"Spike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spook," Patsy began, "I got the fearfulest thump on my crust that I've had since that marline-spike fell off the main yard on to me in the little affair of the Five ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... looking as dark and wicked as he had done that night when he had thrilled Tim's heart by his shocking conduct. The boy drew slowly near, half fearful of his own daring. What if the dark man should not at first recognize him as a kindred spirit, and should leap at him with a hand-spike? John McIntyre ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... marine technicalities Mr. RUSSELL introduces into his stories without explanations such as this, it would be difficult to say. But with such assistance, a studding-sail-boom becomes as easy of identification as a marling-spike lashed to a forecastle spinaker-boom, close hauled aport under trysails, blowing out like flags from the grips of clew-lines and leech-lines towards the close of a second dog-watch! Shiver LINDLEY MURRAY'S timbers! but what can be finer than a bulkhead battened down ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... the charge shatters them. Horse and foot, carbines and petronels, swords and pole-axes, are mingled in one struggling mass. Rupert and his men seem refreshed, not exhausted, by the weary night,—they seem incapable of fatigue; they spike the guns as they cut down the gunners, and, if any escape, it is because many in both armies wear the same red scarfs. One Puritan, surrounded by the enemy, shows such desperate daring that Rupert bids release him at last, and sends afterwards to Essex to ask his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... blindly in a voyage to worlds unknown, for profits guessed at, against dangers neither to be counted nor foreseen. Be not too much stricken of amazement, therefore, when now these cold ones, who would not have bought an American railroad without counting the cross-ties and weighing every spike and fish-plate, were ready to send millions adrift on a sightless invasion of Asia ten thousand miles away. Besides, as the five with Mr. Harley laid out their campaign, any question of Oriental danger was for the present ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... coelospermous, and this is a character which was considered by De Candolle to be in other species of the highest systematic importance. Professor Braun mentions a Fumariaceous genus, in which the flowers in the lower part of the spike bear oval, ribbed, one-seeded nutlets; and in the upper part of the spike, lanceolate, two-valved and two-seeded siliques. In these several cases, with the exception of that of the well-developed ray-florets, which are of service in making the flowers conspicuous to insects, natural selection ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... were obliged to continue the chase because of the materials and implements which they got from the animals. They used the jaw of a fish, with the teeth in it, as a knife; the arm and leg bones of apes as arrow points; the tail spike of a skate for the same; the two front claws of the armadillo to dig the ground (a process which the animal taught them by the same use of his claws); the shell of a river mussel as a scraper to finish wooden tools. "These people were hunters without ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... are till we put a spike collar and chain on 'em. When Henrietta declared herself Alonzo read the riot act and declared marital law. But there was Henrietta with the collar and chain and pretty soon Lon was saying: 'You're quite right, Pettikins, and you ought to have the thanks of the ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... want to spike the Major's guns, you know." He laughed a little. "And—well, yes, I think I'm promoting the general happiness too, if you must know. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... three-pointed vermilion-and-tinsel splendor. His Majesty the King fitted it on his royal brow. The Commissioner's wife had a face that children instinctively trusted, and her action, as she adjusted the toppling middle spike, was tender. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... is. I have only seen pollen of a Cattleya on a bee, but surely have you not unintentionally sent me what I wanted most (after Catasetum or Mormodes), viz. one of the Epidendreae?! I PARTICULARLY want (and will presently tell you why) another spike of this little Orchid, with older ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... which give so sudden a feeling of new life and delight, when we pass from the streets of London to those of Abbeville or Rouen, as the quaint points and pinnacles of the roof gables and turrets. The commonest and heaviest roof may be redeemed by a spike at the end of it, if it is set on with any spirit; but the foreign builders have (or had, at least) a peculiar feeling in this, and gave animation to the whole roof by the fringe of its back, and the spike on its forehead, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... groups of Belgian soldiers, the remainder of a few hundred who had been left to cover the British and Belgian retreat, fire the last shots from the forts, and spike the guns as the Germans approached. Pitiable was the terror of these fellows when they saw the bridge gone. Many of them were out of their heads through exposure and exhaustion; not a few of them wept. One sergeant tore off his uniform ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... and he drove a spike into the end of the log, tied one end of a rope to the spike, and the other to a pliant ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... rash Jacobite heads, in 1715 and 1745, arrived at the same bad eminence. In many a royal procession and many a City riot, this gate has figured as a halting-place and a point of defence. The last rebel's head blew down in 1772; and the last spike was not removed till the beginning of the present century. In the Popish Plot days of Charles II. vast processions used to come to Temple Bar to illuminate the supposed statue of Queen Elizabeth, in the south-east niche (though it probably ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... the persuasions of Captain Cook, who, seeing further attempts would be risky, came to the shore. At the same time two principal chiefs were killed on the opposite side of the bay. A native armed with a long iron spike threatened Captain Cook, who at last fired a charge of small shot at him, but his mat prevented any harm. A general attack upon the marines in the boat was made, and with fury the natives rushed upon them, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... rough grey stone. Upon it, there is what I thought at first was a sun-dial, and I wondered what it was doing there. Then I saw it had not a dial plate; only a strong cross-bar of wood, and the index finger, so to speak, was longer than one would expect, a sharp wooden spike. As I was wondering what it was a passer-by explained it. It is not a sun-dial, it is an impaling instrument. On that spike they used to impale alive goats and kids and fowls as offerings to the god Siva and his two wives, the deities to whose honour ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... Summerhayes I suppose you will have a hard time wading through my scrawl but I know you will be generous and remember that I went to sea when a little over nine years of age and had my pen been half as often in my hand as a marlin spike, I would now be able to ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... anything, if they get a signed confession out of her. Now we both know she is innocent. I'm willing to do what I can to help you. Turn about is fair play. If you want to send me out there, I'll try to spike their guns. Maybe I can get there in time to put fresh heart in the girl. She's safe if she doesn't go to pieces and say something ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... thirty yet! I'm awful little fer my size—I'm purt' nigh littler 'nan Some babies is!—an' neighbers all calls me "The Little Man!" An' Doc one time he laughed an' said: "I 'spect, first thing you know, You'll have a little spike-tail coat an' travel with a show!" An' nen I laughed—till I looked round an' Aunty was a-cryin'— Sometimes she acts like that, 'cause I ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... blue, including filaments, anthers, and style; crowded in a dense spike; quickly fading; unpleasantly odorous. Perianth tubular, 2-lipped, parted into 6 irregular lobes, free from ovary; middle lobe of upper lip with 2 yellow spots at base within. Stamens 6, placed at unequal distances on tube, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... found in all the legions that are on the register, and it never moves from the winter-quarters except the whole army goes forth on some errand. One man carries it on a long shaft, which ends in a sharp spike for the purpose of setting it firmly in the ground. Now of these so-called eagles one was unwilling to join him in his passage of the Euphrates at that time, but stuck fast in the earth as if planted until many took their places around it and pulled it out by force, ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... almost vicious. The head was bare; there were plain gold rings in the ears; and the stark, half-malevolent eyes looked out, as though searching for a jam of logs or some peril of the river. In the horny right hand was a defiant pike-pole, its handle thrust forward, its steel spike stabbing the ground. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... especially Pierre Balmat and his son, are some of the best-informed and most agreeable men I ever conversed with. Indeed for six months of the year they keep company with the most distinguished travellers of Europe. With these guides, each of us armed with a long pole with an iron spike, such as my uncle described to me ages ago, and which I never expected to wield, we came down La Flegere, which we mounted on mules. In talking to an old woman who brought us strawberries, I was surprised to hear her pronounce the Italian proverb, "Poco a poco fa lontano nel giorno." I thought ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... ever seen in three of the largest aquariums known in England, had they been combined into one. There were some large fellows, something like pollack, cruising around, and these are called buffaloes. Insinuating their slow course through the crowd were fresh-water gar-fish with long spike noses. The catfish, with its greasy chubby body, portmanteau mouth, and prominent wattles, were precisely like those we used to catch (and eat sometimes) in Australia. Carp were present in numbers, including ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Then he points to his lips with his fingers and makes signs. This means he is dumb. He places his hand over his stomach and grins again. He is going to eat them. It is time to go home and do this, so he puts up his fishpole and packs his primitive paraphernalia—a tin can, a rusty spike, a bamboo pole. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... of some frightful beast, and it is represented as suffering the most intense physical agony. Nails are driven into its head, body, legs, and feet. Each wrongdoer who wanted to relieve himself of his own guilt drove a nail, a tack, a brad, or a spike into the flesh of his god. The god suffered the pain; the man escaped the punishment. He cast his burdens on his god, and went on his way rejoicing. Here is vicarious atonement in all its pristine glory. The god is writhing and distorted with pain; the criminal ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... one or more, may next be cut, commencing beneath the second log from the top, and taking in three beneath it. Replace the logs above, and on the ends of those thus cut, both in windows and doors, proceed to spike a heavy plank, driving two nails into each log, about five inches apart, one above the other. This will hold them firmly in place, and offer a close-fitting jam for the door, and neat receptacle for the window sashes, which latter may now be put in ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... induced me to rein back my horse, and to that precaution I have no doubt I owe my life. Jed blew only once; he lacked opportunity to do more, for a shock of electricity could never have more quickly aroused that mule. His long ears were erected with a snap, his short, spike tail shot out straight, while his heels cut the air in furious semicircles, as he backed viciously. I heard a yell from Jed, saw him clasp his arms lovingly about the animal's neck, caught a confused glimpse of the wildly cavorting figure amid the red dust cloud, and then, rear on, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... blade down to where my ribs attach to my backbone, and the only way I get any relief from the pain is to have some one kick me along the side." (She was a witch, and concealed in her robe a long sharp steel spike. It was placed so that the last kick they would give her, their foot would hit the spike and they would instantly drop off into a swoon, ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin
... their hands, some men climb into trees and wait for the herd to pass, whilst others drive them under. The hippopotami, however, are not hunted, but snared with lunda, the common tripping-trap with spike-drop, which is placed in the runs of this animal, described by every South African traveller, and generally known as far as the Hametic language is spread. The Karuma Falls, if such they may be called, are a mere sluice or rush of water between ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... hoped that Thou would'st come to me, I and the garden waited for their Lord. Here He will rest, beneath this Champa tree; Hence, all ye spike-set ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... rather pretty, but of rambling and untidy growth, a climber, with smooth, soft stems, ten or twelve feet long, and tough, broadly ovate leaves. It is supported much as hops are. When the berries on a spike begin to turn red they are gathered, as they lose pungency if they are allowed to ripen. They are placed on mats, and are either trodden with the feet or rubbed by the hands to separate them from the spike, after which they are cleaned by winnowing. Black pepper consists of such berries ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... not give either musket or fusee; but they had each a halberd, or a long staff, like a quarter-staff, with a great spike of iron fastened into each end of it, and by his side a hatchet; also every one of our men had a hatchet. Two of the women could not be prevailed upon but they would come into the fight, and they had bows and arrows, which the ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... significant tributes of similar nature. And when at last the great day came when all the short lines were connected in one whole, what a celebration there was from sea to sea! Wires had been laid so that the hammer that drove the last spike sent the news to cities all over the land. Bells rang, whistles blew, fire alarms sounded. The cost of the Union Pacific was about thirty-nine million dollars and that of the Central Pacific about ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... called Skate Runners. They wear leg gaiters for travelling in deep snow, and green uniform. They carry a short sword, a rifle fastened by a broad strap passing over the shoulder, and a climbing staff seven feet long, with a spike in the end. They move so fast in the snow that no cavalry can overtake them, and it does little good to fire cannon balls at them, as they go two or three hundred feet apart. They are very useful soldiers in following ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... in undress uniform, sat at the piano with his back towards her. His white helmet lay, spike downward, on the carpet; and an Aberdeen terrier—ears rigidly erect, head tilted at a critical angle—sat close beside it, watching his master with intent eyes, in which all the wisdom and sorrow of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... there are to be liberated at twelve o'clock tonight, are to seize the three water towers and to spike the guns, to burn all the shipping in the harbour, to make off with six galleys, and destroy ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... bunch of mountain-willers, and, after driving a big railroad-spike into the door-casing, over the latch, he said the senate and house would sit with closed doors during the morning session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... other animal would be wounded and torn with the spikes and thorns, but the elephant's hide is as strong as a board. He does not mind prickles, and the only sensitive part of him is just behind the ear, so when he is tamed a man sits on his neck, and with a little sharp-pointed spike pricks him behind the ear on the side he wants him to go. It does not hurt, but the elephant feels it and soon understands, and follows the directions as a horse follows the pull of the reins in driving. Elephants live entirely on green food and ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... from him. Nothing occurred: the performance prospered peacefully to the close, without incident. All eyes were now turned on the executioner, who had grown as white as the snows on the summit of Fujiama. His legs trembled and his breath came in gasps of terror. "Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions!" he cried; "I am a ruined and disgraced swordsman! I struck the villain feebly because in flourishing the scimetar I had accidentally passed it through my own neck! Father of the Moon, I ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... white ally continued upstream. Beyond the northern sentry-line, and beyond the sod huts of the scouts, they spied the first sign of the horse-herd they sought—a herd composed of the sutler's spike-team, a four-in-hand used on the wood-wagon, Lieutenant Fraser's "Buckskin," and a dozen or fifteen second-choice mounts belonging to absent officers. That sign was a spark on the ground a long way ahead. They knew it for the ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... in a hockey match. You understand she had not committed suicide. Her heart had just stopped. I saw her, with the long lashes on the cheeks, with the smile about the lips, with the flowers all about her. The stem of a white lily rested in her hand so that the spike of flowers was upon her shoulder. She looked like a bride in the sunlight of the mortuary candles that were all about her, and the white coifs of the two nuns that knelt at her feet with their faces hidden might have been two swans that were to bear her away to kissing-kindness land, or wherever ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... of the drum Hiram passed two lengths of Number 9 wire through large screweyes, making a double loop into which the hook of a light timber chain would easily catch. Into one end of the drum he drove a headless spike, upon which the hand-crank of the grindstone fitted, and was ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... between the Carboniferous and Permian eras; but whether the womb of one colossal volcano or the product of a thousand lesser eruptions threw forth this granite monster, none may yet assert. Whether Dartmoor first appeared as a mighty shield, with one uprising spike in its midst, or as a target supporting many separate bosses cannot be declared; for the original aspect of the region has long vanished, though our worn and weathered land of tors still shadows, in its venerable desolation, those ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... equinoctial sun-dial. It can easily be cast in lead. The spike points towards the elevated pole, and the rim of the disc is divided into 24 ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... left at Fort Clifton with orders to spike the guns, blow up the magazine, destroy everything which could be of value to the enemy, and rejoin the command. The order was obeyed, and every man of the detail resumed his place ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... you my solemn word of honour that if the French or Germans came over to invade this land, I'd—" Peggy seized the ruler and waved it in the air with a gesture of fiercest determination—"I'd fight them! There! I'd shoot at them; I'd go out and spike the guns; I'd— I'd climb on the house-tops and throw stones at them. You needn't laugh, I tell you I should be terrible! I feel as if I could face a whole regiment myself. The spirit—the spirit of my ancestors is in my breast, Arthur Reginald, and woe betide ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... with his keen, polished spike-horns, more active and dangerous but less confident than the over-antlered stags, would stand in the old wolf's path, disputing with lowered front the right of way. Here the right of way meant a good deal, for in many places ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... but the sound had not ceased to echo when, out of the horrible tangle about us, rose, with a swift, sinuous motion, a monstrous anacondalike arm, flesh pink in the electric beam, but covered with spike-edged spiracles! It curled itself over the edge of the hovering air ship ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... legislatures, but the "scamps" are vastly better at promising than fulfilling. The politicians, of course, expect all this flutter and buncombe about doing something for women in New York—in California—in Iowa—is going to spike our guns and make us help the Republican party to carry all before it; but we must not be thus ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... is this curious plant that grows so abundantly on the grass here? I know it well by sight, but do not know its name." It is a spike of horse-tail; see how the stem is marked with lines, and how curiously jointed it is, and quite hollow except where the joints occur. The fruit is borne at the top of the plant (a); see, as I shake it, what a quantity of dust comes from ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... eager blast, and angled in between the herd and a straggler on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull, his first antler growth consisting of two pointed spikes eighteen inches long. He was not alarmed,—but it was a new kind of coyote that faced him now, one that had learned pack hunting under the leadership of ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... Waste no incense at her shrine. She'll cut the thread no sooner because you turn your back on her." Fling overboard your mythologies, dead and alive, and kneel to Nature. A budding spike of wild hyacinth is worth all the gods put together. Go hand in hand with Nature, I say. Ask nothing from her; walk humbly; be well content if she lets you but turn the corner of one page none else have read. That's how I live. My life is ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... all except their mammoth fearless strength tore up the solid rock with snorts of rage and the panting of industry, now and then flinging some troublesome, stubborn boulder angrily upon the cars. Yet they could be dainty as human fingers too, could pick up a railroad spike or push a rock gently an inch further across the car. Each was run by two white Americans, or at least what would prove such when they reached the shower-bath in their quarters—the craneman far out on the shovel arm, the engineer within the machine itself with a labyrinth of levers demanding ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... quartet, who stood sponsors for that title. We were a pitiful lot of fellows in this garrison. We mixed the handful of flour given to us with snow water, and, wrapping the unsalted dough around a sagebrush spike, we cooked it in the flames, and ate it from the stick, as a dog would gnaw a bone. The officers put a guard around the few little hackberry trees to keep the men from eating the berries and the bark. Not a scrap of the few buffalo we found was wasted. Even the entrails cleansed in the snow and ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... Tropics, and dreamy to look upon. Still valleys, leagues away, reposed in the deep shadows of the mountains; and here and there, waterfalls lifted up their voices in the solitude. High above all, and central, the "Marling-spike" lifted its finger. Upon the hillsides, small groups of bullocks were seen; some quietly browsing; others slowly winding ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... a spiked ball-head, and a four-inch spike in front of that. He smashed the ball down on the back of one Ulleran's head, and jabbed another in the ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... hundred sail, from the base of the sultry hill faced with terraces and called Queenstown, to the far Atlantic beyond the Heads. Heavy and dark loom the fortified Government buildings of Haulbowline and the prisons of Spike Island, casting forbidding shadows on the western margin of the tide. Quickly the steam-tug and her follower thread their way among islets and moored barques and guard-ships, southward to the sea. No pause anywhere; ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... in the swelling buds and rushing torrents. The pine forests exhaled a fresher spicery. The azaleas were already budding; the ceanothus getting ready its lilac livery for spring. On the green upland which climbed the Red Mountain at its southern aspect, the long spike of the monk's-hood shot up from its broad-leaved stool and once more shook its dark blue bells. Again the billow above Smith's grave was soft and green, its crest just tossed with the foam of daisies and buttercups. The little graveyard had gathered a few new dwellers ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... opopanax, two ounces, storax liquid, half an ounce; mastich, frankincense, pitch, bole, each two drachms; then with wax make a plaster; or take laudanum, a drachm and a half; mastich, and frankincense, each half a drachm, wood aloes, cloves, spike, each a drachm; ash-coloured ambergris, four grains: musk, half a scruple; make two round plasters to be laid on each side of the navel; make a fume of snails' skins salted, or of garlic, and let it be taken in by the ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... one of the smartest post-masters in the country. I've seed him rip open many a man's letter an' read it off just like print. Here, Kintchin! Kintchin! That nigger's asleep somewhar. One of these days somebody will fill him so full of lead you couldn't turn him over with a hand spike." Kintchin appeared at the door, stretching himself and rubbing his eyes. "What have you ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... returning. The outgoing footsteps were deeply and distinctly outlined from heel to toe. The right foot plainly showed the circular mark of a rubber heel, which was missing in the other, though a sharp indentation showed the mark of the spike to which the rubber ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... up, and picked out their socks, and, each seizing a pair in one hand and an alpenstock with a long, sharp spike on the end in the other, they ran off down the zigzag path to the glacier, two or three guides helping the others along. At the foot of the rocky path the four ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... himself. The children were divided and warned not to lean over the sides and fall out—a somewhat superfluous caution—as most of them, though unused to riding in any legitimate manner, were pretty well used to balancing themselves behind any vehicle which offered as much as a spike to sit on, out of sight of the driver. Then came the rush into the vans. Grey and Tom took up their places next the doors as conductors, and the procession lumbered off with great success, and much shouting from ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... stopping before a splendid line of plants in full blossom. Her self-respect was whole again; her spirits rose at a bound. 'I don't know why you admire them so much. They have no scent, and they are only pretty in the lump,' and she broke off a spike of blossom, studied it a little disdainfully, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... night, she fell into the most furious rage, but being terribly afraid of her daughter, she controlled herself, and bade the boy go and find the field guarded by eighteen millions of demons, warning him on no account to look back after having plucked the tallest spike of rice, which grew in ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... took the helmet by the spike and put it on the mantel. "Lord knows, I'm not presenting that as a token of valor to any one. It belonged to a poor chap who died on the field the night I was wounded. My orderly ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... in her business of tying down a canvas cover over her load and gave Sheila an amused and searching look. She held an iron spike between her teeth, but spoke ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... running leap, I suppose, and with all his might had thrown himself clear over our palisades, except one strong pile, which stood higher than the rest, and which had caught hold of him, and by his weight he had hanged himself upon it, the spike of the pile running into his hinder haunch or thigh, on the inside; and by that he hung, growling and biting the wood for rage. I snatched up a lance from one of the negroes that stood just by me, and running to him, struck it three or four ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... leaves the paper transparent, looking no otherwise then oyled paper; but pure Chymical Oyls totally fly away, leaving the paper white as 'twas before, and not transparent, and in this way Oyl of sweet Almonds and Spike have a great share. As for Oyls drawn by Retort, they all of them smell so strong of the fire, that neither smell nor tast can well discover any fraud in them. Now for the fixed Salts, most of them are made of the Ashes of Tobacco-stalks, ...
— A Short View of the Frauds and Abuses Committed by Apothecaries • Christopher Merrett
... mountain at an altitude of 3,000 to 4,500 feet. With it, grow two tway-blades and the rattlesnake plantain. In bogs, two species of piperia, with long spikes of greenish flowers, are abundant. In drier situations, a small form of the ladies' tresses is easily recognized by its spiral spike of small white flowers, which are more or less fragrant. In some of the swamps at the base of the mountain grows Limnorchis leucostachys. This is one of our most fragrant flowers, as well as one of the most beautiful, with its long spike of pure ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... but is sometimes found in a sitting position, as in graves recently discovered on Lord Wantage's estate, Berks. Coffins of hollowed trunks of trees were occasionally used, but these were not common. If the dead man was a warrior, his weapons were buried with him, and we find the head and spike of his spear, heads of javelins, a long iron broad-sword, a long knife, occasionally an axe, and over his breast the iron boss of his shield, the wooden part of which has of ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... brought Mr. Sparling snatched it from the hands of the tentman. Raising the pole, assisted by the boss canvasman, he was able to reach the loop. The iron spike in the end of the pole was thrust through the loop, and by exerting considerable pressure they were able to force the loop slowly ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... victor, placing his foot on the body of the vanquished, and holding to his throat the point of the axe, which terminated in a spike ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... take up any time to direct you to do it. And yet, because I cut you short in that, I will commute for it by telling you that that was told me for a secret. It is this: Dissolve gum of ivy in oil of spike, and therewith anoint your dead bait for a pike, and then cast it into a likely place, and when it has lain a short time at the bottom, draw it towards the top of the water and so up the stream, and it is ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... rather simply up here, Mr. Barnes," said De Soto. "There isn't a dinner jacket or a spike tail coat on the place. It's strictly against the law up here to have such things about one's person. Come as you are, sir. I assure you I speak the truth when I say we don't dress ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... 3-1/8 inches in its longest diameter, and at its thickest part measures about half-an-inch. It has been chipped all over with great care, and has a sharp edge all round. This peculiar style of tool or weapon reached perfection in this specimen, which, whether used as a knife, arrow, spike, or axe, was an implement of singular beauty of design, and exhibits ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... employed in the process, so that an impression of device or of legend appeared only on one side. The other side bore an indent which is known as the punch-mark. This mark is commonly a square figure divided into four smaller squares by lines resembling somewhat a right cross. It is the indent of the spike in the anvil on which the ball of metal was laid when being struck. Later, the coins were made thinner, and were struck with double dies. From that time both sides of the coin received an impression. The upper side continued to show the ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... our way over the sea, far away from land night or day, just as well as on shore. Besides the sun and stars to guide us, we have the compass. It is a wonderful thing, though it is so simple-looking; just a round card, resting on a spike in a brass basin. In the card is a long steel needle, and the point of it is rubbed with a stuff called loadstone, and it takes the card round and round, and always points to the north. The north, and all the other points, are ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston
... being about to commence his fifth egg, to the no small anxiety of Martha and Jane, into whose limited and innocent minds the possibility of such a feat had never entered. "Wot, me! Why, capting, if they was biled as hard as the head of a marline-spike—" ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... the minor tale of the cruel stepmother added to the main tale, while the Grimm Briar Rose is a model of structure easily separated into ten leading episodes. Sleeping Beauty appeared in Basile's Pentamerone where there is given the beautiful incident of the baby sucking the spike of flax out of its sleeping mother's fingers. The Perrault version agrees with that of Basile in naming the twins, who are Sun and Moon in the Pentamerone, Day ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... Our tomatoes, when last seen, were greener than they were at the beginning of August, and getting greener every week. Our celery looked as delicate as a maidenhair fern. Our Indian corn was nine feet high with a tall feathery spike on top of that, but no sign of anything eatable about ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... began to lead us up the path. But Dennis deliberately turned and watched the sailor. Hilderman and his companion strolled ahead while I stood beside Dennis. The man with the red hair fished among a pile of wire rope, and picked out a small marline-spike. Then he lifted a large stone, held the marline-spike on the wooden planking of the landing-stage, and hammered it in with the stone. Then he threw the painter round it, and made the boat ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... house lay a hard-pine pole eighteen feet long, ending in a tapering two-foot iron. Strung on a fish-line hanging from a spike were a half-dozen swordfish darts. These were sharp, stubby metal arrows, all head and tail and no body, with a socket cast on one side to admit the top of the pole-iron. Back of the arrow-head was a hole, through ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... Bull, in wonder, With voice like thunder, Declares such plunder he roust dislike, They next may rowl in And sack Haulbowline, Or on a sudden run off with Spike. His peace is vanished, His joys are banished, And gay or happy no more he'll be, Until those Cork men And wild New York men Are ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... and the only casualty was a drummer slightly wounded. The next day both regiments returned their ammunition into the magazine. The Tower Hamlets were ordered to their headquarters, London, and disbanded. The 25th were sent to Spike Island, a convict settlement ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... him? St. Matthew without stockings or sandals; St. Jerome bare headed, and with a coarse brown blanket robe dragging the ground; St. Sebastian with scarcely any raiment at all—these we should see, and should enjoy seeing them; but would we not miss a spike-tailed coat and kids, and turn away regretfully, and say to parties from the Orient: "These are well enough, but you ought to see Talmage of Brooklyn." I fear me that in the better world we shall not even have ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... November we came to anchor in Saldanha bay, in lat. 34 deg. S. ten leagues short of the Cape of Good Hope, where there are three fresh water rivers.[33] The people came to us with great plenty of oxen and sheep, which they sold for spike nails and pieces of old iron, giving the best for not more than the value of a penny. Their cattle are large, and have a great lump of flesh on the shoulder, like the back of a camel. Their sheep have prodigiously large ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... eggs with her, under her tail, which itself is always kept tucked up under her body. Out of each egg there comes the queerest little creature! It is just large enough to be seen as it wriggles in the water. Then its skin splits, and there appears a quaint thing with long feathery legs, a big head, a spike on the back of its head, and another spike ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... their victory. During the summer months an employe spent his entire time mowing the lawn with a large horse-drawn machine. This, when not in use, was often left outdoors. Upon it was a square wooden box, containing certain necessary tools, among them a sharp, spike-like instrument, used to clean the oil-holes when they became clogged. This bit of steel was five or six inches long, and was shaped like a pencil. For at least three months, I seldom went out of doors that I did not go with the intention of purloining that ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... THOMAS MOONE, who was Carpenter in the Swan, and asking him into his cabin, chargeth him to conceal for a time, a piece of service, which he must in any case consent to do aboard his own ship: that was, in the middle of the second watch, to go down secretly into the well of the ship, and with a spike-gimlet, to bore three holes, as near the keel as he could, and lay something against it, that the force of the water entering, might make no great noise, nor be discovered ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... spiral in the bud? Your bird is, I have no doubt, the Molothrus mentioned in my "Journal of Travels," page 52, as representing a North American species, both with cuckoo-like habits. I know that seeds from same spike transmitted to a certain extent their proper qualities; but as far as I know, no one has hitherto shown how far this holds good, and the fact is very interesting. The experiment would be well worth trying with flowers bearing different numbers ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the seuenth of September, but coasting the shore towards the South wee saw an incredible number of birds: hauing diuers fishermen aboord our Barke they all concluded that there was a great skull of fish, we being vnprouided of fishing furniture with a long spike nayle made a hooke, and fastened the same to one of our sounding lines, before the baite was changed we tooke more then fortie great Cods, the fish swimming so abundantly thicke about our barke as is incredible to bee reported, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... diligence with which that time had been improved by some of our people to another purpose. While the attention of the officers was engrossed by the transit of Venus, some of the ship's company broke into one of the store-rooms, and stole a quantity of spike-nails, amounting to no less than one hundred weight: This was a matter of public and serious concern; for these nails, if circulated by the people among the Indians, would do us irreparable injury, by reducing the value of iron, our staple commodity. One of the thieves was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... driven out to the field back of the cider mill, and, with the agent in the seat, started off on its rounds. In this field corn had been raised the year before, and it would be planted in oats this year, so the plow was omitted and the double disk and spike-toothed harrow used. Bob and his grandfather stood for a half hour watching it work, then Bob went to the barn and got out the team and began plowing the garden, which adjoined the field in which the ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... of this helmet is set all round about with diamonds, and one of his comrades makes the remark that the spike of this helmet is somewhat muddy. He wore no weapon by his side, not even a dagger. Naturally,—one generally lays aside one's arms when one is about to swear solemnly before an altar. Onucz approached him obsequiously ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... it up when he got back, Lance swore. He would have his wedding; import Casey from the Club to spike the punch; and, perhaps after he'd gotten in his required number of scout-missions, he might even settle for a ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... like the leaves of the elder-bush; it is a coarse-growing plant, and occasionally reaches to a height of between four and five feet, with a stem more than half an inch square. Some ditches are full of it. By the rushes the long purple spike of the loose-strife rises, and on the mud-banks among the willows there grows a tall plant with bunches of flower, the petals a bright yellow: this is the yellow loose-strife. Near it is a herb with ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... the boat's painter carefully round a spike of coral and landed on the reef, and with a shellful of rum and cocoa-nut lemonade mixed half and half, he took his perch on a high ledge of coral from whence a view of the sea and the coral strand could ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... and let her go, very well pleased to have got so well out of the hobble he was in. The instant the village lass who had done duty for Dulcinea found herself free, prodding her "cackney" with a spike she had at the end of a stick, she set off at full speed across the field. The she-ass, however, feeling the point more acutely than usual, began cutting such capers, that it flung the lady Dulcinea to the ground; seeing which, Don Quixote ran to raise her up, and Sancho to fix and girth the pack-saddle, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... ain't. It's the easiest. It'll build itself. It's just a case of two and two makes four. All you've got to do is spike down two-inch planks till it's done, and then clap on some sort of a roof. There's no machinery, no details, just straight work. It's just a question of having the lumber to do it with, and we've got it now. It's the little work ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... short time they again heard a step on the stair, and the soldier who had before paid them a visit entered, carrying a basket with some bread and cheese, dried figs, and some wine in a bottle. He also brought up a piece of candle, and a lump of wood with a spike in it, which served as ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... impaled and injudicious Richard [Sir J. Hooker's youngest son, who had managed to spike himself on a fence.] is none the worse. It is wonderful what boys go through (also what goes ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... they are now possessed, are worn out, they will have almost lost the knowledge of their own. A stone-hatchet is, at present, as rare a thing amongst them, as an iron one was eight years ago; and a chisel of bone or stone is not to be seen. Spike-nails have supplied the place of these last, and they are weak enough to fancy that they have got an inexhaustible store of them; for these were not now at all sought after. Sometimes, however, nails much smaller than ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... upon the horribly sharp stake formed by fining down a good-sized tree and planting it in the bottom, a hideously wolfish-looking hyaena, which, less fortunate than himself, had fallen upon the sharp spike, which had gone completely through the wretched animal's body, leaving it writhing, snarling, and clawing the air with its paws in its ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... was entirely deflated. A railroad spike four and three-quarters inches long, and otherwise well proportioned, had penetrated full length. It had been picked up along the trolley line, was probably struck by the front wheel, lifted up on end so that the rear tire struck the ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... a bench under the trees and looked at the harbor—its waters cut by many a flying keel, at Spike Island lying in the sun, all its fortifications as silent and lonely looking as if no convict nor any other living creature was there. Steamboats for "a' the airts the winds can blaw," were passing out and away, leaving a train of smoke behind them, and big sail vessels, ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... (Xanthorrhoea) are a peculiar feature to the Australian landscape. From a rugged stem, varying from two to ten or twelve feet in height, springs a tuft of drooping wiry foliage, from the centre of which rises a spike not unlike a huge bulrush. When it flowers in winter, this spike becomes covered with white stars, and a heath covered with grass trees then has an appearance ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... himself upon Wolf Larsen without warning or provocation. Once he threw his heavy sheath-knife, missing Wolf Larsen's throat by an inch. Another time he dropped a steel marlinspike from the mizzen crosstree. It was a difficult cast to make on a rolling ship, but the sharp point of the spike, whistling seventy-five feet through the air, barely missed Wolf Larsen's head as he emerged from the cabin companion-way and drove its length two inches and over into the solid deck-planking. Still another time, he stole into the steerage, possessed himself ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... source of the decidedly opposite views which they took of the subject. Mr. Pitt, about to surrender the possession of power to his rival, had a very intelligible interest in reducing the value of the transfer, and (as a retreating army spike the guns they leave behind) rendering the engines of Prerogative as useless as possible to his successor. Mr. Fox, too, had as natural a motive to oppose such a design; and, aware that the chief aim of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... the port by candle-light, and was a very odd kind of animal, no doubt. The bear had been taught a hundred tricks, all to be performed at the keeper's word of command. It was late in the evening when O'Leary saw him, and the bear seemed sulky; the keeper, however, with a short spike fixed at the end of a pole, made him move about briskly. He marked on sand what o'clock it was, with his paw; and distinguished the men and women in a very comical way: in fact, our priest was quite diverted. The beast at length grew tired—the keeper hit him with the pole—he stirred a little, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... like a silent spike that pierced the sky right through; The small stars popped and winked and hopped in vastitudes of blue; And unto me for company came creatures of the shade, And formed in rings and whispered things that made ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... some time after this, ascended the column of forty cubits; how a great dragon (serpent) crawled towards it, and coiled round it, entreating (so it seemed) to be freed from a spike of wood which had entered its eye; and how, St. Simeon took pity on it, he caused the spike (which was a cubit long) to ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... quite diagnose the case your way, Mr. Smith; that's a blamed sight better lard than I thought Muggins & Co. were making." And you'd have driven a spike right through that fellow's little joke and have nailed down his order hard and tight with ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... incendiaries—they lay this match by stealth behind a door, which they find open, or on a window; and after setting it on fire, they make their escape. This is sufficient often to produce the most terrible ravages in a town where the houses, built with wood and painted with oil of spike, afford the easiest opportunity to the miscreant who is disposed to reduce them to ashes. The method employed by the incendiaries, and which often escapes the vigilance of the masters of the houses, added to the common causes of fires, gave for some time very frequent causes ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... When you swing, spike the right-hand rail lightly. Then string your gangs again and set a line of spikes for the outside of the standard-gauge right-hand rail straight through to Saint's Rest. ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... one of her Cromwellian moods, and, scattered irregularly about its surface, the plots or patches of cultivated smoothness—potato rows, green parallel lines ruled on a grey ground, and big, blue-green, equidistant cabbage-globes—each plot with its fringe of spike-like onion leaves, crinkled parsley, and other garden herbs. Here the villagers came by a narrow, steep, and difficult path they had made, to dig in their plots; while, overhead, the gulls, careless of ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... in full foliage, the fields seen here and there through them assuming their amber harvest tints, the twin spires of Lichfield rising in the distance, the park and forest ground through which the little hunting-party rode rich with purple heather, illuminated here and there with a bright yellow spike or star, and the rapid motion of her brisk palfrey animated the Queen. She began to hope that Humfrey had after all brought a false alarm, and that either he had been mistaken or that Langston was deceiving ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had a go— Chief, Commander, P.M.O., Padre, Carpenter and Stoker, Using engine-grease and poker, Hawser, marlin-spike and soap, Till at length they gave up hope, For, in spite of all they did, Edwin fitted like ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... to a plant very closely related to sisal (Bromelia Sylvestris), perhaps even a variety of the same. The Mexican name, jxtle, is possibly derived from the fact of their curiously flattened, spike-edged leaves, resembling the dentated knives formed from volcanic stone (obsidian) possessed by the Aztecs and termed ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... she thus took made her so high that the Cat seemed tiny in the distance below. Old Grumpy had faced a Grizzly once, and was she now to be held up by a miserable little spike-tailed skunk no bigger than a mouthful? She was ashamed of herself, especially when a wail from Johnny smote on her ear and reminded her of her plain duty, as well as supplied ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... to catch at any labor-saving machine! See that astute-looking dwarf of an apparatus, biting off red-hot ends of rods, closing its jaws together upon them in such a way as to form a four-square mould, then smartly hitting one end so as to make a projecting head: a railroad spike is turned off in a moment. See this other making "nuts" as smartly as a baker makes ginger-nuts: some are raw and some are cooked—that is, some are punched hot and some cold, sufficing for different purposes: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... The word belongs To the Foes of Freedom, the Friends of wrongs, And unto them alone. The first and worst of the Tyrant's terms, Barbed to spike at the writhing worms That crawl about his throne. Only the mob at a despot's heels Would juggle a man at Fortune's wheels, Or conjure one with the die that reels From the lip of the dice-cup thrown! The soldier forced to the field of fight, With never a reck of the wrong or right, Wherever ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... at the apex, wavy, glabrous. Petioles with a pair of spines in their axils. Flowers small, yellow-green, in round axillary clusters and in long terminal spikes. The pistillate flowers are sometimes separated from the staminate, sometimes mixed with them in the lower part of the spike. Staminate: No corolla, calyx 2-5 parts, stamens 4-5. Pistillate: Style and stigma 2 or 3, otherwise the same as the staminate. ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... Sambaquis of the opposite Brazilian shore. The house was guarded by three wooden figures, "clouterly carved," and powdered with ochre or red wood; two of them, representing warriors in studded coatings of spike nails, with a looking-glass fixed in the stomach, raised their hands as if to stab each other. These figures are sometimes found large as life: according to the agents, the spikes are driven in before ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... my peculiar weapon in my hand to get the feel of it, then brushed aside a pair of sucking paws which were trying to take it from me, and plunged the spike clean through the body of the man ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... your action also put a very effective spike in the opposition's wheel, you are freely forgiven. Anyway, you have also provided us with a pretty good idea of what we may be up against with the aliens, and we'll be prepared for ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... discharge of his duties there was no more conscientious section foreman in the employ of the C.L.S. He timed his slumber by the sun and his waking hours were filled with the roll of hand-car wheels, the ring of spike-mauls and the tamping ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... miles of us (there was, as it happened, but she was at anchor off Dymchurch), and that they had better be going out of that before they got themselves arrested. For answer they jeered and made catcalls, flinging a marline-spike at me. I tried a second time to make them come ashore, but one of them said, "Let's do for him," and the other cheered the proposal with loud yells. Then they came lurching aft at me, so I just slipped over the side, and waded very hurriedly ashore. The water ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... Punctured or penetrating wounds—those produced by anything running deeply into the flesh; such as a sword, a sharp nail, a spike, the point ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... the water of a green cocoa-nut all the drink they desire. The plantain tree grows to about twenty feet in height, its round, soft stem being composed of the elongated foot-stalks of the leaves, and its cone of a nodding flower-spike or cluster of purple blossoms that are very graceful and beautiful. Like the palms, this tree has no branches, but its smooth, glossy leaves are from six to eight feet in length and two or more in breadth. At the root of a leaf a double row of fruit comes out half around the stalk; the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... made their way out of the canyon material trains working from both ends of the break were shoving their loaded flats noisily up to the ballasting crews and the water was echoing the clang of the spike mauls, the thud of tamping-irons, the clash of picks, the splash of tumbling stone, and the ceaseless ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... June, grew rather fast till it was 7 ft. high, then rather slowly till it reached its full development. The scape is now 10 ft. 4 in. high above the plant, 6 in. in circumference at the base, or 5 in. at a foot above the base; from there it tapers very gradually till near the apex. The flower-spike is exceedingly dense, and 5 ft. 8 in. long; the lower or naked portion, 4 ft. 8 in. long, is prominently marked by abortive flower buds, with, near the base, some bristle-like scales 3 in. to 4 in. long. The flowers are regularly arranged in parcels of three, all the three being equal ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... in the morning, Lord Cornwallis directed a sortie to be made in order to destroy or to spike the guns in one of the enemy's batteries which was causing us most annoyance. The party consisted of about a hundred and fifty men from the guards, the light infantry and the 80th regiment. Never have I seen a more spirited or dashing affair. Away they went, nor stopped ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... changed its aspect; the upper part of the flame has, indeed, broken away, and is now shown in that part of the drawing between the two figures on the line above. The same plate also shows various instances of the remarkable spike-like objects, taken, however, at different times and at various parts of the sun. These spikes attain altitudes not generally greater than 20,000 miles, though sometimes they soar aloft ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... his sword with as much apparent knowledge of how to use it as if it had been a marlin-spike. Ralph pushed it aside with a stout stick that he carried, and was passing on, when the singing soldier came up and said, "Never mind his name; but whether he be Presbyter Jack or Quaker George, he must drink to the health of the King. Here," he cried, ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... some zealous brethren of another "persuasion," who magnified that mode, and though he was willing to do as I advised in the matter, he was evidently a little inclined to the more spectacular way of receiving the ordinance. Mrs. White suggested that it might save future trouble, and "spike a gun." So Jack, with four others, was taken down to Santa Rosa Creek, that went rippling and sparkling along the southern edge of the town, and duly baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald |
