"Rigging" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... waist, which is put into a ribbon upon the left side, the Queen only having her train borne. Ruffle cuffs for married ladies, treble lace lappets, two white plumes, and a blond lace handkerchief. This is my rigging, I should have mentioned two pearl pins in my hair, earrings and necklace of the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to define the exact class to which the rig of this craft would make her belong, there was so much that was English in the hull and raking step of her masts, while the rigging, and the way in which she was managed, smacked so strongly of the Mediterranean that her nation also might have puzzled one familiar with such a subject. The lofty spread of canvas, the jib, flying-jib and fore-staysail, that ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... double line, the port where the vessels are crowded together like a flock of gulls; those graceful hulls, those tapering masts, those sails swollen or floating, weave the labyrinth of their movements and forms upon the magnificent purple of the sunset. The sun sinks into the river; the black rigging, the round hulls, stand out against its conflagration, and look like jewels of jet set ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... not one life in his vessel was to be lost; that though the ship was to be wrecked, all her crew were to come safe to land. But was there on this account any effort on his part relaxed to secure their safety? No! he toiled and laboured at the pumps and rigging and anchors as unremittingly as before; and when some of the sailors made the cowardly attempt, by lowering a small boat, to effect their own escape, the voice of the apostle was heard proclaiming, amid the storm, that unless they abode in the ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... to travel, he is longer furnishing himself for a five miles' journey than a ship is rigging for a seven years' voyage. He is never more troubled than when he has to maintain talk with a gentlewoman, wherein he commits more absurdities than a clown in eating ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... who regarded model and rigging a good deal, satisfied himself with muttering, as he turned ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... Hellespont. But all force may be annihilated by the negligence of the prince and the venality of his ministers. The great duke, or admiral, made a scandalous, almost a public, auction of the sails, the masts, and the rigging: the royal forests were reserved for the more important purpose of the chase; and the trees, says Nicetas, were guarded by the eunuchs, like the groves of religious worship. [59] From his dream of pride, Alexius was awakened ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... should attend to their collective affairs. They should be like passengers on a ship, free to sleep or wake, sit or walk, speak or be mute, eat or fast, as they pleased: do anything in fact except scuttle the ship or cut the rigging —or ordain to what port she should steer, or what course the helmsman should lay. Matters of high policy, in other words, should be the care of the proprietor; everything less than that, broadly speaking, should be left ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... turned, and saw Malcolm at the tiller, and the cloudy wrath sprang upon her. He stood composed and clear and cool as the morning, without sign of doubt or conscience of wrong, now peeping into the binnacle, now glancing at the sunny sails, where swayed across and back the dark shadows of the rigging, as the cutter leaned and rose, like a child running and staggering over the multitudinous and unstable ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... a medley of everything in this chaos of sound: shouting and whining, furious abuse and laughter, laughter above everything; the plash of oars and the cleaving of hatchets, a crash as of the smashing of doors and chests, the grating of rigging and wheels, and the neighing of horses, and the clang of the alarm bell and the clink of chains, the roar and crackle of fire, drunken songs and quick, gnashing chatter, weeping inconsolable, plaintive despairing prayers, and shouts of command, the dying gasp and ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... yesterday morning, the Vindictive groped her way through the smoke-screen and headed for the entrance, it was as though the old fighting-ship awoke and looked on. A coastal motor-boat had visited her and hung a flare in her slack and rusty rigging; and that eye of unsteady fire, paling in the blaze of the star-shells or reddening through the drift of the smoke, watched the whole great enterprise, from the moment when it hung in doubt to its ultimate ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... deep; Where, with a fierce and thundering sweep, The winds in wild distraction rave, And push along the mountain wave With dreadful swell and hideous curl! Whilst hung aloft in giddy whirl, Or drop beneath the ocean's bed, The leaky bark without a shred Of rigging sweeps through dangers dread. The flaring beacon points the way, And fast the pumps loud clanking play: It 'vails not—hark! with crashing shock She's shivered 'gainst the solid rock, Or by the fierce, incessant waves Is beaten to a thousand ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... difficult part than I am. No, Greta," he went on as I started to protest, "believe me, you don't understand anything about it at this moment. Just as you don't understand about spiders, fearing them. They're the first to climb the rigging and to climb ashore too. They're the web-weavers, the line-throwers, the connectors, Siva and Kali united in love. They're the double mandala, the beginning and the end, infinity mustered ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... powerful paddlers to be found anywhere. The trading boats—prahus or tongkangs—are clumsy, badly fastened craft, not often exceeding 30 tons burthen, and modelled on the Chinese junk, generally two-masted, the foremast raking forward, and furnished with rattan rigging and large lug sails. This forward rake, I believe, was not unusual, in former days, in European craft, and is said to aid in tacking. The natives now, however, are getting into the way of building and rigging their boats in humble imitation ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... know that! He refused me the money; refused to go with me. I saw him at eight o'clock, at his own room, where he was rigging himself out for some d—-d tea-drinking; told him my straits, my losses, my object and all; and what was his plea, think you? Why, he disapproved of gambling; couldn't think of lending me a sixpence for any such purpose; and, as for going into such a suspected quarter as a ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... believe that it is, a very useful institution in a country like France. And masts are very useful parts of a ship. But, if the ship is on her beam-ends, it may be necessary to cut the masts away. When once she has righted, she may come safe into port under jury rigging, and there be completely repaired. But, in the meantime, she must be hacked with unsparing hand, lest that which, under ordinary circumstances, is an essential part of her fabric should, in her extreme distress, sink her to the bottom. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... began, that Petrea sacrificed to her her most beautiful gold-paper temple; her original picture of shepherdesses and altars; and her island of bliss in the middle of peaceful waters, and in the bay of which lay a little fleet of nut-shells, with rigging of silk, and laden with sugar-work, and from the motion of which, and the planting of its wonderful flowers, and glorious fruit-bearing trees, Petrea's heart had first had ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... the exception of birds, to be the only animals that existed upon the island. Satisfied that I now had an opportunity of revictualling my ship, I unbent my sails, struck my topmasts, unrove my running rigging, and, in short, made every preparation for a long stay. I then sent parties on shore to erect tents, and shoot the wild pigs, while I superintended the fixing of coppers on the beach to boil the salt out of the sea water, which ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... other ships, which were at some distance, made all speed to come up. By this time the enemy was almost silenced, when a favourable change of wind enabled her to get out of reach of the AGAMEMNON's guns; and that ship had received so much damage in the rigging that she could not follow her. Nelson, conceiving that this was but the forerunner of a far more serious engagement, called his officers together, and asked them if the ship was fit to go into action ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... The perils which he had to endure at first, when ordered about the rigging, were what affected him least; he longed for death, and often contemplated flinging himself into those cold deep waves which he gazed on daily over the vessel's side. Hope was the only thing which supported him. He had heard ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... amid the rigging, as we sail the waters blue, Whilst we cross the briny ocean, we will always think of you; We will leave you our best wishes as we leave this rocky shore; We are bound for Merrie England, to return to you no more! Rolling home, rolling home! Rolling home, across the ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... guns, and the fire from the Portsmouth was most rapid, although the extent of its execution was unknown. After half an hour of incessant broadsides, the two vessels had approached each other so close, that the jib-boom of the Frenchman was pointed between the fore and main rigging of the Portsmouth. Captain Lumley immediately gave orders to lash the Frenchman's bowsprit to his mainmast, and this was accomplished by the first lieutenant, Alfred, and the seamen, without any serious loss, for the fog was still so thick, that ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... wind was fair, nevertheless, and blew steadily from the southwest; but the currents were against the ship's course, and she scarcely made any way. The heavy, lumpy sea strained her cordage, her timbers creaked, and she labored painfully in the trough of the sea. Her standing rigging was so out of order that it allowed play to the masts, which were violently shaken at every roll ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... exceeding and eternal weight of glory." There is a more noble picture of the great Apostle to the Gentiles than that above referred to. The ship is "driven up and down in Adria." Euroclydon roars through the rigging. Mighty billows come crashing over the bulwarks. "Neither sun, nor moon nor stars" have "for many days appeared." Nearer and nearer the helpless craft is being swept to the cruel rocks of yonder savage coast. The ship's company is in an agony of dismay. Suddenly from the ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... steed into a dead run on the moment. The road was only a cart-path, and it was so soft that the horse's hoofs made no noise to betray his movements to the enemy. He urged the willing beast to his utmost speed, for he was as much at home in the saddle as he was in the rigging of a ship. Before the Vampire had made another eighth of a mile, he had reached the place where the boat had been left for his use. What to do with his horse was a question, for the report of the big gun would set him crazy. But he knew that the men must be ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... elephant changed suddenly to "a rakish craft." (I do not know what a rakish craft is; but this was very rakish and very crafty.) It must have been abandoned long ago by wild pirates of the southern seas; for clinging to the rigging, and jovially cheering as the ship went down, I made out a man with blazing eyes, clad in a velveteen jacket. As the ship disappeared from sight, Falstaff rushed to the rescue of the lonely navigator—and stole his ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... with great rapidity, and a few minutes after the squall had struck them the Susan was beginning to pitch heavily. The wind increased in force, and seemed to scream rather than whistle in the rigging. ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... salt sea. From the moment that the Sea Queen leaves lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. Otis is a ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... the beach their empty spray, and brought Nor doubt-dispelling death, nor new-born hope. But with the fourth slow turn at length there came A naked, drifting body impelled to shore, An unknown sailor by the late storm swept Out of the rigging of some laboring ship. And him, disfigured by the water's wear, The watching friends supposed their dead; and so, Mourning, took up this outcast of the deep, And buried him, with church-rite and with pall Trailing, and train of sad-eyed mourners, there In the old orchard-lot ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... conducteur," simultaneously demand a treble and a tenor from another window—"rien, Madame," the answer is always addressed to the lady, "rien du tout," he replies whilst endeavouring to repair some part of the "rigging" that could not stand the efforts of the poor beasts to move from their position. At length, however, you get fairly under weigh, with about a four knot breeze, and continue to make some progress for an hour or two amidst a noise caused by the rumbling of the vehicle, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... relates that the giants possessed a colossal ship, called Mannigfual, which constantly cruised about in the Atlantic Ocean. Such was the size of this vessel that the captain was said to patrol the deck on horseback, while the rigging was so extensive and the masts so high that the sailors who went up as youths came down as gray-haired men, having rested and refreshed themselves in rooms fashioned and provisioned for that purpose in the huge blocks ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... in volume a little later and the wind sighed mournfully through the pine trees on shore, and through the rigging of the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Winter Camp - Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats • Laura Lee Hope
... interrupted by a sudden exclamation from Joyce. She had jumped up laughing when the spray swept over her, and now, holding on to the rigging, she was pointing excitedly to something just ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... no great size, was manifastly intended to go outside. This was a schooner that had been recently launched, and which had advanced no farther in its first equipment than to get in its two principal spars, the rigging of which hung suspended over the mast-heads, in readiness to be "set up" for the first time. The day being Sunday, work was suspended, and this so much the more, because the owner of the vessel was a certain Deacon Pratt, who dwelt in ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... was gone, her rigging's disarray Told of a worse disaster than the last; Like draggled hair dishevelled hung the stay, Drooping and beating on ...
— Georgian Poetry 1913-15 • Edited by E. M. (Sir Edward Howard Marsh)
... superior, when he seized him by the nape of the neck with one paw, took the brush, dripping with paint, with the other, and covered him with white from head to foot. Both the man at the helm and myself burst into a laugh, upon which Jack dropped his victim, and scampered up the rigging. The unhappy little beast began licking himself, but I called the steward, who washed him so well with turpentine, that all injury was prevented; but during our bustle Jack was peeping with his black nose through the bars of the maintop, apparently enjoying ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... was bowling along for Oakland, with a stiff northwest breeze astern. We ran up the Oakland Estuary and came to anchor, and in the days that followed, while Neil was ashore, we tightened up the Reindeer's rigging, overhauled the ballast, scraped down, and put the sloop into ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... no difficulty in finding John Ozanne. I made out his burly figure and red-whiskered face on the harbour wall before I had passed Castle Cornet, and heard his big voice good-humouredly roaring to the men at work in the rigging of a large schooner ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... came Rod sprang to his feet, and as he did so a part of the rigging caught him, and swept him overboard. With a wild cry for help, he tried to grasp something, but he could find nothing upon which to place his fingers. The cold waters closed around him. He tried to swim, to keep afloat, but the oil-skin suit hindered him. He battled with ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... their sails; others got out long oars and strove to sweep their vessels towards the shore, but they were huddled too closely in the stream; the yards and rigging of many having become interlocked with each other. The Northmen leaped into the rowing boats by the bank above where the tower-ships had been moored, and rowing down endeavoured to tow them to the bank; but they were now in a blaze from end to end, the heat was ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... indeed. The Dark Master had led his men in furious onslaught across the waist of the ship, and Art Bocagh was being beaten back to the poop despite his stubborn resistance. Brian saw that the Dark Master's men far outnumbered Art's, while from the rigging of each ship musketeers were sending down bullets into the melee. With a shout, Brian and Cathbarr led their men on the O'Donnell flank, and ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... peace. It was impossible to find room for all who were desirous of emigrating. It is said that some persons who had vainly applied for a passage hid themselves in dark corners about the ships, and, when discovered, refused to depart, clung to the rigging, and were at last taken on shore by main force. This infatuation is the more extraordinary because few of the adventurers knew to what place they were going. All that was quite certain was that a colony was to be planted somewhere, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... to be a lively scene with the preparations for careening the sloop, and with cargo, and spars, and rigging, and water- casks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up there out of such sails and odds and ends as could be best set on one side to make them, when Mr. Commissioner Pordage comes down in a high fluster, and asks for Captain Maryon. The Captain, ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... outward-bound, and Mr. Dodge had come abroad quite as green as he was now going home ripe, this traveller of six months' finish did not escape diver commentaries that literally cut him up "from clew to ear-ring," and which flew about in the rigging much as active birds flutter from branch to branch in a tree. The subject of all this wit, however, remained profoundly, not to say happily, ignorant of the sensation he had produced, being occupied in disposing of the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... afternoon and the approach of night, thus deepening the gloom, there was added another and a new anxiety to the drone of the fog-horn. This was a Coston signal which flashed from the bridge, flooding the deck with light and pencilling masts and rigging in lines of fire. These flashes kept up at intervals of five minutes, the colors ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Ship Rigging, Bridges, Ferries, Stays, or Guys on Derricks & Cranes, Tiller Ropes, Sash Cords of Copper and Iron, Lightning Conductors of Copper. Special attention given to hoisting rope of all kinds for Mines ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... of all sorts, and by kindly treating Jack Shark he became very fond of me, and whenever I went on shore, he would swim after the boat, and remain frolicking about near her till my return. At last I thought I would make him of use; so, rigging a pair of short reins, I slipped them over his jaws, and then jumped on his back. He understood in a moment what was expected of him, and away he went with me at a rapid rate through the water. After that, lighting my pipe quite comfortably, I invariably went on shore on his back, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... vanquished as a foregone conclusion. Against the systematic infidelity which was more and more creeping over the eighteenth century, the Christian faith alone, with all its forces, could fight and triumph. But the Christian faith was obscured and enfeebled, it clung to the vessel's rigging instead of defending its powerful hull; the flood was rising meanwhile, and the dikes were breaking one after, another. The religious belief of the Savoyard vicar, imperfect and inconsistent, such as it is set forth in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of yellow pine; the rigging is of fishing-line; and the blocks, five-sixteenths of an inch long, and the dead-eyes, one-fourth of an inch in diameter, are cut out of any hard wood. The lower one of each pair of dead-eyes has a wire looped around it, the other end being turned ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair, and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced seasickness in the most nautical observer, if the utter disregard to all known rules of shipbuilding and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance. Swarthy boys and dark-eyed Madonnas, staring at you from one corner of the studio, suggested Murillo; oily brown shadows of faces with a lurid streak in the wrong place, meant Rembrandt; buxom ladies and dropiscal ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... After Bill had asked the crowd if any or all of them wanted to test the "convincer," as he called the electrical rigging, he bade the onlookers who filled the hallway a pleasant au revoir, and Gus again pulled the strings ...
— Radio Boys Loyalty - Bill Brown Listens In • Wayne Whipple
... through the straits, that he would come to anchor, and not undertake to cross the bay that night. Darkness was setting in, but he did not come to anchor. The gale increased to a hurricane; all sails were taken in, and we were scudding under bare poles, and had a lantern hung up in the rigging. The captain came to me and said, loaded as we were, we could not live in that gale; he would have to seek a place to anchor on the side of the bay. I said to him, he was the captain. The line was thrown out every few minutes. ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower
... large quantities of timber, spars, and rigging, prepared for immediate use, as also warlike stores of every description. There is here, a ship of 140 guns, of large calibre, and a frigate. Both are housed completely, and in a condition to be launched in a few months, if necessary. They are constructed of the very best materials, and in the most ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... which most people believe should be ended. They include tax avoidance through corporate and other methods, which I have previously mentioned; excessive capitalization, investment write-ups and security manipulations; price rigging and collusive bidding in defiance of the spirit of the antitrust laws by methods which baffle prosecution under the present statutes. They include high-pressure salesmanship which creates cycles of overproduction within given industries and consequent recessions in production ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... up the bay, a stately ship that dipped a little and rose again as she came, but held her course steady for the wharves. Her sails shone white in the fitful sun, the lines of her hull showed dark against the gray water, the tracery of her rigging and even the colors of her flag were distinct against the sky, and yet—she did not seem like any ship they had ever seen before. Cicely having drawn that vessel, line for line, masts, hull, ropes, and spars, knew that this was the Huntress, yet what was ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... up the Sacramento valley, was lured to mount a cow-pony known to be hysterical; of how he had declared when they picked him up a moment later, "If I'd been aware of the gale I'd have lashed myself to the rigging." Then about the other trusting tenderfoot who was directed to insist at the stable in Santa Fe that they give him a "bucking broncho;" who was promptly accommodated and speedily unseated with much flourish, to the wicked glee of those who had deceived him; and who, ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... the gale had somewhat abated. It was not so, in reality. A steady fall in the barometer foretold even worse weather to come. Courtenay, assured now that the main engines were absolutely useless, thought it advisable to get steering way on the ship by rigging the foresail, double-reefed and trapped. The result was quickly perceptible. The Kansas might not be pooped again, but she would travel more rapidly into ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... ten days. We also passed a big wooden ship built in the time of Nelson that is being used as a training-ship for cadets—as we steamed slowly by, hundreds of the cadets were clustered on the masts and rigging, and they gave us a great burst of cheers. It was our first welcome to the old land. That night we slipped slowly into port, and again we caught a glimpse of Britain at war; big searchlights glaring out to sea, crossing and recrossing, ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... very quiet in the lugger; no one spoke, except when the steersman was relieved, or when the master wished something done among the rigging. The men settled down on the weather side with their pipes and quids, and all through the short summer night we lay there, huddled half asleep together, running to the south like a stag. At dawn the wind breezed up, and the lugger leaped ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... superintendent at Dayton told me that at least sixty had perished and probably a great many more, at the same time assuring me that unless something that closely approached a miracle happened the death list would run considerably higher. We are now rigging up several special trains and will make every effort possible to ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... "hull" is the frame or body of a vessel, including the deck of a vessel, exclusive of masts, sails, yards, and rigging. ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... curtain, the window stood open, and the high, clear song of the wind through the rigging filled the little cabin with a continuous minor note of warning which must have been part of his life; for he must have heard it, as all sailors do, sleeping or ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... information of any action to be taken by the law against the suspected perpetrators of crime. This information is at once at the disposal of Mowbray, and he can escape the consequences of his crimes without difficulty. He is protected, also, by his partners rigging up accusations against innocent persons, and convicting them by manufacturing evidence ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... was a schooner about a mile from the shore, at anchor, laden apparently with lumber. The sea all about her had the black, iron aspect which I have described; but the vessel herself was alight. Hull, masts, and spars were all gilded, and the rigging was made of golden threads. A small white streak of foam breaking around the bows, which were towards the wind. The shadowiness of the clouds overhead made the effect of the sunlight strange, where ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... farewell—he had even heard tell that the lights from their cottage window, the bright glow from the kitchen fire, were plainly visible to ships at sea, so close was she. And he wondered to himself should he see those lights to-night. Hardly. He lay there in his bunk and listened to the row in the rigging. Things had not mended evidently since he went below. Gone was the summer and the bright November sunshine, the wind from the south was coming up cold and chill, and the prospect of four hours to-night on a very cold, wet, bleak ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... the Ellen B. caused something like a panic. The man at the wheel abandoned his post, and as he started for the cross-trees let loose a yell which brought up all hands. Blue Blazes charged them with open mouth. Not a man hesitated to jump for the rigging. The schooner's head came up into the wind, the jib-sheet blocks rattled idly and the booms swung lazily across the deck, just grazing the ears of ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... portion of the mainmast head of the Lady Franklin, and entangled in the rigging were two corpses—a man and a woman. The arms of the man were clasped round the body of the woman, and her head lay on his breast. The Prison Island appeared but as a long low line on the distant horizon. The tempest was over. As the sun rose ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... a boom of logs and chains crossed the river, and a fleet of fifteen vessels including an armed ram and a floating battery were there to dispute further progress. But Farragut lashed himself into the rigging of his flag-ship, and his fleet stormed the passage, raked with chains and shell. From the 18th to the 25th of April, a battle royal was waged with splendid valour on both sides; but the forts were ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... or a ball, yet it is well known that in some of the smaller sea-port towns, the female portion of the population are so much interested in nautical matters, and give so much time and attention to the subject, that they are looked upon as very good judges of spars and rigging; and it is even affirmed, that some of these charming young "salts" are quite capable of examining a midshipman on points of seamanship. If fame has not belied them, such are the accomplishments of the belles of Norfolk and Pensacola; while the wives and daughters of the whalers at Nantucket, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... icicles hanging to their fins; of the Sirens who tell of such wonderful things that the merchants have to stop their ears with wax lest they should hear them, and leap into the water and be drowned; of the sunken galleys with their tall masts, and the frozen sailors clinging to the rigging, and the mackerel swimming in and out of the open portholes; of the little barnacles who are great travellers, and cling to the keels of the ships and go round and round the world; and of the cuttlefish who live in the ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... bed and wrapped up carefully, I was carried up the hill to hear them. All the speeches were fine; but, just at the close, Curtis burst into a peroration which, in my weak physical condition, utterly unmanned me. He compared the new university to a newly launched ship—"all its sails set, its rigging full and complete from stem to stern, its crew embarked, its passengers on board; and,'' he added, "even while I speak to you, even while this autumn sun sets in the west, the ship begins to glide over the waves, it goes forth rejoicing, every ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... topmasts were carried away. Lewis, in a frenzy of excitement, clambered up the main top, tore out a handful of his hair, which he tossed into the wind, crying: "Good devil, take this till I come." The ship, in spite of her damaged rigging, gained on the other ship, which they took. Lewis's sailors, superstitious at the best of times, considered this intimacy of their captain with Satan a little too much, and soon afterwards one of the Frenchmen aboard murdered ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... quarante? The play exercises memory, judgment, sangfroid, and other good qualities of the mind. Above all, it is on the square. Now, buying and selling shares without delivery, bulling, and bearing, and rigging, and Stock Exchange speculations in general, are just as much gambling; but with cards all marked, and dice loaded, and the fair player has no chance. The world," said this youthful philosopher, "is taken in by words. The truth is, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... in which hard cabin-biscuit cost us sixpence per pound. And now our stores were exhausted, and we had to dine as best we could, on our last half-ounce of tea, sweetened by our last quarter of a pound of sugar. I had marked, however, a dried thornback hanging among the rigging. It had been there nearly three weeks before, when I came first aboard, and no one seemed to know for how many weeks previous; for as it had come to be a sort of fixture in the vessel, it could be looked at without being seen. ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... discharged, he returned to Italy. In his passage thither, he encountered two violent storms, the first between the promontories of Peloponnesus and Aetolia, and the other about the Ceraunian mountains; in both which a part of his Liburnian squadron was sunk, the spars and rigging of his own ship carried away, and the rudder broken in pieces. He remained only twenty-seven days at Brundisium, until the demands of the soldiers were settled, and then went, by way of Asia and Syria, to Egypt, where laying siege to Alexandria, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Townshend at pistol-shot distance, all three vessels running before the wind. This lasted till eight o'clock. The Americans, as was usual with them, made great use of 'dismantling shot,' i.e., chain- and bar-shot; the effect of which upon the rigging of the Townshend was most disastrous. It was not long before her sails were hanging in ribbons, and her spars were greatly damaged, and in some momentary confusion from this cause the Tom seized an opportunity of pouring in her boarders, while the Bona redoubled ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... butt of the fore-topmast. And Simon Nishikanta tore himself away from his everlasting painting of all colour-delicacies of sea and sky such as are painted by seminary maidens, to be helped and hoisted up the ratlines of the mizzen rigging, the huge bulk of him, by two grinning, slim-waisted sailors, until they lashed him squarely on the crosstrees and left him to stare with eyes of golden desire, across the sun-washed sea through the finest pair of unredeemed ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... maim'd for life In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife; And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent; And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side; But Sir Richard cried in his English pride: "We have fought such a fight for a day and a night As may never be fought again! We have won great glory, my men! And a day less or more At sea or ashore, We die—does it matter ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... she is no modern ship," he cried, "she's got a high stern on her like a castle, and her masts and rigging are like no ship ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... but the realities of sultriness and damp scared away our coolest imaginations. In this dismal region, when about forty miles east of Tutuila, a beast popularly known as the "Flying fox" {14} alighted on our rigging, and was eventually captured as a prize for the zoological collection at San Francisco. He is a most interesting animal, something like an exaggerated bat. His wings are formed of a jet black membrane, and have a highly polished claw at the extremity of each, and ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... be deceived by the attractiveness of this world. It will cheat you and destroy you. "The Redoubtable" was the name of a French ship that Lord Nelson spared twice from destruction; and it was from the rigging of that very ship that the fatal ball that killed him was fired. The devil administers many a sin in honey; but there is poison mixed with it. The truest pleasures spring from the good seed of righteousness—none ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... to depart with these ships when they sailed away, nor wondered greatly as to where they went. He was content with the wharves and with the narrow streets near by, and to look up from the bulkheads at the sailors working in the rigging, and the 'long-shoremen rolling the casks on board, or lowering great ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... eagerness and impatience as when he first finds himself upon the bank of a new and long-sought stream. When I was a boy and used to go a-fishing, I could seldom restrain my eagerness after I arrived in sight of the brook or pond, and must needs run the rest of the way. Then the delay in rigging my tackle was a trial my patience was never quite equal to. After I had made a few casts, or had caught one fish, I could pause and adjust my line properly. I found some remnant of the old enthusiasm still ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... toe. This, while it has not the full power of movement shown in the apes, is much more separated from the others than in the whites, and can be readily used in grasping. By its aid the Negrito can not only pick up small objects, but can descend the rigging of a ship head downward, holding on like a monkey by his toes. It may be said that among uncivilized and barefoot people the great toe is usually very mobile. The artisans of Bengal can weave, the Chinese boatmen can row, with its aid, and it adds ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... ceases and reflection begins; as the image loses itself you ought to keep all its subtle and varied veracities, with the most exquisite softening of its edge. Practice as much as you can from the reflections of ships in calm water, following out all the reversed rigging, and taking, if anything, more pains with the reflection than ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... the numerous low bridges that span the canal, the spars, rigging, and smoke-stack belonging to the complete equipment of the "Marguerite" would have made her journey on that artificial waterway absolutely impossible; therefore it was necessary to replace these parts in ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler
... and bullets had vanished and in their stead were whispers and screams and shouts of triumph and bursts of laughter. Songs in chorus, somewhere miners hammering below the earth, somewhere storm at sea with the crash of waves on rocks and the shriek of wind through rigging, somewhere some one who dropped heavy loads of furniture so carelessly that I cursed him—and always these little patches of moonlight, so tempting ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... development to his thighs were those of a tall, stalwart man; but his lower limbs were short and sturdy, ending in great flat feet which were as much at home in the water as on the rolling deck, or amid the dizzy rigging. These peculiarities had given him the name by which he was known—originally "Daring Duck," but by degrees contracted into the "Derry Duck" which Blair had ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... where the religious were established. Now it is the principal convent, and has a stone church, but very few people. [57] There lives the alcalde-mayor of La Laguna. And there are generally Spaniards there who are making rigging for his Majesty. This lake has its islets, especially one opposite Taal, which had a volcano, which generally emitted flames. [58] That made that ministry unhealthful; for the wind or brisa blew the heat and flames into the village ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... for herself," answered the maid, who had gone to the window, "for he is just crossing the court this blessed minute, on his way to the orangery, where they are rigging up their theatre." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... he loved every plank of her dainty hull; it was to him a privilege to lay his hand to any task appertaining to her, however humble or hard. To calk, to paint, to polish brasswork; to pump out bilge; to set up the rigging; to sit cross-legged and patch sails; and, best of all, to put her lee rail under in a spanking breeze and race her seaward against the mimic fleet—Ah, how swiftly those bright days passed, how bitter was the parting ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... bringing in first all the rice which he had harvested and cut, as aforesaid. I got a galley ready with a good deal of trouble, for there was not even bonote [5] to calk it, and I had to go in person among the houses of the Indians to find some. I launched it, and fitted it with guns and new rigging to make it ready; for I was resolved that if the enemy fled I should follow them even as far as their own country. When the men got back I embarked, on Thursday morning, which I reckon to be the third ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... lots of ships coming this way. But then, we couldn't see very far. Ships may have passed within a few miles of us, without our knowing anything about it. It was very different from being high up on a ship's deck, or in her rigging. Sometimes, though, we seemed high enough up, when we got on the top ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... certain distances upon the strand, and sent to all the inhabitants of that neighbourhood, in search of provisions, planks, cables, and empty barrels. A crowd of people soon arrived, accompanied by their negroes, loaded with provisions and rigging. One of the most aged of the planters approaching the governor, said to him, 'We have heard all night hoarse noises in the mountain, and in the forests: the leaves of the trees are shaken, although there is no wind: the sea birds seek refuge upon the land: it is certain that all those signs announce ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... were in sight, which was rather strange as the country was all prairie. They went out to look, making a big circuit and found no traces till they came to the river, when they found tracks upon the bank and saw some camps across the river, a mile or so away. Doty had a small spy glass and by rigging up a tripod of small sticks to hold it steady they scanned the camps pretty closely and decided that there were too many oxen ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... Along the shore of the narrow creek that lies beneath the Sorrento cliffs, fishermen and their wives were at work already, some with giant cables drawing their boats to land, with the nets that had been cast the night before, while others were rigging their craft, trimming the sails, or fetching out oars and masts from the great grated vaults that have been built deep into the rocks for shelter to the tackle overnight. Nowhere an idle hand; even the very aged, who had long given up ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... display of excitement. How firm, how grateful was the feel of that stout deck! How safe the schooner's measured roll! O'Reilly's knees gave way, he clutched with strained and aching fingers at the rigging to support himself, leaving Branch and Jacket to tell the surprising story of their presence here. Soon there was hot food and coffee, dry beds and blankets for those ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... there, Can shape a giant In the air, No more I see his streaming hair, The writhing portent of his form;— 90 The pale and quiet moon Makes her calm forehead bare, And the last fragments of the storm, Like shattered rigging from a fight at sea, Silent and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... hundred, with the wind driving the rain and spray, as by night it did, nearly as hard as hail against our faces, and nothing whatever to be seen to windward but the occasional gleam of the crest of a wave, and no sound heard save the whistling of the storm through the rigging, it would have been absolutely necessary for the working of the ship and safety of the whole that the live cargo should all have been stowed down below, whatever ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... middle of the stream we swung round, the current caught us, and away we flew like a great winged bird. Only it didn't seem as if we were moving. The shore, with the countless steamboats, the tangled rigging of the ships, and the long lines of warehouses, appeared to be gliding away ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... once, mounting another electromagnet beside the one he had set up, and rigging up two more X-ray bulbs beside the packing box which held the meteor. The motion of the boat in the fire-rimmed window kept drawing it swiftly away from us, and Charlie showed me how to move the dial of his rheostat to keep ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... crippled state close to the river bank just opposite to the Port Office on Strand Road, and was lying for hours almost on her beam ends on the port side facing the river. The crew had in desperation sought refuge in the rigging, from which eventually and with extreme difficulty they were happily and safely rescued. One of Apcar & Co.'s China steamers, the Thunder, was driven well inside Colvin Ghat and on to the Strand at the ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... would venture against them so near Boston, and could not believe the Maid of Provence an enemy. He thought her an English ship eager to welcome them, but presently he saw the white ensign of France at the mizzen, and a round shot rattled through the rigging ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cannon-balls dropped harmlessly in the garden of the Ursuline convent, and furnished new ammunition for the garrison. On the other hand, the decks of the attacking vessels were swept by fire from the cliffs. One shot carried away the ensign of the flag-ship, and another tore away her rigging and shattered her mizzen, and the rest of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... was very comfortably lounging in an arm-chair in Ethelberta's room on the second floor. This was a pleasant enough way of passing the minutes with such a tender interview in prospect; and as he leant he looked with languid and luxurious interest through the open casement at the spars and rigging of some luggers on the Seine, the pillars of the suspension bridge, and the scenery of the Faubourg St. Sever on the other side of the river. How languid his interest might ultimately have become there is no knowing; but there soon arose upon ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... entirely by many of those companies of Krumen. Everything that is to be done as the common work of seamen, is done by them during their engagement on the coasting vessels. The agility with which they scale the shrouds and rigging, mounting frequently to the very pinnacle of the main-mast head, or going out to the extreme end of the yard arms, is truly surprising. In these feats, they are far more dextrous than the ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... the evening, and when, next morning, we rounded Cape Quiros, we found a heavy sea, so that the big ship pitched and ploughed with dull hissing through the foaming waves. She lay aslant under the pressure of the wind that whistled in the rigging, and the full curve of the great sails was a fine sight; but it was evident that the sails and ropes were in a very rotten condition, and soon, with anxious looks, we followed the growth of a tear in the mainsail, wondering whether the mast would stand ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... (Vol. vii., p. 126.)—A sheer hulk is a mere hulk, simply the hull of a vessel unfurnished with masts and rigging. A shear hulk, on the contrary, is the hull of a vessel fitted with shears (so termed from their resemblance to the blades of a pair of shears when opened), for the purpose of masting and dismasting ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... and was badly damaged by heavy seas, and driven far out of her course. It was a lucky event on the whole, for she fell in with a water-logged lumber bark, a complete wreck, with nine surviving sailors clinging to her rigging. In the midst of the wild gale a lifeboat was launched and the perishing men were rescued. Clemens prepared a graphic report of the matter for the Royal Humane Society, asking that medals be conferred ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... nuts, and melted lead in an iron spoon and poured it into tumblers of cold water, and Fanny's took the shape of the masts and rigging of a ship, though Jabez declared it wasn't nothing of the sort, but was more like clothes-postens with the lines stretched to them, yes, and the very clothes themselves hanging to them. All but Jabez, though, preferred to think it a ship; it ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... most intelligent and active of the "Blue Crane's" crew was a Malay known to his mates as the Flying Devil. This had come to him by reason of his extraordinary agility. No monkey could have been more active than he in the rigging; he could make flying leaps with astonishing ease. He could not have been more than twenty-five years old, but he had the shrivelled appearance of an old man, and was small and lean. His face was smooth-shaved and wrinkled, ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... south, a hundred ships were in the deep roadstead, a cable's length from each other—their hulls, spars, and rigging magnified to gigantic proportions under the deceptive and tremulous moonbeam. They were motionless as if the sea had been frozen around them into a solid crystal. Their flags drooped listlessly down, trailing along the masts, or warped ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid |
