"Taut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Slone held the taut lasso with his left hand, and with the right he swung the other rope, catching the noose round Wildfire's nose. Then letting go of the first rope he hauled on the other, pulling the head of the stallion ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... stood straight up, and drew her dress taut, and put forward two small feet, trigly protected by high-laced boots. Then, looking at her mother, she asked: "Are the boots sufficient, or shall I wear over them my ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... jumping from star to star in the thrilling blue sky. As it was she stood on one foot, as if poised for flight with a sort of spring in her movements that his softer muscles had never experienced. He caught at her hand, and felt it taut, and ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... sir," replied Hetherton, and this time he saluted with body as erect and arm as taut as if on parade. In another ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... or two Alphonse turned the idea hazily over in his apology for a mind; then, with a hasty exclamation, he ran to the side, and saw dimly the taut anchor chain. He blundered below, lugged Adolphe out of his berth and on deck, and for five excited minutes they explained to one another that the anchor was embedded in the sandbank, and that it held the Petrel on it. ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... Alfred. "Sit down. You will have the canoe upset in a moment. Hold your rod steady and keep the line taut. That's right. Now lead him round toward me. There," and grasping the line he lifted a fine rock bass over ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... the two Bird boys had now become would find little or no trouble about carrying out the work they had on hand. Every steel wire guy was kept as taut as a fiddle string; and by the time they were done handling the aeroplane it would be in apple-pie shape ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... thumb. The upper end of the rod fitted freely into a socket in a ball of maple wood of suitable size to be held in the left hand and pressed down so as to press the lower end of the rod into the hole in the apple wood plank. Round the middle of the rod was looped a bow-string kept taut by a strong bow. By grasping the bow in his right hand and sawing it back and forth, the operator caused the rod to whirl round, first one way and then the other, with great velocity. The friction ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... victim's feet; and through the dim light is disclosed the half nude body of our fair girl, suspended by the wrists, which are clasped in bands of cord, that, being further secured to a pulley block, is hauled taut by a tackle. Suddenly the wretched woman gives vent to her feelings, and in paroxysms of grief sways her poor body to and fro, imploring mercy! "Nay, master! think that I am a woman-that I have a heart to feel and bleed; that I am a mother and a wife, though a slave. Let ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... in possession, our business is to hold taut and take in slack right along, never ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... When a fellow makes a bow, why he only comes up a little aft, and bowses on the fore-stay, and now and then you falls in with a chap that is stayed altogether too far for'ard, or who's got a list perhaps from having the shrouds set up too taut ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... see the rope blowing about between them ... what a wind there must be ... it's bent out taut like a bow, you can see it against the snow, and they're bending themselves more than forty-five degrees to ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... at her costume. Being a sensible young person, she had attired herself in apparel suitable for mountain rambling. Her dress was simple pilgrim gray, taut made and trim; but she never lost an air of distinction which rendered abundant ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... nights, as the full moon looks down on the fields and meadow rich in foliage—to the time when the thought of the farmer is for wood for the winter, for the preservation of the farming implements, for making all things "taut and trig" about the barn and houses to secure their warmth for the coming cold weather and snow; past the day of the New England Thanksgiving, along to Christmas time, saying only in passing that ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... from the street broke the tense silence that had followed the mayor's soliloquy. He turned from the window quickly and strode back to his desk and the suggestion of weariness dropped from him like a cloak and he emerged, alert, taut, energetic, in fighting trim. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... the laugh maddened Holman. He clutched the rope and started to climb rapidly upward. I couldn't see him, but I felt his shoes as he wriggled away into the darkness above me, and I held my breath, I gripped the rope and kept it taut so that Leith and Soma ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... table, the hanging cover of which had effectually concealed him, Jean Pylotte had managed to adjust the noose upon the floor about Nick's legs. At the signal given him, he had quickly drawn it taut. ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... accommodation-ladder hung out . . . But, as luck would have it, they'd downed sail anyhow and, among other things, left the out-haul of the mizen danglin' slack and close to the water. I reached for this, shortened up on it till I had it taut, and gave it into his hand to cling by—which he had the sense to do, havin' fetched back some of his wits. After that I scrambled on to the mizen-boom somehow and hauled him aboard mainly by his collar and seat of his trousers. It was a job, too; and the first thing ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the load will not affect the reading. This may be accomplished by driving a small nail near each end of the beam, the exact location being on the neutral plane and vertically above each knife-edge support. Between these nails a fine wire is stretched free of the beam and kept taut by means of a rubber band or coiled spring on one end. Behind the wire at a point on the beam midway between the supports a steel scale graduated to hundredths of an inch is fastened vertically by means of thumb-tacks or small screws passing through holes in it. Attachment ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... Hazel dozed fitfully, waking out of uneasy sleep to lie staring, wide-eyed, into the dark, every nerve in her body taut, her mind abnormally active. She tried to accept things philosophically, but her philosophy failed. There was a hurt, the pain of which she could not ease by any mental process. Grief and anger by turns mastered ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... in laughter as Paula nodded to the grooms to release the horses' heads, took the feel of the four mouths on her hands, and shortened and slipped the reins to adjustment of four horses into the collars and taut on the traces. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... circle of the field at a full, swinging gallop, sending the short turf flying from his unshod hoofs at every stride. Back he came again, a vision of floating mane and streaming tail, and stopped dead three yards from Ralph, his forelegs strained and taut, ploughing furrows in the grass. As Ralph moved quietly across the field the colt followed, pushing a cool moist nose over the young man's shoulder. When at last Ralph set a foot on the projecting stone which stood out from ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... might have led to bloodshed. The favorite amusement was cutting down hammocks. Dark forms might be seen on all fours making their way on the greasy and slippery deck in the direction of selected victims. The sharp blade of a knife would be drawn across the taut cord that supported the hammock. Then an uproar that awakened the entire steerage would take place. If the one who was cut down happened to be an Irishman, he would loudly challenge all the passengers to come up and fight him, not caring whether they came in ones or hundreds. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the above, two trees are chosen 7 to 8 feet apart, or two stayed poles can be erected if no trees are available. The bed is rigged about 3 feet from the ground by taking the rope round the trees or poles, and pulling the canvas taut by means of the metal eyelet. Then the lashings at the extremities of the sticks are fixed about 3 feet further up the trees and you have a bed something between a hammock and a standing bed. The mosquito net is ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... of messages. The crew, spotless in dungarees and without a vestige of a weapon, maneuvered the schooner as Code had never in his life seen a vessel handled. At a word from the officer of the watch they jumped as one man. Every order was executed on the run, and all sails were swayed as flat and taut as boards. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... and full of threat came the howl of the wolf again, first from the right and then from the left, and then from points between. Henry noticed that Ross and Shif'less Sol seemed to draw themselves together, as if they would make every nerve and muscle taut, and then his eyes shifted to Mr. Pennypacker, and seeing him, he knew at once that the master did not understand; he had not heard the words ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... perversely clung to its wild instincts. A weakness in that thong, a slip of the collar, and Wolf would have bounded joyously into the forests to seek for ever the packs of his fathers. Now the babeesh rope was taut, Wolf's muzzle was turned half to the sky, his ears were alert, half-sounding notes rattled in ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... first two pass beneath him, but as the third came swiftly on, the quiet noose dropped about the black throat. A quick jerk drew it taut. ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... acquaintances and friends are certain little toy-boat builders, who bestow upon me from time to time boats fashioned by their knives; vessels which would not, it is true, encounter stormy seas, and therefore are not fitted for use, but which look taut and trim as they lie in the quiet harbour of bracket or slab amongst other choice ornaments. A rowing-boat, a yacht, a schooner, a man-of-war—all these varieties are somewhat commonplace. The construction of them ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... leaned her face on the back of the sofa, her eyes shining. Her cheeks were plump and rosy, tinted and warmed by her heart. The skin of her neck, taut and satiny, quivered. Half-blown and waiting, a little voluptuous because voluptuousness already emanated from her, she was ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... of these circuits is made to transmit the up and down component writing of the pencil's motion, while the other simultaneously transmits its sidelong component. At the receiving station these two components are then recomposed by a pantograph arrangement of taut cords, or levers, and the resultant motion is communicated to the duplicate pen at that place. The plan adopted by Mr. Cowper to transmit each continuously varying component is to cause the resistance of the circuit to ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... regularly every night listening attentively for wireless signals and calling at intervals. The continuous winds soon caused many of the wire stays of the main wireless mast to become slack, and these Jeffryes pulled taut ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... called out, when the horse had stopped for want of breath; "I's going to stand on you, and you must be vedy good." She patted the animal on its head; then she scrambled to her feet, and, holding the reins taut, stood firm as an arrow, while the creature once more flew round the stage. When her ride was over she had won the ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... back, and cried to his men. "Take a strain!" The hawser was pulled taut, till it ticked. "Heave!" The building ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... day. How the happy moments sped! Reef topsails! Make all taut! There's dirty weather ahead! (I do not mean that tempests threatened the Hot Cross Bun: In THAT case, I don't know whatever ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... everywhere looking for you. To Popov's, Afrmov's, then I guessed you'd be here. (Crosses to him. Sees revolver, turns, faces him quickly, concealing it with her body, stands very tense and taut, looking at him.) Oh, you fool! You hideous fool! ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al
... are a vacation. These words are not for them. From my viewpoint, such men might as well be dead. The men upon whom I am urging the wisdom of taking periods for recuperation are those who have been pulling with the team and keeping their traces taut. And I assume that you who read are one of these worth-while men. Very well! I want you to ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... the two or three hundred yards of open road between cover and cover. They were very well driven. The middle horses and the wheelers were doing their work: it was not only the leaders that kept the traces taut. It was wonderfully pretty to see them go by: not like a storm but like a smoke. No one could have hit those gunners or those teams. Whether they were on the sky-line or not I could not tell, but ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... back, shutting his eyes while Miss Amory's rested upon him. The life and beauty which had been such ever-present characteristics of his personality seemed to have left him never to return. Miss Amory's old nerves were strung taut. She had passed through many phases of feeling with regard to him as the years had gone by. During those years she had believed that she knew a hidden thing of him known by no other person. She had felt herself a sort of silent detective in the form of ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... stumbled forward and caught at an alder stump. She flung the chain round it and made fast. The boat's stern swung round—it was thrust in under the bank and held there close; the chain clicked loudly as it stretched taut. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... Of sea-girt Lemnos, but with dayspring cast The hawsers loose, and heaved the anchor-stones Out of the deep. Athena sent a breeze Blowing behind the galley taper-prowed. They strained the sail with either stern-sheet taut; Seaward they pointed the stout-girdered ship; O'er the broad flood she leapt before the wind; Broken to right and left the dark wave sighed, And seething all around was hoary foam, While thronging dolphins raced on either hand Flashing ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... savin' o' the nation; To funk right out o' p'lit'cal strife aint thought to be the thing, Without you deacon off the toon you want your folks should sing; So I edvise the noomrous friends thet 's in one boat with me To jest up killock, jam right down their hellum hard a lee, Haul the sheets taut, an', laying out upon the Suthun tack, Make fer the safest port they can, wich, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... There was Mrs. Olivier's only daughter, proud of her power over the sewing-machine. When she brought the pile of hemmed sheets to her mother her heart swelled with joy in her own goodness. There was Mark Olivier's sister, who rejoiced in the movements of her body, the strain of the taut muscles throbbing on their own leash, the bound forwards, the push of the wind on her knees and breast, the hard feel of the ground under her padding feet. And there was Mary Olivier, the little girl of thirteen whom her mother and Aunt Bella whispered about to each other with mysterious ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... shake him," thought Mrs. Bolitho's impatience. For a time Maggie waited, never stirring, her eyes fixed, her body taut. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... he could and passed the rope under the flinching belly of the buckskin to Davis, on the other side. Also he sent a glance of meaning which the other read unerringly and obeyed most willingly. Davis drew the rope taut under the cinch and tied Jack's other ankle as if he were putting the diamond hitch on a pack mule. The two stepped back and eyed him sharply for some sign of pain, when ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... the noose up and away from him. It circled through the air and fell over the nearest branch of the tree. Hauling it taut, Pawnee Brown tested it, to make sure it would not slip, and then began to haul himself up, as Rasco had ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... there was no doubt of that, for gradually we were eating toward the wind—but we made considerable leeway as well. Handy Solomon, taut as the weather rigging, took his little advantages one by one like precious gifts. Light there was none; the land was blotted out by the steam and murk which had crept to sea and now was hurled back by the wind. All we could do was to hang there, tasting ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... from the asteroid, and the cable that bound the two together became taut. Harry carefully inspected his handiwork to make sure that everything had been done properly and that the mechanism would stand ...
— Thin Edge • Gordon Randall Garrett
... suddenly changed to a yell. The drum beat quickened, and the great circle of dancing Indians broke and charged the crowd of whites. A number of them drew revolvers and began firing them into the air. Others drew taut the great bows they carried. The whites ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Wayland looked at her and felt his masterdom going to those same winds; for the pace had painted her ivory cheeks, not rose color, but the deep flame of the wild flower. Some day, perhaps,—no matter; he set his teeth and screwed the whipcord muscles taut; for the moraine stones had begun to roll, and there was a zig-zag flash of lightning that sent fire balls sizzling over the rock. He braced her to the leap down the steep sliding moraine, and felt the frenzy of ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... long, and though, after a spell, we had our ups and downs, as is but natural to human creeters, we never come to such a pass agin. Both on us tried real hard; whenever I felt my temper risin' or discontent comin' on I remembered them days and kep' a taut rein; and as for Lisha he never said a raspin' word, or got sulky, but what he'd bust out laughin' after it and say: 'Bless you, Cynthy, it warn't me, it was ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... on my list to Mijares and Co., in "Monkey Business." We have the exquisite criterion always for the wire, in the perfect Bird Millman. "Monkey Business" is a very good act, and both men do excellent work on the taut and slack wire. "Monkey," in this case being a man, does as beautiful a piece of work as I know of. I have never seen a back somersault upon a high wire. I have never heard of it before. There may be ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... that Rutolo would adopt this plan. He stood on guard, bent like a taut bow, watching ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... the handsomest make. The riding-breeches, top-boots, and spurs were such that even Waring could not criticise. His sabre gleamed in the moonbeams, and Kinsey's old leather-covered sword looked dingy by contrast. His belt fitted trim and taut, and was polished as his boot-tops; Kinsey's sank down over the left hip, and was worn brown. The sash Ferry sported as battery officer of the day was draped, West Point fashion, over the shoulder and around the waist, and accurately ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... with pointed beards and fat American merchant men without any beards drive to a feast of buttered squabs. The band... accoutered and neatly caparisoned... plays the Marseillaise.... And I think of a wild stallion... newly caught... flanks yet taut and nostrils spread to the smell of a racing mare, hitched to ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... yourself. You shouldn't want to fling yourself all loose into a woman's lap. You should stand by yourself and learn to be by yourself. Why don't you be more like the Japanese you talk about? Quiet, aloof little devils. They don't bother about being loved. They keep themselves taut in their own selves—there, at the bottom of the spine—the devil's own ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... diamonds; here and there a resinous pine, steeped in heat, threw out a cloud of balmy odor; a chipmunk scuttered across their path, clicking nervously, only to squat on his haunches and stare beadily at Rose-Marie, taut with quivering curiosity. Caroline ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... when they met the Tartar outposts. A cloud of horse swept down on them, each man riding loose with his hand on a taut bowstring. In silence they surrounded the little party, and their leader made signs to Aimery to dismount. The Constable had procured for him a letter in Tartar script, setting out the purpose of his ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... wife held everything Roman, that before passing the night in the tent to which they had been taken, they examined it carefully. The tent, round of form, was decorated inside with woolen cloth, striped in strongly contrasting colors. It was fixed on taut cords which were fastened to stakes driven into the earth. The cloth of the tent did not come down close to the ground, and Albinik remarked that between the coarsely tanned hides which served as a carpet, and the lower edge of the tent, there remained a ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... painter became taut; the small boat gave a sudden jerk, and he went overboard again ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... gone there anyway," said Lois, still all a-quiver, and shivering close to my shoulder. I put my arm around her; every muscle of her body was rigid, taut, yet trembling, as a smooth and finely turned pointer trembles with eagerness and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... friend she would not be safe, because one faced the absurd peril of losing one's head a little and forgetting the precautions one should never lose sight of where a woman was concerned—the precautions which provided for one's holding a good taut ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... treachery, for there shall be none To aid me, God nor man; nor yet will I Stir finger in the business, but will die By murder sooner than in battle fall Under some Trojan hand." Breathless stood all, Not moving out; but Paris on the roof Of his high house, where snug he sat aloof, Drew taut the bowstring home, and notched a shaft, Soft whistling to himself, what time with craft Of peering eyes and narrow twisted face He sought an aim. Swift from her hiding-place Came burning Helen then, in ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... no breath fanned your cheek, your senses easily detected the delicious odor of a distant garden of sweet roses. The sea sparkled with phosphorescence. Not a sound was heard except the panting of the hard-worked little donkey-engine and the whirr of the line as it came up taut and dripping from the ocean depths. The lamp, hanging from the mast, threw a bright glare on deck, presenting the strongest contrast with the black shadows, firm and motionless as marble. The 11th day of December was now ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... Satisfied at length, he floated out his barrel, and followed with the line in his hand, to aid its direction if necessary. It struck the tree. With a yell of joy Angus laid hold of it, and hauling the line taut, and feeling it secure, committed himself at once to the water, holding by the barrel, and swimming with his legs, while Gibbie, away to the side with a hold of the rope, was swimming his hardest to draw him out of the current. ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... chain-gang emerged from the boma gate, going full-pelt, fastened neck to neck, the chain taut and each man carrying a water-jar. The minute they had crossed the square Schubert commenced with company drill, and for two hours after that, with but one interval of less than five minutes for rest, he kept them pounding the gravel in evolution ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... the slack chain's end till they got to the milestone, and then suddenly he darted ahead and took the lead, the chain stretched taut, and the boy had all his work cut out to keep up with the dog. Up the hill they went on to the downs, and in and out among the furze bushes. The night was no longer dark to Edred. His eyes had got used to the gentle ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... and stains can be removed much more easily before washing. Fruit stains are probably the most common and they will usually disappear if the stained portion is held taut over a basin and hot water poured over ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... continents more recently settled by the same race, across the ocean, and across century-seas of time, shall moor their memories to these humble dwellings of England's hamlets, and feel how many taut and twisted liens attach them to ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... when once off their feet; just a slow, steady pull from the oars, and a taut enough halter to lean on in the tight places. But others rolled over like logs when the full force of the current struck them, threatening to drag the boat under, as it and the horse raced away down stream with ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... closed, while Bell found every separate muscle in his body draw taut. And while his brain at first was dazed with incredulous relief, then it went dark with a new ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... through the air, and the noose went out over the head and neck and fore feet of the steer, and the horse stopped and set itself back on its haunches, and the rope got around the belly of the steer, and when the rope became taut, and the steer ought to have been turned bottom-side up, the cinch of pa's saddle broke, the saddle came off with pa hugging his legs around it, and the black steer started due west for Texas, galloping and bellowing, and you couldn't see Pa ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... wonderful than anything her fancy had ever pictured. She liked best the cities through which they passed, their life, the bustle and confusion, the hurrying throngs, the rushing automobiles, the gleaming railroad tracks like taut bands of silver, the smoke-screened factories with their belching stacks, the rows upon rows of houses, snuggling in friendly ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... They were fair in the open now, already far from the city. It was the heat of a blistering Sunday and not a team or a pedestrian was astir. Ahead, for a mile, for miles perhaps, as far as they could see, not an animate dot marred the surface of the taut, ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... shell, which soon became light and dry. I then scraped out with my tomahawk any of the rough inner part that remained, and stretched over the ends of each section a pair of the thinnest wallaby skins I could find; these skins were held taut by sinews from the tail of a kangaroo. I tried emu-skins for the drum-heads, but found they were no good, as they soon became perforated ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... complaint is of pain and stiffness in the muscles of mastication, notably the masseter, so that he has difficulty in opening the mouth—hence the popular name "lock-jaw." The muscles of expression soon share in the rigidity, and the face assumes a taut, mask-like aspect. The angles of the mouth may be retracted, producing a grinning expression known as the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... draw the share. The traces are taut, the swing-tree like a yard braced square, the helmsman at the tiller bears hard upon the stilts. But does it move? The leading horse, seen distinct against the sky, lifts a hoof and places it down again, stepping in the last furrow ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... foot. It was just as if his ankle had been suddenly caught in a clove hitch and the rope drawn tight. He screamed out with pain and terror, and suddenly and viciously a whip-lash shot out from the water, lassoed him round the left knee, drew itself taut, and held him. ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... what Bud has been waiting for. With the agility of a cat, he swings himself into the saddle. The pony arches its back like a bow-string, every muscle taut. ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... they looked after the operation, with leaves tipped over, unable to remain erect? While growing, the stem zigzags or winds about more or less, and thus enables it to hold the leaves erect; besides, the tendrils catch on to weeds and curl up tight, and the roots at the joints are drawn taut on each side after the manner mentioned above, and act like ropes to a mast to hold the stem in its place, and thus help to hold ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... the evil one. That's where you came from!' - a walk up and down the pulpit: 'and where are you going' - stopping abruptly: 'where are you going? Aloft!' - very softly, and pointing upward: 'Aloft!' - louder: 'aloft!' - louder still: 'That's where you are going - with a fair wind, - all taut and trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory, where there are no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' - Another walk: 'That's where you're going to, my friends. That's it. That's the place. That's the port. That's the haven. It's a blessed ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... would be away down the wind on another tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment,—but only just a moment,—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," or some godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... back on the taut rope and fairly jerked the old man out of the miry hole. Scrambling on hands and knees, Toby reached firmer ground, and ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... sea became choppy, and white-caps danced fitfully over the greenish stretches, growing wilder and wilder under the whip of a flouting wind. The two patchwork sails on the lumbering Doraine flapped noisily for awhile, as if shaking off their tor-por, then suddenly grew taut and fat with prosperity. The twisted, half-jammed rudder,—far from worthy despite the efforts of its repairers,—whiningly obeyed the man at the wheel, and once more the ship felt the caress of the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... all the time that he was pitted against a hard man, and so his muscles were strained and his nerves were taut. ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... and wet struck him sharply in the face and fell with a splash on the water beside him. He clutched for it quickly, and clasped it with both hands and felt it grow taut; and then gave up thinking, and they pulled him ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... The taut bands of wire stretched east and west of the road for more than twenty miles in each direction, with duplicates of the metal sign hung on the fence every five hundred yards. Then the wires turned south for nearly a hundred miles, etching ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... against her ears, yet roused no thrilling response. The trembling voice, the intensity of the worn old words coming from him,—it was all like another man suddenly appearing in the guise of one she thought she knew so well! The taut muscles of his powerful arm pressing against her troubled her. She would have fled,—why could one be like this! Still she caressed his face and hair, kissing him gently. Oh, yes, she loved him,—she was his! ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... Pearle swore like a woman, weakly, with the hint of tears that comes of exhaustion, and plunged deeper into the maze of heaped ice, tents, and prospect holes. He stumbled over taut hawsers and piles of dunnage, tripped on crazy guy-ropes and insanely planted pegs, and fell again and again upon frozen dumps and mounds of hoarded driftwood. At times, when he deemed he had drawn clear, his head dizzy with the painful pounding of his heart ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... said, that there is not one among all the fabled deities of antiquity, whom (if the writers of antiquity may be trusted) it is not possible to identify with every other—Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Pan, Hercules, Priapus, Bacchus, Bel, Moloch, Chemosh, Taut, Thoth, Osiris, Buddha, Vishnou, Siva, all and each of these may be shown to be one and the same person. And whether we suppose this person to have been the Sun, or to have been Adam, or Seth, or Enoch, or Noah, or Shem, or Ham, or Japhet, the conclusion will be still ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... a lovely fancy dance that she had learned in New York, and then she did the grotesque and humorous dances called for by the occasion. The one that necessitated springing, head first, through hoops covered with light, thin paper, she did very prettily, striking the taut paper with just the right force to snap it ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... sounds, all of them musical. There were swift actions, too: a Kanaka crawled out upon the bowsprit to make taut a slack stay, while two others with pulley-blocks swarmed aloft. Occasionally the canvas snapped as the wind veered slightly. The sea was no longer rolling brass; it was bluer than anything he had ever seen. Every so often a wall of water, thin ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... Her flowered hat, her shape—though a little angular and stiff,—her gestures and her bright lively damson-coloured eyes were all youthful enough. But one could see that her inquiet hands, which were folded on her lap, had been worn by many a washing-day. Her skin, though wrinkled, was taut over the outstanding facial bones, as if the wrinkles might have opened out and have equalized the strain, had age not hardened them to brown cracks—and the tan of her complexion had old age's lack of clearness. As so ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... and clumsy, and if too great a strain is put on the rope it is more likely to break at the knot than at any other spot. The "Fisherman's Knot," shown in Fig. 17, is a good knot and is formed by two simple overhand knots slipped over each rope, and when drawn taut appears as in Fig. 18. This is an important and valuable knot for anglers, as the two lines may be drawn apart by taking hold of the ends, A, B, and a third line for a sinker, or extra hook, may be inserted between them. In joining gut lines ...
— Knots, Splices and Rope Work • A. Hyatt Verrill
... There is one standing in the open. It has performed a feat no civil engineer can emulate. Think of those roots so busily scurrying around in the earth, gathering food to send up the cambium highway to nourish the trees. See the taut cords thrown out to anchor it against the storms. Look at those trees on the outskirts. Among wild animals the strongest are on guard on the outside to protect the herd. So these sentinel trees guard their wards against the storms. Fool man cuts down ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... this fall," said the Captain meekly acquiescing, "on the fourteenth day of September, as ever was, I looks out from the tower, bein' a-fillin' of the lamps, and says I, 'There's a storm comin'!' So I made all taut above and below, fastened the door, and took my glass and went out on the rocks, to see how things looked. Wal, they looked pooty bad. There had been a heavy sea on for a couple o' days, and the clouds that was ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... Larry, taut with the desire to strike, gazed for a moment into the glowering face of the detective. Gavegan, gripping his right arm, with that bone-crushing slug-shot itching for instant use, was apparently master ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... nothing to look forward to with hope, So now and never any different." Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves, As if she played unheard the tenderness That wrought on him beside her in the night. "Warren," she said, "he has come home to die: You needn't be afraid he'll leave you this time." "Home," he mocked gently. "Yes, what else but home? It all depends on what ...
— North of Boston • Robert Frost
... it, there was this gentle fluttering as of wings through all its intricate parts, but the same moment four shooting stars pierced its outlying edges with flying nails of gold. It steadied and grew taut. ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... swung open. The horses were plunging on the taut reins. The lady drew her skirts in at her side and nodded. Lewis stepped into the carriage. The horses shot forward ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... hardly reached their positions—two on each side of the stream—when a shout from the Professor announced a catch, as hand over hand he cautiously drew in the swerving line or held it taut, as the diving fish sought the rocky bottom or the friendly refuge of a log drift. With unvarying stroke Tim kept his boat in deep water, away from entangling dangers. There was a flash in the air and a jingle of the troll, as a fine bass shot out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... some of the range-riders had thrown a coat over the head of the stallion, and while he stood quivering with helpless rage they flung a saddle on and drew the cinches taut. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... Sandy allowed the babiche to fall slack. Then with a sudden powerful pull he jerked Kazan out into the water. Instantly he sent the canoe into midstream, swung it quickly down with the current, and began to paddle enough to keep the babiche taut about his victim's neck. In spite of his sickness and injuries Kazan was now compelled to swim to keep his head above water. In the wash of the canoe, and with Sandy's strokes growing steadily stronger, his position became each moment one of increasing ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... all sounds the animals had not stopped feeding. So the other was no beetle-head. On the other hand, why would Thorvald so advertise his coming, unless the need for speed was greater than caution? Shann drew taut the mooring cord, bringing out his knife to saw through that tough length. A figure passed the three-sprig signal, ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... compositions, Malwa artists preferred a more fluid grouping, their straining luxuriant trees blending with swaying creepers to create a soft meandering rhythm and only the human figures, with their sharply cut veils and taut intense faces, expressing the prevailing cult of frenzied passion.[82] Such schools of painting reflected the Rajput need for passionate romance rather than any specially strong adhesion to Krishna, the divine lover. Although one copy of the Rasika Priya and ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer |
