"Rafter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment, vanished. The world had fled away from these two wanderers. They gazed drearily about them. At a little distance stood a wooden church, black with age, and in a dismal state of ruin and decay, with broken windows, a great rift through the main body of the edifice, and a rafter dangling from the top of the square tower. Farther off was a farm-house, in the old style, as venerably black as the church, with a roof sloping downward from the three-story peak, to within a man's height of the ground. It seemed uninhabited. There were the relics ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... but a few seconds behind the man, but those few seconds were fateful. As the pilot stepped into the saloon he beheld a sight that was enough to freeze him motionless. The big kerosene lamps, swung from the rafter braces above, shed over the interior a peculiar sickly radiance, yellowed now by reason of the pale morning light outside. Beneath one of the lamps a tableau was set. Sam Kirby and the man he had struck the night before were facing each other in the center ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... me a priest! I'm going to die!' The Banshee wind took up the cry: 'Give him a priest, he's going to die!' The old house seemed to rock with laughter, Shaking its sides and every rafter. ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... in the evening, we arrived at Mme. Flamand's, we found her in the doorway, her brown face smiling, her white cap and apron in full relief under the glare of an old-fashioned ship's light, which hung from a rafter of the porch. Baeader inscribed my name in a much-thumbed, ink—stained register, which looked like a neglected ship's log, and then added his own. This, by the by, Baeader never neglected. Neither did he neglect a certain little ceremony ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... his head against a rafter, and was quite bewildered for a moment by the shock, the multitude of meteors that rushed across his firmament, and the sudden apparition. Gad, at the same time, stood ready to take a plunge down the stairs in case ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... came across the least vestige of authority for these things. They have not left so distinct a trace as the delicate flower of a remote geological period on the coal in my grate. The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear sky. If I ever see more clearly at one time than at another, the medium through which I see is clearer. To see from earth to heaven, and see there standing, still a fixture, that old Jewish scheme! What right have ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... before. Do you despise her and those others for the predominance of the primal instinct, the sacred passion for the inviolate hearth? Not so much they yearned for the man as for the roof-tree, whose roots are twined about the heart-strings of the natural woman, the spreading rafter-branches of which shelter ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... senses came gradually back I could distinguish a narrow, dingy cabin, dimly lit by one flickering oil-lamp which swung from a rafter above. Its faint ray just revealed the furniture of the room, which consisted of a seaman's chest standing in the middle, and two gaunt stools. On one of these I was seated, propped against the cabin wall, or rather partition, and as I attempted to move I learnt ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Resolved thus, without delay she went, As her strong passion did her rashly guide, And those bright arms, down from the rafter hent, Within her closet did she closely hide; That might she do unseen, for she had sent The rest, on sleeveless errands from her side, And night her stealths brought to their wished end, Night, patroness of thieves, and ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... heart that Nicholas awaited the arrival of the next evening. In the meanwhile, he took another and more exact survey of his already half-ruined house; and the result was so melancholy that he felt he must stake life itself for the chance of bettering his fortune. There was not a beam, a board, a rafter, a lath, in the whole house that was not ready, upon the slightest assault, to go to wreck. Of glass windows the rumour was long since extinct. All stood open; and had Klaus been a student of meteorology, a better observatory ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... suspicion aroused by the absence of windows. The entrance to these little attics was through small doors that were a part of the partition, and, as usual in country houses, the clothesline stretched across the end from rafter to rafter held enough old carpets and useless stuff to silence any question of secret doors. Several closets also were provided with false backs, where the surplus linen of the household ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... the several chiefs and their dependants, the labour, though immense, was greatly facilitated by everyone's bringing his post, or his rafter, or his pole strung with thatching, ready for instant use. The materials thus prepared being afterwards secured together by thongs, there was literally "neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... it so hard to face the suitors in your own house and home? Come, stand by me, and see if Mentor forgets old friendship." Yet she left the victory still uncertain, that she might prove his courage to the full. She turned herself into a swallow and flew up into the roof and perched on a blackened rafter overhead. ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... time last night," went on Newt joyously. "From a rafter in Ed Higgins's livery stable. With a clothesline. Kicked a step-ladder out from under himself. Why, even Uncle Dad Simms has heard about it. Ed found him when he went out to—wait a second! I'm goin' your way. What's the rush? He's been dead six or eight hours. He can't escape. He's ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... had spoke, when fair and soft, The roof began to mount aloft; Aloft rose every beam and rafter; The heavy ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... them across the basement to a door leading into a dank, unfinished portion of the cellar, directly east of Lydia's bedroom and beneath Nita's. The wire whose course they were following led under the top frame of the door, and, with a flashlight in his hand, Dundee showed how it continued along a rafter until it reached the place where it was joined, by adhesive tape, to the wire Sprague had dropped from ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... she ain't much of a ranch now," admitted Jack Harpe. "But everything has to have a beginning. I'm figuring on a right smart growth for the Rafter H within the ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... night came together Came down, and the wind came after, Bending the props of the pine-tree roof, And snapping many a rafter. ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... song and laughter. The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel and rafter With lightsome green of ivy and holly: Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide 215 Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap And belly and tug as a flag in the wind; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... my way down from the garret, it suddenly occurred to me that Eugene might have put the book there, and that he might come and look for it at any time. So I put it back on the black rafter where I had found it. Every time I could manage to go to the garret I looked to see whether it was still in its place, and I read it as much and as often as ...
— Marie Claire • Marguerite Audoux
... that, with all the riches of the revelation which I possess, I have that same self-satisfaction and lack of sympathy which I loathe in others. It is my life which is the stumbling-block to my message. They have often far less light than I have, but walk in it more simply than I do. The rafter in my own eye troubles me even more than the speck in theirs. But it is hard, God knows, sometimes to feel His presence in their presence. But the forces of good must be united ('Keep, ah! keep them combined. Else . . .'), and if ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... And now his right-hand was nearly on a level with the floor of the bridge, and he was stretching out his left hand to grasp one of the rails, when his foot suddenly slipping on a sloping rafter, he lost his hold altogether, and, to the horror of his companions, fell with a heavy thud on ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... reach, and then both men started, with a piece of rope, to secure the monkey. Clever as Gum was, he was scarcely a match for two men, who, as noted horse-thieves, were experts in the use of the lasso, and in a short time the monkey was ignominiously driven from his perch on a rafter, tied up in Donald's pillow-case, and swung over the shoulder of one of the men. Then the robbers wished Donald a grim good-night, and marched off with their 'purse.' As they were going out of the door Donald called after them, 'Good-night, ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... "You must ask Bill," says Jack to the next blank, "I got it from him." And when Bill gets his paper back finally—which is often only after much bush grumbling, accusation, recrimination, and denial—he severely and carefully re-arranges theme pages, folds the paper, and sticks it away up over a rafter, or behind a post or batten, or under his pillow where it will safe. He wants that paper to send ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... their invitation, turned to go into the palace, little anticipating the danger that awaited him, for the eldest daughter had drawn up by a chain a huge rafter to let fall and slay Iliya as he rode through the gate. But Iliya perceived her design, and slew her with his lance. Thereupon he rode on toward Kiev, and going straight to the palace, prayed to God and saluted the nobles. And the Prince of Kiev said to Iliya, ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... in 1728 while still in her teens, Kitty Rafter (1711-1785) quickly became a favorite of the town by virtue of her singing voice, vivacity, and gift for mimicry. Admired first as a singing actress, Miss Rafter in 1731 gave unequivocal notice of her considerable talent as a comic actress in the role of Nell in Coffey's The Devil ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive
... then the jigging brass laughter From the yellow tost swing-boats swooping rafter to rafter. Then the blare of all organs, then the roar of all throats, And they shot past the side shows, ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... why the Old Nick I did not commit suicide ages ago, and thus end the eventful history with a blank page in the middle of the book. I dare say the very bashfulness which has been my bane has prevented me; the idea of being cut down from a rafter, with a black-and-blue face, and drawn out of the water with a swollen one, has put me so out of countenance that I had not the courage to brave a coroner's jury ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... fire told him of certain death; unable to retreat,—for the insidious flame had already destroyed the door which Roupall had failed to move, and danced, like a fiend at play with destruction, from rafter to rafter, and beam to beam, of ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... say, for they were all bewildered with the happening; so, while everyone looked at Robin as though they had been changed to stone, he clapped his bugle horn to his lips and blew three blasts so loud and clear, they echoed from floor to rafter as though they were sounded by the trump of doom. Then straightway Little John and Will Stutely came leaping and stood upon either side of Robin Hood, and quickly drew their broadswords, the while a mighty voice rolled over the heads of all, "Here be I, good ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... steal From the shocking laughter Of the old, to kneel By a dripping rafter Under the discolored eaves, Out of trunks with hingeless covers Lifting tales of saints ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... phoebe, they contentedly but rather monotonously sing as they investigate all the sites in the neighborhood. Presently a location is chosen under a beam or rafter, and the work of collecting moss and mud for the foundation and hair and feathers or wool to line the exquisite little home begins. But the labor is done cheerfully, with many a sally in midair either to let off superfluous high spirits or to catch ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... When, slap, the savage made him feel His talons, newly arm'd with steel, By perching on his nasal member, As if it had been senseless timber. Outshriek'd the wight; but peals of laughter, Which threaten'd ceiling, roof, and rafter, From courtier, page, and monarch broke: Who had not laugh'd at such a joke? From me, so prone am I to such a sin, An empire had not held me in. I dare not say, that, had the pope been there, He would have join'd ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... a bush, and tree builders sometimes get upon the ground or into a tussock of grass. The song-sparrow, which is a ground builder, has been known to build in the knot-hole of a fence rail, and a chimney swallow once got tired of soot and smoke, and fastened its nest on a rafter in a hay barn. A friend tells me of a pair of barn swallows which, taking a fanciful turn, saddled their nest in the loop of a rope that was pendent from a peg in the peak, and liked it so well that they repeated ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... and wind would redden, and my long, lean hands and arms, that offended my sense of beauty constantly, as I dwelt on their hopelessly angular turns. I had one beauty; so my little paper-framed glass, that rested on the rough rafter that edged the sloping roof of my garret, told me, whenever I took it down to gaze in it, which, but for that beauty, would have been but seldom. It was a finely cut and firmly set mouth and chin. There ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... It is one hundred feet in length, and twenty feet high, with walls four feet thick, neatly plastered over with mud mortar. The great door is a marvel of carving-work for Unyanyembe artisans. Each rafter within is also carved with fine designs. Before the front of the house is a young plantation of pomegranate trees, which flourish here as if they were indigenous to the soil. A shadoof, such as may be seen on the Nile, serves to draw ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... place of the stick a. Sometimes the upper and lower beams are secured to the two side rails forming a frame such as the warp of a blanket is wound on (Sec. IV), but more commonly the loom is arranged in the manner shown in Plate XXXVI; that is, the upper beam is secured to a rafter, post, or tree, while to the lower beam is attached a loop of rope that passes under the thighs of the weaver, and the warp is rendered tense by her weight. Next, the upper shed is supplied with a shed-rod, ...
— Navajo weavers • Washington Matthews
... dropped from its hook on a rafter, Jane danced in glee and declared "a ghost did it," although Dozia insisted she had cut a piece of cord on that very hook. Finally Jane was "canned," as Dozia described the state of being inside of tin things, and an ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... life, my awl to me!" He cried, his flame addressing— "If I 'adze such a love as yours, I'd ask no other blessing!" "I am rejoist to hear you speak," The maiden said with laughter— "For tho' I hammer guileless girl, It's plane what you are rafter. Now if file love you just a bit, What further can you ax me? Can—will you be content with that, Or will you further tacks me?" He looked handsaw her words were square— "No rival can displace me— Yes, one more favor I implore, And that ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... quickly followed her advice, and no sooner were they concealed than the old giant Hymir came in. When his wife told him that visitors had come, he frowned so portentously, and flashed such a wrathful look towards their hiding-place, that the rafter split and the kettles fell with a crash, and, except the largest, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... surmounted every obstruction, and rose to the evening skies one huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country. Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof and rafter; and the combatants were driven from the court-yard. The vanquished, of whom very few remained, scattered and escaped into the neighbouring wood. The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with wonder, not unmixed with fear, upon the flames, in which their own ranks ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... not easy nor expeditious work, nor did all the work begin in the still-room. Faithfully did dames and maids gather in field and garden, from early spring to chilly autumn, precious stores for their stills and limbecks. In every garret, from every rafter, slowly swayed great susurrous bunches of withered herbs and simples awaiting expression and distillation, and dreaming perhaps of the summer breezes that had blown through them in the sunny days of their youth in their meadow homes. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Erdberg Works, gives a description of how the roof of a house, 54.6 meters wide, for a gasholder in Berlin, was raised to a height of 22 meters. In that instance the iron structure was put together at the bottom of the tank, leaving the rafter ends and the mural ring. The hoisting itself was effected by means of levers—one to each rafter—connected with the ironwork below by means of iron chains. At the top there were apertures at distances of about 26 mm. from each other, and through ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... long poles. The noise of the men shouting and driving in the wooden pins with great wooden beetles, away up in the beams and stringers, alarmed me a great deal, but it all went up, and then one of the men mounted the plate (the timber on which the foot of the rafter rests) with a bottle in his hand, and swinging it round his head three times, threw it off in the field. If the bottle was unbroken it was an omen of good luck. The bottle, I remember, was picked up whole, and shouts ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... gate, and went straight to the porch; all the woodwork of which was carved and gaily painted, and so were eaves and rafter ends and tie beams. ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... corner by the door. Rifle and pack were both gone. He looked up at the rafter where his slab of bacon was always hung. ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... them lying dead about the yard; whereon I wept in my dream till all my maids gathered round me, so piteously was I grieving because the eagle had killed my geese. Then he came back again, and perching on a projecting rafter spoke to me with human voice, and told me to leave off crying. 'Be of good courage,' he said, 'daughter of Icarius; this is no dream, but a vision of good omen that shall surely come to pass. The geese are the suitors, and I am no longer an eagle, ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... against the troops of Diaz, while they themselves were supposed to be more of the same brand. Evidently they had been expected by Ramon's subterranean river, and in taking the boat they must have forestalled the real Con Divver, Jim Hickey, and Ted Rafter. Jack caught himself wondering how long it would take the latter to ride over the ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... decorated with black dragons, with only one tear in its entire circumference, and that one Auntie Gossburger darned so skilfully that nobody noticed the hole. This, Felix, after much consideration, swung to the rafter immediately over the throne, so that its mellow light should fall directly on ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... him stops the client's pace; The crowd that follows crush his panting sides, And trip his heels; he walks not but he rides. One elbows him, one jostles in the shoal, A rafter breaks his head or chairman's pole; Stockinged with loads of fat town dirt he goes, And some rogue-soldier with his hob-nailed shoes Indents his legs behind in bloody rows. See, with what smoke our doles we celebrate! A hundred guests invited walk ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... the candle down from the rafter, and she went swiftly to the tiny window. She raised her hand, once, then pinched out ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... gone are door and portal, And all is hush'd and still; O'er ruin'd wall and rafter I clamber ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... at Monticello. He turned with hot impatience from the consideration of the usages of society, and fell to building with large and strong timbers the edifice of his future. He built on while the dusk gathered, and he built while Joab helped him to dress, and he was yet busy with beam and rafter when at eight o'clock, with some help from the negro, he descended the stairs and crossed the hall to the parlour door. How was he dressed? He was dressed in a high-collared coat of blue cloth with ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston |
