"Against the wind" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... foliage, they held the heavy dews and bred swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, and big flies which tortured both men and cattle. To protect the cattle and horses from the attacks of these pests the settlers were obliged to build large "smudges"—fires of green timber—against the wind. The animals soon learned to back up into the dense smoke and to move from one grazing spot to another as the wind changed. But useful as were the green timber fires that rolled their smoke on the wind to save the stock, they were at the same time ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... the distance, against the wind-driven clouds of that stormy winter sky, John Kirkland saw the lights of the city—not many lights or brilliant of their kind, but a glimmer here and there—and behind the glimmer the dark bulk of masonry, roofs, ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... it approaches the spot where the chilly influence of the snow extends, the moisture it carries becomes visible, and then and there the cloud forms on the instant, apparently maintaining its form against the wind, though the careful and keen eye can see all its parts in the most rapid motion across the mountain. The outlines of such a cloud are of course not determined by the irregular impulses of the wind, but by the fixed lines of radiant heat ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... The flame reared high into the dark, and showed the rock wall towering close, and at its feet the light lay red on the streaming water. The young Sioux stripped naked of their blankets, hanging them in a screen against the wind from the jaws of the canon, with more constant shouts as the drumming beat louder, and strokes of echo fell from the black cliffs. The figures twinkled across each other in the glare, drifting and alert, till the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... "All right, we'll turn, and drive south awhile till you get warmed up again. I expect we have been going against the wind about long enough. ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... sleep for the crew that night. Everyone watched carefully, for the least false move may have meant instant disaster. Luckily the whale began to move on the surface of the sea against the wind, so that the ship, traveling in the opposite direction, had the wind behind it. Swiftly flew the ship before the breeze, but the fin seemed to have no end, although the whale was traveling fast, too. Three days and three nights the ship continued before ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... and heaviest of the boats, a stout old tub with two pairs of oarlocks. Each of the four manned an oar and pulled with both hands. It was almost impossible to get started against the wind, and when at last their steady, even pulling overcame the deterring power of the gale they were able to move at but a snail's pace. They followed the shoreline, keeping as close in as they could, preferring the ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... The rope grew heavy with the ice as the unseen seas surged past us and our little craft tossed to the motion of the waters. Just at dusk I had told the men on the 'Stancomb Wills' that if their boat broke away during the night and they were unable to pull against the wind, they could run for the east side of Clarence Island and await our coming there. Even though we could not land on Elephant Island, it would not do to have the third ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... quiver as the gust struck her, and this with only one bare pole standing, and he would have been scarce surprised now had the ship herself been lifted bodily from the water. As to walking along the deck, it would have been impossible. No man could have forced his way against the wind, and Jack felt that were he to attempt to move from the sheltered spot where he was standing he would be taken up and carried away as if he were but a figure of straw. Presently Mr. Hoare came ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... Battling against the wind, Conning made his way to Lynda's. As he drew near the house the glow from the windows seemed to meet and touch him ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... uncovered the pond with one motion. Grandfather said it was just like a curtain rising straight up, for they were all black ducks. There is no other duck can go straight up in the air. Other ducks slide off on a slant against the wind." ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... was going down as I conquered the last steep rise toward my grandfather's gate. Hereabouts a pair of steps had been cut into the cliff and a hand-rail erected to help the visitor against the wind, coming, as it so often did, in flaws of extraordinary force and fury around the headland. From this high point a great expanse of ocean filled the eye, and the ceaseless, uneasy rumor of water assailed one even in the fairest weather. There was always a thin run ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... land on the northern side; but finding no harbour, the Capitana endeavoured to beat up against the wind and pass along the island ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... I should take up too much room in the tonneau," I suggested with feigned meekness. "You ladies had better have it all to yourselves, and then you can be comfortable. Terry and I, on the driver's seat, will act as a kind of screen for you against the wind." ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... must once more beg you not to laugh, madame. His plan is to make ships travel without sail or oar, against the wind, by means of a pot filled with water, which ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... market has gone in it; for which cause I affirm it over again to be one of the vilest worlds that ever was made; for I can truly say, that from the first hour I drew breath in it, to this—I can now scarce draw it at all, for an asthma I got in skating against the wind in Flanders—I have been the continual sport of what the world calls Fortune, and though I will not wrong her by saying she has ever made me feel the weight of any great and signal evil, yet with all the good temper in the world, I affirm it of her, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... short distance from the city, just at what is now called Dutch Street, soon abounded with proofs of his ingenuity; patent smoke jacks that required a horse to work them; Dutch ovens that roasted meat without fire; carts that went before the horses; weathercocks that turned against the wind; and other wrong-headed contrivances that astonished and confounded all beholders. The house, too, was beset with paralytic cats and dogs, the subjects of his experimental philosophy; and the yelling and yelping ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... chilled him as he hastened along, a slight figure in worn business suit, leaning against the wind, but his heart was warm and light within him. Down he hurried into the subway station, and dropped his tithe of tribute into the multiple maw of the Interborough. The train was thundering in, its colored lights growing momentarily brighter as they came down the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Cotton's translation—it is my fancy to prefer this one to the more famous Florio's—there seems to me to arise from these rambling discourses, a singularly wholesome savour. I seem to see Montaigne's massive and benignant countenance as he jogs home, wrapped against the wind in the cloak that was once his father's, along the muddy autumn lanes, upon his strong but not over-impetuous nag. Surely I have seen that particular cast of features in the weather-beaten face of many a farm labourer, and listened too, from the same lips, to just as ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... which the dust was whirled in clouds upon fitful, shivering blasts that searched every nook and cranny of the big barracks. They fell upon a little girl, barefooted and in rags, who struggled out of an alley with a broken pitcher in her grimy fist, against the wind that set down the narrow slit like the draught through a big factory chimney. Just at the mouth of the alley it took her with a sudden whirl, a cyclone of dust and drifting ashes, tossed her fairly off her feet, tore from her grip the threadbare shawl she clutched ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... intending to run to Harwich. There was a strong flood down the coast, and the wind was to the north of north-east. But the wind was with the tide—to that you owe the lives of the two men and the lection of this delightful story; for had the tide been against the wind and the water steep and mutinous, you would never have seen either of us again: indeed we should have trembled out of sight ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... graze against the wind, and even a novice can tell when they discover the flag, for they instantly stop feeding, and the entire band will whirl around to face it, with big round ears standing straight up, and in this way they will remain a second or two, constantly sniffing the air. Failing to discover anything dangerous, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... of gun-shots drifted to them against the wind, and as the safari was out of sight behind the clusters of trees, all three urged their horses into a gallop, grave anxiety in their hearts. With rifles ready, they galloped on to find the wagon stuck hard and fast ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... Cove was nothing but shadows in a mist of snow to windward. Nobody knowed where Pinch-a-Penny Peter was. Nobody thought about him. And wherever poor old Pinch-a-Penny was—whether safe ashore or creaking shoreward against the wind on his last legs—he must do for himself. 'Twas no time to succor rich or poor. Every man for himself and the ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... could have sailed directly for Carthagena, before the enemy could put themselves in a good posture of defence, or, indeed, have an inkling of our design. Be this as it will, we sailed from Jamaica, and, in ten days or a fortnight, beat up against the wind as far as the Isle of Vache, with an intention, as was said, to attack the French fleet, then supposed to be lying near that place; but before we arrived, they had sailed for Europe, having first dispatched an advice-boat to Carthagena, ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... landholder struck me as peculiar, though his case was not a solitary one. A house of one room and with no window, a similar house for his human property, and a stable rudely constructed of small poles, with its sides offering as little protection against the wind and storms as an ordinary fence, were the only buildings he possessed. His furniture was in keeping with the buildings. Beds without sheets, a table without a cloth, some of the plates of tin and others of crockery—the former battered and the latter cracked—a less number ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... dependent upon the manual alphabet has always a sense of restraint, of narrowness. This feeling began to agitate me with a vexing, forward-reaching sense of a lack that should be filled. My thoughts would often rise and beat up like birds against the wind; and I persisted in using my lips and voice. Friends tried to discourage this tendency, fearing lest it would lead to disappointment. But I persisted, and an accident soon occurred which resulted in the breaking down of this great barrier—I heard ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... against the wind and he who spits against the wind spits in his own face. It would be a dangerous book. Think how great a portion of mankind are weak and ignorant men and women; think how many are young and inexperienced and incapable of serious thought. They need ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... compelled her quickly to shorten all sail. In vain an attempt was made to steer for the Downs; the gale increased with such fury that it became evident that she would run a fearful risk of being driven on the Goodwin Sands. The ship was stout and well found, and Captain Benbow still hoped to beat up against the wind; but he was driven farther and farther from the English coast, while under his lee he had the dangerous Flemish bank. Few men, however, knew the shoals of that coast better than he did. Now the ship was put on one tack, now on another, ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... been glad to get out into the cool winter afternoon, herself, after a long, quiet day in the warm house. It was just the day and hour for a brisk walk, with one's hands plunged deep in the pockets of a heavy coat, and one's hat tied snugly against the wind. Twenty minutes of such walking, she thought longingly, would have shaken her out of the little indefinable mood of depression that had been hanging over her all day. She could have climbed the steep street on which the cottage faced, and caught the freshening ocean breeze full in her ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... the pampas include the puma, the South American lion, while the birds are numerous. The largest is the ostrich, which is found in groups. The ostriches are fleet in pace, prefer running against the wind, and freely take to the water. At first start they expand their wings, and, like a vessel, make all sail. Of mammalia, the jaguar, or South American tiger, is the most formidable. It frequents the wooded ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... kept falling. They seemed at times to come down right against the wind. They stung my face and made ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... too, came the discovery of the art of tacking, by Fletcher of Rye, Henry's shipwright friend, a discovery forever memorable in the annals of seamanship. Never before had any kind of craft been sailed a single foot against the wind. The primitive dugout on which the prehistoric savage hoisted the first semblance of a sail, the ships of Tarshish, the Roman transport in which St. Paul was wrecked, and the Spanish caravels with which Columbus sailed ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... forward, leaning against the wind and inclining to the uncertain roll of the ship. A gray raincoat fitted snugly the youthful rounded figure. Her hands were plunged into the pockets. You may be sure that Mr. Robert noted through his half-closed eyelids these inconsequent details. A tourist hat sat jauntily on ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... for there is danger that the Being about to appear may shut the doors, and do you some mischief. Then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our country-dialect, we call a wecht; and go thro' all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. Repeat it three times; and the third time, an apparition will pass thro' the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having both the figure in question and the appearance or retinue, marking the employment ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... where so few patches of uncultivated land still remain, the young colts of Dartmoor, Exmoor, and Shetland, though born of domesticated mothers, seems to assert their descent from wild and free ancestors as they throw out their heels and toss up their heads with a shrill neigh, and fly against the wind with streaming manes and outstretched tails as the Kulan, the Tarpan, and the Zebra do in the wild desert ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... those seasons of the year when they change their situation; in the month of October, for instance, when the wild birds begin to fly, and in March, when the smaller kinds assemble for pairing. They are chiefly on the wing from daybreak to noon, and always fly against the wind. The birdcatchers, therefore, lay their nets towards that point to which the wind blows. The nets employed in this way are generally 12.5 yds. long and 2.5 yds. wide, and are spread on the ground parallel to each other, in such a manner ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... lying, as is the custom of his kind, with his back to the wind. Should danger approach from the rear his keen nose would give him warning, while eyes and ears would protect him from anything approaching against the wind. ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... picture rather lacking in the original, for it was a profile, and in it the young man's longish hair, worn pompadour, the slight thrust forward of the head, the arch of the nostrils,—gave him a sort of tense eagerness, a look of running against the wind. From the photograph Harvey might have been a gladiator; as a matter of fact ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... angle at which it was placed, and allowing the man the full use of his arms and legs to work any machinery placed beneath; the area of the parachute being proportioned, as in birds to the weight of the man, who was to start from the top of a high tower, or some elevated position, flying against the wind. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... any land end, the current is very strong and the sea runs very high, and I think that nearly three-fourths of all the accidents that have occurred in Shetland have occurred in crossing these springs of tide,-strong currents going right against the wind, just inland, as off the point of Unst, or the point of Sumburgh. It is not on the ocean that our boats would be lost, but in taking the land and crossing the tides ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... rail, side by side, Helen said, "Won't you be cold?" Rachel replied, "No. . . . How beautiful!" she added a moment later. Very little was visible—a few masts, a shadow of land here, a line of brilliant windows there. They tried to make head against the wind. ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... "ball lightning," but Flammarion, Thunder and Lightning, p. 68, says that it was enormous. Details in the American Meteorological Journal, 6-443—Nov. 12, 1887—British steamer Siberian—that the object had moved "against the wind" before retreating—that Captain Moore said that at about the same place he ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... watching Asher coming down the trail against the wind, followed by the big shepherd dog, Pilot, who had ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... his hat flapped up against the wind the moonshine caught at shaggy brows, a cruelly arched nose, thin, straight lips, and a forward-thrusting jaw. It seemed as if nature had hewn him roughly and designed him for a primitive age where he could fight his ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... only water that sings to us. Listen to the wind, how sweetly it sighs among the leaves. There we hear it, because it rubs the leaves together, and they produce the sound-waves. But walk against the wind some day and you can hear it whistling in your own ear, striking against the curved cup, and then setting up a succession of waves in the hearing canal of ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... an hour, the signals sounding at ten-minute intervals, each louder and nearer than the one before. At last Percy thought it possible that their voices might be heard against the wind. ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... beat against the wind, of course, and many men have hard struggles to steer themselves to a good port in the face of an adverse start, a hard beginning, or inclinations ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... simplest means. For instance, what method do you suppose he took, to find out the strength of the wind? You will never guess how the boy could compel that unseen, inconstant, and ungovernable wanderer, the wind, to tell him the measure of its strength. Yet nothing can be more simple. He jumped against the wind; and by the length of his jump, he could calculate the force of a gentle breeze, a brisk gale, or a tempest. Thus, even in his boyish sports, he was continually searching out the secrets ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... indeed, an occasional officer or orderly, huddled in a greatcoat and head against the wind, exercising those wonderful animals that are the pride of the British cavalry and which General Sir Douglas Haig, himself a cavalryman, some day hopes to bring into service. We had overtaken an artillery ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... other matters of equal interest. The fathers of the missions in and around the Straits of Mackinaw gave it as their opinion, that the waters of Lake Superior entered into the Straits by a subterranean passage, and in support of it, mention the wonderful fact that the current floats against the wind, and notwithstanding it drives furiously in one direction, vessels are enabled to sail in a contrary direction as rapidly as though the wind were not blowing. In addition to this, they refer to the constant boiling up of the waters. Without admitting this theory, they affirmed ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... have been recently sent home from the fishmonger's; a moonlight night at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit engaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe; and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared to me ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens
... This said, against her foes on rode the dame, And turned their backs against the wind and rain; Upon the French with furious rage she came, And scorned those idle blows they struck in vain; Argantes at the instant did the same, And them who chased him now chased again, Naught but his fearful back each Christian shows Against ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... unless to a very limited extent. Those tories always, when pursued by bloodhounds, go down the wind whenever it is possible, and, consequently, leave very little trail behind them. Your object will be, of course, to hunt them against the wind; they will consequently have little chance of escape, unless, as they are often in the habit of ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... into an outer case of bright scarlet flannel, made just a trifle larger than the inner one, so that it may go in easily. Lay the sand-bag over the crack between the two sashes, and on cold nights, when you are asleep, grandmamma will rejoice in the little giver of such a comfortable bulwark against the wind. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... Polly Pepper doing up on those rocks?" cried Jasper, just spying her. "Come on, Tom, and let's see." And they seized their caps, and buttoned their jackets against the wind which had just sprung up, and dashed off to ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... time lost; nay, not a moment lost; For look you, when the winning cast was made, The town was calm, the anchors were all up, The boats were manned to row them each to his ship, The lowering cloud in the offing had gone south Against the wind, and all was work, stir, heed, Nothing forgot, nor grudged, nor slurred, and most Men easy at heart ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... Joe had been gone since dawn with Henry Price. The wind had been blowing hard from the north for a dozen hours, and, as the saying is, had kicked up a sea. On the shoal the waves were rolling heavily, and since three o'clock the tide had been running against the wind, and the seas had been broken every way. But to Henry Price, and with that boat, rough seas, from March to November, were only what a rude mountain road would be to you or me. If his wife, toward afternoon, shading her eyes ...
— By The Sea - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... the other parties who have assisted in the acts of this little drama. Lord B., after paddling and paddling, the men relieving each other, in order to make head against the wind, which was off shore, arrived about midnight at a small town in West Bay, from whence he took a chaise on to Portsmouth, taking it for granted that his yacht would arrive as soon as, if not before himself, little imagining that it was in possession ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... strengthens the other virtues should above all be called a principal virtue. But such is humility: for Gregory says (Hom. iv in Ev.) that "he who gathers the other virtues without humility is as one who carries straw against the wind." Therefore humility seems above all to be ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... yards away, lay a thicket or undergrowth, and he watched it incessantly. It seemed to him now that he knew every bush and briar and vine. Presently a briar moved, and then a bush, and then a vine, but they moved against the wind, and the sharp eyes of the watcher saw it. He sank a little lower and the muzzle of his rifle stole forward. He made not the slightest sound, and good eyes, only a few yards away, could not have separated his dark figure from ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not be quick, and it was felt by all the family that a weight was upon them which made gaiety impracticable. As for Lily herself it may be said that she bore her misfortune with all a woman's courage. For the first week she stood up as a tree that stands against the wind, which is soon to be shivered to pieces because it will not bend. During that week her mother and sister were frightened by her calmness and endurance. She would perform her daily task. She would ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... he said; and leading the way once more he crossed to the end of the galley in a blind struggle against the wind, which seemed to pounce upon him and try to tear him away. But he crept on, with the doctor close to him, and became aware that he was touching something cold, which moved and then ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... Sounds attractive. I'm sorry I can't enlighten you." He drew a small electric torch from his pocket and directed its slender ray upon the sign-post. So fierce was the gale by this time that he was compelled to brace his strong body against the wind. ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... blown from all quarters, with varying force, for three weeks. We press onward over the plain, and stagger about among the houses, where the gusts of wind rush in quite unexpectedly with loud claps. The fishing-rod has had to be carried against the wind, and the water of the river has risen in the ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland
... she settled herself to the task of pulling back into the creek against the wind which was dead ahead. For some time there was silence as she toiled steadily at the oars. Gradually, however, her strokes became weaker, and she was forced ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... fabric cells which were previously introduced into the hull. This operation took three and a half hours. On the day of the first flight trials there was a fresh wind of about 17 miles per hour. The airship ascended into the air, but, apparently, could make little headway against the wind. During the trip the driving-belt became disengaged from the propellers and the ship drifted at the mercy of the wind, but sustained little damage on landing. After being deflated, the hull began to break up under the pressure of the wind ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... and turn in that direction; they strained their eyes in the endeavor to descry something beyond, but could see nothing. However, those nearest the point in question evidently could, and so they turned back and pulled against the wind with all their might, and in a few minutes the boatswain sung out, "A sail ahead"! causing their hearts to jump for joy. It was indeed a vessel which was rapidly coming towards them. It proved to be an American brig called "Frances Smith," which was bound for the Mediterranean, and the Captain ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... dike into the open green fields, where we watched the sun setting in flame-colored majesty. We walked to what is now my nursery, and I drew her attention to the marvellous flight of the gulls soaring motionless against the wind, to the colors of the sea and of the heavens, to the brightly-sparkling Venus glittering greenish white against the rose-colored background of the sky, and I told ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... return trip in about half the time it had taken them to fight their way against the wind, and as the first bright rays of the sun gilded the country side, they found themselves back at the house, where Mrs. Ford was anxiously ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... northward along Chapel Street. He wanted to look up Morten. The wind was chasing the leaves along by the cemetery, driving the rain in his face. He kept close against the cemetery wall in order to get shelter, and charged against the wind, head down. He was in the best of humors. That was two new members he had won over; he was getting on by degrees! What an odd fish Peter had become; the word, "man, man," sounded meaningless to Pelle's ears. Well, anyhow, he had got ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of you ever flew a kite? Well, that's fine! You will be able, then, to answer the question I am going to ask you. Now, listen. If the wind is blowing from the west, which way do you run to make the kite go up? Yes, you run toward the west, right against the wind. If you run with the wind, the kite won't go up at all, will it? [Draw the kite as in Fig. 84; black ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... view of an unending sea. You can run down across the dappled fields, you can run down into the cove and stroke the sea and hear the intimate minor singing of it. And when you feel as strong as the morning, you can shout and run against the wind, against the flying sand that never blows above your knees. And when you feel as tired as the night, you can climb slowly up the cliff path and go into the House, the House you know much better than any house your ordinary eyes have seen, ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... into the night with a glimmer of hope in his breast. It was snowing again, and a strong wind was blowing, so he buttoned his big coat close up, drew his hat down over his brows, and leaning forward, walked as rapidly as he could against the wind in the direction of the doctor's house. The streets were almost deserted. The lights at the corners flickered and showed pale through the lamps. As he turned down a narrow street, intending to make a short cut across a park that lay near the ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... He is introduced to the poker game at Chamberlin's and finds that he can hold more big hands and get more of them beaten than in any place he ever saw in his life. He discovers that the whisky sold in the Capitol is sudden death at a distance of 150 yards against the wind. He draws his first month's wage of $416 and finds that his resolution to save $316 of it might as well not have been made. His mileage money has been spent long before. The fact is borne in on him that it is necessary only that he answer to his name at 12 o'clock ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... very slightly from malaria, while those living upon the north bank, half a mile back, or even upon bluffs fifteen or twenty feet above the water level, were simply plagued with it. The prevailing winds during the summer are from the south and mosquitoes cannot fly a foot against the wind, but will fly hundreds of yards, and even the best part of a mile, with it. The well-known seasonal preference of the disease for warm spring and summer months, and its prompt subsidence after a killing frost, were ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... resigns her finny prey, And labors shoreward with a bending wing, Rowing against the wind her toilsome way; Meanwhile, the curling billows chafe, and fling Their dewy frost still further on the stones, That answer to the wind with ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... might have seen the mother of this family carrying her infant in her arms, and followed by her other children, a girl and two boys, who would amuse themselves by dragging little wooden horses, playing at soldiers with mock muskets, running against the wind with little whirligig mills, or frolicking about with a thousand of the antics of children. Their father, known every where as Old Weasel, was of a most resolute and unbending disposition; he made many enemies, and was ever at war with one or other of his neighbours. ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... one—and erect it close to the lee-side of the vessel (that is, away from the windward-side), still keeping the sail extended. The immediate effect would be that the sail would no longer present itself flatly against the wind, but diagonally. The wind, therefore, after dashing against it would slide violently off in the direction of the mast that had been removed, that is, towards the stern. In doing so it would, of course, give the vessel a shove ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne
... it plainly; in the sun it looked shining white. I flew my haggard out of the hood at her, sure of a kill. She raked off at a great pace, as this one did just now; but in mid air she checked suddenly, heeled over, beat up against the wind, stooped and fell headlong at the shepherds. I could not tell what had happened; it was as if the girl had been shot. But, by the Saviour of mankind, this is the truth: I saw the girl who was standing throw her arms up, I heard her scream; the others scattered. Then I saw ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... lie within speaking distance of Hightower's door; the next, it would withdraw behind its blue veil, and seem far enough away to belong to another world. On Hightower's farm the corn was high enough to whet its green sabres against the wind. One evening Chichester, Hightower, and Babe sat on the little porch with their faces turned toward Kenesaw. They had been watching a line of blue smoke on the mountain in the distance; and, as the twilight deepened into dusk, they saw ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... taxicab at the 91st Street entrance of the Park and floundered across the drive through a wild spring snowstorm. When he reached the reservoir path he saw Thea ahead of him, walking rapidly against the wind. Except for that one figure, the path was deserted. A flock of gulls were hovering over the reservoir, seeming bewildered by the driving currents of snow that whirled above the black water and then ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... what was happening. Nothing but an actual messenger coming through with the news would have enlightened him, and in the confusion none came till eight o'clock. The sound of desultory firing borne faintly against the wind from the neighborhood of the city had little significance for him. It was a chronic condition of affairs, and Bougainville's business was to watch the upper river, where an attack was really expected. It was a rare piece of good-fortune ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... is beautiful, graceful, and easy. Sometimes he wheels up and up into the blue sky, almost without moving a wing. He can also glide for a great while, balancing his body against the wind, and turning his head from side to side on the look-out for food. Those long, pointed wings of his make him one of Nature's most perfect flying-machines. His wild, laughing cry has given him the nickname ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... alike, and having rafts made of canes or reeds on their starboard sides, being also supplied both with masts and sails. These latter are made of sedges, and are either square or triangular. These canoes have this property, that they will sail almost as well against the wind as before it. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... whirlwind was rushing through the great gate of the town as he returned from taking Gottfried on his way. The people were walking with heads lowered against the storm. Girls going to their work were struggling against the wind that blew against their skirts: they stopped every now and then to breathe, with their nose and cheeks red, and they looked exasperated, and as though they wanted to cry. He thought of that other torment through which ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... till the party was advancing against the wind, as elephants have a keen scent, and had they traveled along down the wind he would have been sure to have taken alarm and dashed off only to return and do more damage later on. In this way the party was enabled to work up to within a few yards of the great beast without his having any warning ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... behind have had a long row out against the wind, and have no doubt been working their hardest ever since they caught sight of our sail. A stern-chase is a long chase. I fancy the wind has freshened a little, ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... divided into two unequal portions by the straits of White Horse, where vessels are often weather-bound, and cannot make way against the wind, which sets a current through the narrow channel. There is no tide; the sweet waters do not ebb and flow; but while I thus discourse, I have forgotten to state how they came to fill the middle of the country. Now, the philosopher Silvester, ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... at the collar, and strained every leaping leaf after the hunting and exterminating element. Now and again a twig would snap and fly like a bolt from an arbalist. The three men stood stiffly and aslant against the wind, as if leaning against a wall. The two ladies disappeared into the house; rather, to speak truly, they were blown into the house. Their two frocks, blue and white, looked like two big broken flowers, driving and drifting upon the gale. Nor is such a poetic fancy inappropriate, ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... deck three cod and two haddocks, one hake, and, best of all, a small halibut, all plump and spry. This, I thought, would be the place to take in a good stock of provisions above what I already had; so I put out a sea-anchor that would hold her head to windward. The current being southwest, against the wind, I felt quite sure I would find the Spray still on the bank or near it in the morning. Then "stradding" the cable and putting my great lantern in the rigging, I lay down, for the first time at sea alone, not to sleep, but ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... as the coffin enters they raise the Irish cry, a blood-curdling wail that makes your muscles creep, while a cold chill runs down your spine, and you sternly make for home. You may as well see it out, for you can hear the "Keen" two miles away against the wind. The mourners clasp their hands and move them quickly up and down, recounting the deceased's good deeds, and exclaiming, in Irish and English, "Why did ye die? Ah, thin, why did ye die?" To which very reasonable query no ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... House by its landlady, though everybody else called it 'Thirteen, New Parade.' The spot was bright and lively now; but in winter it became necessary to place sandbags against the door, and to stuff up the keyhole against the wind and rain, which had worn the paint so thin that the priming and ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... machine will be hard to balance when in flight. To make a glide, take the glider to the top of a hill, get in between the arm sticks and lift the machine up until the arm sticks are under the arms as shown run a few steps against the wind and leap from the ground. You will find that the machine has a surprising amount of lift, and if the weight of the body is in the right place you will go shooting down the hillside in free flight. The landing is made by pushing ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... sailing with this rig are shown in Figs. 17-20. When sailing with the wind the skater would stand very erect, bending backward in proportion as the wind blew fresher. By inclining the sail in one direction or the other, the skater could tack to port or starboard. When moving against the wind by skating in the usual way, the body was bent forward in such manner that the sail lay horizontal, so that it would not offer a purchase ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond
... off and against the wind, their faces thrust forward and upward. Homeward in the coach they were strangely silent, this time his hat in her lap. At the entrance to her apartment-house he left her with ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... it on them for a mile, against the wind. In the first place, that Borch. I wish I could get his prints; I'll bet we have them on file. And the whole gang's trying to hide something, and what they're trying to hide is something they're scared of, like a body in a closet. When we were ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... my body leaves my love, not I; My body moves away, but not my mind; For back to her my struggling fancies fly Like silken banners borne against the wind. (Exit.) ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... trees had been chopped off from their trunks about a yard from the ground, so that the soldier who cut it should have no trouble in stooping, and the tops had been dragged away for firewood or for the erection of screens against the wind. Here and there, in solitary places, there were outlying tents, looking as though each belonged to some military recluse; and in the neighborhood of every division was to be found a photographing establishment upon wheels, in order that ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... sky to sky, one mighty surge Of baleful pride, huge wrath, stormy disdain, With shuddering clouds and towers of sail would urge Onward the heaving citadels of Spain, Which dragged earth's thunders o'er the groaning main, And held the panoplies of faith in fee, Beating against the wind, struggling in vain To close with that swift ocean-cavalry: Spain had all earth in charge! Had England, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... the station nearly as fast as we ought to," said Katherine, "and what's more, there's no hope of our going any faster on foot. I'll ride Sandhelo in. He's lots stronger than we are and can hold up against the wind where we can't. It's the only way we can get the word to the station in time. I didn't think of riding him before, because the beach was so rocky I was afraid he would break his leg in the dark, but from here it seems ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... was straining on his lead, whimpering to be after his big friend, while Albert leaned back against the wind, holding him. ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... was a long paddle before us to our next camping-ground. Oh, the windings of that Falcon River! In some parts not more than a canoe's length wide, and in none more than two, it wound in and out, up and down, this way and that. For a hundred feet we were dead against the wind, then a sharp turn sent us spinning along before it, when, standing up, I held the waterproof in my outstretched arms as a sail. Each bend of the shore was so abrupt that the impetus of turning drove the canoe ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... island of Guadaloupe, Santa Cruz, or Porto Rico; but the compensation of the errors of their course is not always equally fortunate. The boats, if they fall to leeward in making land, beat up with great difficulty to the eastward, against the wind ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... MacDonough's strategy. He anchored to the northward of the bay, so that any fleet coming down the lake would have to beat up against the wind to reach him; so close to land that any fleet trying to flank him would come within range of the forts; and left only one apparent gap that a foe might try to use, a gap in front of which was a dangerous sunken reef. This was indeed a baited ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... formed into the shape of a grocer's twist as wanted, served us as a drinking-cup throughout the journey. Had we even been overtaken by night, it was summer, and a bed under whins, or upon heather, with our umbrella set against the wind, and secured to us, would have been delightful. Once, indeed, we feared this would have been our fate; for on the very top of Corryarrick, and consequently nine miles or more from house or home in any direction, we sprained our ankle, or rather an old sprain returned. To all appearance, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... the difficulty about the keel, by pinning to it a false keel. This was a piece of tough wood, of the same length and width as the real keel, and about five inches deep. He made it of this depth because the boat would be thereby rendered not only much more safe, but more able to beat against the wind; which, in a sea where the trade-winds blow so long and so steadily in one direction, was a matter of great importance. This piece of wood was pegged very firmly to the keel; and we now launched our boat with the satisfaction ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... of his wooden house; his brass door-plate alone was free from salt, and had been polished up that morning. On the beach, among the rough buggers and capstans, groups of storm-beaten boatmen, like a sort of marine monsters, watched under the lee of those objects, or stood leaning forward against the wind, looking out through battered spy-glasses. The parlour bell in the Admiral Benbow had grown so flat with being out of the season, that neither could I hear it ring when I pulled the handle for lunch, nor could the young woman in black stockings and ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... climbing over roofs, you will know that sudden, stabbing, sinking feeling that came to Aladdin and stopped the beating of his heart by the hairbreadth of a second. He had been proceeding chin on breast, and head bent against the wind, or he would have seen it before, for it was a notable landmark in that part of the world, and showed him that he had been making way, not toward his destination, but ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... green things were just starting into being. The locust is a somewhat disproportioned insect, the wings are too fine for the bulk and weight of the body, which explains why they are unable to struggle against the wind; as it is said in the Scriptures, "and when it was morning the east wind brought the locusts." (Exod. x. 13.) They do not fly high, and when they settle on the ground they roll over very clumsily. A flight at a distance looks like falling flakes of snow in a snow-storm. They are mostly ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... Scarboro'. After table d'hote I put on my mackintosh, and went out for a walk. It was raining hard, but after a month in Scotland one does not notice English weather, and I wanted some air. Struggling along the dark beach with my head against the wind, I stumbled over a crouching figure, seeking to shelter itself a little from the storm under the lee ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... and they pursued their way against the wind, resisting it with laughing delight for about twenty minutes longer, when suddenly the clouds united over their heads, and a driving rain set full in their face. Chagrined and surprised, they were obliged, though unwillingly, to turn back, for no shelter was nearer than their own house. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... from the bank of the Weltering Water: at noon they came into a little dale wherein were a few trees, and there they abided to eat their meat, and were very merry, making for themselves tables and benches of the drifted snow, and piling it up to windward as a defence against the wind, which had now arisen, little but bitter from the south-east; so that some, and they the wisest, began to look for foul weather: wherefore they tarried the shorter while in the said ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... rejoined Cosmo, where he stood leaning his back against the wind in the middle of ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... so visible in the resurrection of Italy, so unrecognised in freedom's recurrent and contemporary conflicts, must invariably be fought. We may justly talk, if we please, of the joy in such conflicts, but Thermopylae was a charnel, though, as Byron said, it was a proud one; and it is always against the wind that ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... to them that now they could double the land, they again tacked toward the coast, also on the bowline, against the wind, until they again saw the coast, much farther on than where the caravels had reached, which the masters knew from the soundings which they got written down from the voyage of Janinfante, and the days which they found to have less sun by the clocks. Having ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... to wonder and delight, so grand, so glorious were the scenes a storm exhibited. Accidents are certainly more frequent than with us, but not so much so as reasonably to bring terror home to one's bosom every time a mass of lurid clouds is seen rolling up against the wind. ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... admiral Vernon did not sail on his intended expedition till towards the end of the month. Instead of directing his course towards the Havannah, which lay to leeward, and might have been reached in less than three days, he resolved to beat up against the wind to Hispaniola, in order to observe the motion of the French squadron, commanded by the marquis d'Antin. The fifteenth day of February had elapsed before he received certain information that the French admiral had sailed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... there was a considerable wind blowing. Halstead left his cooking long enough to run down and make sure that all was snug and tight aboard the "Restless." The young skipper had fairly to fight his way against the wind on his return ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... not give up the attempt, and he expressed so much anxiety to join his vessel, that it was proposed to go to the weathermost part of the bay. Thither they accordingly struggled on foot, with the utmost difficulty making head against the wind, and suffering acutely from the sand driving into their eyes. In addition to their personal sufferings, the spectacle around was one of such desolation and horror as no man can witness without pain. The shore, as far ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... to his machines perceptible motions, a decided direction. More recently, at Paris, a watchmaker, M. Julien, has made at the Hippodrome convincing experiments; for, with the aid of a particular mechanism, an aerial apparatus of oblong form was manifestly propelled against the wind. M. Petin placed four balloons, filled with hydrogen, in juxtaposition, and, by means of sails disposed horizontally and partially furled, hoped to obtain a disturbance of the equilibrium, which, inclining ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... half a mile from the coast, and it was necessary to tack to beat against the wind. The "Bonadventure" was then going at a very moderate rate, as the breeze, partly intercepted by the high land, scarcely swelled her sails, and the sea, smooth as glass, was only rippled now and then by ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... still glowing engineers behind him, lifting up his will against cities, lifting up his will against herds of politicians, haughty newspapers, against the flocks of silly complacent old ferry-boats waddling in the bay, against the wind and the rain and the cold on the water, and all the banks of ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... although the largest side Newhouse would effectually secure one of the animals. The Buffalo is generally hunted on horseback, the usual method being that of stealing into the drove while grazing, always moving against the wind in order to avoid being scented. The flesh is palatable and by many much relished. The Buffalo skins of commerce are furnished by the cows. The bull skins are almost devoid of fur on the hinder parts, the hair being confined to the huge heavy mass on the hump and mane. ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... Tappan Zee or the wide waste of Haverstraw Bay. At one moment she would appear close upon them, as if likely to run them down, and would throw them into great bustle and alarm, but the next flash would show her far off, always sailing against the wind. Sometimes, in quiet moonlight nights, she would be seen under some high bluff of the Highlands; all in deep shadow, excepting her top-sails glittering in the moonbeams; by the time, however, that the voyagers reached the place no ship was to be seen; and when they had passed ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the tree tops down in the edge of the plain bent their heads like a multitude of people in prayer. He saw it sweeping up the slope in a mass of gray dragoons. It caught him before he had closed the door, and his face dripped with wet as he forced the last inch of it against the wind with his shoulder. It was the sort of storm Keith liked. The thunder was the rumble of a million giant ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... was a schooner tacking against the wind, while just rounding Rocky Point was a trim little yacht with all sail set, flying ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... I am out at sea. I have stowed away my "shore gear," slipped the movable bar across my book-shelf, screwed up my windows, and made all snug against the wind blowing up-channel. There is a gentle roll; she is in ballast, for the Western Ocean, and the Mate does not smile when we discuss the probable weather. He would like a little more ballast, I know, and he thinks she "draws too much forrard." Well, I am minded to go on deck ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... protected against the wind by a fence will somewhat overtop their shelter, and every tree will serve as a screen to a taller one behind it. Extensive groves have thus been formed in situations where an isolated tree ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... Of thy few words of English speech: A bondage sweetly brooked, a strife That gives thy gestures grace and life! So have I, not unmoved in mind, Seen birds of tempest-loving kind— Thus beating up against the wind. ...
— Memories • Max Muller
... comes the postman with his first delivery of letters for the day. Our Terrace is the most toilsome part of his beat, for having to serve both sides of the way, his progress is very like that of a ship at sea sailing against the wind. R'tat he goes on our side, then down he jumps into the road—B'bang on the other side—tacks about again, and serves the terrace—off again, and serves the villas, and so on till he has fairly epistolised both sides of the way, and vanished ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... Denmark stood against the wind, and cooled him in his harness, with his helmet unlaced; and all the folk praised his hardihood, that the Margrave's heart was uplifted. He said, "Friends, arm me anew. I will essay it again. Haply I may vanquish this overweening ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... with fatigue and want of food, Mr. Evans yielded to the boy's suggestion, and walked in at the door which the maid held with difficulty against the wind. She took Mr. Evans for a visitor, as indeed he was, and showed him into the room on the ground-floor. Diamond, who had followed into the hall, whispered to her ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... that summer, and marking them so as to pick them later with Genya. A warm wind was blowing. I met Genya and her mother, both in bright Sunday dresses, going home from church, and Genya was holding her hat against the wind. They told me they were going to have tea on ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... spectators, the only one who did not hold his hat on against the wind, was an extraordinary personage who capered about shouting. Long curly hair waved over his face; his dress was hung round with corks and tassels; he swung a long life-line round his head, and screamed at me words which were of course utterly lost in the breeze. This dancing dervish was the "life ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... were there but this single plot to lose, This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it, And throw it against the wind.] ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... preceded the bursting of the storm blew such clouds of dust and everything it contained into their faces that it was difficult to advance. But Biberli was glad, for he had not yet found a fitting answer. He struggled silently on beside his master against the wind, until it suddenly subsided, and a violent storm of rain streamed in big warm drops on the thirsty earth and the belated pedestrians. Then, spite of Heinz's protestations, Biberli hurriedly snatched the long robe embroidered with the St from his shoulders and threw it ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... better situation for an apiary than a hill, being more convenient to the bees returning home with their loads; and, besides, bees are not so apt to fly away when swarming as when on a hill: but when swarms take a distant flight, they generally fly against the wind, so that the stragglers of the swarms may better hear the direction of the course ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... comes the ship to port, Howe'er the breeze may be; Just when she nears the waiting shore She drifts again to sea. No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, Nor sheer of veering side; Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, Against the wind ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... however, did not rest very long. Over where the wind struck an open space, it blew as mightily as ever, and the roaring, high up in the tree-tops, seemed to urge her on to new exertions. First she began fighting her way against the wind, but soon she turned. Driven by it, she flew down the steep incline to the path which led down to the narrow valley. She kept on running till she had reached a small wooden house, which looked down from a high bank to the roaring mountain stream. A narrow stairway led up from ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... the 4th of June, 1885, the Hawaiian labour schooner Mana, of which I was "recruiter" was beating through Apolima Straits, which divide the islands of Upolu and Savai'i. The south-east trade was blowing very strongly and a three-knot current setting against the wind had raised a short, confused sea, and our decks were continually flooded. But we had to thrash through it with all the sail we could possibly carry, for among the sixty-two Gilbert Islands "recruits" ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... norther has been blowing, and the birds have worked well into the bight of the bay, near Goose Castle Point, if the wind shifts to the south suddenly, gunners approach from the outside, and the birds becoming cramped in the cove are shot as they rise against the wind." ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... a long walk from the cottage, and Geoffrey, as he trudged up hill against the wind, was surprised to find how much snow had already fallen. He had expected to return to New York the next day, but now a fair prospect of being stalled on the way presented itself. It took him so much longer to reach the house than he had supposed, that he abandoned all idea ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... from the herd, and was about forty yards in the rear; this fellow I was afraid would render our approach difficult. Cautioning my men, especially Bacheet, to keep close to me with the spare rifles, I crept along the alleys formed by the tall rows of dhurra, and after carefully stalking against the wind, I felt sure that it would be necessary to kill the single elephant before I should be able to attack the herd. Accordingly I crept nearer and nearer, well concealed in the favorable crop of high and sheltering stems, until I was within fifteen yards of the hindmost animal. As I had never ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... match-making Dickson came to an abrupt end. He had been riding negligently, his head bent against the wind, and his eyes vaguely fixed on the wet hill-gravel of the road. Of his immediate environs he was pretty well unconscious. Suddenly he was aware of figures on each side of him who advanced menacingly. Stung to activity he attempted to increase his ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... about a hundred yards ahead when I gave the mare the reins, and told her to go. And she did go. She flew against the wind with a motion so rapid that my face, as it clove the air, felt as if cutting its way through a solid body, and the trees, as we passed, seemed struck with panic, and running for dear life in the ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... wish that had no sense, no end in view, no anything; just an insensate craving to see the dark place again. He crossed Borrow Street to the little lane. There was only one person visible, a man on the far side with his shoulders hunched against the wind; a short, dark figure which crossed and came towards him in the flickering lamplight. What a face! Yellow, ravaged, clothed almost to the eyes in a stubbly greyish growth of beard, with blackish teeth, and haunting bloodshot eyes. And what a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... flew splendidly now, and its strength was mighty. It was Robert's custom to drive a stake in the ground, slanting against the wind, and thereby tether the animal, as if it were up there grazing in its own natural region. Then he would lie down by the stake and read The Arabian Nights, every now and then casting a glance upward at the creature alone ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... a ship, with wings outspread, against the wind, never seeming to move a feather? You understand how a kite mounts upon the breeze: the string holds it from going back, so it must go up. But where is the string that holds ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... passing; he must, too, conceal himself as much as possible, either in a thicket under the foliage, in a hut made with the boughs of trees, or in a hole dug in the ground; but he should always be so placed that he is against the wind, and if the moon is up he ought to take especial care that ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... find in summer that heavy dews in the night mean fine weather the following day," added Mrs. Vernon. "Also any thunder-storm that comes with the wind soon passes away, but let it come against the wind, and it is ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... gold, which is the form in which they chiefly invest their wealth. The ship which would sail from here would enter by a different channel than do the Portuguese, as the strait has three entrances. Our ship will be a swifter one, and will sail better against the wind; and a Dutch ship will not be able to catch it in two rosaries, and their pataches will not dare to grapple it because of the defense which they will encounter. Thus by fighting, without losing their route, the ship, will reach Malaca, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... turned back on the other side. Presently he saw that a light van was standing before one place, backed up against the sidewalk to receive parcels, its shuddering horse holding its head down and bracing itself with its forelegs against the wind. At any rate, something was going on there, and he hurried forward to find out what it was. The air was so thick with myriads of madly flying bits of snow, which seemed whirled in all directions ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... water's edge. It looks across the blue waters of the bay to a headland crowned with cocoa-palms, and beyond the headland to the Indian Ocean. The cool trades sweep across that veranda. We idly watched a lone white oarsman pulling strongly against the wind through the tide rips, evidently bent on exercise. We speculated on the incredible folly of wanting exercise; and forgot him. An hour later a huge saffron yellow squall rose from China 'cross the way, filled the world with an unholy light, lashed the reluctant sea to white-caps, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... all the fish I had, which was sufficient for my eight for several days. These the Esquimaux speedily devoured. I made the men bring the dog harness into the camp, and with the sleds, to save the straps and lashings, they built a little barricade against the wind. ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... am a rogue if I do not think I was designed for the helm of state; I am so full of nimble stratagems, that I should have ordered affairs, and carried it against the stream of a faction, with as much ease as a skipper would laver against the wind.—THE GOBLINS. ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... firing against the wind, the flame is thrown back in-board; therefore care should be taken beforehand to wet the sides, decks, and rigging of the vessel; the sails covered with tarpaulins; and men stationed with ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... encounter in hiring a vessel to sail to Ladakia [Footnote: Laodicea of Syria.] on the opposite coast. At last a bargain was struck with a Turkish ship for five pounds. But the ship had battled already against the contretemps of too many voyages. She could no longer beat against the wind as once she used to do. Four times they set sail, and four times had to put back again into port. The captain had only an old French map "marked with crosses at certain places, the cross meaning porto, as the captain explained." He needed help, however, ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... some sort, there's no doubt about that," said the Captain, "so I guess the great problem has got solved at last. And yet it ain't a balloon, because it's coming against the wind, and it's nothing of the aeroplane sort neither, because it hasn't planes or kites or any fixings of that kind. Still it's made of something like metal and glass, and it must take a lot of keeping up. It's travelling at a pretty healthy speed too. Getting on for a hundred miles ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... dignities, to which I abandoned the hopes of my fortune; and I remember one day the President Bellievre telling me that I ought not to be so indolent. I answered him: "We are in a great storm, where, methinks, we all row against the wind. I have two good oars in my hand, one of which is the Cardinal's dignity, and the other the Archiepiscopal. I am not willing to break them; and all I have to do now is to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... he threw himself on the sand, crouching and holding his own. Captain Lynch, driven like a wisp of straw, sprawled over him. Two of the Aorai's sailors, leaving a cocoanut tree to which they had been clinging, came to their aid, leaning against the wind at impossible angles and fighting and clawing every inch of ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... that the whole earth was silver with frost, and he felt they were particularly fortunate in having found some sort of shelter. The others shared his satisfaction, and they worked all day, enlarging the hut, and strengthening it against the wind and cold with more bark and brush. At night Henry and Ross took the canoe, went to the mainland, and came back with a deer. The next day Jim Hart and Shif'less Sol were busy drying the venison, and Paul spent his time ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hours after he was first struck, two fast lines were taken aboard the ship. The breeze was fresh, and against us, so the top-gallant sails were taken in, the courses hauled up, and the topsails clewed down, yet, I assure you, that whale towed the ship dead against the wind for an hour and a half at the rate of two miles an hour, and all the while beating the water with his fins and tail, so that the sea was in a continual foam. We did not kill that fish till after forty hours of the hardest ...
— Fighting the Whales • R. M. Ballantyne
... riding across tide, with the wind in the direction of the tide, would tend to leeward of her anchor; but with a weather tide, or that running against the wind, if the tide be strong, would tend to windward. A ship under sail should prefer the tack that stems the tide, with the wind across the stream, when the anchor ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth |
