"Ratlins" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sudden and eery transition as he mounted the rigging, from gray night to sunshine in the space of a few ratlines. On the foretopgallant-yard he was above the fog, the very roof of the bank lying a dozen feet below. The decks ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the way up the shrouds. Reuben found it much more difficult than it looked. He had seen the sailors running up and down, and it looked as easy as mounting a ladder; but the slackness of the ratlines—which, as the sailor told him, was the name of the pieces of rope which answered to the rounds of a ladder—made it at first awkward. When they reached the main top the sailor told him to sit down, and look round quietly, till he became ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... up the main ratlines, and was looking earnestly to windward. Two or three of the crew on the forecastle were gazing in the same direction. The group of cabin-passengers on the quarterdeck, following their eyes, saw what appeared to be another low shore on ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... seamen who were selected to do this or any other skilled work, but only in regard to the quantity done and its neatness. At times, of course, there was a common understanding that a certain number of ratlines should be put on. This greatly depended on the treatment they were receiving. If it was good, no restriction was arranged, for each tried to excel the other, and this applied to every department of work. Some of the dodges to evade work may not be written ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... habit, perhaps, though they actually want physical force. They eat little besides rice, and are small in frame. We had a curious mode of punishing them, when slack, aloft. Our standing rigging was of grass, and wiry enough to cut even hands that were used to it. The ratlines were not seized to the forward and after shrouds, by means of eyes, as is done in our vessels, but were made fast by a round turn, and stopping back the ends. We used to take down all the ratlines, and make the darkies go up without them. In doing ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... stared at the network of the ratlines against the brilliant sky. The crisscross lines made him think of the ruled order-blanks of the ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis |
