"Rope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... way to his bedchamber through the rooms that intervened, she could hear the squeak of the ungreased punkha wheel as the rope passed to and fro over it. It was proof positive that he was asleep, or he could not have tolerated the noise for a moment. Suddenly, however, it ceased, and Mrs. Dalton, comprehending the reason of its stoppage, ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... range from Cicero to Mlle Louisette the tight-rope dancer. If you like to read about wonderful and uncanny warnings, 'Shadows Cast Before' is full ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... through a glass in the lock-door. The pumps began to exhaust the air from the airlock. Corey's space suit inflated visibly. Presently the pump stopped. Corey opened the outer door. He went out, paying plastic rope behind him. An instant later he reappeared and removed the rope. He'd made his line fast outside. He closed the outer lock-door. Air surged into the lock and Haney crowded in. Again the pumping. Then Haney went out, ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... the culprit, casting an appealing, imploring glance around him. "The rope was round my neck; I have an aged father and am his only support. Life is very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... the archbishop's palace. But then, remembering that Adam and Sibyll possessed his secret, he resolved at once to banish them from the Tower. For a moment he thought of the dungeons of his fortress, of the rope of his doomsman; but his conscience at that hour was sore and vexed. His fierceness humbled by the sense of shame, he shrank from a new crime; and, moreover, his strong common-sense assured him that the testimony of a shunned and abhorred wizard ceased to be of weight ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... boat-building. There was an abundance of the Calabar-bean (Physostigma venenosum), once used for an ordeal-poison, and now applied by surgery in ophthalmic and other complaints. The 'tie-tie,' as Anglo-Africans call the rope-like creepers, was also plentiful; it may prove valuable for cordage, and possibly for paper-making. I was pleased to see the ease with which the heaped-up jungle-growth is burnt at this season and the facility of road-making. Half a dozen Kru-boys with their matchets ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... were thrown, each with a grappling hook on the end. These caught on the yacht's rail. Three or four sailormen, one after the other, climbed the grappling lines. Two rope ladders were swiftly rigged over the side, by the Americans on the yacht's deck. Dave Darrin was quickly on board, with twenty of his seamen and all his marines, by the time that the English launch rounded in alongside the ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... first land, and hailed the deck with "land ho!" when a change was instantly observed among the crew. Captain Bramble, however, was on the watch, and so were his backers; and seeing this, he instantly called one of the ringleaders aft, and bade him sternly to lay his hand to a rope and pull it taut. The man instinctively obeyed at first, subdued by the calm, stern front of the man who addressed him, but in a moment more he ceased and turned towards the officer flatly declining duty, at the same time beckoning the hands forward to come to the quarter-deck. Captain Bramble paused ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... Falcon's utter helplessness and the constrained twist of his hind legs, which I tried in vain to straighten, I began to have uncomfortable visions of ricked backs and strained sinews: I was on the wrong side of the river, too, for help; though even the rope of a Dublin Garrison "wrecker" would have helped but little then. Thrice the good horse made a desperate attempt to stand up, and thrice he sank back again with the hoarse sigh, between pant and groan—half breathless, half despairing—that every hunting man can remember, to his cost. It was ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... arms. Oh, if I had known, if I had known! She stirred and slipped and was gone from me, and I stood stupidly looking at her; her figure, against the tall, full book-cases, shone mistily, while she touched the old-fashioned bell-rope ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... the shop-men seizing him, said, 'Whoever you are, you have found a treasure; show us where it is, that we may share it with you, and then we will hide you.' Malchus was too frightened to answer. So they put a rope round his neck, and drew him through the streets into the marketplace. The news soon spread that the young man had discovered a great treasure, and there was presently a vast crowd about him. He stoutly protested his innocence. ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... over secret passages and obscure approaches, he took refuge. In one of its towers, in a small low chamber beneath the roof, the wretched old man concealed himself for some months. When he was at last obliged to quit it, he descended by means of a rope ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... the door together, but Hedrick went to the miserable creature, touched him gently on the shoulder, and motioned him into the private office. There, with his eyes still on the floor, Handy told Hedrick that the end of the rope had been reached. ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... pardon. For the moment, she was too utterly taken aback to be herself; he left her thinking he had won. But the outrage was too gross. That evening he found himself under arrest. His enemies' policy of "giving him rope enough" had been more completely successful than they could have hoped. He had set the noose about his neck with his own hand, though it ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... life in the smooth water, that it is more than a splendid silver mirror for the sun which streams across it. I disturbed a solitary king-fisher as I went out to the wharf. He rose from his perch upon the rope, circled about for a minute and then settled back, ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... putting the right leg of one, and the left of another, into the same pair of fetters. By supporting the fetters with a string, they can walk, though very slowly. Every four slaves are likewise fastened together by the necks, with a strong rope of twisted thongs; and in the night an additional pair of fetters is put on their hands, and sometimes a light iron ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... True, the rope by which the cage had been lifted and lowered had worn thin, and the foreman had warned the superintendent the morning of the accident that a new one was needed. But the poor Magyar at the bottom of the shaft did not know it. He had in no way contributed ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... deepest gulf beneath the earth; there are the gate of iron and threshold of bronze, as far beneath Hades as heaven is high above the earth: then shall he know how far I am mightiest of all gods. Go to now, ye gods, make trial that ye all may know. Fasten ye a rope of gold from heaven, and all ye gods lay hold thereof and all goddesses; yet could ye not drag from heaven to earth Zeus, counsellor supreme, not though ye toiled sore. But once I likewise were minded to draw with all my heart, then should I draw you up with very earth and sea withal. Thereafter ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... Liverpool. He was one of the men picked out by Colonel Kelly to be on guard when the "old man"—one of Stephens' pet nick-names—came over the prison wall. Ryan was a fine type of an Irishman, morally, intellectually and physically. As Stephens slipped down from the wall, holding on to the rope, he came with such force on my friend's shoulders as almost to bear him to the ground. In my "Irish in Britain" I have described in detail how Breslin got a key made for Stephens' cell, and how he and Byrne helped the C.O.I.R. over the prison wall to where his friends awaited ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... a huge single stone, I believe three or four times the size of Bowder Stone. {225b} The top of it, which on one side was sloping like the roof of a house, was covered with heather. William climbed up the rock, which would have been no easy task but to a mountaineer, and we constructed a rope of pocket-handkerchiefs, garters, plaids, coats, etc., and measured its height. It was so many times the length of William's walking-stick, but, unfortunately, having lost the stick, we have lost the measure. ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... ringing for vespers, Michael entered to pay his devotions, and forgetful of his cervilerium, which was fixed inside his cap, uncovered as he reverentially knelt upon the stone floor. The moment of his fate was arrived. The rope of the belfry had loosened one of the carved corbels which ornamented the interior of the roof beneath which the Magician knelt; before he could remove, the sharp and heavy mass descended on his forehead, and whilst ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... back and a small box of ours under his arm, and Peggotty carrying another small box of ours, we turned down lanes bestrewn with bits of chips and little hillocks of sand, and went past gas-works, rope-walks, boat-builders' yards, shipwrights' yards, ship-breakers' yards, caulkers' yards, riggers' lofts, smiths' forges, and a great litter of such places, until we came out upon the dull waste I had already seen at a distance; ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... load of the stalks from which yellow ears hung down. When the load became unbearably heavy it was carried to the shock, and when all the corn was cut in a certain area, the shock was made secure by binding it with tarred rope or with a tough stalk twisted to take the place of the rope. When the cutting was done the long rows of stalks stood up in the fields like sentinels, and the men crawled off to the farmhouses and to ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... found himself in a very uncomfortable position, staked out as he was on the bank of Black Creek, with one rope about his body ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... at one-third of this depth, with our little instruments. The greatest depth that has been tried to be measured, is that found in the northern ocean by Lord Mulgrave; he heaved a very heavy sounding lead, and gave out with it cable rope to the length of 4,680 feet, without ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... we feel something like disgust. But where, as in his son Hartley, there is hereditary infirmity, where the man sees the principle that might rescue him slip from the clutch of a nerveless will, like a rope through the fingers of a drowning man, and the confession of faith is the moan of despair, there is room for no harsher feeling than pity. Rousseau showed through life a singular proneness for being convinced by his own eloquence; he was always his own first convert; and this reconciles ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... amuse the Roman people throw into the shade all the peace-rejoicings and illuminations of St. James's and the Green Parks. Suetonius, Seneca, and Pliny tell us of elephants in their time that were taught to walk the rope, backwards and forwards, up and down, with the agility of an Italian rope-dancer. Such was the confidence reposed in the docility and dexterity of the animal, that a person sat upon an elephant's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... the fire A free commonwealth—was thought an absurdity Act of Uniformity required Papists to assist All business has been transacted with open doors And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight Are wont to hang their piety on the bell-rope Arminianism As lieve see the Spanish as the Calvinistic inquisition As logical as men in their cups are prone to be Baiting his hook a little to his appetite Beacons in the upward path of mankind Been already crimination and recrimination more than ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... attached tassels of bright red, blue and other colours. In his left hand he held a sharpened staff, which was doubtless used for defence or attack. It was about the height of his own body, viz., twelve to fifteen feet. In his right hand was twisted the end of a long rope made of some sort of creeping plant, by which he led a huge and hideous reptile, somewhat resembling the Plesiosaurus. The Lemurians actually domesticated these creatures, and trained them to employ their strength in hunting other animals. The appearance ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... black belt. The people are almost all negroes, curious creatures, some of them with Indian blood, like those in "Voodoo Tales." Yesterday we met two little negresses riding one mule, bare-legged, with a rope bridle. ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... him, his white moustache bristling with fury, and murder in every line of his wolf-like face, the old forester lifted a hatchet in both hands, while his wife, no longer the trembling servile old peasant of half an hour before, was tightening the knots of the rope she had thrown round Laval's body, binding him tightly ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... and they managed to bring the brokers to terms. But, during a struggle, poor Tom was hit on the head by a wooden footstool thrown by Pelter, and knocked unconscious. Josiah Crabtree tried to escape from a garret window by means of a rope made of a blanket. This broke, and he sustained a heavy fall, breaking a leg in two places. He was taken to a hospital, and the doctors there said he would ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... the confidence reposed in him. First he sighted the piece very methodically. The schooner lay perfectly still. A better chance for a shot could hardly have been asked for. Palmleaf now came up with a bit of tarred rope lighted at the stove, and smoking after the manner of a slow match, with a red coal at the end. Trull took the rope, and, watching his chance till both the bears were in sight and near each other, touched ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... an annoying squeak where the rope or chain is joined on the hook, slip the finger from an old glove over the hook before putting on the rope ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... intrusted to deliver the message by word of mouth, and it will serve my purpose as well if I prevent you from calling on that seditious Revere. Here, Jim, tie him to a tree with this," and Haines drew from his saddle-bags a piece of stout rope. ...
— Neal, the Miller - A Son of Liberty • James Otis
... into the middle of each log, and then extend a rope along, fastening it to each pin. In this manner, the rope holds the logs together, and they form a long raft. When they catch the logs in booms, they afterwards form them into rafts, and so float them down the river to the mills, where they are to ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... widow upon whose grief it would have been indelicate to intrude. As Feather herself had realized, the circle of her intimates was not formed of those who could readily adjust themselves to entirely changed circumstances. If you dance on a tight rope and the rope is unexpectedly withdrawn, where are you? You cannot continue dancing until the rope ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... plot worked perfectly. The friendly keeper, having gotten a peep at the ex-Police Prefect's letter of pardon, needed but the clincher argument of the gold in order to aid de Vaudrey's escape. A rope over the wall, and even a plank across the moat, were mysteriously provided. In the last silent watch of the night, the go-between (who had been waiting) conducted the escaped prisoner to the carter's cavern. ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... spontaneous delight in effort. The man does not create,—he is only desperately keeping up appearances. He has at once become "a base mechanical," and his successes are not much higher than the successes of the acrobat or the rope-dancer. This want of proper relationship between resources of expression and resources of thought, or subject-matter for expression, is common enough, and some slight suspicion of it flashes across the mind at times in reading even the best authors. It ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... to Florence that night for five francs a piece, provided one person would sit on the outside with the driver. I accordingly mounted on front, protected by a blouse and umbrella, for it was beginning to rain dismally. The miserable, bare-boned horses were fastened with rope-traces, and the vetturino having taken the rope-lines in his hand, gave a flourish with his whip; one old horse tumbled nearly to the ground, but he jerked him up again and we ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... from a dark corner a shabby black bag, which he took back with him into the kitchen. From the kitchen window ran the usual iron wire to the well in the small court, bearing an iron traveller with a rope for drawing water. Temistocle, clattering loudly, hooked the bag to the traveller and let it run down noisily; then he tied the rope and went out. He had carefully closed the door of the sitting-room, but he had been careful to leave the door which opened upon the stairs unlatched. He crept noiselessly ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... case I'll call upon the public hangman and ask him to give me a quick despatch," he said promptly; "Though I shouldn't be worth the expense of a rope!" ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... ordinance. Yea, at some of these solemn and sweet occasions, he spoke some way as a man that had been in heaven commending Jesus Christ, making a glorious display of free grace, &c. and brought the offers thereof so low that they were made to think the rope or cord of the salvation offered, was let down to sinners, that those of the lowest stature might catch hold of it. He gave himself much up to meditation, and usually said little to persons that came to propose their cases ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... the ground. His left hand grasped the heavy mane; his right arm lay across the beast's withers and his right hand drew steadily in upon a halter rope with which he had taken a half hitch about the horse's muzzle. Now the black reared and wheeled, striking and biting, full upon the youth, but the active figure swung with him—always just behind the giant shoulder—and ever ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... armory and secure the spy. They hastened to the armory and found Melanthios, who had come back for a second load. They cast him on the floor and tied his arms down so that he could not move them. Then they took a rope and made two loops in it and swung him safely to the timbers in the roof, saying: "Melanthios, thou hast a soft bed, and it is where thou canst keep watch. In the morning thou canst drive thy goats to the suitors' banquet." They locked the doors ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... shouted. Closer was the river; Saint-Prosper reached its bank; the gang-plank was in position and he dashed aboard. With a mighty tossing and rolling, the chariot approached, rattled safely across the gangway, followed by the property wagon, and eager hands grasped the rope, extending from shore to shore above the large, flat craft. These hand ferries, found in various sections of the country, were strongly, although crudely, constructed, their sole means of locomotion in the stationary rope, by means of which the passengers, providing their ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... "did not treat Gibber with more respect." Now, Sir, to talk of respect for a player!' (smiling disdainfully). BOSWELL. 'There, Sir, you are always heretical: you never will allow merit to a player[517].' JOHNSON. 'Merit, Sir! what merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer, or a ballad-singer?' BOSWELL. 'No, Sir: but we respect a great player, as a man who can conceive lofty sentiments, and can express them gracefully.' JOHNSON. 'What, Sir, a fellow who claps a hump on his back, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Of this treatment, we have already had a marvellous instance in the candle-light picture of the "Last Supper" in San Giorgio Maggiore. This "Adoration of the Shepherds" has probably been nearly as wonderful when first painted: the Madonna is seated on a kind of hammock floor made of rope netting, covered with straw; it divides the picture into two stories, of which the uppermost contains the Virgin, with two women who are adoring Christ, and shows light entering from above through the loose timbers of the roof of the stable, as well as through the bars of a square window; ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... movement, as active as it was decided, old Ronsard went to a corner in the room and drew out a thick coil of rope with an iron hook at the end, and slinging it round his waist with the alert quickness of youth, ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... sure the smaller tilted his head back when the horses first swept in, and the larger leaned to watch when Diaz, the wizard with the lariat, commenced to whirl his rope; but in both cases their interest held no longer than if they had been old vaudevillians watching a series of familiar acts dressed up ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... burnt another blue-light to show us where they were, and we made for her, and laid ourselves as nearly alongside of her as we dared. I had always kept my boats with a coil or two of good stout stuff in each of them, so both boats had a rope at hand. We made a shift, with much labour and trouble, to got near enough to one another to divide the blue-lights (they were no use after that night, for the sea-water soon got at them), and to get a tow-rope out between us. All night long we kept together, ...
— The Wreck of the Golden Mary • Charles Dickens
... be wrong of me not to tell. His mother and he had been up in the mountains cutting gorse and ling, which with turf from the Curragh used to be the crofter's only fuel. They were dragging down a prickly pile of it by a straw rope when, dipping into the high road by a bridge, they crossed the path of a splendid carriage which swirled suddenly out of the drive of the Big House behind two high-spirited bays driven by an English coachman in gorgeous livery. The horses reared and shied at the bundle of ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... were all under the seats, or placed in the great trunk-like compartment on the rear of the machine, along with several large tent flaps and a coil of rope, the party waved a cheery good-by to Chloe, Dinah and Metty, Gerald started the Ajax, and they went bowling off down the smooth road on the first stage ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... fallen off enormously in popularity, and the obstacles imposed by the fiscal cleavage appeared insuperable. Unable wholly to follow Mr. Chamberlain in his projects, the premier had grown weary of the attempt to balance himself on the tight rope of ambiguity between the free trade and protectionist wings of his party. Not caring, however, to give his opponents the advantage which would accrue from an immediate dissolution of Parliament and the ordering of an election which should turn ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... horse-conscious community. Here was a thoroughbred of the same blood which had pounded race tracks in Virginia and in Kentucky to best all comers. Even now, after weeks on the trail, with a day's burden of alkali dust grimed into his coat, the stud was a beautiful thing. And his match was the mare on the lead rope, plainly a lady of family, perhaps of the same line, since her coat was also silver. She ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... about the time (1772), of his lordship's birth." There is a tradition in Boston that "caucus" was a common word here before the Revolutionary war broke out, and that it originated in a feud between the British troops on the one side and the rope-walkers and calkers on the other. Bloody collisions, it is said, occurred between them. The latter held meetings in the calkers' hall in the lower part of the city, at which resolutions were adopted and speeches made denouncing the soldiers, who, on their part deriding the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... wet, heavy knotted end of the heaving line came in over the Maggie's quarter and struck him in the mouth. In the darkness he staggered back from the stinging blow, clutched wildly at the air, slipped and rolled over among the vegetables with the precious rope clasped to his breast. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... constable had been sent round by the chief inspector, after certain information given by Mrs. Chapman, the landlady of Russell House. He had found the door locked and forced it open. Mr. Morton was in an arm-chair, with several yards of rope wound loosely round him; he was almost unconscious, and there was a thick wool shawl tied round his mouth which must have deadened any cry or groan the poor gentleman might have uttered. But, as a matter of fact, the constable ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... rope in his hand with a loop at one end. He tossed it over the boy's head and drew it taut. Two or three of the faces in the circle were almost as bloodless as that of the prisoner, but they were set to ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... our work cut out for us to get away from here. I don't propose to make a rope of bedclothes and try those walls till I'm sure there is no ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... out this day's peregrinations; but, after leaving Cumnor a few miles behind us, I think we came to a ferry over the Thames, where an old woman served as ferry-man, and pulled a boat across by means of a rope stretching from shore to shore. Our two vehicles being thus placed on the other side, we resumed our drive,—first glancing, however, at the old woman's antique cottage, with its stone floor, and the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... off, and the sick boss had got into a corner behind a pool-table to make his stand. In his pocket he had a pistol, knowing that to use it meant death to him as well as to the wretch he was trying to save. Fifty men were yelling in the room. They had rope, hatchets, a sprinkling of guns, and whiskey enough to burn the town, and in the corner behind a pool-table stood the mining boss with mountain fever, the Dago, and ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... the bells should fall?" To provide against this contingency, he took his stand under a beam fastened across the tower. "But what if the falling bell should rebound from one of the side walls, and hit me after all?" This thought sent him down stairs, and made him take his station, rope in hand, at the steeple door. "But what if the steeple itself should come down?" This thought banished him altogether, and he bade adieu to bell-ringing. And by a similar series of concessions, eventually, but with longer delay, he gave up another practice, ...
— Life of Bunyan • Rev. James Hamilton
... we cut out the skates, what'll we have left? Anyhow, the main question is how'll we land Gunterson?" Sternberg persisted. The mind of this large man moved as slowly as a house in a small town being transported from one lot to another by one mule, a rope, and a windlass. McCoy's mind more resembled the agile and ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... discover; for he was mean, vulgar, discontented, and brutal. He never encouraged the men in the performance of their duty, by kind expressions; on the contrary, he never addressed them on the most simple matter without oaths and imprecations, and oftentimes enforced his commands with a rope's end or ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... whenever any one of these indomitable sea-kings, no matter in what circumstances of difficulty or danger, gets a rope that is well secured at its point of suspension, fairly within his iron gripe, we may at once dismiss all concern about his personal safety. In this case the intrepid adventurer, when he found that the boat had surged away from ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... strong man, was a slave—a slave of the worst kind. I was the plaything, the tool of a villain. I had to do as he told me; I had to refrain from doing what he told me I was not to do. I had done I knew not what. Perchance a hangman's rope was hanging near me even now. I could not tell. And yet I dared not rise from my chains, and see whether the things I had been accused of ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... than ladders, and the subterranean passages leading from them form a labyrinth within the bowels of the hill, and run in superposed storeys. In one that I entered was an oven, with a well at its side. A little further, in a large hall, a circular hole in the floor unfenced gave access by rope or ladder to a lower range of galleries. Any one exploring by the feeble light of a single candle, without a guide, might be precipitated down this abyss without knowing that there was a gaping opening before him. A long ascending ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... Nevertheless as the words were out of his mouth his thought went back to the tall man whom he had first met at the churchyard gate of Netherton, and it seemed to him that he wished his thriving, yea, and in a lesser way, he wished the same to Roger of the Rope-walk, whereas he deemed that both of these, each in his own way, had been true to the ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... boate: and I haue seene in a morning a great number of them goe out, and anker in fifteene or eighteene fadome of water, which is the Ordinarie depth of all that coast. When they are at anker, they cast a rope into the Sea, and at the ende of the rope, they make fast a great stone, and then there is readie a man that hath his nose and his eares well stopped, and annointed with oyle, and a basket about his necke, or vnder his left arme, then hee goeth ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... Cyprus is so tenacious that the walls of the shaft require no artificial support; this much facilitates the work, and the labourer, armed with a very short-handled pick, patiently hacks his vertical way, and sends up the earth by means of a basket and rope, drawn by a primitive but effective windlass above, formed of a cradle of horizontal wooden bars. The man in charge simply turns the windlass without a handle, by clutching each successive bar, which, acting as a revolving lever, winds up the rope ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... voice of Bertie speak these words. Things grew confused; I wavered as I stood, lifted my hand to my head; the face of Christian Garth grew large and dim, then, faded utterly. I knew no more until I found myself seated on a coil of rope, leaning against the bulwark, while a young girl stood beside me, fanning and bathing my face, and offering me a glass ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... boyish recklessness in the Woller garden. Suddenly one of the ropes broke, and the board which supported her feet turned over out of her reach. For a time, clinging with her hands to the uninjured rope, she swayed between heaven and earth. No one was near, and, though she soon stood once more on the firm ground unhurt, the moment when her feet, during the ascent, lost their support, was associated with feelings of so much terror that she—who at that time ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... San Saba country they camped that night. At bedtime Lonny stole away from the campfire and sought Hot Tamales, placidly eating grass at the end of his stake rope. Lonny hung upon his neck, and his art aspirations went forth forever in one long, regretful sigh. But as he thus made renunciation his breath formed a ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... changes a word from a customary signification to another not recognized. This is to be found in the poet when he says golden chain [Greek omitted], but [Greek omitted] properly means a rope, and when he says a goat helmet [Greek omitted]; now a helmet is [Greek omitted] in Homer, because it used to be made of dog's ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... rope of the rich is long and long— The longest of hangmen's cords; But the kings and crowds are holding their bream, In a giant shadow o'er all beneath Where God stands holding the scales of Death Between ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... times. Us wukked in de ole days frum before sunup 'til black night an' us knowed whut wuk wuz. De beds us slep' on had roun' postes made outen saplins of hickory or little pine trees. De bark wuz tuk off an' dey wuz rubbed slick an' shiny. De sprangs wuz rope crossed frum one side uv de bed to de udder. De mattress wuz straw or cotton in big sacks made outen osnaberg or big salt sacks pieced tergether. Mammy didn't have much soap an' she uster scrub de flo' wid sand an' it wuz jes ez white. Yas mam, she made all de soap us used, but it ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... yoke— But that was right. He let his hair Grow long to qualify for Mayor, An' once or twice he poked his snoot In Congress like a low galoot! It had to come—no gent can hope To wrastle God agin the rope. Tom went from bad to wuss. Being dead, I s'pose it oughtn't to be said, For sech inikities as flow From politics ain't fit to know; But, if you think it's actin' white To tell it—Thomas ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... steered to avoid it, but the tiller broke in his hands. To lessen the speed of his progress towards the rock he attempted to reef the sails, but when he tried to knot the reef-points the wind pulled them away from him and the rope seared his hands. He saw three demons with wings of black skin having hooks at their ends, who, hanging from the rigging, were puffing with their breath ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Rise, if thou canst, and hear me. Host. Your commands, sir? Balth. If, in five minutes, all things are prepared For my departure, you may yet survive. Host. It shall be done in less. Balth. Away, thou lumpfish. (Exit hostess.) Lamp. So! now comes my turn! 't is all over with me! There's dagger, rope, and ratsbane in his looks! Baith. And now, thou sketch and outline of a man! Thou thing that hast no shadow in the sun! Thou eel in a consumption, eldest born Of Death and Famine! thou anatomy Of a starved pilchard! Lamp. I do confess my leanness. I am spare, And, therefore, spare ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the gasket on the fore-topsail yard, and dropped off, as though he had fallen, though he clung to the rope, and was brought up with a jerk ten or twelve feet below the spar. Some of his gang, believing he had really fallen, screamed, and the attention of the whole crew was drawn off from their duty. When the fore-topmast staysail and jib were to be set, somebody had fouled the down-hauls, so that ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... the shuffling of many feet, loud exclamations and an occasional cheer. Finally he screwed up the courage for another cautious peep through the bars. The crowd was moving off up the street. A small group remained undecided near a bonfire in the court house yard. One of these men held a long rope in his hand, ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... to the door of her apartments. There I kissed her hand, and bade her sleep sound and wake to happy days. Then I changed my clothes and went out. Sapt and Fritz were waiting for me with six men and the horses. Over his saddle Sapt carried a long coil of rope, and both were heavily armed. I had with me a short stout cudgel and a long knife. Making a circuit, we avoided the town, and in an hour found ourselves slowly mounting the hill that led to the Castle of Zenda. The night was dark and very stormy; ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... and the last rope was being loosed from the moorings. "Ting-ting," went the engine-room bell. "Thud-thud," started the great screw that would not stop again for so many restless hours. The huge vessel shuddered throughout her frame like ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... the way it is done. The canoes form in line, one hundred to two hundred feet apart. In the bow of each canoe a man wields a stone, several pounds in weight, which is attached to a short rope. He merely smites the water with the stone, pulls up the stone, and smites again. He goes on smiting. In the stern of each canoe another man paddles, driving the canoe ahead and at the same time keeping it in the formation. The line of canoes advances ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... be considered the most important is that of the "line." A line is described in chalk or paint upon a large space of floor. Instead of one line, there may also be two concentric lines, elliptical in form. The children are taught to walk upon these lines like tight-rope walkers, placing their feet one in front of the other. To keep their balance they make efforts exactly similar to those of real tight-rope walkers, except that they have no danger with which to reckon, as the lines are only drawn upon the floor. The teacher herself performs ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... a rope, some of you Tories, forward there, for his worship's reg'ment of black guards to ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... nothing but disappointment for them, Maybe—Luck was so consarned stubborn when he got an idea in his head—maybe be wouldn't come to any agreement with the Great Western. Maybe they wouldn't offer him enough money, or leave him enough freedom in his work; maybe he would "fly back on the rope" at the last minute, and come back with nothing accomplished. Applehead, with the experience gleaned from the stress of seeing luck produce one feature picture without any financial backing whatever and without ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... the little I could hear I was scarcely composed enough to understand—that the lifeboat had been bravely manned an hour ago, and could do nothing; and that as no man would be so desperate as to attempt to wade off with a rope, and establish a communication with the shore, there was nothing left to try; when I noticed that some new sensation moved the people on the beach, and saw them part, and Ham come breaking through them to ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... notches in the trunk of the tree where he can place his feet, and he goes on cutting notch after notch as he ascends, making a broad spiral around the tree until he reaches the limbs. Sometimes he passes a piece of rope, made out of twisted bark, around the body of the tree to steady himself, but he is just as likely to take no rope along, and trust entirely to keeping his balance with his feet ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... horseless carriages, for she laughed, and said nothing. The cold air was polka-dotted with snowflakes, and trembled to the loud, continuous jingling of sleighbells. Boys and girls, all aglow and panting jets of vapour, darted at the passing sleighs to ride on the runners, or sought to rope their sleds to any vehicle whatever, but the fleetest no more than just touched the flying cutter, though a hundred soggy mittens grasped for it, then reeled and whirled till sometimes the wearers of those daring mittens ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... Truth delights to dwell (Strange mansion!) in the bottom of a well: Questions are then the windlass and the rope That pull the grave old Gentlewoman up, Birthday Ode. J. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... good raft necessary, axes, hatchets, hunting-knives, nails, one hundred and fifty feet of rope, and two Juneau sleds were purchased. To these were added snow-shoes, a strong duck-tent, fishing-tackle, snow-glasses to protect themselves against snow-blindness, rubber blankets, mosquito-netting, tobacco, ...
— Klondike Nuggets - and How Two Boys Secured Them • E. S. Ellis
... receive yours of 16th ins't, till this day, or sh'd. have answered it sooner. To your first Question, I answer after the Ship had sunk. To your second, my answer is, I was in the Starboard Mizen Rigging—I thought I see the Capt'n hanging by a Rope that was fast to the Mizen Mast. I came down and haild him as loud as I could, he was about 10 feet distant from me. I threw a rope which fell close to him, he seem'd quite Motionless and insensible ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... be employed in coiling down a rope—in the capacity he had reverted to—while his supplanter received the rating; but he eyed the ceremony stoically and without resentment. He had failed, and, of his less frail brethren, another was raised up in his stead. It was the ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the year 1831, is of bronze, and cost 7000l. I was present at its erection with Sir Francis Chantrey and my father, who was Chantrey's assistant. The statue was placed on its pedestal between seven and eight in the morning, and while the workmen were away at their breakfasts, a rope was thrown round the neck of the figure, and a vigorous attempt made by several sturdy Reformers to pull it down. When word of what they were about was brought to my father, he exclaimed, with a smile {436} upon his face, 'The cramps are ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... of the religious requirements attach themselves to dress, ornaments, etiquette, drinking, eating, mode of walking, of lying down, of sleeping, of dressing, of undressing, of bathing. It is ordered: "That a Brahman shall not step over a rope to which a calf is attached; that he shall not run when it rains; that he shall not drink water in the hollow of his hand; that he shall not scratch his head with both his hands. The man who breaks clods of earth, who cuts grass with his nails or who bites his ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... the duel by lassoing his adversary, riata and all," was the answer. "It is not an uncommon thing for them to settle their differences by such a fight, and I have heard of the trick of ringing the other man's rope, but if that man can catch an antelope one hundred feet away, by the foot or any other way, he is a better riata man than I ever encountered. In the first place mighty few men are strong enough to throw a rope such a distance. Then an ordinary ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... with a feeble guard, he was encompassed on a sudden by the superior multitude of the enemy. He retreated with difficulty towards Langres; but, in the general consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But, on the news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all sides to his relief, and before the evening he had satisfied his honor and revenge by the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni. [36] From the monuments of those times, the obscure ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... she looked up from a Sale Catalogue, 'I do wish you would be an angel and let me have a little cash to go to Naylor and Rope's. There are some marvellous bargains—spring novelties—there, and Archie absolutely needs one ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... sayd King was with him at Chawanook two yeeres before, and brought him certaine Pearle, but the same of the worst sort, yet was he faine to buy them of him for copper at a deere rate, as he thought. Hee gaue mee a rope of the same pearle, but they were blacke, and naught, yet many of them were very great, and a few amongst a number very orient and round, all which I lost with other things of mine, comming aboord Sir Francis Drake his ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... incessantly attacked by them, and the superior, to whom he had confided this misfortune, wishing as much as in him lay to free him from them, had advised him, in order to conjure away the tempting demon, to have recourse to the bell rope, and ring with all his might. At the denunciating sound, the monks would be rendered aware that temptation was besieging a brother, and all the ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... very rich, mellow tones. San Miguel had a bell hung up on a platform in front of the church, and now at Santa Ysabel, sixty miles from San Diego, where the Mission itself is only a heap of adobe ruins, two bells hang on a rude framework of logs. The Indian bell-ringer rings them by a rope fastened to each clapper. The bells were cast in Spain and much silver jewellery and household plate were melted with the bell-metal. Near them the Diegueno Indians worship in a rude arbor of green boughs with their priest, Father Antonio, who has worked for thirty years ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... Russell and his good wife journeyed all the way from Boston to minister to the wants of their strange guest. There was in the distinguished jurist's mind a question which he must ask Brown before the rope should strangle him forever. His martyrdom had cleared every doubt and cloud from the mind of his friend save one. His fascinating letters, filled with the praise of God and the glory of a martyr's cause, had ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... again desperately. The only thing in the van that might cut through the rope was the edge of the toolbox. He inched his way back to the box and began rubbing the rope across the edge of the box, ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... the remains of the old days, the museums, the libraries, (of no interest to my mind), not forgetting the famous bell. I noticed that their bells are not allowed to swing like ours, but are motionless, being rung by a rope attached ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... in this crowning of young Henry by York and London so violated the immemorial usage of the Church, that, like the gravedigger's child I have heard of, trying to ring the bell, he hath half-hanged himself in the rope of the Church, or rather pulled all the Church with the Holy Father astride of it ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... face was an expression of sorrow, deepened with regret and slightly tempered by the patient forgiveness of a connoisseur who cannot be understood. But very firmly and inexorably he buckled his saddle-cinches, looped his stake-rope and hung it to his saddle-horn, tied his slicker and coat on the cantle, and looped his quirt on his right wrist. The Merrydews (householders of the Rancho Altito), men, women, children, and servants, vassals, visitors, employes, dogs, and casual callers were grouped in the "gallery" ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... with geranium and nasturtium brightened the centre of the yard. Beneath the wide spreading maples, which lent their unbought adornment to the shabby old house, hung a child's swing, and near by stood a rickety express-cart, to which an unlucky goat was tethered by a multi-colored harness made of rope, tape, and bits of calico. The driver of this equipage, a tow-headed lad of some five years old, stood with his thumb in his mouth, gazing with open-eyed amazement at the young lady who thought it worth ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... arm-load of small, corrugated-iron bombs, filled with grubit-which, they say, is ten times as strong, and five times as sensitive as dynamite; these they threw into the truck. A three-inch cannon was loaded and then tied onto the tail of the truck with bits of rope and wire. ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... have stirred them up to renewed exertion. A consultation was held as to the next steps to be taken. The only hope that remained was in the gig, (the jolly-boat having been washed away,) when Turner, the boatswain, as brave a fellow as ever breathed, volunteered to make the attempt. He secured a rope round his body, and was then lowered into the boat. The tackling was let go, the men gave a cheer, and the boat, with its occupant, was borne away ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... I must derive some advantage from my nobility. But midshipman or cabin boy, only recently papa again promised me a mast, here close by the swing, with yards and a rope ladder. Most assuredly I should like one and I should not allow anybody to interfere with my fastening the pennant at the top. And you, Hulda, would climb up then on the other side and high in the air we would shout: 'Hurrah!' and give ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... struggle was short; for one of them set down the lanthorn, forced down my arms behind me, and held me fast, while the other dropped the cudgel with which he had been beating me, and, taking a piece of rope-yarn from his jacket pocket, bound my wrists behind my back; he then deliberately took the large key out of the lock of the door, placed it in my mouth, across between my teeth, tied it firm behind my head, and so effectively gagged me, that I could not utter a sound. How I retained my ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... coming out of church, a dark, gloomy day, when they saw the anchor of a ship hooked to one of the tombstones, the cable, tightly stretched, hanging down the air. Presently they saw a sailor sliding down the rope to unfix the anchor. When he had just loosened it the villagers seized hold of him; and, while in their hands, he quickly died, as though he had been drowned!" There is also a famous legend called ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... long cry, put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a lump of salt. Presently, a pair of long horns appeared, then another, then a whole herd of the deer with big heads and horns growing a good deal forward. The salt was held to them, and a rope was fastened to all their horns that they might stand still in a line, while the little Lapp women milked them. Peder went up to one of the women, and brought back a little cupful for his visitor; it was all that one deer gave, but it was so rich as to be almost like ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hall, at daybreak, where, as I received many hints, something very important was this time to be determined. When we had taken our places on the benches, which were prepared for us, they unloosened our hands, but did not remove from our waists the rope, which we were led by. The governor now repeated the questions he had before asked us, and had the answers we gave, carefully explained. But now came the most important question, which was, whether I considered ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... written by him from Frankfort which Poschinger's researches have now exhumed, their writer was thought, by his partisans just as much as by his enemies, to be occupied solely with strengthening the "solidarity of conservative interests" and the supremacy of Austria, or with spinning the rope of steel which was to strangle all parliaments in Germany. And yet we know positively at present that, with increasing vigor day by day, did he warn his government against the scarcely concealed intention of Austria ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... her hand, and he took it within his own, enveloping its pale slenderness in his rope-roughened palm. He held it just long enough to make her raise her eyes and meet his; then he released her, and, avoiding the anti-climax of a further talk with the missioner, passed out of the hall to the dark and ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... was excitement. Up in the, little lake above our camp a caribou was swimming across to the north shore. The movement in camp suddenly became electrical. The last of the load was thrown into the canoe. I stepped in as George cut the rope, which tied it to the willows, and we ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... Toddlekins would like to rope us all together as if we were Swiss mountaineers," giggled Magsie, "or a gang of prisoners clanking chains. It's rather weak if one can't even stop ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... trains. The experts who were employed to investigate the many proposed applications of power decided, however, that the most feasible equipment was a series of twenty-one stationary engines located at intervals along the right of way and hauling the cars stage after stage by means of a rope wound upon a drum-the principle of the cable railway which afterwards had its day in our streets. Still Stephenson would give the directors no peace. Finally, in order to settle the question of the practical utility of the traveling engine, the company offered a prize of ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... lives than in their crippled condition they could afford to spare, - a loss poorly compensated by that of tenfold the number of the enemy. One weapon, peculiar to South American warfare, was used with some effect by the Peruvians. This was the lasso, - a long rope with a noose at the end, which they adroitly threw over the rider, or entangled with it the legs of his horse, so as to bring them both to the ground. More than one Spaniard fell into the hands of the enemy ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... Their brother had always fascinated them. He was clever, wicked perhaps, but so clever that he always got into good things. The conclusion came shortly. For the last six months Ellwell had managed to keep up the interest; now he had come to the end of his rope, and he was about to commit suicide by selling his seat in order to provide a pittance, at ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick |
