"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Jim demanded fiercely, but the man only drove another tack. It was Mr. Harbison who stepped outside and ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... no later than this morning. I went to my work as usual at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a little square of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... cut posts from small wooden sticks. Drive small tacks in each post—one for each wire. Use fine spool wire or wire raveled from fly screen. Twist wires once around each tack, or drive the tacks in firmly so that the wire is held by the head of the tack. This is not an easy fence for very little children ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... not tack from side to side— Hither to work us weal. Withouten wind, withouten tide She steddies with ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... more pleasure than even her mother in her belleship, she was as watchful over her as Argus. Every young man of the many who haunted the old French mansion among its oaks and maples had to meet the scrutiny of those sharp, tack-like eyes. The least slip that one made was enough to prove his downfall. The old woman sifted them as surely as she sifted her meal, and branded them with an infallible instinct akin to that of a keen watchdog. Many a young man who passed that silent ...
— Mam' Lyddy's Recognition - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... is?" murmured Nan. "Somebody has thrust a circular, or advertisement, under our door, and it's gone under the carpet. Yes! There's a tack out there." ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... seven-up going on in the cabin, and the sun striking down the companionway was bothering Andie Howe. He began to complain. "Hi, up there to the wheel! Hi, Eddie—can't you put her on the other tack?—the sun's in my eyes. How can a man see the cards with ...
— The Seiners • James B. (James Brendan) Connolly
... fine if he didn't think it necessary to tack on the artistic temperament to his painting. He's developed the idea that he has nerves and ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... when in latitude 59 degrees 58 minutes North, longitude 59 degrees 53 minutes West, we first fell in with large icebergs; and in the evening were encompassed by several of considerable magnitude, which obliged us to tack the ship in order to prevent our getting entangled amongst them. The estimated distance from the nearest part of the Labrador coast was then eighty-eight miles; here we tried for soundings without gaining the bottom. The ship passed through some strong ripplings, which ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... envy me now," the rebel cried, his mouth stuffed with the cold meat and hard-tack, almost as fresh and crisp as soda-crackers, for the contractors had not yet learned the trick of making them out of sawdust, white sand, and other ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... happen to live in a house which has, like many old houses, a narrow side-light on either side of its front-door, and a row of panes across the top, can make a pretty effect by preparing a series of these transparencies to fit the door-glasses, and fastening them on by driving a stout tack into the sashes so as to support the four corners of each pane. The transparencies could be prepared secretly and put into place overnight, or on Christmas morning, before any one is up, so as to give mother a pleasant surprise as ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... to forward the Operation, that Member of the Circle towards whom he is so rude as to turn his Back first, runs his Sword directly into that Part of the Patient wherein School-boys are punished; and, as it is very natural to imagine this will soon make him tack about to some other Point, every Gentleman does himself the same Justice as often as he receives the Affront. After this Jig has gone two or three times round, and the Patient is thought to have sweat sufficiently, he is very ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... for a beautiful bride was almost sweeping him into generous thought, he had listened for upward of an hour to the eloquence of a life insurance agent. Then the agent, misled by Gower's effusively generous and unselfish expressions, had taken a false tack. He had descanted upon the supreme satisfaction that would be felt by a dying man as he reflected how his young widow would be left in affluence. He made a vivid picture; Gower saw—saw his bride happier after his death than she had been during his life, and attracting ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... watching the surface of the ocean, it again became visible, and soon after a second appeared. It was now evident that both these were boats, and that we had noticed them only when standing off shore, and the light shone upon their sails, and had lost them when upon the opposite tack. It was equally apparent they were standing out from the main land for the islands. I imagined them to be sealers, who having entered the bay to procure water or firewood, were again steering towards the islands to fish. ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... note of it last night, but you came up here by a track fit for a lady's pony-carriage. My predecessor engineered it to connect his two places of business. In its way, it's the most palatial thing in the Rockies—two long legs with a short tack between, gentle all the way—and it brings you out by the Necropolis gate. You can hitch the horse ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pictures himself as in the right, and animated by the noblest intentions, though misunderstood, and thus further enhances his self-esteem; but sometimes he takes the other tack and pictures himself as wicked—but as very, very wicked, a veritable desperado. It may be his self-esteem has been wounded by blame for some little meanness or disobedience, and he restores it by imagining ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... of the Isabel, on her first tack, lay close to the eastern shore of the lake. The boat moved very slowly through the water, and Lily and Cyd sat by the side of the skipper, talking in low tones of the future, with its hopes and its trials, its joys and ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... on a new tack. He tried to imagine the delight of his companion if only he could suddenly remember having thrust a little box of safety matches into his haversack before starting out; but he knew it was useless to look, for he had certainly done nothing ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... would ask him: "Have you any fish to-day?" To which, if replying affirmatively, he would answer: "Missis, de gate open"; meaning, "The door (of the 'car,' or fish-box) is open to you." If he had no fish he would reply: "Missis, ebb-tide done tack (take) crick"; signifying: "The tide has turned and it is too late to go to catch fish." This old man called whisky "muhgundy smash," the term evidently derived from some idea of the word "burgundy" combined ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... "You'd better tack a shoe on your horse before you go. If you don't know how, I'll show you." He took her hand ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... return to claim her for his wife. On the dresser stood a small photograph of him in a cheap frame; tacked over the head of the bed was a larger portrait. A small bow of dainty blue ribbon at the top covered the tack, and underneath was a bunch of violets, now withered, but a silent and touching tribute ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... was made, Nowell's countenance brightened up. The expression was not lost upon the attorney, who perceived he was on the right tack. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... had travelled about two miles, we saw the smoke rise from our old camp. The Mormons, after taking what goods they wanted and could carry off, had set fire to the wagons, many of which were loaded with bacon, lard, hard-tack, and other provisions, which made a very hot, fierce fire, and the smoke to roll up in dense clouds. Some of the wagons were loaded with ammunition, and it was not long before loud reports followed in rapid succession. We waited and witnessed ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... for the Laocoon's helm was put down, her great sails shivered and threshed, and she stood off on the other tack. As she stood away we saw an officer leap on to the taffrail, holding on by the mizen backstays. "Tar my wig," said Marah, "if he ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... nervous and jumpy by nature," he observed. "I've seen dead men before. Still, next time you want to leave one in my office after dark, I wish you'd put a light with him, or tack up a sign, or even leave somebody to tell me about it. I'm sorry it's Starr and not that thoughtful old horned toad in ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... food. They went to the kingdom of Champa, and anchored at Pulo Condor, where they sent out their lanchas with forty Spaniards, and about twenty Indians and negroes, to see whether they could get the water which was very necessary to them. In the meantime the galleons kept moving about on one tack or another; but they were overtaken by so violent a storm that they had to go to another island called Pulo Ubi, leaving the lanchas with their men ashore, and as yet nothing has been heard of the latter. But it is thought ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... shows there was a friendly feeling toward me from the first. After having thus expressed himself, he directed me to print my name on each of four pieces of paper, and to tack them up in certain places in the room, which he indicated to me. I did this several times before I could please him; but at last succeeded. Another corporal visited me during the day and declared everything out of ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... heaved a sigh and wiped her eye And ran o'er hill and dale, oh. And tried what she could As a shepherdess should, To tack to each ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... worst of it any way, for there is a pin in that rose, and if he goes to smell the mayflowers underneath he will find a thorn to pay for the tack he put in my rubber boot. I know he will play me some joke to-night, and I mean to be first if I can," answered Molly, settling the artificial wreath round the orange-colored canoe which ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... minute, like the myriad heads assembled in the infinitesimal photograph which you view through one of those little half-inch lorgnettes; and you had the satisfaction of knowing that to any lovely infinitesimality yonder you showed no bigger than a carpet-tack. The whole performance now seemed to be worked by those tireless figures pumping at the organ, in obedience to signals from a very alert figure on the platform below. The choral and orchestral thousands sang and piped and played; and ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... seventeen to ten fathom; and knowing that we were not far from the small islands and rocks which we had seen before dark, and which I intended to have passed before I brought-to for the night, I thought it more prudent to tack, and spend the night under Mowtohora, where I knew there was no danger. It was indeed happy for us that we did so; for in the morning, after we had made sail to the westward, we discovered a-head of us several rocks, some of which were level with the surface of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... fine ripe strawberries, which, with plenty of stewed rice, Indian meal cake, and maple sugar, was to make their dinner. She was weary and warm, for the day had been hot and sultry. Seating herself on the threshold of the door, she leaned her tack against the doorpost, and closed her eyes. Perhaps the poor child's thoughts were wandering back to her far-off, never-to-be-forgotten home, or she might be thinking of the hunters and their game. Suddenly a vague, undefinable feeling of dread stole ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... minutes more, and they disappear behind the ridge. Look away again and read or dream, as you would on the beach, and then, see, the head and shoulders of the leading horse are up, and by-and-by the plough rises, as they come back on the opposite tack. Thus the ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... room after a while,' said Barstow, 'it'd be easy to tack more sheds on and run canvas over them, just the same as what we done. Me and Chuck would come up most any ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... happy signals indicating the sight of land were to be seen. Soon the charming coast of Long Island came into the view of all and great shouts of joy were wafted across the waters towards it from this swimming city. Carefully did the fleet tack during the night because the water was becoming ever more shallow. On the next morning, the 12th of August, an English squadron of 24 vessels was seen from the ocean and this, after a few hours, united with the fleet, following ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... chaps?" the Sanguine Scot said, opening the ball by sticking a carving fork into the great joint, and waving the knife in a general way round the company; then as the gravy sizzed out in a steaming gurgle he added invitingly: "Come on, chaps! This is VEAL prime stuff! None of your staggering Bob tack"; and the Maluka and the Dandy bidding against him, to Cheon's delight, every one "came on" for some of everything; for veal and ham and chicken and several vegetables and sauces blend wonderfully together when a Cheon's hand has been ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... mainmast, while the rest cut holes through the sails and struck the water a quarter of a mile to windward. With an oath the captain of the privateer brought his vessel up into the wind, and then payed off on the other tack. ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... last week a ranger and started to tack up a sign bold as brass that read: 'Property of the United ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... standing on tiptoe to watch the effect of the shot. To Marcy's great delight the missile struck the water far short of the mark, ricocheted along the surface a few hundred yards farther, and finally exploded, throwing up a cloud of spray, but doing no harm to the brig, which never loosened tack or sheet, but held gallantly on her way. A moment after the shrapnel exploded, her flag—the old flag—fluttered out from under the lee of her spanker, and little puffs of smoke arose from her port quarter. Some of her crew were firing at the privateer with ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... irate face of his companion, in which the crow-feet of forty years were distinctly visible, and perceived that he had gone on a wrong tack. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... of Teneriffe became perceptible amidst the mist and clouds which veiled its heights. During the night we reached the high black rocks of lava which form its northern points; and at break of day I determined to tack, in order to run into Santa Cruz, the only place in the island where ships can ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... them to be harnessed? In that case you are the man to tax the Affghans. Pigs can see the wind; and it is not less certain that Affghans can scent a tax-gatherer through the Hindoo Koosh: in which case, off they go on the opposite tack. But no matter if they stay—not the less with them to be taxed is to be robbed—a wrong to be remembered on death-beds, and to be avenged were it in the fourth generation. However, as the reckoning does not come before the banquet, so the taxes do not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... tack when we look for more or less complete resemblances between the 'Wisdom' of Proverbs and the 'Sophia' of Greek thinkers. It is much rather an anticipation, imperfect but real, of Jesus than a pale reflection of Greek thought. The way ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... knife, and the liquid apex shattered to spray; an expanse of leaden sky showing between the rain-squalls, across which heavy background rushed the darker scud and storm-clouds; a passenger-steamer rolling helplessly in the trough, and a square-rigged vessel, hove to on the port tack, two miles to windward of the steamer, and drifting south toward the storm-center. This is the picture that the sea-birds saw at daybreak on a September morning, and could the sea-birds have spoken they might have told that ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... a pilot all right, and don't they feed sailors on this hard tack generally? Sure we've got no kick coming. Everything is to the mustard, and if you asked me my opinion right now I'd say ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... clear of the current and was able to steer within a quarter of a mile of the beach, which indeed I might have approached still nearer by making another tack, but being an excellent swimmer, I deemed it best to leave the vessel, which was almost waterlogged, and to make the best of ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... what he said, you see; it was the way he said it. I've made more fuss before now over pounding my finger with a tack hammer. And I did a lot of talking myself in that next minute or two. A man can say a whole lot that is almost worth while when he talks strictly to himself. It wasn't alone the fact that he had been able to get back on his feet and keep on traveling after a blow that would have caved ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... death of you some day if you don't correct the habit," warned Ned. "If you'll use your eyes you will observe that the package contains hard tack, and——" ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... then, I think I see; but then I go off on a wrong tack: I get a silly fit, and a hopeless one, and lose my clue. And yet, after all, there is a highway; and wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein,' murmured Louis, as he gazed on ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... storage warehouse," said she crisply. "There isn't so much as a carpet-tack left of the old regime. Everything is gone. Every single thing that was here with your grandfather is gone. I alone am left. When I came down here two months ago the place was filled with the things that you remember. I had made ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Raleigh was the first, as I have heard, that ventured to tack about and sail aloof from the beaten track of the schools; who, upon the discovery of so apparent an error as a torrid zone, intended to proceed in an inquisition after more solid truths; till the mediation of some whose livelihood lay in hammering shrines ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... distributed themselves on odd boxes lying about on the ice. Many who were accustomed to restaurants built tables of kerosene cases and dined al fresco. After the limited stew, the company fared on cocoa, biscuits—"hard tack"—and jam, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... a taste of Springtime about it; and the breeze is neither too hard nor too squally. It comes from the best quarter we could wish for, across from the west, so we'll be able to run up or down the river without trying to tack, and that's always a hard job on a narrow stream, when you're ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... centre of the ring in the schoolroom. The whole place was pervaded with a pungent, piney odor. Trina had been very busy since the early morning, coming and going at everybody's call, now running down the street after another tack-hammer or a fresh supply of cranberries, now tying together the ropes of evergreen and passing them up to one of the grand ladies as she carefully balanced herself on a step-ladder. By evening everything was in place. As the last grand lady left ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... in these crises of his voyage he needs a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do each day the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch nor falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his course for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true channel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. When he will reach it, how he will reach it, matters not to him. He rests in calmness, ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... the strange observation that the dog, when on the poop, would always walk on the windward side; and afterwards, when the brig was at sea and under sail, this singular animal would shift his position to the other side after every tack, so as to be windward, as the captain of the ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... replied the sergeant, "and I went off on another tack. Hate 'em? Well, it's this way. At the beginning I don't know that I hated 'em so much. Yes, what you call Belgian atrocities were hellish; but 'twasn't that, and as long as they fought fair that was all I cared about. But when they got using ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... dignity—what is known in England as 'respectability'—struggling with poverty. Perhaps the ancient clock, whose worm-eaten case reaches from the floor to the ceiling, and whose muffled but cheery tick-tack is like the voice of an old friend, impressed me in favour of this poor home as soon as ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... was the word, and away they went. It certainly was marvellous to see how dear old Lady Suffolk and her stiff legs flew round the course; one might have fancied she had been fed on lightning, so quick did she move them, but with wonderfully short steps. Tack, on the contrary, looked as if he had been dieted on India-rubber balls: every time he raised a hind leg it seemed to shoot his own length a-head of himself; if he could have made his steps as quick as the old lady, he might have ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... after standing for a moment, all flapping, answered another flaw, and went wide about on the opposite tack. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... to tell me a lot of things I didn't want to hear. Uncle Peter always intersperses his remarks on current topics with bits of parboiled philosophy that make one want to get up and drive him through the carpet with a tack hammer. When it comes to wise saws and proverbial stunts Uncle Peter has Solomon ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... thy people; they worship thee. I turn my back on thee for the present, and am on another tack, worshipping another god. But do thou bless these thy people; keep them from ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... away, as a joy too exquisite even for thought till he was quite alone; and then there was that scheme for a new book that he had laid down hopelessly some time ago; it seemed to have arisen into life again within the last hour; he understood that he had started on a false tack, he had taken the wrong aspect of his idea. Of course the thing couldn't be written in that way; it was like trying to read a page turned upside down; and he saw those characters he had vainly sought suddenly disambushed, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... morns, they saw The fishing-schooners outward run, Their low-bent sails in tack and flaw Turned white or dark to shade and sun. Sometimes, in calms of closing day, They watched the spectral mirage play, Saw low, far islands looming tall and nigh, And ships, with upturned keels, sail ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... cause is black, In puling prose and rhyme, Talk hatefully of love, and tack Hypocrisy to crime; Who smile and smite, engross the gorge Or impotently frown; And call us "rebels" with King George, As if they wore ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... hatter gi' 'im credit fer, an' dat wuz keepin' his face an' han's clean, an' in takin' keer er his cloze. Nobody, not even his mammy, had ter patch his britches er tack buttons on his coat. See 'im whar you may an' when you mought, he wuz allers lookin' spick an' span des like he done come right out'n a ban'-box. You know what de riddle say 'bout 'im: when he stan' up he sets down, an' when he walks he hops. He'd 'a' been mighty well thunk ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard,"—and "veer starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the wind."—His vanity now and then ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... had ridden at least a mile down the arroyo, a gray hat-crown came bobbing into sight over a low tongue of rocky ground that cut the channel almost in two. The horses threw up their heads and perked cars forward inquiringly, and in a moment Happy Tack came into view, his gloomy, sunburned face wearing a ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... furnishing goods man, sailing on our old tack of conversation, "sometimes makes it hard for us, you know. I once had a case like this: One of my customers down in New Orleans had failed on me. I think his muhulla (failure) was forced upon him. Even a tricky merchant does not bring failure upon ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... forth this afternoon, as for a walk of pleasure, and carrying nothing save what you can put in your pockets. When you have set a few miles betwixt yourself and the town, you may then hire an horse, and ride quickly. I would counsel you not to journey too direct—if you go north or south, tack about somewhat to east and west; one may ride with far more safety than many. I am not, as you know, over rich, yet I will, for my Lady Lettice' sake, lend you a sufficiency to carry you an hundred miles—and if it fall out that you are not able to ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... white sails of a ship caught it, and gleamed brilliant as sunny snow, the hull being scarcely visible, and the sea around dark; other smaller vessels too, so that they looked like heavenly-winged things, just alighting on a dismal world. Shifting their sails, perhaps, or going on another tack, they almost disappear at once in the obscure distance. Islands are seen in summer sunshine and green glory; their rocks also sunny and their beaches white; while other islands, for no apparent reason, are in deep shade, and ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of one of his companies, and another was an officer on the staff of General Meade. The Colonel invited us to take supper with him and some of his friends, and the kind and unexpected proposal was gladly accepted, for recently we had had nothing but hard-tack to satiate our hunger. At sunset he sent a guard to conduct us to his tent, which was large and comfortable. We found the table well supplied with a variety of savory eatables, and we were struck by the contrast ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... caught unprepared as the frigate had been. The muster-roll was now called over. A third of the crew had answered to their names. "Richard Jenkins" was called. It was the name of a fine young topman. No Richard Jenkins replied; but he must have been aloft at the time the fore-tack parted, and then two other topmen acknowledged that they had been afraid some one had been knocked from the fore-topsail-yard; but the thick darkness, and the wild flapping of the sail, had made them uncertain. ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... friend was the Rev. James McKenzie. The mutual though qualified respect which they felt for each other dated from their first meeting, when Mr. McKenzie had walked into the saloon and asked permission to tack up some ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... put about, for if I did, they would certainly board us. As to my Part, being a Stranger to this Coast and Angria, knowing my Chief Mate had been often this Way, and my Third Mate had sail'd in the Gallies, I was over prevail'd upon not to tack about. As the Enemy kept under my Stern, playing their Shot in very hot upon us, and destroying my Rigging so fast, I soon after endeavour'd to wear the Ship upon the Enemy; but the Wind dying away to a Calm, she ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... only by night, he had traversed one hundred miles with a rope round his neck, and without the prospect of special reward. For he was but a private, and received but a private's pay—thirteen dollars a month, a shoddy uniform, and hard-tack, when he ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... apprentices in the path of living; my cabin and my substance, the same as if you were what the North-countrymen call bairns o' mine: I've none o' my own. My wife was a barren woman. I've none but my old mother at home. Have your sulks out, lads; you'll come round like the Priscilla on a tack, and discover you've made way ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the schooner could not possibly reach Baltimore that night. All night long she struggled first on one tack and then on the other, and at dawn only the blue mist, seen like a fog in the West, marked the line of the ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... "Hubbard's Law," or the Law of Altruistic Injury. This law provides that whenever you do for a person a service which he is able and should do for himself, you work him a wrong instead of a benefit. H. H. Rogers sought to give opportunity, not things. When he invested a million dollars in a tack-factory in Fairhaven, it was with intent to supply employment to every man or woman, or boy or girl, in Fairhaven, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... now at his masts and spars. "No higher," he had more than once to cry out, as the men at the helm, anxious to gain every advantage, kept her too close to the wind. "We cannot hope to weather the reef on this tack," he observed to the lieutenant, who was ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... Caroline Darrah on the other side; he's savage when he's crossed. And tack in Payt opposite her. I invited Polly the Fluff for you—she is a dbutante and such a coo-child that she'll just ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... dangerous to adventure in her first voyage; but she was well built, a fair ship, of a good burden, and had mounted in her forty pieces of brass cannon, two of them demy cannon, and she was well manned and of good force and strength for war; she was a good sailer, and would turn and tack about well; she held a hundred persons of Whitelocke's followers and most of his baggage, besides her own mariners, about two hundred. The cabins wherein Whitelocke was were of a handsome make; the breadth of the ship was the length of his bed-cabin, and it was six or seven paces broad, and high ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... Duke," said he, taking another tack. "This property belongs to another John Merrick. It is a common name, and that is doubtless why you mistook me ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... him eyes sharp enough to make a less acute person than the captain feel that honesty, rather than flattery, was the safest tack to go upon. ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... the refreshments which Frank had brought with him, they started for home. As the wind blew from the main shore, they were obliged to "tack," and the Speedwell again showed some fine sailing, and when the Champion entered the creek, she was not a ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... may not I smile at some jest between myself and my pipe, but thou must tack more meaning to it than Brewster says hung on Lord Burleigh's nod? And yet in sober sadness, Myles, 't is marvel to me how thou, born to a great name and to such observance as awaits the children of wealthy houses, and then, when hardly ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... you be serious, too! Ken's seriousness almost finished me. And I suppose father will take the same tack! Oh, I don't want to ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... south-southwest for her destination, was crossing the "Guerriere's" bows, her course was changed, in order to learn the character of the stranger. By half-past three she was recognized to be a large frigate, under easy sail on the starboard tack; which, the wind being northwesterly, gives her heading from west-southwest to southwest. The "Constitution" was to windward. At 3.45 the "Guerriere," without changing her course, backed her maintopsail, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Ring and the Book proves his genius for expansion. The metre is interesting. It is the heroic couplet, the same form exactly in which Pope wrote his major productions. Yet the rime, which is as evident as the recurring strokes of a tack-hammer in Pope, is scarcely heard at all in My Last Duchess. Its effect is so muffled, go concealed, that I venture to say that many who are quite familiar with the poem, could not declare offhand whether it were written in rime or in blank verse. This technical trick is accomplished ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... Mulvaney changes his tune an' axes her solemn-like if she'd thought o' t' consequences o' gettin' two poor but honest soldiers sent t' Andamning Islands. Mrs. DeSussa began to cry, so Mulvaney turns round oppen t' other tack and smooths her down, allowin' 'at Rip ud be a vast better off in t' Hills than down i' Bengal, and 'twas a pity he shouldn't go wheer he was so well beliked. And soa he went on, backin' an' fillin' an' workin' up t'awd lass wal she fell as if her life warn't ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... meant much to Wallace Carpenter, for he had bought it in the city, where such things are abundant and excite no remark; but to the woodsman each article possessed a separate and particular value. The tent, an iron kettle, a side of bacon, oatmeal, tea, matches, sugar, some canned goods, a box of hard-tack,—these, in the woods, represented wealth. Wallace's rifle chambered the .38 Winchester cartridge, which was unfortunate, for Thorpe's .44 had ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... of the professors told her it was O. K., so she got a book out of the library on old furniture and now we are contented and strictly up to date. These damned rugs though, I can't get her to tack 'em down. They're just like so many rags on the floor! I never had a chance to tell you what she did to my mahogany arm chair, ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... time when the first bit of a wild beast's skin was hoisted by some pre-historic savage, thousands and thousands of years ago, nobody had learnt how to tack, that is, to sail against the wind. The only way any ship could go at all well was with the wind, that is, with the wind blowing from behind. So long as men had nothing but a single "wind-bag" of ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... the starboard tack is the same as westerly Variation. Leeway on the port tack is the same as easterly Variation. This is apparent from ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... a powerful one, of the semi-rotary type, and they had nearly two miles of smoother water before they stretched out of the bay upon the other tack. When they did so, Carroll, glancing down again through the scuttle, could not flatter himself that he had reduced the water. It was comforting, however, to see that it had not increased, though he did not expect that state of affairs ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... one brave man among them—he appeared a Roman—a youth who turned back, though wounded. They surrounded and dragged him away, spurring his horse with their swords. These Etrurians measure their courage carefully, and tack it well together before they put it on, but throw it ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... congratulating us on our eventful and successful escape, while we cheered the boys for the glorious work they had accomplished for the Union. Haversacks were opened and placed at our disposal. There was a great demand for hard-tack and coffee; but the beauty of it all was, Major Turner was not there, to say what he often repeated, 'Reduce their rations; I'll teach the d——d scoundrels not to ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... front of them. Why, it would be sheer madness! They would have to crawl, to run, to jump—then to crawl again! That wasn't what they were doing when every morning on the parade-ground one heard a continual tack—tack—tack—tack, as if a thousand telegraph clerks were hard at work. What was the good of all this senseless show, which only ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... everlastin'!" he observed, "I did make dirty weather on that tack, didn't I? Cal'late I ain't much of a housekeeper, same as you say. Maybe that's why I was so dreadful anxious to get a good one to cruise along with me. Well, I've got ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... have the wind on their quarter, as the sun shone full in their faces, which they considered might be of disadvantage to them, and stretched out a little, so that at last they got the wind as they wished. The Normans, who saw them tack, could not help wondering why they did so, and said they took good care to turn about, for they were afraid of meddling with them. They perceived, however, by his banner, that the King was on board, which gave them great joy, as they were eager to fight with him; so they put their vessels in proper ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... him the lie; but he ran at the same time to the bulwarks, and so did they all. I have never seen so many drunken men struck suddenly sober. The cruiser had gone about, upon our impudent display of colours; she was just then filling on the new tack; her ensign blew out quite plain to see; and even as we stared, there came a puff of smoke, and then a report, and a shot plunged in the waves a good way short of us. Some ran to the ropes, and got the Sarah round with an incredible swiftness. One fellow fell on the rum-barrel, which stood broached ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... felt consider'ble better after that—having held our own on the tack, so to speak—and we walked out of the post-office and up to my room in the Travellers' Rest, where we could be alone. Then we opened up the envelopes, both at the same time. Inside of each of 'em was another envelope, ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... grafting deeds Marconi's stunts, whose genius speeds A message on a wireless tack And makes of space a jumping-jack? Where now does Edison hold sway? Or radium's ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... two houses, 'the most crowded that ever had been known—so much weight was laid on this matter on both sides,'[393] with a similar result. The Commons made other endeavours to carry the Act in a modified form, and with milder penalties; a somewhat unscrupulous minority made an attempt to tack it to a money bill, and so effect their purpose by a manoeuvre. The Sacheverell episode fanned the strange excitement that prevailed. A large body of the country gentry and country clergy imagined that the destinies of the Church hung in the balance. The populace caught ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... to seek their fortunes. Their names I've forgotten. The most I remember of that trip is that it was the stormiest passage I've ever made. It was a six weeks' voyage, and the worst of it was we could not have a fire, and, consequently, could not cook anything, and had to live on hard tack and raw pork, or beef. I tell you, those young fellows were unanimous in declaring that they had their fill of ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor |
