"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the camp-fires, with their minds on the rack, Eating salt pork with a little hard-tack, Wading through snow or fording a river, Or asleep on the ground ...
— Our Little Brown House, A Poem of West Point • Maria L. Stewart
... The curse of my poverty has been that I have had to flatter and to dissemble, and hide the faults of those I wanted to help, and to smile when I was hurt, and laugh when I was sad, and to coax, and to tack, and to bide my time,—not with Mr. Milliken: he is all honor, and kindness, and simplicity. Who did HE ever injure, or what unkind word did HE ever say? But do you think, with the jealousy of those poor ladies over his house, I could have stayed here without being a hypocrite to both of them? ...
— The Wolves and the Lamb • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Tack or nail, only let's see you get back where we started from." Lincoln was skeptical of sailboats. He had heard about sailing "just where you wanted to go," but he had his doubts ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... out here in winter—" Max went off on a new tack—"it's seemed to me absolute foolishness. But if Neil Chase is so, confoundedly anxious to move in ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... of the deep sea. It is not recreation; it is an essential part of the work. It mastheads the topsail yards, on making sail; it starts the anchor from the domestic or foreign mud; it 'rides down the main tack with a will;' it breaks out and takes on board a cargo; it keeps the pumps (the ship's, not the sailor's) going. A good voice and a new and stirring chorus are worth an extra man. And there is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... grateful curiosity and some scorn at the discovery. "Wa'al," he said, looking around as if to take the entire Posada into his confidence, "way up in North Liberty, where I kem from, he was allus known as Dick Demorest, and didn't tack any forrin titles to his name. Et wouldn't hev gone down there, I reckon, 'mongst free-born Merikin citizens, no mor'n aliases would in court—and I kinder guess for the same reason. But folks get peart and sassy when they're way from hum, and put on ez many airs as a ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... GOVERNMENT.—When the Republican party came into power in 1801, it was pledged to make reforms "to put the ship of state," as Jefferson said, "on the Republican tack." About a third of the important Federalist office-holders were accordingly removed from office, the annual speech at the opening of Congress was abolished, and the written message introduced—a custom followed ever since by our Presidents. Internal taxes were repealed, the army was reduced, [14] ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... the largest of the Spanish vessels would scarcely pass for third-rates in the present navy of England; yet were they so ill framed, or so ill governed, that they were quite unwieldy, and could not sail upon a wind, nor tack on occasion, nor be managed in stormy weather by the seamen. Neither the mechanics of ship-building, nor the experience of mariners, had attained so great perfection as could serve for the security and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... into Great Russel with a glorious sweep, shook herself proudly to the other tack, and went foaming past the Equetelees and the Grands Bouillons, swept round the south of Jethou, and began short tacking for Peter Port in ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... lengthened into autumn, and there was no movement of the troops. The ardor of their patriotism died out. It was a monotonous life, waking early in the morning to answer roll-call, to eat breakfast of salt pork and hard-tack, drilling by squads, by companies, by battalion, marching and countermarching, going through the same manoeuvres every day, shouldering, ordering, and presenting arms, making believe load and fire, standing on guard, putting out their lights at nine o'clock at night,—doing all this, ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... I know; for no ship is always in the same tack. Men change their minds as often as girls; and if you coax the old boy handsomely, when you bid him good-night, my compass to your distaff, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... fault to find with Mr. Bartlett's Dictionary, and that it shares with all other provincial glossaries. No accents are given. No stranger could tell, for example, whether hacmatack should be pronounced hac'matack, hacma'tack, or hacmatack'. The value of Mr. Wright's otherwise excellent dictionary is very much impaired by this neglect. Ignorance of the pronunciation enhances tenfold the difficulty of tracing analogies or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... eager hand, in haste to rhyme, Should tack an empty couplet at a time, Great names who do the same I might adduce; Nay, some who keep such hirelings for their use. Need blooming Phyllis be described in prose By any lover who has seen a rose? Who can forget heaven's masterpiece, her eye, Where, within ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... and slack each reef an' tack, Gae her sail, boys, while it may sit; She has roar'd through a heavier sea afore, An' she'll roar through a heavier yet. When landsmen sleep, or wake an' creep, In the tempest's angry moan, We dash through ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... an' whin it comes out in talk sometimes, it sounds like it. It's a kind iv nearthought that looks ginooine to th' thoughtless, but ye can't get annything on it. Manny a man I've knowed has so doped himsilf with books that he'd stumble over a carpet-tack. ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... driver urged his mules down hill at a dangerous pace. He was requested to slacken speed; but suspecting his passengers to be afraid, he only flogged the brutes into a still more furious gallop. Observing this, Mr. Stephenson coolly said, "Let us try him on the other tack; tell him to show us the fastest pace at which Spanish mules can go." The rogue of a driver, when he found his tricks of no avail, pulled up and proceeded at a more moderate speed for the rest ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... a realizing sense of what the devil is doing for it. To see BISMARCK feeding on shrimps with anchovy sauce, and drinking champagne, while TROCHU and JULES FAVRE fight domestic treason within the walls, and the Prussians without, upon stomachs that feebly digest Parisian "hard tack" and gritty vin ordinaire, is enough to make the spirit of liberty lay over the mourner's bench and perpetrate a perfect Niagara of tears. When FLOURENS bagged the whole government at the Hotel de Ville ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... with such strength as obliged us to take in all our sails, to strike top-gallant-masts, and to get the spritsail-yard in. And I thought proper to wear, and lie-to, under a mizzen-stay-sail, with the ships' heads to the N.E. as they would bow the sea, which ran prodigiously high, better on this tack. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... canvas, turn the canoe over. Lay the canvas with the centre line along the keel. Stretch it well by pulling at each end, and tack it through the middle at the extreme ends with a few tacks in a temporary manner. Put in temporary tacks along the gunwale at moderate intervals, stretching slightly, and endeavor to get ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... subject, could not forget his birth-place; "and many is the time this ship, one of the finest models of Plymouth, has been bothered to overhaul the coasters of these seas. Here is the brigantine, that has laughed at us, on our best tack, and with our choice ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... common death of many a stronger boat. A post so fill'd on nature's laws entrenches: Benches on boats are placed, not boats on benches. And yet our Boat (how shall I reconcile it?) Was both a Boat, and in one sense a pilot. With every wind he sail'd, and well could tack: Had many pendants, but abhorr'd a Jack.[4] He's gone, although his friends began to hope, That he might yet be lifted by a rope. Behold the awful bench, on which he sat! He was as hard and ponderous ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... keeping company with the Frenchmen. Being to leeward, and desirous of obtaining the weather-gage, as the safest situation for his own ship, he carried a heavy press of sail, and in the night of the 14th, having stretched on, as he thought, sufficiently for that purpose, put the Loire on the same tack as they were. About two A.M., it being then exceedingly dark, he found himself so near one of the largest ships as to hear the officer of the watch giving his orders. As the noise of putting about would have discovered the Loire's situation, Captain Maitland very prudently ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... very midst of the confusion, when it seemed positive that the whole school must be aroused, there came a commanding rap upon the window pane. It was not the gentle signal of the tick-tack—no, indeed! ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... look at her. She's a beauty. She is drawing nearer on this tack, but nobody knows yet whether she can outrun ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... navigation-laws be enforced first of all, and see that the due proportion of the crews of every ship be native-born. Let the custom-house protections be no longer the farce they are,—where a man who talks of "awlin haft the main tack" is set down as a native of Martha's Vineyard, and his messmate, who couldn't say "peas" without betraying County Cork, is permitted to hail from the interior of Pennsylvania. Let the ship-owners combine (it is for their interest) to do away with the whole body of shipping-agents, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... and Palestine, but Stamboul and the Straits were quite a different pair of shoes. H.I.H. gripped my hand and pressed it till I all but squealed. It was delightful to talk to a soldier who went straight to the point, said he, but he dashed off on another tack, asking what were our military objections to the Alexandretta plan; so I went over much the same ground as had already been gone over at Mohileff, promising to let him have a memorandum on ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... tutors and governors all devoting themselves to your advancement. And you conduct yourself to us as if the Righteous Judge had cast us away from His presence, because we were not found among the wise and mighty of this world. The truth is, that the whole world is on a wholly wrong tack in its praise and in its blame. We praise the man of great gifts, and we blame the man of small gifts, completely forgetful that in so doing we give men the praise that belongs to God, and lay on men the blame, which, if there is any blame in the matter, ought to be laid ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... Nothing left now but Third Reading. "Well, KNOX," said WINDBAG SEXTON, "that will be our last opportunity, and we must make the most of it. In meantime I think we've done pretty well. I'm especially pleased with you. You're a boy of great promise. If anything happened to me—a stray tack in the bench, or a pin maliciously directed, and the wind-bag were to collapse—you'd do capitally, till ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... without saying more. Galusha wondered what had set him off upon that tack. That afternoon, while in the village, he met Nelson Howard and the latter furnished an explanation. It seemed that the young man had been to see Captain Jethro, had dared to call at the light with the deliberate intention of ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Philadelphia, I resolved to shift my ground, and try a new tack. I was now thirty-four, and began to give up all thoughts of getting a lift in my profession. I had got so many stern-boards on me, every time I was going ahead, and was so completely alone in the world, that I had become indifferent, and had made up my mind to take things as they ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper
... as large as conger eels. Heat is what the worms are fond of; but cold—cold will kill them. Now I'll cure you. Quarter-master, come here. Walk this boy up and down the weather-gangway, and every time you get forward abreast of the main-tack block, put his mouth to windward, squeeze him sharp by the nape of the neck until he opens his mouth wide, and there keep him and let the cold air blow down his throat, while you count ten; then walk him aft, and when you are ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... enemy so close that I could see their teeth as they bit the cartridges, and General Pike, on the right wing, cheering them on—so gallant and bold. I was a-feared I would be nabbed as a prisoner, and sent to eat Uncle Sam's hard-tack in the hulks at Sackett's Harbour, when, all of a sudden, the ground trembled like the earthquakes I have felt in the West Indies; then a volcano of fire burst up to the sky, and, in a minute, the air seemed raining fire and brimstone, as it did at Sodom and Gomorrah. It seemed like the judgment-day. ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... well; tack it down, and wash it upon the floor; the floor should be very clean; use cold soap suds; to three gallons add half a tumbler of beef-gall; this will prevent the colors from fading. Should there be grease spots, apply a mixture of beef-gall, fuller's-earth, and water enough ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... the harbour's mouth. We had got just outside the harbour when we saw a man-of-war brig under all sail standing in. A beautiful sight she was, her canvas so white, her sides so polished!—on she stood, not a brace nor tack slackened. Papa looked at her with the affection of an old sailor. It was an object which reminded him of his younger days. "You don't see many like her now," he observed. Presently, as she was starting by us, a shrill whistle was heard. Like ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... ears, and mouths open, as if spell-bound in listening to him, thus continues: "He describes a ship at sea, bound for the port of Heaven, when the man at the head sung out, 'Rocks ahead!' 'Port the helm,' cried the mate. 'Ay, ay, sir,' was the answer; the ship obeyed, and stood upon a tack. But in two minutes more, the lead indicated a shoal. The man on the out-look sung out, 'Sandbreaks and breakers ahead!' The captain was now called, and the mate gave his opinion; but sail where they could, the lead and the eye showed ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... care to eat much. Even Nick, for the time being, had gone back on that wonderful appetite of his, and actually turned up his nose when George got out the bag that contained hard tack and cheese, asking the fat boy if he cared to have a "snack" to fortify him against what might yet be in store ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... are now in the Pepper Month; And soon will come the Feast of Go Nien. Then I will pay my debts, and gather in my dues. I will walk in the great procession; And afterwards I will hang up my devil-chasers And will proceed to the restaurant of Ng Tack, And drink spring wine with him and meet ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... only as a method of travel by the merry microbe and are immune from the effects. Of course Jack has all sorts of theories as to why this is so. But did you ever see a scientist who didn't have a workable theory for everything from the wrong end of a carpet-tack to the evolution ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... everything—even of his good works, the parsons say, but I shan't be much the barer for that! It's hard, confounded hard, though, when they're all a fellow has got!—Now don't say a word! I don't like being contradicted!—not at all! It sends one round on the other tack, I tell you—and there's my gout coming! Only mind this: if once you say who you are as long as you're at college, or before I give you leave, I have done with you. I won't have any little plan of mine forestalled for your vanity! Don't any of you say ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... buntlines!" shouted the first lieutenant; and the hands sprang to their several stations. "Stand by tack and sheet." ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... English man of War; Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in Learning; Solid, but Slow in his performances. Shake-spear, with the English man-of-War, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, {57} tack about and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his Wit and Invention." Francis Beaumont, the dramatist, wrote the following ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... unmoor the ship. With eager joy I launch into the deep; And, heedless of the fraud, for Naxos stand: They whisper oft, and beckon with the hand, And give me signs, all anxious for their prey, To tack about, and steer another way. 80 "Then let some other to my post succeed," Said I, "I'm guiltless of so foul a deed." "What," says Ethalion, "must the ship's whole crew Follow your humour, and depend on you?" And straight himself he seated ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... whole spirit and method of the work. To a eulogium of the professional skill and successful [30] agricultural enterprise of Dr. Nichol, a medical officer of that Colony, with whom he became acquainted for the first time during his short stay there, our author travels out of his way to tack on a gratuitous and pointless sneer at the educational competency of all the elected members of the island legislature, among whom, he tells us, the worthy doctor had often tried in vain to obtain a place. His want of success, our author ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... thought it necessary to have recourse to the king, and in fact did so. For seeing the vessel so far at sea, with what I knew of the captain's disposition, I began to fear that he had formed the plan of leaving me on the island. My fears, nevertheless were ill-founded; the vessel made a tack toward the shore, to my great joy; and a double pirogue was furnished me, through the good offices of our young friend the French schoolmaster, to return on ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... Lindsley; and see them reporters. And there's the editor of the Whistler. Say, this aint no bloody church meeting; there aint a preacher on the stage. Them fellers mean business. We've got to watch out if they keep on this tack. And would you look at ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... other things shows there was a friendly feeling toward me from the first. After having thus expressed himself, he directed me to print my name on each of four pieces of paper, and to tack them up in certain places in the room, which he indicated to me. I did this several times before I could please him; but at last succeeded. Another corporal visited me during the day and declared everything out of order, although I had not touched a single thing after once satisfying the first corporal. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... to stern and divided internally into water-tight compartments. They could therefore ship a sea with perfect impunity, and although often exposed to sudden and violent squalls, we were never in any real danger. One of my catamarans would beat to windward tolerably well, but she did not tack quickly, and occasionally missed stays. However, these defects were of slight importance in a boat not intended for racing, and small enough to be always quite manageable with oars. Since those days I have much improved the construction of catamarans, so ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... wider and sweeter. "Well, let him live. Poor old thing! 'T won't hurt none, and he is a kind o' comfort to lay things on when you've been, more'n usual, cussed. That's the Andrew Halloran over there to the left." He pointed to a dusky boat that was coming in slowly. "That's his last tack, if he makes it, and I reckon he will. Now, if you'll go in and start the chowder, I'll see if he want's any help ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... silence. Teresa had returned to the kitchen, the door closing with a bang to demonstrate her displeasure. Nothing could be heard but the tick-tack of the clock, and the sound of the turning pages, as Paula, in spite of her tears, looked for ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... to attempt to lock the stable after the steed was stolen? What drove her off all of a sudden on this dreadfully candid and prudent tack? She only knew. Possibly it was to ease her own troubled conscience: but with Sam Winnington constantly dangling about her skirts, and receiving sufficient encouragement, too, it was hard for Dulcie to bear. She was in a fine passion; she would not tell Clary, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... strange career; The tiros love it, but the experts fear. You, while you're sailing on a prosperous tack, Look out for squalls which yet may drive you back. The gay dislike the grave, the staid the pert, The quick the slow, the lazy the alert; Hard drinkers hate the sober, though he swear Those bouts at night are more than he can bear. Unknit your brow; the silent ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... to raise the poor animal from his perilous position, which great work, to the no small joy of the major, was effected by putting the "Two Marys" on the other tack. Old Battle now shook the water from his mane, and as if to thank his deliverers, gave out a loud neigh. And so suddenly did this bring the major to his feet, in the full possession of his senses, that he set about thanking heaven for its kind interposition in saving him and his horse to his ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... lee, now to the dark rocks ahead, and now at his masts and spars. "No higher," he had more than once to cry out, as the men at the helm, anxious to gain every advantage, kept her too close to the wind. "We cannot hope to weather the reef on this tack," he observed to the lieutenant, who was ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... teeth of the wind, and headed her for the wreck. How her sharp prow did tear through the waves, and at times she was almost smothered by the leaping water. But this course would not bring them to the overturned boat. It was necessary for them to tack once more, and as they drew near they could see people clinging frantically to the half-submerged yacht. The captain gave a loud shout of encouragement when he came within speaking distance. With much skill he handled his boat, and told Rod to be ready to give a ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... corr'd er trunk avaur en, An by hiz belt o' leather A bid er hawld vast; on thAc rawd, Athout much tAck, together. ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... the wind aft, and away you scud, with a flowing sheet, and a rapidity which delights you: at other times, when your spirit flags, and you gnaw your pen (I have lately used iron pens, for I'm a devil of a crib-biter), it is like unto a foul wind, tack and tack, requiring a long time to get on a short distance. But still you do go, although but slowly; and in both cases we must take the foul wind with the fair. If a ship were to furl her sails until the wind again was favourable, her voyage would be protracted to an ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and lean, like a rail, with a kind of a bend in him when he walks, and the under lid of his left eye drawed like you'd pulled it down and stuck a tack in it. He's wearin' a cap, and he's kind of whiskered up, like he'd been layin' ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... friend, may not I smile at some jest between myself and my pipe, but thou must tack more meaning to it than Brewster says hung on Lord Burleigh's nod? And yet in sober sadness, Myles, 't is marvel to me how thou, born to a great name and to such observance as awaits the children of wealthy houses, and then, when hardly more ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... in a worn black dress, was waiting for him in the midst of a floor strewn with wreckage. The curtain at the window had been pulled by a heavy hand and hung by one tack, dangling to and fro in the draft through the cracks at the sash. The knots of blue ribbons appeared like violated flowers. The fire in the stove had gone out. The displaced lids and open doors showed heaps of sullen grey ashes. The remnants of a meal, ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... tack for the landing, but his hands shook until he scarcely could manage the boat. Edith Carr sat watching him indifferently, but her heart was throbbing painfully. "Why is there so much suffering in the world?" she kept whispering to herself. ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... newspapers was always saying how extraordinary it was that The Avenger chose such a peculiar time to do his deeds—I mean, the time when no one's about the streets. Now, doesn't it stand to reason that the fellow, reading all that, and seeing the sense of it, said to himself, 'I'll go on another tack this time'? Just listen to this!" He pulled a strip of paper, part of a column cut from a newspaper, out ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... judged from appearances, young man. Don't you git into the way of doin' that, else you'll be for ever sailin' on the wrong tack. Take my advice, an' never look as if you thought a man gave you more than he could ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... day out, I think (we were then working down the east side of the Gulf of Siam, tack for tack, in light winds and smooth water)—the fourth day, I say, of this miserable juggling with the unavoidable, as we sat at our evening meal, that man, whose slightest movement I dreaded, after putting down the dishes ran up on deck busily. This could not be dangerous. ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... enough. When we're on the other tack she'll careen over the other side. The stiffer the breeze and the more sail there is, the more she careens. I've been in a smack when we've been nearly lying down in the water, and it's washed ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... are thy people; they worship thee. I turn my back on thee for the present, and am on another tack, worshipping another god. But do thou bless these thy people; keep them from harm, ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were silenced. They quited her a little, and then went down and searched the house ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... said, opening the ball by sticking a carving fork into the great joint, and waving the knife in a general way round the company; then as the gravy sizzed out in a steaming gurgle he added invitingly: "Come on, chaps! This is VEAL prime stuff! None of your staggering Bob tack"; and the Maluka and the Dandy bidding against him, to Cheon's delight, every one "came on" for some of everything; for veal and ham and chicken and several vegetables and sauces blend wonderfully together when a Cheon's hand has been ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard,"—and "veer starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the wind."—His vanity now and then ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... rocking form of wave-motor as an aid to propulsion will be recommended on account of the fact that when the weather is "on the beam" both of its sources of power can be kept in full use. The sailing vessel must tack at any rate with the object of giving its sail power a fair chance, and thus, when it has not a fair "wind that follows free," it must always seek to get the breeze on its beam, and therefore usually the swell must be taking it sideways. It would be only on rare occasions ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland
... hoisted their sails to have the wind on their quarter, as the sun shone full in their faces, which they considered might be of disadvantage to them, and stretched out a little, so that at last they got the wind as they wished. The Normans, who saw them tack, could not help wondering why they did so, and said they took good care to turn about, for they were afraid of meddling with them. They perceived, however, by his banner, that the King was on board, which gave them great ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the open sea, with all sail set; whilst my little barque did little more than tack about near the shore. One day I received the following letter; it was in a pleasant and careful handwriting, and orthography was observed with complete regularity, which suggested that a man had been ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... for entering, no danger is to be apprehended to vessels whose draft of water does not exceed nine or ten feet. Should however circumstances render it imprudent or impracticable to enter, the coast may be cleared on either tack, the indenture of the coast line not being such as to cause it ever to be ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley
... down upon the Turks as they emerged from the strait. But the Venetian admiral placed his chief reliance in his galleasses, and as yet the art of manoeuvring sailing vessels in battle array was in its youth. Bad steering here, a wrong tack there, and then ship ran against ship, the great galleasses became entangled and helpless, carried by the wind into the midst of the enemy, or borne away where they were useless, and the Turkish galleys had it all their own way. Loredano's flagship burnt down to the water, and other vessels were ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... you hate, Jenny. Now tack this strip in place, child, and then paste on the muslin. We must finish this before night, and there is more than a day's work ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... when in latitude 59 deg. 58' N., longitude 59 deg. 53' W., we first fell in with large icebergs; and in the evening were encompassed by several of considerable magnitude, which obliged us to tack the ship in order to prevent our getting entangled amongst them. The estimated distance from the nearest part of the Labrador coast was then eighty-eight miles; here we tried for soundings, without gaining the bottom. The ship passed through some strong riplings, ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... fact, I do! Didn't once! At college, you know; got into a free-thinking set, and chucked the whole thing aside. But I've been about a good bit. I've seen countries where they go on that tack and it doesn't pay. The old way is the best. I know I'm a bit careless still. Men are, Miss Ramsden, when they have only themselves to think of. They get into the way of leaving that sort of thing to their mothers and sisters, but when a fellow starts for ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... not to burst out sobbing. She extended her hands, desirous of easing the child, and as the shred of a sheet was falling, she wished to tack it up and arrange the bed. Then the dying girl's poor little body was seen. Ah! Mon Dieu! what misery! What woe! Stones would have wept. Lalie was bare, with only the remnants of a camisole on her shoulders by way of chemise; yes, bare, with the grievous, bleeding nudity of a martyr. She had no ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... next day, couldn't raise her head; Frank and Lulu were sick in bed; The dog and cat were a used-up pair, And all of them needed the doctor's care. The children themselves can hardly fail To tack a moral upon this trail; And I guess on rather more level grounds They'll play their next game of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... only started him on a new tack. 'Fowl!' he cried grimly. 'Kosher, of course, but with bits of fried Wurst to ape the scraps of bacon. And presently we shall be having water ices to simulate cream. We can't even preserve our dietary individuality. Truly ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... close to the shore for the sake of tacking! They watched her eagerly, but not one of the white men would have been wholly disappointed if the schooner, which they could now easily make out, had changed her course and gone off on a long tack to ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... reason, with its broader and milder suasion, might have failed in. If certain rare and precious virtues can thus be inaugurated, under the influence of a zeal exaggerating its own justification, there will be time later to insist on the complementary truths and to tack in the other direction after having been carried forward a certain distance by ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... verdure. The church-bells rang, and the children recognised the high towers, and the large town; it was that in which they dwelt. They entered and hastened up to their grandmother's room, where everything was standing as formerly. The clock said "tick! tack!" and the finger moved round; but as they entered, they remarked that they were now grown up. The roses on the leads hung blooming in at the open window; there stood the little children's chairs, and Kay and Gerda sat down ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... set in, so that the vessels could only keep in company by constant firing, and were obliged to tack about continually, at the risk of running foul of each other. Upon the 5th of December, although it would have appeared impossible, the fog increased in density to such an extent that those on board the Aigle could hear the movement ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... willing to surrender his kingdom for some swift means of getting away from that desperate scene of carnage. But if the cigarette boy had been faced pointblank with the proposition I do not believe he would have agreed to give up his kingdom for the "coffin tack." ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... and see if she'll do better on the other tack," said Harry. "Helm's a lee!" About she came, but scarcely had she gathered way when a more furious blast than before laid her over. I looked aloft—the top masts were bending like willow wands. I feared every instant that they would go, but it was not a moment to shorten sail. Presently the ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... channel into another. Some of the shoals were just awash, others bare. Ahead was a reef on which there appeared but very little water. I could see no opening into the channel beyond. To attempt to haul by the wind on either tack would bring us in a few minutes under fire of the schooner now coming up hand over hand. I ordered the ballast to be thrown overboard, and determined, as our only chance, to attempt to force her over the reef. She was ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... hard, remove fish from mold, hold it upon palm of left hand and tack edges of skin to back-board. (For general details of ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... going to make a long tack, this time I guess,' continued the earl, as they both stood watching the still lessening sails of the ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... box carefully using marking ink or a regulation tag. If a tag, tack with small tacks on the top of the box. Write your own name and address on the tag distinctly as the sender. Be as careful of the tacks as you were of the nails. Always get a receipt from your express agent if shipping by express as this will be necessary in ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... clock's ticking is a wonderful comfort. Tick-tack, tick-tack! and I think of you stretched asleep and happy and growing up to be a man, and the minutes running and ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... off, and filled again upon another tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up once more dead in the wind's eye. Again and again was this repeated. To and fro, up and down, north, south, east, and west, the Hispaniola sailed by swoops and dashes, and at each repetition ended as she ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to be too sanguine; before an hour had passed the wind shifted to the east-north-east. The Dolphin, close-hauled under larboard tack, ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... forefathers, when there was nothing but wretched boats up in Nordland, and folks must needs buy fair winds by the sackful from the Gan-Finn, it was not safe to tack about in the open sea in wintry weather. In those days a fisherman never grew old. It was mostly womenfolk and children, and the lame and halt, who were ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... even contrary winds; and at last, after one long tack stretching almost to the other side of Loch Scrone, they put about and managed to make the entrance to the harbour, just weathering the rocks that had nearly destroyed them on their setting out. But here another difficulty waited them. ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... like a god as he entered the room; nay, he acted like one. Schurz first took him in hand. With a lofty courtesy I have never seen equalled he tossed his inquisitor into the air. Halstead came next, and tried him upon another tack. He fared no better than Schurz. And hurrying to the rescue of my friends, McClure, looking now a bit bored and resentful, landed me ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... worked to the westward, to rain and misty weather, and all day we had been working ship in sight of the Irish coast, making little headway against the wind. It was dreary work, this laggard setting out—hanging about the land, tack and tack, instead of trimming yards to a run down Channel. Out on the open sea we could perforce be philosophic, and talk of 'the more days, the more dollars'; but here in crowded waters, with the high crown of Innistrahull ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... some more of your white Crows, Nat," said the Doctor, as they headed straight out after getting on the right tack. "The island where we are going is one ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... said he, filling his pipe. 'Davy will have to take the helm himself, if he would keep you on the right tack. Clear the decks now, and be off to your bed. If the gale lulls, I shall ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... the wrong tack altogether. I'm not a criminal. All your moralizings have no value for me. I don't believe in morality. I'm ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... had guarded him at the Federal metropolis, often fighting desperately under generals whose ability to command was doubtful. Meanwhile the dandies of McClellan's force had become veteran campaigners, accustomed to the exposure of the bivouac, the fatigue of the march, the poor comfort of hard- tack, the storm of battle, and the suffering of sickness and wounds. They had watched on many a picket line the movements of a wily foe; they paced their weary rounds on guard on many a wet and cheerless night; they had gone through the smoke and breasted the shock and turned the tide ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... respectable aunt's father had a large family of girls, and being of a classical turn of mind he called them after the Muses. The Muses held out for nine, but for the tenth and youngest he found himself in a difficulty. So he tried another tack and called the child after the nymph Egeria. It sounds outlandish, but I prefer it ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... hands soon brought the tack to the boom end, and the sheet was trimmed down, and the preventer and the weather brace hauled taut to take off the strain. Every rope-yarn seemed stretched to the utmost, and every thread of canvas; and with this sail added to her, the ship sprang through the water like a thing possessed. ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... towards the latter part of the afternoon commenced to blow from the southeast, kicking up a nasty sea very soon. We double reefed the mainsail reefed the foresail and hauled the flying jib down. About 8 P.M. we laid to with the jib hauled down, on the starboard tack. The wind had backed to the east about four points and was blowing a gale. About 12 M. it suddenly dropped, a flat calm, leaving a tremendous sea running from the southeast, combined with a smaller one from the east. Our motions, jumps, rolls and pitches, can be better imagined ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley
... childhood. I tried to be a boy again just for that night. I grasped the handle of the Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the carpet, ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... when I found Igubo drop down just near where I was, I rushed out and lift him up and bring him along; and de Pangwes just den no see us, because some young men who had got swords and bows and arrows 'tack dem, and fight bravely; but dey all killed, and den de Pangwes set fire to de village, and you ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... old-world scene which the sponge of time has obliterated for ever, and I behold again in memory those two noble frigates, the Imperieuse and the Chesapeake, straining tightly at their cables, with smoke-stacks too modest in proportions to impair to the critical nautical eye the tack and sheet suggestions of the graceful, exquisitely symmetrical fabric of spars and yards and rigging soaring triumphantly aloft to where the long whip or pennant at the main flickered like a delicate line of fire against the hard cold blue ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... just as well. Procure a wooden box such as cocoa tins or starch packages are shipped in and stretch several thicknesses of flannel or carpet over the bottom, allowing the edges to extend well up the sides, and tack smoothly. Make a handle of two stout strips of wood, 36 in. long, by joining their upper ends to a shorter crosspiece and nail it to the box. Place three paving bricks inside of the box, and the polisher will weigh about 16 lb., just the right weight for a woman to use. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... out her shrillest laugh. "Behind the coffin as Chief Mourner, I suppose. And you'll tack on the orthodox black sleeve-band, and look out for Number Two. And choose the ordinary kind, who funks raw-head and all the rest of it, for the next venture. But I prophesy you'll be bored. It's settled about Sheila ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... on bully beef and hard tack. The first is corned beef and the second is a kind of dog biscuit. We always wondered why they were so particular about a man's teeth in the army. Now I know. It's on account of these biscuits. The chief ingredient is, I think, cement, and they taste that way too. To break them it is necessary to ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... and I hardly ever yet saw that man who did not rather prate too much, than speak too little. And yet half of our age is embezzled this way: we are kept four or five years to learn words only, and to tack them together into clauses; as many more to form them into a long discourse, divided into four or five parts; and other five years, at least, to learn succinctly to mix and interweave them after a subtle and intricate manner let us leave ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... such swell quarters in New York, March," Fulkerson said, as he went tack-tacking down the steps with his small boot-heels. "But I've got my eye on a little house round in West Eleventh Street that I'm going to fit up for my bachelor's hall in the third story, and adapt ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be for one night, Lucy—I should not hurt it, love—you would not like to fetch down your Brussels point scarf, and see how it would look, would you? We need not cut the lace, dear; we could tack it on again the next morning; you are not so particular as I am—you look ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... against it. You must then get the sail in as flat as you can, and sail as near as you can to the wind. Then when you have gone some distance you must bring her head round, till the sail goes over on the other side; and sail on that tack, and so make a zigzag course: but if the wind should come dead ahead, I think your best course would be to lower the sail and row against it. However, at present, with the wind from the east, you will be able to sail free ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... the robust viveur is on the wrong tack, so long as he grabs and uses, and neither gives nor is used, so too the more peaceable and poetical nature makes a very similar mistake, if his whole heart is bent upon receiving and enjoying; for he too is filching and conveying away pleasure out of life, though he may do it more timidly ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Bible, we got one. If it's sewin'-machines, we ain't, but don't. If it's savin' our souls, we belong to church reg'lar an' ain't interested. If it's explainin' God, nothin' doin'! An' if it's tack-pullers with nail-files an' corkscrews on 'em, you can save your breath," said the girl rapidly, in a heated voice, and with a ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... said he—"in the name of Heaven, the truth! Do not flatter a dying man with a hope that may prove vain." There he stopped, a look from Colbert telling him that he was on a wrong tack. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... other white man is cabin steward, but he'll stand watch and do his trick. My orders shall be obeyed smartly. You savvy, 'smartly'? There shall be no growling about the kaikai, which will be above allowance. You'll put a handle to the mate's name, and tack on 'sir' to every order I give you. If you're smart and quick, I'll make this ship comfortable for all hands." He took the cigar out of his mouth. "If you're not," he added, in a roaring voice, "I'll make it a floating hell.—Now, Mr. Hay, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... steamship, and Death chasing it up and down the storm, How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch and was faithful of days and faithful of nights, And chalked in large letters on a board, "Be of good cheer, we will not desert you"; How he followed with them and tack'd with them three days and would not give it up, How he saved the drifting company at last, How the lank loose-gown'd women looked when boated from the side of their prepared graves, How the silent old-faced infants ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... in getting to windward of the island, but the signal to the Discovery to tack having been omitted she stood on, and it was some days before she rejoined company. January 1779 was ushered in with heavy rain, but clearing away before noon they were able to approach to about five miles from the shore, where they lay to and traded with the natives. ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... legend of the sea, So hard-a-port upon your lee! A ship on starboard tack! She's bound upon a private cruise— (This is the kind of spice I use To give a ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... good one, and he soon determined our position, and the names of the headlands first seen. We were just north of Cape Povorotnoi, about nine miles south of the entrance of Avacha Bay. The yards were now squared, and we went off on the new tack before a steady breeze from the south-east. In less than an hour we sighted the high isolated rocks known as the "Three Brothers," passed a rocky precipitous island, surrounded by clouds of shrieking gulls and parrot-billed ducks, and by two o'clock were off "the heads" of Avacha Bay, ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... words came with intense deliberation. There was no mistaking their significance. Henson deemed it wise to try another tack. ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... made, Nowell's countenance brightened up. The expression was not lost upon the attorney, who perceived he was on the right tack. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... pressed by any of our men-of-war, and then he will threaten to cut our throats if our friends do not let him get off, and it is my belief he would do it, sir. These sort of people are very civil as long as you please them, but just get on the other tack, and they will not scruple a moment to knock their best ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... only by night, he had traversed one hundred miles with a rope round his neck, and without the prospect of special reward. For he was but a private, and received but a private's pay—thirteen dollars a month, a shoddy uniform, and hard-tack, ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... warmed to his subject, and laid his hats aside to go along the water-side and show me where the large trout commonly lay, underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much disappointed, for my sake, that there were none visible just then. Then he wandered off on to another tack, and stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow in the hot sunshine, trying to make out that he had known me before, or, if not me, some friend of mine, merely, I believe, out of a desire that we should feel more friendly ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... must learn not to try this trick again. Let him lie there until he wakes. Then give him some breakfast, hard tack and water, remember, and then give him the task I set for him. When the first fishing smack, bound for Eastville appears, start him ...
— Princess Polly At Play • Amy Brooks
... odd query in the second series of Notes and Queries, which, by the way, has never yet been answered. In John Hall's Hor Vaciv (1646) there is this passage, alluding to the table game called tick-tack. The author wrote: "Tick tack sets a man's intentions on their guard. Errors in this and war can be but once amended''; but the printer joined the two words "and war'' into one, and this puzzled the correspondent of the Notes and Queries (v. 272). He asked: ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... married, is he? Well, his wife elect appeared to me to be a clever and amiable lady, as far as I could judge from the little I saw of her, and from your account. Now to that flattering sentence must I tack on a list of her faults? You say it is in contemplation for you to leave —-. I am sorry for it. —- is a pleasant spot, one of the old family halls of England, surrounded by lawn and woodland, speaking of past times, and suggesting (to me at least) happy feelings. ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... life of the two. A panican of hot coffee or tea by sailors called "water bewitched," a sea-biscuit, and "bit of salt-horse," had regaled the crew and restored their voices. Then "Reuben Ranzo" was heard on the breeze, and the main tack was boarded to the tune of "Johnny Boker." Other wondrous songs through the night-watch could be heard in keeping with the happy time. Then what they would do and what they wouldn't do in the next port was talked of, when ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... carts of Company K were packed with the wounded on their return from the Kiowa village. A rest was had the next day, which was sadly needed, as the whole command had been marching and fighting about twenty-seven hours, on a few broken hard tack and a slice of salt pork each. The second day after the fight, Carson concluded to return to Fort Bascom, which post was reached in twenty-one days. Here the command remained until orders were received from General Carleton, commanding the department, and Company K was ...
— Frontier service during the rebellion - or, A history of Company K, First Infantry, California Volunteers • George H. Pettis
... you understand this tack-hammer language, and as I could see you've been following all the messages that's been sent, just tell me the whole lot of it, please, as near ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... to believe this statement or not. He wanted to disbelieve it, but was afraid it might be true. He tried a different tack. ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... war, such a determined reluctance to trust his person within the realm of Britain, ordered the man who steered the cutter to stand in boldly for the land. Whenever the lead told them that it was prudent to tack, the course of the vessel was changed: and in this manner the seamen continued to employ the hours in patient attendance on the adventurers. The sailing-master, who had spent the early years of his ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... material in the city was not sufficient to meet the demand; and as we tacked it about our one window, a man passing told us the assassin had been discovered, and that he was the actor Booth. Hattie laughed, so she nearly swallowed the tack that, girl-like, she held between her lips, and I after a laugh, told him it was a poor subject for a jest, and we went in. There was no store in Columbus then where play-books were sold, and as Mr. Ellsler had a ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... of triumph swept across the face of the woman, who was absolutely on the wrong tack, as she sidled so near that her bare limbs almost touched the flowing cloak which swept round the man. His mind was full of his exquisite, delicate, tantalising, fastidious wife, his body ached for her, his soul fainted for even a touch of her little hand, so that once again ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... to be doing fairly well," said Russ, as he and his companion settled down in the shelter, to nibble at a bit of hard tack and drink some of the water Jack ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... thread of it must not be broken by the intervention of any such extraneous matter. Neither will it do to separate my peroration from the main body of my argument. I must, then, give up the opportunity of retorting at all, or tack it on after the whole, and take the risk of destroying ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... could run off it, and was of strength sufficient to enable the crew to walk on the top. They had no pumps, but only buckets of leather. The yards were long and tapering, two-thirds abaft the mast and one-third before it, with only a single sheet. The tack of the sail was made fast to the end of a sprit almost as long as the mast, so that they could set their sails very flat, and steer close to the wind. When they had to tack they lowered the sail half down the mast, and then hauled upon the heel of the yard until they brought it to the foot of the ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Citizen Volunteers. Heroic March Across the Rocky Mountain Divide. His Men Apply Drag Ropes to the Wagons and Aid the Mules in Pulling Them up the Mountain. Lieutenant Bradley and His Scouts Scale the Divide by Night and Locate the Indian Camp. The March Down Trail Creek. Soldiers' Fare. Hard Tack and Raw Pork. A Brief Sleep Without Blankets. Perils of the Situation. Less Than 200 Soldiers and Citizens to Attack 400 Trained Indian Warriors. Implicit Confidence of Officers and Men in One Another Nerves Them to ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... town to our house, where I went in, leaving him outside so as not to disturb mother. There I got me a hammer and nails with the heavy lead sinker offen my fishnet, and it wasn't long before the finest tick-tack you ever saw was working against the Spiegelnails' parlor window, with me in a lilac-bush operating the string that kept the weight a-swinging. Before the house was an open spot where the moon shone full and clear, where Robert J. walked ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... Robert's evident determination to withhold the respect which he considered his due, Halbert tried him on another tack. ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... DRYING FOODS.—Place the prepared food on drying trays. Unless the drying is done in the oven, cover the food with cheese-cloth. If possible, tack the cloth to the frame so that no dust or insects can come in contact with the food. Stir or turn foods once or twice a day while they are drying. This is especially necessary when foods ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... strong proof appeared, that any man could be so daring as to hold up such a resource to a regular government, which had three million of known, avowed, a great part of it territorial, revenue. But it is necessary, it seems, to piece out the lion's skin with a fox's tail,—to tack on a little piece of bribery and a little piece of peculation, in order to help out the resources of a great and flourishing state; that they should have in the knavery of their servants, in the breach of their laws, and in the entire defiance of their covenants, a real resource applicable ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... West; she was therefore about midway between the parallels of Madeira and Teneriffe, but some four hundred miles, or thereabouts, to the westward of those islands. The wind was blowing a moderate breeze from about south-east by South; and the ship, close-hauled on the port tack, and with all plain sail set, to her royals, was heading south-west, and going through the water at the rate of a good honest seven knots. The helmsman was steering by compass, and not by the sails, since it was impossible to see anything above a dozen feet up from the deck; hence the ship was going ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... empire. Yet I saw no other trace of grand buildings except the ruins of the arena. We returned to Veruda, and went again to sea. On the following day we sighted Ancona, but the wind being against us we were compelled to tack about, and we did not reach the port till the second day. The harbour of Ancona, although considered one of the great works of Trajan, would be very unsafe if it were not for a causeway which has cost a great deal of money, and which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... dinner, and the soldiers ceased to sprawl, and squatted on the deck around square tin cans filled with soup or red wine, from which they fed themselves with spoons and into which they dipped their rations of hard tack, after first breaking them on the deck with a blow from a bayonet or crushing them ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... and rake over sea and land for the turning up some hitherto latent mystery; and are so continually tickled with the hopes of success, that they spare for no cost nor pains, but trudge on, and upon a defeat in one attempt, courageously tack about to another, and fall upon new experiments, never giving over till they have calcined their whole estate to ashes, and have not money enough left unmelted to purchase one crucible or limbeck. And yet after ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... regent—"as a generous foe Most constant and most powerful"—I weep. They tricked him Gourgaud. Once upon the ship, He thinks he's bound for England, and why not? They dine him, treat him like an Emperor. And then they tack and sail to St. Helena, Give him a cow shed for a residence. Depute that thing Sir Hudson Lowe to watch him, Spy on his torture, intercept his letters, Step on his broken wings, and mock the film Descending on those eyes ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... tried a slightly different tack. "You have no reason to maintain a feeling of obligation to Voss and the others. You have obviously been abandoned. Had they any feeling for you there would have been more efficacious ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... plain crochet, 2 chain, miss 20, 1 plain; repeat. Tack the loops in the centre, and sew on ...
— The Lady's Album of Fancy Work for 1850 • Unknown
... by no means sorry for a spell of work after going so long without shifting sail or tack, worked hard, and the white sheets of canvas were soon snugly furled. By this time all the sailors who had been to sea for any time recognized the utility of their work. The low bank had risen and extended the whole width of ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... on the dealing tack, commenced in the poverty-stricken strain adapted to the occasion. Having deposited his hat on the floor, taken his left leg up to nurse, and given his hair a backward rub with his right ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the more judicious, was, amongst the bulk of the people out of doors, as strong as ever, he had a difficult part to play. His conduct, therefore, during the whole trial, resembled the appearance of a vessel about to go upon another tack, when her sails are shivering in the wind, ere they have yet caught the impulse which is to send her forth in a new direction. In a word, he was so uncertain which side it was his interest to favour, that he might ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the ranger, 'you won't lave me a tack to my feet; but no matter,' says he, 'your head's worth more nor a pair o' brogues to me any day, and by the Piper of Blessintown, you're money in my pocket this minit,' says he: and with that, the fingers was in his mouth agin, and he was goin' to whistle, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... Arithmetic? (The 2ND PIRATE whispers to him.) Excellent. (To her) If you really are a teacher as you say, answer me this question. The brigantine Cocktail is in longitude 40 deg. 39' latitude 22 deg. 50', sailing closehauled on the port tack at 8 knots in a 15-knot nor'-nor' westerly breeze—how soon ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... Billy Daddy?" The man sighed. "You wouldn't let those dreadful old sharks—they are sharks, Cap'n—you wouldn't let them hurt your poor little fish, now would you?" The rippling, girlish laugh jarred Billy's nerves. He must take a new tack. ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock |
