"Mast" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from the Arabs, and hammock and hurricane from the Caribs, through the Spaniards. But other words of our seamen are as native to us as our grey weather, for we brought them with other habits overseas from the North—words like hail, storm, sea, ship, sail, strand, cliff, shower, mast, ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... their boats and row after us. The Ship Hill has been visible for some time. Now we see the red roof of the mission-house, and the little cupola of the church. Thank God! the flag is flying at the mast-head, i.e., at the top of the station flagstaff; no death has occurred in the mission circle. Yonder Eskimoes on the rocks, congregated about their little cannon, fire their salutes and shout their welcome. Now we are sailing into ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe
... he endeavored to ascertain their opinions concerning his political measures, and the amount of obedience which they were likely to render to them. In 1471, "he honored the city by starting the fire with his own hand in the Place de Greve, the evening of Saint John the Baptist." On a mast, twenty-five metres in height and surrounded by combustibles of all kinds, was hung a great basket containing a dozen black cats and a fox, symbols of the devil. "The more the grilled cats cried, the ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... world. The temptations of wealth, the sirens of luxury, the opportunities for amusement and dissipation, are all to the fore in the Germany of to-day as they were certainly not twenty-five years ago. Ulysses, alas, does not bind himself to the mast very tightly as he passes these enchanted isles of modern luxury. "The land of damned professors" has learned its lessons from those same professors so well, that it is now ready to take a postgraduate course in world politics; and as ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine white court by ...
— The Kiltartan Poetry Book • Lady Gregory
... usher in the sunrise Mass of this memorable Christmas day. The royal standards of the mighty Lion drooped at half-mast before the dimmed magnificence of San Marco, their glowing gold and scarlet deadened to shades of mourning steel; and low, muffled tones, like the throbbings of the heart of a people, dropped down from the campanile through an atmosphere ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... from Lord Hartington advising the withdrawal of Forster's Irish Land Bill. [Footnote: The Compensation for Disturbance measure.] ... I placed my conditional resignation in Chamberlain's hands, and he his and mine in Forster's, in case the latter was inclined to nail his colours to the mast. I noted in my diary: "I do not care in the least about the Bill, but I must either go out with these men or climb into the Cabinet over their bodies, to either become a Whig or to eventually suffer ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... minutes to sit down and scribble (an action of the hand now seldom natural to me,—I mean voluntary pen-work), I lose all presential memory of what I had intended to say, and say what I can, talk about Vincent Bourne or any casual image, instead of that which I had meditated (by the way, I mast look out V. B. for you). So I had meant to have mentioned "Yarrow Visited," with that stanza, "But thou that didst appear so fair:" [1] than which I think no lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry. Yet the poem, on the whole, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... second generation that they began to concert measures and combine plans for conquest and colonization. To the Vikings of Norway the fertile Island with which they were now so familiar, whose woods were bent with the autumnal load of acorns, mast, and nuts, and filled with numerous herds of swine—their favourite food—whose pleasant meadows were well stored with beeves and oxen, whose winter was often as mild as their northern summer, and whose waters were as fruitful in fish as their ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... howlets of the brine, flying large and powerful throughout the under-sky that is salt and swinging and never lit by moon or star. And as the boats followed each other out of the bay, a gallant company, the crews leaned on tiller or on mast and sang their Gaelic iorrams that ever have the zest of the oar, the melancholy of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... mercy of chance among all those tails, and we are not lucky enough to throw at random. No; since the beggars have taken to dancing, for a change, let them dance all night; to-morrow they shall pay the piper." How, at peep of day, the man at the mast-head saw ten whales about two leagues off on the weather-bow; how the ship tacked and stood toward them; how she weathered on one of monstrous size, and how he and the other youngsters were mad to lower the boat and go after it, and how the captain said: "Ye lubbers, can't ye see ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... at all that Sunday, possibly because it was the day after the assassination of the King of Portugal, and the flags were at half-mast everywhere. So we went, such of us as liked, to the parapet overlooking the Piazza del Popolo, and commanding one of those prospects of Rome which are equally incomparable from every elevation. I, for my part, ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... ubiquity to him, though he put a span about the world in forty minutes; "but there was some apology for the public's not understanding this, for few people have had the opportunity of seeing the sea at such a time, and when they have, cannot face it. To hold by a mast or rock, and watch it, is a prolonged endurance of drowning, which few people have courage to go through. To those who have, it is one of the noblest lessons in nature." Very few people, indeed, and those ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... career had been distinguished by daring enterprise and by fertility of genius, maintained a sanguinary contest against two ships, one of them superior to his own, and under other severe disadvantages, 'til humanity tore down the colors which valor had nailed to the mast. This officer and his brave comrades have added much to the rising glory of the American flag, and have merited all the effusions of gratitude which their country is ever ready to bestow on the champions of its ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison
... the huge mast dipped slowly backward, triangular sail and all, until it lay nearly flat on the deck. The boat slipped under the bridge with room to spare. On the other side, the mast slowly went up to its normal rakish position again, the sail filled, ...
— The Egyptian Cat Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... in temples desecrate Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen, And ruined is the palace of our state; But happy loves flit round the mast, and keen The shrill wind sings the silken cords between. Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore, Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar. Haste, ye light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile; Love's panthers ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... can be got but once, in a spring time, to look well at the beautiful circlet of white nettle blossom, and work out with his schoolmaster the curves of its petals, and the way it is set on its central mast. So, the principle of chemical equivalents, beautiful as it is, matters far less to a peasant boy, and even to most sons of gentlemen, than their knowing how to find whether the water is wholesome in the back-kitchen cistern, or whether ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... mud shore you will see the white-painted factories and their great store-houses for oil; each factory likely enough with its flag at half-mast, which does not enliven the scenery either, for you know it is because somebody is "dead again." Throughout and over all is the torrential downpour of the wet-season rain, coming down night and day with its dull roar. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... gasped he, panting with the exertion of holding up his mast. "Look out now! here's ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... been fellow fugitives to Canada, and Isaac, who had friends in a dozen Soviets, had painted an entrancing picture of the pickings which were to be had in Petrograd. They worked their way across Canada and shipped on a Swedish barque, working their passage before the mast. At Stockholm Issy had found a friend, who forwarded them carriage paid to the capital, whereafter ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... saw the flash of the first gun on shore, and then a brisk firing began from both batteries and fort, which was kept up for some time. Of the Merrimac, nothing more was seen until broad daylight, when the top of her mast was discovered protruding from the water in just the position that Hobson ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 24, June 16, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... he never loved the ship; Against the mast he'd lean; If spoken to, he coughed and smiled, And blushed ...
— Greybeards at Play • G. K. Chesterton
... wished to be experienced in all, and use all to the service of wisdom, desired to hear the song that he might understand its meaning. Yet, distrusting his own power to be firm in his better purpose, he caused himself to be bound to the mast, that he might be kept secure against his own weakness. But Orpheus passed unfettered, so absorbed in singing hymns to the gods that he could not even hear those sounds of ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... from the study, crossing the terrace, climbing the old oak tree, his face resolute and his hair bright. He began the day thus because there was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The old tree's variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant mast, and he could always come down by the halyards—or ropes of the swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French plums—provision enough ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... with a cordial alacrity to which we might have attached unlimited credence had he not protested against our dreaming him to have supplied hot rum-and-water on board, we wrote our names and addresses in the captain's log-book, and immediately asked permission to go to the mast-head. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to bring us the Gospel, and that has opened our eyes to heavenly things, and oh! how beautiful, very beautiful indeed! Metlakahtla is like a ship just launched. You are here to give us advice where to put the mast in, and how to steer. I address you thus, though you are great and I am poor. But Jesus despises not the poor. The Tsimsheans were very low, yet Jesus raised us, and we are now anxious for all our brethren, the tribes around us, to be made alive. We see them now willing to ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... lower sank by the weight of those pressed upon them, it being built up until it rose to a sufficient height above the surface to bear as many men and as much cargo as it was required to carry. In the centre was stuck a mast to which a sail made of skins, was twisted, while a long oar projecting astern served to guide it. Notwithstanding the assurances of the natives that it was fit to perform a long voyage, I was glad of the ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... don't care about that—we had just come out of a great gale, which made the sea pitch-dark about us; when the first beam of the sun opened the clouds, we found ourselves along side a ship with the old stars and stripes flying like a bird at the mast-head. There was a sight, my hearties. We hailed her, she hailed us, we threw her papers, she threw us, and we ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... that her shattered hulk Should sink beneath the wave; Her thunders shook the mighty deep. And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storm The lightning ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... a long ray of yellow light, gilding the house-tops, gilding the mast-heads of the vessels in the harbour; and then, as though in answer to a signal, came a muffled roar from the anchored battleship. There was an instant's silence, then the shrill voices of sentries sounding the alarm, ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... people that have to do with water craft are superstitious about some things, and I freely acknowledge that times innumerable I have "whistled up" a wind when dead calm threatened, or stuck a jack-knife in the mast, and afterwards watched with great contentment the idle sail fill, and the canoe pull out to a light breeze. So, perhaps, I am prejudiced in favor of this legend of Homolsom Rock, for it strikes a very responsive chord in that portion of my heart ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... I got into the air, that was scented, not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... if tradition may be trusted, the flags upon the conquering Channel fleet of England were lowered to half-mast in token of grief for the same event which had caused the armies of France to wear ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Here the runaways were released from their cramped quarters and turned over to sympathizing friends, who assisted them in reaching Canada and safety. I have frequently met the fine-looking, courtly old gentleman who owned the pottery, and old Zacariah Mast, the skilled German potter whom he employed. They were for many years familiar figures in the little Quaker town, not many miles distant. Both passed away many ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... resorts to violence there is no safety for any one. The protecting power mast then exert its utmost authority to stop mischief. The Senate of ancient Rome, so jealous of its prerogatives, assigned to a Dictator, in times of trouble, the power of life and death, and that magistrate knew no other code than his own will and the axe of his ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... through the streets of Rochester it was seen that all the city flags were at half-mast, by order of the City Council. Many houses were draped in black, and the grief of the citizens manifested itself on every side. All the way to Mount Hope Cemetery the snow whirled blindingly around us, while the masses that had fallen covered the earth as far as we could see a fitting winding-sheet ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... who long had ruled.... In the roadstead rocked a ring-dight vessel, ice-flecked, outbound, atheling's barge: there laid they down their darling lord on the breast of the boat, the breaker-of-rings, {0b} by the mast the mighty one. Many a treasure fetched from far was freighted with him. No ship have I known so nobly dight with weapons of war and weeds of battle, with breastplate and blade: on his bosom lay a heaped hoard that hence should ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... going to have a tree for the little brother, and the old woman will be rigged up like a mast in her spotted silk. Come on. Who'll be ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... of May a calm came on. Our white wings flapped idly on the mast, and only the top-gallant sails were bent enough occasionally to lug us along at a mile an hour. A barque from Ceylon, making the most of the wind, with every rag of canvass set, passed us slowly on ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... ten oars a side, each pulled by a man who knows how to fight as well as to row—as indeed he must, for there is no room for mere landsmen on board a firkata. But if there be a fair wind off the land, there will be little rowing; the big lateen sail on her one mast will span the narrow waters between the African coast and the Balearic Isles, where a convenient look-out may be kept for Spanish galleons or perhaps an Italian polacca. Drawing little water, a small ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... purple sea, dark-blue overhead, with large stars leaning to the waves. There was a soft whisperingness in the breath of the breezes that swung there, and many sails of charmed ships were seen in momentary gleams, flapping the mast idly far away. Warm as new milk from the full udders were the waters of that sea, and figures of fair women stretched lengthwise with the current, and lifted a head as they rushed rolling by. Truly it was enchanted even to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... It did not know whether it was on the voyage out or homewards; for it had never been on shore anywhere. One day a great storm arose; the black, heavy waves rolled mountains high, and heaved the ship up and cast it down by turns; the mast came down with a crash; the sea stove in a plank; the pumps were no longer of any avail. It was a pitch-dark night. The ship sank; but at the last minute the young mate wrote on a slip of paper, "In the name of Jesus—we ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... water, so high that it could not come down again. Then they came to another island, round and shining. Here they found Hippogypi, men riding upon vultures—birds so large that each of their feathers was like the mast of a ship. The voyagers join the Hippogypi in a battle against the inhabitants of the sun, and have various allies—some mounted on fleas about the size of twelve elephants, and spiders, each as big as one of the Cyclades islands. The travellers were taken ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... ever-prudent Odysseus Safe into Chrysa had come with the hecatomb vow'd to Apollo. They, when at last they arrived in the spacious recess of the harbour, Furl'd with alertness their sail, and bestow'd in the depth of the galley, Loosen'd the ropes from the mast, and depress'd it to fix in the mast-hold, Push'd with their oars to the landing, and anchor'd and fasten'd the hausers; Then with the hecatomb laden, the mariners stept on the sea-beach. Lastly, Chryseis was led by Odysseus himself from the galley, Straight to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... down upon them swiftly. Soon the quarter-deck was looking into her. She was of a type common enough on the high seas, except that a step for a mast showed that she had presumably been used for skimming about open shores. Of her passengers, one lay forward, prone and quiet. A length of sail cloth spread over him made it impossible to see his garb. At his breast an ugly protuberance, outlined ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the Christian Evidence Society used to send out lecturers. One of them became quite famous for his clever arguments and answers, his ready wit, and really extensive reading. He was an Antiguan, a black man named Edwards, and had been a sailor before the mast. I met him at the parish house of an Episcopal clergyman of a near-by church, who, under the caption of Christian socialism, ran all kinds of social agencies that really found their way to the hearts of the people. His messages were so much more in deeds than in words that he greatly ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... near the ship I fired a gun, and told Fritz to hoist a flag like theirs to the top of our mast, and as we did so the crew gave a loud cheer. I then went on board, and the mate of the ship led me to his chief, who soon put me at my ease by a frank shake of the hand. I then told him who we were, and how we came to dwell on the isle. I learned from him, in turn, that he ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... ship us before the mast?" asked Will, with a chuckle. "That is the very latest manner of dealing with gentlemen who are unexpectedly carried off on ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... larix, or Corsican pine, not larch) between Bocognano and Corte had recently been burned by accident when we passed by. Nothing could be more forlorn than the black leafless stems and branches emerging from the snow. Some of these trees were mast-high, and some mere saplings. Corte itself is built among the mountain fastnesses of the interior. The snows and granite cliffs of Monte Rotondo overhang it to the north-west, while two fair valleys lead ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... impeded by a perpendicular wall of ice one hundred and eighty feet thick. He sailed along that barrier four hundred and fifty miles, and then gave up the attempt. Only at one point in all that distance did the ice wall sink low enough to allow of its upper surface being seen from the mast-head. He describes the upper surface as an immense plain shining like frosted silver, and stretching away as far as eye could reach ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... a short, fat individual wearing a chiton as if he had slept in it for three or four weeks. His face was puffy and his golden hair was ruffled. His eyelids seemed to have acquired a permanent half-mast, and beneath them the eyes were ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... to support her, when aloud and dreadful crash was heard from above. It seemed as if the whole vessel had parted. The voices of the sailors now rose together, and all was confusion and uproar. Ferdinand ran up to the deck, and learned that part of the main mast, borne away by the wind, had fallen upon the deck, ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... playful billows' game. So each good ship was rude to see, Rude and bare to the outward view, But each upbore a stately tent Where cedar pales in scented row 30 Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine, And an awning drooped the mast below, In fold on fold of the purple fine, That neither noontide nor starshine Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, 35 Might pierce the regal tenement. When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad We set the sail and plied the oar; But when the night-wind blew like breath, For joy of one day's ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... followed a certain defined route to Falmouth and nowhere else, and provided there were marked "on ship's hull and superstructure three vertical stripes one meter wide, to be painted alternately white and red. Each mast should show a large flag checkered white and red, and the stern the American national flag. Care should be taken that during dark, national flag and painted marks are easily recognizable from a distance, and that the boats are well lighted throughout." Other conditions followed. There ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... for half a score of families. Then there were the apple trees, with their limbs twisted like old cripples, with bark gnarled and knotted, and all stained with lichen-growth. There were also smooth pear trees, that shot up mast-like with long slender spars. And there were rosy-blossomed peach-trees that won a place amid this teeming growth as pretty maids do amidst a human crowd by dint of bright smiles and gentle persistence. Some had been formerly trained as espaliers, but they had broken ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... in severall glasses all sorts of wine and sweete waters." A Turk, who walked up an almost perpendicular line by means of his toes, danced blindfold on a tight rope with a boy dangling from his feet, and stood on his head on the top of a high mast, shared an equal popularity with Barbara Vanbeck, the bearded woman, and "a monstrous beast, called a dromedary." These wondrous sights, together with various others of a like kind, which were scattered throughout the town and suburbs during the greater part of the year, assembled in full strength ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... once a long-tusked boar of the forest, this snow-white, sawed-off, pug-nose little porker of mine—ages and ages ago. But he still remembers the smell of the forest leaves; he still knows the taste of the acorn-mast; he is still wild pig somewhere ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... no good fortune. The very day after we left Kamtschatka, one of our best sailors fell from the mast-head into the scuttle, and immediately expired. He had climbed thither in safety in the most violent storms, and executed the most difficult tasks with ease; now, in fine weather, on a tranquil sea, he met ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... you admire when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris a sublime vessel laden with intelligence? Yes, her arms are one of those oracles which fatality sometimes allows. The City of Paris has her great mast, all of bronze, carved with victories, and for watchman—Napoleon. The barque may roll and pitch, but she cleaves the world, illuminates it through the hundred mouths of her tribunes, ploughs the ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... landscape through dissolving mists. They trembled as the foliage trembles in the breeze that disperses the vapors. Images of the past gained distinctness of outline and coloring, and all at once, like the black hull, broken mast, and rent sails of a wrecked vessel, one awful scene rose before me. The face, like that of the angel of death, the sound terrible as the thunders of doom, the bleeding body that my arms encircled, the ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Mouse, "it would be all very well if all the plants bore nuts and mast, instead of those silly flowers; and if I were not obliged to grub under ground in the spring, and gnaw the bitter roots, whilst they are dressing themselves in their fine flowers and flaunting it to the world, as ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... seas. In the desolate regions where it lives the sailors hail its appearance with delight, as it comes sailing around the ship with majestic, careless flight, rising, sinking, now swooping down to seize some cast-off mouthful of food, now poising high above the mast-head, moving with the ship at the most rapid speed, and yet with scarcely a perceptible movement of its ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... while being careful not to excite suspicion, had been minutely examining the immediate surroundings of the pavilion and the end of the park in which it was situated. From the top of the sloping alleys he could easily distinguish the peak of a mast which showed above the wall of the park. He recognized the peak at a glance as being that of the Ella, and knew therefore that the wall at this part skirted the ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... the operetta of 'Hansel and Gretel', he observed that the greater part of the audience was composed of nice plain young girls and children, and he noted that there was no sort of evening dress; from the large number of Americans present he imagined a numerous colony in Berlin, where they mast have an instinctive sense of their co-nationality, since one of them in the stress of getting his hat and overcoat when they all came out, confidently addressed him in English. But he took stock of his impressions with his wife, and they seemed to him so few, after all, that he could not ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... mast an' sails an' everyfing?" cried John wildly; and throwing his spoon to the floor, he scrambled from his chair. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... dozen of them leaped overboard and swam to the mass of tangled spars and rigging which littered the beach. Selecting what they wished they returned to the vessel, and a few minutes later von Horn was chagrined to see them stepping a jury mast—he thought the treasure lay in the ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the beach, became a particle of ice, and stretching out and drawing in her arms, invited, by her gestures, the sailors to throw themselves into the waves, and strive to reach her. Captain Hackett understood her. He called to his mate in the rigging of the other mast: "It is our last chance. I will try! If I live, follow me; if I drown, stay where you are!" With a great effort he got off his stiffly frozen overcoat, paused for one moment in silent commendation of his soul to God, and, throwing himself into the waves, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... his face, and it had never seemed so dear to me. "The time for that is past," I said, my tone as calm and even as his own. "A man like you cannot burden himself with a derelict like me—mast gone, sails gone, water-logged, drifting. Five years from now you'll thank me for what I am saying now. My place is with this other wreck—tossed about by wind and weather until we both go down together." There came a sharp, insistent ring at the door-bell. No answering sound ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... sayest thou so, upon thyselfe thou lyest, Thou haste euer knowen the sacramente to be the body of Christ." John Bon and Mast Person. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... traced these words on the bark of a beech, Just at the falling of the mast: "After scanning five; yes, each and each, I've ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... collections. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania contains a 2-page Turlington broadside,[43] while the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington has an earlier 46-page Turlington pamphlet with testimonials reaching out toward America.[44] One such certificate came from "a sailor before the mast, on board the ship Britannia in the New York trade," and another cited a woman living in Philadelphia who gave thanks for the cure of ...
— Old English Patent Medicines in America • George B. Griffenhagen
... bore down again and attacked the Ockham in their favourite manner, astern. For some time the East Indiaman was exposed to the fire of ten nine-pounders, to which it could only reply with two stern-chasers. Captain Jobson, finding his rigging much cut up, and seeing that the loss of a mast would probably entail the loss of his ship, determined to entice them to close quarters, in the good breeze that was springing up. The plan was explained to the crew, who were in good heart, and encouraged by a promise of two months' pay. Every ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... coast-guard station, less than a mile away, would have been very busy, and she herself must surely have heard some of the disturbance. No, there had been no wreck, yet all about her lay the wave-sodden flotsam and jetsam of many past disasters. A broken mast stump was imbedded upright in the sand at one spot. In another, a ladder-like pair of stairs, suggesting a ship's companionway, lay half out of the water. Sundry casks and barrels dotted the beach, some empty, some still untouched. Rusty tins of canned goods, oil, and paint, often intact, intermingled ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... A splendid clear morning, with fine S.W'ly wind blowing—during breakfast time I sewed a flap attachment on to my green hat so as to prevent the wind from blowing down my neck on the march. We got up the mast and sail on the sledge and headed North, picking up Amundsen's cairn and our outgoing tracks shortly afterwards. Along this we travelled until we struck the other cairn and finally the Black Flag where we had made our sixth (?) outward camp. We then with much relief ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... went below. The wind was on the quarter, strong and steady. Almost immediately the good steamer felt the canvas, leaning gently over to leeward, adding another mile to her great speed. The sea was black, and the air seemed to be full of the sounds of waves breaking and hissing. Ahead the mast-head and the side-lights shone down on the face of the waters and lighted up an occasional white-capped wave. In the air, brisk and masterful, there was a sense of purpose and tension which sailors understand, while mere printed words cannot ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... doors, like a knot of conspirators? The first tap of the Northern drum dispelled many illusions, and we need no better proof of which ship is sinking than that Mr. Caleb Cushing should have made such haste to come over to the old Constitution, with the stars and stripes at her mast-head. ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... made up by all. Buffaloes in herds, grouse in broods, quail in flocks, the human race in circles. God has most beautifully arranged this. It is in this way that he balances society; this conservative and that radical keeping things even. Every ship must have its mast, cutwater, taffrail, ballast. Thank God, then, for Princeton and Andover, for ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... is he, but strong enough To handle the tallest mast; From the royal barque to the slaver dark, He ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... prepar'd A rotten carcase of a butt not rigg'd, Nor tackle, sail, nor mast,—the very ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... exposed had parted first; three or four more followed in succession, and before there was time to secure anything, the remainder had gone together, and the mainmast had broken at a place where a defect was now seen in its heart. Falling over the side, the latter had brought down with it the mizzen-mast and all its hamper, and as much of the fore-mast as stood above the top. In short, of all the complicated tracery of ropes, the proud display of spars, and the broad folds of canvas that had so lately overshadowed the deck of the Montauk, the mutilated fore-mast, the fore-yard ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... a gang of slaves, who sat down and stared till their eyes blinked and watered. For the loan of his old canoe he asked the moderate sum of fifteen dollars per diem, which finally fell to two dollars; but there was a suspicious reservation anent oars, paddles and rudder, mast and sail. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Grasmere, in the Lake country, and the next year republished the Lyrical Ballads with a new volume, both of which passed to another edition in 1802. With this edition, Wordsworth ran up his revolutionary flag and nailed it to the mast. ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... small but stout property-mast, and arranged it against a canvas background of coast scenery. 'I generally use it for children in sailor costume,' he said, 'but I think it will bear your weight ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... men and boys were launching small sailing-boats. Bobby stood looking on with great fascination. There was one boat which took his fancy. She was painted scarlet, and had a miniature Union Jack attached to her mast. A little boy, not much older than himself, was the owner, and he, with a young maid-servant, was watching her journey across the ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... however, and we saw no signs of its abating. The rigging was found to be ill-fitted and greatly strained; and on the third day of the blow, about five in the afternoon, our mizzen-mast, in a heavy lurch to windward, went by the board. For an hour or more we tried in vain to get rid of it, on account of the prodigious rolling of the ship; and, before we had succeeded, the carpenter came aft and announced four feet ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... [Footnote: From its mast-head floated a blue pennant, bearing the words of the dying Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship." ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... Wolfgar had assured him the Princess Maida was prepared. He hesitated, with his finger upon the switch-button of the weapon. But he knew that in a moment he would be too late. A searchlight from an aerial mast high overhead swung down upon him, bathing him in ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... engaged in baling the water out of their quarters between decks, whither it had been forced down the hatches. In other respects the ship was quite tight and free from leak, proving herself to be a capital sea boat. The pumps being attended to drew out the water which was forced down the hatches, mast-coats, ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... Artist views At Ev'ning from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands, 290 Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe. His Spear, to equal which the tallest Pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand, He walkt with to support uneasie steps Over the burning Marle, not like those steps On Heavens Azure, and the torrid Clime Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with Fire; Knotholes he so endur'd, till ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... masses of clouds scudding across the starry heavens, driven by the wind which bid fair to continue all night and all the next day. Off on the lagoon loomed the dark hulk and slender mast of the sloop, rising and falling on the choppy waves, her bow light gleaming across the water like a watchful eye. At his feet lay the dory, drawn up on the sand and moored by a line fastened to a palmetto, well out of reach ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... wrathful surge, through blackening storm, 'Mid he deep darkness, white as snow! So stately her bearing, so proud her array, The main she will traverse forever and aye! Many ports shall exult in the gleam of her mast— Hush! hush! Thou vain dreamer, this ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... whistling past the lugger, sometimes striking her sails, sometimes with a sharp tap hitting her hull or mast. ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... bright beside this pitchy night, and her struggle back to life less painful than the fierce labor of the wind and waves. Their frail precarious craft was in ceaseless peril. His left arm held her like a vice, but for greater safety he had bound a rope round their two bodies and the small mast of their craft. With his right arm he clasped the mast low down, and his right hand came round to grip her shaking knees. In this close hold she lay a long while without speaking. Then ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... his task, while at the same time the success of the experiment was proof of his genius. The body of his artificial bird, boat-shaped, was 13 1/2 ft. in length, with a breadth of 4 ft. at the widest part. The material was cloth stretched over a wooden framework; in front was a small mast rigged after the manner of a ship's masts to which were attached poles and cords with which Le Bris intended to work the wings. Each wing was 23 ft. in length, giving a total supporting surface of nearly 220 sq. ft.; the weight of the whole apparatus was only 92 pounds. For steering, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... old—and still existing—Fighting Instructions concerning the line-of-battle in action, embodied in a typical representative in the senior captain of his fleet. This gentleman, Robert Carkett, had risen from before the mast, and after a lieutenancy of thirteen years had become post in 1758, by succeeding to the command when his captain was killed, in one of the most heroic single-ship fights of the British navy. Unluckily, his seniority gave him the lead of the fleet as it was now formed on the ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... only concern had been for the boys, brought his hand down on his knee earnestly. "Then I'm with you, lads, till the last mast carries away. You're the pilot in these waters, Charley. What course shall we steer ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the hands kept continually at the pumps, and all this time in the most destressing anxiety, being uncertain of our exact situation and doubtful of our tackling holding, which has a very long time been bad, for had a mast gone, or topsail given way, there was nothing to be expected in such boistrous weather but certain death on a coast so inhospitable and unknown. And now to reflect, if we had not reached the port with that seasonable supply, what could have become ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... is asleep on Serchio's stream, Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, The helm sways idly, hither and thither; Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars, and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast, 5 Like a beast, unconscious of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... fleet passing through the straits in search of the French fleet that had lately got out of Toulon. In less than a year, Nelson's young admirer was one of the thousands that pressed to see the remains of the great admiral as they lay in state at Greenwich, wrapped in the flag that had floated at the mast-head of the Victory. ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... us back and side. All this was in the heart and heat of the great war, when we were struggling, like drowning men, for our very life and existence, and when our colours—the true British flag—were nailed to the mast-head. One would have thought these rips were a set of prophets, they were all so busy prophesying, and never any thing good. They kent (believe them) that we were to be smote hip and thigh; and that to oppose the vile Corsican was like men with strait-jackets out of Bedlam. ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... hardly expect to be replaced, except by years of experience and great natural ability." Mr. T. J. Bown, Superintendent of the Sydney (Australia) Fire Brigade, in a letter dated 22nd August 1861, says, "On receipt of the sad news, our large fire-bell was tolled, the British ensign hoisted half-mast high, and crape attached to the firemen's uniform, as a token of respect for one of the noblest and most self-denying men that ever lived, who spent and lost his life in the service ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood |
