"Whipcord" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rose before us, and they faced it game as ever — We were both at spur and whipcord, fetching blood at every bound — And above the people's cheering and the cries of 'Ace' and 'Quiver', I could hear the trainer shouting, 'One more run for Snowy River.' Then we struck the jump together and came smashing ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... Francis Burdett particularly distinguished himself. He moved an address on the subject to the prince regent, in doing which he remarked:—"There are but few persons who know what is the dreadful manner in which this torture is inflicted. The instrument, formed of pieces of whipcord, each as thick as a quill, and knotted, is applied by the main strength of fresh men, relieving each other, until human nature can bear no more; and then, if pains are taken to recover the unhappy sufferer, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... great feat. I raised the cross-bow amid the breathless silence of the crowded audience,—consisting of seven boys and three girls, exclusive of Kitty Collins, who insisted on paying her way in with a clothes-pin. I raised the cross-bow, I repeat. Twang! went the whipcord; but, alas! instead of hitting the apple, the arrow flew right into Pepper Whitcomb's mouth, which happened to be open at the time, ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... Jack curled up on the foot of the bed, in ten minutes. Blake, by the help of wet towels and a knotted piece of whipcord round his forehead, read Pinder till the chapel bell began ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... unreasonableness of expecting that I would risk horses in a place where they would probably be stolen before the morning, he replied, "True, true, you have perhaps done right." He then refastened his macho, adding for additional security a piece of whipcord, which he said ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... counterplots that he was confident were forming in Clay's brain, and his devotion would have been severely tried had he known that his hero's mind was filled with a picture of a young girl in a blue shirt-waist and a whipcord riding-skirt. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... he did so a man in plain clothes, who had been waiting upon the landing, stepped forward. He carried in his hand a piece of thin, strong whipcord. ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... celebrated humorist of Coventry, whose library of ballads, almanacs, and penny histories, fairly wrapped up in parchment, and tied round for security with a piece of whipcord, remains still the envy of antiquaries, being himself the ingenious person under whose direction the pageant had been set forth, rode valiantly on his hobby-horse before the bands of English, high-trussed, saith Laneham, and brandishing his long sword, as became an experienced man of war, who had ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... enjoyment in the past, days, when wealth was more jealously exclusive; and he was always prompting for challenges and saving up to pay expenses; and the fellows were to laugh at kicks and learn the art of self-defence—train to rejoice in whipcord muscles. The son of a tradesman, if a boy fell under the imputation, was worthy of honour with him, let the fellow but show grip and toughness. He loathed a skulker, and his face was known for any boy ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... right, sir, all right: a little stiff or so across the back, but not so bad as the tiger at Bundleapoor. I'm not as young as I used to be, and there's a difference between young men and old ones. Young men are all whalebone and whipcord, and it's nothing but hopping, skipping, and jumping with them all day long; when 235you're turned of sixty-five, sir, the whalebone gets stiff, the whipcord wears out, the skip and jump take their departure, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... persist." Levasseur spoke without anger, with a coldly mocking regret. His fingers had been busy tying knots in a length of whipcord. He held it up. "You know this? It is a rosary of pain that has wrought the conversion of many a stubborn heretic. It is capable of screwing the eyes out of a man's head by way of helping him to see ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... us. Life isn't half long enough, and we're going to talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more, and dwell less on any subject than you can possibly imagine. We are "the best"—made of wire and whipcord.' And Val was unconsciously forming himself on a set whose motto was: 'We defy you to interest or excite us. We have had every sensation, or if we haven't, we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with living that no hours are too small for us. We will lose our shirts with equanimity. We have flown ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... body, but he gave a jerk of his will-power which brought the veins out like whipcord upon his forehead, and drove the nails deep into the palms of ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... eyen and marvel while thou dost peruse the same: Broom Broom on Hill, So wo iz me begon, trolly lo Over a Whinny Meg, Hey ding a ding, Bony lass upon a green, My bony on gave me a bek, By a bank az I lay; and two more he hath fair wrapt up in parchment, and bound with a whipcord!" It is no wonder that Ritson, in the historical essay prefixed to his collection of Scottish Songs, should speak of some of these ballads with a zest as if he would have sacrificed half his library to untie the said "whipcord" packet. And equally joyous, I ween, would my friend Mr. R.H. Evans, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... further off a crawling flock bustling after shepherd and dog, were all the living things I saw. The ground was iron, the colour of what had once been herbage a glaring brown. Of the flowers none but the hardiest had outlived the visitation of the sun. I saw rest-harrow which has a root like whipcord, and the flat thistle which thrives in dust. The harebells floated no more, the discs of the scabious were shrivelled husks; ladies' bedstraw was straw indeed, but not for ladies' uses. Three miles away from anywhere ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... sixpence out of his leather satchel, thinking that Marquet would have sold him some of his cakes. But, instead of cakes, he gave him with his whip such a rude lash overthwart the legs, that the marks of the whipcord knots were apparent in them, then would have fled away; but Forgier cried out as loud as he could, O, murder, murder, help, help, help! and in the meantime threw a great cudgel after him, which he carried under his arm, wherewith he hit him in the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... fun for most of us, but for those who are not satisfied with it there is skipping extraordinary, one feat of which is now and then to send the rope round twice before you touch the ground again. To do this, as it cannot be done with a mere rope, you must make a new rope of whipcord, in the middle of which you place a small chain about a foot long. This chain gives the weight necessary for whirling the rope very ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... habit she couldn't get over. But it no longer gave her keen pleasure. She told herself that her three friends were deteriorating in their middle age. Lizzie's sharp face darted malice; her tongue was whipcord; she knew where to flick; the small gleam of her eyes, the snap of her nutcracker jaws irritated Harriett. Sarah was slow; slow. She took no care of her face and figure. As Lizzie put it, Sarah's appearance was ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... His demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and "dat d——d bug" were the sole words which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with the scarabaeus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit of whipcord, twirling it to and fro, with the air of a conjurer, as he went. When I observed this last plain evidence of my friend's aberration of mind, I could scarcely refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for the present, or until I could ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... wear black liveries in town. In the country they wear gray or even their ordinary whipcord with a black ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... and the dishes were washed and put away when Cheyenne and Bartley appeared. Clean-shaven, his dark hair brushed smoothly, a small, dark-blue, silk muffler knotted loosely about his throat, and in a new flannel shirt and whipcord riding-breeches—which he wore under his jeans when on the trail—Bartley pretty well approximated Little Jim's description of him as a dude. And the word "dude" was commonly used rather to differentiate an outlander ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... comparable with the rough skill of these creatures. She had watched the flash and swing of the axe, with its edge like the finest razor. She had seen the standing muscles like whipcord writhing under sunburnt flesh as they served the lethal weapon. She had noted every blow, how it was calculated to a hair's-breadth, and fell without waste of one single ounce of power. And then the amazing result. The fallen tree stretched ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... could with them, Steve, but they look pretty crumby," Nadia wrinkled her nose as she studied the anything but invisible seams, darns, and staring patches everywhere so evident, both in her own apparel of gray silk and in the heavy whipcord clothing of her companion. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... said Greasy Gus. "Now, here's what I know about it. I got out of Derlingport with Henry, and when the farmer dumped us from his wagon I hitched this whipcord to Henry's leg and drove him along the road. After while I hit this town of Riverbank. I thought maybe the police would be looking for Henry. So I took to an alley instead of a regular street, and along we came. We came down the alley, and ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... to the exercise of his vocation, generally carries under his arm a small box containing the instruments necessary, and which consist principally of various pairs of scissors, and the ACIAL, two short sticks tied together with whipcord at the end, by means of which the lower lip of the horse, should he prove restive, is twisted, and the animal reduced to speedy subjection. In the girdle of the esquilador are stuck the large scissors called in Spanish TIJERAS, and in the Gypsy tongue CACHAS, with which he principally works. He ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... back with increased vitality, with more reality and strength behind it; coming back because the Christ within the Church, finding that forgetfulness was coming over the modern mind, has, as in the olden days, used a scourge of whipcord instead of only the voice of love. For inasmuch as the voice of love was not listened to, and the reality of His presence was being forgotten, He has used the whip of what is called the Higher Criticism ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... out like whipcord on Granet's flushed forehead. He swayed on his feet. Twice he had seemed as though he would spring ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... trunk was tough, was solid as stump of oak Untouched at the core by a thousand years: much less had its seventy broke One whipcord nerve in the muscly mass from neck to shoulder-blade Of the mountainous man, whereon his child's rash hand like ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... sharp as whipcord. "Keep down!—keep down!" I bent almost double and walked fast at the same time. My mind turned to September 1916, when I walked along Pozieres Ridge, just before the Courcellette fight, and was shouted at for not crouching down by my battery commander. But ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... to foot with sawdust; or, best of all, to see an antique Brother, with scarecrow legs, and low shoes which had presumably been in his possession or that of his predecessors for a long series of years, wheeling a barrow of liquid manure, with his gown looped up high by means of stout whipcord and an arrangement of large brass rings. The Brother whose business it was to do such cooking as might be required by visitors, grinned in the most friendly and engaging manner from ear to ear when he was looked at; and, ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... Orkney Isles to clean, but were apprehended by a gentleman of that country, brought up to London, and tried before a Court of Admiralty, in May, 1725. When the first indictment was read, Gow obstinately refused to plead, for which the Court ordered his thumbs to be tied together with whipcord. The punishment was several times repeated by the executioner and another officer, they drawing the cord every time till it broke. But he still being stubborn, refusing to submit to the court, the sentence was pronounced against him, which the law appoints ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... unco kippage,' said Mrs. Flockhart to Evan as he descended; 'I wish he may be weel,—the very veins on his brent brow are swelled like whipcord; ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... thin, gawky, pale haired youth, with tired eyes and a limp lower jaw that leaves his mouth half open all the time; and his costume looks like it had been made up from back door contributions,—a faded coat three sizes too small, a forty fat vest, and a pair of shiny black whipcord pants that someone had been married ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... are soundly built, stranger; you are made of iron and whipcord, finely formed, quick and alert." He threw a word to one of his heavy-faced attendants, then suddenly stood up and descended from his throne. He came up and stood ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... this fish should assuredly take us back to the far-off schoolboy times when we used to "snatch a fearful joy" by surreptitious visits to the mill stream, and when, with a little hazel rod, length of whipcord, and rude hooks whipped to twisted horsehair, we would hurry home to breakfast with a dozen roach strung through the gills upon a twig of osier. They ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... Ventvoegel, or "windbird," and one a little Zulu named Khiva, who had the merit of speaking English perfectly. Ventvoegel I had known before; he was one of the most perfect "spoorers," that is, game trackers, I ever had to do with, and tough as whipcord. He never seemed to tire. But he had one failing, so common with his race, drink. Put him within reach of a bottle of gin and you could not trust him. However, as we were going beyond the region of grog-shops this little weakness of his did ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... wheel sat a damsel of extraordinary beauty. The massive proportions of the enormous car only accentuated the perfection of her streamline figure. Her chassis was admirable; she was upholstered in a sports suit of fawn-colored whipcord; and her sherry-brown eyes were unmodified by any dimming devices. Before Bleak could say anything she cried eagerly, "Get in, Mr. Bleak! I've been looking for you everywhere. What a ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... face something which she had seen there once before, and which ever since she had recalled with a vague uneasiness—the look murderous. The veins in his forehead became like whipcord—there was a red flash in his eyes. Yet his self-control was marvellous. His voice, when he spoke, seemed scarcely to rise ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... dressed in a maroon satin shirt and white whipcord breeches tucked into shiny new boots. But instead of his usual sombrero, a chef's cap was ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... though but a weak-eyed boy with a chronic headache, had a deal of whipcord fiber in his make-up. He stood the test and grubbed at his books every night until the clock tolled twelve. He was born at a peculiar time, being a child of the Reformation married to the Renaissance. The toughness ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... us when we alighted. Do not imagine that it was at the door of her old house. It was in a wide street opening on a splendid square, and pillars were before the houses, and inside there was the enchantment of a little fountain playing thin as whipcord, among ferns, in a rock-basin under a window that glowed with kings of England, copied from boys' history books. All the servants were drawn up in the hall to do homage to me. They seemed less real and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Ah, well-a-day! well-a-day!" said she, in a feeble, mournful tone, slowly rubbing together her long, skinny, wrinkled hands, on the backs of which the veins stood out like knotted whipcord. She repeated the last words several times, in a truly doleful tone, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... recorded cases in which he made a small incision through the skin, and mylohyoid and geniohyoid muscles, and through this passed a curved needle bearing the chain of the ecraseur completely round the base of the tongue. In one case the chain was unsatisfactory, but strong whipcord was introduced as it was withdrawn, and tied with all possible force. The organ eventually sloughed away, with a cure which lasted at least ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... didn't struggle, for, when this disorrder grips ye, ye cant move hand nor foot—and had my lady into the land of Nod in half a minute; thin off t' her husband; so here's th' Healer between two stools—spare the whipcord, spoil the knacker!—it would be a good joke if I was to lose both pashints for want of a little unbeequity, wouldn't it—Lash the lazy vagabin!—Not that I care: what interest have I in their lives? they never pay: but ye see custom's second nature; an d'Ive formed a vile habit; I've ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... hand was still on his arm. She felt it suddenly harden and twitch with murderous anger. But, by an effort that made the veins of his temple swell like whipcord, he refrained from striking the ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... complexion, with light hair and mustache. He had lost one eye, the other was that light gray colour that is usually associated with indomitable nerve. He had a shrewd, rather humorous expression, and gave one the impression of being very capable. Dressed in a neat whipcord suit, wearing light shoes and a carefully tied tie, recently shaved—a luxury we had denied ourselves, all this time—he was certainly an interesting character to meet in this out-of-the-way place. We should judge he was a little over forty years old; but whether prospector, ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... ago," grumbles responsive the drowsy Porter.—"C'est bien." Yes, it is well;—though had not such hour-and-half been lost, it were still better. Forth therefore, O Fersen, fast, by the Barrier de Clichy; then eastward along the Outer Boulevard, what horses and whipcord can do! ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... the door, and crossed to the stairs. There he stopped. From his pouch he had drawn a fine length of whipcord, attached at one end to a tiny bodkin of needle sharpness. That bodkin he drove into the edge of one of the panels of the wainscot, in line with the topmost step; drawing the cord taut at a height of a foot ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... of this Hercules had increased in width. He was habited like Alcides; his enormous limbs, furrowed with veins as thick as whipcord, were covered with a close-fitting flesh-colored garment, to which a pair of red ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... the whipcord crack As angry shearers galloped by, In vain they tried to fetch him back. A little dust along the track Was all they ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... which are so common among the Fuegians. Their chief pride consists in having everything made of silver; I have seen a cacique with his spurs, stirrups, handle of his knife, and bridle made of this metal: the head-stall and reins being of wire, were not thicker than whipcord; and to see a fiery steed wheeling about under the command of so light a chain, gave to the horsemanship ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... book recently written by a woman who mothered an intellectual child of cormorant appetite. That child learned everything in sight from fairies to grease-traps. What was difficult to manage in that mass of whipcord mental fibre, was put into verse and sung. The book told how the child was nourished on all things that only specialists among men cared to litter their minds with. Then there was a supplement of additional assimilations, ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... three of the cells deepened this impression. In each was a small wooden bedstead about a foot and a half high, with nothing upon it but a very thin paillasse, a black blanket (the colour of the wool), and a little bolster. Upon a nail hung a small cat-o'-nine-tails of knotted whipcord. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... this, carefully, compactly, and quickly, like a man accustomed to do all sorts of strange things, he tied the handkerchief full of stones to the whipcord that bound the brown-paper parcel, and dropped both packages ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... region of his heart, a tentacle had budded. It was as long as his arm, but thin, like whipcord, and soft and flexible. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... thrice the usual number of cartridges told one tale; flannel paddings which sought to make of the military appointment a winter garment told another. The Boers, I suppose, envied us our serge and whipcord, but to examine their homely makeshifts was to realise that even the art of Stohwasser may leave something to be desired. Although they eyed us diligently they had now fallen strangely silent; they offered ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... peeped back at his only passenger, touched the nigh leader with the most delicate hint of a whipcord, and said confidentially to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... the wilderness—an acquaintance. It was one Arbuthnot, an Australian colonel of artillery who, through the chances of war, had rendered his battalion great service. A keen, sparely built man made of leather and whipcord, with ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... streets of New York every day with thirty-five or forty sightseers on its broad back, while a groom in whipcord blows an incongruous ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... a four-wheeler in my life! The harness is tied up with string, and the rein's broken. The idiot says if he had a stout bit of whipcord, he could make it square." No sooner have the words passed the doctor's lips than Miss Sally is ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... dubious, as he himself was, about being able to make the return trip in safety. The horses were tired; so, too, were the men who had broken the heavy trail for so many miles, with the exception of Sam himself, who seemed built of whipcord and elastic. They would be greatly encumbered by the woman, for she would certainly give out during the journey. The one point in their favor was that they could follow a trail which had already been ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... extreme, and "dat deuced bug" were the sole words which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with the scarabaeus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit of whipcord; twirling it to and fro, with the air of a conjurer, as he went. When I observed this last, plain evidence of my friend's aberration of mind, I could scarcely refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more energetic ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Barrington's Observations on the Statutes, that, until the above-mentioned act, it was usual to torture a prisoner by tying his thumbs tightly together with whipcord in order to extort a plea; and he mentions the following instances where one or more of these ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... had walked a hundred leagues together from the hot plains of Syria, through the snow-swept passes of the Taurus mountains, and over the sun-scorched levels of the high plateau.[5] Their muscles were as tireless as whipcord. Their courage had not quailed before robber or blizzard, the night yells of the hyena or the stones ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... a change of Government not many years ago, an officer of the Royal Household was chatting with one of the Queen's old coachmen (whose name and location I, for obvious reasons, forbear to indicate). "Well, Whipcord, have you seen your new Master of the Horse yet?" "Yes, sir, I have; and I should say that his lordship is more of an indoors man." The phrase has a touch of genial contempt for a long-descended but effete aristocracy which tickles ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... of winners. I put my money on them. Nothing on earth can stop those fellows, native-born Americans, all grit and get-up. See that tall one smoking a cigar and looking at the women? He's an athlete. Name's Mervin; all whipcord and whalebone; springy as a bent bow. He's a type of the Swift. He's bound to get there. See the other. Hewson's his name; solid as a tower; muscled like a bear; built from the ground up. He represents the Strong. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... old sailor, whose muscles were like whipcord, shook his head and fairly made the yawl spring ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... wooden ring fixed to a short handle. The drumstick consists of a splinter of whalebone 300 to 400 millimetres long, which towards the end runs into a point so fine and flexible, that it forms a sort of whipcord. When the thicker part of the piece of whalebone is struck against the edge of the drum-skin, the other end whips against the middle, and the skin is thus struck twice at the same time. The drum is commonly played by the man, and the playing is ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... make a fishing-line. To make a strong fine line, unravel a good silk handkerchief, and twist the threads into a whipcord. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... Tom so dearly, Luke,—better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell him everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for all he doesn't like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit-pens." ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... half a dozen I find written, So, so, and no more—and upon a couple Moderato; by which, as far as one may gather from Altieri's Italian dictionary,—but mostly from the authority of a piece of green whipcord, which seemed to have been the unravelling of Yorick's whip-lash, with which he has left us the two sermons marked Moderato, and the half dozen of So, so, tied fast together in one bundle by themselves,—one may safely suppose he meant pretty ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... afore I set my een on you," said Ebie, which, to say the least of it, was curious, considering that he had an assortment of locks of hair—black, brown, and lint-white—up in the bottom of his "kist" in the stable loft where he slept. He kept them along with his whipcord and best Sunday pocket knife, and sometimes he took a look at them when he had to move them in order to get his green necktie. "I never really likit a lass afore, Jess, ye may believe me, for I wasna a lad to rin ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... all round me. Dirt was being flung in my face, cutting it like whipcord. My only thought was whether any of it had struck my lens and made it dirty, for this would have spoiled my film. I gave a quick glance at it. ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... it's life that I fight for—never it seemed so sweet. I know that my face is frozen; my hands are numblike and dead; But oh, my feet keep a-moving, heavy and hard and slow; They're trying to kill me, kill me, the night that's black overhead, The wind that cuts like a razor, the whipcord lash of the snow. Keep a-moving, a-moving; don't, don't stumble, you fool! Curse this snow that's a-piling a-purpose to block my way. It's heavy as gold in the rocker, it's white and fleecy as wool; It's soft as a bed ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... to eat such abundance of pudding): besides, I say, these, there is scarcely anything to be found, but a budget of old stitched sermons hung up behind the door, with a few broken girths, two or three yards of whipcord; and, perhaps, a saw and a ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... some of the cottage folk were quite up to the value of appearances. Old Aaron had a little shop; he and his wife sold small packets of tea, tobacco, whipcord, and so forth. Sometimes while his wife was weighing out the sugar, old Aaron—wretched old deceiver—would come in rustling a crumpled piece of paper as if it were a banknote, and handing it to her ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... got a piece of thin plank for her deck, and built on her bulwarks, with the windlass, the binnacle, caboose, and combings of her hatchway complete. Next I commenced rigging her. I formed all the blocks, and expended many a penny in purchasing whipcord and twine of different thickness, as well as linen for her sails. Having often carefully watched the sailmakers at work, and helped them when they would allow me, I was able not only to cut out the sails properly, but to fasten on the bolt-ropes, and to mark exactly ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... tale. I have prospered, I was made to prosper. This good belly of mine, this broad, easy gullet, these hands, this portly beard, which may now get as white as it can, since I have done with gossip Fra Clemente—a wrist of steel, fingers as hard as whipcord, and legs like anchor-cables; all these were fostered and made able by brown St. Francis' merry sons. Fra Palamone, dear unknown, Fra Palamone, ever your servant! And now—"here, with another revolting ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... hat), I should say, that, although he certainly would not in any case have suffered the coachman to proceed while the horse was unfit for service, and likely to suffer by being urged forward, yet the man of whipcord escaped some severe abuse and reproach by the agreeable mode which the traveller found out to ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... To-day, when it came to be-tied, she had to apply to Geordie, her unfailing help in all extremities; and he in his efforts to make an imposing bow like the one which decorated Mistress Gowrie's ample chin, had knotted the strings after the manner of whipcord, so that they required all Grace's ingenuity to ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... method of handcuffing in emergencies. The officer takes a piece of whipcord and makes a double running knot: he ties one noose round the wrist of the prisoner, whose hand is then placed in his trousers pocket, the cord is lashed round the body like a belt, and brought back and slipped through the noose again. The prisoner ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... where some stones gave him purchase, dug the toes of his boots into the wet soil and stuck like a limpet. It needed some strength to keep the position for long, but the muscles of his arms and legs were like whipcord. ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... Down the middle a line of benches had been drawn up, on which there were seated astraddle the whole hundred of the baronet's musqueteers, each engaged in plaiting into a queue the hair of the man who sat in front of him. A boy walked up and down with a pot of grease, by the aid of which with some whipcord the work was going forward merrily. Sir Gervas himself with a great flour dredger sat perched upon a bale of wool at the head of the line, and as quickly as any queue was finished he examined it through his quizzing ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... covered them. Her withered face more resembled an old skull than the countenance of a living being, even to the hollow, darkened sockets, at the bottom of which glittered her little black eyes. Her arms had dwindled away into nothing but whipcord and wire. Her hair, half black, half gray, hung in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole garment consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalo robe tied round her waist with a string of hide. Yet the old squaw's meager anatomy was wonderfully strong. She pitched the lodge, ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... with it of all religious sects and orders of worship. From his prison at Newgate he had written that the enaction of laws restraining persons from the free exercise of their consciences in matters of religion was but "the knotting of whipcord on the part of the enactors to lash their own posterity, whom they could never promise to be conformed for ages to come to a national religion." Again and again had he preached and proclaimed the folly ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... quite as obstinate as the beast he bestrode, insisted on his making the desired advance. This attempt was followed by a new refusal on the part of the horse which quietly shook his head. This demonstration of rebellion was followed by a volley of words and a stout application of whipcord; also followed by kicks on the part of the horse, which threw its head and heels upwards and tried to throw his rider. At length the sturdy little pony, spreading out his legs, in a stiff and ludicrous attitude, got from under the Professor's legs, and left him standing, ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... render to man, who bruises thee to try thy virtue, a thousand humbler services. Thou preservest our horses from flies, our fruit from birds; and who has not felt how thou cheerest the weary length of continental travelling, by the crack of thy whipcord at the approach ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the chair which Ayscough drew forward and sat down, throwing open his heavy overcoat, and revealing a whipcord riding-suit of light fawn ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... sentence had hardly been hissed out by the gypsy when he took from his pocket a long, thin coil of whipcord, which he entangled in a complicated mesh around the cripple's body. It was not the ordinary binding of a prisoner. The slender lash passed and repassed in a thousand intricate folds over the powerless limbs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... One of these humane arguments, according to Johnson, op. cit., consisted in tying his thumbs together with whipcord, "which was done several times by the executioner and another officer; they drawing the cord ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... tender hearts in the breasts of these northern men and women, albeit they are as undemonstrative as the English—or we Americans, for that matter. It is exhilarating to see such people—whose digestion is sound, whose nerves are tough as whipcord, whose blood runs in a strong full stream, whose impulses are perfectly natural, who are good without knowing it, and who are happy without trying to be so. Where shall we find such among our restless ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... for all his speed, when he got into the street there was the jealous lover at his elbow. They darted with all speed into the Strand; got a coach. Sir Charles, on the box, gave Jehu a guinea, and took the reins—and by a Niagara of whipcord they attained Lambeth; and at length, to his delight, Pomander saw another coach before him with a gold-laced black slave behind it. The coach stopped; and the slave came to the door. The shop in question was a few hundred yards distant. The ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... of khaki-colored kid gloves, and kept passing a hand over his light well-brushed hair. Andrews felt dirty and ill-smelling in his badly-fitting uniform. The sight of this perfect young man in his whipcord breeches, with his manicured nails and immaculately polished puttees exasperated him. He would have liked to fight him, to prove that he was the better man, to outwit him, to make him forget his rank and his important air.... The lieutenant had gone in to see the colonel. Andrews ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... do get rich," said Governor Gray, looking over his shoulder across the top of his cab, "you'll deserve it, Jerry, and you won't find a curse come with your wealth. As for you, Larry, you'll die poor; you spend too much in whipcord." ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... horse went down, and the cavalcade behind went right over horse and rider. When picked up and carried out of the scrimmage, Cadet Whistler was unconscious, and the doctors said his skull was fractured. However, his whipcord vitality showed itself in a quick recovery; but a white lock of hair soon appeared to mark the injured spot, to be a badge of distinction and a delight to the caricaturist forever. In London the mother and son found lodgings out towards Chelsea. No ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... derived from an old custom which ordained that the maid-servants who came to find situations should bring their badge of office with them to the fair. They came with their brooms and mops, just as a carter would tie a piece of whipcord to his coat, and a shepherd's hat would be decorated with a tuft of wool. Time was when the labouring man was never happy unless he changed his abode from year to year. He would get tired of one master and one village, and be off to Cirencester mop, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Viking's tomb!" or "Haste ye now, and run to meet the pirates in Bordeaux Bay, and bring them to me to shrive, ere ye do them to death, as Normans should!" The blood ran free and warm then, and the limbs grew straight and strong, and the muscles of arms and legs like whipcord, and brown we were as the brown rocks of L'Ancresse Bay, as we played at war on those salt-breathed plains—Guy, Rainauld, Gwalkelyn. Alas! they are all passed to their account! There were no aches or pains of back or shoulder; there were no mean jealousies, no bitter hatreds, ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... suppressed in recent years, but some survive and thrive with even greater vigour than ever. Some are hiring fairs, where you may see young men with whipcord in their caps standing in front of inns ready to be hired by the farmers who come to seek labourers. Women and girls too come to be hired, but their number decreases every year. Such is the Abingdon fair, which no rustic in the adjoining ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... spray of intense odour caught him full in the face. Blindly he sought to bang the door, but staggered sideways in an agony of gasping and weeping. He fell, clawing at the wall, and lay stupefied, at the mercy of the unknown, who promptly proceeded with whipcord to truss him up both neatly and securely. Then he was gagged, drawn into the room on the right, the dining-room, and ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... chair with his hands bound to his sides. Round his head the two strangers had strung a piece of knotted whipcord which one of them was drawing tighter and tighter with the aid of a penknife twisted in the bandage. The face of the victim was ghastly white, his eyes rolled, and the great beads poured down his cheeks. Berrington had heard of that kind of torture ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... of a hundred demons let loose, echoed throughout the length and breadth of marble halls. Caius Nepos took to his heels and fled like one possessed, with hands pressed to his ears, trying to shut out the awful sounds that pursued him all down the corridors: the shrieks of pain, the whizzing of whipcord through the air, and, rising above all these, that awful laugh which must have found its ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... carried into execution, he was taken into a small room adjoining the court. Here Marvel, the executioner, who was in attendance, was commanded by Wild to tie his thumbs together, which he did with whipcord so tightly, that the string cut to the bone. But, as this produced no effect, and did not even elicit a groan, the prisoner ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... alike, both of them well tied up with good whipcord. Ben took his parcel to a table, and, after breaking off the sealing wax, began carefully to examine the knot, and then to untie it. Hal stood still exactly in the spot where the parcel was put into his hands, and tried first at one corner, and then at another, to pull the string off by ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Yvonne in her odd drawl, "and I'm tired too." Mrs. Jack Bendish was made of whipcord: she had been brought up to ride Irish horses over Irish fences and to dance all night, after tramping the moors all day with a gun. "I'll stay with you and rest. Jack, you run on. Bring me some big ones in a cabbage leaf. ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... his account with the author so quickly. As it is obvious that the ode was published solely to annoy him, we may be allowed to hope that in the "severe personal chastisement" he was not sparing of whipcord. The absence of place of publication and printer's name render inquiry difficult; and there is no indication as to whether Dr. Saxby was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... fond of reading. I love Tom so dearly, Luke,—better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell him everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for all he doesn't like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit pens." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... words any deep emotion. For more than forty years the fires of his nature had been "banked up." Reticent and self-contained, he appeared to be hard and cold; yet his personality was singularly impressive. About five feet ten in height, he was lean and sinewy, with square shoulders and muscles of whipcord. His face recalled the Indian type; the same prominent slightly beaked nose, high cheek bones and large knot of jaw. But there the resemblance ended. The eyes were steel-blue; the upper lip long; the mouth firm; short, bristly, silver hair stood up all over his head, in defiant contrast to the ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... half closed as he watched the mountaineer, and the long, scraggy hands and whipcord neck seemed to interest him greatly. He looked at his own slim brown hands with a half smile, and it was almost as cruel as the laugh of the other. Yet it had, too, a knowledge and an understanding which ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker |
