"Topping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the course of the larger river in the direction of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... try to catch greased lightning as that long-armed beast," observed Higson, who did not, however, attempt to stop them. Spider quickly reached the main-topsail-yard-arm, but finding that the tempting trees were still utterly beyond his reach, up the topping-lift he swarmed, and in another instant was on the royal-yard. Thither the midshipmen followed, but Spider showed an inclination to defend his position, and sat grinning at them from the end of the yard, round which his prehensile tail was firmly curled. He had ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... this matter of putting up the wire occupied several days—there were ten or twelve negro men engaged in cutting down trees, and in topping ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... a topping Dyer, Was cuckol'd by a Frier: He saw the Case, How bad it was, And feign'd to take a Journey, Saying softly, Madam, —— burn ye But stopping by the Way He saw the Priest full gay, Running fast to his House, To tickle his Spouse: 'Tis d——n'd vile, thinks the Dyer, But away went the Frier. ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... After topping the Mau we saw a few gazelle, zebra, and hartebeeste, but soon plunged into a bush country quite destitute of game. We were paralleling the highest ridge of the escarpment, and so alternated between the crossing of canons and the travelling ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... discomforture that many people experience after eating nuts? I believe that the explanation rests on the fact that our common American way of eating nuts, is not the rational way. We would not consider topping off a heavy meal with eggs, meats or cereals or to eat these in large quantities between meals realizing that we are exposing ourselves to possible digestive discomfort. No more then, can we expect ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... tingles, the light thrills, all the great day is to come. This lad therefore rode with a song towards the West, following his own shadow, down the deep Starning lanes, through the woods and pastures of Parrox, over the grassy spaces of the Downs, topping the larks in thought, and shining beam for beam against the new-risen sun. The time of his going-out was September of the harvest: a fresh wet air was abroad. He looked at the thin blue of the sky, he saw dew and gossamer ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... or seemed to be, particularly unlucky; for as I drew near the very entrance, lightly of foot and warily, the moon (which had often been my friend) like an enemy broke upon me, topping the eastward ridge of rock, and filling all the open spaces with the play of wavering light. I shrank back into the shadowy quarter on the right side of the road; and gloomily employed myself to watch the triple entrance, on ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... of the evangelical church, the low spire of the church of genuflexions, and the crimson chapels, and rows of little red houses with amber chimney-pots, and the gold angel of the blackened Town Hall topping the whole. The sedate reddish browns and reds of the composition, all netted in flowing scarves of smoke, harmonised exquisitely with the chill blues of the chequered sky. Beauty was ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... apples caught in unprotected places. When the cold wave struck us, about November 20, my four-legged "I told-you-so's" had nearly completed their dwelling; it lacked only the ridge-board, so to speak; it needed a little "topping out," to give it a finished look. But this it never got. The winter had come to stay, and it waxed more and more severe, till the unprecedented cold of the last days of December must have astonished even the wise muskrats in their snug retreat. I approached their nest ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... feet. Except for pruning the roots when transplanting, the tree is permitted to grow until after producing its first full crop before any cutting takes place. Then, the branches are severely cut back; and thereafter, pruning is carried on annually. Topping and pruning begin between the first and the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... the Grand Hotel Sardegna, he scanned the different villa slopes that showed their level lines of white and yellow and dull pink through the gray tropical greenery on the different levels of the hills. He was duly rewarded by the sight of the bold legend topping its cornice, and when he let his eye descend the garden to a little pavilion on the wall overlooking the road, he saw his acquaintances of the evening before making a belated breakfast. The father recognized Lanfear ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... To Tully's shop, or lounge with pump-room belles; May I no more to Sidney Gardens stray, If, Bath, I wrong thee in my hum'rous lay. Court of King Blad', where crescents circling rise Above each other till they reach the skies; And hills o'er-topping with their verdant green The Abbey Church, are in ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... together, at intervals, by means of horizontal poles and cross-beams. To this framework are lashed strips of palma brava, supports for a covering of closely laid runo, on which rests the final topping of flattened bamboo. The ridge pole is always at a sufficient height above the floor to give the roof a steep peak, and is of such length that, at the top, the side roof overhangs the ends. The roof generally rises in two ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... tints, that presently changed to gold and then gave place to their normal hue of azure. This the ocean reflected with a glorious blue, seeming to be but one huge sapphire, except where crystal foam flecked it here and there from the topping of some impatient wavelet not content to roll along in peace till it ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... person besides himself who was in the joke was her mother. Mrs. Pasmer and he grew more and more into each other's confidence in talking Alice over, and he admired the intrepidity of this lady, who was not afraid of her daughter even in the girl's most topping moments of self-abasement. For his own part, these moods of hers never failed to cause him confusion and anxiety. They commonly intimated themselves parenthetically in the midst of some blissful talk they were having, and overcast his clear sky with retrospective ideals ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... a good return when kept low by topping, and without any support whatever, a system adopted by many market gardeners. For this method of culture space the plants one foot apart in single rows set three feet apart. Pinch out the tips when the plants are eighteen inches high and repeat the operation when a further ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... the eastern horizon, are the soft pencils of bashful day over-topping the jagged sawteeth of the yet sleeping mountains, fifty or more miles away. A faint hinting of the lightening of the sky only deepens the blackness of the snow-streaked peaks. The cowardly coyote's yelp comes more and more faintly, the burrowing owl's "to-whit, to-whoo" falls ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... the need for his services at the front was even greater, and it jumped with his desires, for the whole tone of his letters breathes the joy he found in the excitements of flying and fighting. He declares he is having a "topping time", and exults in boyish fashion at a coming presentation to Sir Douglas Haig. It is not too much to say that the whole empire mourned when Captain Ball finally met his death in the air near ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... remember that Mrs. Vigilance, during the whole period of our acquaintance, was particularly squeamish, or topping in her deportment. On the contrary, she had rather made herself remarkable for a modest and commendable reserve. But on the present occasion, she disappointed all reasonable expectation, by shrinking on one side, uttering a ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... clear blue darkness, suffused with the misty light of stars. Looking back, Courant could see her upright slenderness topping the horse's black shape. When the road lay pale and unshaded behind her he could decipher the curves of her head and shoulders. Then he turned to the trail in front, and her face, as it had been when he first saw her and as it was now, came back to his memory. Once, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... effort of Josephine, who wept copiously at the thought of losing her daughter as she measured and mixed the ingredients. A layer of frosting an inch in thickness encrusted this masterpiece of the art of pastry-making. Topping the creation were manikins of a ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... had dwindled till they made only a hazy flare against the sky; but to the south the San Francisco lights, topping hills and sinking into valleys, stretched miles upon miles. Starting from the great ferry building, and passing on to Telegraph Hill, Joe was soon able to locate the principal places of the city. Somewhere ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... door was grinning down at the two on the hearth. He wore a blue coat right enough, but it was slick with old grease across the chest, stained on one shoulder, and his breeches were linsey-woolsey, his boots old and scuffed. And his bush of unkempt hair was covered with a battered hat topping a woolen scarf ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... hand, I should have much opposition to encounter from the rivalry of the three learned professions, to say nothing of the gentlemen of the sword and of the buskin; but, thinks I to myself, 'faint heart never won fair lady,' so I at once set up a snuff-box, looked as tip-topping ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... circuit of the metropolis, that the ante-Hanoverian lady had used the place in her day as a nursery-hospital for the royal little ones. It was a square three-storied building of red brick, much beaten and stained by the weather, with an ivied side, up which the ivy grew stoutly, topping the roof in triumphant lumps. The house could hardly be termed picturesque. Its aspect had struck many eyes as being very much that of a red-coat sentinel grenadier, battered with service, and standing firmly enough, though not at ease. Surrounding ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... its inner significance. Judged by the canons of formal beauty, the sky-line of New York city, seen from the North River, is ugly and distressing. But the responsive spirit, reaching ever outward into new forms of feeling, can thrill at sight of those Titanic structures out-topping the Palisades themselves, thrusting their squareness adventurously into the smoke-grayed air, and telling the triumph of man's mind over the forces of nature in this fulfillment of the needs of irrepressible activity, ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... is the greatest of villanies, and ought to incur some punishment, yet nothing is more common, and our topping tradesmen, who seem otherwise to stand mightily on their credit, make this but a matter of course and custom. If I do not, says one, another will (for the servant is sure to pick a hole in the person's coat who shall not pay contribution). Thus this wicked practice is carried on and winked ...
— Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business • Daniel Defoe
... question. Thou art free. We ask and ask: Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill That to the stars uncrowns his majesty, Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea, Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, Spares but the cloudy border of his base To the foil'd searching of mortality; And thou, who ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... must cut off the head of a live hen on the stump of the tree with the very same axe with which he cut down the tree. This will protect him from all harm, even if the tree be one of the animated kind. The silk-cotton trees, which rear their enormous trunks to a stupendous height, far out-topping all the other trees of the forest, are regarded with reverence throughout West Africa, from the Senegal to the Niger, and are believed to be the abode of a god or spirit. Among the Ewespeaking peoples of the Slave Coast the indwelling god of this giant of the forest goes by the name ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Peter, an eye-catching figure in the flooding moonlight. For, retiring to his stateroom from the table, he had divested himself of much raiment and encased his figure in a great purple bathrobe. He was a man who loved to be comfortable, was Peter. Topping the robe, he wore his new Panama. Varney looked around at the sound of footsteps, and was considerably struck by ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... they drank the ripping coffee, smoked the topping cigarette, and if they happened to be men of stomach ventured on a clinking cigar. Moreover, they were made welcome. Agar was like a vain woman who loved to see a full saloon. And he paid for his pleasure in more honourable coin than ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... a sigh. "Oh, shoot! I'm game to tackle it if you are. Far as I'm personally concerned, I know I can fly." His lips, too, set themselves in the line of stubbornness. And he added with perfect seriousness, "It ain't half as hard as topping ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... in grace with Him to face, and an ill-spent life behind, And I'll take care o' your widows, Rube, as many as I shall find." A Stralsund man shot blind and large, and a warlock Finn was he, And he hit Tom Hall with a bursting ball a hand's-breadth over the knee. Tom Hall caught hold by the topping-lift, and sat him down with an oath, "You'll wait a little, Rube," he said, "the Devil has called for both. The Devil is driving both this tide, and the killing-grounds are close, And we'll go up to ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... horsemanship than anything else, I dashed spurs into Badger's sides, and turned him towards a rasping ditch before me; over we went, hurling down behind us a rotten bank of clay and small stones, showing how little safety there had been in topping instead of clearing it at a bound. Before I was well-seated again the captain was beside me. "Now for it, then," said I; and away we went. What might be the nature of his feelings I cannot pretend to state, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Hitherto both the right and left bank, green to the very brink, and level with the river, resembled the shores of a park canal. The trees and houses were alike low, sometimes the low trees over- topping the yet lower houses, sometimes the low houses rising above the yet lower trees. But at Schulau the left bank rises at once forty or fifty feet, and stares on the river with its perpendicular facade of sand, thinly patched with tufts of green. The Elbe continued to present a more and more lively ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... thus, and topping it off with a cold baked apple, and sleeping out in the snow, they go to work in the morning, so they tell me, with a positive sense of exhilaration. I have no doubt that they do. But, for me, I confess that once and for all I am out of it. I ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... serves for the old June weather Blue above lane and wall; And that farthest bottle labelled "Ether" Is the house o'er-topping all. ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... for Mrs. Wyburn. I like her. She looked topping last night, too. But I dare say it'll be all right. Romer's a good ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... the Tuscan valley," the philosopher proceeded, harking back to the book which had arrived by the evening's mail. "Florence was a devil—Florence was divine. They raised geniuses and devils and martyrs: the most cloud-topping geniuses, the worst devils, the most saintly martyrs. But better than being a drone in a Florence pension is all this"—with a wave of his hand to the garden and the stars—"which I owe to Mary and ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... sake, Lieutenant, don't tell anybody that. A little stop at St. Paul isn't worth making a fuss about. You'll come along into the city with me, and we will get a few of the boys together and give you a topping dinner." ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... red round of the low sun, stood the rambling gray outlines of a house, topping a small hill. From one of its huge chimneys a pennant of smoke waved hospitably. The mare whinnied, and chafed a ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... the same night. This is topping, Ann." Tony's face had brightened considerably. "Suppose you and I go up to the Dents de Loup for the afternoon, and then have a festive little dinner at the Gloria. Will you? Don't have an attack of common sense ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... it a main point of their privileges, my lord," answered Lowestoffe; "and, in fact, it is one of the most powerful means by which they support their authority. For when Duke Ilildebrod and his senate find a topping householder in the Friars becomes discontented and factious, it is but assigning him, for a lodger, some fat bankrupt, or new lesidenter, whose circumstances require refuge, and whose purse can pay for it, and the malecontent ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... something that saves each of us for good in spite of the bad that's in us. It's very good practice, for a man who wants to be modest, to come and live in a Latin country. He learns to suspect his own topping virtues, and to be lenient to the novel combinations of right and wrong that he sees. But as for our insupposable priest—yes, I should say decidedly he ought to get out of ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... passed in front of the tennis-court called the Doe, at the door of which were gathered a number of the topping citizens of the town. The novel appearance of the conveyance and team, and the noise of the mob who had gathered round the cart, induced these honourable burgomasters to cast an eye upon the strangers; and among others a Deputy-Provost named La Rappiniere came up, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... radius of light—at first a dim, spectral shadow, scarcely to be recognized; then, almost as suddenly, revealed in all its details—a boat of size, flying toward us under a lug sail, standing out hard as a board, keeling well over, and topping the sea swells like a bird on wing. 'Twas a beautiful sight as the craft came sweeping on before the full weight of the wind, out from that background of gloom into the yellow glare of the torch, circling widely so as to more safely approach the bark's ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself, I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him. The moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow upon him, the last that ever fell upon his ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... could scarcely see, screened as she was by her veil. But her firm handshake and the long unflinching gaze of her "How do you do?" told him why Freddy always spoke of his sister in tones which implied that she was as reliable as a man and a "topping pal." ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... can," she answered, simply, as they turned the corner upon a large windmill, with arms revolving merrily; "but, Willie dear, would not Farmer Topping's mill, perpetually going as it is, answer the same purpose? And yet the moss seems to be as thick as ever here, and the ground ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... measured throughout its sinuous extent, being fully fifteen hundred miles in length. Over this vast reach of mountain and plain it is carried, regardless of hill or vale, but "scaling the precipices and topping the craggy hills of the country." It is not a solid mass, but is composed of two retaining walls of brick, built upon granite foundations, while the space between them is filled with earth and stones. It is about twenty-five feet wide at base and fifteen at top, and varies ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... went in first to give his men pluck, and scored twenty-five in beautiful style; how Rugby was only four behind in the first innings; what a glorious dinner they had in the fourth-form school; and how the cover-point hitter sang the most topping comic songs, and old Mr. Aislabie made the best speeches that ever were heard, afterwards. But I haven't space—that's the fact; and so you must fancy it all, and carry yourselves on to half-past seven o'clock, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... kind, for there was no farm anywhere within sight, and no wagon excepting my own; moreover, the sound was too deep and powerful to issue from the lungs of a domestic animal, the obvious inference therefore being that the bellowing proceeded from a wild buffalo. And so indeed it proved, for upon topping the intervening ridge I beheld a splendid buffalo bull some fifty yards away standing breast-deep in the river, struggling violently and uttering bellow after bellow, except when for a moment or two the poor beast's head was ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... at a rope and long iron hook dangling from one of the stays of the mainmast, while Dan pulled down another that ran from something he called a "topping-lift," as Manuel drew alongside in his loaded dory. The Portuguese smiled a brilliant smile that Harvey learned to know well later, and with a short-handled fork began to throw fish into the pen on deck. "Two hundred and ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... again, tempted to defy all common sense because its dictates were not the same for everybody. But he marched away, back to the cubbyhole in which he had awakened. Angrily, he donned the heat-suit that had not protected him adequately before, but had certainly saved his life. He filled the canteens topping full—he suspected he hadn't done so the last time. He went back to the Project Engineer's office with a feeling of being burdened ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... Topping a little rise, the moon came out bright, and away ahead the silver ribbon of the Souchez gleamed for an instant; the bare poles that once had been Bouvigny Wood were behind us, and to the right, to the left, ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... or Cabo Verde, the Hesperou Keras, the Hesperium or Arsenarium Promontorium of Pliny, the trouvaille of Diniz Fernandez in 1446. The name is sub judice. Some would derive it from the grassy green slope clad with baobabs (Adansonia digitata), megatherium-like monsters, topping the precipitous sea-wall which falls upon patches of yellow sand. Others would borrow it from the Sargasso (baccifera), Golfao, or Gulf-weed, which here becomes a notable feature. Cape Verde, the Prasum Promontorium of West Africa, is the 'Trafalgar,' the westernmost ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... root leaves are mostly ovate, lanceolate, and entire. The whole plant is smooth and glaucous. From the description given, it may readily be seen that when in flower it will be effective—massive heads of ruby flowers topping a shrub-like plant of shining foliage and glaucous hue. It is eminently fitted for lines or borders where other strong growers are admitted. In a cut state the flowers are very useful; they are strongly ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... then left it. They were going the moorland way to Glenfernie House. He was looking from side to side, recovering old landscape in sweep and in detail. Bit by bit, as they came to it, Strickland gave him the country news. At last there was the house before them, among the firs and oaks, topping the crag. They came into the wood at the base of the hill. The stream—the trees—above, the broken, ancient wall, the roofs of the new house that was not so new, the old, outstanding keep. The whole rested, mellowed, lifted, still, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... becoss th' lasses have all clean approns on, an' ther hair hasn't lost its Sundy twists, an' twines ther faces luk ruddier an' ther een breeter. Tuesdy, ther's a change; they're not quite as prim lukkin! ther topping luk fruzzier, an' ther's net as monny shignons as ther wor th' day before. Wednesday,—they just luk like hard-workin fowk 'at live to wark an' wark to live. Ther's varry few faces have a smile on 'em, an' th' varry way they set daan ther clogs seems ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... ordering up also Mercer's battery of six 9-pounders, to support two Brunswick regiments that wavered ominously as the French cannon-balls tore through them. Would these bewildered lads stand before the wave of horsemen already topping the crest? It seemed impossible. But just then Mercer's men thundered up between them with the guns, took post behind the raised cross-road, and opened on the galloping horsemen with case-shot. At once the front was strewn with ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... furnished with tackles for hoisting up stones and weapons to hurl at the foe. Above the main-mast was a top-mast or topgallant-mast, called the distaff; the yards were hoisted up much as in the present day, and were secured by parrels or hoops to the mast. They were fitted with topping-lifts and braces. Each mast carried two square sails, and in after days the Romans introduced triangular sails. Though they generally ran before the wind, they were also able to sail on a wind, though probably not ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... was half-way upstairs, but when he turned round and saw Laura he suddenly puffed out his cheeks and goggled his eyes at her. "My word, Laura! You do look stunning," said Laurie. "What an absolutely topping hat!" ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... bitterness, "I suppose, from your view-point, everything IS 'topping.' You haven't a cent to your name, and you've managed to fool a rich man's daughter into marrying you. I suppose you looked me up in Bradstreet before ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... came a topgallant-mast .here, and a topsail-yard there, and a studdingsail t'other place-and such a squealing and creaking of blocks and rattling of the gearwhile yards braced hither and thither, and topping-lifts let go, and sheets let fly, showed that the Dons were in a sad quandary; and no wonder, for we could see the shot from the long 32-pounders on the walls, falling very thick all around several of them. However, at 4 P.m. we had worked up alongside of the Commodore, when the old ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... forest You glance, you start,— Through the black forest That is my heart! Beautiful, silver-heeled, Swift as wind, Topping the brake Like a ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... overtop never; except perchance in the vocabulary of the wild huntsman of the Alps. Trash occurs as a verb in the sense above given, Act I. Sc. 2. of the Tempest: "Who t'aduance, and who to trash for over-topping." I have never met with the verb in that sense elsewhere, but overtop is evermore the appropriate term in arboriculture. To quote examples of that is needless. Of it metaphorically applied, just as in Shakspeare, take ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... a back corner booth of the Base Dispensary as Roger told about David. Martin Drengo listened without interruption. He was a thin man from top to bottom, a shock of unruly black hair topping an almost cadaverous face, blue eyes large behind thick lenses. His whole body was like a skeleton, his fingers long and bony as he lit a cigarette. But the blue eyes were quick, and the nods warm and understanding. He listened, and then he said, "It couldn't ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... much upon alterations beyond those of paint and paper. With the prospect of a sale the owner had unwillingly consented to replace the gingerbread porch with one in better style, but refused to do more. The big window, with its abominable topping of cheap coloured glass, was to ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... same day a man fell from the rigging; the usual alarm and rush took place; the lee-quarter boat was so crowded that one of the topping lifts gave way, the davit broke, and the cutter, now suspended by one tackle, soon knocked herself to pieces against the ship's side. Of course, the people in her were jerked out very quickly, so that, instead of there being only ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... once a prisoner brought from northern Acadia, now the companion of Madockawando's daughter, knew her duty to the strangers, and gave them food as rapidly as the hunter could broil it. The hunter was a big-legged, small-headed Abenaqui, with knees over-topping his tuft of hair when he squatted on his heels. He looked like a man whose emaciated trunk and arms had been taken possession of by colossal legs and feet. This singular deformity made him the best hunter in his tribe. He tracked game with a sweep of great beams ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... new friend came over and sat down beside me. Somehow or other I found myself talking over old times. On thinking the matter over I have come to the conclusion that it was his use of one or two words like 'tool,' meaning 'to run hard,' that led me to accept him as one of us. 'Topping' was another word. Before I was aware of it, and without his definitely stating the fact, I was treating him as ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... Lawless, "the row and bother, 128and the whole kick-up altogether, has made me alarmingly hungry; the only decent bit of chicken I managed to lay hands on at supper Di Clapperton ate: precious twist that girl has, to be sure; even after all the ground she's been over to-night, going a topping pace the whole time too, she wasn't a bit off her feed; didn't she walk into the ham sandwiches—that's all! I'd rather keep her for a week than a fortnight, I can tell you; she'd eat her head off in a month, and no mistake. Here, waiter," he continued, "have you got anything ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... daintily. 'I make money on Englishmen and lose it on Americans,' she said. 'I have a regular scale of bets. I give ten to one that an Englishman will say in the first ten minutes that I look "topping," five to one on "absolutely ripping" in the first thirty, and even money on "stunning" ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... them,—"A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Even the shivering caroller, for "it is a poor heart that never rejoices," is yelling forth the "tidings of comfort and joy." The snow that descends, making park and common alike—topping palace and pigsty, now crowns the semi-detached villas, Victoria and Albert. They were erected from the designs of John Brown, Esq. and his architect (or builder), and are considered a fine specimen of compo-cockney-gothic, in which the constructor has made the most of his materials; for, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... without being squat, the square upthrusts of towers and of towers over-topping towers gave just proportion of height without being sky-aspiring. The sense of the Big House was solidarity. It defied earthquakes. It was planted for a thousand years. The honest concrete was overlaid by a cream-stucco of honest cement. Again, this very sameness of ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... the "thrusters" of the hunting field. They are unpopular with masters of hounds because they ride too close to the pack; but as a general rule they are the only people who ever see a really fast run. In Shakespeare's time hounds that went too fast for the rest of the pack were "trashed for over-topping," that is to say, they were handicapped by a strap attached to their necks. In the same way in every hunt nowadays there are half a dozen individuals who have reduced riding to hounds to such an art that no pack can get away from them in a moderately easy country. These "bruisers" ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... indignant hostility; Mrs. Poole, who always dressed as if she had a tumor, but whose remnant of a once lovely complexion indicated perfect health, maintained her slight tolerant smile; its effect somewhat abridged by the fact that the small turban of bright blue feathers topping her large face had slipped to one side. Mrs. Goodrich looked startled and gazed deprecatingly at her friends. Mrs. Lawrence's eyes snapped, and Mrs. de Lacey looked ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... night, when the company grows thin, and your eyes dim with watching, false dice are often put upon the ignorant, or they are otherwise cozened, with topping or slurring, &;c.; and, if you be not vigilant, the box-keeper shall score you up double or treble boxes, and, though you have lost your money, dun you as severely for it as if it were the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... north to see, if possible, what the two riders were flying from. He was not kept long in doubt, for just then a band of horsemen was seen topping the farthest ridge in that direction, and bearing down on the belt of woodland, along the edge of which they galloped ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... grave of Nance McGregor shout to them saying, "Your cause shall be my cause. My brain and strength shall be yours. Your enemies I shall smite with my naked fist." Instead he walked rapidly past them and topping the hill went down toward the town into ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... years, we came in sight of the dun escarpment which buttressed the foothills of Sari. At almost the same instant, Hooja, who looked ever quite as much behind as before, announced that he could see a body of men far behind us topping a low ridge in our wake. It was the ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... like the Tara he knew. "Very well. Why accuse me of incipient lunacy? I care, too. Always have done. Think how topping it would be, you and I together, exploring all the wonderland of our Game and Mummy's tales—Udaipur, Amber, Chitor, perhaps the shrine of the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... leave, but each time had to put back, fearing that the heavy seas we encountered outside would crush in the baidarka, which was carried lashed to the sloop's deck. It was not until early on the morning of April 12, just as the sun was topping the mountains, that ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... own funeral service. Maestro's heart is touched; he lies down in her stead, and she, dancing on a carpet of thistle-down shot with stars (I think), and her lord (I am sure), perpetually exclaiming, "How perfectly topping!"—both achieve an ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... mounted upon a surge I saw a giant wave, topping all the others, and coming after them like a driver following a flock, sweep down upon the vessel, curling its great, green ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... lie crawling there, but get up and answer me like a man. Ain't this Deacon Brodie the fine workman that's been doing all these tip-topping burglaries? ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... and the third as ante-chamber; afterwards, leading the way down a spiral staircase, which looked into the great hall of the castle, its only outlet, she had crossed this hall, and had taken Mary into the garden whose trees the queen had seen topping the high walls on her arrival: it was a little square of ground, forming a flower-bed in the midst of which was an artificial fountain. It was entered by a very low door, repeated in the opposite ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he said. "Saw your old friend Magglin before breakfast. Good legs. Like to get taken on again, he says. Tail wants topping—too long. Lucky for him he didn't get before the magistrates. Doctor won't have him again. Very nice little nag, but too small for service. I told him that all he was fit for was to enlist; some sharp drill-sergeant might ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... by the ride, everyone did ample justice to the things which were put before them. Even Aunt Betty, usually a light eater, consumed three eggs, two glasses of milk and a plate of fried bacon, topping them off with ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... Ryder took his place. Leaving Downing Street about noon on Whitsunday, 27th May, the pair walked along Birdcage Walk, mounted the steps leading into Queen Street, and entered a chaise engaged for their excursion. After passing the villages of Chelsea and Putney, and, topping the rise beyond, they proceeded along the old Portsmouth Road, which crosses the northern part of Putney Heath. At the top of the steep hill leading down into Kingston Vale they alighted, made their way ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... similar effect. The greatest epic poets and satirists have always transcended rules to follow "Nature's light"; Pope, over-topping them all, has "still corrected Nature as she stray'd" (pp. 19, 21). But perhaps Harte's most successful attempt to elevate The Dunciad comes in section two of his poem. Unlike Dryden, in whose Discourse the account of the "progress" of satire is confined almost exclusively to a few ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... which had the appearance of being the entrance to a river. No land was visible to the north-east; and besides quantities of grass and branches of trees or bushes floating in the water, there was a number of long, gauze-winged insects topping about the surface, such as frequent fresh-water lakes and swamps. In order to form a judgment of how much fresh was mixed with the salt water, or whether any, I had some taken up for the purpose of ascertaining its specific ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... our tea a tall, haggard-looking man, whose hands were trembling and whose eyes were bloodshot, entered the room, and asked us to have a glass each with him at his expense, saying, "I'm drunken Jim Topping as 'as had aw that heap o' money left him." He pressed us very hard again and again to have the drink, but we showed him the tea we were drinking, and we felt relieved when the landlord came in and persuaded him to go into the other ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... so mixed up that I decided that it would be a sound scheme for me to stop on in America for a bit instead of going back and having long cosy chats about the thing with aunt. So I sent Jeeves out to find a decent apartment, and settled down for a bit of exile. I'm bound to say that New York's a topping place to be exiled in. Everybody was awfully good to me, and there seemed to be plenty of things going on, and I'm a wealthy bird, so everything was fine. Chappies introduced me to other chappies, and so on and so forth, and it ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... fashion is) with fiery-red hair (as the fashion is not)—has looked very hard at me and fluttered about me at the same time, like a giant butterfly. After a pause, he says, in a Sam Wellerish kind of way: "I vent to the club this mornin', sir. There vorn't no letters, sir." "Very good. Topping." "How's missis, sir?" "Pretty well, Topping." "Glad to hear it, sir. My missis ain't wery well, sir." "No!" "No, sir, she's a goin', sir, to have a hincrease wery soon, and it makes her rather nervous, sir; and ven a young voman gets at all down ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... the Tanks—"Napoleon," they called him. A great brain he had. Before the war he knew his Chelsea well, and the Cafe Royal and all the set who went there. And there was a (p. 063) dear young Highlander also, a most gentle, shy youth. He was very happy one day; he had a "topping" time. He was out with the Tanks, and he killed a German despatch-rider and rode home on ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... very handsomely that the idea of the League was "topping," and that Waddington was the man for it. And the subscription that he and Lady Corbett sent was very handsome, too. Unfortunately it obliged Mr. Waddington to contribute a slightly larger sum, by way of maintaining ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... steeple out-topping steeple, Gaining and hoarding and spending, and armies on battle bent, People and people and people, and ever more human people - This is not all of creation, this is not all that was meant! Earth on its orbit spinning, ...
— Hello, Boys! • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... field-goal. She ought never to have got it, for the left side of her line was torn to ribbons by the desperate defenders. But she did, nevertheless, the ball in some miraculous manner slipping through the upstretched hands and leaping bodies and just topping the bar. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... tower which you could see from the summit of the Elm-tree Hill topping the sky-line to the west, in order to complete his education as an engineer before his meagre capital was exhausted, Drake had enjoyed little opportunity of acquiring knowledge of London; and those acquaintances of his who travelled thither with their shiny black bags every morning, seemed ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... Shakspere's schooling, the Baconians point at the current ignorance of Stratford-on-Avon, where many topping burgesses, even aldermen, "made their marks," in place of signing their names to documents. Shakespeare's father, wife, and daughter "made their marks," in place of signing. So did Lady Jane Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly, when she married ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... confirmed by their insinuations, the growth of prejudice and envy. They told me that Waldegrave's sister had gone to live in the country, but whither, or for how long, she had not condescended to inform them, and they did not care to ask. She was a topping dame, whose notions were much too high for her station; who was more nice than wise, and yet was one who could stoop when it most became her to stand upright. It was no business of theirs; but they could not but mention their suspicions that she had good reasons for leaving ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... ecole stunt, Lady Hickle," burst out a lad who rode a fallen star in the shape of a discarded discreditable polo pony. "Simply topping—but the Devil's a nervy demon, you shouldn't ride him—he'll get away with you one of these fine ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... topping!" he said, smiling down at her with pleasing effrontery. "Do you know you are very nearly late? I've been watching out for you ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... The topping of dams by floods is not uncommon, and if the extra strain thus induced has not been allowed for, their destruction is nearly certain, as instanced in more than one case in Algeria, where, although the average rainfall is only 15 in. yearly, a depth of 61/4 in., or more than one-third ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... just within the tree line below the peak. Above, against the glowing pink of the heavens, was etched the suave line of the peak and topping this a heap of rocks, surmounted by a staff. West of the staff and below it projected the top of a dead spruce on which sat an eagle. ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... of the gardens. There was but a happy sense of green and gold, with blue topping all; of twinkling, fluent, tossing leaves and of the gray under side of elongated, straining leaves; a sense of pert bird-noises, and of a longer shadow than usual slanting before him, and a sense of youth and well-being everywhere. Certainly ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... drily: "You were, except when they were topping off. You took that for granted." He told about the sandy-haired man. "He hadn't time to stick anything in the wheel ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... still more at a loss. His face had darkened, and the scowl that sat on his forehead reminded Little of a certain scene on a hotel veranda in Surabaya. Further speech or thought was cut short then by a cry from one of the Barang's crew, and topping the last rise of the river bank marched three white men in the uniform of naval officers, followed by twelve stout natives in seamen's rig. They advanced towards the waiting men of the Barang, lined up at a sharp "Halt!" and the white men came forward alone. They were keen-eyed men, tanned and ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... lake-shore a mile or so, with the idea of catching a deer in the edge of the water, come there to keep off the flies; then, perhaps, cross over to the Magalloway, down that, and over to this place; when, by way of topping off, I will show you, by that time, if you are about here so long, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the Metropolitan Building. Whatever artists may think of it—and there is division of opinion—that tower is, structurally, one of the wonders of the world. Rising seven hundred feet above the sidewalk, topping the Singer Building by ninety feet and being outclimbed only by the Woolworth Building (seven hundred and ninety-two feet), the tower is seventy-five feet by eighty-five at its base, and carries the building to its fifty-second story. ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... you'll be 'topping the officer' over me now in your war paint," added Dad, after turning me round twice to inspect me. "You are rigged out ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... over the scene spread before us, the vast piling of masonry that is New York. The dying beams of the setting sun glinted golden from the roofs of the pleasure palaces topping the soaring structures. Lower, amid interlacing archings of the mid-air thoroughfares, darkness had already piled its blackness. Two thousand feet below, in the region of perpetual night, the green-blue ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... of those still evenings you get in the summer, when you can hear a snail clear its throat a mile away. The sun was sinking over the hills and the gnats were fooling about all over the place, and everything smelled rather topping—what with the falling dew and so on—and I was just beginning to feel a little soothed by the peace of it all when suddenly I ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... "That's absolutely topping of you, old man!" he said. "Then I'll leave the whole thing to you. Write me the moment you have done anything, won't you? Good-by, old top, and ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... had put it off as long as he could, hoping, as Dr. Howe had done, that John Ward would see how useless it was to carry out his plan. Gifford had found the sisters together. Miss Ruth was at work in her studio, while Miss Deborah sat in the doorway, in the shadow of the grape-vines, topping and tailing gooseberries into a big blue bowl. She had a handful of crushed thyme in ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... going to tell you, Mr. Sage, that one Cornet Modish had desired his friend, Captain Smart's, opinion in some affair, but did not follow it; upon which Captain Smart sent Major Adroit (a very topping fellow of those times) to the person that had slighted his advice. The Major never inquired into the quarrel, because it was not the manner then among the very topping fellows; but got two swords of an equal length, and then waited upon Cornet Modish, desiring him to choose his sword, and ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... me good: for it woke the fighting-man in me, and I set my teeth. Now for the first time looking back, I saw, with a great gulp of joy, I had gained on the troopers. A long dip of the road lay between me and the foremost, now topping the crest. The sun had broke through at last, and sparkled on his cap and gorget. I whistled to Molly (I could not pat her), and spoke to her softly: the sweet thing prick'd up her ears, laid them back again, and mended her pace. Her ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... near Bedout Island, having crossed some rocky ledges of seven fathoms on the way. When the Beagle was midway between these islands, they were both visible from the masthead. In the night, and during the early part of next day, it blew strong from south-east, causing a high-topping sea. Time being precious, we could not wait for a quiet day to land on Bedout; its position was therefore determined by observations with the sea horizon, and differs very materially from that ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... own, try and do without it; and if you cannot do without it, take it away by insinivation, not bluster. They as swindles does more and risks less than they as robs; and if you cheats toppingly, you may laugh at the topping cheat [Gallows]. And ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fine waterfall, which, in the midst of a desert, has contrived to surround itself with a not unbecoming clump of trees. The waters are divided into two; the Geusachan burn joining the stream from the west. At last the conical peak of Cairn Toul appears over-topping all the surrounding heights; and then, a rent intervening, we approach and soon walk under the great mural precipice of Brae Riach, which we have already surveyed to so much advantage from the top of Ben Muich Dhui. We are here in the spot which to us, of all this group of scenery, appears ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... doesn't seem fair to keep a man up in that place for three years, running from hole to hole like a rat, and then take him down for a hanging. I know it isn't fair in your case. I feel it. I don't mean to be inquisitive, old chap, but I'm not believing Departmental 'facts' any more. I'd make a topping good wager you're not the sort they make you out. And so I'd like to know—just why—you killed ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... promontory of rock which falls in bold cliffs into the sea; as one climbs to it from the bay one sees the citadel with its huge bastions frowning on the white buildings of the palace, the long line of grey, ivy-crested walls topping the cliffs, and above them the mass of the little town, broken by a single campanile and a few cypresses. Its situation at once marks the character of the place. It is the one town of the Riviera which, instead of lying screened in the hollow of some bay, as though eager to escape from ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... through the waves with redoubled speed, leaning over until the water foamed over her gunwale and was knee-deep in her scuppers, an occasional billow topping over her foc's'le, and pouring down into the waist in a cataract of gleaming green sea and sparkling spray, all glittering with prismatic colours, like a jumble ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... hill above the town, and struck inland from the base of the peninsula, travelling north and by west. The road—a passably good one—led them across a dip of cultivated land, shaped like a saddle-back, with a line of forest trees topping its farther ridge. This was the fringe of a considerable forest, and beyond the ridge they rode for miles in the shade of boughs, slanting their way along a gentle declivity, with here and there glimpses of a broad ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... was heard from the men. Over the high weather rail, a topping wave flung into their eyes a handful of heavy drops that stung like hail. There were low groans of indignation. A man sighed. Another emitted a spasmodic laugh through his chattering teeth. No one moved away. The little kassab wiped his face and went on in his cracked voice, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... on board the John, where we found the officers just topping off with the riggers and stevedores, having stowed all the provisions and water, and the mere trifle of cargo she carried. The mate, whose name was Marble, and a well-veined bit of marble he was, his face resembling a map that had more rivers drawn on it than the land could feed, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... rest, screamed—"Don't let go that rope! Hold on to it! Hold!" And sorely bruised by the brutal fling, they held on to it, as though it had been the fortune of their life. The ship ran, rolling heavily, and the topping crests glanced past port and starboard flashing their white heads. Pumps were freed. Braces were rove. The three topsails and foresail were set. She spurted faster over the water, outpacing the swift rush of waves. The menacing thunder of distanced seas rose behind her—filled the air with ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... was the weirdest stunt I have ever seen. All day the Germans had been sniping industriously, with some success, but after sunset they started singing, and we replied with carols. Then they shouted, 'Happy Christmas!' to us, and some of us replied in German. It was a topping moonlight night, and we carried on long conversations, and kept singing to each other and cheering. Later they asked us to send one man out to the middle, between the trenches, with a cake, and they would give us a bottle ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... topping the eastern cliffs, cast its bright rays upon the long stretch of open garden beneath the wall. And, too, it picked out in clear relief for any curious eyes that chanced to be cast in that direction, the ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... cold under the knapsack that swung upon my back; stopped, faced about and became human again. Ridge over ridge to my right the mountain summits fell away against a fathomless sky; and topping the furthermost was a little paring of silver light, the coronet of the rising moon. But the glory of the full orb was in the retrospect; for, closing the savage vista of the ravine, stood up far away a cluster of jagged pinnacles—opal, translucent, lustrous as the peaks of icebergs that are ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... pink of the ear, the softly parted lips between which gleamed the small and regular teeth of ivory, the round white throat swelling ever so slightly to her breathing,—when a sudden shout of surprised recognition aroused me from my reverie, and I looked up to see Jordan topping the sand-bank in our front, and waving his hand to some one beneath him and out ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... them like that?" she asked. Bangs was topping a horse that strenuously refused to be conquered and as they looked on ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... and Napping. 'To top' and 'to nap' are slang terms signifying to cheat, especially with dice. cf. R. Head, Canting Academy (1673), 'What chance of the dye is soonest thrown in topping, shoring, palming, napping.' Both words occur very frequently, and are amply explained in the ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... among the hills known as the Hole of Horcum, and the bold bluff known as Saltersgate Brow rises like an enormous rampart from the smooth brown or purple heather. To the west lies the peculiarly isolated hill known as Blakey Topping, and, a little to the south, are the Bride Stones, those imposing masses of natural rock that project themselves above the moor. The Saltersgate Inn has lost the importance it once possessed as the stopping-place ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... Oig was an incident in the little town, in and near which he had many friends male and female. He was a topping person in his way, transacted considerable business on his own behalf, and was intrusted by the best farmers in the Highlands, in preference to any other drover in that district. He might have increased his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... about it, and hill up every plant. They do the same again, when it is about a foot and a half high. And when the plant has, about eight or nine leaves, and is ready to put forth a stalk, they nip off the top, which they call topping the tobacco: this amputation makes the {189} leaves grow longer and thicker. After this, you must look over every plant, and every leaf, in order to sucker it, or to pull off the buds, which grow at the joints of the leaves; and at the same time you must destroy the large green worms ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... was next the first batch: but where do you think the tailor was all this time? Why away off like lightning, miles before them—flying like a swallow: and how he kept his sate so long has puzzled me from that day to this; but, any how, truth's best—there he was topping the hill ever so far before them. After all, the unlucky crathur nearly missed the bottle; for when he turned to the bride's house, instead of pulling up as he ought to do—why, to show his horsemanship to the crowd that was out ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... Her fingers and runs off. The bush is still But half as tall as she, though it is as old; So well she clips it. Not a word she says; And I can only wonder how much hereafter She will remember, with that bitter scent, Of garden rows, and ancient damson-trees Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door, A low thick bush beside the door, and me Forbidding ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... woods. Their chief reason for buying "painkiller" was that they, like other Indians, relished it as a cocktail on festival occasions; and many a time have I seen a group of Indians—like civilized society people—topping off cocktails (of painkiller) ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... there he takes off his hat to the dog, pats the pig, asks the cow after the calf, salutes the farmer, curtseys to the farmeress, then turning to the inevitable baby, exclaims in the language of the country, "Mong Jew, kell jolly ong-fong" (Gosh, what a topping kid!), and bending tenderly over it imprints a lingering kiss upon its indiarubber features and wins the freedom of the farm. The Mess may make use of the kitchen; the spare bed is at the Skipper's disposal; the cow will move up and make room ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... the proper amount of grain is in hand (a bunch of stalks about an inch in diameter) the useless leaves, all arranged for one grasp of the right hand, are stripped off and dropped; the bunch of fruit heads, topping a 6-inch section of clean stalk or straw is handed to a person who may be called the binder. This person in all harvests I have seen was a woman. She binds all the grain three, four, or five persons can pluck; and when there is one binder for every three gatherers the binder finds ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... from above, dashes it to the ground. The sparrow hawk plunges unexpectedly into a group of little birds and nips up one with a long outstretched foot before they have time to get clear of each other. The harrier skims over field, copse and meadow, suddenly rounding corners and topping fences and surprising small birds, or mice, on which it drops before they have ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... gathering towards a head. They were represented to me as lads by common in capacity, but with unsettled notions of religion. They were, however, quiet and orderly; and some of them since, at Glasgow, Paisley, and Manchester, even, I am told, in London, have grown into a topping way. ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... to this end the solitude, the evening quiet, the restful unrest of the forest and its wild creatures should surely have ministered? She moved forward and sat on the broad stone balustrade which, topping the buttressed masonry that supports it above the long downward grass slope of the park, encloses ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Copper Green, a peculiar mottled light green. All the domes, except the six yellow ones in the Court of the Universe, are of this light green. It forms a sharp contrast with the blue sky and a pleasing topping ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... protagonist of the movement, Howe, was the very reverse of a separatist. He was passionately attached to Britain and British institutions, and he thought not in terms of his little province, but of the Empire. Over-topping all other politicians of his day in native power and breadth of vision, he was successful in working out the problem of responsible government by purely constitutional methods, without a symptom of rebellion, the loss of ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... third place, having beheld Ajax, the old man asked: "Who is that other Achaean hero, valiant and great, out-topping the Argives by his head and ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... hundred pounds, and paid him the money. Gentlemen, all I can say upon this is, that there is no conspiracy amongst us here, for I do assure you, that until I came into this place, and saw my learned friends, except my learned friend Mr. Topping, with whom I had spoken on the subject, I did not know that the others were concerned for the defendants upon this occasion; but I hear my learned friend state that which I trust he has the means of proving, but which my unfortunate client has not, not only because many of his papers ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... Mashie. On the table at his elbow I had in reserve Faulty Play with the Brassy and a West Middlesex Directory. For myself I wandered about restlessly, pausing now and again to read enviously a notice which said that C.D. Topping's handicap was reduced from 24 to 22. ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... 'Take my advice, old scout, and see it first chance you get. It's topping. I've had the same seat in the middle of the front row of the stalls for ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... to the south-east of the low eastern coast. Grey-coloured woods covered a large part of the surface. This even tint was indeed broken up by streaks of yellow sand-break in the lower lands, and by many tall trees of the pine family, out-topping the others—some singly, some in clumps; but the general colouring was uniform and sad. The hills ran up clear above the vegetation in spires of naked rock. All were strangely shaped, and the Spy-glass, which was by three or four hundred feet the tallest on the island, was likewise the strangest ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... escape, they commenced an attack upon the provisions and a small keg of wine; and perhaps a more joyful breakfast never was made. The sun rose in vapour, the sky threatened, but they were free and happy. The wind freshened, and the boat flew before the gale; the running seas topping over her stern, and forcing them continually to bale her out; but all was joy, and freedom turned their "danger to delight." They passed several vessels at a distance, who did not observe them; and before sunset the English coast was in sight. At ten o'clock the double lights on the ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Topping his long stiff body, Marigold's ugly one-eyed head appeared, and, as if he was tremendously ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... strain of watching that little figure perched on the grey beast that looked like a wraith, like a warning. But she did not go, and she learnt to be glad to have shared with Francis the horror of the moment when the mare, out of control and mad with excitement, tried a fence topping a bank, failed, and fell ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... sped those two dark specks, far out-topping the scattered remnant of the flock. Up and up, until of a sudden the sheer Fall dropped its relentless barrier in the path of the fugitive. Away, scudding along the foot of the rock-wall struck the familiar track leading to the Scoop, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... where regular pastor was none, he might be considered to have made the strongest impression upon his almost primitive and certainly only in part civilized hearers. His merits of mind were held of rather an elevated order, and in standard far over topping the current run of his fellow-laborers in the same vineyard; while his own example was admitted, on all hands, to keep pace evenly with the precepts which he taught, and to be not unworthy of the faith which ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... what New England coast weather could be and often was. And he learned, also, that that weather was, like most blusterers, not nearly as savage when met squarely face to face. He learned to put on layer after layer of garments, topping off with oilskins, sou'wester and mittens, and tramp down to the village for the mail or to do the household errands. He was growing stronger all the time and if the doctor could have seen him plowing through drifts or shouldering his way through a driving rain he ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... this is a trouble to you I am sorry, but we are all working for the good name and good times of Grande Mignon, and I hope you won't mind. Good fishing to the Charming Lass, high line and topping full! May you wet your salt early and come home again to those who ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... Table Top, Mac surveyed the scene below him. To his right as he faced the north, the Table Top was connected by a series of ridges with the hill summits about a mile away, which the sun was just topping. To his front the ground fell abruptly in a deep ravine, beyond which lay ridge after ridge, and beyond again the high range behind Anafarta, three miles away, all standing out clearly in sun-topped ridges and shadow, in the refreshing ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... rotten planks and I was fairly walking in what seemed like a lake of wavering pale flame; and from there, that I might see the better, I climbed cautiously up the rotten stair leading to the roof of the cabin, and thence to the little over-topping gallery where the stern-lantern was. And from that height I could gaze about me as far as ever the mist would ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... I start? The sooner the better. If the post is open there is no object in wasting time." His face lit up with sudden animation. "I say! Could we manage it in a fortnight, should you think? Miss Ward is sailing by the 'Louisiana,' and it would be topping if I could go by the same boat. I might wire to-day about ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... to me that that problem would very soon be settled. As I looked, an enormous billow, topping all the others, and coming after them, like a driver following a flock, swept over the vessel. Her foremast snapped short off, and the men who clung to the shrouds were brushed away like a swarm of flies. With a rending, riving sound the ship began to split in two, where ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and are very fond of shade; provide them, therefore, if possible, with a plantation on some sloping ground fairly near water, where they can get shelter from sun and wind. I have found willows excellent for this purpose, as by topping they can always be kept at the required height. Such a spot will do admirably as jumping-off place, and here the birds may regularly be expected to rest after their night's wandering in search of food. The next step is to select the feeding ground, which should be some little distance from ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... else's stores, Shall rep-per-esent our island shores, Their sides the ocean wide shall lave, Their heads just topping ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... "Sent back four topping briefs, to my knowledge, last week," one of the legal luminaries of the place announced to a little group of friends and fellow-members over ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... darkness was just beginning to fall when, topping a ridge, Connie caught the faint glimmer of a light at the edge of a spruce thicket beyond a strip of open tundra. Drawing back behind the ridge Connie motioned to the Indian to swing the dogs into a thick clump of stunted trees where they were soon unharnessed and tied. Loosening ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... then that an inner door—a door which she had wanted to open, but had lacked courage—squeaked upon its hinges, and an ill-kept bundle of hair was thrust in, topping a weather-beaten face and a scrawny little body. Two faded, inquisitive eyes looked her over, and the woman sidled in, somewhat abashed, but ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower |
