"Offing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a somewhat noisy luncheon, for Edward Harewood, a midshipman in the Channel Fleet, which was hovering in the offing, had come over on a day's leave with Horner, a messmate whose parents lived in the town. He was a big lad, a year older than Gerald, and as soon as a little awe of Uncle Clement and Aunt Cherry had worn off, he showed himself of the original ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the sea came from the offing, mingled with the resinous smell of pine logs, and of the large nets with great pieces of sea-weed clinging to them, which were drying ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... to me from a woman met on a train. The car was crowded and I took the seat beside her. There was a man in the offing who belonged with her—a slender girlish figure of a man in a heavy brown canvas coat such as teamsters wear in the winter. He moved up and down in the aisle of the car, wanting my place by the woman's side, but I did not know ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... He was in the offing when I left. If slightest cause for uneasiness about bank, withdraw at once and keep in own rooms ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... was a consolation at hand. As he lay waiting for his shattered squadron to close up, fuming at traitors, and marvelling at the inscrutable will of Heaven, the dawn of June 9th lit up the gray sea and showed him a huge carack in the offing. On a smart breeze he gave chase. The carack kept her course, but, as Drake drew near, began displaying her colors nervously. Drake made not a sign in reply, but held on till he was within range. Then on a sudden, with a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... men could not have borne to live so, in such deadly insecurity. But probably they troubled their heads little about the pirates, kept the women and children at home, and set a retainer on the cliff in open weather, to scan the offing for the light-rigged barques, while poorer folk took their chance. We live among a different set of risks now, and think little of them, ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... could wish you had been there,—so you might have whisked back to England the next minute after it was over, on some convenient fairy carpet such as I used to read of in Eastern tales when I was a boy. For us, we had to make our way in haste back to the ship, which lay in the offing, and could not come near on account of the reef barrier. We got on board safely, passing the reefs where once an American ship was wrecked and her crew killed and eaten by ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... long-ships, the Seamew, and the Osprey and the Erne. Heavy and huge they seemed to him as they lay there, black-sided, icy-cold with the washing of the March waves, their golden dragon-heads looking seaward wistfully. But first had he looked out into the offing, and it was only when he had let his eyes come back from where the sea and sky met, and they had beheld nothing but the waste of waters, that he beheld the Ship-stead closely; and therewith he saw where a little ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris
... sight. The sea was in a white foam, the whole air filled with spray, and the wind blowing heavily. Not far from shore was a boat with a part of the exhausted crew from a vessel wrecked in the offing. The breakers made it impossible that the poor fellows should effect a landing. A terrible death seemed their inevitable fate. Just at the moment your grandfather reached the point, he saw his host leap into the sea, his object ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... on the Fraser and in the north the Japs abandoned trolling for the gill net. The white trollers returned to their first love because he courted them assiduously. There was always a MacRae carrier in the offing. It cost MacRae his sleep and rest, but he drove himself tirelessly. He could leave Squitty at dusk, unload his salmon at Crow Harbor, and be back at sunrise. He did it many a time, after tallying fish all ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... came on to blow very fresh. There was not much sea in the offing; but, owing to the way the tide ran and met the wind, the bottom being rocky, the water nearer the shore was tossed about in a most curious and somewhat dangerous fashion, for several "lumps of sea," as Truck called them, came flop down on our deck; and it was easy to see what ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... hundred and twenty days, and then died—quickly and unwarned, dropping his magician's wand, to be picked up never. I wondered if he was ready, and if the God whom he had often met amid the moss on the sea-cliffs and in the offing was the God who pardoned sin and by His grace saves painter and boor. The Lord bless the unappreciated artists; they do a glorious work for God and the world, but for the most part live in penury, and the brightest color on their palette is ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... these festivities the butty was in the offing. When they would have him he presided; and so at his worst an obnoxious bully, at his best ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... his uncle who waited in the yawl at the wharf. Once on board the Plymouth Adventure, they were swept into a bustle and confusion. Captain Jonathan Wellsby was in haste to catch a fair wind and make his offing before nightfall. His sailors ran to and fro, jumping at the word, active and cheery. Stately and slow, the high-pooped merchant trader filled away on the larboard tack and pointed her ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... afternoon of this eventful day that the fleet hove in sight, and lay becalmed a few miles in the offing. Mustapha hastened to report it to the pacha, as he sat in his divan, hearing complaints, and giving judgment, although not justice. Now when the pacha heard that the fleet had returned, his heart misgave him, and the more ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... here and there was a little tillage: the land was little better than level, only it swelled a little this way and that. It was a bright sunny day and the air very clear, and as they rode Ralph said: "Quite clear is the sky, and yet one cloud there is in the offing; but this is strange about it, though I have been watching it this half hour, and looking to see the rack come up from that quarter, yet it changes not at all. I never saw the ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... the town meeting to the Whittaker place, felt lonesome likewise. Not for the Deacon's reason—he met no one on the main road, save a group of school children and Miss Phinney, and, sighting the latter in the offing, he dodged behind the trees by the schoolhouse pond and waited until she passed. But the captain, his trouble now heavy upon him, did feel the need of sympathy and congenial companionship. He knew he might count upon Dimick and Asaph, and, whenever Keturah's supervision could ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... dreams I was a ship, and sail'd the boundless seas, Sailing and ever sailing—all seas and into every port, or out upon the offing, Saluting, cheerily hailing each mate, met or pass'd, little or big, "Ship ahoy!" thro' trumpet or by voice—if nothing more, some friendly merry word at least, For companionship and good will for ever to ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... to take him to the wars on the mainland; and they smiled and bade him wait ten years. So he was left with the women and children on the island, while the men went off in galleys to fight the invader. Then one fatal day, how they woke to see white-sailed ships in the offing and boats of armed men landing on the shore, and how in doubt and terror women and children and old men hastened to yonder castle on the hill, and begged the few armed men ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... little later than usual. We had carried our luncheon down to the beach, and had eaten it there: we had never been quite so happy together before, for everything had conspired to make our enjoyment perfect. We had made up stories about the people on board the ships that went up and down in the offing; strange and beautiful things had looked at us from out the sea; a fisherman had offered us some oysters as he coasted about the bar in his boat, and I had bought some and opened them for Helen with my knife, every blade of which I broke in the effort. Altogether, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... they embarked from Diablo and sped across the rippling water to the launch which lay in the offing. Looking back from the stern-seat, Gregory saw the man on the ledge gazing after them ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... the far-flung fenceless prairie Where the quick cloud-shadows trail, To our neighbour's barn in the offing And the line of the new-cut rail; To the plough in her league-long furrow With the gray Lake gulls behind— To the weight of a half-year's winter And ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... received with a salute of eleven guns from the monitor Miantonomoh. The remainder of the day passed without any other unusual or noteworthy incident, but sometime in the night the fleet of Admiral Sampson joined the Flying Squadron in the offing, and Thursday morning the people of Key West saw, in their harbor and at sea off Fort Taylor, the largest and most powerful fleet of war-vessels that had ever assembled, perhaps, under ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... of credit. A guinea might be owing, and Sheridan, seldom remembering his purse, had but a shilling, which even in a court of Irish law seemed too small a compromise to offer. Black looked the horizon, stormy the offing, and night was coming on, whilst the port of consignment was now within thirty minutes' sail. Suddenly a sight of joy was described. Driving before the wind, on bare poles, was a well-known friend of Sheridan's, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... and tripping gayly along by his side till, passing out of the village, they struck into the narrow path leading to Sankaty; then the little maid moved along more soberly, looking far away over the rolling billows and watching the progress of some vessels in the offing. ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... this Nagasaki is! Here had we been running hard for the last hour, and still it seemed never-ending. It is a flat plain, and one never would suppose from the view in the offing that so vast a plain lies in the depth of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of July, the Cyrus being seen in the offing, I ordered her by telegraph to take a position close in with the Baleine light-house, and to examine strictly every vessel that might attempt to put to sea from the Pertuis de Breton, as Buonaparte was on the spot, endeavouring ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... little brigs were bound to the Baltic, and the first day out a heavy press of canvas was carried in order to get a good offing, lest the wind and sea should make and catch them tight on a lee shore. After they had been out twenty-four hours they both tacked off Flamborough Head, bearing west twenty miles, and stood to the N.E. The Silverspray passed close under the stern of the Francis Blake. The captains saluted ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Wady el-Maka'dah we halted six days (December 24—30); this delay gave us time to correct the misapprehensions of our flying visit. The height of the Jebel el-Abyaz, whose colour makes it conspicuous even from the offing when sailing along the coast, was found to be 350 (not 600) feet above the plain. The Grand Filon, which a mauvais plaisant of a reviewer called the "Grand Filou," forms a "nick" near the hill-top, but does not bifurcate in the interior. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... which has given to it, among the people in our parts, the name of the Shivering Sand. A great bank, half a mile out, nigh the mouth of the bay, breaks the force of the main ocean coming in from the offing. Winter and summer, when the tide flows over the quicksand, the sea seems to leave the waves behind it on the bank, and rolls its waters in smoothly with a heave, and covers the sand in silence. A lonesome and a horrid retreat, I can tell ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... fire, communicated the flames to the rest, until they were burnt to the water's edge. The bombardment continued, with little intermission, till nearly eleven: the Algerines fighting all the time with the utmost fury and desperation. About ten it was deemed advisable to take a large offing during the night. It was extremely dark: but the darkness was illuminated by a violent storm of lightning accompanied with thunder, and by the incessant fire of the batteries. The firing ceased about ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... pleasant walk or drive down to Elberon when there is a sea-breeze, especially if there happen to be a dozen yachts in the offing. Such elegance as this watering-place has lies in this direction; the Elberon is a refined sort of hotel, and has near it a group of pretty cottages, not too fantastic for holiday residences, and even the "greeny-yellowy" ones do not much offend, for eccentricities of color are toned down ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... England, to the Masons of Virginia. The bowl was very graceful, and contained on one side a lovely representation of the landing at Jamestown, with the tranquil, smiling river, the vessel in the offing, and the group of friendly red men on the shore; on the other was, of course, depicted the rescue of Captain John Smith by the Indian girl. The bowl was finished at top and bottom with wreaths of Virginia ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... death. From this place I steered to the northward, resolving never more to come within the same distance of the coast, except the wind should be very favourable indeed. I stood under a fresh sail all the day, hoping to get an offing by the next noon, and we made good a course of a hundred and two miles N. 38 W. Our latitude by observation was 35 deg. 10'S.; and Cape Maria bore N. 10 E. distance forty-one miles. In the night, the wind shifted from S.W. by S. to S. and blew fresh. Our course to the noon ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... those that were hidden in the mountain crevices or among the osier bushes. But the best of all was the old fisherman who lived there. Dunfin had heard that in his youth he had been a great shot and had always lain in the offing and hunted birds. But now, in his old age—since his wife had died and the children had gone from home, so that he was alone in the hut—he had begun to care for the birds on his island. He never fired a shot at them, nor would he permit ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... rocks of the cape, we felt no other desire but to get away from them as soon as possible, so little agreeable were those rocks to the view, even in the case of people who had been some months at sea! And by the help of a land breeze we succeeded in gaining an offing. While becalmed here, we measured the velocity of the current setting east, which we found to be ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... Port Nelson, and for two days cruised the offing, scanning the sea for the rest of his fleet. Early on September 5 the sails of three vessels heaved and rose above the watery horizon. Never doubting these were his own ships, Iberville signaled. There was no ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... it along the beach, where it hung gleaming on the bushes, and then vanished into nothingness. Right up to the shore they dashed, and then fell dead. But fresh hordes stormed shoreward from the offing, as though the land must be over-run by them; they reared, foaming, and struck at one another; they sprang, snorting and quivering, high in the air; they broke asunder in panic; there was never an end to it all. And far out in the distance the sun went down in a flame-red ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... before. That night we left the quaint city of Cork behind and, after a beautiful ride of eleven miles by train, found ourselves standing on the docks at Queenstown, where a tender was in waiting to convey us to the White Star steamer that awaited us in the offing. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... and not a few people in the town were ready to attribute the firing of those guns to some supernatural agency. The Oldest Inhabitant remembered that when he was a boy a dim-looking sort of schooner hove to in the offing one foggy afternoon, fired off a single gun that didn't make any report, and then crumbled to nothing, spar, mast, and hulk, like a piece ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... of expression, lonesome as the interstellar space, and quite as cold, and in all that limitless vastness of the World's Edge, two specks—the hut, its three windows streaming with light, and the tiny schooner rocking in the offing. Over all flared the ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... from the mountains until he had got an offing of a couple of miles, and then he swung her round and skirted the cliffs, rising ever higher and higher, and keeping a sharp look-out for a depression among the ridges that still towered nearly three ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... the ocean, in the space between the more distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... Gerda was glad to seek the shelter of her awning from the heat and glare from sea and sky. The ship swayed gently to the dying swell, and the sail flapped idly against the mast, while ever we looked to see the longships of Heidrek coming in the offing in ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... renewed upon him. He never slept; and they, too, felt little need of sleep, but drank and sang the night away, refreshed by the sacred dews, watching for the moon to rise over the rounded cornfields, or for her feet to touch the sea and shed silver about the boats in the offing. Out yonder Gwennolar sang and took her toll of life as before; but the people heeded less, and soon forgot even when their dearest perished. Other things than sorrow they began to unlearn. They had been a shamefaced race; the men shy and the women chaste. But the Stranger knew nothing ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... ride in the motor and in the early stages of supper he was afflicted by a taciturnity that made him almost negligible as a companion. And then suddenly a light broke over his face. He had the appearance of a shipwrecked mariner who suddenly catches sight of land in the offing. His lips were a little parted, ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... masters of that fort, and then send a summons to the governor. By midnight, the three frigates, having the force on board which was intended for this debarkation, approached within three miles of the place; but owing to a strong gale of wind in the offing, and a strong current against them in-shore, they were not able to get within a mile of the landing-place before daybreak; and then they were seen, and their intention discovered. Troubridge and ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... norther comes on to blow at Vera Cruz, all the vessels remaining near the city let go an extra anchor and batten down the hatches; or, wiser still, they let go their ground tackle and hasten to make an offing. The natives promptly haul their light boats well on shore; the citizens securely close their doors and windows; while the sky becomes darkened by clouds of sand driven by fierce gusts of wind. It is a fact that passengers have been obliged to remain for a whole week upon a European ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... the second following more leisurely, for she is only a 'pickup' or relief, in case the first is 'fluked' and the crew are tossed high in air, with their boat crushed into matchwood, or meets with some other disaster. And as the leading boat rises to the long ocean swell of the offing, the killers close in round her on either side, just keeping clear of the sweep of the oars, and 'breaching' and leaping and spouting with the anticipative zest of the ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... Atlantic. That force consisted of fifty-two ships and yachts and thirteen sloops, carrying 3780 sailors and 3500 soldiers, and mounting 1170 guns. Adverse weather prevented the arrival of the fleet in the offing of Olinda until February 13. Along the coast of Pernambuco runs a continuous reef of rock with narrow openings at irregular intervals, forming a barrier against attack from the sea. Olinda, the capital of the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... he said. "Mr. Elkin becomes more interesting than he looks. Are there other disappointed swains in the offing?" ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... I see?" cried Gerald, in tragic tones. "A vessel in the offing, headed in this direction. Now who do you suppose has the cheek ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... moved uneasily in his chair. He shunned the governor's searching eye, and affected to be watching a ship in the offing, of which a view ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... and ship after ship returned to England, leaving only a frigate and the "Venerable," commanded by Admiral Duncan, with my father as his flag-captain. To deceive the Dutch, they continued to make signals, as if the rest of the fleet were in the offing, till they could return to England; when, without delay, Admiral Duncan and my father went alone on board each ship, ordered the men to arrest the ringleaders, which was done, and the fleet immediately returned to its station off the Texel. At last, on the morning of the ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... two great battleships sink beneath the waves and all the others make an exit more dramatic than dignified. Most of the Armada of store ships had already cleared out and now the last of the battleships has offed it over the offing; a move which the whole of the German Grand Fleet could not have forced them to make! What better pick-me-up could Providence have provided for the badly-shaken Turks? No more inquisitive cruisers ready to let fly a salvo at anything that stirs. No more ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... and, in short, completely disguised herself as a sailor. She then made her way to the coast, where by chance she encountered a Catalan gentleman, by name Segner Encararch, who had landed from one of his ships, which lay in the offing, to recreate himself at Alba, where there was a fountain. So she made overture to him of her services, was engaged and taken aboard the ship, assuming the name Sicurano da Finale. The gentleman put her in better trim as to clothes, and found her so apt ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... before the mast were thorough seamen, the task was speedily accomplished. There were no "green hands" to be favored, for every one was competent to hand, reef, and steer. By the time the squadron was well in the offing, the ship's company was in condition to make sail. About ten miles outside of the ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... were running down the coast along the even line of keys which lie as a breastwork against the Atlantic Ocean outside of the much indented coast proper of North Carolina. The wind was moderate and off shore, so that Captain Gray laid his course straight for Cape Hatteras, with only offing enough to keep in a good depth of water,—say fifteen or twenty miles. At intervals during the day we could see isolated clumps of pine-trees rising out of the water, like low-lying, blue clouds, so that we could hardly ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... year 1781, on a fine evening of the month of May, the seamen of Arbroath who chanced to be loitering about the harbour observed a strange vessel manoeuvring in the offing. They watched and commented on the motions of the stranger with considerable interest, for the wary skill displayed by her commander proved that he was unacquainted with the navigation of the coast, and from the cut of her jib they ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... upon the list of emigrants with jewellers, perfumers, and gold refiners, and "gentlemen" held prominence in numbers and influence. The officers outnumbered the privates. The little fleet was hardly out of the offing when the struggle for power began. The voyage was not half accomplished when John Smith was charged with complicity in a discovered mutiny. He had intended, it was alleged, to murder his superiors, seize the fleet, and make ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... captain and mate had a dialogue on the subject of the currents again. Notwithstanding all the difficulties his old theory had brought him into, the former remained of opinion that the true current set to windward, and that we should so find it as soon as we got a little into the offing; while the mate was frank enough to say he had been of opinion, all along, that it ran the other way. The latter added that Bourbon was rather a small spot to steer for, and it might be better to get into its longitude, and then find it by meridian observations, than to make any more speculations ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... men and stores he could, and put to sea. Drake, then only twenty-three, did this with consummate skill. Hawkins followed some time after and anchored just out of range. But Drake had already gained an offing that caused the two little vessels to part company in the night, during which a whole gale from the north sprang up, threatening to put the Judith on a lee shore. Drake therefore fought his way to windward; and, seeing no one when the gale abated, and having barely enough stores to make ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... school-closing in the offing and lessons and examinations getting harder and harder, the girl scarcely had time to keep her own clothing neat and mended. She knew that right now daddy was wearing socks ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... Romans; after having placed their children and wives and their rich treasures for security in the mountain-fortresses of the Taurus, they awaited the Roman fleet at the western frontier of Cilicia, in the offing of Coracesium. But here the ships of Pompeius, well manned and well provided with all implements of war, achieved a complete victory. Without farther hindrance he landed and began to storm and break ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... the necessary papers. As he handled the documents he left fingerprints of such perfection on the borders that they resembled identification marks for classification under the Bertillon system, and Wallie was far more interested in watching him than in his intimation that there was trouble in the offing if he ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... you I take my pen in hand to record? The battle-ship, perfect-modelled, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to- day under full sail? The splendours of the past day? Or the splendour of the night that envelops me? Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?—No; But I record of two simple men ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... half of the boys meant to enter the Navy when they grew up. They knew what it meant, too. The great battleships from Plymouth ran their speed-trials off Polpier: the westward mile-mark stood on the Peak, right over the little haven; and the smallest child has learnt to tell a Dreadnought in the offing, or discern the difference between a first-class and a second-class cruiser. The older boys knew most of the ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... dinghy with you," he cried, "and row these children and the passenger out a mile from the ship—two miles, three miles, make an offing." ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... called Bedford Basin. The entrance to this basin is very narrow, and it has no other outlet. Oral tradition maintains that about a century ago a certain French fleet, lying in the harbor, surprised by the approach of a superior body of English men-of-war in the offing, weighed anchor and sailed up through this narrow estuary into the basin itself, deceived by seeing so much water there, and believing it to be but a twin harbor through which they could escape again to the open sea. And ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... visit to the Russian-American Company's Establishment of New Archangel. This exhibited considerable signs of commerce. In the harbour were five sailing vessels from 250 to 350 tons; besides a large bark in the offing in tow of a steamer, which brought advices from St Petersburgh down to the end of April. An officer came off conveying Governor Etholine's compliments and welcome. The party landed, and were received in the residence situated on the top of a rock. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... mountain and found at the foot a desert plain, long and broad, over which I travelled for the space of a month till my course brought me to the brink of the briny sea.[FN227] After standing there awhile, I was ware of a ship in the offing which ran before a fair wind making for the shore. I hid myself behind a rock on the beach and waited till the ship drew near, when I leaped on board. I found her full of merchants and passengers and one of them cried, "O Captain, this ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... state of the barometer, and the strong northerly winds, induced me to keep the vessel at a considerable offing. During the day the breezes were very fresh, and had it not been for the whale-boat with which I was furnished, I should not have been able to have effected a landing on any part of the coast which came under my observation. Under these circumstances, I was compelled ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... the offing loomed the job. He turned into the first clothing store he found, and purchased one of those all-covering duck garments affected by motor-car workers. By that time he had recovered sufficiently to note that an emotional disturbance does not always destroy ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... powerful economy- the fifth largest national economy in the world - has become one of the slowest growing economies in the entire euro zone, and a quick turnaround is not in the offing in the foreseeable future. Growth in 2001-03 fell short of 1%. The modernization and integration of the eastern German economy continues to be a costly long-term process, with annual transfers from west to east amounting to roughly $70 billion. Germany's ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... war—it's treason, sir—and guineas is a cargo that's fought for, sir! I shouldn't have moved with two men in a boat patrol, d'ye think? I should have had the riding officers, and the water-guard, and a revenue cruiser in the offing, and all tight and regular. But you would have all the credit, and where are you? and where's my share? and where ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... visible in the offing several days. At last the Emperor concluded to allow his mariners to go out and engage them. His indecision had been from a difficulty in naming a commander. The admiral proper was old and inexperienced, and his fighting ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... the girl stood ankle-deep in green grasses, a bath of sunlight falling about her, a tingle of salt wind humming up the river from the bay's offing. She was clad in gray wool, and wore no hat. Her soft hair, the color of ripe wheat, blew about her temples, shadowing eyes of fathomless black. The wind had brought to the light and delicate brown of her complexion a trace of color to match her lips, whose scarlet did not fade ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... better; and there was the beach for the teethers to dig in, and there was an effect of superior fashion in the gossipers on the piazza, one to every three of the three hundred feet of the piazza, rocking and talking, and guessing at the yachts in the offing, and then bathing and coming out to lie on the sand and ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... in his own cabin but a short time, receiving the congratulations of the doctor and the boys when the man on the lookout reported a vessel in the offing, which flew the company's flag, and seemed to be familiar to many ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... his chalice on the ridgepole of the room, causing it to be whirled into the air. As Wang Tun was watching the career of the chalice, Hsue disappeared and escaped. When he reached Lu-chiang K'ou, in Anhui, he boarded a boat, which two dragons towed into the offing and then raised into the air. In an instant they had borne it to the Lue Shan Mountains, to the south of Kiukiang, in Kiangsi. The perplexed boatman opened the window of his boat and took a furtive look out. Thereupon the dragons, finding themselves discovered by an infidel, ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... ignorance. The anatomists and the pathologists have their place, but we must look to the living to learn the laws of life, not to the dead. A wreck shows you where the reef is, perhaps, but not how to manage a ship in the offing. The men who make it their business to write the books and the men who make it their business to follow them aren't the ones for ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... with unaccustomed rage, the sea rose into large billows, and a ship was seen tossing in the offing. The Islanders, whose experience of navigation extended only to a slight paddling in their lagoon, in the half of a hollow trunk of a tree, for the purpose of fishing, mistook the tight little frigate for a great fish; and being now aware of the cause of this disturbance, and at the same ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... granted before the fall of the blow which, for a time, annihilated British authority on the frontier. On the third day after the reception of the evil tidings of the capture of York, Chauncey's fleet was seen in the offing; but for six days adverse winds prevented it from landing the American troops beneath the protection of the guns of Fort Niagara. Day after day they stood off and on, but were unable to make the land. "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera," ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... and it was just there that the affair began to have certain points of resemblance to a pantomime rally. Everybody seemed to be shouting a good deal and hitting everybody else. It was no place for a man of delicate culture, so I edged towards the door, and drifted out. There was a cab in the offing. I boarded it. And, having kicked a vigorous politician in the stomach, as he was endeavouring to climb in too, ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... from estranging, rendered more dear to the memory, and bound more closely to the heart, it was sure of being rewarded at last; and then there was no picture on which it could love to linger so well as that of the silver waves bearing that valued vessel in safety to its wonted anchorage in the offing. Moreover, the light swift bark canoes of the natives often danced joyously on its surface; and while the sight was offended at the savage, skulking among the trees of the forest, like some dark spirit moving cautiously in its course of secret destruction, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... the bank of a stream of some size; and to his unspeakable joy, saw on the opposite bank a party of white men, the first human beings he had beheld since Stanley's death; they proved to be Swedes belonging to a ship in the offing; and immediately took him into their boat. The vessel was bound to Stockholm, where she carried young Stanley's shipmate; from there he went to St. Petersburgh, where he met with the brother who related his story to Hazlehurst, and both soon after enlisted in the Russian navy. They were sent to ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... bottom is every where a fine dark sand, except in some places close to the shore, where there are beds of sea-weed, which always grows on rocky ground. The head of the harbour lies open only to two points of the compass; and even these are covered by islands in the offing, so that no sea can fall in to hurt a ship. The appearances on shore confirmed this; for we found grass growing close to high-water mark, which is a sure sign of a pacific harbour.[113] It is high-water here, at the full and change ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... schooners bound to the eastward. This was known afterwards from the Javanese boatmen whom Heyst hired for the purpose at three o'clock in the morning. The Tesman schooner had sailed at daylight with the usual land breeze, and was probably still in sight in the offing at the time. However, the two pursuers after their experience with the American mate, made for the shore. On landing, they had another violent row in the German language. But there was no second fight; and finally, with looks of fierce animosity, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to the ship, and resolved the next morning to visit one of the high islands in the offing, from the top of which, as they lay five leagues out to sea, I hoped to discover more distinctly the situation of the shoals, and the channel ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... down upon the blue rippling ocean, flashing here and there, into the sunlight in long, glittering lines. The boat was still in the distance, making her swift silent way with long regular bounds to the tender that lay in the offing. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of January, 1805, that the look-out frigate in the offing signalled to the admiral that the French fleet had put to sea. At that season there was much gaiety, in dances, private theatricals, and other amusements, on board the different ships in the harbour, and preparations for an evening's entertainment were going on at the moment the stirring signal ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... a good offing, we bore up at daylight, and stood in for Rossel Island with the Bramble ahead. We passed at a distance Adele Island (so named after Coutance's ship) low and woody, situated at the eastern extreme of the barrier reef surrounding Rossel Island, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... jiffy; and off seven of us went, round the ice-pans, ploughing, cutting, portaging a way till we had crossed the obstruction and were pulling for the French fort with the spars of three Company boats far in the offing. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... Old Head of Kinsale, was now in the offing, and misty ranges of other promontories beyond, at whose base was perpetual foam. Robert turned away with a sigh, and descended to the cabins. In the small square box allotted to them, he found Arthur lying in his berth, ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... as it was, and water; and leaving my friendly negroes, I made forward for about eleven days more, without offering to go near the shore, till I saw the land run out a great length into the sea, at about the distance of four or five leagues before me; and the sea being very calm, I kept a large offing to make this point. At length, doubling the point, at about two leagues from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side, to seaward; then I concluded, as it was most certain indeed, that this was the Cape de Verde, and those the islands called, from thence, Cape de ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... his indignation vanished when the fierce gray eyes of Jim fixed him in an unflinching stare. He saw trouble looming in the offing. Jim turned his eyes ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... and her father angry. So she nursed the project in her own heart, and when the three had taken seizin of the northern hill, eaten their manchets of saffron cake, and shared their canful of milk, she took up a post from which, while the others scanned the offing for Spaniards, she could watch and time the ebb of ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... he sent runners to Sierra Leone and Goree with notice that he would shortly be prepared with ample cargoes. Trade, which had been so long interrupted by hostilities, poured from the interior. Vessels from Goree and Sierra Leone were seen in the offing, responding to his invitation. His stores were packed with British, French, and American fabrics; while hides, wax, palm-oil, ivory, gold, and slaves, were the native products for which Spaniards and Portuguese hurried to proffer their doubloons ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... breaking rythmically at the foot of the cliff far beneath, one can sit and ponder on the immensity of the ocean and dream of the lands beyond the horizon. From here the whole seaboard, from Thatcher's Island to York and Wells, is in view; the Isles of Shoals loom up on the horizon, while the offing is dotted with coasters and yachts of every rig and construction. Calm, indeed, must it be when no wind is felt on Boar's Head; and during those exceptional days of the summer, when the land-breeze prevails, the broad verandas around three sides of the hotel afford the most grateful ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... am confident that even this superb achievement will be surpassed by some future edition of Astounding Stories, for each succeeding number to date has improved on the one before. And with a new Cummings novel in the offing, it seems the August issue, despite its excellence, will speedily be eclipsed.—Allen Glasser, 1510 University Ave., ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... in his sportsman's cap and waterproof, hugging his rod cases to his breast, watched while a heterogeneous fleet of canoes, skiffs, and sailboats came racing out from shore, for the steamer does not land here, but hangs in the offing and lighters its cargo ashore. Leading the lot was a sort of whaleboat propelled by two oars on one side and one on the other, and in the sternsheets sat a rosy-cheeked, good-natured looking man with a smooth-shaven face who Bennie knew ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... or malice have we here?" cries Herve Riel: "Are you mad, you Malouins deg.? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? deg.46 Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? 50 Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... square desk and the three chairs. Through the door he could see Collins, perched on a high stool before the shelf-like desk. From the open window came the clear, musical note of the circular saw, the fresh aromatic smell of new lumber, the bracing air from Superior sparkling in the offing. He felt tired. In rare moments such as these, when the muscles of his striving relaxed, his mind turned to the past. Old sorrows rose before him and looked at him with their sad eyes; the sorrows that had helped to make ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... malice have we here?" cries Herve Riel. "Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? 10 Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, 'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river disembogues? 15 Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 20 Burn the fleet ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... right, stretched the blue line of the Bay, where a single ship-of-war tacked lazily and kept a two-miles' offing. The smoke of the guns, drifting down on the land-breeze from the summit of Mount Olia, now hid her white sails, now lifted and revealed them in the late afternoon sunshine. But although blue held the upper heavens—cloudless ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... have held it a foolish dream that any attempt could be made to capture Louisbourg, but there, in the early morning of April 30th, 1745, Pepperell's army was disembarking before their eyes, and in the offing Commodore Warren, with four British battleships, stood blockading the harbour. The bells of the martial little town rang madly in alarm, and the booming of cannon at once brought the dismayed ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... or malice have we here?" cries Herve Riel; 45 "Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every smell 'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? 50 Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. Burn the fleet and ruin France? That ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... ship in the offing," I said to Thorgils presently, when we, with the Dane just astern of us, were some five miles from land and had ceased to look back to Tenby. Nona had gone into the cabin away from the wind, which came a little chill from the east on the open sea, and maybe also that she felt the ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... Flechier, that while the royal troops were busy in the mountains the Camisards had come down into the plain, swarmed over La Camargue, and had been seen in the neighbourhood of Saint-Gilles. At the same time word was sent him that two ships had been seen in the offing, from Cette, and that it was more than probable that they contained troops, that England and Holland were sending ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... readiness to assist in the recapture of Savannah. He urged as a condition, however, that his ships should not be detained long off so dangerous a coast, as is was now the hurricane season, and there was neither harbor, road, nor offing for ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... opinion that it was a French boat, though something in the rig made him not quite positive. It cruised about in a queer manner, 'just as if she was on the watch for something,' as the man said. However, towards mid-day she drew out into the offing, and they saw her sails slowly disappearing ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... camp. Thus, after many days of sickness and of travel, I took my place among the men who were about to face the great storm. True, at the time quiet reigned all along our front, which lay over beyond the heights of Brooklyn; but hot work was soon expected, as the British fleet had been seen in the offing, and it was only a question of time when the army would be landed and the ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... had only to look to our own safety while our consorts were out on their cruize for the Manilla ship. We posted two centinels on a hill, whence they had a clear view of the sea, with instructions to give us notice by a signal whenever they saw three ships in the offing, that we might have time to secure our prisoners, and to get out to the assistance of our consorts, as we expected they might have hot work, this other Manilla ship being much stronger and better manned than the one we had taken, and better ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... oblong schoolroom with the brown desks, seven rows across for the lower school, one long form along the wall for Class One where she and Ada and Geraldine sat apart. Never look through the bay windows over the lea to the Channel, at sunset, Lundy Island flattened out, floating, gold on gold in the offing. Never see magenta valerian growing in hot white ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair |
