"Plank" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what it was to lack books and instruments; and "The Vital Thing" was the magic wand which summoned them to his aid. For some time he had been feeling his way along the edge of a discovery: balancing himself with professional skill on a plank of hypothesis flung across an abyss of uncertainty. The conjecture was the result of years of patient gathering of facts: its corroboration would take months more of comparison and classification. ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... overboard on the lumber that adhered together, clinging hold of the long-boat as the seaman's last ark of refuge, and endeavoring to right her, which we did in a few moments; but not without the misfortune of splitting a plank in her bottom. We all sprang in, bearing with us nothing but the sea clothes we had on, the few articles before named, and some fragments of the boat's leashings. The Captain's dog, which a few moments before had been leaping from plank to plank after the cat, with as determined ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... assembly, which is the true cause of the display of energy. What happened in the Convention after the fall of Robespierre and the terrible Committee of Public Safety proves this, as well as the Chambers of 1815. Now, if the dictatorial power, placed in the hands of a few, has always been a plank of safety in great crises, it seems natural to draw the conclusion that countries controlled by elective assemblies must be politically and militarily weaker than pure monarchies, although in other respects they present ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... food they had saved. The older people gazed straight in front of them with the stolid despair of the fatalist East, and did not utter a word. A woman who had given birth to a child the very night before was being carried on a single plank slung on ropes, with a green-white pallor of death on her features. I have never taken part in such ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... coke has to be hauled up in sacks be th' gang. Th' derrick hands got six a week, but hadn't anny union. Helpers got four twinty. Puddlers was well paid. I wint through th' plant befure we come up here, an' r-run a wagon up th' plank jus' to keep me hand in. Tell me frinds that wan gang iv good la-ads fr'm th' r-road cud wurruk anny three iv th' gangs down here. Th' mills is owned be Rockefellar, so no more at prisint fr'm yer affecshunate nevvew, Peter Casey, who's writin' this ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... respectively the downcast and the upcast shaft. A shaft is in reality a very deep well, and may be circular, rectangular or oval in form. In order to keep out water which may be struck in passing through the various strata, it is protected by plank or wood tubbing, or the shaft is bricked over, or sometimes even cast-iron segments are sunk. In many shafts which, owing to their great depth, pass through strata of every degree of looseness or viscosity, all three methods are utilised in turn. In Westphalia, ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... my father and the cat went down to the docks to the ship. A night watchman was on duty, so while the cat made loud queer noises to distract his attention, my father ran over the gang-plank onto the ship. He went down into the hold and hid among some bags of wheat. The ship sailed ...
— My Father's Dragon • Ruth Stiles Gannett
... the first plank of your antechamber, instead of betraying with so much innocence the myriad thoughts which were suggested to you on the steps, the celibate has not a single glance to which you could attach any significance. The mask of social convention wraps with its thick veil his whole ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... across a bending plank, halted on the rock which served as foundation for the main bridge pier. Beside him Summers shouted confused orders to a group of struggling men. The moonlight beat down mistily through the haze that rose from the river, and Geoffrey could see the long wedge-headed ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... was rising in the middle of it like a lump of self-raising dough. It was a boom town of the regular kind—you stood in line to get a chance to wash your face; if you ate over ten minutes you had a lodging bill added on; if you slept on a plank at night they charged it to you as board ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... We see a dark speck in the distance. It grows, as up J Street it comes. Now, the pony foams before us; now, swift as the wind, it is gone. It passes reception committee, passes escort. It reaches the water front; down the gang-plank it dashes; the band plays, the whistle blows, the bell rings, the steamer catches the middle of the stream and is off, leaving a trail of sparks and smoke in the twilight, and bearing away the first "Pony Express," ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... put to it for a table; but yet a sort of shelf made from a plank roughly split out of the trunk of a tree, and furnished with two legs on either end, was not as awkward as one may fancy, for we had no chairs on which to sit while eating; but squatted on the ground, and this low bench served ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis
... was full of fir-trees; and by them stood a long narrow shed—the roof ruinous, but the plank walls intact. It had originally been erected in a field, since planted for covers. This long shed, a greenish grey from age and mouldering wood, became a place of much interest. Along the back ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... if I have to climb up to the roof, and knock a plank off. Say, those fellows must have been spying out here when I met ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... carriage was considerably more complicated, due partly to the greater amount of decorative ironwork and partly to the design of the wooden parts which, with their carefully worked mortises, required a craftsman's skill. The cheek of the Spanish carriage was a single great plank. English and American construction called for a built-up cheek of several planks, cleverly jogged or mortised together to prevent starting under ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... man who had every appearance of a respectable banya approached the plank over which the coolies were carrying the jawer on board. He stood idly watching the work, then moved away, and squatted on a low pile of bags which had been emptied of their contents. For a time the serang paid no apparent ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... were fastened together, and Jan saw this was a much harder task than he had ever attempted before. He grabbed the edge of a plank in his powerful jaws and twisting sharply, struck back, for land. Several times the force of the water and the weight of the little raft made him let go, but each time he caught the driftwood and fought his way toward the beach. Land ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... adorned their bowler hats with brilliant-coloured favours of ribbon. Old Fletcher, whose conceptions of holiday-making were severe, was visible through the jasmine about his window or through the open door (whichever way you chose to look), poised delicately on a plank supported on two chairs, and whitewashing the ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... attempt to disarm their constituents. Then came an immense popular demonstration on the Place de la Bastille, where there were red flags, incendiary speeches and a crowd that overflowed the square, the affair ending with the murder of a poor inoffensive agent of police, who was bound to a plank, thrown into the canal, and then stoned to death. And forty-eight hours later, during the night of the 26th of February, Maurice, awakened by the beating of the long roll and the sound of the tocsin, beheld bands of men and women streaming along the Boulevard des Batignolles ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Grass Avenue at the south line of the park. It was a spot of semi-sylvan wildness that they were fond of. The carefully platted avenues and streets were mere lines in the rough turf. A little runnel of water, half ditch, half sewer, flowed beside the old plank walk. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... is willing to come to us for eight shillings a week—and you please the people that buy. Not the people that glance through a paper when it is lying on the smoking-room table, and tell you it is damned good, but the people that plank down their penny. That's the sort ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... norate furder, I dink it only fair, Ve shouldt oonderstand each oder, prezackly, chunk and square; Dere are points on vitch ve tisagree, und I will plank de facts- I tont go round slanganderin' my ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... the wind was rattling everything movable, so he merely swore under his breath and went on. He was not a range man for nothing, and he found his way easily to the adobe house with LAS NUEVAS over the door, and the adobe wall with the plank gate that had ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... not a sawmill on the peninsula. Boards and plank are cut by hand or brought from California. I slept two nights in a room ceiled with red-wood and ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... morning of the 24th the brigade moved to the left, and went into works before occupied by men of the Second Corps, on the Jerusalem plank-road. They should have reached this position before daylight, but did not. They could have reached the works with very little exposure by coming in a little further to the right. Instead of this, the column was led by Colonel Carle through open ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... Chinaman feeds immense flocks of ducks on the stubbles of the paddy-fields. The ducks are brought down by thousands in junks, and quack and gobble to their hearts' content in the fields all day, waddling back over a plank to their junks at night. At sunset, one of the most comical sights in the world can be witnessed. A Chinese boy comes ashore from each junk with a horn, which he blows as a signal to the ducks that bedtime has arrived. In his ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... horrible concert-room, which usually served as a beer- restaurant, had been engaged. At the rear of this, and separated from it by a dreadfully vulgar curtain, was a small 'Tivoli' theatre, for which I was obliged to procure an elevated plank- floor for the orchestra, and the whole concern so disgusted me that my first impulse was to dismiss the seedy-looking musicians on the spot. My friend Damrosch, who was very much upset, had to promise me that at least he would have the horrible reek of tobacco in the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... whether your room is carpeted or not. If it is the former, the ravages of the worm have been quite concealed by the carpet; while in the latter case the surface of the wood presents the same appearance, while the whole interior of the plank or board has been turned to dust. This sort of thing has happened in many an Australian house, and ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... of saving it in some way. It proved, however, to be a most unmanageable craft, and they could do little to stay their course down the river, and in spite of every effort were carried out into the Basin. Night came on and their only chance of safety was, if possible, to stick to the plank box in the hope that the currents might carry them to some point where they could get safely to shore. Next day their unwieldy craft grounded near Nappan, and they at once landed and were hospitably entertained at a farm-house ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman
... jailer with the chaplain roused in him disgust for the coming function at the Mont es Pendus. Disgust was his chief feeling. This was no way for a man to die! With a choice of evils he should have preferred walking the plank, or even dying quietly in his bed, to being stifled by a rope. To dangle from a cross-tree like a half-filled bag offended all instincts of picturesqueness, and first and last he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bo'sun spent much of that time in overhauling the boat, to see how it might chance to have suffered during the storm, and also whether the struggles of the devil-fish had strained it in any way. And, indeed, it was speedily evident that the boat would need some attention; for the plank in her bottom next but one to the keel, upon the starboard side, had been burst inwards; this having been done, it would seem, by some rock in the beach hidden just beneath the water's edge, the devil-fish having, no doubt, ground the boat down upon it. Happily, the damage was not ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... sure, little goose. Wherever I feel water heaving under a plank, there I feel at home. I'll pick up some craft or other to take me off, never fear. I won't stay twenty-four hours in London, away from you on the one hand, and from ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... second day of the voyage they came to the highlands. It was the latter part of a calm, sultry day, that they floated gently with the tide between these stern mountains. There was that perfect quiet which prevails over nature in the languor of summer heat; the turning of a plank, or the accidental falling of an oar on deck, was echoed from the mountain side and reverberated along the shores; and if by chance the captain gave a shout of command, there were airy tongues that mocked it ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... his hand, and his head in the air, Type of heedless Compulsion, the shallow of pate, Who man's freedom would sell to a fetish of State. Self-help and joint effort, as BURT wisely said, Are better by far than—that comfortless bed. That new Little-Ease that free Labour would pack, On a sort of plank-pillow combined with a rack. "Come on, longs and shorts!" shouts PROCRUSTES the New, "Law shall lend us its axe, and its rope, and its screw I must make you all fit to my Bed standard-sized!" Ah! Labour may well look a little ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... that way, too," the carpenter went on, "you would only have to place a plank on your shoulder and then go where you will without exciting the least attention. I will furnish you with a list of the houses where I have men at work, and this again would be an assistance to you. It is my foreman who took the lodging for you; I am expecting him here shortly for orders, and ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... carts whatever spoil was stranded, no life-boat yet appeared; and, after much deliberation, the plan was proposed,—and, as it was then understood, agreed to,—that the passengers should attempt to land, each seated upon a plank, and grasping handles of rope, while a sailor swam behind. Here, too, Mrs. Hasty was the first to venture, under the guard of Davis. Once and again, during their passage, the plank was rolled wholly over, and once and ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... not such a very big boy, though he was perhaps fourteen years old and tall of his age. He stood upon the plank-walk which ran at the front of the house, and leaned against the porch with his hands in his pockets. He was a slender, lithe boy, well dressed in a suit of fine white linen. He had a dark, spirited face, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... When you see me standing helpless on a plank above a whirlpool, Do I drown, or do I hear you when you say it? Make believe? How much more am I to say or do for you before I tell you That I met him! What's to follow now may be for you to ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... after, when Werdet was threatened with a bankruptcy which was likely to involve him—a repetition in minor degree of Scott's entanglement with Constable—he veered completely round, called Werdet a rotten plank, an empty head, an obstinate mule, and other names more expressive than polite, affirmed that he had always considered him a bit of a fool, and dropped all further connection with him. Werdet, it is true, was no business ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... did not get on very well last night with the 'plank bed' or shelf which was dignified with the name of a sleeping berth. There was very little spring and no cushion. Moreover, I had heartburn. It was a cold night, and altogether I was glad when daylight came. The sun ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... this statement was disputed, as it was, Mr. Sumner, who had accompanied Dr. Howe, confirmed his account and added details of his own. He said that the inmates "were cramped together in rooms poorly ventilated and noisome with filth;" that "in two cages or pens constructed of plank, within the four stone walls of the same room" were confined, and had been for months, a raving maniac and an interesting young woman whose mind was so slightly obscured that it seemed any moment as if the cloud ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... Jones had urged instant death. "Let him walk the plank," he suggested, his small eyes glittering with hate. "He's only a boy, but I tell you I'm afraid of ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... length came off, followed by some smaller ones, each carrying two or three people. The natives could not be induced to venture on board, and for a long time hesitated to receive some presents conveyed to them on a plank, in return for coconuts, a stone axe, and some shells. These natives appeared to be unarmed; by signs they invited the Frenchmen to visit them on shore. D'Urville was now anxious to determine whether, as represented by his charts,* a passage existed between ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... back here whar I'se a-doin' de white folks' washin'," she said. "Jasper's done been powerful sick and I can't leave him by hisself none. I brung him out here in de shade so I could watch him and 'tend to him whilst I wuks. Jasper stepped on a old plank what had two rusty nails in it, and both of 'em went up in his foot a fur ways. I done driv dem nails plumb up to dey haids in de north side of a tree and put jimpson weed poultices on Jasper's foot, but it's still ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... burning. It has a thatched roof. Oh!—Everything is burning; the roof is all in flames. Sparks are flying about. It is really an old Ditmarsh farmhouse."—"No, my girl, you have too much imagination, which is bad for science.—What else do you see?"—"I see—I see—at one side of the farmhouse a plank which is dark; for the burning house is behind it. But I can look deep into the burning hall. Three, four sheaves have fallen from the loft and lie burning on the blazing floor. Oh, how frightful that is! Show ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... stone. The force of his fall threw both stone and wheelbarrow into the river. The man behind me, seeing what was happening, flung himself face down over his wheelbarrow, and in the dark, grabbed me as I was going over the plank into the river. He caught me by one of my arms and held me until help came and I was pulled out. I was hanging from his hands about fifty to ...
— Personal Experiences of S. O. Susag • S. O. Susag
... their shoulder and one hand, while swimming and guiding us ashore with the other! There on the land we were hauled up, and four weary days were spent fetching and carrying from the Mission Station every plank, tool, and nail, necessary for her repair. Every boat for these seas ought to be built of cedar wood and copper-fastened, which is by far the most economical in the end. And all houses should be built of wood which ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... this outer circle of defence there was almost always a central stronghold, raised on a great mound of earth; and this was the dwelling of the chief, provincial ruler, or king. Lesser mounds upheld the houses of lesser chiefs, and all alike seem to have been built of oak, with plank roofs. Safe storehouses of stone were often sunk underground, beneath the chief's dwelling. In the fort of Emain, as in the great fort of Tara in the Boyne Valley, there was a banqueting-hall for the warriors, and the bards ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... caused by this structure of the primary hills, I should throw my geological outlines aside, and take up Turner's vignette of the Alps at Daybreak. After what has been said, a single glance at it will be enough. Observe the exquisite decision with which the edge of the uppermost plank of the great peak is indicated by its clear dark side and sharp shadow; then the rise of the second low ridge on its side, only to descend again precisely in the same line; the two fissures of this peak, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... together with it. For that purpose projecting parts are left at intervals on the inside [of the planks] in which holes are made; and through these the ligament passes, without any harm being done to the plank. Upon so light a foundation they build upper works, as high as they wish, of bamboo upon the cates. The cates are buoys which run on both sides from bow to stern, and they act as outriggers for the ship, which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... he had followed the straight and narrow path, indicated by the rocks and tin cans, that led to the Junction, instead of the broad highway indicated by the plank walk that led to the Cant-Pass-It, the tragedy that hovered over Billy-goat Hill might have ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... coverings again, and hurriedly drew on two pairs of heavy, home-knit socks of rough wool. The cabin was filled with the grey light of earliest dawn, and with a biting cold that made the woodsman's hardy fingers ache. Stepping softly as a cat over the rude plank floor, he made haste to pile the cooking-stove with birch-bark, kindling, and split sticks of dry, hard wood. At the touch of the match the birch-bark caught and curled with a crisp crackling, and with a roar in the strong draught the cunningly piled mass burst into blaze. Dave Patton straightened, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Anabaptist to be drowned. While he was proving this a priori, the ship foundered; all perished except Pangloss, Candide, and that brutal sailor who had drowned the good Anabaptist. The villain swam safely to the shore, while Pangloss and Candide were borne thither upon a plank. ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... to put the sash covering may also be bought complete, but here there is a chance to save money by constructing your own frames—the materials required, being 2x4 in. lumber for posts, and inch-boards; or better, if you can easily procure them, plank 2 x ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... beyond all question, neither to commit murder nor robbery. What, then, would your just man do, if, in a case of shipwreck, he saw a weaker man than himself get possession of a plank? Would he not thrust him off, get hold of the timber himself, and escape by his exertions, especially as no human witness could be present in the mid-sea? If he acted like a wise man of the world, he would certainly ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... illiterate preachers and incompetent teachers, who had not had any particular training for their profession. In fact, ninety-eight per cent of them had attended no school. We continued, however, to keep the "Industrial Plank" in our platform, and year after year some industry was added until we now have fourteen industries in constant operation. Agriculture is the foremost and basic industry of the institution. We do this because we are in a ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... never will fail (How aforetime they've fought!) But Murder may yet prevail— They may sink as Craven sank. Therewith one hard, fierce thought, Burning on heart and lip, Ran like fire through the ship— Fight her, to the last plank! ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... Close among these lay the houseboat, a thing so soiled by the tears of the overhanging willows, so grown upon with parasites, so decayed, so battered, so neglected, such a haunt of rats, so advertised a storehouse of rheumatic agonies, that the heart of an intending occupant might well recoil. A plank, by way of flying drawbridge, joined it to the shore. And it was a dreary moment for Jimson when he pulled this after him and found himself alone on this unwholesome fortress. He could hear the rats scuttle and flop in ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... upraised in protest at so great a sacrilege, bowed to the ground, their fingers on their ruffled shirt-fronts, and the younger ones lifted their furry hats and kept them in the air until she had crossed the gang-plank and Todd and Mammy Henny, and Ben who had come to help, lost their several breaths getting the impatient dogs and baggage aboard—and so she sailed away with Uncle George as chaperon, the whole party throwing kisses back ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... his impassive face with a strange, dull curiosity as she spoke of the future, as if wondering whether she had a future or had reached the end of her life—here, at this moment, in the little plank-walled office of the malgamite works. But her courage rose steadily. It is only afar off that Death is terrible. When we actually stand in his presence, we usually hold up our heads and face ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... the gun-deck and the upper deck ports of large ships. Also, the outside plank which receives the bolts of the chain-plates. The wale-plank extends fore and aft to ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... a few onions, for drink a little weak tea and a great deal of small beer. The moon was now shining in the sky, still bright with sunset colours. Fourteen hours of sun and labour and hard fare! Now tell him what to do. To go straight to his plank-bed in the cowhouse; to eat a little more dry bread, borrow some cheese or greasy bacon, munch it alone, and sit musing till sleep came—he who had nothing to muse about. I think it would need a very clever man indeed to invent something for him ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... for the instant extermination of the Philistine, which I did not press upon them, and (here I must whisper), with a fair amount of success, not complete success I am glad to say—that would have meant for the editors a change from their arm-chairs to the benches of the Union and the plank beds of Holloway. The actress when she returned home from the theatre, suggested I had an enemy, a vindictive enemy, who dogged my steps; but her stage experience led her astray. I had no enemy except myself; or to put it scientifically, no enemy except the logical ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... They walked cautiously through the park, for the moon was brilliant and outlined every object with startling vividness. The trees here were sparser. Close by was the sunk fence and the tiny rustic bridge—only a plank or ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... putting the old and battered whaleboat in repair. Ellen had not seen the craft since its recovery, but Shane had told her that every seam needed recalking. There was no oakum for the purpose, so she tore up some garments that neither she nor Jean could spare. He spoke casually of a cracked plank or two that would be strengthened by tacking pieces of canvas and tin both inside ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... looked at the hatchways, shot-racks, and magazines; and, surveying the hammock-hooks on the berth-deck, said, 'You'll have a large crew for a merchant-steamer.' We had taken on board some heavy oak plank, that lay on the main deck; the officer remarked that they were for anchor-stocks, and was shortly answered, 'Wouldn't make bad gun-platforms, sir,' which, indeed, was just what they were intended for. With a 'Good-morning, sir,' our visitor mounted the side and was gone." This visit alarmed ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... stood by Eric's side. Eric saw him coming, but was too weak and numb to move; and when the sailor lifted up the unconscious Russell from his knees, Eric was too much exhausted even to speak. The man returned for him, and lifting him on his back, crossed the plank once more in safety. Then he carried Russell first and Eric afterwards to the carriage, where Dr Underhay had taken care to have everything likely to revive and sustain them. They were driven rapidly to the school, and the Doctor raised to God tearful eyes of gratitude as the boys were taken ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... thousand musquetoons, three thousand pistols, three thousand sabres, twenty-four thousand barrels of flour, four hundred thousand livres' worth of Indian meal, rice, pease, and hay, and a large quantity of plank, &c. to repair the buildings destroyed. They applied to M. de Ternant, and then with his consent to me; he and I having previously had a conversation on the subject. They proposed to me, first, that we should ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... after tormenting them almost to madness by their devilish cruelties, dragged them to a sawpit, where pieces of square timber, which had been partially cut into planks for building purposes, lay. The unhappy pair were then bound on two separate planks, then another plank was placed on the top of each, and tightly bound together with strips of fine bamboo; the monsters laughing and gesticulating at what they termed the living sandwiches, dainty morsels to be offered up as a sacrifice to their Deities. The crowning act of this fearful ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... day the six brothers begged Prince Monkey to bring them water, and they threw a plank from their boat to his for him to cross on. The prince set off with the water, in spite of all his wife's entreaties, and his brothers tilted the plank into the water. The prince would have been drowned ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... me. One day, while longing for something to do, I discovered that the crew had been ordered to paint the ship outside; as a pastime I put on old clothes and joined the painting party. Planks were hung round the ship by ropes being tied to each end of the plank; on these the men stood to do their work. We had not been employed there very long when there was a cry from the deck that the ship was surrounded by sharks. It seems that the butcher had killed a sheep, whose entrails, having been thrown overboard, ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... shorten the tub and adapt it to persons of different lengths. This board may conveniently be six inches wide, and should have a number of perforations about an inch in diameter, for the transmission of the current to the feet. 1 1/4" pine plank is the most suitable wood to use in the construction of the tub. This is preferable to any of the hard woods, because of the greater facility of fitting in the electrodes etc. It is also the ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... eggs in one basket, and—why hadn't he thought of it before? The money had lain those many years, safe and unsuspected, under the false floor of the cupboard. Simplest thing in the world, now that Pamphlett had given him a respite, to plank up the place again with a couple of new boards, plaster up the ceiling of the sitting-room, and restore a good part of the gold to its hiding!—not all of it, though; since Pamphlett might change his mind at any time, and of a sudden. No, a good part of the ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... progress, and gave them every variety of kindly greeting. The mother who was sitting at work under the tamarind-tree called her children down from its topmost branches to do honour to the travellers. Many a half-naked negro in the rice-grounds slipped from the wet plank on which, while gazing, he forgot his footing, and laughed his welcome from out of the mud and slime. The white planters who were taking their morning ride over their estates, bent to the saddle-bow, the large straw hat in hand, and ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... given me his hand again. Yes, sir, he is a straight man all round, and there is no man better liked than Harry. Why, there are a score of men in this town who know him as I do, and, if he came to them and said, 'I have struck it rich, I will go halves with you if you will plank down twenty thousand dollars to open her up,' they would pay down the cash without another word; and, I tell you, there ain't ten men west of the Missouri of whom as much could ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... man with a large black beard and whiskers looked over the bulwarks, and seeing Mr Ward, came along the plank which connected the ship with the quay towards us. He shook hands warmly with Mr Ward, who took him aside, while I stood patting Solon's head and admiring the appearance of the ship—the neat way in which she was rigged ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... for some time. Then their opponents lost a ball and displayed no particular diligence in attempting to find it. Berenice sat down upon a plank seat. ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hauled below, but to and fro I saw the dead men glide, With never a plank their bones to tow, As the slippery seas they ride. While the bale-star burned where the mists swayed low They clasped each hand to hand, And swore an oath by the winds that blow— They swore by the sea ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... as we can make out here, the enemy have Muroy surrounded at Winchester, and Tyler at Martinsburg. If they could hold out a few days, could you help them? If the head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg and the tail of it on the plank-road between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the animal must be very slim somewhere; could ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... that some ordeal lay before him; but no one would tell him in what it consisted. He was led now into an outer room by two solemn brothers. Through the plank partition he could hear the murmur of many voices from the assembly within. Once or twice he caught the sound of his own name, and he knew that they were discussing his candidacy. Then there entered an inner guard with a green and gold sash ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... is a tough plank about two feet wide and from six to twenty feet long, usually made of the bread-fruit-tree. Armed with these, a party of tall, muscular natives swim out to the first line of breakers, and, watching their chance to duck under this, make their ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... of their own accord, we were released and taken into the city, and to the Table of the Blest. The whole of this city is built of gold, and the enclosing wall of emerald. It has seven gates, each made of a single cinnamon plank. The foundations of the houses, and all ground inside the wall, are ivory; temples are built of beryl, and each contains an altar of one amethyst block, on which they offer hecatombs. Round the city flows a river of the finest perfume, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... house past the poplar. First there was a plank bridge across a grass-grown ditch; then a tiny patch of garden; then a humble whitewashed cottage with a small leaded casement window on each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all the residence ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... his life cease in a gurgle of terror. But he clung on, and, though no comfort came, still clung, while vague memories of long-ago shipwrecks, and stories told in his youth of men, women, and children tossing for hours on a drifting plank, flashed through his benumbed brain, and lent their horror to his own sensations of apprehension ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... cutlasses & pistols, and firing off several small arms, the bullets of which stuck in her beam. It was some time before we perceived that she leaked, being all thunder struck; but when the Master stepped over the side to examine her, he put his foot on a plank that was started, and all this time the water had been pouring in. We immediately brought all our guns on the other side to give her a heel, & sent the boat ashore for the Doctor, a man having been hurt by the lightning. When we got her on a heel, we tried ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... the plank ashore, and another strand of the rope went at that time. I thought it was but one of another turn of the line, however. Five minutes more of painful sawing and straining and I felt another strand give way. That made three, and now one of the two turns of line that held my arms could have but ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... out of the canal, our Indians begin to pole us along, thrusting their long poles to the bottom of the shallow lake, and walking on two narrow planks which extend along the sides of the canoe from the prow to the middle point. Four walk on each plank, each man throwing up his pole as he gets to the end, and running back up the middle to begin again at the prow. The dexterity with which they swing the poles about, and keep them out of each other's way, is wonderful; and, as seen ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... you something that I rarely exhibit; I will hold the whole of the Baroni family with my two hands;' and hereupon addressing some stout-looking fellows among his audience, he begged them to come forward and hold each end of a plank that was leaning against the wall, one which had not been required for the quickly-constructed stage. This they did with some diffidence, and with that air of constraint characteristic of those who have been summoned from a ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... We see in the one matchless wisdom—profound decision—unfailing resource—a happy contentment as unfeigned as it is natural. On the other hand, we see temerity allied with cowardice—a man seeking wisdom on a watery plank, when every footmark may serve him for a funeral effigy; political duplicity arising from his confined generalization of facts; a desire to do right, but checked by accident and cunning—everywhere ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... the state—of a faction of the best, which would cleave the state to the centre, which would resist with the zealot's fire unto blood and desperation the unholy innovation—that would stand on the last plank of the wrecked order, and wade through seas of slaughter to restore it; the prospect of untried political innovation, under such circumstances, did not present itself to this Poet's imagination in a form so absolutely alluring, as it might have done to a philosopher of a less rigidly inductive, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... Cadiz. Nelson had given his last orders. At his mainmast head was flying, fast belayed, the signal, "Engage the enemy more closely." Nelson himself walked quietly to and fro on the little patch of clear plank, scarcely seven yards long, on the quarter-deck of the Victory, whence he could command the whole ship, and he wore the familiar threadbare frock uniform coat, bearing on the left breast four tarnished and lack-lustre stars. ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... me, an' tell me to tek keer on 'im long ez he lived. I kyar'd 'im 'way off de battlefiel' out de way o' de balls, an' I laid 'im down onder a big tree till I could git somebody to ketch de sorrel for me. He wuz cotched arfter a while, an' I hed some money, so I got some pine plank an' made a coffin dat evenin', an' wrapt Marse Chan's body up in de fleg, an' put 'im in de coffin; but I didn' nail de top on strong, 'cause I knowed ole missis wan' see 'im; an' I got a' ambulance an' set out for home dat night. We reached dyar de ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... that summer, but I was obligin' Jim that evenin' muckin' out his pig-pen. I seed a stranger come traipsin' over the bridge agin' Wickenden's door-stones. 'Twadn't the new County Council bridge with the handrail. They hadn't given it in for a public right o' way then. 'Twas just a bit o' lathy old plank which Jim had throwed acrost the brook for his own conveniences. The man wasn't drunk—only a little concerned in liquor, like—an' his back was a mask where he'd slipped in the muck comin' along. He went up the bricks past Jim's mother, which was feedin' the ducks, an' set ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... early civic life was very crude. Even the fire department, which was by far the most efficient, was, as has been indicated, more occupied with politics, rivalry, and fun, than with its proper function. The plank roads were good as long as they remained unworn, but they soon showed many holes, large and small, jagged, splintered, ugly holes going down into the depths of the mud. Many of these had been mended by private ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... thousand Fonsecas—ten thousand novices, ere thou lose, by the strength of a hair, thy hold over the senses and soul of the licentious Philip! At whatever hazard, save thy power; for with it are bound, as mariners to a plank, the hopes of those who ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I who speak, White, stiff, the face one blank: The blue shade came to her cheek Before they nailed the plank, For she had been ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... his grasp relaxed, and he fell backward down into the water, but was brought out alive. In another instance a spanner fell a distance of 300 feet, knocked off a man's cap, and broke its way through a four-inch plank. Again, another spanner fell from a great height, actually tearing off a man's clothes, from his waistcoat to his ankle, but leaving him uninjured. On another occasion a staging with a number of workmen thereon gave way. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... of a sort which recalls that soul-harrowing legend of the man hung up in an iron cage above a yawning precipice, from under whose madly shifting feet one plank after another is withdrawn from the cage's bottom, till no spot is left for him to stand on; and ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... perhaps, days, until some herdsman passed by; and he began to shout wildly in the hopes of attracting attention. To his great joy, his shout was answered, and Count Larinski climbed up the other side of the gorge, carrying a plank, torn from a fence he passed on his way. By means of this, he bridged the gorge, and rescued the father of Antoinette, and naturally, he had to accompany him to the hotel, and stay to dinner. As we have said, Count Larinski was a very handsome man; tall, broad-shouldered, with strange green eyes ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... made, Christy looked with intense interest to ascertain the effect of this shot. As soon as the smoke blew away, he saw that the shot had passed obliquely into the boat, striking the stern-board just behind Major Pierson, and splitting off the plank near the water-line. ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... white from fence to fence with beauty,—despair of the farmer, but delight of the cottagers,—hurried across the pasture beyond, skirting the little knoll on which the cow happened this morning to be feeding, crossed the brook on a plank, and ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... and properly connected to the keel, and all her wales and stringers bolted-to; she was therefore so far advanced that the next thing in order was to lay her planking. This planking, it may be mentioned, was of oak throughout, arranged to be laid on in two thicknesses, each plank of the outer skin overlaying a joint between two planks in the skin beneath it; and every plank had already been roughly cut to shape and carefully marked. All, therefore, that was now required was to complete the trimming of each plank and fix it in position. The inner layer of ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... our hands went now and again to the pistols we carried. For, just think of it—there we were at nine o'clock of a dark night, in a thick wood, with the trees making ghosts about us, and the path as narrow as a ship's plank, and no knowledge who walked the woods with us, nor any true reckoning of our circumstance. What man wouldn't have held his tongue at such a time, or argued with himself that it might end badly, and he never see the sun again? Not Jasper Begg, as ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... another way of return, over a small bridge, which in fact spanned the very water-course which ran through her glen; but being arrived at this bridge, to her surprise she found it broken down. It was only a single plank, and the wood had rotted and given way. The brook was too wide and deep in that place to permit her to cross it, and the consequence was, that she must needs go round more than a mile; and, what added to her embarrassment, the ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... had many a merry song and many a witty remark, and many a laugh about nothing on that night. As it is highly imprudent to sleep in the open air in Borneo, at ten o'clock we broke up and went to repose in the boats under the spread awnings. Just as we were selecting the softest plank we could find for a bed, we had an alarm which might have been attended with fatal consequences. I omitted to mention that when we rose to part and go into the boats, one of the party threw a lighted brand out of the fire at the legs of another; ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... the people are cleaner than might be supposed after taking into consideration the dirtiness of the clothes and persons of those who inhabit them. They are as a rule substantial thatched cottages with plank or stone walls, and raised on a plinth some 2 to 3 ft. from the ground. The only window is a small opening on one side of the house, which admits but a dim light into the smoke-begrimed interior. The beams are so low that it is impossible for a person of ordinary stature to stand erect ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... bonfire. For a moment he half yielded to a temptation to try to slip along the river-shore, close in under the willows. But when he raised himself to peer out he saw that an attempt of this kind would be liable to failure. At the same moment he saw a rough-hewn plank lying beneath him, lodged against some willows. The end of the plank extended in almost to a point beneath him. Quick as a flash he saw where a desperate chance invited him. Then he tied his gun in an oilskin bag and ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... Rathskeller is the "admiral's table," said to be made from a plank of the ship of the last Admiral of Luebeck, who flourished in 1570; and even more interesting than the Rathskeller is the Schiffergesellschaft, with its strange motto and its ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... old-fashioned rocking Concord coaches, drawn by four horses. We soon left the snow-clad hills of Delaware County behind, and dropped down into the milder climate of Ulster, where no snow was to be seen. About three in the afternoon the stage put me down at Terry's Tavern on the "plank-road" in Olive. I inquired the way to Dr. Hull's and found the walk of about a mile an agreeable change. The doctor and his wife welcomed me cordially. They were old friends of my family. I spent a day with them, riding about with the doctor on his ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... group of officers sat in a roomy dug-out. Major Kemp was there, with his head upon the plank table, fast asleep. Bobby Little, who had neither eaten nor slept since the previous dawn, was nibbling chocolate, and shaking as if with ague. He had gone through a good deal. Waddell sat opposite to him, stolidly devouring bully-beef out of a tin with his fingers. Ayling reclined upon the floor, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... Walnut trees in warmer countries, and especially where they are indigenous. There they "sometimes attain prodigious size and great age. An Italian architect mentions having seen at St. Nicholas, in Lorraine, a single plank of the wood of the Walnut, 25ft. wide, upon which the Emperor Frederick III. had given a sumptuous banquet. In the Baidar Valley, near Balaclava, in the Crimea, stands a Walnut tree at least 1000 years old. It ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... dey burnt at night an' on holidays. Dey worked an' made de stuff, an' marster would let dem have de steer-carts an' wagons to carry deir corn an' charcoal to sell it in town. Yes sir, dis wus mighty nice. We had plank houses. Dere wus not but one log house on de plantation. Marster lived in de big house. It had eight porches ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... and dark by the time Sennacherib returned to the old man, and he had to procure a light before his hair could be cut. As he fanned the fire into a flame, a spark flew into his beard and singed it, and he had to sacrifice his beard as well as his hair. On his return to Assyria, Sennacherib found a plank, which he worshipped as an idol, because it was part of the ark which had saved Noah from the deluge. He vowed that he would sacrifice his sons to this idol if he prospered in his next ventures. But his sons heard his vows, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... I could manage for their weight, tying every one with a rope, that they might not drive away. When this was done I went down the ship's side, and pulling them to me, I tied four of them together at both ends as well as I could, in the form of a raft, and laying two or three short pieces of plank upon them crossways, I found I could walk upon it very well, but that it was not able to bear any great weight, the pieces being too light. So I went to work, and with a carpenter's saw I cut a spare topmast into three lengths, and added them to my raft, with a great deal of labour ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... crossing a plank bridge over a stream with a piece of meat in his mouth, when he happened to see his own reflection in the water. He thought it was another dog with a piece of meat twice as big; so he let go his own, and flew at the other dog to get the larger piece. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... heaven,' only half believing its own creed, and, therefore, on tiptoe for miraculous confirmations of it, at the same time that it fiercely persecutes any one who, by attempting innovation or reform, seems about to snatch from weak faith the last plank which keeps it from sinking into the abyss. In describing such an age, the historian lies under this paradoxical disadvantage, that his case is actually too strong for him to state it. If he tells ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... "Nuestra Senora del Carmen", of about two hundred and seventy tons burthen; she was commanded by Marcos Morena, a native of Venice, and had on board forty-three mariners. She was deep laden with steel, iron, wax, pepper, cedar, plank, snuff, rosaries, European bale goods, powder-blue, cinnamon, Romish indulgences, and other species of merchandise. And though this cargo, in our present circumstances was but of little value to us, yet with respect to the Spaniards it was the most considerable ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... him in the sea, God bless him!' answered Cucurullo. 'He had the strength and the long wind of a dolphin. When the squall came upon us we held each other fast, sitting astride of the plank, for it was a very heavy one, and did not sink with us. Then came the rain. Lord, how it rained, Donna Pina! You have never seen ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... between the levee and the cargo-deck of the Belle Julie before he was glad to note that the steamer's lading was all but completed. It was toil of the shrewdest, and he drew breath of blessed relief when the last man staggered up the plank with his burden. The bell was clanging its final summons, and the slowly revolving paddle-wheels were taking the strain from the mooring lines. Being near the bow line Griswold was one of the two who sprang ashore at the mate's bidding to cast off. He was backing ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... applied to very uncomfortable ships in the service, but this metaphor ought to have been reserved for a small high-pressure steamboat in the summer months in America; the sun darting his fierce rays down upon the roof above you, which is only half-inch plank, and rendering it so hot that you quickly remove your hand if, by chance, you put it there; the deck beneath your feet so heated by the furnaces below that you cannot walk with slippers; you are panting and exhausted between these ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... squeezed into a sort of little box in shape like a bellows. The original color of coach and running-gear was an insoluble enigma. Two leather curtains, very difficult to adjust in spite of their long service, were supposed to protect the occupants from cold and rain. The driver, perched on a plank seat like those of the worst Parisian "coucous," shared in the conversation by reason of his position between his victims, biped and quadruped. The equipage presented various fantastic resemblances to decrepit old men who have gone through a goodly number of catarrhs and apoplexies ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... him in, a haggard, broad-shouldered man with a back like a sloping plank of wood. He wore corporal's stripes. He saluted and stood at ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... A plank had been thrown from one boat to the other to make easy communication, and the crew of our boat, with the exception of the two left always on guard, had crossed over. They had cleared a space for dancing, and lighted it by great pine-knots cut from the forest close by. Yorke, set high on a pile ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... to do that," continued Floriani, without heeding the interruption, "he had simply to construct a bridge, a plank or a ladder, between the balcony of the kitchen and the ledge of the window, ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... the breast of the river. A part of a kitchen went sailing by. The watchers saw the upper window of a half-submerged house. There was a bed, a cradle, and a sewing-machine open and ready for use. There were pathos and tragedy sufficient for a lifetime. There was a touch of humor too, for on a long plank, at either end, sat a rat and a great black cat. They watched each other instinctively, and were unconscious of the danger ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... bulky frame with a sigh, for he was somewhat weak and dispirited—the band with which he hunted having been at the starving-point for some days. Winklemann clothed himself in a wolf-skin, to which the ears and part of the head adhered. A small sledge, which may be described as a long thin plank with one end curled up, was brought to him by a hungry-looking squaw. Four dogs were attached to it with miniature harness made to fit them. When all was ready the hunter flung himself flat on his face at full length ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... fragile line of her profile against the coarse, dark sweater, at the slender grace of her body against that dead, barn-sprinkled background. I could observe her easily without her knowledge, for she was looking up, as we so often used to at twilight, to the old plank high above the sagging mill, where the turkeys fly to roost towards evening, so awkwardly and comically, with a great breathless whirring of wings. I saw her lift her arms to them with a swift, urging gesture, as though ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... scared as he had been, and shaken to his centre, had begun to think again, and when he saw that Steinberg's chance in the enemy's hands was less than nothing, that fact formed as it were the last necessary plank for the raft of safety he desired to construct. He got up from his place, animated by this great idea, and staggering to the helpless Steinberg, fell down beside him and gripped ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... got to du what yu'm told, sharp, an' yu mustn't luke [look] what yu thinks, let 'lone say it, or else yu'll find yourself in chokey [cells] 'fore yu knows where yu are. 'Tis like walking on a six-inch plank, in the Navy, full o' rules an' regylations; an' he won't get fed like he was at home nuther, when us ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... near the foot of the other gangway, which was unguarded. I drew nearer to see what he would do. Presently down the plank came an oldish man—a lieutenant with a heavy moustache and two African ribbons. My young friend ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various
... Battery disappeared in a black cloud of night, just as he knew they would; but when he opened his eyes from the stretcher, they had returned again. It was a most remarkably vivid vision. They kept it up so well. Now the young Doctor and the hospital steward were pretending to carry him down a gang-plank and into an open space; and he saw quite close to him a long line of policemen, and behind them thousands of faces, some of them women's faces—women who pointed at him and then shook their heads and cried, and pressed their hands to their cheeks, still looking at him. ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... a thinkin'. Can't we get George Washington Dixon to walk a plank for us? That would draw crowds, you know; and then every feller almost that we got in here would take ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... you made a small mistake. Your mother's father was only a general; but his father was a full admiral of the red,—for he lived before that grade was abolished—and as good an officer as ever trod a plank. He was my mother's brother, and both Sir Gervaise and myself served long under his orders. He was a sailor of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... best way to drive the hours before you four-in-hand, is to select a soft plank on the gun-deck, and go to sleep. A fine specific, which seldom fails, unless, to be sure, you have been sleeping all the twenty-four ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Plate Glass, is made of thick board or plank, with the broad side of the board at right angles to the surface of the glass. A rabbet is made for the reception of the glass, and four strips of strap iron, overlapping both the glass, and the wood, and screwed to the wood, keep ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... Numb'ring its light leaps! Yet so deep imprest 20 Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes I never shut amid the sunny blaze, But strait, with all their tints, thy waters rise, The crossing plank, and margin's willowy maze, And bedded sand, that, vein'd with various dyes, 25 Gleam'd thro' thy bright transparence to the gaze— Ah! fair tho' faint those forms of memory seem Like Heaven's bright bow ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and left me, Gipson saw they were going to let me drown, and ran to my assistance. He got on one of the large slabs, and came in to where I had gone down. I was still making some commotion in the water, and, guessing about where I was, he pushed a plank down that came just under my left arm. I knew what it was, and pressed it to my side. He then bore on the other end and brought me to the surface. He held on thus till others came and helped me upon the slab. As soon as I got breath a few times I appeared to be all right, and ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... horses to cross the Tourmalet on the next day, and devoted the remainder of a lovely afternoon to the ascent of Mont L'Heris—a mountain that supplies the botanist with treasures almost inexhaustible. Crossing the Adour by a rude bridge of only one plank, and traversing some fields, filled with labourers busily employed in getting in their harvest of Indian corn, I reached the pretty little village of Aste, which lies buried in a deep gorge, at the south-eastern base of the ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... part of it which is under the negative electrode, is to relax, expand and weaken; while that of the rear end, under the positive electrode, is to contract and strengthen. A moving ship disperses the waters at its bow, but draws them in at its stern. The bullet shot from a gun, in passing through a plank, leaves the perforation closed where it enters in, but wide open where it comes out. Thus, in physics, the advance end of a moving body tends to disperse the element through which it is passing, while the rear end tends to its contraction. Analogous to this are the mechanical ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... he arrived at Lisbon, after being wrecked in a sea fight that began off Cape St. Vincent, and escaping to land on a plank. In Portugal he married Felipa Moniz de Perestrello, daughter of Bartollomeu Perestrello, a captain in the service of Prince Henry, called the Navigator, one of the early colonists and the first governor of Porto Santo, an island off Madeira. ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... room, sometimes of half a dozen, and varying in character from a mere shanty to a well-appointed cottage. Perhaps the greater number of these craft are afloat in the river, and moored to the bank, with a gang-plank running to shore; others are "beached," having found a comfortable nook in some higher stage of water, and been fastened there, propped level with timbers and driftwood. Among the houseboat folk are young working couples starting out in life, and hoping ultimately ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... could wish to see. And looking at the affair from his point of view, not many people will blame him. It is delightful, of course, to have a pirate chief for father; but what if he makes you walk the plank? ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson |
