"Taut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the limp form of Spud hanging across his arm. He ran a hand across his eyes, dropped the dummy onto the desk. Turning back to Dr. Shalt, he began to speak in a taut, controlled voice. ...
— The Second Voice • Mann Rubin
... With taut-strung nerves, the highlanders approached the sea, which shone in matutinal placidity. When the ripples wavered on the smooth sand and ran in caressing ripples towards their feet, they started and shrunk. The incomprehensible ocean was alive and much to be feared, for was it not so big ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Kendrick persisted softly. He pointed to the remaining deck. A terrible smile of understanding drew his thin lips taut. "And the other, ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... his muscles grew taut, for the other voice was that of Conscience and it shook with terrified unevenness and a tremulous faintness like the leaping and weakening of a fevered pulse. He could tell that she was talking guardedly with her ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. You screw up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to get your neck muscles taut and then wobble your head around like a new-born baby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all the others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. Hereafter I'll get up at the time directed on page three, or maybe earlier. It frightens me to think that I've got only ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... this. The rolls were made, balanced as side packs, and circled with the swing-ropes, loose cloths, clothes, frying-pans, the lantern, and the axe tossed in to fill the gap in the middle, canvas flung over the whole, and the diamond-hitch hauled taut on the first pack, when a second rider appeared across the river. He came out of a space between the opposite hills, into which the trail seemed to turn, and he was leading the first man's horse. The heavy work before them was forgotten, ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... found its answer. He was by now king or a fugitive. The Lady of the Skies had given her decision. The thrill ran through us; I felt the queen draw herself together at my side; I felt the muscles of Rischenheim's arm which rested against my shoulder grow rigid and taut. Sapt's face was full of eagerness, and he gnawed his moustache silently. We gathered closer to one another. At last we could bear the suspense no longer. With one look at the queen and another at me, Sapt stepped ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... cable-guards, who lower the cable until it sags sufficiently to free the aerial passage-way between the cliffs. Then the aviator planes down, sweeps through the canyon, and alights on the plateau called Thusis's Garden. But now he must return; the cable must be lifted and stretched taut; and he must embark across the gulf in the little car which runs on ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... None of that!" said Mr. May, peremptory. But Ciccio, stretching forward taut and immobile with rage, was quite unconscious. His hand was fast on his ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... the sea-ice, and from this a two-and-a-half-inch wire-hawser was led upwards over a pair of sheer-legs on top of the cliff to another anchor buried some distance back. The whole was set taut by a tackle. The stores were then slung to a travelling pulley on the wire, and hauled on to the glacier by means of a rope led through a second pulley on the sheer-legs. The ship's company broke stores out of ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... telegraph despatch. But after I got outside of our astronomical system, I used to flush a comet occasionally that was something LIKE. WE haven't got any such comets—ours don't begin. One night I was swinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, and the wind in my favor—I judged I was going about a million miles a minute—it might have been more, it couldn't have been less—when I flushed a most uncommonly big one about three points off my starboard bow. By his stern lights I judged ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... trifles until it grew dark and there was no one on the pier. Then he got into the boat again, taking a bit of strong line with him, a couple of fathoms long, or a little less. Stooping down he slipped the line under the bags of ballast and made a timber-hitch with the end, hauling it well taut. With the other end he made a bowline round the thwart on which he was sitting, and on which he must sit to pull the bow oar in the evening. He tied the knot wide enough to admit of its running freely from side to side of the boat, and he stowed the bight between the ballast and ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... only by a supreme effort that he mastered his overwhelming need of some physical outlet for the passion of disgust and anger which swept him bare of any gentler emotion as the incoming tide sweeps the shore bare of sign or footprint. His body grew taut and rigid with the pressure he was putting on himself. When at last he spoke his voice was ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... under the direction of Henshaw, lashed the Japanese face down upon the hatch, pulling his arms and legs taut with ropes that fastened to the bolts on all sides of the ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... . . But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail anyhow and, among other things, left the out-haul of the mizen danglin' slack and close to the water. I reached for this, shortened up on it till I had it taut, and gave it into his hand to cling by—which he had the sense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits. After that I scrambled on to the mizen-boom somehow and hauled him aboard mainly by his collar and seat of his trousers. It was a ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... worth something after all,' the old man said. 'And remember, sonny, that "taut and trim" is a good motto to hold by whether your work ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... position near the girl, who was crouching in real dismay, he leaned against the wall, his hands behind him, every muscle strained and taut. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... through which by a footpath he could cut off half a mile of the three miles that lay between him and home. Poised on top of the high rail fence that bordered the road, he looked back. The hound was still trying to follow, walking straddle-legged, head down, all entangled with the taut chain that dragged the heavy block. The boy watched the frantic efforts, pity and longing on his face; then he jumped off the fence inside the pasture and hurried on down the hill, face set ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... asked Cub as he sat down on a camp chair after the last guy rope had been drawn taut and fastened securely to its peg. "It seems to me that it's about time for another pow-wow of ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... and beginning to bite. The swift breeze seemed to Edna to bury the sting of it into the pores of her face and hands. Robert held his umbrella over her. As they went cutting sidewise through the water, the sails bellied taut, with the wind filling and overflowing them. Old Monsieur Farival laughed sardonically at something as he looked at the sails, and Beaudelet swore at the old man under ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... woman, the boat was made taut enough before I brought you here, and you think she wouldn't have broke away before this if she was going to do it? Don't be a stupid lubber," ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... regard it as a very desirable place of residence. The fleet passed between the Island of Dybing and the light on Odderoe, and came to anchor in the western harbor. For half an hour the several crews were occupied in furling sails, squaring yards, hauling taut the running rigging, and putting everything ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... beat against her ears, yet roused no thrilling response. The trembling voice, the intensity of the worn old words coming from him,—it was all like another man suddenly appearing in the guise of one she thought she knew so well! The taut muscles of his powerful arm pressing against her troubled her. She would have fled,—why could one be like this! Still she caressed his face and hair, kissing him gently. Oh, yes, she loved him,—she was his! He was her husband.' Nevertheless ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... are rushing calves to the branding. The hubbub and turmoil increase. Taut ropes cross the ground in many directions. The cutting ponies pant and sweat, rear and plunge. The garb of the cowboy is now one of white alkali which hangs gray in his eyebrows and moustache. Steers bellow as they surge to ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... allowing the ship to drift slowly across the line where you expect the cable to be, while at the end of a long rope, fast either to the bow or stern, a grapnel drags along the ground. This grapnel is a small anchor, made like four pot-hooks tied back to back. When the rope gets taut, the ship is stopped and the grapnel hauled up to the surface in the hopes of finding the cable on its prongs. - I am much discontented with myself for idly lounging about and reading WESTWARD HO! for ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the tip. Within the next few minutes I took several nice trout, within rod's length of where I was standing. What actually happened, the lead was so heavy that it immediately sank straight to the bottom, and my taut line held the nymph suspended about two inches below the surface. The short gut between the nymph and the leader allowed the nymph to quiver much as the natural was doing. All the various common nymphs can be faithfully copied, by learning to ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg
... place of tightly geometrical compositions, Malwa artists preferred a more fluid grouping, their straining luxuriant trees blending with swaying creepers to create a soft meandering rhythm and only the human figures, with their sharply cut veils and taut intense faces, expressing the prevailing cult of frenzied passion.[82] Such schools of painting reflected the Rajput need for passionate romance rather than any specially strong adhesion to Krishna, the divine lover. Although one copy of the Rasika Priya ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... Wallie gave Canby a shove and pushed him over the bank. He struck the water with a splash and went out of sight. Immediately the well-trained cow-horse felt the strain it backed up and held the rope taut. ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... and la Sologne, at the entrance to the loyal provinces Touraine, Blesois, and Berry, the ducal city confronted the enemy, lying on a bend of the Loire, just as the arrow's point is lodged on the taut bow.[479] Bishopric, university, market of the country far and wide, on its belfries, towers, and steeples it raised proudly towards heaven the cross of Our Lord, the three coeurs de lis of the city and the three fleurs de ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... which showed what their feelings were. Never were the decks better cleaned, never were the ropes more carefully flemished down; the hammocks were stowed in their white cloths, the yards carefully squared, and the ropes hauled taut. At eight o'clock, the colours and pennant were hoisted half-mast high. The men were then ordered down to breakfast, and to clean themselves. During the time that the men were at breakfast, all the officers went into the cabin to take a last farewell look at our gallant ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... the bridge. Packed in among the troops, but moving steadily as they move, we cross the Scheldt. On our right the sharp bows and on our left the blunt sterns of the boats. Boat after boat pressed close, gunwale to gunwale, our roadway goes across their breasts. Their breasts are taut as the breasts of gymnasts under the tramping of the regiments. They vibrate like the breasts of living things as they ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... where Lafe could press the weight of one big foot thereon, and also complete the adjustment of the cord. He arranged it by looping twice round the cleat, the length reaching to Fritz's throat being drawn taut. Moreover, as the German's body was resting sidewise upon his other arm, still tightly bound, Blaine felt that he had the man for the ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... stood and stared at one another, the black eyes of the Jovian burning like fire in strange contrast to the cold glare of the blue ones. Then tension in the street grew taut. The Earthmen gradually closed in about them. At a word from Havenner, the Jovian guards closed up and drew from their garments long black tubes. Presently Glavour broke ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... down the wind on another tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment,—but only just a moment,—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack, perfectly ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... came, "Lay out forrard and furl the flying jib." Each command was succeeded by a silent, dark darting of men into the rigging, and presently a trampling on deck and a short, sharp singing out at the ropes, with cries from aloft of "Haul out to leeward; taut hand; knot away." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... was apparent in the animation of her face, in the way in which she would suddenly straighten herself as she sat, needle in air, the thread taut over her raised little finger. Then she would quickly resume her work, sometimes after putting in a thoughtful word, which agreed generally with the opinions ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... yards across but the lower and topsail-yards, which are very long and heavy, precisely squared, and to which the sails are furled in an exceeding neat and seaman-like manner. The rigging is universally taut and trim; and it is easy to perceive that the officers of the Gentile understand their business. The swinging-boom is rigged out, and fastened thereto, by their painters, a pair of boats, a yawl and gig, float lovingly side by side; and instead of the usual ladder ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... until his entire garment had been torn into strips. Two or three of these he tied end to end with his teeth, lips, and tongue, tightening the knots by placing one end of the strip under his body and drawing the other taut with his teeth. In this way he made a line several feet long, one end of which he made fast to the rail with his mouth. It then began to dawn upon me that he was going to make an insane attempt—impossible of achievement without hands, feet, arms, or legs—to escape from his cage! For what purpose? ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... a living thread. They string an instrument against the sky Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken Will run as hushed as when they were a thought. But in no hush they string it: they go past With shouts afar to pull the cable taut, To hold it hard until they make it fast, To ease away—they have it. With a laugh, An oath of towns that set the wild at naught They bring ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... your breast is taut, and under each the shadow is sharp, and between the clenched muscles of ...
— Sea Garden • Hilda Doolittle
... the dog who, quivering with that mysterious instinct found in the hunting dog, still held the point with taut muscles, nose ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... the hunters are few and now dress in San Francisco clothes, they go to the hunt in the same old way as when Baranof, head of the Russian Fur Company, led his battalions out in companies of a thousand and two thousand "bidarkies"—walrus-skin skiffs taut as a drumhead, with seams tallowed and an oilskin wound round each of the manholes, so that the boat {68} could turn a somerset in the water, or be pitched off a rock into the surf, and come right side up without ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... the car. Martin, his every muscle taut with the agony of the man's pain, is on his knees, pressing his chest on the man's chest, trying with an arm stretched along the man's leg to keep him from bouncing in the ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... and of course it was, but when disease divides this world from another only by the thinnest veil, the mind has been known to see things with a clearness and vividness never before attained. With Chopin the strands of life were often taut to the breaking-point, but ere they snapped, their vibration gave forth ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... ordered Tommy to lay hold of a rope and haul away; and Bill ran and helped him, and quickly got the rope taut, when an officer sung out, "Belay," and Tommy made the rope fast. This was the first duty Bill ever performed in ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... grappling with him like four wolves pulling down a deer. But even as Jack came into sight, the strangers had mastered Me Dain, and in a second he was dragged to the ground. With incredible speed and quickness they flung loops of rope around ankles and wrists, ran them taut, and made the Burman a prisoner. Then two of them dropped on Me Dain's legs and arms, and the third seized his hair and dragged his head forward. The fourth leapt a pace back as nimbly as a panther, and swung up a short, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... candlestick sounded to the taut nerved house-breaker as might the explosion of a stick of dynamite during prayer in a meeting house. That all Oakdale had heard it seemed quite possible, while that those below stairs were already turning questioning ears, and probably inquisitive footsteps, ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... solution was beyond me. It was as if the controlling powers were flitting, invisible, just above my head, just beyond my grasp. There was obviously something vibrating; some cord, somewhere, stretched very taut and quivering. But I could think of no better solution than: "You must have done with him." It seemed obvious, too, that that was impossible, was outside the range of things that could be done—but I had to do my best. "It's a—it's ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... the door of Marie's new home, this taut-strung Maren Le Moyne, and gazed away above the rim of the budding forest, and her spirit was as a chaffing steed held into quiet by a ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... crossed each other at right angles, and were made perfectly tight by means of wedges. To avert the great danger of the mass toppling over sideways, ropes were attached to the top of the casing, at the point where the beams crossed one another, and were held taut by two parties of laborers, one on either side of the statue. Besides these, wooden forks or props were applied on either side to the second set of horizontal cross-beams, held also by men whose business it would be to resist the least inclination ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... that stood against the wall, he rummaged a moment, and at last withdrew an arbalest quarrel. About the body of this he tied his note. Next, from the wall he took down a cross-bow, and from a corner a moulinet for winding it. With his foot in the stirrup he made the cord taut and ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... shadow of sound there is But his motion's gentle hiss, Till one fluent arm and hand Suddenly circles, and the wand Taps a bough far overhead, "Crack," and then all noise is dead. For he halts, and for a space Stands erect with upward face, Taut and tense to the white Message of the ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... face was enough to tell those inside that the news was bad. So for an instant there was silence; and in the silence, with a deafening roar and a blinding blaze of blue light, came a terrific crash of thunder followed by a sudden fierce pelt of hail upon the taut tent roof. ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... his eyes up to the dome where he saw the canvas drawing taut. He knew that he had succeeded ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... leaned back with a view of learning bow much resistance the deerskins would offer. While they were quite strong, they were not taut, and yielded so much that the boy tipped over backwards, with his feet in the air, somewhat after the style of the baby when frolicking on ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... log slate, dancing about the deck with excitement; and, then he banged his fist down on the brass rail with a thump that almost doubled it in two, while his wiry billy-goat beard bristled out and wagged to and fro. "Brace up yer yards sharp, an' keep them bowlin's taut! Lay her ez near due north ez she'll fetch, an' we'll fix her on a bee-line fur 'Frisco. ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... saw the color leave his skin, I saw his hands draw the sheets so taut that there was danger of their parting under the strain. I heard the catch in each breath he took. As he read, I looked away, observing the refined elegance of the room in which we were sitting and even noting the bronze elephant on the mantel ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... gunwhale beside Hrolfur. The fore-sail resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. I could feel them on my cheek, though their dampness never penetrated; but in between these hammer blows their little pats were wonderfully friendly. Every ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... their diffuseness of hue from the concentrated gorgeousness of amaranth, canna, and gladiolus. The sounds of the city were deadened here to a dull rumble, while the vibrancy of the autumn afternoon excited his taut nerves. ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... he would not go for his camera until after broad daylight, had managed to so arrange it, with a clever attachment of his own construction, that an exposure was made just at the second the cord firing the flashlight was drawn taut. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... white Indian looking on, had a very good time beating Simon, until they all, including Simon, were tired out. Then they staked him flat on his back, stretched by arms and legs and neck—his ankles drawn taut to two stakes, his elbows and wrists held by a stout pole laid across his chest, and his neck enclosed in a halter. He could not ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... louder, then suddenly ceased for a moment, and the taut rigging of the brig was heard vibrating its answer in a singing note to this threatening murmur of the winds. A long and slow undulation lifted the level of the waters, as if the sea had drawn a deep breath of anxious suspense. The next ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... together. Lucien and Francois held the shirts taut, while Basil and Norman handled the knives, and in a few minutes the rock was covered with strips of buckskin about two inches wide, by a yard or so in length. These were next joined and plaited together in such a manner that a ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... To funk right out o' p'lit'cal strife aint thought to be the thing, Without you deacon off the toon you want your folks should sing; So I edvise the noomrous friends thet's in one boat with me To jest up killick, jam right down their hellum hard alee, Haul the sheets taut, an', layin' out upon the Suthun tack, Make fer the safest port they can, wich, I think, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... pocket and pushed him down the stair, then dragged him along the lower deck. They passed a line of sleeping deck-hands too stupid to observe them. Dragging astern of the boat, high between the two long diverging lines of the rolling wake, there rode a river skiff at the end of its taut line. ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... twitching body, alert, every nerve taut, his finger crooked to the trigger of his rifle. But again Blenham had withdrawn. In the little rudely circular hollow from which Blenham had fired point-blank at Yellow Barbee was Terry's hat, trodden underfoot. Again it was as though the mountain ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory
... and taut, The weaker lashed to port, On we sailed, two by two— That if either a bolt should feel Crash through caldron or wheel, Fin of bronze or sinew of steel, Her mate ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... joyous company was likewise the bearer of a toy balloon—red, yellow, blue, green or purple, as the case might be. Over the line of heads the taut rubbery globes rode on their tethers, nodding and twisting like so many big iridescent bubbles; and half a block away, at the edge of the lot, a balloon vender, whose entire stock had been disposed of in one splendid transaction, now stood, empty-handed but ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... was cutting down hammocks. Dark forms might be seen on all fours making their way on the greasy and slippery deck in the direction of selected victims. The sharp blade of a knife would be drawn across the taut cord that supported the hammock. Then an uproar that awakened the entire steerage would take place. If the one who was cut down happened to be an Irishman, he would loudly challenge all the passengers ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Buck had her in his arms, holding her tight as one holds a hurt or frightened child. Mechanically he soothed her as she clung to him, that amazing self-control, which had upheld her for so long, snapping like a taut rope when the strain becomes too great. But all the while his eyes—wide, smoldering eyes, filled with a mingling of pity, of dread questioning and furious passion—swept ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... and holds the rifle upright, sling to the front, heel of butt on the ground beside the bayonet. His rear-rank man pins down the front corners of the tent on the line of bayonets, stretching the tent taut; he then inserts a pin in the eye of the front guy rope and drives the pin at such a distance in front of the rifle as to hold the rope taut; both men go to the rear of the tent, each pins down a corner, stretching the sides and rear of the tent before securing; the ...
— Infantry Drill Regulations, United States Army, 1911 - Corrected to April 15, 1917 (Changes Nos. 1 to 19) • United States War Department
... for an uneventful morning canter. He stood at the foot of the stairs preparing to mount when Gregoire rode up as if pursued by furies; checking his horse with a quick, violent wrench that set it quivering in its taut limbs. ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... Then pulling it taut he began to climb hand over hand as he had many a time done in sport. Now his deliverance ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... downs, as is but natural to human creeters, we never come to such a pass agin. Both on us tried real hard; whenever I felt my temper risin' or discontent comin' on I remembered them days and kep' a taut rein; and as for Lisha he never said a raspin' word, or got sulky, but what he'd bust out laughin' after it and say: 'Bless you, Cynthy, it warn't me, it ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... staggered, and his arm was caught in the rope which the shock had slipped from the pulley for an instant. He made a desperate effort to raise the rope with the other hand, but the net was down and the taut ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... half-feigned. She wanted him to think she understood. She wanted him to like her. She even wanted to sympathise. It was such a mixture of feelings she had—some good, some mischievous and deliberate. All her vanities were involved. Her nerves were taut with the strain of such a show of absorption, while her mind ran on at top speed. She asked pseudo-timid questions, just to show her interest and her cleverness, and to encourage Toby to keep on telling her things that threw light upon himself and his likes and dislikes. ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... However gentle the contact, adhesion is at once established. When I lift the straw, the threads come with it and stretch to twice or three times their length, like a thread of india-rubber. At last, when over-taut, they loosen without breaking and resume their original form. They lengthen by unrolling their twist, they shorten by rolling it again; lastly, they become adhesive by taking the glaze of the gummy moisture wherewith they ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... lessons of hours of agony, of loneliness, torture in all the million hours which filled up his nine years of endless and unbroken gloom in penal servitude. The frame is slight, well-knit—the frame of a sturdy son of the people—kept taut and thin by the restless nervous soul within. An empty sleeve hanging by his side tells the tale of work in the factory in childhood's years, and of one of the accidents which too often maim the children of the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... deeper red and a dangerous rumble issued from his throat, as if he were a volcano threatening to erupt. Then quite suddenly, with an obvious effort, he capped his seething anger and subsided somewhat. Through taut lips he said, "I'm not going to stand here and argue with you, Wims; just ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... with him, jumping from star to star in the thrilling blue sky. As it was she stood on one foot, as if poised for flight with a sort of spring in her movements that his softer muscles had never experienced. He caught at her hand, and felt it taut, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Quick as thought the lee braces are slacked off, and those on the weather side made taut. Still she is not checked. Strange, too, for the breeze is stiff. Anderson feels she is in the stream of a ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... for a time buying postcards and feverishly restless, watching the movements of the other people. Finally I went up to my room and sat down by the windows, staring out. There came a little tap at the unlocked door and in an instant, like the go of a taut bowstring, I was up ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... of fight left in you still. It sort of makes me feel, though, as if it were almost time I had a young fellow hitched up beside me who was strong enough to pull his half of the load and willing enough so that he'd keep the traces taut on his side. I don't want any double-team arrangement where I have to pull the load and the other horse, too. But you seem strong, and you act willing, so when I get back I reckon we'll hitch for ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... itself stands taut and trim, a mass of sculptured masonry in rich browns and reds, the interior shows melancholy dilapidation. But, indeed, for the stern lessons of history, how sad were the spectacle of these mutilated effigies in marble, exquisite sculptures when fresh from the artist's hand, to-day ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... rod bent double, and the line sang off his reel. He was a famous fisherman, and Clark watched him admiringly. To every ounce of pliant bamboo on his six ounce rod there was, down in the brown water, a pound of savagely fighting weight. Deeper went the big fish and further, but ever the taut line yielded by fractions, and the nearly doubled rod kept up a steady insidious strain. As the bass dashed back, the bishop recovered his nearly spent line while his lips pressed tight and the light of battle shone in his large eyes. For a quarter of an hour the fight ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... away at the capstan till the hawser was taut as a fiddle-string; not an inch would the ship budge. The master suggested that by heaving the guns and stores overboard she ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... drew on Carolyn June's arms till it seemed they would be pulled from the sockets. The rope cut cruelly into her body under her shoulders. She wanted to cry—to scream—to laugh. She did neither. She threw back her head and clung with all her strength to the rough lariat, stretched taut ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... at once banished all regret. First he picked out his objective, a house some distance away, near the road, and then he brought his mustang up on the bit with a touch of the spurs. Then, having established the taut rein which he preferred, he sent the cow pony down the slope. It was plain that the mustang hated its rider; it was equally plain that Sinclair was in perfect touch with his horse, what with the stern wrist pulling against ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... his duty; and within three minutes every sail in the ship was set, and the yards braced ready for casting. The steady and active assistance of Lieutenant Turner and the other officers prevented any confusion. As soon as the cable was taut, I ordered it to be cut, and had the good fortune to see the ship start from the shore. The head sails were filled; a favourable flaw of wind coming at the same time gave her good way. Not to be retarded by the boats, I ordered them to be cut adrift as well as the French ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Master try the taut string merely, Give a touch, and she must throb to time? Think you how his bow must rouse the echoes, Quailing triumphing ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... there are four other ropes of the same material secured to the body of the anchor, to serve in case of accidents. There is no strain whatever in the meantime on these reserved ropes, which hang slack, and would only come taut and into play in case of ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... that there would be no one in the house except Orson, his man, and some of the kitchen servants, the others having followed their mistress to the country; nevertheless the rescuers' nerves were painfully taut, and they tried to go as silently as burglars. It was hard, awkward work; they collided with unseen objects; their arms ached with the constant strain; when they finally gained the library they were drenched with perspiration. Merkle switched on the lights; ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... level with the unlifted eye, were houses here and there, looking in the vastness like dolls' habitations. Many of the houses stood blank and staring in the expanse, but some had trees, and others little oases of green. Everywhere prosperity, everywhere the strings of life pulled taut, signs that energy had been ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the entrance, who held the foot block, fastened its hook in a little raised hump of rock; then, grasping the hauling line, pulled the tackle taut. The result was a serviceable lifeline, waist high, ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... happen," continues he. "The balloon, which was quite flabby and soft when I ascended, was now taut, and fully distended. Soon the hydrogen gas began to escape in considerable quantities by the neck of the balloon, and then, from time to time, I pulled open the valve to give it two issues at once; and I continued thus to mount upwards, all the time ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... and the doctor reached him, the Clown was holding the broken arm taut—he had to keep up a steady pull, for with the slightest release the knotty sinews and muscles would cause the broken forearm to fly back at right angles. Although this had happened a dozen times while ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... taut. He feared the tremendous strain would break them. The heads of the horses were now held as in a vice, but they snorted and continued to plunge forward ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... Sanitary Commission was frequently circumvented and calumniated by rival organizations. The members of the Woman's Central worked incessantly. Miss Collins was always at her post. She had never left it. Her hand held the reins taut from the beginning to the end. She alone went to the office daily, remaining after office hours, which were from nine to six, and taking home to be perfected in the still hours of night those elaborate tables of supplies and their ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... heat through the long, cold days of formal construction? Emotions seem to grow cold and set like glue. The intense power and energy called forth by the first thrilling vision grow slack for want of incentive. What engine is to generate the heat and make taut the energies by which alone significant form can be created? That is where the ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... the big man's eyes widen, noted that his shoulders sagged a little when he heard Lawler's voice; observed that there seemed to come an appreciable lessening of the tension of his taut muscles. She marveled that the sound of one man's voice could have so calming an effect upon another—that it could, at a stroke, seemingly, cool the white-hot rage that had ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... sleep in either place, was impossible. Sometimes the rain beat down upon the decked over portion of the boat with the sound of a drumstick beaten upon taut calfskin. Again the wind blew in such sharp gusts that the rain seemed to be swept over the face of the sea and then, if I chanced to glance over my shoulder, the drops stung ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... de predestination, de grace; cette foule de distinctions subtiles dont la theologie s'est parteut remplie dans quelques pays, ces inventions si ingenieuses, imaginees par des penseurs qui se sont succedes depuis taut de siecles, n'ont fait, helas! qu'embrouiller les choses, et jamais la science la plus necassaire aux hommes n'a jusqu'ici pu acquerir la moindre fixite. Depuis des milliers d'annees ces reveurs oisifs se sont perpetuellement ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... in the canal came plodding a solitary horse, stooping forward as if in anxious thought. From rope traces attached to his collar stretched a long line, taut, but dipping with his stride, the further part of it dripping pearly drops. Toad let the horse pass, and stood waiting for what the ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... taut, or he'll be wriggling through them and carry off the hook and line!" cried Tom. At last it was got up flush with the bulwarks, when down it came, knocking over poor Billy and two of the native crew. Had not Tom and Desmond rushed forward and ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... easier in daylight; she wondered if after all it would not have been more difficult could she have seen just what were the chances she was taking at every moment. But more and more she came to have utter faith in the quiet man going on before her, and in the piece of rope which stretched taut between them. ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... was slipped and the sheets hauled taut. The rest of the canvas was shaken out and the Heavenly Home gathered way and fairly ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... face. By a trick of the firelight she seemed to have no body. The oval of the face and hair hung beside the fire with a dark vacuum for background. As if dazed by the glare, her green-blue eyes stared at the flames. Every muscle of her face was taut. There was something tragic in her thus staring—her age between ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... is put on the rope it is more likely to break at the knot than at any other spot. The "Fisherman's Knot," shown in Fig. 17, is a good knot and is formed by two simple overhand knots slipped over each rope, and when drawn taut appears as in Fig. 18. This is an important and valuable knot for anglers, as the two lines may be drawn apart by taking hold of the ends, A, B, and a third line for a sinker, or extra hook, may be inserted between ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... taut and lithe, Within the wind a core of sound, The wire from Romney town to Hythe Alone its airy ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... pull like, youngster?" asked Harris, looking down at the taut line and expecting to see a big perch ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich |
