethink thyself of me, for I too ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... and, for the rest, presenting the appearance of a coal-scuttle bonnet behind, as well as in front. We followed its peculiar aspect. Driving on under this indestructible headgear, he flickered in and out of the world, while, with entwined arms and leaning back against the wind with all our might, Seraphina and myself were borne along in his train. He knew of a shelter; and this knowledge, perhaps, and also his evident familiarity with the topography of the country, made him appear indomitably confident ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... was seen with her masts standing, was too far to windward for them to reach, for even the boat could not make way against the wind and current. Upon casting off, they set their sail and steered before the wind, but the raft was so heavy and deep that very little progress was made. She drifted rather than sailed, and probably did not go more than a mile or one mile and a half an hour. After some time ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... and appear to lie within speaking distance of Hightower's door; the next, it would withdraw behind its blue veil, and seem far enough away to belong to another world. On Hightower's farm the corn was high enough to whet its green sabres against the wind. One evening Chichester, Hightower, and Babe sat on the little porch with their faces turned toward Kenesaw. They had been watching a line of blue smoke on the mountain in the distance; and, as the twilight deepened into dusk, ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... not give up the attempt, and he expressed so much anxiety to join his vessel, that it was proposed to go to the weathermost part of the bay. Thither they accordingly struggled on foot, with the utmost difficulty making head against the wind, and suffering acutely from the sand driving into their eyes. In addition to their personal sufferings, the spectacle around was one of such desolation and horror as no man can witness without pain. The shore, as far as the eye could reach, was covered with wrecks, and with the bodies of the ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... stand against the wind, perhaps you could carry this coil of rope; they may be wanting it,' said the woman. In another minute your grandfather was battling against the storm, making his way along the rugged shore in the direction ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... De Witt Clinton was Mayor the first steam-boat was built to be used on the Hudson River. For many a year there had been men who felt sure that steam could be applied to boats and made to propel them against the wind and the tide. They had tried very hard to build such a boat but none had succeeded. Sometimes the boilers burst. Sometimes the paddle-wheels refused to revolve. For one reason or another the ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... at them. And Kilwich caught it, and threw it vigorously, and wounded him through the eyeball. "A cursed ungentle son-in-law, truly! As long as I remain alive, my eyesight will be the worse. Whenever I go against the wind, my eyes will water; and peradventure my head will burn, and I shall have a giddiness every new moon. Like the bite of a mad dog is the stroke of this poisoned iron. Cursed be the fire in which it was forged!" And ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... fell back into the latch with a bang; and the three of them were on the road. A gust of wind laden with white blossoms out of the orchard greeted them. Horieneke held the tips of her veil closed against the wind and stepped out like a little maid in a procession. The two women came behind and had no eyes for anything but Horieneke: the fall of those white folds, the whirling of the veil and the dancing of the lilies of the valley in the auburn locks. ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... infrequent, and mountains ever looking down. The team of gnarled gray horses kept on their steady walk, hour after hour, and day after day; and bivouac after bivouac lay behind them, marked by the rude heap of brush piled up at night as an excuse for shelter against the wind or by the tiny circle of ashes where had been a small but sufficient fire. At last the line of the bivouacs ended, far up toward the crest of the heavily timbered Sacramentos, after a weary climb through ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... settler was housed against the weather, he had the conditions of a certain rude comfort indoors. If his cabin was not proof against the wind and rain or snow, its vast fireplace formed the means of heating, while the forest was an inexhaustible store of fuel. At first he dressed in the skins and pelts of the deer and fox and wolf, and his costume could have varied ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... gone in it; for which cause I affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made; for I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew breath in it, to this—I can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in skating against the wind in Flanders—I have been the continual sport of what the world calls Fortune, and though I will not wrong her by saying she has ever made me feel the weight of any great and signal evil, yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... "All right, we'll turn, and drive south awhile till you get warmed up again. I expect we have been going against the wind about long enough. ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... bare pole standing, and he would have been scarce surprised now had the ship herself been lifted bodily from the water. As to walking along the deck, it would have been impossible. No man could have forced his way against the wind, and Jack felt that were he to attempt to move from the sheltered spot where he was standing he would be taken up and carried away as if he were but a figure of straw. Presently Mr. Hoare came down from the poop and ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... year's leaf into her face. For a moment she paused and, throwing back her head, drank the air like water; then, holding firmly to her hat, she started on again at her rapid pace. In the ease with which she moved against the wind, in the self-possession of her carriage, and most of all in the grace with which she lifted her long black skirt, made, he could see, after the fashion of the outside world, he realised at once that she was a stranger to the neighbourhood. No woman whom he ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... sailed out by the eastern channel, but having to beat against the wind, made no further progress than an anchorage off Point Adieu, which was the last land seen by us in the Mermaid; it is the north end of the land that forms the west side of Port George the Fourth, which was afterwards called Augustus Island: to the westward of the point there ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... killed. One of the assailants being examined, swore to the respective spots of ground on which they stood at the time of firing, which being measured, was found to be 28 feet distance from each other. The experiment was then made of shooting at the shirt an equal distance both with and against the wind, to ascertain if the powder produced the stain; but it did not. Upon the whole the jury, after the most accurate examination and mature deliberation, brought in their verdict that one of the assailants must necessarily ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... you might have seen the mother of this family carrying her infant in her arms, and followed by her other children, a girl and two boys, who would amuse themselves by dragging little wooden horses, playing at soldiers with mock muskets, running against the wind with little whirligig mills, or frolicking about with a thousand of the antics of children. Their father, known every where as Old Weasel, was of a most resolute and unbending disposition; he made many enemies, ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... a thrilling moment. I was not killing anything. I had no long-range rifle in my hands, coming up against the wind toward an unsuspecting creature hundreds of yards away. This was no wounded leopard charging me; no mother-bear defending with her giant might a captured cub. It was only a mother-bird, the size of a wild duck, with swift wings at her command, hiding under ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... great a crime, not of the pirates, nor of the Argolic people. That traitor who sees only with one eye, and holds the city from sight of which one who is here with me would fain have fasted,[3] will make them come to parley with him; then will act so that against the wind of Focara[4] they will not need or vow or prayer." And I to him, "Show to me and declare, if thou wishest that I carry up news of thee, who is he of the bitter sight?"[5] Then he put his hand on the jaw of one of his companions, and opened ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... the instant it approaches the spot where the chilly influence of the snow extends, the moisture it carries becomes visible, and then and there the cloud forms on the instant, apparently maintaining its form against the wind, though the careful and keen eye can see all its parts in the most rapid motion across the mountain. The outlines of such a cloud are of course not determined by the irregular impulses of the wind, but by ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... I should take up too much room in the tonneau," I suggested with feigned meekness. "You ladies had better have it all to yourselves, and then you can be comfortable. Terry and I, on the driver's seat, will act as a kind of screen for you against the wind." ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... in hiring a vessel to sail to Ladakia [Footnote: Laodicea of Syria.] on the opposite coast. At last a bargain was struck with a Turkish ship for five pounds. But the ship had battled already against the contretemps of too many voyages. She could no longer beat against the wind as once she used to do. Four times they set sail, and four times had to put back again into port. The captain had only an old French map "marked with crosses at certain places, the cross meaning porto, as the captain explained." He ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Before, strong-toiling against the wind, man and dog reached their refuge among the rocks, the snow had begun to fall, and the night seemed solid with blackness. The very flakes might have been black as the snow of hell for any gleam they gave. But they arrived ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... of flowers does not travel against the wind, nor (that of) sandal-wood, or of Tagara and Mallika flowers; but the odour of good people travels even against the wind; a good ...
— The Dhammapada • Unknown
... beyond the reach Of thy few words of English speech: A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife That gives thy gestures grace and life! So have I, not unmoved in mind, Seen birds of tempest-loving kind— Thus beating up against the wind. ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... Antelope always graze against the wind, and even a novice can tell when they discover the flag, for they instantly stop feeding, and the entire band will whirl around to face it, with big round ears standing straight up, and in this way they will remain a second or two, constantly ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... uncultivated land still remain, the young colts of Dartmoor, Exmoor, and Shetland, though born of domesticated mothers, seems to assert their descent from wild and free ancestors as they throw out their heels and toss up their heads with a shrill neigh, and fly against the wind with streaming manes and outstretched tails as the Kulan, the Tarpan, and the Zebra do in the wild ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... not going to rain, is it?" asked Tim, and with an appropriately innocent manner he stepped to the door to look at the sky; and in looking he saw not the sky, but the widow Nolan, with some odds and ends of firewood, making her halting way against the wind. ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... visibly augmented fore and aft, but she turned up at both ends. Her rudder was clean out of water and she would answer the helm only when running directly against a strong breeze: the rudder, when perverted to one side, would rub against the wind and slew her around; and then she wouldn't steer any more. Owing to the curvature of the keel, the masts came together at the top, and a sailor who had gone up the foremast got bewildered, came down the mizzenmast, looked out over ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... the highest speed of which the Deerfoot was capable. The bow rose, the stern settled down in the water, and the spray was flung high and splashed against the wind-shield. The exhaust deepened to a steady roar, and the broadening wake was churned into a mass of tumbling soapy foam. The whole boat shivered with the vibration of the powerful engine. She was going more than twenty miles an hour—in ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... supplemented gravely. "With the wind the going is easy, but against the wind a man striveth hard; and for that they had no paddles these men on the big canoe did ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... thick and heavy. The peasants were still at work, scattered through the fields, waiting for the stroke of the Angelus to call them back to the farmhouses, whose thatched roofs were visible here and there through the branches of the leafless trees which protected the apple-gardens against the wind. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... this roar was occasioned by its effort to preserve its equilibrium, the wave reaching the shore before the wind. Also the captain of a packet between this country and England told me that he sometimes met with a wave on the Atlantic coming against the wind, perhaps in a calm sea, which indicated that at a distance the wind was blowing from an opposite quarter, but the undulation had travelled faster than it. Sailors tell of "tide-rips" and "ground-swells," ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... beg you not to laugh, madame. His plan is to make ships travel without sail or oar, against the wind, by means of a pot filled with water, ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... "distressed for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies," was beating back to the westward against the wind which had carried him rapidly to the coast of Egypt. Rightly or wrongly, he had not chosen to wait at the point which mature reflection had indicated to him as the enemy's goal, and the best course that now occurred to him was to do with ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... refreshments, from whence we could have sailed directly for Carthagena, before the enemy could put themselves in a good posture of defence, or, indeed, have an inkling of our design. Be this as it will, we sailed from Jamaica, and, in ten days or a fortnight, beat up against the wind as far as the Isle of Vache, with an intention, as was said, to attack the French fleet, then supposed to be lying near that place; but before we arrived, they had sailed for Europe, having first dispatched ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... and rumbling through the framework, hurled the water to the very door where Hardy stood, and as it touched his face, a wild, animal exultation overcame him and he dashed out into the midst of it. God, it was good to feel the splash of rain again, to lean against the wind, and to smell the wet and mud! He wandered about through it recklessly, now bringing in his saddle and bedding, now going out to talk with his horse, at last simply standing with his hands outstretched while his whole being gloried ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... he tried to beat his way against the wind, to force a path through the wet, heavy drifts. Four times, buffeted and almost spent, he was driven back to the shelter of the veranda. The office clock struck six, as he went inside the house to find a shivering servant ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... a dream for me, as if it called back to me dim mystic days in the woods of some past weird world. One afternoon Copple, R.C., and I went as far as the east side of Gentry Canyon and worked down. Copple found fresh deer and turkey sign. We tied our horses, and slipped back against the wind. R.C. took one side of a ridge, with Copple and me on the other, and we worked down toward where we had seen the sign. After half an hour of slow, stealthy glide through the forest we sat down at the edge of a park, expecting R.C. to come along soon. The white aspens were ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... wind that beat in his face and blew great gusts of snow pack down from the evergreen branches overhead; and even feet winged with hunger and snowshoes clog from soft snow and catch derelict branches sticking up through the drifts. By the time you have run half a day beating against the wind, reversing your own tracks to find the chipped mark on the bark of the trees to keep you on the blazed trail—you are hungry. Hall began to nibble at his tallow as he ran and to snatch handfuls of snow to quench his thirst. ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... with crossed bayonets, at daggers drawn; up in arms; resistant &c. 719. competitive, emulous. Adv. against, versus, counter to, in conflict with, at cross purposes. against the grain, against the current, against the stream, against the wind, against the tide; with a headwind; with the wind ahead, with the wind in one's teeth. in spite, in despite, in defiance; in the way, in the teeth of, in the face of; across; athwart, overthwart[obs3]; where the shoe pinches; in spite of one's teeth. though &c. 30; even; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... well. It was really of some importance. It was so thoroughly in demand that it still circulated with false title pages. In the Lenox Library, New York, is a copy of the first edition, finely bound, and lettered thus: "A Treatise on the Sailing of Ships against the Wind," which shows the straits booksellers were put to in evading the censors, and also reveals a touch of wit that doubtless was appreciated by ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... the Red Sea proved even worse than I had anticipated. Our captain pronounced it the hottest trip he had ever made. Twice was the ship turned round to steam against the wind for a short time in order to revive some of the passengers, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... the regular undulations of the passing seas drove the boat away from the brig. Carter turned a little in his seat to look at the land. It loomed up dead to leeward like a lofty and irregular cone only a mile or a mile and a half distant. The noise of the surf beating upon its base was heard against the wind in measured detonations. The fatigue of many days spent in the boat asserted itself above the restlessness of Carter's thoughts and, gradually, he lost the notion of the passing time without altogether losing the consciousness ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... staggering against the wind, Rorie and I won every yard of ground with conscious effort. We slipped on the wet sod, we fell together sprawling on the rocks. Bruised, drenched, beaten, and breathless, it must have taken us near half an hour to get from the house down to the Head that overlooks the Roost. There, it ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the station nearly as fast as we ought to," said Katherine, "and what's more, there's no hope of our going any faster on foot. I'll ride Sandhelo in. He's lots stronger than we are and can hold up against the wind where we can't. It's the only way we can get the word to the station in time. I didn't think of riding him before, because the beach was so rocky I was afraid he would break his leg in the dark, but from here it ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... remained ignorant of what was happening. Nothing but an actual messenger coming through with the news would have enlightened him, and in the confusion none came till eight o'clock. The sound of desultory firing borne faintly against the wind from the neighborhood of the city had little significance for him. It was a chronic condition of affairs, and Bougainville's business was to watch the upper river, where an attack was really expected. It was a rare piece of good-fortune for Wolfe that the confusion among the French was so great as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... hill-side. He thought little about it, but buttoned his coat, as I have said before, and strode on. It was a storm of rain, so that he was forced to hold his head to one side, as it hit him from the north. But with his hand to his hat, and his head bent against the wind, he went on till he had reached the valley at the foot, and found that the track by which he had been led thither had become a road. He had never known the mountains round the Hall as Kate had known them, and was not aware whither he was going. On one thing only had he made ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... he said, and held the door half closed against the wind. "It ain't none off der boys," he added, with the certainty which came of his having watched, times without number, while the various members of the Happy Family rode in from the far horizons to camp. "Pilgrims, ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... people. The only standard by which we can determine the effect that the odour of one insect, bird, or animal has upon another is by the effect it has upon us. That a male moth can smell a female a block away, against the wind, when I can detect only a faint musky odour within a foot of her, I ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... from salio. Their particular manner of leaping (as I have specified in my Topography of Ireland) is thus: fish of this kind, naturally swimming against the course of the river (for as birds fly against the wind, so do fish swim against the stream), on meeting with any sudden obstacle, bend their tail towards their mouth, and sometimes, in order to give a greater power to their leap, they press it with their mouth, and suddenly freeing themselves from this circular form, they spring with great ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... saw the trees stiffening themselves against the wind made by the sweeping wings of the king of birds. "Garuda is coming," he thought, and climbed the rock of sacrifice, eager to give his life ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... when nothing else was moving. All day we tried, and at night we laid to and tried again the next day. And all the sailors of the other ships were spending their money in San Huegedos and we could not come nigh it. Then we spoke horrible things against the wind and against ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... have worked well into the bight of the bay, near Goose Castle Point, if the wind shifts to the south suddenly, gunners approach from the outside, and the birds becoming cramped in the cove are shot as they rise against the wind." ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... commonly practised on horseback, with dogs. When the party comes upon a deer-track, it separates, and hunters are posted, at intervals of about a furlong, on the path which the deer when started is calculated to take. Two or three persons then set forward with the dogs, always coming up against the wind, and start the deer, when the sentinels at the different points fire at him as he passes, until he is brought down. Another mode is to hunt by torch-light, without dogs. In this case, slaves carry torches before the party; the light of which so amazes the ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... spent mainly with the horses and cattle. In the spring he works day after day with a drag or seeder, moving to and fro an animate speck across a dull brown expanse of soil. Even when he has a companion there is little talk, for there is little to say, and the extra exertion of speaking against the wind, or across distances, soon forces them both ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... rotten biscuit was varied with cassava bread supplied by friendly natives, the Admiral could not make his way eastward further than Cape Cruz. Round that cape his leaking, strained vessels could not be made to look against the wind and the tide. Could hardly indeed be made to float or swim upon the water at all; and the Admiral had now to consider, not whether he could sail on a particular point of the compass, but whether he could by any means avoid another course which the fates now proposed to him—namely, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... it;—for which cause I affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made;—for I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew my breath in it, to this, that I can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in scating against the wind in Flanders;—I have been the continual sport of what the world calls Fortune; and though I will not wrong her by saying, She has ever made me feel the weight of any great or signal evil;—yet with all the good temper in the world I affirm it of her, that in every stage of my life, and ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... let him try a good run with a Winchester rifle in hand nine thousand feet above tidewater. Rounding the edge of a hill and crossing a snow-drift, they came in view of Bruin sixty yards away. He came straight toward them against the wind, when there appeared on the left Bruin No. 2, to which the doctor directed his attention. Both bears fell at the crack of the rifles, and with grunt and snort rolled to the foot of the cooly. Houston climbed a snowbank to reconnoitre, aware, as there were no trees to climb, that an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... their construction and object the pieces of wood attached to the sides of small Dutch vessels and barges on the Thames, and generally all vessels that are flat-bottomed, for the purpose of preventing them from making much lee way, when they are working against the wind. ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... and they pursued their way against the wind, resisting it with laughing delight for about twenty minutes longer, when suddenly the clouds united over their heads, and a driving rain set full in their face. Chagrined and surprised, they were obliged, though unwillingly, to turn back, for no shelter was nearer than ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... them. Brother Liebisch and the woman and child fled to a neighbouring eminence. The latter were wrapt up by the Esquimaux in a large skin, and the former took shelter behind a rock, for it was impossible to stand against the wind, snow, and sleet. Scarcely had the company retreated, when an enormous wave ...
— Dangers on the Ice Off the Coast of Labrador • Anonymous
... It was hard going against the wind; Philip was the only one who managed his skis very satisfactorily, and Lawrence, of course, had to be assisted, but the crust was smooth and clear, and they made great sport of it. The two men placed Claire ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... prayer Incessant I could hope to change the will Of him who all things can, I would not cease To weary him with my assiduous cries; But prayer against his absolute decree No more avails than breath against the wind Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth: Therefore to his great bidding I submit. 1371 MILTON: Par. Lost, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... the wind shifted to the east and the sea began to go down. Don Juan refused to wait any longer. The fleet put to sea, under bare masts, and, rowing hard against the wind and through rough water, it worked its way slowly across to the sheltered waters on the mainland coast between it and the islands of Curzolari. Here the fleet anchored for the night, just outside the opening of the Gulf of Corinth. Not twenty miles away up the gulf lay ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... tiller, while Andy and Jamie busied themselves with their handbooks. They were an hour out of Horn's Bight when David sighted the Horn boat beating up against the wind. Drawing within hailing distance he told them ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... down as I conquered the last steep rise toward my grandfather's gate. Hereabouts a pair of steps had been cut into the cliff and a hand-rail erected to help the visitor against the wind, coming, as it so often did, in flaws of extraordinary force and fury around the headland. From this high point a great expanse of ocean filled the eye, and the ceaseless, uneasy rumor of water assailed one even in the fairest weather. There was always a thin run of surf about the base of the Brown ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... no logic, but I know.... And all the logicians in the world could not shame me to myself. All the reason in the world could not shake me. It would be artillery shot against the wind.... A star is a promise to me, Shane, and the wind a token, and the new moon just a pleasant occurrence, like the coming ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... can tell you, to see those lions giving chase to such beasts as I have mentioned! When they are to be so employed the Lions are taken out in a covered cart, and every Lion has a little doggie with him. [They are obliged to approach the game against the wind, otherwise the animals would scent the approach of the Lion and be ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... rise and spread against the wind (lower-current). It is probable that there is a meeting, if not a contest of air currents, electrically different, whenever lightning is seen. Their concurrence, when the new one advances from polar regions, does not depress the barometer, except in oscillations of the mercury, which are ...
— Barometer and Weather Guide • Robert Fitzroy
... struggling to hold it against the wind, while she looked out into the gathering darkness. "'Deed, but I'm getting afraid of it myself," she said, "and dear heart knows where Kirry can be at this time of night." "I'm off to find her," said Pete, and, catching ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... not protected against the wind, which was becoming stronger and stronger every minute, and was pressing their clothing so close to their bodies that they could hardly go on. The cold wind was the first disagreeable thing they had met with on ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... summer that heavy dews in the night mean fine weather the following day," added Mrs. Vernon. "Also any thunder-storm that comes with the wind soon passes away, but let it come against the wind, and it is apt ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... not spoken again; he seemed to understand that she wanted to be left alone. After a while the track they were following forked, and he pulled up the horse, as if uncertain of the way. Liff Hyatt craned his head around from the back, and shouted against the wind: "Left——" and they turned into a stunted pine-wood and began to drive down the other ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... dive, I twist in figures of eight, I fight my way by inches against the wind, and, turning, I shoot back upon its current with the speed of a projectile. I am shaken and buffeted until I gasp for breath. I swerve, I dance, I caracole—I pirouette on a wing tip, catching my side slips on ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... lords of land and sea, with power to traverse either with all desirable speed, we are too wise to waste force either in beating the air for buoyancy, battling with gravity like birds, on the one hand, or in paddling huge balloons against the wind, on the other. The steam-driven wheel leaves us no occasion to envy even that ubiquitous denizen of the universe, the flying-fish. We have in it the most economical means of self-transportation, as well as of mechanical production. It only remains to make the most of it. This, to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... what had happened. An icy whirlwind was rushing through the great gate of the town as he returned from taking Gottfried on his way. The people were walking with heads lowered against the storm. Girls going to their work were struggling against the wind that blew against their skirts: they stopped every now and then to breathe, with their nose and cheeks red, and they looked exasperated, and as though they wanted to cry. He thought of that other torment ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Harwich. There was a strong flood down the coast, and the wind was to the north of north-east. But the wind was with the tide—to that you owe the lives of the two men and the lection of this delightful story; for had the tide been against the wind and the water steep and mutinous, you would never have seen either of us again: indeed we should have trembled out of sight ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... would be a rug for each horse and mule, and for oxen the erection of a shelter against the wind, consisting of all available wagons and stores, or else, if practicable, to move at once to a sheltered locality and always provide a good reserve supply of forage or other provender. That sort of boisterous, cold weather continues sometimes, with more or less severity, two or three days. ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... in the morning. Jack knows, the rascal. He can trace every process through which the cotton fibre passes from the plant to the finished cloth. He knows why factory chimneys are built high. He knows how a boat tacks against the wind. And he knows that his father knows nothing ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... and whilst the supper was preparing, the bo'sun called to some of the men to put up a piece of the spare canvas upon a couple of the reeds, so as to make a screen against the wind, which up there was so fresh that it came near at times to scattering the fire abroad. This they found not difficult; for a little on the windward side of the fire there ran one of the cracks of which I have made previous ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... meekly, I assure you. I took nice old Mrs. Van Astrachan out to a favorite rock of mine to see the sunset, and, what was more marvellous, the heavy thunder-cloud, which was beating up against the wind; and I left the young folks to themselves, only aspiring to be a Youth's Companion. I got Will to bring me Mrs. Van Astrachan's black furs, as it grew cold, but at last the air was so sharp and the storm ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... class of anomalies in which there is an exaggerated development of hair. We would naturally expect to find the primitive peoples, who are not provided with artificial protection against the wind, supplied with an extra quantity of hair or having a hairy coat like animals; but this is sometimes found among civilized people. This abnormal presence of hair on the human body has been known for many years; the description of Esau ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the ship to port, Howe'er the breeze may be; Just when she nears the waiting shore She drifts again to sea. No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, Nor sheer of veering side; Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, Against the wind ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... flying-fish. Apropos of this last I have something to say. During my last trip I once devoted an afternoon to closely observing these bird-like creatures, and very distinctly saw two cases in which the fish turned and flew against the wind or tacked—a fact which has ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... out, a boat of fifteen benches, and a provision-ship. When the vessels were ready, there came a strong southerly gale. On the Thursday of the Ascension week, Erling called his people by sound of trumpet to their departure; but the men were loath to leave the town, and were ill inclined to row against the wind. Erling brought his vessels to Biskupshafn. "Well," said Erling, "since ye are so unwilling to row against the wind, raise the mast, hoist the sails, and let the ship go north." They did so, and sailed northwards both day and night. On Wednesday, in the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... was about a hundred yards ahead when I gave the mare the reins, and told her to go. And she did go. She flew against the wind with a motion so rapid that my face, as it clove the air, felt as if cutting its way through a solid body, and the trees, as we passed, seemed taken with a panic, and running for dear life in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... his bed on a wooded knoll, lying, as is the custom of his kind, with his back to the wind. Should danger approach from the rear his keen nose would give him warning, while eyes and ears would protect him from anything approaching against the wind. ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... take the direction he determined on. More recently, M. Julien, a watchmaker, made some convincing experiments at the Hippodrome, in Paris; for, by a special mechanism, his aerial apparatus, oblong in form, went visibly against the wind. It occurred to M. Petin to place four hydrogen balloons together; and, by means of sails hung horizontally and partly folded, he hopes to be able to disturb the equilibrium, and, thus inclining the apparatus, to convey it ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... who uttered the remark, as the touring-car commenced the long and dangerous descent of Sugar Hill. A sheet of water was dashing against the wind-shield, which had been raised ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... trees to cover it. At one side of this, Morse built the fire while Beresford unharnessed the dogs and thawed out a mess of frozen fish for them. Presently the kettles were bubbling on the fire. The men ate supper and drew the sled up as a barricade against the wind. ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... puzzle. She must have come down the very night of Tom's accident. If he did drift down the bay in his boat, he must have been not very far from the schooner. In clear weather he could not have escaped notice; but the skipper had seen nothing, and heard nothing. He had to beat down against the wind, and anchor when the tide was rising; but, though he thus traversed so great an extent of water, nothing ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... poles have another great advantage. For the first season they require no stakes to guard against the wind shaking them, which is a necessity with a top; for depend upon it, if your tree is allowed to sway with the wind, your roots will take very little hold that season, and may die, often the second year, from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... for freedom's all-in-all Is absolutely to fulfil our Call. And you by heaven were destined, I know well, To be my bulwark against beauty's spell. I, like my falcon namesake, have to swing Against the wind, if I would reach the sky! You are the breeze I must be breasted by, You, only you, put vigour in my wing: Be mine, be mine, until the world shall take you, When leaves are falling, then our paths shall part. Sing unto me the treasures of your heart, And ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... which had followed the sentry's bold shot had awakened the attention of the people of the town. Lights twinkled on the ramparts of the fort, and the long roll of a drum could be heard coming faintly up the harbor against the wind. Lord Carlingford had just entered his boat to board the ship. There was not ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... tops, some of its outer fringes borne away in scud to refresh the wind, all the rolling, pitching, flying water exulting in the beauty of rainbow light. Gulls and albatrosses, strong, glad life in the midst of the stormy beauty, skimmed the waves against the wind, seemingly without effort, oftentimes flying nearly a mile without a single wing-beat, gracefully swaying from side to side and tracing the curves of the briny water hills with the finest precision, now and then just grazing ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... rarest genius it is the most expensive to succumb and conform to the ways of the world. Genius is the worst of lumber, if the poet would float upon the breeze of popularity. The bird of paradise is obliged constantly to fly against the wind, lest its gay trappings, pressing close to its body, impede its ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... his news paper, he knows what it means. He has twenty-four hours' warning; but what can he do? Nothing but watch its certain advance by telegraph. He suffers in anticipation. That is what Old Prob. has brought about, suffering by anticipation. This low pressure advances against the wind. The wind is from the northeast. Nothing could be more unpleasant than a northeast wind? Wait till low pressure joins it. Together they make spring in New England. A northeast storm from the southwest!—there is no bitterer satire than this. It lasts three days. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... upon the manual alphabet has always a sense of restraint, of narrowness. This feeling began to agitate me with a vexing, forward-reaching sense of a lack that should be filled. My thoughts would often rise and beat up like birds against the wind; and I persisted in using my lips and voice. Friends tried to discourage this tendency, fearing lest it would lead to disappointment. But I persisted, and an accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking down of this great barrier—I heard ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... and its strength was mighty. It was Robert's custom to drive a stake in the ground, slanting against the wind, and thereby tether the animal, as if it were up there grazing in its own natural region. Then he would lie down by the stake and read The Arabian Nights, every now and then casting a glance upward at the creature alone in the waste ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... like an aeroplane save that it had no motor. It was raised by a strong wind blowing against transverse planes, and once aloft was held there by the force of the air currents, just like a box kite is kept up. To make it progress either with or against the wind, there were horizontal and vertical rudders, and sliding weights, by which the equilibrium could be shifted so as to raise or lower it. While it could not exactly move directly against the wind it could progress in a direction contrary to which the gale was ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Glider - or, Seeking the Platinum Treasure • Victor Appleton |
