"Plied" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... vulgar rules and vulgar judgments? By what right did these people pose as his superiors and look contemptuous rebuke? His anger concentrated itself on Cecily; the violence of jealousy and the brute instinct of male prerogative plied his brain to frenzy as the minutes dragged on. Where had she passed the night? How durst she absent herself from home, and keep him in these tortures ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... Supernaturalism was never more in request than since the Seeresses of Rochester commenced their levees at Barnum's Hotel. The journals have been filled with jesting and speculation upon the subject,—mountebank tricksters and shrewd professors have plied their keenest wits to discover the processes of the rappings—and Mrs. Fish and the Foxes in spite of them all preserve their secret, or at least are as successful as ever in persuading themselves and others that they ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... that the time thus won by this devoted girl was enough to gain the end for which she strove; and Father Peters plied the ear of King James so importunately that at length the order was signed for Sir John ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme, And the smith his iron measures hammered to the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... minutes he plied me with questions, which showed me clearly that the Emperor had read him aright, and that he was determined, come what might, to be upon the side which won. We were still talking when Constant entered hurriedly, with a look of anxiety and perplexity which I could not have imagined upon ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Nice or Beaulieu. The scrupulous cleanliness of Markha after the dirt and squalor of most Siberian villages was striking. Our host's sitting-room contained even palms and flowers, artificial, of course, but cheerful to the eye. He himself waited on us during the meal, and continually plied his guests with champagne and other rare vintages, for the Skopt, although a miser at heart, is fond of displaying his wealth. Avarice is the characteristic of these people, although they are kind to their own poor. We visited an institution maintained solely by the village for ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... Musard seemed rather embarrassed to find himself the object of general attention, and went on with his dinner in silence. But some of the ladies were determined not to lose the opportunity of learning something from such a well-known expert on a subject so dear to their hearts, and they plied ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... toward his daughter since her illness, and it is not unlikely will yield to her wishes, if she recovers, more than he has done heretofore; but in order to keep his suspicions of Hadley excited, while he still retains his good opinion of your humble servant, his mind must be plied and his prejudices kept alive, so as to counteract the effect likely to be produced by a father's feelings for a suffering child. In other words, the growing sympathy for his daughter, must be met by a countervailing distrust and aversion toward Hadley. To accomplish this I have ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... Sir Charles Russell, who led off with a sneer about my being the most popular man in the county, and, when I adhered to other statements, he added, 'Well, a very popular man. I will not put you on too high a pinnacle.' (Laughter.) Then for an hour and a half he plied me with the best balanced statistical questions I ever heard put in a hostile spirit, and without a note I could answer every one. After considerable hesitation I admitted on consideration that there was in Kerry one farmer benefiting by the Act of 1870. I have never heard since that he was caught ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... on that fond lady, And his traitor suit he plied: "Give me the cup," the false knight said, "From these foemen fierce ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Blake, and was in all the great naval engagements with France and Holland. The Dutch gave her the name of The Golden Devil. In the last fight between the English and French, she encountered the Wonder of the World, and so warmly plied the French Admiral, that she forced him out of his three-decked wooden castle, and chasing the Royal Sun, before her, forced her to fly for shelter among the rocks, where she became a prey to lesser vessels, and was reduced to ashes. At last, in the reign of William III., the Sovereign ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... formal and official examination of her faith and character, held at Poitiers, private inquests of all kinds were made concerning of the claims of the miraculous maid. She was visited by every curious person, man or woman, in the neighbourhood, and plied with endless questions, so that her simple personal story, and that of her revelations—mes voix, as she called them—became familiarly known from her own report, to the whole country round about. The ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... had gone a great way from his mother's house, he began to be hungry, and going to a tailor's house, he asked something for God's sake. The tailor gave him meat, and understanding that he was masterless, he took him for his man, and Robin so plied his work that ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... about four shillings' worth of gold. The trickle of water diminished daily, until the spring yielded barely enough for my drinking. Then my boots began to wear out under the strain of clambering up and down the steep, rocky path. So I plied my barrow barefoot, only using my boots when I went down to the spring for my ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... too strong for her own wishes, and by placing them under constant obligation to the baron made it impossible for her not to treat him with outward courtesy whenever he sought their company, which was with every opportunity. Yet it was in vain that the commissary plied her with his old-time arts of manner and tongue. Even the slow mind of the squire took note that he gained no ground ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... conservatism, the halo of ancient glory, could not be transferred. Whenever, therefore, ambitious and able Princes arose in the South, they found the border tribes rife for backing their pretensions against the Northern dynasty. The Bards, too, plied their craft, reviving the memory of former times, when Heber the Fair divided Erin equally with Heremon, and when Eugene More divided it a second time with Con of the Hundred Battles. Felim, the son of Crimthan, the contemporary of Conor II. and Nial III., during the whole term of their ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... memorial of her hallowed meeting with Wallace in the chapel of Snawdoun, and which always hung suspended on her bosom, was now in her hand and pressed close to her heart. The rowers plied their oars, and her eyes, with a gaze as if they would pierce the horizon, looked intently onward, while the men labored through the tide. Even to see the walls which contained Wallace, seemed to promise her a degree of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... well said, and Margaret rewarded him with a smile and engaged him in merry conversation. The Colonel, who had kept silent during the trouble, now plied the doctor with ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... physical movement, which has already been discussed, and secondly, it has stimulated the rapidity with which thought is diffused. The average human being can only absorb and assimilate safely new forms of thought when given enough time for digestion, as if he were assimilating food. If he be plied with new thought too rapidly he fails to digest. He has a surfeit, serious in proportion to its enormity. That is to say, his power of drawing correct conclusions from the premises submitted to him fails, and we have all sorts of crude ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... plied with numerous questions regarding the thus far nameless lake. He had been up the Shawangunk mountain fishing, but that was years before; there was a lake, but he had never heard any name given to it; he had understood a house had been built since ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... and strong muscles will be wanted, for there will be no lack of subjects. Life such as it runs about the streets, the life of the rich and the poor, in the market places, on the race-courses, on the boulevards, in the populous alleys; and every trade being plied, and every passion portrayed in full daylight, and the peasants, too, and the beasts of the fields and the landscapes—ah! you'll see it all, unless I am a downright brute. My very hands are itching to do it. Yes! the whole of modern life! Frescoes as high ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... full-born day. The sun shone hot upon the bare ground, and the drops stood upon Snana's forehead as she plied her long pole. There was a cool spring in the dry creek bed near by, well hidden by a clump of chokecherry bushes, and she turned thither to cool her thirsty throat. In the depths of the ravine her eye caught a familiar footprint—the track of a ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... counsel ended in a determination not to try again to make advances, by no means to halt for the midday rest, but to keep steadily on without paying any heed to the Indians, who followed slowly as the oars were plied, and at ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... twilight sweet I sailed along, when—whom should I meet But a Turtle journeying o'er the sea, "On the service of his Majesty."[1] When spying him first thro' twilight dim, I didn't know what to make of him; But said to myself, as slow he plied His fins and rolled from side to side Conceitedly o'er the watery path— "'Tis my Lord of Stowell taking a bath, "And I hear him now, among the fishes, "Quoting Vatel and Burgersdicius!" But, no—'twas, indeed, a Turtle wide And plump as ever these eyes descried; A turtle juicy as ever yet Glued ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience friend to have lost them over-plied In liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe talks from side to side, This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask Content, though blind, had I ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... and the splendour of the night, nine human beings out of ten were still busy at their common occupations. In all the cities the shops, save one here and there, opened and closed at their proper hours, the doctor and the undertaker plied their trades, the workers gathered in the factories, soldiers drilled, scholars studied, lovers sought one another, thieves lurked and fled, politicians planned their schemes. The presses of the newspapers ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... doomed to toil, or founder in the tide, At the moist pumps incessantly we plied; Here, doomed to starve, like famished dogs we tore The scant allowance that our tyrants bore. Remembrance shudders at this scene of fears, Still in my view, some tyrant chief appears, Some base-born Hessian slave walks threatening ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... conversation continued and the acquaintanceship grew as man and boy plied back and forth on their mile-long furrow. At length it occurred to Grant that he should send Wilson home; the boy's long absence might be occasioning some uneasiness. They stopped at the end of the field and carefully removed teddy from his place of prestige, but just at that moment a horsefly ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... but having the occasion of Jarvis, I could not let it slip, especially as I have something extraordinary to communicate. O, my dear companion! What shall I tell you? for several days past there was a Jew-looking man, that plied at the Wells with a box of spectacles; and he always eyed me so earnestly, that I began to be very uneasy. At last, he came to our lodgings at Clifton, and lingered about the door, as if he wanted to speak to somebody — I was seized with an ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... August 25 the Feast of the Sun was duly celebrated, and the days that followed were fuller than ever with preparations for the spring journeys. The only sewing-machine clattered away all day long, and the whole company plied their needles as if they were being sweated by iron-handed taskmasters. The long winter was at an end, and everyone, in the best of spirits, was looking forward eagerly to the spring sledge journeys, and making garments in which ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... late at night, and the brother was reading aloud while the sister plied her needle, when they were interrupted by a knocking at the door. In the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread that lowered about them in connexion with their fugitive brother, this sound, unusual there, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... trod by quaint maskers. The scene of this night outshone all others. The dazzling lights hanging from the galleries, displayed the grace of lords and ladies of the court. The "motley fool" retailed his jest, the juggler performed his feat, the minstrel plied his harp, and the lady touched a ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... No one plied the paddles; they had impelled her out of sight of the sapucaya, now shrouded in the thick fog; but, as it was useless paddling any farther, all hands had desisted, and were now resting upon their oars. At this moment it was perceived that the galatea ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... silent, void, and hushed; and even in the light of heaven there seemed a sicklied and ghastly glare. The cottages by the road-side were some shut up and closed, some open, but seemingly inmateless. The plough stood still, the distaff plied not: horse and man had a dreary holiday. There was a darker curse upon the land than the curse of Cain! Now and then a single figure, usually clad in the gloomy robe of a friar, crossed the road, lifting ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... employed by the strong as a blanket justification for acts of aggression against the weak. Each time that the United States has come face to face with the necessity of adding to its territory at the expense of some weak neighbor, the advocates of expansion have plied this argument with vigor and ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... servants came out to sit around and enjoy the merry spectacle while old Ephraim, perched upon a hay-cutter plied his violin—his fiddle he called it—and another workman plunked away on his banjo till the ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... place on our itinerary—lay through so lovely a country that we passed through it as in a dream. Descending into the valley we were joined by several small boys, attracted, I suppose, by our—to them—unusual costume and equipment, who plied us with questions. They asked if "we carried a message for the mayor," and were visibly disappointed when we regretted we had overlooked that formality. For several minutes they kept us busy trying to give truthful answers to most unexpected questions. They ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley
... her king, as 'twas rumoured, by late pouring down, This morning had got a foul flaw in his crown,) We mounted again, and full soberly riding, Three miles we had rid ere we met with a biding; But there, having over-night plied the tap well, We now must needs water at a place called Holmes Chapel: 'A hay!' quoth the foremost, 'ho! who keeps the house?' Which said, out an host comes as brisk as a louse; His hair combed as sleek as a barber ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... and dying in the heart that fails. Ah! the cruel beauty ... how it creeps Into my home, into my waiting heart! Who am I that I wait to-night?... Alas, Where is the old content of maidenhood, The calmness and the laughter and the song, The patient hands unshaken as the needle Plied to the gentle rhythm that my lips Murmured, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... by the infidels and hard bested, and my life beyond peradventure had paid the penalty of my rashness, and my bones been left cleaned by the wolf's teeth to whiten on the sand, but for this valiant soldier. Disregarding danger, he leaped among the foe, and so lustily plied his blows, that together we bore the turbans down, until his bridle-hand was struck. Then was it time to fall back, for verily we had need of both hands, with the one to guide out horses, and with the other to defend our heads. I seized his rein, and with our flashing swords, side by side, we ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... Benedictine Nuns, accompanying the peal of the deep-toned organ through their cloisters, and the frankincense curling its perfume from priestly censers at the altar, are succeeded by the stunning sounds of numerous quickly plied hammers, and the smith's bellows flashing the fires of Mr. Bound's ironfoundry, erected upon the unrecognised site of the convent. The religious house stood about half-way down the declivity of the hill, which commencing ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... the Pole plied the Southern Cross. One night when she was about two hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the Amazon, the boys, as it was one of the soft tropical nights peculiar to those regions, were all grouped forward trying to keep cool and keeping a ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... deep within that shelving, golden sand, and laying her tenderly therein, knelt together while the moon sank and shadows lengthened; and when Resolution had recited the prayers for the dead, he broke into a passion of prayer for himself, which done we rose and plied spade and mattock in silence; nor would Resolution pause or stay until we had raised mound sufficiently high to please him. When at last all was completed to his satisfaction, he dropped his spade and wiping sweat from him seated ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... looked on in admiration at the huge appetites of the lads. She plied them with questions, to which she received vague replies, and finally contented herself with the thought that these were perhaps wayward children who had run away from home and were now penitently trying to find ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... Let 'em have it," shouted the drover. "Force 'em up there. Force 'em up." He stood in his stirrups and plied his whip, cracking it back and front, and shouting at the top of his voice. The blacks did the same, till it seemed as if they would force the cattle into the yard ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... speche Thi wittes ben riht feer to seche. 570 As of thin Ere and of thin yhe I woll nomore specefie, Bot I woll axen overthis Of othre thing how that it is. Mi Sone, as I thee schal enforme, Ther ben yet of an other forme Of dedly vices sevene applied, Wherof the herte is ofte plied To thing which after schal him grieve. The ferste of hem thou schalt believe 580 Is Pride, which is principal, And hath with him in special Ministres five ful diverse, Of whiche, as I the schal reherse, The ferste is seid Ypocrisie. If thou art of his compaignie, Tell forth, my Sone, and schrif ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... their strength. They had come out easily, under sail, but the breeze had died away, and the masculine pride of the two brothers was suddenly aroused by the prospect of measuring their powers. When they went out alone with their father they plied the oars without any steering, for Roland would be busy getting the lines ready, while he kept a lookout in the boat's course, guiding it by a sign or a word: "Easy, Jean, and you, Pierre, put your back into ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... Knight relaxed not a moment in his efforts, for he saw that the Giant was stout; and as the sun's heat was very great, he panted more and more till the moisture from his brows ran down into his eyes, and almost blinded him. Observing this, the Knight plied him with his battle-axe more vigorously than before, till he was compelled to seek for safety within his castle-walls; but ere he reached them he let fall from his grasp his huge oak-tree; on which Saint Anthony, redoubling ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... as only such a crowd can yell. Then clear water showed between the shells and the four-mile flag fluttered like a blur as the Yale crew rushed by it. Slower plied the blades, shoulders which had swayed backward and forward in such perfect rhythm drooped, and one or two faces, gray from exhaustion, fell forward upon heaving chests. Then the rowing ceased, the long oars trailed over the water, as Harvard's crew ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... through a long succession of ruined rooms, until I came upon a soldier with a broom, steadily sweeping the floor of a small empty room a little off the main sacristy. He had a steel helmet upon his head, like myself. Slowly and like a man in a dream he plied his work. He looked at me as if I too were part of the dream, and when I asked him what his regiment was, he answered with a sort of shadowy salute and in faint, far-away tones, "The 52nd." I am bound to say I have never been more taken ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... with all the reckless noise and dash peculiar to that class of men. Leaping from their foaming steeds, they were quickly surrounded by their comrades, and by the women and children of the place, who congratulated them on their success in the chase, and plied ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... they spread side by side, and row after row, on the bar-room floor of the tavern at which they "put up." Their horses when unharnessed fed from long troughs hitched to the wagon-pole. The wagons that plied between the Delaware and the small city ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... his troubles for a time. He had been dozing. The shrewish night wind of autumn whistled over the ledges of Cod Lead Nubble and scattered upon his gray beard the black ashes from the bonfire that the shivering men of Smyrna still plied with fuel. The Cap'n sat upright, his arms clasping his doubled knees, his head ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... there is no other nobility than that of personal merit. The keenest shafts of his ridicule are directed against much of what vulgar prejudice thinks indispensable to an aristocratic life. 'A man is !111 the farther removed from true nobility, the longer his forefathers have plied the trade of brigands. The taste for hawking and hunting saviours no more of nobility than the nests and lairs of the hunted creatures of spikenard. The cultivation of the soil, as practiced by the ancients, would be much nobler than this senseless wandering through ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... thee thy life." Then the Captain looked on her and she pleased him; so he took her for himself, and she abode with him a whole year doing her very best in their service, till they became familiar with her and felt assured of her faith. One night of the nights she plied them with drink and they drank till they became drunken; whereupon she arose and took her clothes and five hundred dinars from the Captain; after which she fetched a razor and shaved off all their beards. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... useful piece of paper into Dominic's hand as he went ashore, and a few hours afterwards, being off duty, he returned on board again athirst for drinks and gratitude. He got both as a matter of course. While he sat sipping his liqueur in the tiny cabin, Dominic plied him with questions as to the whereabouts of the guardacostas. The preventive service afloat was really the one for us to reckon with, and it was material for our success and safety to know the exact position of the patrol craft in the neighbourhood. ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... observed in her, as though she had made up her mind for this one evening to cast herself adrift from the graver cares of life and to indulge in the frivolities which after all were the heritage of her youth. She sat at Nigel's right hand and plied him with questions as to the lighter side of his life,—his favourite sport, books, and general occupation. She gave evidences of humour which delighted everybody, and Nigel, though he would at times have welcomed, and did his best to initiate, an incursion ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... leave the doomed ships. There was nothing our destroyer commanders could do. Even the most hot-headed commander must have felt the steel withes of neutral obligation which held him inactive while the submarine plied its deadly work. There was, of course, nothing else to do—except to carry on the humanitarian work of rescuing victims of the U boat or boats, as the case ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... infernal din, And bullets fell like rain The peaceful peasants gather in A hundred fold of grain; And where men plied the deadly steel, And blood ran red like wine, We see the holy sisters kneel Beside the ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... first addressed us pulled out his printed paper, with the route laid down, and observed that we were two days behind the others. O'Brien read it over, and laid it on the table, at the same time calling for more wine, having already pushed it round very freely. We did not drink much ourselves, but plied them hard, and at last the conscript commenced the whole history of his intended marriage and his disappointment, tearing his hair, and crying now and then. "Never mind," interrupted O'Brien, every two or three minutes, "buvons un autre coup pour ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... at breakfast, and partook of our curry and rice with great gusto, for tea-brokers as a rule are by no means averse to foreign chow-chow, and handle a knife and fork with almost as much ease as they do the native chop-sticks. Charley plied us both with questions regarding tea in general, and probably the following summary will pretty well represent the ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... with the statement that "ever since the beginning of the present session of the Senate, the different heads of the departments attached to the executive branch of the government have been plied with various requests and documents from committees of the Senate, from members of such committees, and at last from the Senate itself, requiring the transmission of reasons for the suspension of certain officials during the recess of that body, ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... strong, and Bridget artfully plied him with it. Andy was still rather dazed when he reached home ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... tap of a lame hoof half a mile away, and the tread of the policeman guarding the Embassy across the street beat against the pavement like a series of detonations. Even the variegated noises of the city's waking-up had ceased. If any sweepers, scavengers or rag-pickers still plied their trades they did it as secretly as ghosts. I remember one morning being roused out of a deep sleep by a sudden explosion of noise in my room. I sat up with a start, and found I had been waked by a low-voiced exchange of "Bonjours" ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... hastens to qualify, ere it overcome her. "That, I may say, Madame, was not the last of her. My wife and me, seeing how her mind was going wrong again, got her in bed for the night, and took what care of her we could. Well, you see, she got rational in the morning, and, thinking it a chance, I 'plied a heap of kindness to her, and got her to tell all she knew of herself. She went on to tell where she lived-I followed your directions in questioning her-at the time you noted down. She described the house exactly. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... the matter? Why did you and Miles go stealing off in that fashion to bring the stores home without telling me? And why, oh! why, did you treat those men as if they were the dirt beneath your feet?" demanded Mrs. Burton, as she plied her sister and brother with hot coffee and comforting food, to make up to them for all the toil and hardship which had ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... as late as the late '80's, and perhaps still later. This had always been a favorite range for them, and in 1874 they were noticed and reported on by Government expeditions which passed through the country, and the hunters and trappers who about that time plied their trade along that river found them abundant. Mr. Roosevelt has written much of hunting them ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... at it. Reb Moshe, squatting on the floor, looked at the master for orders, mixing and stirring the decoctions. In this way, one by one, came the people to their teacher, sage, physician, prophet almost, plied him with questions and asked for advice. A troubled husband brought his comely, buxom wife, and asked for judgment by help of a certain water, called the water of jealousy. If the wife be guilty of infidelity, the efficacy of the water is believed to cause death; if innocent, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... delight, perfectly satisfied that Raoul could no longer be deceived, though the fire between the felucca and the launch was kept up with spirit, the shooting being such as might have done credit to a bona fide conflict. All this time the sweep of the felucca were plied, the boats advancing at least two feet to the chase's one. La Divina Providenza might now have been three hundred yards from the lugger: and the launch, the nearest of the pursuers, about the same distance astern of the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... how he past among the crowd; And ever as he walk'd the Spanish friars Still plied him with entreaty and reproach: But Cranmer, as the helmsman at the helm Steers, ever looking to the happy haven Where he shall rest at night, moved to his death; And I could see that many silent hands Came from the crowd and met his own; and thus When we had come where ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Templepatrick approaches Greencastle on the way to the town, he was able to gaze over the waters of the lough which lay stretched beneath him on his left. In the Carrickfergus roads several ships lay at anchor, among them a frigate of the English navy. Pinnaces and small craft plied between them and the shore, or headed for the entrance of Belfast Harbour by the tortuous channel worn through mud and sand by the Lagan. Below him, by the sea, were the handsome houses which the richer class of merchants ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... swim for his life, evidently thinking I was attacking him; but he saw what it meant directly, and as soon as we boys were in regular swing with them, the chief man gave a shout, and the paddles were plied with such effect that the canoe began to move from where it had been stationary, as if one end were fixed on a rock, which allowed the hows to sway a little. Then we gained a foot or two, the feet became yards, and ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... Jonas Silvernail, played a principal part. The master of an English brig, an ignorant man, but excessively arrogant and presuming, one day took some of our men to task on the quay, accusing them of having taken a portion of his crew to a grog-shop, where they plied them with liquor until they were drunk, and then left them alone ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... altogether an odd little establishment—the wigs set out upon their blocks, perhaps, who knows, the barber's humbler craft being plied behind backs; the books multiplying daily on shelves and in windows, and the ragged boys with their pennies waiting to see if there was a new piece by Allan Ramsay; while perhaps in the corner, where lay the lists of the new circulating library—the first in Scotland—Miss Lydia Languish with ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... pretty good at most exercises in which country boys are adepts, but as I was conscious of wanting elegance of style for the Thames,—not to say for other waters,—I at once engaged to place myself under the tuition of the winner of a prize-wherry who plied at our stairs, and to whom I was introduced by my new allies. This practical authority confused me very much by saying I had the arm of a blacksmith. If he could have known how nearly the compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would have ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... before they reached England. Some prudent persons—among them young Stephen de Blois—left the ship; but no one else had any fears; and though the night came on, there was a bright moon, and the water was calm. Every sail was set; the rowers plied their utmost strength, and thus it was with great violence that the ship ran foul of the rocks called the Ras de Catte. A lamentable cry reached the ships of the King's fleet; but no one guessed the cause. A boat was lowered; Fitzstephen handed in the ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... happened to look upstream, uttered a single shout of warning and dashed away. Turning in our saddles, we saw within five hundred feet of us a second wave about half the height of the first one. Rowels and quirts were plied with energy and will, as we tore down the river-bank, making a gradual circle until the second bottoms were reached, outriding the flood by a ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... be selected for poetry.[10] Cowley, who with the learning and acuteness of Donne, possessed the more poetical qualities of a fertile imagination, and frequent happiness of expression, and who claims the highest place of all who ever plied the unprofitable trade of combining dissimilar and repugnant ideas, was not indeed known to the king during his prosperity; but his talents recommended him at the military court of Oxford, and the [Transcriber's note: word missing here in the original] ingenious ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... course, fixed too fast for any hope of escaping. Here even the intrepidity of Drake was shaken, and his dexterity baffled; but his piety, however, remained still the same, and what he could not now promise himself from his own ability, he hoped from the assistance of providence. The pump was plied, and the ship found free ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... boyhood's time of June, Crowding years in one brief moon, When all things I heard or saw, Me, their master, waited for. I was rich in flowers and trees, Humming-birds and honey-bees; For my sport the squirrel played, Plied the snouted mole his spade; For my taste the blackberry cone Purpled over hedge and stone; Laughed the brook for my delight Through the day and through the night, Whispering at the garden wall, Talked with me from fall to fall, Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, Mine ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... The finest fencing masters on the North American continent plied their trade here. Why, one, Pepe Llula, the most famous duelist of his time, became the guardian of a cemetery just so, as gossip rumored, he could have some place to ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... French-English part of the Seven-Years War had ended. The French attempted nothing farther; hutted themselves where they were, and waited in the pouring rains: Ferdinand also hutted himself, in guard of the Ohm; while his people plied their Siege-batteries on Cassel, on Ziegenhayn, cannonading their best in the bad weather;—took Cassel, did not quite take Ziegenhayn, had it been of moment;—and for above six weeks coming (till November 7th-14th [Preliminaries ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... fellows. They demanded of him the cause of his unseemly mirth. With tears in his merry black eyes he related the plight of the pretty slumberers, dwelling more or less sentimentally on the tender beauty of the maiden fair. They plied him with questions. He described the couple—even glowingly. Then the sinister fellows smiled; more than that, they clapped each other on the back and swore splendidly. He was amazed and his own good humour gave way to fierce resentment. What right had these ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... lightness and one might almost say volubility. In these etudes his wonderful stiff arm octave playing, in the real old-fashioned manner, showed itself, for in every run in single notes he introduced octaves. The applause after this was so great and the flappers at the pianist's side plied him so vigorously that the Gospadin actually began playing the Hexameron, that remarkably difficult and old set of variations on the march in Puritani, by Liszt, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... continued to evoke the elder man's frank admiration; he eyed the boy approvingly and plied him with questions. Before they had traveled many miles he had learned what there was to learn, for Pierce answered his questions frankly and told him about the sacrifice his family had made in order to send him North, ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... gardens ran directly into the water, while those of the archbishop were protected by a wall of brick five or six feet in height, in the center of which was a gate opening on the water. Behind the gate was a small boat dock. Maurice plied the oars vigorously. He skirted the royal gardens, and the smell of newly mown lawns filled the air. Soon he was gliding along the sides of the moss-grown walls. A bird chirped in the overhanging boughs. He was about to cast loose the oars again, when the boat ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... a captive! heart And body both in bonds. But that's the chain, Which balance cannot weigh, rule measure, touch Define the texture of, or eye detect, That's forged by the subtle craft of love! No need to tell you that he wears it. Such The cunning of the hand that plied the loom, You've but to mark the straining of his eye, ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... the hall with a firm step and eyes full of resolution. Hardly answering the brothers, who plied him with questions, he pushed through them with long strides, and, taking the key of the outer gate from the place in the alcove where he had left it, he turned ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... I got Elsie off in a corner and plied her with questions concerning her friends. The Billy Smiths were easily accounted for. They belonged to the most exclusive set in New York and Newport. He had an incomprehensible lot of money and a taste for the diplomatic service. Some day he would be an Ambassador. The Baron was in the Russian ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... later the small solitary boat crept up the current of the moonlit river. The weary girl plied her oars, looking carefully for the nook under the roots of the old pine whence she ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... island, and heard a great roaring noise right a-head of the ship, like that of the sea beating on the shore. It being some hours before day, and fearing to fall foul of the shore, the ship put about, and plied off and on till next morning, and then stood in for the land, which proved to be a small flat island, not surrounded by any rocks. To the westwards, about twelve leagues by estimation, we saw a range of high land which we took to be islands, as there were ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... mine. It looks as if someone saw a time when there would be a great dearth of ammunition. Two days ago Schroeder had gone away. I was braced, while in swimming, by a Russian gentleman. He apologized and plied me with the same sort of questions; I gave him the same sort of offhand answers that I had given Schroeder, and then I asked him what it was all about, and I told him about Schroeder without mentioning names. He said he could only guess, but that if I would sign a contract ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... rather too free with the bottle (a great fault in an officer upon guard). Cassio for a time resisted, but he could not long hold out against the honest freedom which Iago knew how to put on, but kept swallowing glass after glass (as Iago still plied him with drink and encouraging songs), and Cassio's tongue ran over in praise of the Lady Desdemona, whom he again and again toasted, affirming that she was a most exquisite lady: until at last the enemy which he put into his mouth ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... particular trench; also that the Germans expect to beat the Russian Army in May, and that we have 150,000 Japanese soldiers holding India for us! I never heard this before, nor anyone else either! I fancy they were freely plied with ration rum, no doubt someone else going short, and thus their original opinions were found out. Last night was beautifully clear, with a moon. About 2 a.m. we became aware that a party of the enemy were out in front of us only 50 yds. away, so we stealthily gathered our men up and opened a ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... back with their faces to the sky, alternately, in a regular swing that sent the boat flying through the water; and the two sitters, very upright in the stern sheets, swayed rhythmically a little at every stroke of the long oars plied vigorously. ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... unique in its character, it was not more so than the finisher of the law who then generally officiated upon it. No decrepit wretch, no crime-hardened ruffian, no secret and mysterious personage, who was produced occasionally disguised and masked, plied his dreadful trade here. Who, think you, gentle reader—who now, perhaps, recoils from these unpleasant but truthful minutiae—officiated upon this gallows high?—a female!—a middle-aged, stout-made, dark-eyed, swarthy-complexioned, but by no means forbidding-looking woman—the celebrated ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... paddles into the water, had exclaimed over the ease of propelling the little bark. But the attempt to return to their starting-point had proved that the smoothly flowing water had a will of its own. The paddles were plied vigorously, and the girls reached the birch-tree with little beads of moisture showing at their temples, and an unusual ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... night, at the opera, he plied me with bonbons and orange ices. Madame de Campvallon accompanied us; and at parting, I begged her to call for me next day on her way to the Bois, for she is my idol. She is so lovely and so distinguished—and she I knows it well. I love to be with her. On our return home, Louis remained silent, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... him silent during the meal. He took little part in the conversation except when Mr. and Mrs. Elliott plied him with questions, which he then found himself answering with only unsatisfactory vagueness—answers that he could do nothing, not even when Julia flew tenderly to his rescue, to make any better. Yes, he liked the house, he said gravely. It was a nice old house. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... at the tired strangers with sympathy, and vigorously plied his oars. The waves rippled and the rocking skiff glided over the broad expanse of waters which, on the south side, appeared endless. From the way in which the two men spoke to the Master, Simon thought to himself: "A rabbi, and they ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... drew his chair toward the fire, picked up a magazine, and commenced idly to slit the pages. Shirley studied the back of his head for some time, then got out some fancy work and commenced plying her needle. And as she plied it, a thought, nebulous at first, gradually took form in her head until eventually she murmured loud enough for the ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... my good friend Dr. Duchat. If that excellent man had not long since died he should have shared in my triumph. I took Stepan to my home and plied the saw and the knife. could operate on that poor, worthless, useless, hopeless travesty of humanity as fearlessly and as recklessly as upon a dog bought or caught for vivisection. That was a little more than twenty years ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... companions in the mines, and with whom I worked a couple of weeks, lying almost side by side with him as we dug coal in the same room, was a noted counterfeiter. He had plied his trade for many years successfully. Whisky finally sent him to the penitentiary. If professional criminals would only let strong drink alone not half so many of them would get caught. They get drunk, and in this condition expose themselves. We don't ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... Again she plied her task, as if unconscious of his presence. He seated himself and watched her countenance, which revealed so sad a history. Her lips kept moving, and now and then she spoke aloud. "Poor girl! a hard life has she had—it may all be right, but I can't ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... of propriety, and met with no sympathy from her mother or grandmother. But she was apt to get her own way; and from time to time she appeared suddenly, like a fairy-imp, in the stable, where she majestically directed the groom to hold her up whilst she plied a currycomb on the old horse's back. This over, she would ask with dignity, "Do you take care of him, Miles?" And Miles, touching his cap, would reply, "Certainly, miss, the very greatest of care." And Amabel would add, "Does he get plenty to eat, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... repentance, the duke of Chatelrault obtained his pardon, on condition that he should retire into France. Mary was more implacable against the ungrateful earl of Murray and the other confederates, on whom she threw the chief blame of the enterprise; but as she was continually plied with applications from their friends, and as some of her most judicious partisans in England thought, that nothing would more promote her interests in that kingdom, than the gentle treatment of men so celebrated for their zeal against ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... which lay the dying boy, the colliers seeking the gloomy corners of the large kitchen, where in shadow they awaited in rude fear the death of their little companion. The old woman, cool and self-possessed, plied her task with a tenderness and skill born of long years of experience, cheering with words of endearment the last ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... no more speak his name. Suffice it to say he is a man of culture, a man of letters. You have heard his voice, and he was born among the great. Alas! when one sees to what base ends education is applied plied, one is inclined to regret the early days. At one time in the strangers illness, he was so nearly passing through the valley of the Shadow of Death, as to make it incumbent upon me to open his luggage in order to ascertain his name ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... close by The great outer gallery, With his holy vestments dight, Stood the new Pope, Theocrite; And all his past career Came back upon him clear, Since when, a boy, he plied his trade, Till on his life ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... of the Arabs. I rested the following day in the convent, where several Greeks from Tor and Suez had arrived; being friends of the monks, they were invited in the evening to the private apartments of the latter, where they were plied so bountifully with brandy that they ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... She was continually plied with questions by the rest of the boarders as to how long since her husband had died, and how long since she had taken off mourning, or if she had put on mourning at all for him, and if baby reminded her of its poor, dear, ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... a mile from the Shore, and bore away for the Ship on our firing a Quarter-deck Gun, and several Muskets, showing Lanterns in our Mizen and Foreshrouds, that the Pinnace might find us again, whilst we plied to the lee of the Island. About two in the Morning she came aboard, all safe. Next day we sent our Yall ashore about noon with the Master and Six Men, all well Armed; meanwhile we cleared all ready for Action on board the Marquis. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... some distance, came hurrying a boat crowded with shining yellow bodies and dull blue jackets. Long bamboo poles plied bumping along her gunwale, sticking into the air all about her, many and loose and incoordinate, like the ribs of an unfinished basket. From the bow spurted a white puff of smoke. The dull report of a musket lagged ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... Petersen, uneasy that they had not appeared at her rooms for the usual change of clothing, came bustling up to know if her husband could tell her any thing of them; and, not a little astonished to find Matty at her post and Tony also at his, plied them anew with questions in English rather better than her husband's, and to which it was more difficult to avoid giving straightforward replies. But she gained as little as he had done, and she, too, took it for granted that either the father ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... made me familiar with crime, and I added the occupation of detective to my profession of gambling. These two avocations had now become my sole means of support, and I plied my trades in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia for several years, during which time I became a naturalised ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... female relative nearer than a great-aunt in Wales. Now he was alone, besides, the spell that he had hitherto obeyed began to weaken; he considered his behaviour with a sneer; and plucking up the spirit of revolt, he started in pursuit. The reader, if he has ever plied the fascinating trade of the noctambulist, will not be unaware that, in the neighbourhood of the great railway centres, certain early taverns inaugurate the business of the day. It was into one of these that Challoner, coming round the corner ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... thick breath of the hounds make hot the air within his hole. The sound of their voices is close upon his ears. His breast is nearly bursting with the violence of that effort which at last has brought him to his retreat. And then pickaxe and mattock are plied above his head, and nearer and more near to him press his foes,—his double foes, human and canine,—till at last a huge hand grasps him, and he is dragged forth among his enemies. Almost as soon as his eyes have seen ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... sight. Before them a stretch of water flooded by the full moon wandered off into a multitude of tiny canals shut in on either side by murky dwellings of stone or brick. In and out of these dim little avenues plied boatmen who shouted a warning in shrill Italian ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... ardent look, And at a lady's feet, like lion tame, Lay stretched, full loath the weight of arms to brook; And softened BIGOTRY, upon his book, Pattered a task of little good or ill: But the blithe peasant plied his pruning-hook, Whistled the muleteer o'er vale and hill, And rung ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... give him a clew, but there had been such great changes since he left Paris, that she had no idea where his father dwelt, if he was alive. Emile then went to see the old man who first had care of him—his guardian—and plied him with questions. But he was impenetrable, and would reveal nothing. More than this—he read the law respecting illegitimate children, to Emile. It was a heavy blow upon his hopes. His guardian showed him proof of his birth, and a paper which gave to him, at twenty-one, ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... While all around the cry was still, "Give forth, give forth," and "Eat your fill." "Give forth with liberal hand the meal, And various robes in largess deal." Urged by these cries on every side Unweariedly their task they plied: And heaps of food like hills in size In boundless plenty met the eyes: And lakes of sauce, each day renewed, Refreshed the weary multitude. And strangers there from distant lands, And women folk in crowded bands The best of food ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... several of our very richest tradesmen of the city, in common charity, gave away shillings and sixpences to the beggars who plied about the church doors; and at a particular church in the city, a wealthy church-warden with his own hands distributed fifty twelve-penny loaves to the poor, by way of restitution for the many great and costly feasts, which he had eaten of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift |
