"Hawser" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their burning navy and arsenal. The battery in the upper angle of the town, which, was too high to fire upon, kept up a galling fire, and another further to the eastward was still at work. To bring our broadside to bear upon it, a hawser was run out to the Severn, on our larboard bow, the ship was swung to the proper bearing, and we soon checked them. At 45 minutes past nine, the squadron began to haul out, some making sail, and taking advantage of a light air off the land, while others were towing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 377, June 27, 1829 • Various
... frigate, from whose portholes the flames are shooting out. The gunpowder left on the deck is covered only with canvas. Life is in peril. They find that the stern rope has not been cast off. Up rush Decatur and his {167} officers, and cut the hawser with their swords. The boat swings clear, and the men row ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... the mean time," said the captain, testing with his foot the tautness of the hawser that moored the Perseverance to the quay—"in the mean time they are busy at Cherbourg and Toulon. As to the army, you probably know that better than ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... every atom of strength in his sturdy muscles; at the same time he engineered matters in such a clever fashion that every time he pulled his oars through the water it was with a rapid movement in the nature of a shock, so that the little hawser tightening, gave a ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster
... order for the hawser to be cut, and the sail hoisted. A cheer broke from the crew as they saw what was to be done. Their arms had been served out at the beginning of the contest, and they now seized them, and gathered in readiness to take part ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... was waiting impatiently at the gang-way. I was the only passenger to leave, and no cargo was unloaded nor taken on. She was waiting only for the agent of the company to confer with Captain Leeds, and while these men were conversing on the bridge, and the hawser was being drawn on board, the custom-house officers, much to my disquiet, began to search my trunk. I had nothing with me which was dutiable, but my grandfather's presentation sword was hidden in the trunk and its presence there and ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... holding a midnight service. Captain Tangye had snugged down his ship for the night: ropes were coiled, deckhouses padlocked, the spokes of the wheel covered against dew and frost. The boy found the slack of a stout hawser coiled beneath the taffrail—a circular fort into which he crept with his rugs, and nestled down warmly; and then for half an hour lay listening. But only the preacher's voice broke the silence of the harbour. On—on it went, rising ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... we gave our grounded friends a lift with a hawser. No go! The Boston tugged in vain. We got near enough to see the whites of the Massachusetts eyes, and their unlucky faces and uniforms all grimy with their lodgings in the coal-dust. They could not have been blacker, if they had been ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... hawser was now sent down by the buoy-rope, and the running clinch or noose formed on its end, placed over the fluke of the anchor in the usual way. A couple of round turns were then taken with the hawser at the middle part of the cylindrical raft, after it had been drawn up as tight ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... to drag up the stores on the beach; so that our little dockyard soon exhibited the most animated scene imaginable. The quickest method of landing casks and other things not too weighty, was that adopted by Captain Hoppner, and consisted of a hawser secured to the ship’s main mast-head, and set up as tight as possible to the anchor on the beach; the casks being hooked to a block traversing on this as a jack-stay, were made to run down it with great ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... he explained, briefly. "Ankle hurt! Now muckle onto this line, everybody, and haul in! They've got a hawser bent on the ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... sailor, either by habits, taste, or constitution. With such a pale face, and slight figure, and sheepish look, how can you expect to fight the battle of life on the ocean, and endure all the crosses, the perils, and the rough-and-tumble of a sailor's life? Hawser, you are not fit for a sailor. You had much better go ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... cordage, cable, hawser, lasso, lariat, cabestro, tether, tow; pl. shrouds, ratlines. Associated Words: marline, marline spike, marling, strand, oakum, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... early—and it was pretty empty. Later, there was a big crowd and a lot of pushing and hustling. I noticed several Chinamen hanging round and pressing together; now that I come to think of it, they surrounded me. The rope was not the usual thick hawser, but something thinner and more flexible—more like whipcord such as a fellow could carry in ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... warping; but we saw that the captain was bent upon exertion, and we went heartily to work. In the course of our progress against a strong wind, the ship had been warped up to the chain rock, and it became necessary to cast off the hawser attached to it, but all the boats were employed in laying out an anchor and warps elsewhere. The captain called to the men on the forecastle, and desired 'some active fellow to go down by the hawser, and cast it off,' at the same time saying that a boat ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... a fine tall fellow, with a tail as thick as a hawser, came on board and offered himself; he was taken by the skipper, and went on shore again to get his traps. While he was still on deck I went below, and seeing Sam with his little wife on his knee playing with his love-locks, I said that there was a ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... my companions, left behind on the shore of Black Rock Creek. One of them, I knew, was wounded; perhaps the others were also. Having seen me dragged overboard by the hawser, could they possibly suppose that I had been rescued by the "Terror?" Surely not! Doubtless the news of my death had already been telegraphed to Mr. Ward from Toledo. And now who would dare to undertake a new campaign against this ...
— The Master of the World • Jules Verne
... furled, and as she drew to her anchorage ground, a quarter-boat a was lowered from the davits, while the chain cable rang its loud report as it ran out at the hawser hole, and the ship swung gradually with the set of the current, leaving her stern towards the shore. But a few moments elapsed before Capt. Ratlin and his two passengers, with such articles as they had brought on board, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... and his government, and whether or not they would permit Yankee prizes to be condemned and sold in that port. The first intimation the brig's crew had that Captain Semmes was about to cast off his tow was a warning whistle from the Sumter. This was followed by a sudden slackening of the hawser, and a few minutes later the Sumter's black hulk showed itself on the starboard ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... find it right enough," and with a hasty bow he waddled forward importantly, to oversee the getting of the anchor and the passing of the towing hawser. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... violence, and we had let go our best bower anchor when we were near the shore, in hopes it would have brought us up, and had not yet been able to weigh it. We now rode in a very disagreeable situation with our small bower, and that unfortunately came home again; we therefore got a hawser out of the Tamar, who lay in the stream, and after weighing the small bower, we got out by her assistance, and then dropped it again, most ardently wishing for fair weather, that we might get the ship ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... agony, so long as it continues remediable, sharpens and concentrates all a man's faculties upon the one single object of procuring the remedy. If my house is on fire, I run to the hydrant by a mere automatic operation of my nerves. If my leg is caught in the bight of a paying-out hawser, my whole brain focuses at once on that single thought, "an axe." If I am enduring the agony which opium alone can cause and cure, every faculty of my mind is called to the aid of the tortured body which wants it. When a man has used opium for a long time the condition ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... pale as death, and in an hour afterward was on board the ship, where I found every thing in readiness for a hasty departure, the top-sails, jib and spanker were loosed, the anchor at the bows, and its place supplied by a small kedge, attached to the ship by a hawser, easily cut in case of need; the awnings were struck, and the decks covered with rigging and sails. The boat's crew who were to go on the expedition of the evening had already been selected, and were in high spirits at the probable danger, ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... stanchions set up in the boat, the one at the head, the other in the middle of it, against the bulkhead, and a foot higher than the bulkhead. There is a large notch cut in the top of each of these stanchions big enough for a small hawser or rope to lie in; one end of which is fastened to a post ashore, and the other to a grappling or anchor lying a pretty way off at sea: this rope serves to haul the boat in and out, and the stanchions ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... lavish hand, but few of his benefactions, comparatively, were known. The newspapers have made much of his throwing a hawser to Mark Twain and towing the Humorist off a financial sand-bar. Also, we have heard how he gave Helen Keller to the world; for without the help of H. H. Rogers that wonderful woman would still be like unto the eyeless fish in the Mammoth Cave. As it is, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Ned, quickly descending the ladder to join the group. "Go ahead slow, though. Don't break the hawser, or we'd lose ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... midshipman to a marrow-bone, and it may be interesting to politicians to know that Repeaters and Rings have occasionally been found in the maws of these monsters. They bite readily at "Salt horse," and, when hooked with a rattan in throat, may be yanked on board with the bight of a hawser. An enormous specimen sometimes gets caught in a forecastle yarn. In this case, never interfere with the thread of the narrative by asking impertinent questions, however difficult it may be to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... these years, was at its strongest but a rope of sand compared with the steel links of the chain that was wrapped about the town, with one end in the Judge's hand, but with the chain reaching out into some distant, mysterious hawser that moved it with a power of which even the Judge ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... life, finale, and farewell! Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;) Often enough hast thou adventur'd o'er the seas, Cautiously cruising, studying the charts, Duly again to port and hawser's tie returning. —But now obey thy cherish'd, secret wish, Embrace thy friends—leave all in order; To port and hawser's tie no more returning, Depart upon ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... proper treatment. I suspect, poor man, he did not often get the opportunity to resuscitate anybody; in fact, he admitted he had not had any such case as ours for years. It is uncertain what he might have done to us if the tender-hearted captain had not thrashed him into his cabin with a knotted hawser, and told us to go ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... he felt uncommonly irritated. He had not started for San Francisco. He did not want to go to San Francisco. Still—what was the odds? San Francisco was as good as any other town. He shrugged his shoulders, and feeling his way to a coiled hawser sat down in the bight of it to contend with the first, faint ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... "Noah's Ark" slowly drifted in through the nursery window, Captain Noah ran forward with a hawser, ready to make fast to the book case near the ...
— The Cruise of the Noah's Ark • David Cory
... of men in the world, I knew quite well what I was "up against," and deliberately decided that in the conduct of my fight I would use such strategy as I believed proper to outwit so strong and so unscrupulous an adversary. One can hang a dog as well with a cord as with a hawser, and in proving my assertions I am quite willing that the insurance companies should believe each play is my best card. I decline, however, to show ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... him the other. He recalled how universal were the traces of dissatisfaction he had noticed; an uneasiness of the masculine world that resembled a harborful of ships which, lying long and placidly at anchor, began in a rising wind to stir and pull at their hawser chains. ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... mines would be, as they are bound to be drawn in against any ship that strikes any part of the rope. The only safeguard a ship could carry was a paravane. A paravane is made up of a strong steel hawser (rope) that serves as a fender, and of two razor-edged blades that serve to cut the mine-moorings free. It is altogether under water and is shaped like a V, with the point jutting out on the end of steel struts ahead of the bows, ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... step aboard, and these niggers are always asleep the minute after you take your eyes off them. So, whether you have got anything aboard or not, stick to the rule and moor her a bit off the wharf. It's only the trouble of dropping the grapnel over on the outside in addition to the hawser ashore, and then there's never no trouble when you get back and have to report as how you have lost some of the bales. It ain't as how we carry up many things as would pay for taking; soft goods for the stores up ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... WINTHROP," at anchor in the outer harbor of Provincetown, Mass. It is ten o'clock at night. Dense fog shrouds the barge on all sides, and she floats motionless on a calm. A lantern set up on an immense coil of thick hawser sheds a dull, filtering light on objects near it—the heavy steel bits for making fast the tow lines, etc. In the rear is the cabin, its misty windows glowing wanly with the light of a lamp inside. The chimney of the cabin stove rises a few feet above the ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... now had been constantly heard during the night with a pleasure that it was impossible to lose without regret. The gale, on the 1st of February, increased to a storm, with heavy gusts from the high land, one of which broke the hawser, that had been fastened to the shore, and induced the necessity of letting go another anchor. Though, towards midnight, the gale became more moderate, the rain continued with so much violence, that the brook, which supplied the ship with water, overflowed its banks; in consequence ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... the pilot called, "you can get in those bow fasts. Send a hawser to the end of the wharf; I'm going to warp out." There was a harsh answering clatter as the mooring chain that held the bow of the Nautilus was secured, and a group of sailors went smartly forward with a hemp cable to the end of the wharf's ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... money to meet his bill, would come along unsympathetically, glaring at you with his yellow eyes from the bridge, and would drag you out dishevelled as to rigging, lumbered as to the decks, with unfeeling haste, as if to execution. And he would force you too to take the end of his own wire hawser, for the use of which there was of course an extra charge. To your shouted remonstrances against that extortion this towering trunk with one hand on the engine-room telegraph only shook its bearded head above the splash, the racket, and the ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... small light, and it was difficult to see above a yard or so ahead or around. I turned my face aft, and crawled over the casks and came to under the main-hatch, where lay coils of hawser, buckets, blocks, and the like, but there was no pinnace, though here she had been stowed, as a sailor would have promptly seen. A little way beyond, under the great cabin, was the powder-magazine, a small bulkheaded compartment with a little door, atop of which ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... had been sent from Arbroath with a cargo of stones one morning, and reached the rock about half-past six o'clock A.M. The mate and one of the men, James Scott, a youth of eighteen years of age, got into the sloop's boat to make fast the hawser to the ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... next morning we were again underweigh; and, with the flood-tide in our favour, made rapid progress. The opening had, however, become so much contracted, that it was found prudent to have a boat hoisted out, with the kedge and a hawser ready if the vessel should get on shore. After proceeding two miles further, it took a more easterly course, and as we advanced the general direction of the reaches were east and south. Our speculations ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... tighten or slacken the guys as we raised the pole towards the perpendicular, with two men. I was with four men in the boat. We dropped an anchor out a good bit, then tied a cord to the pole, took a turn round the sternmost thwart with it, and pulled on the anchor line. As the great, big, wet hawser came in it soaked you to the skin: I was the sternest (used, by way of variety, for sternmost) of the lot, and had to coil it—a work which involved, from its being so stiff and your being busy pulling with all your might, no little trouble and an extra ducking. We got it up; and, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... port; well-crossed the harbour-bar; The hawser swung, the grinding helm at rest; Hands clasping hands, and eyes with eager zest Seeking the loved, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... would never dare crack, on in these degenerate days, when, blast his eyes, the Golden Bough came up on them, and passed, and ran away from the poor old Flynn, and Yankee Swope had stood on his poopdeck at the passing, and waved a hawser-end at the Old Man of the Flynn, asking if he wanted a tow. "And then we caught hell," commented Mr. Briggs. Aye, he should say he did remember the Golden Bough. But he ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... pilot rope was passed through the block and the men ran off with it towards the railway, while George remained to guide the hawser into its place when ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... has secured passage by a ship bound for some far-off foreign land, and delayed by some trifling affair, comes upon the pier to see the hawser cast off, the plank drawn ashore, the sails spread, himself ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... the "Merrimac" would have been undisputed master of the Atlantic coast, and have driven off or destroyed every ship of the blockading squadrons. The fates of nations sometimes depend on trifles. That of the American Union depended for some hours on the soundness of the hawser by which the "Monitor" hung on to the tug-boat "Seth ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... our greater security, ordered that part of the cables next to the anchors to be armed with the chains of the fire-grapnels, and they were besides cackled twenty fathoms from the anchors and seven fathoms from the service, with a good rounding of a 4 1/2 inch hawser, and to all these precautions we added that of lowering the main and fore yards close down, that in case of blowing weather the wind might have less power upon the ship to make ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... 1850.—At last the hoped-for signal, "take ships in tow," was made; and, with a leaping heart, we entered the lead, having the "Resolute" fast by the nose with a six-inch hawser. What looked impassable at ten miles' distance was an open lead when close to. Difficulties vanish when they are faced; and the very calm which rendered the whalers unable to take advantage of a loose pack, was just the thing for steamers. Away we went! past ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... southward of the Clifton just before dusk. She let go both her heavy anchors, to prevent any dragging from the great strain that must naturally result from an effort to haul off the grounded steamer. A nine-inch hawser was sent to her, one end of the hawser being made fast to the Sachem. The tide had begun to rise by this time, and fortunately at the first strain on the hawser the Clifton floated, and was quickly drawn alongside of the Sachem. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... up and bilge free—and that's why he's chief kicker now. The hawser's fast for'd, Mr. Murphy. ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... rope brought to a winch I had for the cable, and the engines backed; but all in vain. A small Turkish Government steamer, which is to be our consort, came to our assistance, but of course very slowly, and much time was occupied before we could get a hawser to her. I could do no good after having made a chart of the soundings round the ship, and went at last on to the bridge to sketch the scene. But at that moment the strain from the winch and a jerk from the Turkish steamer got off ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mistresses," haunted the Baroness all night. Like sick men given over by the physicians, who have recourse to quacks, like men who have fallen into the lowest Dantesque circle of despair, or drowning creatures who mistake a floating stick for a hawser, she ended by believing in the baseness of which the mere idea had horrified her; and it occurred to her that she might apply for help to one of ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... felt that. My plan's a different one. We'll have a hawser from our schooner to this one, after you've made all snug aloft, and tow her ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... when the black cloud was upon him and our voices were hushed to whispers lest the vibration should cause it to break in fury on our own heads—then he would flog the crew with a wire hawser, and his language would cause the paint to blister on the deck. At other times the memory of his "mother" would steal over his spirit and in a sweet tenor he would croon the old-time hymns and the old ship would creak its loving accompaniment, ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... of the men had already pulled a big hawser ashore and made it fast. In half an hour the crew of the Amy Reade were safe on shore, chilled and dripping. Before they were hurried away to warmth and shelter, old Paul Stockton caught Curtis's hand. The tears were running freely down ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... addition to their sails, have an immense hawser, made of twisted bamboo splits, leading from the top of the mainmast to the river bank, and to the shore end of which, for a length of about forty to a hundred feet, the trackers fasten the yokes, with one of which each ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... swing the biggest ship around by a steady, slow, gentle pull. On the other hand a sudden strain on the hawser would produce no effect whatever on ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... stores were got on board the brigantine, her magazine stowed, the dunnage of the crew transferred from the sheds, the captain's camphor trunks on board and cabin in order, the sails bent, anchors on the bows, and, swinging to a hawser made fast to the rocks, the vessel was ready to put ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the thing. At a glance I comprehended all, since at a glance I saw the boat herself, drifting away outward from the reef. No mystery at all. I had neglected to make the boat fast, had not even taken the rope-hawser ashore; and the breeze, which I now observed had grown fresher, catching upon the sides of the boat, had drifted her out of the cove, and off into ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... with that inspiration of genius so common then among sailors, laid his seventy-four, the Centaur, close alongside the Diamond; made a hawser, with a traveller on it, fast to the ship and to the top of the rock; and in January 1804 got three long 24's and two 18's hauled up far above his masthead by sailors who, as they 'hung like clusters,' appeared 'like mice hauling a little sausage. Scarcely could we hear the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... scrub below, has not had time to work itself out. Many are mere poles, and so intertwined with climbers as to present the appearance of a ship's ropes and cables shaken in among them, and many have woody stems as thick as an eleven-inch hawser. One species may be likened to the scabbard of a dragoon's sword, but along the middle of the flat side runs a ridge, from which springs up every few inches a bunch of inch-long straight sharp thorns. It hangs ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... of my recollection the bark floated with bow pointing toward the open sea. The sweep of the current about the point was inshore, making the drift of the vessel strong against the anchor hawser. This would naturally bring her with broadside to the eastward, from which direction the absent boat must return. If this proved correct then, in all probability, the deck watch would largely be gathered on that side, even the attention of the officer more or less drawn in that direction. No doubt ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... as many grains of quinine as we received logs of wood. Empty-handed we would turn from the wood post and steam a mile or so farther up the river, where we would run into a bank, and a boy with a steel hawser would leap overboard and tie up the boat to the roots of a tree. Then all the boys would disappear into the jungle and attack the primeval forest. Each was supplied with a machete and was expected to furnish a bras ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... Mr. Rudd and his helpers went below and broke out enough cargo to get at the hole stove in her side. Meanwhile we had to keep the pump brakes moving and the water that flowed from the pipes and out at the hawser-holes was as clear as the sea itself. The old bark had settled a good bit, and we were by no means ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... held by her stern to the Hard. Then the last hawser was cast off, and she floated away on the first of the ebb; and as she moved, her main-sail, unbrailed, spread itself out and became a vast pinion. Like a dream of happiness she lessened and faded, and Lousey Hard was as lonely and forlorn ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... winded man. He stumbled after Kirkwood, groaning with exhaustion. Only the tolerance of the pier employees gained them their end; the steamer was held some seconds for them; as Calendar staggered to its deck, the gangway was jerked in, the last hawser cast off. The boat sheered wide out on the river, then shot in, arrow-like, to the pier ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... them play-actors, be you? Land sakes! And tryin' to look like a fisherman, too! I don't s'pose you know a grommet from the bight of a hawser." ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... coffee, we again turned out on deck. This time the joyful tidings reached us from aloft that a Gottenburg steamer was approaching. Soon the smoke of her chimneys was perceptible from the deck, and in an hour or so she was alongside. A stout hawser was bent on to her, and after another hour of pulling and tugging, backing and filling, we slipped off the rocks, and floated out into the channel. I was destined, after all, never to be decently shipwrecked. ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... under the shadow of the hulls of these they might escape all observation from the more watchful vessels of war without. They had cleared all but one, when the head of the canoe suddenly came foul of the hawser of the latter, and was by the checked motion brought round, with her broadside completely under her stern, in the cabin windows of which, much to the annoyance of our adventurer, a light was plainly visible. Rising as gently as he could to clear the bow of the light ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... hands of heroes. So he bade the helmsman steer straight in, for the sea was deep below the rock, and there they all saw a man lying asleep in golden armour. They whispered together, laughing silently, and then sprang ashore, taking with them a rope of twisted ox-hide, a hawser of the ship, and a strong cable of byblus, the papyrus plant. On these ropes they cast a loop and a running knot, a lasso for throwing, so that they might capture the man in safety from a distance. With these in their hands they ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... French flotilla was sunk or scattered, and a pontoon or raft, carrying sixty men of the Guards, pushed out from the British bank. A strong French picket held the other shore; but, bewildered and ill led, they made no opposition. A hawser was dragged across the stream, and pontoons, each carrying fifteen men, were in quick succession pulled across. When about a thousand men had in this way reached the French bank, some French battalions made their appearance. Colonel Stopford, who ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... heights; upon the hills, the brush grows in small clumps; while in the valleys it not only covers the whole surface, but is also bound together by creeping vines, of every size between small twine and a seven inch hawser. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... uncertainty of human calculations! The grapnel caught on the bottom, surely and firmly; but, the moment there came any strain on the seemingly stout hawser that held it, the latter parted like a thread, and "The ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... reptile was a fool. Had it voluntarily freed itself, or allowed the bull to get clear of the enveloping mushy earth, it could have whirled its entire length around the quadruped and mashed it to pulp. But the Atlamalcan tugboat, if tied by a hawser to the reptile could not have drawn it forth, for it will allow itself to be pulled asunder before yielding. Nor can any conceivable power induce the serpent to let go, its unshakable resolve being to draw its prey within its folds, ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... coils of rope from the lockers, he put a clove-hitch on the standing part of the sea-anchor hawser, and carried the new running-line aft, making it fast to the stern bitts. Then he cast off from the forward bitts. The Dazzler swung off into the trough, completed the evolution, and pointed her nose toward shore. A couple of spare oars from below, and as many water-soaked ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... hawser over her side as buffer. The boy was up it in a moment, and on to the deck, his heart ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... talk about ashore and don't know what it is until you've been at the firing front or in one of these blessed ocean brooms. That chap across the way found a mine in his kite, and we had to cut the hawser in double-quick time, and get far enough away from it before we pegged a bullet in one of ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... A.M., December 30th, all was in readiness for the Grappler to leave the harbour. The anchor was up, and the vessel was riding between wind and tide, with a hawser made fast to the rocks. Unfortunately, the hawser either broke or slipped while they were in the act of close reefing the topsails, and the brig cast to port. She drifted about three or four hundred yards, and struck at last on a half-tide rock, from which all their ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... new coat o' paint all over,' said he, with a wink. 'Carramba! the old ship is water-tight yet. What would ye say, now, were I about to sling my hawser over a little scow, and take ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... behind on the Servian bank crossed over the same night in ferry-boats to the Hungarian side with their severed hawser, spreading everywhere the news that the tow-rope had parted of itself at the dangerous Perigrada Island, and the ship had gone down with every soul on board. In the morning there was no longer a sign of the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... before the back-wash of the angry sea. With no fate possible but the wall of rocks ahead, the terrorized crew began heaving the dead overboard in the moonlight; but another roaring billow smashed the St. Peter squarely broadside. The second hawser ripped back with the whistling rebound of a whip-lash, and Ofzyn was in the very act of dropping the third and last anchor, when straight as a bullet to the mark, as if hag-ridden by the northern demons of sailor fear, hurled the St. Peter for the reef! A third time the beach combers ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... The hawser ran out into five fathoms of water. We had lost our boat: but Billy Priske had spent his afternoon in fashioning a raft out of four empty casks and a dozen broken lengths of deck-planking; and on this, leaving the seamen on board, the ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... lying, we had no longer the means of applying a force from without, and, if alone, should therefore have been helpless, at least for a time. The Hecla, however, being fortunately unencumbered, in consequence of having lain in a less sheltered place, sent her boats with a hawser to the margin of the young ice; and ours being carried to meet it, by men walking upon planks, at considerable risk of going through, she at length succeeded in pulling us out; and, getting into clear water, or, rather, into less tough ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... 31st July, and the sheep the next day, the steamer Bremer was employed to tow her over the Bar. It was evident, however, that the Bremer did not intend to do this, for she slacked the tow-line, and then steamed ahead full speed and snapped the hawser, and went off without ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... word, Daddy, but one of the most potent, he was thinking. More than a word, perhaps: a great social engine: an anchor which, cast carelessly overboard, sinks deep and fast into the very bottom. The vessel rides on her hawser, and where ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... and a hundred half naked sailors launching a long, black Norman sea-boat bows on, over chocks through the low surf to the grey swell beyond. The little vessel had been beached by the stern, with a slack chain hooked to her sides at the water-line, and a long hawser rove through a rough fiddle-block of enormous size, and leading to a capstan set far above high-water mark and made fast by the bight of a chain to an anchor buried in the sand up to the heavy wooden stock. And now a big old man with streaming grey ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... in passing these settlements. Presently a snake-like war canoe with hawser-holes like eyes, crept out from the southern shore; a second fully manned lay in reserve, lurking along the land, and armed men crowned the rocks jutting into the stream. We were accosted by the first craft, in which upon the central place of ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... tobacco which he proposed—no doubt with the assistance of more than one confederate—to smuggle ashore. He then proceeded to divide this into two, each of which formed one strand. Afterwards he made these strands into a rope, every bit of it being tobacco. But then he took a three-strand hawser and laid this over the tobacco, so that when the hawser was finished no one could suspect the tobacco without first cutting or unlaying the rope. I have not been able to discover how this trick was ever suspected. Nothing less than an accident or the information of a spy could possibly lead ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... about 50 feet, and they were laid in lengths varying from a few hundred yards to two miles. Weights at the lower end and invisible glass floats along the top held them suspended vertically from the surface. The floats were kept in place by a wire hawser running along the top of the nets, and to this were attached, at intervals, wooden buoys containing tin cases filled with a chemical compound which, when brought into contact with sea-water, emitted dense smoke by day and ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... what was happening. It was a moment or two before he could satisfy his curiosity, and then a bright beam illuminated the tug and angry water. Brown was burning a blue-light while Terrier crept up to the hulk. He meant to pass the fresh hawser, but could not launch a boat, and Lister doubted if the men on the hulk could heave the heavy wire rope on board. Although one must get near to throw a line, it looked as ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... guests. On the ice seals came right up to the ship, as did large and small flocks of penguins, to have a look at us. These latter were altogether extraordinarily inquisitive creatures. Two Emperor penguins often came to our last moorings to watch us laying out an ice-anchor or hauling on a hawser, while they put their heads on one side and jabbered, and they were given the names of "the Harbour-master and ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... in the hope she might pay up: Thrackles, too, his eye squinted along some bearing of his own, was waiting for her to drag. Presently it became evident that she was doing so, whereupon he drew his knife across our hawser. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... spars only sank deep and deeper into the soft river-bottom, and there was no chance to raise the bow of the boat from its oozy bed. The case for the present was hopeless; but the crew were kept constantly busy until nightfall, pulling and hauling. Some were sent ashore in a skiff, with a big hawser, which was made fast to a tree, and then all the power of the boat, men and steam, was put upon it to twist her nose off from the shoal into which it was stuck. All sorts of devices were resorted to, and a small ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks
... struck one of these standing very wide open, and trod upon a rope's end curled like a snake on the leads. I stooped down, and at a touch I knew that I had hold of Raffles's favourite Manila, which united a silken flexibility with the strength of any hawser. It was tied to the window-post, and it dangled into a room in which there was a dull red glow of fire: an inhabited room if ever I put my nose in one! My body must follow, however, where Raffles had led the way; and when it did I came to ground sooner than I expected on something less secure. ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... until we were come to the waterside, which is called Deptford Creek. Here, having seen the others safe embarked we took boat also, and were soon rowing between the huge bulk of ships where dim lights burned and whence came, ever and anon, the sound of voices, the rattle of a hawser, a snatch of song and the like, as we paddled betwixt the vast hulls. Presently we were beneath the towering stern of a great ship, and glancing up at this lofty structure, brave with carved-work and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... said Captain Latham, taking instant command of the deck. "Cast off those lines! Get that tug hawser inboard, Horry. Mr. Chapin, will you see that those lines are coiled down properly? Keep the deck shipshape. Make less work for your watch ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... look out!" she broke off as, while glancing round, he tripped over a hawser and fell. "Are ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... and cleaned and rung, and the wreckers' Herculean labor seemed nearly over. But that night the winds and the storms held high carnival. It looked like preconcerted action on the part of tide, tempest, and rain to defeat these wreckers, for the elements all pulled together and pulled till cables and hawser snapped like threads. Back the procession started, anchors were dragged or lost, immense new cables were quickly taken ashore and fastened to trees; but no use: trees were upturned, the cables stretched till they grew small and sang like harp-strings, ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... sea, too, had risen, the vessel was rolling heavily, and everything was pitched about in grand confusion. There was a complete "hurrah's nest," as the sailors say, "everything on top and nothing at hand." A large hawser had been coiled away upon my chest; my hats, boots, mattress and blankets had all fetched away and gone over to leeward, and were jammed and broken under the boxes and coils of rigging. To crown all, we were allowed no light to find anything with, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the invisible. Occasionally seen against a deep mass of shadow, and perhaps enlarged by clinging particles of dust, they show quite plainly and sag down like a stretched rope, or sway and undulate like a hawser in ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... was progressing a crew of Russians and Bouriats towed the now laden soudna to a position near our stern. When all was ready, we took her hawser, hoisted our anchor and steamed away. For some time I watched the low eastern shore of the lake until it disappeared in the distance. Posolsky has a monastery built on the spot where a Russian embassador with his suite was murdered ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... boats, and the sailors tugged at the oars, towing the Constitution very slowly ahead. Captain Broke of the Shannon promptly followed suit and signaled for all the boats of the squadron. In a long column they trailed at the end of the hawser; and the Shannon crept closer. Catspaws of wind ruffled the water, and first one ship and then the other gained a few hundred yards as upper tiers of canvas caught the faint impulse. The Shannon was a crack ship, and there was no better crew in the British navy, as Lawrence ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... half-battalion under Major Bird moved one and a half miles up the river near Fourteen Streams, where there was a ferry-boat. The latter had been rendered useless by the Boers, but as they had left the wire hawser, it was easy for the Royal Engineers to construct a raft, on which the left half-battalion ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... proceeded to Barbadoes, off of which island they fell in with a Bristol ship of ten guns, in her voyage out, from whom they took abundance of clothes, some money, twenty-five bales of goods, five barrels of powder, a cable, hawser, ten casks of oatmeal, six casks of beef, and several other goods, besides five of their men; and after they had detained her three days let her go, who, being bound for the aforesaid island, she acquainted the governor with ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... made another voyage, and now, having plundered the ship of what was portable and fit to hand out, I began with the cables. Cutting the great cable into pieces, such as I could move, I got two cables and a hawser on shore, with all the ironwork I could get; and having cut down the spritsail-yard, and the mizzen- yard, and everything I could, to make a large raft, I loaded it with all these heavy goods, and came away. But my good luck began now to leave ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... see nothing. We are still. There are no waves lapping, but only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear men's voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere, the echo of it seems far away. There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains are ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... he had wellnigh come back again to the Katherine, he saw there a tall ship, which he had scarce noted before, a ship all-boun, which had her boats out, and men sitting to the oars thereof ready to tow her outwards when the hawser should be cast off, and by seeming her mariners were but abiding for some one or ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... afterwards followed. Any one who showed an open light when we were near the fleet was liable to the penalty of death upon the spot; a cool, steady leadsman was stationed on each quarter to give the soundings; a staunch old quartermaster took the wheel and a kedge, bent to a stout hawser, was slung at each quarter. All lights were extinguished; the fire-room hatch covered over with a tarpaulin; and a hood fitted over the binnacle, with a small circular opening for the helmsman to see ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... so far as Ken and Roy could see, her fellow, whose name Gill told them was the 'Swan of Avon,' was her double. They were moving exactly parallel, at a distance of about a cable (220 yards) apart. Between them towed a thin steel hawser set to a depth just sufficient to catch the mooring cables of the mines which were plentifully strewn ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... her starboard side, she laying with her head to the N.E., were 7, 8, and 10 fathom. Carried out the stream anchor and two hawsers on the starboard bow and the coasting anchor and cable upon the starboard quarters, got down yards and topmasts, and hove taught upon the hawser and cable; but as we had gone ashore about high water, the ship by this time was quite fast. Turned all hands to lighten the ship, and in order to do this we not only started water, but hove overboard guns, iron and stone ballast, casks, hoops, staves, oyl-jars, stores, ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... the Interpreter spake. They came vnto them and gaue them an Indian for a guide: and hee came to a Riuer with a great current, and vpon a tree, which was in the midst of it, was made a bridge, whereon the men passed: the horses swam ouer by a hawser, that they were pulled by from the otherside: for one, which they droue in without it, was drowned. From thence the Gouernour sent two horsemen to his people that were behind, to make haste after him; because the way grew long and their victuals short. Hee ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... them—the men to the pumps working desperately—with the others lashed to the stumps of the masts and the stanchions which were left when the rail went. Her big hawser had parted and her chain was only serving to slightly check her ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... Luneville, twenty miles from Nancy. No local man could make the repairs. Through our American army headquarters at Nancy we applied to this French repair station. At eight o'clock next morning I was on hand to pilot a heavy wrecking truck to our car. A towing hawser was attached; their second pilot took charge of our truck, load and all; and before noon we were safely landed at the repair station. A hasty examination by a Renault expert revealed the fact that ten days or more would be required to make the necessary repairs. A day or two was the ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... to remain on board to put the ship to rights. When, however, Captain Young found that this would occupy some time, he offered to take us in tow. A hawser was accordingly passed on board, and away we went in the wake of the frigate. Our course was for the Isle of Bourbon, lately captured from the French. At the end of a week we anchored in the Bay of Saint Paul in that island. On our way ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... vessel into another position by hauling upon a hawser attached usually to the heads of piles or posts of ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... hawser!" I heard the commodore shout, and saw the sailing-master slide down the ladder and grope among the dead and wounded and mass of broken spars and tackles, and finally pick up a smeared rope's end, which I helped him drag ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... upper works, and the sails in the store got very wet. Banks notes that they caught two birds in the rigging that had evidently been blown off the coast of Spain. On 13th September they anchored in Funchal Roads, and during the night "the Bend of the Hawser of the stream anchor slip'd owing to the carelessness of the person who made it fast." The anchor was hauled up into a boat in the morning, and carried further out, but, unfortunately, in heaving it into the water, a Master's mate, named Weir, got entangled in ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... July/26th June) at afternoone we weyed, and departed from thence, the wether being mostly faire, and the winde at East-southeast, and plied for the place where we left our cable and anker, and our hawser, and as soone as we were at an anker the foresaid Gabriel came aboord of vs, with 3 or foure more of their small boats, and brought with them of their Aquauitae and Meade, professing unto me very much friendship, and reioiced to see vs againe, declaring that they earnestly thought ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... gray overcoats, while the naval-looking personage with grizzled whiskers who seemed to command was the same Lieutenant Coste who transferred the revenue-cutter Aiken from the service of the United States to that of South Carolina. The Aid took hold of us, broke a large new hawser after a brief struggle, and then went up to the city to report ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... hands asked if I should be interested by their maja. He dipped his hand into a nearby water-barrel in the bottom of which two of them were closely coiled. He dragged out one of perhaps ten or twelve feet in length and four or five inches in diameter, handling it as he would the same length of hawser. He hung it over the limb of a tree so that I could have a good chance for a picture of it. The thing squirmed slowly to the ground and crawled sluggishly away to the place from which it had been taken. Of bird-life there is a large representation, both ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... shut out the last of the town lights, they poled in closer to the shore, and began to cast about for some friendly tree to which the hawser could ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... cook's hand-bell announced breakfast, and before the captain and his guest reappeared on deck a tug had the Alden's hawser and was towing her down the dredged channel on the way to Hampton Roads and ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... as this was done, I got an eight-inch hawser off the top of the house forward, and managed with considerable labour to get it coiled down afresh upon the poop. I then bent on a heaving-line to one end of the hawser, which, by this means, I got to the cutter, ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... "Dod foul my hawser, if this ain't what yer might call pleasant," declared the "pirate," showing his few teeth in a smile that reminded Pauline of the spiles ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... in the slang of his calling. The naval cadet, for instance, poetically describes his home as "the mooring where he casts anchor," or "makes sail down the street," hails his friend to "heave to," and makes things as plain as a "pikestaff," and "as taut as a hawser." The articled law clerk "shifts the venue" of the passing topic to the other end of the room, and "begs to differ from his learned friend." The new bachelor from college snuffs the candle at an "angle of forty-five." The student of surgery descants upon the comparative anatomy ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate |
