"Forked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... different classes of knights. The "bachelor," who bore a forked pennon, was below the "knight-banneret," who alone had the right to carry the square banner. The banneret was required to have a certain estate, and to be able to bring into the field a certain number of lances, i.e., inferior knights with their men-at-arms and foot-soldiers. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... sunlight or moonlight its splintered grey crest is the one object which, in spite of wapiti and bighorn, skunk and grizzly, unfailingly arrests the eyes. From it come all storms of snow and wind, and the forked lightnings play round its head like a glory. It is one of the noblest of mountains, but in one's imagination it grows to be much more than a mountain. It becomes invested with a personality. In its caverns and abysses one comes to fancy that it generates and chains the ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... to move, as he watched the strangest combat that he had ever seen going on beneath him. A combat in which neither of the combatants seemed desirous of assuming the aggressive. Lying in a close coil, with its head rising from the center, its forked tongue darting in and out, and emitting every now and then an angry hiss, the snake, swaying its head from side to side, closely followed in its movements those of the dog, which circled about it barking furiously, and apparently watching ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... those of the largest size, are rigged, so as to tack about. These have a short but pretty stout mast, which steps on a kind of roller that is fixed to the deck near the fore-part. It is made to lean or incline very much forward; the head is forked; on the two points of which the yard rests, as on two pivots, by means of two strong cleats of wood secured to each side of the yard, at about one-third its length from the tack or heel, which, when under ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... held in place by a notched piece of bone. The breech-pin was gone, and a piece of stone fixed in the stock filled its place. The breech of the stock was but little larger than the other part, and seemed very awkwardly contrived. A forked stick is carried to form a rest, that ensures the accuracy of aim. Powder and lead are so expensive that great economy is shown in their use. I was told these natives were excellent marksmen, and rarely missed a shot. When within proper distance of ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... becoming shades of neckwear or hosiery. In all that time I was never disturbed by the number and diversity of spoons and forks beside my plate at the dinner-table. Many a noble meal I ate as I sat upon a log supported in forked stakes, and many a big thought did I glean from the talk of loggers about me in their picturesque costumes. In the evening I sat upon a great log in front of the cabin or a friendly stump, and forgot such things as hammocks ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... staggered for a moment and subsided in the dust. The two Baquaines soon made their appearance, and seemed delighted at my success. Having kindled a fire, they cut out steaks, which they roasted on the embers; I also cooked a steak for myself, spitting it upon a forked branch, the other end of which I sharpened with my knife ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... the old time derived importance chiefly from the road which, leading thence westwardly through Hejr Yemameh, brought up, after many devious stretches across waterless wastes of sand, at El Derayeh, a tented capital of the Bedouins, and there forked, one branch going to Medina, the other to Mecca. In other words, El Katif was to Mecca on the east the gate Jeddo was to it ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... a larger loop. The setting of this snare was slightly different from the setting of the rabbit snares, for instead of a tossing pole the snare was secured to the middle of a clog, or stout stick about two inches in diameter and four feet long. The ends of this clog were then supported upon two forked sticks in such manner that the snare hung downward where it was secured in position by tying the loop to a light switch thrust into the snow at either side. The snare was set only a foot or two from the stuffed rabbit skin and sticks and brush so arranged that in ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... hurling hot treacle, water, and stones, with whistling clubs of hard wood, with wax and heavy mallets, with clubs of wood having iron spikes, with plough-poles and poisoned darts, with long syringes for pouring warm treacle and planks of cane, with battle-axes and forked lances with spiked gauntlets, with axes and pointed iron-spikes, with cars having their sides covered with skins of tigers and leopards, with sharp-edged circular planks of wood, with horns, with javelins and various other weapons of attack, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... about one foot below water-level, a hole about one foot square had been cut. A platform about ten feet long by three feet wide, having a fall of about one foot and formed of a number of straight saplings laid parallel with the stream, and supported by a couple of transverse bearers on four stout forked sticks, received the escape from the sluice. At the lower end of the platform was a rough weir of twisted grass, which was continued up each side for about half its length. Water passed with little hindrance through the platform, while jew-fish, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... had set, and loaded with plunder they returned to port. As they left the side of the unfortunate vessel, a shout of exultation escaped them; and soon after, Ada perceived through the gloom a thick smoke ascending from the hatchways, followed quickly by forked flames, which leaped upwards, and rapidly enveloped the masts and lower, rigging. The whole hull was rapidly in a blaze, which lighted up with a lurid glare the two misticoes; the grim visages of their fierce crew, their red caps, and varied-coloured ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... dome rising above the blurred horizon. It was the Mahdi's Tomb, standing in the very heart of Omdurman. From the high ground the field-glass disclosed rows and rows of mud houses, making a dark patch on the brown of the plain. To the left the river, steel-grey in the morning light, forked into two channels, and on the tongue of land between them the gleam of a white building showed among the trees. Before us were the ruins of Khartoum and the confluence of the Blue ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... a long time. The shallow river, full of rapids and shoals, curved and forked and steadily shrank. But although Sacagawea eagerly peered, and murmured to herself, ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... the white men slept beneath the canoe, which was turned half over, with its upper gunwale resting on a couple of short, but stout, forked sticks; and, acting upon Donald's insistent advice, they kept watch by turn, two hours at a time, during the night. Even "Tummas" was so thoroughly impressed with a sense of responsibility, that his two hours of watchfulness were passed in a nervous tremble and with hardly ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... refinement or character. And four years were long enough to mar a young girl's life. What would she be like? What had time made of her? The curiosity—we will not call it passion—was overpowering. Pure "love" was seldom recognized as such by the age. When the carriage reached a spot where two roads forked, leading to ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... an Alligator.] There is a Creature here called Kobbera guion, resembling an Alligator. The biggest may be five or six foot long, speckled black and white. He lives most upon the Land but will take the water and dive under it: hath a long blew forked tongue like a sting, which he puts forth and hisseth and gapeth, but doth not bite nor sting, tho the appearance of him would scare those that knew not what he was. He is not afraid of people, but will ly gaping and hissing at them in the way, and will scarce stir out of it. He will come and eat ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... the kindred of the Wolf to these Mountains of the World; and they were in a pass in the stony maze and the utter wilderness of the Mountains, and the foe was behind them in numbers not to be borne up against. And so it befell that the pass forked, and there were two ways before our Folk; and one part of them would take the way to the north and the other the way to the south; and they could not agree which way the whole Folk should take. So they sundered into two companies, and one took one ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... the Karaim's Hill, in the hut which clung closely to its sandy side, there burned a small, yellow light. Over it, through the forked branches of the willow tree, shone many small stars, and further on, over the great fields, lay the gray shadows of ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... Brethren's journey, but faith and the Christian's joy, which no man taketh from him, met and surmounted them. "Three and a half miles beyond, the road forked.... We took the right hand road but found no water for ten miles. It grew late and we had to drive five miles into the night to find a stoppingplace." Two of the Brethren went ahead "to seek out the road" through the darkened wilderness. There were rough hills in ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... whose office was other than that of summoning to prayer, and that one was a watch-tower only: from first to last, while the palaces of the other cities of Italy were lifted into sullen fortitudes of rampart, and fringed with forked battlements for the javelin and the bow, the sands of Venice never sank under the weight of a war tower, and her roof terraces were wreathed with Arabian imagery, of golden globes suspended on the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... a forked berd, In motteleye and hye on horse he sat, Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bever hat, His boots clasped faire and fetisly; His resons he spak ful solempnely, Sounynge alway thencrees ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... woods. Walking one day by the sea, he picked up the backbone of a great fish, and from it he invented the saw. Seeing how a certain bird carved holes in the trunks of trees, he learned how to make and use the chisel. Then he invented the wheel which potters use in molding clay; and he made of a forked stick the first pair of compasses for drawing circles; and he studied out many ...
— Old Greek Stories • James Baldwin
... lilacs stood about it and nodded purple-coroneted heads across its one chimney. Their scent bore down all other scents like a strong personality and there was no choice but to think the thoughts of the lilac. Two laburnums, forked and huge of trunk, fingered the roof with their lower branches and dripped gold on it. The upper branches sprang ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... first took him. I oft have heard him say, how he admired Men of your large profession, that could speak To every cause, and things mere contraries, Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law; That, with most quick agility, could turn, And [re-] return; [could] make knots, and undo them; Give forked counsel; take provoking gold On either hand, and put it up: these men, He knew, would thrive with their humility. And, for his part, he thought he should be blest To have his heir of such a suffering spirit, ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... "I shall get on twice as fast if you leave me the place to myself." So, knowing that she meant what she said, Thomas went out and set to work in the garden, for, of course, that must be made trim, too, for the little five-year-old grandchild. He forked over the earth in all the beds, tied up to a stick every daffodil that did not stand perfectly upright by itself, trimmed the sweetbriar hedge, ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... fiery train along.— O Paris, Paris, once my seat of triumph, But now the scene of all thy king's misfortunes; Ungrateful, perjured, and disloyal town, Which by my royal presence I have warmed So long, that now the serpent hisses out, And shakes his forked tongue at ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... good bacon tasted when you broiled it yourself on a forked stick Frontispiece Laura took the new cousin up to her room 26 Cutting the wiry brown stems in the fern-filled glade. 140 "I'm getting dinner all by ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... mates! About another two minutes and he'll be done. Now then," the speaker added, "I don't want to spoil him," and raking out the heaving reptile, he forked it to the door and tossed it a few yards away into the clearing. "All together!" he shouted. "Fair play! Knives out. Who's for ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... roared and rattled, as if it began and ended close beside them. Forked lightnings zigzagged amidst the rigging. Sheet lightning enwrapped those two in a luminous atmosphere, revealing faces that were pale with passion, lips that trembled with emotion. There were but scant opportunity for speech, and neither of these two felt the need of words. To be together, ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... all my mental faculties, seriously to attend to a revelation from God. The idea suggested in these words is beyond all expression awfully sublime. Yea, not even the bursting of Vesuvius, not the aurora-borealis, not the forked lightning, not the tremendous earthquake, no, nor yet the greatest phenomenon in nature, of which the human mind can conceive, can afford such ideas of the truly sublime, as the truth, if it ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... sky was observed by several people between five and six o'clock in the evening of Friday the 12th of this month. It was noticed in the north-west, and appeared as if a ray of forked lightning had been stationary in that quarter of the sky for about fifteen minutes, which was the time it was visible. It was not to be discerned, however, after the sun had quitted ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... and sometimes lives were sacrificed in his efforts to capture or to kill this fierce wild beast. Sometimes the animal was caught in a trap which was nothing less than a hut of logs with a single entrance. In the roof of the hut heavy beams would be placed on a forked stick. The bait—a young lamb or kid—would be tied beneath the beams. The moment the bait was touched, down would come the heavy timber—smash—on the ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... it's a thick 'un," growled old Dick; "and if I was in command o' this here expedition, I should give orders for all the Jacks to out cutlashes and cut the fog in pieces, while the sogers and marines forked it ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... hatched. In the third stage, after its return from the sea to its native river, it is called a "grilse," and weighs from three to six pounds. It can be distinguished from a salmon, even of the same size, by its forked tail (that of the salmon being square) and the slight adhesion of the scales. The grilse is wonderfully active and spirited, and will often give as much play as a salmon of three times his size. After the second visit of the fish to the sea he returns a salmon, mature, brilliant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... a forked stick, with one prong for the beam and the other for the scratcher; and the plow boy and his sleepy ox had no choice of prongs to hitch to. It was all the same to Adam whether "Buck" was yoked to the beam or the scratcher. But some noble Cincinnatus dreamed ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... "He's doubled back," which was exactly what he did do, though Caleb gave no sign. Yan looked back on the trail and found where the new one had forked. Guy gave no heed to the ground once he knew the general directions. He ran ahead (toward Y), so did Sam, but Guy glanced back to Yan on the trail to make sure ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... our arrival on the scene of action being executed upon the dahlias, we found the commander of the devils awaiting us, though in his hands was no forked instrument of dentistry, but in one he held a large slice of rye bread thickly spread with butter, and the other was disarmed by a ripe red apple. As we drew near he finished a direction to father ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... rod is a rod used by those who pretend to discover water or metals underground. It is commonly made of witch hazel, with forked branches. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... deriving the habit from the fact that primitive man divided the universe into three regions, heaven, earth, and water. Pythagoras, it will be remembered, called three the perfect number; Jove is depicted with three-forked lightning; Neptune bears a trident; Pluto has his three-headed dog. Again, there are three Fates, three Furies, three Graces and three Muses. It is natural, then, to find the numeral so often employed in the signs of inns and taverns. Thus we have the Three Angels, the Three ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... rather indicate a disposition to take away my gun—which I certainly should never have relinquished without a struggle—and so I forked out the dibs, in order to keep the piece! I'm quite positive, however, that the vagabond over-charged me, and I kicked, as was quite natural, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... a gable showed above the trees. The sun, which had been hitherto obscured, now came out, and suddenly—as if by the hand of magic—the whole scene was a brilliant blaze of colour. He had arrived at the end of the avenue, where the path forked; one branch turning sharply round in the direction of a side entrance to the house, whilst the other led with a ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... moral beauty almost vainly straggled to appear through the insignificant features of this admirable woman. Her little eyes, reddened with weeping; her pinched-up nose, blooming at the point; her thin lips, probably accustomed to sarcasm; her cheeks, with a leaded citron hue; her hair that forked up in unmanageable curls—all combined to obscure the exquisite expression of respect and sympathy, perhaps already of love, sparkling from her kindled soul, that could just be made out by an attentive eye. At length, however, she became for ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... be a dark night, and, seeing that there was no serious risk after all, he prolonged his journey with her so far as to the junction at which the branch line to Warborne forked off. Here it was necessary to wait a few minutes, before either he could go back or she could go on. They wandered outside the station doorway into the gloom of the road, and there agreed ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... but the extent of the mountain chain, and the phantasmal outlines of volcanic peaks, absorb the incongruities grafted upon them. Valerian and violet border the track between swarthy pines with grey mosses hanging down like silver beards from forked branches, and sudden mists shroud the landscape in vaporous folds, torn to shreds by gusts of wind, to melt away into the blue sky, suddenly unveiled in dazzling glimpses between the surging clouds. A long flight of mossy ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... fire, because Kreynborg in the helicopter searched the hills for a glow of light. But this day he came searching for them by day. Thorn had speared a fish for Sylva with a stick he had sharpened by rubbing it on a crumbling rock. He was working discouragedly on a little contrivance made out of a forked stick and the elastic from his parachute-pack. He was haggard and worn and desperate. Sylva was beginning to look like a hunted ...
— Invasion • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... went on together; Beneath their feet did the grass wither; Across the heaven high overhead Dark misty clouds floated and fled; 210 And in their bosom was the thunder, And angry lightnings flashed out under, Forked and red and menacing; Far off the wind was muttering; It seemed to tell, not understood, Strange ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... Mechanically her eyes took in the little hut, crude, but rainproof at least—branches heaped across two forked limbs for a roof; the trunk of a big tree for the rear wall; branches thrust upright into the ground for the sides—the whole a little triangular shaped affair. The fire blazed in front just within shelter at the entrance; and beside it was ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... "My forked friend, you may as well collapse. You are not sufficiently comprehensive to embrace me. I am myself no tyro at ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... trailing its hideous length on the ground behind, the body of a great dragon. It was no wonder that, with such a drag at his heels, the horse could make but slow progress, notwithstanding his evident dismay. The horrid, serpent-like head, with its black tongue, forked with red, hanging out of its jaws, dangled against the horse's side. Its neck was covered with long blue hair, its sides with scales of green and gold. Its back was of corrugated skin, of a purple hue. Its belly was similar in nature, but its colour was leaden, dashed with ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... say you would, and, I tell you, she is a respectable woman—a woman of virtue. The Baron has forked out handsomely." ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... whole and entire: The coals are us'd by painters, to draw with like those of Sallow: Lastly, for riding switches, and divinatory rods for the detecting and finding out of minerals; (at least, if that tradition be no imposture) is very wonderful; by whatsoever occult virtue, the forked-stick (so cut, and skilfully held) becomes impregnated with those invisible steams and exhalations; as by its spontaneous bending from an horizontal posture, to discover not only mines, and subterraneous ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... woman's senseless form. As they descended And now were in mid-air, there came the sound Of the bell striking midnight, and forthwith In a moment, like a serpent winged with fire, There rose from wall to wall a sheet of flame, Which in one instant mounted to the roof With forked red tongues. Then every casement teemed With strange armed men, who leapt into the flames And perished. Those who, maimed and burnt, escaped, Ere they could gain their feet, a little band Of citizens, who sprang from ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... small-arms, mingled with shouts of triumph or defiance, burst forth, and the ominous cloud lowering more darkly, seemed peopled by those in deadly strife. An English cheer pealed high above all other sounds; a second followed; the mass was rent asunder, and like the forked lightning from a thunder-cloud, Ramsey rode forth at the head of his battery, the horses bounding madly, while the guns sprang behind them like things of no weight; the gunners leaped to their places, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... from his gardening, startled by the sudden peal of thunder. Absorbed in his task, he had not noticed the gathering storm. The sky was black with clouds, riven even while he looked with a vivid flash of forked lightning. The ground beneath his feet seemed almost to shake beneath that second peal of thunder. In the stillness that followed he heard the cry of a woman in distress. He threw down his spade and raced to the other side of the garden. About twenty yards from the shore, Jeanne, in a small ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... him when he figgered wheer tuh dig dat well. Sho' nuf old Shep got hisse'f uh prime ellum stick fum ah good sized branch dat was forked. First he ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... glass of sugar and water, a drop of which we held to his bill. After turning his head attentively, like a bird who knew what he was about and didn't mean to be chaffed, he briskly put out a long, flexible tongue, slightly forked at the end, and licked off the comfortable beverage with great relish. Immediately he was pronounced out of danger by the small humane society which had undertaken the charge of his restoration, and we began to cast about for getting ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of Ka-te-qua forked? Has she not said that no warrior need hunt the deer for the young pale-faces? With her they shall grow like hickory saplings, towering with strength. The deer shall not be more fleet than they, nor the songs of the birds more glad. The sun ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... what has already something else in it. Here and there are small patches prepared, I suppose, for maize. They have a method of planting the vine, which I have not seen before. At intervals of about eight feet they plant from two to six plants of vine in a cluster At each cluster they fix a forked staff, the plane of the prongs of the fork at a right angle with the row of vines. Athwart these prongs they lash another staff, like a handspike, about eight feet long, horizontally, seven or eight feet from the ground. Of course, it crosses the rows at right angles. The vines are brought ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... saying, 'There boys! See what comes of lying!' asked no more questions; for, as he always kept his word, he was afraid he might have to do the same to them all; and he did not like boiled boys. He like to eat them crisp, as radishes, whether forked or not, ought to be eaten. He then sat down, and asked his wife if his supper was ready. She looked into the pot, and, throwing the boy out with the ladle, as if he had been a black-beetle that had tumbled in and had had the worst of it, ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... the reputation of being an idle and ignorant youth, given to chicken-thieving, and, like his father, extremely superstitious. Both father and sons believed in witchcraft, and they frequently "divined" the presence of water by a forked stick or hazel rod. Orlando Sanders of Palmyra, a well-preserved gentleman of over eighty, tells us that the Smith family worked for his father and for himself. He gives them the credit of being good workers, but declares that they could save no money. He ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... forked tongue, Yellow Bird. You are not a Piegan buck of the great Blackfoot nation; you are a woman. Your fathers killed men; you are afraid to kill cattle." Smith turned from ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... to 86, we have a much elongated body, at first (fig. 87) applied for its whole length to the nuclear membrane, but later lying along one side of a middle piece (m), as shown in figure 89, and in a later stage in figures 90 to 92. The mature spermatozoon with its forked anterior end ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis (Part 1 of 2) • Nettie Maria Stevens
... might well suggest to early superstition the notion of a divine agency—a few large drops broke heavily among the boughs that half overhung their path, and then, swift and intolerably bright, the forked lightning darted across their very eyes, and was swallowed up by ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... servant and the Indians who aided at the work. The trunk of a tree, with two hollowed stones, were the fundamental pieces of the machine. These rings of stone were secured to the trunk with vines. Two forked poles, whose extremities rest at each side of the excavation, and the forked sticks tied up to the superior ring embracing it, served as arc-boutant in the direction where the greatest force was to be applied. A tree-trunk, with its fork, served as a fulcrum ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... what we found best in handling trees. In the meadow where we planted honey locust, and on a rocky knoll with oaks, the first year we applied a shovelful of night soil and a light mulch of leaf compost. The second summer we mowed, raked, and forked the hay to the tree in a wide circle. It was amazing the life activity that was created under this mulch by the next spring. Mice were controlled by pulling the mulch 3 inches from the tree in early fall and with poisoned wheat ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... is mixed in a long, deep vat with cubic gallons of hot water, and the sheep are caught by their hind legs and flung into the compound. After being thoroughly ducked by means of a forked pole in the hands of a gentleman detailed for that purpose, they are allowed to clamber up an incline into a corral and dry or die, as the state of their constitutions may decree. If you ever caught an able-bodied, two-year-old mutton by the hind legs and felt the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... quitted his own country, he seems to think himself out of the reach of the critics, and, in delineating a Frenchman, at liberty to depart from nature, and sport in the fairy regions of caricature. Were these Gallic soldiers naked, each of them would appear like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: so forlorn! that to any thick sight he would be invisible. To see this miserable woe-begone refuse of the army, who look like a group detached from the main body and put on the sick list, embarking to conquer a neighbouring kingdom, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... marched southward on the Sandtown road to Cheney's farm, near the crossing of Olley's Creek, the next in the series of parallel valleys trending to the southwest. Cheney's was also at the crossing of the lower road from Marietta to Powder Springs village, which forked near Kolb's farm, the northern branch being that on which Schofield was advancing with Hascall's division. But Hood's corps was also upon this road, having marched in the night from the extreme right ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... human homes, that pathetic fascination for the neighbourhood of man, which so long refused to accept rebuff. With ——, man is whole as the marble, founded as the rock, as broad and general as the casing air. Without ——, unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. The —— standard is the Labarum of modern civilisation. By this sign shall we conquer. Since that night by the Murray, methinks each pair of —— I see hanging in front of a draper's shop seems to bear aright, IN HOC SIGNO VINCES! ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the second day of their resumed voyage they arrived at a point where the river forked, the stream on their right hand being almost as important as the other; but they decided that the stream on their left was the main stream, and therefore followed it. Although they knew it not at the moment, this decision of theirs to follow the left instead of the right stream was ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... and kept his eyes with their heavy lids steadily bent upon the head of the animal. To all the notary's questions, he replied only by monosyllables, passing his fingers every now and then through his bushy brown locks, and twining them in his forked beard, a sure indication with him of preoccupation and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... notion. An' I bet Mr. Bethune hain't abuzzin' 'round up an' down this yere crick fer nawthin'. Law sakes, child, when I tuk a notion to take Watts, come a supper time I wusn't no more a mind to git married than yo' be, an', by cracky! come moonrise me an' Watts had forked one o' pa's mewels with nothin' on but a rope halter, an' wus headin' down the branch with pa an' my brother Lafe a-cuttin' through the lau'ls with their rifle-guns fer to head ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... 23d the lava still ran, but on the 24th it ceased; but smoke continued. On the 25th there rose a vast column of black smoke, giving out much forked lightning with thunder, in a sky quite clear except for the smoke of the volcano. On the 26th smoke continued, but on the 27th the eruption came ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... the 15th of April, off Moron Moreno. The natives who came off to the ships were friendly, but appeared to be a degraded race, their wigwams being of the roughest description, consisting merely of skins thrown over a pole supported on forked sticks. Their boats or balsas were looked upon as ingenious contrivances. They were formed of two large inflated skins, secured together by sinews. On these they put to sea, and caught numbers of fish, with which they paid their tribute to the Spaniards, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... a vengeance so enormous, That these islands of Egerius Would not hold a single mortal Who should not appease the thirst, The insatiable longing That I have for blood. The lightning, When it bursts its prison portals, Warns us in a voice of thunder, And then 'twixt dark smoke and forked Fires that take the shape of serpents, Fills the trembling air with horror. I, too, gave that thunder voice, So that all men heard the promise, But the lightning bolt was wanting. Yes, ah me! it proved abortive, And before it touched the earth Was by dallying winds made sport ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... again. Dream I, or also to the Spring belong Increase of Genius, and new pow'rs of song? Spring gives them, and, how strange soere it seem, Impels me now to some harmonious theme. Castalia's fountain and the forked hill1 By day, by night, my raptur'd fancy fill, 10 My bosom burns and heaves, I hear within A sacred sound that prompts me to begin, Lo! Phoebus comes, with his bright hair he blends The radiant laurel wreath; Phoebus descends; I mount, and, undepress'd ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... decomposition. To start the heap, gather up every available substance and make it into a pile with a few wheelbarrows full, or half a cartload, of fresh horse manure, treading the whole down firmly. Fermentation and decomposition will be quickly started. The heap should occasionally be forked over and restacked. Light dressings of lime, mixed in at such times, will ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... gigantic knots, till slowly the reptile's head was thrust forward, with a gentle waving motion, rising from amidst a tuft of leaves; and then, as the gliding of the folds continued, the head descended in a slow, waving, swinging fashion, foot after foot nearer and nearer to Lilla, a forked tongue flashing and playing about the frightful jaws, and the hideous eyes fascinating the poor girl, so that I saw her gradually ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... cat astonished me from the first. I have no reason to believe she had ever seen a snake before, yet by a sort of instinct she seemed to know exactly what she was doing. As the Dryad raised its head, with glittering eyes and forked tongue, Stoffles crouched with both front paws in the air, sparring as I had seen her do sometimes with a large moth. The first round passed so swiftly that mortal eye could hardly see with distinctness what happened. The snake made a dart, and the cat, all ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... of setting suns, nor in the beams of morning stars, nor in the waves of summer seas, but in the human spirit; that sublimity tabernacles not in the palaces of the thunder, walks not on the wings of the wind, rides not on the forked lightning, but that it is the soul which is lifted up there; that it is the soul ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... time with this, or near the end of August, a to me very interesting genus of grasses, Andropogons, or Beard-Grasses, is in its prime. Andropogon furcatus, Forked Beard-Grass, or call it Purple-Fingered Grass; Andropogon scoparius, Purple Wood Grass; and Andropogon (now called Sorghum) nutans, Indian-Grass. The first is a very tall and slender-culmed grass, three to ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... passing soul; and a threatening growl rumbled up from the South. It was the prelude. Two minutes later, rocks, stems, branches, and the minutest fir-needles that flickered against the grey, showed like ink-strokes on tarnished silver as a forked flash, leaped, quivering, from the heart of a blue-black cloud. The report that followed, after scarce five seconds of stillness, was smart, crisp, short as a revolver-shot; and long before a hundred peaks had made an end of flinging back the sound, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... rattle, as of boards and brown paper, overhead, and find that it is the clashing of the huge leaves of a young fan palm, {78a} growing not ten feet from the window. It has no stem as yet; and the lower leaves have to be trimmed off or they would close up the path, so that only the great forked green butts of them are left, bound to each other by natural matting: but overhead they range out nobly in leafstalks ten feet long, and fans full twelve feet broad; and this is but a baby, a three years' old thing. ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... wisps at foot and side, twisted and turned back; from the floor-level to the waist. [443] For lords, 2 beds, outer and inner, hung with hangings, hooks and eyes set on the binding; the valance hanging on a rod (?), four curtains reaching to the ground; these he takes up with a forked rod. [455] The counterpane is laid at the foot, cushions on the sides, tapestry on the floor and sides of the room. [461] The Groom gets fuel, and screens. [463] The Groom keeps the table, trestles, and forms for dinner; and water in a ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... serpents along the masts, rolled themselves round the yards, then, with their forked tongues, came to lick the sides of ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... so far as was needful. He who was lying down drives his muzzle forward, and draws in his ears through his skull, as the snail doth his horns. And his tongue, which erst was united and fit for speech, cleaves itself, and the forked one of the other closes up; and the smoke stops. The soul that had become a brute fled hissing along the valley, and behind him the other speaking spits. Then he turned upon him his new shoulders, and said to the other,[2] "I will that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... almost the exact reproduction in life of the giant plesiosaurs, dinosaurs, and elasmosaurs, whose remains are preserved in the museums on earth. The reptilian bodies of the elasmosaurs, seventy-five feet in length, with the forked tongues, distended jaws and fangs of a snake, were easily taken for the often described but probably mythical sea- serpent, as partially coiled they occasionally raised their heads twelve or fifteen feet. "Man in his natural state," said ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... short time we had gotten through that part of our work, whereupon my father said he would try his luck fishing. So taking a small boat, which he found at "Jack's Landing," placing me in it and then getting in himself, he started for some good place to commence. He fished awhile at the "Forked Gum" without any success; moved to the "Stooping Pine" with a like result. He began to think that it was the wrong moon, and leaving that place he paddled for the "Three Cypresses," where he caught some very fine ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... of his life—he wouldn't even duck down. I swam nearly out of sight, didn't I, Sam? So did Sam. . . . You could climb right up to the top of that tree if you tried. No you couldn't.—Yes I could, it's forked all the way up. . . . The new master wears specs—Old Four-Eyes! and he grins at a fellow. I don't think he's much. . . . How do midges get born? . . . My brother has one with four blades and a thing for poking stones out of a horse's hoof. . . . A horse-hair won't break ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... forward angle, as if for ready speech. But, different as these people are, they are alike in the main features of symmetry and balance; they haven't two sets of lungs and a duplicate stomach, like Centaurs, whom every one found so difficult to deal with; nor do any of them end off in a single forked tail, twisting about on which accounts for the proverbial untrustworthiness of mermaids. Being alike, all human creatures require free space and breathable air; and, being unlike, some of them hanker after the sea, and others cannot watch without longing the imitation ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... early, and was marching along the trail at a rapid gait, at "route step," in any order suitable to the size of the road. Having marched several miles through a well-wooded country, they came to an opening near where the road forked. They turned into the left fork; at that moment, without the least warning, the Cubans leading the march having passed on unmolested, a volley from the Spanish behind a stone fort on top of the hill on ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... forked, one branch making for the pass, the other making for the right, where Pilot Peak loomed close at hand. There was some reason why the trail forked, and as we surveyed we caught the glint of a lake, ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... the arrangement of forked pitman, A G G', bolt, H, screw shanked hook, D, and nuts, F F', or their equivalents, substantially as and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... will not separate from the rest. It perches in a very erect manner making swoops and sallies after insects precisely as Merops. Plumage sombre, general colour slaty, quills and crest blackish, bill and feet orange, tail forked. ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... respect; the natives kissing their feet and hands, and taking them for deities descended from the skies. Among other details of native customs, they reported that both men and women smoked tobacco by means of a forked pipe, drawing up the smoke through their nostrils. These savages were acquainted with the secret of obtaining fire by rubbing briskly two pieces of wood against each other. Cotton was found in large quantities in the houses, made up into the form of tents, one of these containing as much ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... was passing now, and the rain grew thinner, but from time to time the lightning, no longer forked or chain-shaped, flared in wide sheets. By its ghastly illumination they saw a strange sight. There on the island top the two lions marched backwards and forwards as though they were in a cage, making a kind of whimpering ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... cause. She observed in an instant that the appearance and demeanour of the serpent were greatly changed. It approached her swift as an arrow, its body rolling in the most agitated contortions, its jaws were distended as if to devour her, its eyes flashed fire, its tongue was a forked flame, and its hiss was like a stormy wind. Proserpine shrieked, and the Queen of ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... kingdom which, above all others, has furnished the most ample harvest for the reaper of mysteries. The Egyptians, to denote navigation, and the return of the Phoenician fleet, which annually visited their coast, used the figure of an Osiris borne on a winged horse, and holding a three-forked spear, or harpoon. To this image they gave the name of Poseidon, or Neptune, which, as the Greeks and Romans afterwards adopted, sufficiently proves this deity had his birth here. Thus the maritime Osiris of the Egyptians became a new deity with those who knew not the ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... putting to sea as intended. In the afternoon, some of the officers went on shore to amuse themselves among the natives, where they saw the head and bowels of a youth, who had lately been killed, lying on the beach; and the heart stuck on a forked stick, which was fixed to the head of one of the largest canoes. One of the gentlemen bought the head, and brought it on board, where a piece of the flesh was broiled and eaten by one of the natives, before all the officers ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... hazel-tree, there was a mandrake. He promised wealth to whomsoever should dare by night, and according to the prescribed rites, to tear him from the ground,[212] not fearing to hear him cry or to see blood flow from his little human body and his forked feet. ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... was to me The purport of this embassy. His foe am I, he is my foe, And I his worst can undergo. Then let his forked lightnings flash, Heaven with his pealing thunder crash: Let him the wild winds loose and make Earth to her deep foundation shake; Bid the swoll'n waves, by tempest driven, Mount up and drench the ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... hailing bolts fell faster, From scores of flame-clad ships, And about us, denser, darker, Grew the conflict's wild eclipse, Till a solid cloud closed o'er us, Like a type of doom, and ire, Whence shot a thousand quivering tongues Of forked and vengeful fire. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... burning forest surpasses description. An immense sheet of flame, following to their tops the lofty trees of an almost impenetrable pine forest, leaping madly from top to top, and sending thousands of forked tongues a hundred feet or more athwart the midnight darkness, lighting up with lurid gloom and glare the surrounding scenery of lake and mountains, fills the beholder with mingled feelings of awe and astonishment. I never before saw anything so terribly beautiful. ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... earnestly. "I'm done with practical jokes. It was only a garter snake, though I caught it with a forked stick." ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... of being exactly like a BEE, it is not like it at all. It has a general resemblance to a fly, and by the help of imagination may be supposed to be a fly pitched upon the flower. The mandrake very frequently has a forked root, which may be fancied to resemble thighs and legs. I have seen it helped out ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the food while she digested this. Presently he sat down beside the fire, and while he turned the meat with a forked stick, came back ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... literally "the bread stick," a term in opposition to the scowdher. It is a forked stick with three legs, that stands opposite the fire, and supports the cake, which is placed on the edge until it is gradually baked. The Scowdher is, for the most part, made in ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... got himself a brand-new Stetson, in celebration of th' occasion, an' when Barry said, in Injun talk, 'John, this is Will Curley,' Old John he never moved a muscle, but his eyes looked like forked lightnin'. You know, Curley is a Crow—th' perpetual enemy of th' Sioux—an' in addition t' that, Curley he was a scout for th' whites. Old Gall he walked slowly over t' Curley, with a walk that made me think ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... heaped high with golden sheaves; the carts came in steady lines, creaking under endless loads, from those fields which, two years later, lay scorched with drought, and over which famine brooded. The peasant girls tossed the grain, with forked boughs, to the threshing-machine, tended by other girls. The village boys had a fine frolic dragging the straw away in bundles laid artfully on the ends of two long poles fastened shaft-wise to the horse's flanks. We had seen the harvesting, the plowing with the primitive ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... eye the whole house rose and shuddered. There was a sharp crack-crackle, followed by smoke, and forked tongues of flame licked the imitation forest, and with a swish all the chorus fled from the stage. Far away up in the gallery somebody was roaring "Fire!" A rush to the doors was already ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... experience removes those apprehensions, he should be on his guard, however, not to destroy the quality of his tobacco, by cutting it too soon. When the cutting is to commence, there should be procured a quantity of forked stakes, set upright, with a pole or rider setting on each fork ready to support the tobacco, and to keep it from the ground. The plant is then cut obliquely, even with the surface of the ground, and the person thus employed should ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds |
