"Taut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you mustn't go home without a uniform. Come with me, and you shall be fitted out at once. I'm proud of you, Tom. You are one of my boys, and I want you to go into Pinchbrook all taut and ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... main-t'gallant-s'l." Next came, "Lay out forrard and furl the flying jib." Each command was succeeded by a silent, dark darting of men into the rigging, and presently a trampling on deck and a short, sharp singing out at the ropes, with cries from aloft of "Haul out to leeward; taut hand; ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Great Britain and her mighty fleet joined the separated allies with their mighty armies, the bond between them and the circle round Germany grew taut. From that day the counsels of the allies and their new found "friend" thickened and quickened. The immovable "menace across the Rhine" in one case had become the active "menace across the North ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... soon became light and dry. I then scraped out with my tomahawk any of the rough inner part that remained, and stretched over the ends of each section a pair of the thinnest wallaby skins I could find; these skins were held taut by sinews from the tail of a kangaroo. I tried emu-skins for the drum-heads, but found they were no good, as they soon became perforated when ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... side of joints, so giving a measure of the strength; and for the effect of 'doping' the wings, dope being a film (of cellulose acetate dissolved in acetone with other chemicals) applied to the covering of wings and bodies to render the linen taut and weatherproof, besides giving it a smooth surface for the lessening of 'skin friction' when passing ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... sudden strain of the fish she nearly lost her balance, scrambled hastily down from the parapet, propping the pole desperately against her body, and stood so, unbending, unyielding, her eyes fixed on the water where the taut line ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... known anything like the rapidity of its coming up. Before he knew what he was about, a squall struck him, and he had great difficulty to right the boat. (Then followed a good deal about luffing and tacking and keeping her taut to windward; that is, I think that was where he wanted to keep her.) But whatever it was, he didn't succeed in doing it, and Kilian vouchsafed to say nobody could have done it. Then something split: I really cannot say whether it was the mast, or the ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... proud, queenly, beautiful woman, how can you be so brave? In your place I should have died of hopelessness and grief years ago. But you go on with your precious head high in the air, smiling, though crushed by your agony. Day in and day out your nerves are taut—you never rest. Why hasn't something snapped years ago? Perhaps God gives an abundance of strength to those who are ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... implicitly follow it. We have the tide strong at ebb, and a good six-knot breeze is coming up at south-west. I shall weigh, with my yards square, and keep them so, until the ship has drawn out of the fleet, and then I shall luff up on a taut bowline and on the starboard tack, bringing the ebb well under my lee-bow. This will hawse the ship over towards Morlaix, and bringing us quite as far to windward as is desirable. While the ebb lasts, and this breeze stands, we shall have plain sailing; the difficulty will come ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... done. In an instant every officer and man was at his duty; and within three minutes every sail in the ship was set, and the yards braced ready for casting. The steady and active assistance of Lieutenant Turner and the other officers prevented any confusion. As soon as the cable was taut, I ordered it to be cut, and had the good fortune to see the ship start from the shore. The head sails were filled; a favourable flaw of wind coming at the same time gave her good way. Not to be retarded by the boats, I ordered them to be cut adrift as well as the French ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... you. There are men whose whole lives are a vacation. These words are not for them. From my viewpoint, such men might as well be dead. The men upon whom I am urging the wisdom of taking periods for recuperation are those who have been pulling with the team and keeping their traces taut. And I assume that you who read are one of these worth-while men. Very well! I want you ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... breath of a whimper floated to him. He grew rigid, every nerve taut. He dared not let himself believe it could be real. Of course he was imagining sounds. Presently, no doubt, he would hear voices. In this devil's caldron a man could not ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... game," retorted Stover, "and for your own good don't allow no belief to the contrary to become a superstition." Of a sudden the gangling, spineless foreman had grown taut and forceful, his long face ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... laden with forebodings. Yet she was smiling. There was something that made her afraid. He turned toward Rachel and found her standing as if in imitation of himself, her face lifted toward the window, the taut line of her neck an attitude that brought him the image of a white bird's wing soaring. He felt himself unable to speak, as if a hand had been laid threateningly on his throat. Rachel was indiscreet to stand that way, to look that way. There was no mistaking. His thought, shaking itself ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... stare with dazed, smiling eyes on the sunbeam. His hair was cropped close like a convict's, which accentuated the leanness of his face and the taut, rigid lines about his mouth. Under his discolored uniform, the body was spare almost to the point of emaciation. Through a rent in his coat, a ragged shirt revealed the bare skin. He looked at it ruefully, still smiling. "I'm ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... Rutolo would adopt this plan. He stood on guard, bent like a taut bow, watching for the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Egyptian vertical looms are very different from the Greek looms in so far as we know anything about them. The Greek looms had an upper beam only and the warp threads were bunched at the lower end and weighted with metal or clay balls to keep them taut, Fig. 15. The individual warp threads were not weighted; they were bunched and then weighted. The pyramidal shaped clay warp weights found in Egypt are I understand considered by Egyptologists to belong to the Roman period, but in the Manchester University Museum there is a mud article ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... Roger pulled the reluctant Peter to the water's edge, plunged in and was swimming violently in the current before the rope stretched taut and he realized that Peter was braced, stiff-legged on the bank. Roger swam back and climbed out ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... hear nothing in front. If Timmendiquas and Girty were gathering their men there, they were doing it with the utmost skill and secrecy. Yet the watch was never relaxed for an instant. Every finger remained on the trigger and every figure was taut for instant action. ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... its point between the leaves of the first section. The needle end of silk is then behind the headband, and the shorter end in front. The needle end is brought over from the back with the right hand, passed into the left hand, and held taut. The short end is picked up with the right hand, brought over the needle end under the vellum, and pulled tight from the back. This is repeated; the back thread is again drawn up and over the band to the ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... acetates are being used for auto goggles and gas masks as well as for windows in leather curtains and transparent coverings for index cards. A new use that has lately become important is the varnishing of aeroplane wings, as it does not readily absorb water or catch fire and makes the cloth taut and air-tight. Aeroplane wings can be made of cellulose acetate sheets as transparent as those of a dragon-fly and not easy to ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... company was likewise the bearer of a toy balloon—red, yellow, blue, green or purple, as the case might be. Over the line of heads the taut rubbery globes rode on their tethers, nodding and twisting like so many big iridescent bubbles; and half a block away, at the edge of the lot, a balloon vender, whose entire stock had been disposed of in one splendid transaction, now stood, empty-handed but full-pocketed, marvelling at the ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... interweave; entangle; twine round, belay; tighten; trice up, screw up. be joined &c; hang together, hold together; cohere &c 46. Adj. joined &c v.; joint; conjoint, conjunct; corporate, compact; hand in hand. firm, fast, close, tight, taut, taught, secure, set, intervolved^; inseparable, indissoluble, insecable^, severable. Adv. jointly &c adj.; in conjunction with &c (in addition to) 37; fast, firmly, &c adj.; intimately. Phr. tria juncta in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea-gully, and the Hispaniola would go ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the taut line beyond his foot, first with one hand, then with both, and flung his whole weight suddenly on it in ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... and her neck also secured to a ring screwed into the back of the cabinet. A rope was tied round her ankles, and passed right to the front of the stage, where the Hindoo youth was located and bidden hold it taut, which he did conscientiously, his attitude being what Colman describes "like some fat ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... knees, Raffles holding the rope taut to make it easier. Once more I stood upright under the stars and the telephone wires, and leaned against a chimney-stack to wait for Raffles. But before I saw him, before I even heard his unnecessarily ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... around—out the side walls of glistening quarsteel into the sea gloom, into the thick of the smooth, lithe, brown-skinned shapes that now and again poised pressing against the submarine, peering in with their liquid seal's eyes. Dimly he could see the taut seaweed ropes stretching down from the top of the Peary to the sea-bottom. It looked hopeless, and to these men inside it was hopeless. He knew he must speak in confident, assured tones to drive away the uncaring lethargy holding them all, ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... Henry was briefer than his name would indicate, but to a certain two-room dwelling on Jackson Street he made up in importance what he lacked in height; and it was his overwhelming sense of this importance which made every thin muscle taut and strained every nerve as he stood in the forefront of the crowd, his bare feet planted on the cold asphalt, one hand gripping his remaining stock of papers, the other clutching ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... a bit. I want to get home. I may not be able to go out again to-night. Last night I was up until dawn with Clara." Gordon touched the horses with a slight flicker of the whip. He held the lines taut as they sprang forward. His face was set ahead. James glancing at him had a realization of the awful loneliness of the other man by his side. He seemed to comprehend the vastness of the isolation of a grief which concerns one, and one only, more than any other. Gordon had the expression ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... such quality as men have rarely carried since. It was a stone ax; an ax heavier than any battle-ax of mediaeval times, its haft a scant three feet in length, inclosing the ax through a split in the tough wood, all being held in place by a taut and hardened mass of knotted sinews. It was a fearful weapon, but one only to be wielded by such a man as this, one with arms almost as mighty as ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... frame, quivered through its length, and gave out an under-hum. It was as if a far away call had rung it up. One gun alone, out of all the masked artillery, had found the key, and, from seven miles away, played the taut string. ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... saw the flash of a white arm and the gleam of a knife hovering over the spot where his taut rope passed out of the geyser opening into the sunshine of the outer world. Again he stifled a cry. For crying out would do no good. While the suppressed sound was still on his ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... was not worth the candle. He liked to cast a fly for bass, and having deceived them with a feathery lure, play them with a slender rod and fine line, giving them the sportsman's chance to get free if only they knew how to jump out of the water and throw themselves across the taut line. ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... again the fiendish clamor shattered the echoes. Blinding flashes of agony danced down the white-hot wires strung through his head, taut ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... first, not beauty. Beauty will come of itself. Take, for example, towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns are those which have built themselves—those in which each man has built to suit his own exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which men have constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than collections of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look only ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... taut string merely, Give a touch, and she must throb to time? Think you how his bow must rouse the echoes, Quailing triumphing on, ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... last I heard for a long time. I must have slept. I remember that the baby stirred and I spoke to him. It seemed to me that something struck against the guy-rope that held our tarpaulin taut, but I wasn't sure. I was in that dozy state, half asleep, when nothing is quite clear. It seemed as though I had been listening to the tramp of feet for hours and that a whole army must be filing past, when I was brought suddenly into keen consciousness ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... least one well to be safe from August draught. Cousin Benjamin found the wet depths in this fashion; perhaps it will work for me." Aaron walked, arms outstretched, for half an hour before his face grew taut. He slowed his walking and began to work toward the center of a spiral. Waziri could see the sweat springing up on the young farmer's brow and fingers, despite the cold breeze that blew. The bulldog pliers trembled as though responding to the throbbing of an engine. Suddenly, as though about to ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... the yards, rolling tackles and other gear bowsed taut, and everything made as secure as it could be. Coming down, we found the rest of the crew just coming down the fore rigging, having furled the tattered topsail, or rather, swathed it round the yard, which looked like a broken limb bandaged. There was no sail now on the ship but the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... on a slight ridge. Above the camp there floated one of a line of sausage balloons, and the cable to which it was attached stretched up taut from some point near the farmhouse behind. A triangular flag, like a burgee, flew straight out in the breeze from half-way up the cable, and the basket, looking absurdly small, hung down like a black dot ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... sent the full force of the current through the wire and kept it going steadily. Thereupon the animals became panic-stricken. They began to rear and plunge; they turned around and dashed down the tow-path toward the boat. Then the line became taut; it jerked the boat around suddenly with such force that the stern of it broke through a weak place in the bank, and before the captain could turn off his battery the mules had dashed around the other side of the toll-collector's cabin, and then, making a lurch to the ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... the apparition in the doorway with the flaming henna head and taut brown body, with long, thin, brown arms stretched down stiff as ramrods to the sides, and "Ow!" he said again, as she suddenly moved and again stood still with the gleaming orange eyes fixed on his host, who looked at her for an instant, and looked away again to the far corner, as he indifferently ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... easy to say that Chopin's was an abnormal nature, and of course it was, but when disease divides this world from another only by the thinnest veil, the mind has been known to see things with a clearness and vividness never before attained. With Chopin the strands of life were often taut to the breaking-point, but ere they snapped, their vibration gave forth ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... them in subjection. The groom at the head looked back, jerking the leading rope. And the calvalcade moved out of sight up the lane, the tail of the last horse, bobbed up tight and stiff, held out taut from the swinging great haunches as they rocked behind the hedges in a ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... a moment before the crowd realized what was about to happen; they saw it reflected first in the face of Hurley, which suddenly went taut and pale, and then, even as they looked with a smile of curiosity and derision toward Pierre le Rouge, ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... top of the hill she managed to slacken them enough for Bob to jump in. They were off again as though shot from a bow. June wound the reins round her hands and leaned back, arms and strong thin wrists taut. The colts flew over ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... rods on one corner, so that the sides make an angle of 45 degrees with the floor, pull the boxes taut—be careful that they are square to the rods—and drive three or four tacks through each end of the box into the rods. Then turn them over and tack the other sides similarly. Repeat the process with the other rods after measuring to get the ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... the slack chain's end till they got to the milestone, and then suddenly he darted ahead and took the lead, the chain stretched taut, and the boy had all his work cut out to keep up with the dog. Up the hill they went on to the downs, and in and out among the furze bushes. The night was no longer dark to Edred. His eyes had got used to the gentle starlight, and he followed the dog among the gorse and brambles without ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... at the little Sunday evenings which he holds quite regularly, goes far, I am told, towards easing the strain on the taut nerves of the Sinn Fein intellectuals who attend them. On the Sunday evening I was present the subject of jail journals was broached. Darrell Figgis had just written one. In a dim corner of the room was miniatured the ivory face and the red gold beard of the ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... all loose into a woman's lap. You should stand by yourself and learn to be by yourself. Why don't you be more like the Japanese you talk about? Quiet, aloof little devils. They don't bother about being loved. They keep themselves taut in their own selves—there, at the bottom of the spine—the devil's own power they've ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... entrance, who held the foot block, fastened its hook in a little raised hump of rock; then, grasping the hauling line, pulled the tackle taut. The result was a serviceable lifeline, waist high, across the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... closed, while Bell found every separate muscle in his body draw taut. And while his brain at first was dazed with incredulous relief, then it went dark with ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... high up on the mast, and it took all the men—and boys, too—to haul it taut. Even then it hung in a heavy curve from its own weight, and the cradle dragged through the crests of the waves when it went out empty. It was more under than above the water as they pulled it back again with the first ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the laugh maddened Holman. He clutched the rope and started to climb rapidly upward. I couldn't see him, but I felt his shoes as he wriggled away into the darkness above me, and I held my breath, I gripped the rope and kept it taut so that Leith and Soma might not discover ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... had stood dazed. It was as if the twanging taut of the ropes, as the bag tore almost from his grasp the most precious being in the world, had snapped the ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... consciousness of his own being; he was aware of nothing but the objective presence of the scaffold, of an overpowering expectancy. It seemed as if something were stretched taut in his brain, at breaking point; as if some vast thing were on the point of revelation. All else had vanished,—the scene round him, the sense of the invisible; there was but the point of space ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... two harmless merchant-vessels lying on either side of the channel, the young earl bade his rowers pull between the two. Suddenly there is a stir on the quiet merchant-vessels. The capstan bars are manned; the sunken cable is drawn taut. Up goes the stern of Earl Hakon's entrapped warship; down plunges her prow into the waves, and the water pours into the doomed boat. A loud shout is heard; the quiet merchant-vessels swarm with mail-clad men, and the air is filled with a shower of stones, and spears, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... . . . from Julie Claire there came a wail of pain, And then — the rope grew sudden taut, and quivered at the strain; It slacked and slipped, it whined and gripped, and oh, I held my breath! And there we hung and there we swung right in the jaws ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... led Michael away, and after several minutes returned along the deck, Michael stretched out ahead on the taut rope seeking Steward. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... attention and stimulate the imagination. "His voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock." "I saw her sway, like something stricken by the wind." "His laugh rang false, like a cracked bell." "His voice shook like a taut rope." "My mind flying like a weaver's shuttle." "His blows resounded on the grave as thick as sobs." "The private guilty considerations I would continually observe to peep forth in the man's talk like rabbits from a hill." ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The horses were plunging on the taut reins. The lady drew her skirts in at her side and nodded. Lewis stepped into the carriage. The horses shot forward and up ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... lifted her out of her wheel chair. Harriett saw his stoop, and the taut, braced power of his back as he lifted. Prissie lay in his arms with rigid limbs hanging from loose attachments, inert, like a doll. As he carried her upstairs to bed her face had a queer, exalted look of pleasure and ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... 21). A live minnow is fastened at the end of the rod near to a rattan noose. A cord running from the noose to the end of the stick allows the fisherman to draw up the noose as he desires. The struggles of the captive fish soon attract others, and when one enters the loop the line is drawn taut, securely binding the intruder. Several fish can be taken from a single pool by this method. A berry (anamirta coccithis L.) is used in the capture of fish. It is crushed to a powder, is wrapped with ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... white, upturned face. The half-breed poised an instant and threw his rope. The wide loop fell true and a moment later Endicott succeeded in passing it under the arms of the unconscious Texan. Then the rope drew taut and the halfbreed braced to the pull as the men were forced ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... into the chamber with its atmosphere of suspense drew every nerve taut. Senator Danvers saw him and his heart sank. His efforts had been in vain! He bowed to Winifred, though he had not seen even his own sister, far in the rear of the hall—there were no galleries ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... Maid in Two Minds had no accommodation-ladder hung out . . . But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail anyhow and, among other things, left the out-haul of the mizen danglin' slack and close to the water. I reached for this, shortened up on it till I had it taut, and gave it into his hand to cling by—which he had the sense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits. After that I scrambled on to the mizen-boom somehow and hauled him aboard mainly by his collar and seat of his trousers. ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... skillful seamanship could practice was put in immediate operation to increase the speed of the brig. There was but a solitary hope remaining, that they might fall in with some national vessel able to protect them from the pirate. The sails were frequently wet, the halyards drawn taut, and the captain himself took the helm. When all this was done, each sailor stood gazing upon the pirate as if to calculate the speed of his approach by the lifting of his sails above the water. The greater part of his top-sails were already in sight, and soon the heads of her courses appeared ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... getting the topmast up in another hour. You see, I have got her number-two jib on her and shifted the mizzen, but she is still a bit too lively to make it safe to get up the spar. Like as not, if we did, it would snap off before we could get the stays taut." ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... town seemed unusually still. A flag on a two-story building flapped monotonously. Then a man across the street ran out of his store and pointed upward. A rope was thrown from an upper window of the Montgomery Block. Someone picked it up and carried it to The Bulletin Building, pulled it taut. On a strip of linen had been hastily inscribed the following announcement, stretched across ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... not deflect their monotonous course about the compound, when the sky-gazers had returned indoors. Around and around they went, talking, talking, talking, with the low insistent murmur of deeply interested people. Their nerves were taut; emotion was raw; they were young, and their blood moved riotously. And there was the moon, the moon that, since man could turn his face upward, has been the symbol of the thing called love. And now all over that long line slashed across the face ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... gallop, sending the short turf flying from his unshod hoofs at every stride. Back he came again, a vision of floating mane and streaming tail, and stopped dead three yards from Ralph, his forelegs strained and taut, ploughing furrows in the grass. As Ralph moved quietly across the field the colt followed, pushing a cool moist nose over the young man's shoulder. When at last Ralph set a foot on the projecting stone which stood out from the side of the grey, lichen-clad stone dyke, the colt ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... who the men were. I found afterwards that they were idle rascals who deserved punishment, and always went about their duty in a lazy, sluggish way. However, there was no doubt that our captain was a very taut hand. The ship had just come out of harbour. He had found out that the greater part of his crew were a bad lot, and he was getting them into order. He treated us who had belonged to the Montezuma in a very different ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... have it," he growled almost sullenly, answering the reproach that was written in every line of his brother's taut body. "I had warned him not to cross my path. But to-night I think some madness had seized upon him. He affronted me, Noll; he said things which it was beyond human power to endure, and...." He shrugged ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... likely. It looked as if you might have crawled from here to the cemetery and back. Now don't say any more, Mr. Bangs. It was no trouble at all. I always used to take care of father's clothes. He used to say I kept him all taut and shipshape." ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a little angular and stiff,—her gestures and her bright lively damson-coloured eyes were all youthful enough. But one could see that her inquiet hands, which were folded on her lap, had been worn by many a washing-day. Her skin, though wrinkled, was taut over the outstanding facial bones, as if the wrinkles might have opened out and have equalized the strain, had age not hardened them to brown cracks—and the tan of her complexion had old age's lack of clearness. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... swung slowly round. The rattle of her donkey-engine was plainly audible. The warp made fast to the buoy dipped into the water, strained taut dripping, and then dipped again. Suddenly the captain on the bridge shouted. The engine stopped abruptly. The warp sagged deep into the water. A small boat with one man in her appeared close under the steamer's bows, went foul of the warp ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... as it was very taut, it would naturally part readily; and with consequences disastrous to the safety of the two boats, which must be carried off down-stream in the darkness, possibly to be driven ashore ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... night camp that day. Jerry Wilkens happened to mention it at dinner that he believed his trail needed greasing. 'Why,' said Jerry, 'you'd think that I was loaded, the way my team kept their chains taut.' I noticed Joe get up from dinner before he had finished, as if an idea had struck him. He went over and opened the sheet in Jerry's trail wagon, and a smile spread over his countenance. 'Come here, fellows,' ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... tuned ear just a shade too reasonable. It had been thought out as an excuse. Because it wasn't for the Turkish bath nor the extra hour's sleep that he was staying away from home. It was herself he was staying away from. He wanted his mind to stay cold and taut, and he was afraid to face the temptation of her eyes and her soft white arms. And in the mood of that hour, it pleased her that this should be so—that the ascetic in him should pay ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... be those of an ocean steamer, and the great leviathan, with its precious freight of human souls, plowed past the taut little yacht distant only half ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... the wood; the wind had risen, and blew against her skirts, so that her feet moved gently as though yet tracing their phantom paces upon the airy floors. Her head, like a snapped lily, lay forwards and a little to one side, so that her pale cheek rested against the taut white satin of the riband from which she hung. The wind blew the languid meshes of her hair softly, kissing her once, kissing her twice, and kissing ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... did. Once having realized that I was temporarily laid by, Jonathan put his whole mind on the pool, while I, being honorably released from all responsibility, except that of keeping my line taut, could put my whole mind on his performance. There is a little the same sort of pleasure in watching the skillful handling of a rod that there is in watching the bow-action of a violinist. Both things demand the utmost nicety of adjustment: body, arm, wrist, ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... anything. At last he believed that I was in earnest, and with a light heart I turned my back upon Brook-green, and shipped on board the old Rodney. But, I say, old fellow, what sort of a chap is our skipper? He looks like a taut hand." ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... all as taut as a ship's hawser or the spring of a watch, and as soon as he came within reach of me I had him by the ankle, plucked the feet right out from under him, laid him out, and was upon the top of him, broken leg and all, before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seemed to come from the ground at their feet. It was a sound to hold the nerves taut, to send the cold shivers up ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... down, but not fastened, and the canvas moved slightly as if trembling fingers tried to hold it taut. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... cow-punchers are rushing calves to the branding. The hubbub and turmoil increase. Taut ropes cross the ground in many directions. The cutting ponies pant and sweat, rear and plunge. The garb of the cowboy is now one of white alkali which hangs gray in his eyebrows and moustache. Steers bellow as they surge to and fro. Cows charge on their persecutors. Fleet yearlings ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... The hawser was as taut as a bowstring and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my sea gully, and the Hispaniola would go ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hum of work slackened—discipline is not perhaps quite so taut in the French as it is in the British Navy—for both men and officers were one and all eager to see the lady who had ventured out in the Neptune with their commander. Only those actually on board had seen Madame Baudoin embark; there ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... right angles, and were made perfectly tight by means of wedges. To avert the great danger of the mass toppling over sideways, ropes were attached to the top of the casing, at the point where the beams crossed one another, and were held taut by two parties of laborers, one on either side of the statue. Besides these, wooden forks or props were applied on either side to the second set of horizontal cross-beams, held also by men whose business it would be to resist the least inclination of the huge stone to lean to one side more than ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Calhoun mentions an instance of a little Esquimaux dog whose head was seized between the jaws of a large Newfoundland with such force as to press the left eyeball from the socket. The ball rested on the cheek, held by the taut optic nerve; the cornea was opaque. The ball was carefully and gently replaced, and sight soon returned to ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... cried to his men. "Take a strain!" The hawser was pulled taut, till it ticked. "Heave!" The building ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... up with a slightly taut movement, and she divined he did not wish for any personal praise; yet, because a tinge of red showed under the bronze, she was glad she had seized the opportunity to offer a tribute that might at some odd moment heal a passing sense of uselessness ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... the teeth of the wind, which made mine chatter until I began to tingle with the rush of ozone, which always goes to my head like champagne. Our road was a mere white thread winding loosely through a sinuous valley, and pulled taut as it rose nearer and nearer to the cold, high level of les Causses, the roof of that gnome-land where we had journeyed together yesterday. From snow-covered billows which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a fierce blast pounced down on us like ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... make little impression on her heavy, close-fitting velvet dress, and in her progress against the wind she appears so trim and taut that a sailor's eye would be captivated. She bends her little turbaned head to the blast, and her foot strikes the pavement with a decision that suggests a naturally brave, resolute nature, and gives ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... by the current, came in contact with the rock; when the men, keeping the rope on a taut stretch, ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... dinner; his taut trim body was relaxed in evening luxury before the wood fire of the back parlor, and he was half way through a cigar when Alexina rose and extended one arm along the mantelpiece. She looked like a long black poplar with her round narrow ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... remained polite, intent and silent. Kenny, with his heart in the telling, went on to the tale of Conoclach and the first harp. Conoclach, he said, hating Cull, her husband, had run away from him toward the sea. There upon the sand lay the skeleton of a whale and the wind playing upon the taut sinews made sounds low and soothing enough to lull her to sleep. And Cull, coming up, marveled at her slumber, heard the murmuring of the wind through the sinews and made the first harp. Kenny liked the tale and he liked the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... you can keep me in here—with that going on out there? (Moves nearer HOLDEN, stands there before him, taut, looking him straight in the eye. After a moment, slowly, as one compelled, he steps aside for her to pass. Sound of her running footsteps. The two men's eyes ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell
... were hauling hard, but the rope had come taut; and instead of their bringing up the diver it was plain to all that the poor fellow had got the line hitched round a piece of rock, or else one of his legs wedged in some crevice of ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. You screw up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to get your neck muscles taut and then wobble your head around like a new-born baby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all the others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. Hereafter I'll get up at the time ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... blue ocean which is not to be found in routine duty along the yellow muddy streams that flowed through the territory claimed by King Cotton. The high, tapering masts, the yards squared and gracefully proportioned, the rigging taut, and with each rope in its place, of an ocean-frigate, are not seen in the squat, box-like gunboats that dashed by the batteries at Vicksburg, or hurled shot and shell at each other in the affair at Memphis. ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... thing in civilization. He introduced the beginnings of civilized life, invented the art of writing, and was to the Central Americans not wholly unlike what Thoth was to the Egyptians, and Tautus, or Taut, to the Phoenicians. If the bas-relief of the cross at Palenque were half as old as his worship in Central America, it would be far more ancient than ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... When a terminal block is reached, a loop is made of each wire, through the hole cut in the block, if the circuit is to continue in the same direction. If it is to end there, the two wires are drawn through taut, and cut off at a length of 5 or 6 inches. These end wires, or loops, are then scraped bare and spliced to the two wires coming out of the chandelier or wall bracket. This joint is then soldered and covered ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... wide. It was now a feeble rivulet, the old mouth being filled up and overgrown with willows. Approaching Mohave Canyon, a rapid was encountered, necessitating the carrying forward of an anchor, from which a line was brought to the bow, and this being kept taut, with the boat under full steam the obstruction was surmounted without damage. This was the common method of procedure at rapids. This canyon, Ives, says was a "scene of such imposing grandeur as he had never before witnessed," ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... viciously at it, and retained it in her mouth. Discovering that she persisted in holding on, and that the rope was far back in her jaws, we shortened hand rapidly, and ran round, crossing each other in a circle, keeping the rope taut meanwhile. By this means we quickly twisted the rope firmly over her snout, so that had she now desired she could not have rid herself of it. The rest was easy; we shortened hand till near enough to despatch her with our clasp knives. We cut up the beast and ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... opposite to her and leaned back, shutting his eyes while Miss Amory's rested upon him. The life and beauty which had been such ever-present characteristics of his personality seemed to have left him never to return. Miss Amory's old nerves were strung taut. She had passed through many phases of feeling with regard to him as the years had gone by. During those years she had believed that she knew a hidden thing of him known by no other person. She had felt herself a sort of silent ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... ‘Edlington Scrubs’ and ‘Roughton Scrubs.’ “Reedham,” another name, indicates a waste of morass. “Toot-hill” might be a raised ground from which a watch, or look-out, was kept, in troublous times; and Dr. Oliver says, in his “Religious Houses,” Appendix, p. 166, “‘Taut’ is a place of observation; ‘Touter’ is a watcher in hiding;” but it is more likely to be from the Saxon “tot,” an eminence (“totian,” to rise), in which case the second syllable, “hill,” is only a later translation of the first. However, Toot-hill, Tothill, or ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... in size and strength, his long, clean limbs showing taut muscles and great springing power; and his neck grew thick and short, which is well for a buck, who must use it in savage thrusts when the head is a battering ram. His horns were short and bony, but they protruded in front like knobs against ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... the other man—and I observed he was not only red in the face, but spoke as hoarse as a crow, and his voice shook, too, like a taut rope—"Silver," says he, "you're old, and you're honest, or has the name for it; and you've money, too, which lots of poor sailors hasn't; and you're brave, or I'm mistook. And will you tell me you'll let yourself ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on those thin and jerking ropes. Had there been a steady breeze it would not have been so bad, but the Ghost was rolling emptily in a long sea, and with each roll the canvas flapped and boomed and the halyards slacked and jerked taut. They were capable of snapping a man off like a fly from ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... come, and stood up in his place clean-limbed and taut for running. He saw the sparks of the brand stream back along the Coyote's flanks as he carried it in his mouth, and stretched forward on the trail, bright against the dark bulk of the mountain like a ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... grasping the taut and, in one sense, irresponsive mechanism of a steering-wheel governed by steam, a sailor can "feel" the movement of his ship, a seaworthy vessel being a living thing, obedient as a docile horse to the least touch of the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... starts on the trail and the others, holding fast to their staffs, carefully follow, each one cautious to keep the rope stretching out in front of her rather taut; then if one girl stumbles the others brace themselves and keep her ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... noise or fuss, and leaving behind her a wake so smooth and so little disturbed that at a distance of a quarter of a mile it vanished altogether. And when, an hour or so later, having made a good offing, the skipper ordered her to be hauled to the wind on a taut bowline for a short time, to test her speed under those conditions, and then put her about, she went to windward and tacked like ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... as if a cord in his soul had been made taut and were vibrating without making a sound. The steps of the eight people, as they died away in the distance, developed gradually into a rhythmical, musical movement. What had been confused became ordered; ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the mainmast was now the first object. I therefore took with me one of the best of the crew, and carried the end of a rope cable with us up to the mainmast head, and clenched it round the mast, while it was badly springing. We then took the cable to the windlass and hove taut, and thus effectually secured the mast.... We were then drifting directly on shore, where the cliffs were rocky, abrupt, and almost perpendicular, and were perhaps almost 1,000 feet high. At each blast of lightning we could see the surf break, whilst we heard the awful ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... all the haphazard my judgment or my good genius had faithfully stood by me. The cable reached from the anchor in deep water to the sloop's windlass by just enough to secure a turn and no more. The anchor had been dropped at the right distance from the vessel. To heave all taut now and wait for the coming tide was ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... With his head on the stone sill, The dog is lying, Gazing at his Beloved. His eyes are wet and urgent, And his body is taut and shaking. It is cold on the terrace; A pale wind licks along the stone slabs, But the dog gazes through the glass And ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... the men who were before him were entering into a struggle for life and death, or that the combat between the two beautiful frigates now sailing in sight of each other, would probably end in the destruction of one of them. Each sail was well set, every yard perfectly braced, and all the ropes taut and uninjured. Thus they stood on, slowly nearing each other, till at length the Frenchman attempted to haul across the Cynthia's bows, for the purpose of delivering a raking fire. This the ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... were squared to the satisfaction of the boatswain, the ropes were hauled taut, and coiled down, and the men sent below to their dinners. Newton walked aft, and the first person he met was the dubash who had attended the Bombay Castle. The cheeks of Newton flushed, and his heart throbbed quick, and his lips quivered, as he asked intelligence of the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... the wind through the taut cordage of the foremast, the sullen plunging of the ship's hull in the trough of the sea, the rise to a wave crest and the poising there before falling once more, the smell of the dank salt air, and the occasional spurt of spray over the leaning ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... And I'm not sure just where—but look. Hot Rod's cable is taut. There's thrust on the balloon. That probably means a ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... de predestination, de grace; cette foule de distinctions subtiles dont la theologie s'est parteut remplie dans quelques pays, ces inventions si ingenieuses, imaginees par des penseurs qui se sont succedes depuis taut de siecles, n'ont fait, helas! qu'embrouiller les choses, et jamais la science la plus necassaire aux hommes n'a jusqu'ici pu acquerir la moindre fixite. Depuis des milliers d'annees ces reveurs oisifs se sont perpetuellement relayes pour mediter la Divinite, pour deviner ses ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley |
