"Knot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him to go up the tree again and bring down a great treasure which she had left there, her hair-string: beseeching him for all their lives not to break or injure it in any way, but to most carefully untie every knot, for thus doing it would bring untold felicity on them all; and that they, the Weasels, would meantime build a beautiful bridal bower, or a wigwam, and that so furnished as he had never seen the like before,—in which verily ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... absence of the English fleet, with an ease which showed how completely the whole question would have been solved by a decisive victory over that fleet; but the French, though favored with many opportunities, never sought to slip the knot by the simple method of attacking the force upon which all depended. Spain went her own way in the Floridas, and with an overwhelming force obtained successes of no military value. In Europe the plan adopted by the English government left its naval force hopelessly ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... a young girl; his delicate hand held an embroidered handkerchief, with which he wiped his forehead and his golden locks He was consulting a large, round watch set with rubies, suspended from his girdle by a knot ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... door closed behind him. Sather Karf nodded, as if satisfied, and Nema tied a complex knot in the ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... laid the long, cool, wet leaf softly across the young man's eyes. An icicle of pain darted through them; every nerve in his body was drawn together there in a knot of agony. ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... are then split into the finest threads. The thread-maker passes each strand through her mouth to moisten it, then places it upon her bare thigh, and with a quick movement rolls it with the flat of her hand to twist it. Passing it again through her mouth, she ties a knot at one end, points the other, and puts it away to dry. The result is a ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... holding his watch in his hand. And just as he shut it with a significant click, a tall dark-haired girl in a plain gingham dress slipped into the room and took her place at the end of the line, at the same moment casting a defiant glance at the knot which adorned the back of ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... into still shallower water. It was a brownish black, or perhaps a dark iron-gray, on the back and sides, but lighter beneath and in front. I took the cord which served for the canoe's painter, and with Joe's assistance measured it carefully, the greatest distances first, making a knot each time. The painter being wanted, I reduced these measures that night with equal care to lengths and fractions of my umbrella, beginning with the smallest measures, and untying the knots as I proceeded; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... open, and in the doorway appeared a young and beautiful lady in a white silk dress trimmed with black lace, and with diamonds on her arms and neck—Maria Nikolaevna Polozov. Her thick fair hair fell on both sides of her head, braided, but not fastened up into a knot. ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... experienced in such matters, and it was declared on all sides that the thing was not of English manufacture. It was about a foot long, with a leathern thong to the handle, with something of a spring in the shaft, and with the oval loaded knot at the end cased with leathern thongs very minutely and skilfully cut. They who understood modern work in leather gave it as their opinion that the weapon had been made in Paris. It was considered that Mealyus had brought it with him, and concealed it in preparation for this occasion. If the police ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... was too thick to be plaited; it needed rather to be twisted round and round, and have its fine silkiness compressed into massive coils, that encircled her head like a crown, and then were gathered into a large spiral knot behind. She kept its weight together by two large coral pins, like small arrows for length. Her white silk sleeves were looped up with strings of the same material, and on her neck, just below the base of her curved and milk-white throat, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... prettily and simply, and, with quaint, childish earnestness, drew the sketch-book away close to her own side of the table. Miss Halcombe cut the knot of the little embarrassment forthwith, ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... morning Helen had gone for a walk with Katherine, and Betty was dressing for church, when Eleanor Watson knocked at the door. She looked prettier than ever in her long silk kimono, with its ruffles of soft lace and the great knot of pink ribbon ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... (for the eve was hot); And her warm white neck in its golden chain; And her full soft hair, just tied in a knot, And falling ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... rather unfortunate in the care of it, notwithstanding the high price which it bore. The acting commissary lost a very fine mare, through the stupidity of an Irish servant, who put a short halter round her neck, with a running knot, by which she was strangled in the night; and information had been received of the death of two foals belonging to government. This accident proceeded from want of proper care in those who were appointed to look after them; but unfortunately, though they were often changed, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... pictures is coupled with the events narrated in the purloined diaries which the hands of some invisible diplomats have left behind, the student of the Russian Revolution will marvel at the skill with which some other Royal hands untied the knot of Fate. ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... his few intervals of leisure, in a little knot of relations and friends, he delighted in quiet conversation, through which occasionally ran an undercurrent of pleasantry, not unmixed with caustic wit. At his table he was the least heard among the company, and so far from being ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... eyes were fixed upon the king's face, thoughtfully, as though expecting that he would say something. Contrary to all custom, she wore a Greek tunic with short sleeves caught at the shoulders by golden buckles, and her fair hair was gathered into a heavy knot, low down, behind her head. Her dazzling arms and throat were bare, but above her right elbow she wore a thick twisted snake of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... hold two pieces of material together until a permanent stitch can be put in. It is done by taking long stitches (one-fourth inch) from right to left and parallel to the edges that are to be basted together. In starting, the thread is fastened with a knot; when completed, it is fastened by taking two or three stitches one ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... to her feet and stood working a corner of her pinafore into a knot. The master looked around, and his brow grew dark when he saw the ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... time about dressing, but Madame said nothing. She simply stood there, waiting, in the open door, until the last knot was tied, the last pin adjusted, and the last stray ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... the throat-lash tight enough to prevent its being rubbed over the ears. Tie a piece of cord, a yard long, to the off side, D, of the head-stall; pass the cord through the near side, D. Accustom the colt to see and to be held by this. It is very powerful, as it forms a slip knot round his nose, and prevents his pulling with the top of his head; and it keeps the two cheek-straps back, which otherwise might injure the colt's eyes. When he is used to the short cord, tie a long knotted cord to it. Use gloves ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... you, en mounts you, en dribes you out th'oo de chimbly, en rides you ober de roughes' places she kin fin'. All you got ter do is ter set fer her in de bushes 'side er yo' cabin, en hit her in de head wid a rock er a lighterd-knot w'en she goes pas'.' ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... sulkily at a knot in the floor. His eyes would not meet mine. It was a fair guess that he was no hardened mutineer, but had been caught in a net through lack of ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... see the whites of her eyes shining. The fire that had been kindled on the hearth so as to give a light (for the weather was not cold) flickered and flared, and little blue flames crept about over the sputtering pine-knot, jumping off into the air and then jumping back. The blue flames flickered and danced and crept about so, and caused such a commotion among the shadows that were running about the room and trying to hide themselves behind the chairs and in the corners, that the big brass andirons ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... indeed almost a haughty, mien; in whose cheek a rich glow, telling the influence of more northern climes; in whose eye a keen but meditative expression; and in whose voice and conversation a vivacity and originality that attracted every one, and drew around him, wherever he appeared, a knot of listeners, whose curiosity invariably yielded in a few moments to admiration and delight. There was then a buzz of inquiry, succeeded by a pleased look of friendly recognition, and a closer approach, and in most instances an introduction, to the object of this general attraction, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... pretentiously polished lucubrations—aye, not even if they burn the night-light oil and hear the chimes at midnight! I will not be hoodwinked by the superficiality of your cui bono, and shall make you the answer that I am willing for an exceedingly paltry honorarium to rush into the Gordian knot and write you the most superior essays on every conceivable and inconceivable subject under the sun, as per enclosed samples which I forward respectfully for your delightful and golden opinions, guaranteeing faithfully that all of your readers in every ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... friend returned to California, and in one of its beautiful valley-towns he entered a law-office, with a view to prepare himself for the legal profession. Here he was thrown into daily association with a little knot of skeptical lawyers. As is often the case, their moral obliquities ran parallel with their errors in opinion. They swore, gambled genteelly, and drank. It is not strange that in this icy atmosphere the growth of any young friend ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... scrolled edges and claw toes, sat facing the light Mistress White. She was clad in a gray silk with tight sleeves, and her profusion of rich chestnut hair, with its willful curliness that forbade it to be smooth on her temples, was coiled in a great knot at the back of her head. Its double tints and strange changefulness, and the smooth creamy cheeks with their moving islets of roses that would come and go at a word, were pretty protests of Nature, I used to think, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... be gripped by Lawson and lashed fast with rope-yarns. Pawing, clawing, blaspheming, he was conquered and bound, inch by inch, and drawn to where the inexorable shears lay like a pair of gigantic dividers on the snow. Red Bill adjusted the noose, placing the hangman's knot properly under the left ear. Mr. Taylor and Lawson tailed onto the running-guy, ready at the word to elevate the gallows. Bill lingered, contemplating his work ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... this extraordinary crush in the trench this morning?" he remarked irritably to his Staff officer, as the procession was again held up by a knot of interested men. ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... friend's happy and honourable departure. Wherefore, then, shall we longer mourn for Arcite?" This is the copious preamble. The conclusion is more briefly dispatched. Emelie must accept the hand of her faithful servant Palamon. He wants no persuasion; and the knot of matrimony happily ties up at last their destinies, wishes, and expectations, which the Tale in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Limerick formerly known as Englishtown, and at present localized in city ordinances and surveying maps as King's Island, consists of a knot of antique houses crowding thick around a venerable cathedral. An ancient castle, its dismantled tower within easy bow-shot, overrun with weeds and ivy, overlooks the noble river, whose expansive sweep of waters is ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... visit to town Mary Blandy states that Cranstoun proposed a secret marriage "according to the usage of the Church of England"—apparently with the view of testing the relative strength of the nuptial knot as tied by their respective Churches. Mary, with hereditary caution, refused to make the experiment unless an opinion of counsel were first obtained, and Cranstoun undertook to submit the point to Mr. Murray, the Solicitor-General ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... the beating of the salt water, they had all of them their skins much fretted away." With blistered and cracking faces, parched with the heat and the salt, and shivering from the continual immersion, they sailed for six hours, making about a knot and a half an hour. When they had made their third league "God gave them the sight of two pinnaces" beating towards them under oars and sail, and making heavy weather of it. The sight of the boats was a great joy to the four sufferers on the raft. ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... on Earth can e'er divide The Knot that sacred Love hath ty'd. When Parents draw against our Mind, The True-Love's Knot they faster bind. Oh, oh ray, oh Amborah—oh, ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... not consent to be an abbess, perhaps you will consent to follow this young Zingaro, and to co-operate with him and us. I am a priest, madam, and can join you both in an instant, connubio stabili, as I suppose the knot has not been ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the water brook. As even in a border, stayed between two lines of solid-coloured galloon, flowers and fruit do not stand forever upright without help, the weaver gave probability to his abundant mass by tying it here and there with a knot of ribbon and letting the ribbon flaunt itself as ribbons have ever done to the delight of the eye that ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... man would have seen that a national uprising was imminent. But Murat was neither modest nor penetrating; he was a great and dashing cavalry general, at times an excellent commander-in-chief, but he was not a statesman. His conduct entangled the skeins of Spanish intrigue into a knot which ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... thought that had leaped in her bosom, like a young Satan, engendered of evil desires. "I dare hardly look in the honest eyes of Le Gardeur after nursing such a monstrous fancy as that," said she; "but my fate is fixed all the same. Le Gardeur will vainly try to undo this knot in my life, but he must leave me to my own devices." To what devices she left him was a thought that sprang not up in her purely ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... crown was placed upon the head at the Gembuk, the hair was gathered up in a conical form from all sides of the head, and then fastened securely in that form with a knot of silken cords of which the color was ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... of any of the numerous opportunities offered to change his associations. His elegant penmanship would have secured him an easy berth and better society at headquarters, but he declined to accept a detail. He became an exciting mystery to a knot of us imaginative young cubs, who sorted up out of the reminiscential rag-bag of high colors and strong contrasts with which the sensational literature that we most affected had plentifully stored our minds, a half-dozen intensely emotional careers for him. We spent much time ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... has the skirts of her dress looped up with convolvulus flowers—the one with her hair fastened in a sort of Venus knot behind; she has just been dancing with that perfumed piece of a man they call Mr. Ladywell—it is he with the high eyebrows arched like a girl's.' He added, with a wrinkled smile, 'I cannot for my life see anybody answering to the character of husband to ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... an untidy knot, slipped from the hairpins, and fell, grey and scanty, over her neck; her bony shoulders, barely covered by ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... answer to almost every question that he can ask himself. These stories are in a sense scientific, because they attempt a solution of the riddles of the world. They are in a sense religious, because there is usually a supernatural power, a deus ex machina, of some sort to cut the knot of the problem. Such stories, then, are the science, and to a certain extent the religious ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... life became suddenly centered in that dilapidated, mean newcomer, who in profound silence clambered clumsily over a felled tree-trunk, and shivering, with his sour, mistrustful face, looked about at the knot ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... to the rest of the world, and Tom were the one to carry the flag. I seen that the call were on him since he helped me through a spell of May pips with over two hundred little chickens before he were five years old, and he cut a knot out of the Deacon's roan horse by the direction of a book when he weren't but eleven, as saved its life. That kinder settled it with me and the Deacon both, though we talked it back and forth for two more years. Then Deacon took to teaching ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... yellow-flag, yellow jack; tricolor, stars and stripes; bunting. heraldry, crest; coat of arms, arms; armorial bearings, hatchment[obs3]; escutcheon, scutcheon; shield, supporters; livery, uniform; cockade, epaulet, chevron; garland, love knot, favor. [Of locality] beacon, cairn, post, staff, flagstaff, hand, pointer, vane, cock, weathercock; guidepost, handpost[obs3], fingerpost[obs3], directing post, signpost; pillars of Hercules, pharos; bale-fire, beacon- ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... and then, when she had feasted her eyes enough upon her own loveliness, she plaited her hair, and, twisting it up into a rich knot behind, she stuck a high comb into it, and fastened the ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... does he bring me under those misty wings,—that busy birring sound, like Neighbor Clark's spinning-wheel? Is he busy as well, this bit of pure light and heat? Yes! he, too, has got a little home down in the swamp over there,—that bit of a knot on the young oak-sapling. Last year we found a nest (and brought it home) lined with the floss of willow-catkin, stuck all over with lichens, deep enough to secure the two pure round pearls from being thrown out, strongly fastened to the forked branch,—a home so snug, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... bit o' bunkum paid for by the fam'ly!" said a great hulking drayman who had joined the little knot of bystanders, flicking his whip as he spoke,—"Sassiety plunged into mourning for the death of a precious raskill, is it? I 'xpect it's often got to mourn that way! Rort an' rubbish! Tell ye what!—Tom o' the Gleam was worth a dozen o' your motorin' lords!—an' ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... although many have seen that the formation of all things is from God alone and out of his Esse, yet they have not dared to go beyond their first thought on the subject, lest their understanding should become entangled in a so-called Gordian knot, beyond the possibility of release. Such release would be impossible, because their thought of God, and of the creation of the universe by God, has been in accordance with time and space, which are properties of nature; and from nature no one can have any perception ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of him all right!" replied Arnold. "I'm sorry we broke his boat up like that but I guess we can all take a knot out of our neckties today. Wasn't it lucky he caught the cable, though? I'm delighted that we were able to ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... cockatoo with it; they must consequently have been close to us for the greater part of the day, as the bird was killed in the morning. It was of a species new to me, being smaller than the common white cockatoo, and having a large scarlet-and-yellow instead of a pine-yellow top-knot. ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... older than her brother, but, without a trace of artifice or intention, contrived to look the younger of the two. Her thick hair, drawn simply from her temples into a knot behind, was of that palest brown which assimilates grey. Her face, long, plain, masculine in contour and spirit, conveyed no message as to years. Long and spare of figure, she sat upright in her straight-backed chair, with her large, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... and keep their skins as full as other people, without putting nort inside of them." She knew one of that kind before, and he was shot by the Coast-guard, and when they postmartyred him, an eel twenty foot long was found inside him, doubled up for all the world like a love-knot. Squire Carne was of too high a family for that; but she would give a week's rent to know what was ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... absolute silence, broken only by the hot shrilling of a locust in a tree hard by; then Zerubbabel Chirk, calmly unconscious of any thrill in the air, any tension of the nerves, any crisis impending, paused in his whittling, and instead of carving a whistle for Benny, cut the Gordian knot. ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... persons the name of favorites, or privadoes; as if it were matter of grace or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them "participes curarum"; for it is that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned; who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... me, but after all it does not concern the orbit of a planet and there is no use talking and acting as if it did." This sense of humour often saves the American in a situation in which the Englishman would have recourse to downright brutality; it unties the Gordian knot instead of cutting it. A too strong conviction of being in the right often leads to conflicts that would be avoided by a more humorous appreciation of the relative importance of phenomena. To look on life as a jest is no doubt ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... the hooks, and, taking the knot in my hand, began to pull; but not a ship would stir, for they were all too fast held by their anchors, so that the bold part of my enterprise remained. I therefore let go the cord, and, leaving the hooks fixed to the ships, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... was nothing more to be done. He might, it is true, have seen Ida, and working upon her love and natural inclinations have tried to persuade her to cut the knot by marrying him off-hand. Perhaps he would have succeeded, for in these affairs women are apt to find the arguments advanced by their lovers weighty and well worthy of consideration. But he was not the man to adopt such a course. He did the only ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... thrown above his head ... the right was turned under his bent body. The sticky slime had sucked in the tips of his feet, shod in tall sailor's boots; the short blue pea-jacket, all impregnated with sea-salt, had not unbuttoned; a red scarf encircled his neck in a hard knot. The swarthy face, turned skyward, seemed to be laughing; from beneath the upturned upper lip small close-set teeth were visible; the dim pupils of the half-closed eyes were hardly to be distinguished from the darkened whites; covered with bubbles of foam the dirt-encrusted ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... my old world was again mine. To me, at last my mind seemed to have found itself, for the gigantic web of false beliefs in which it had been all but hopelessly enmeshed I now immediately recognized as a snare of delusions. That the Gordian knot of mental torture should be cut and swept away by the mere glance of a willing eye is like a miracle. Not a few patients, however, suffering from certain forms of mental disorder, regain a high degree of insight into their ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... paired in four turrets—the triple-turret system having been abandoned—twenty six-inch and twenty-two fourteen-pr. guns, their speed being 25 knots. Besides these ten, or practically twelve, completed battleships, Italy has ten armored cruisers in commission and three twenty-eight knot light cruisers, but no fastgoing battle cruisers corresponding to those in the British and German Navies. She has also twenty-seven completed destroyers and thirteen thirty-two knot destroyers laid down, along with fifty-one torpedo ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... and their number was perpetually encreasing. The aristocrats built their hopes on their preponderant wealth and influence; the reformers on the force of the nation itself; the debates were violent, more violent the discourses held by each knot of politicians as they assembled to arrange their measures. Opprobrious epithets were bandied about, resistance even to the death threatened; meetings of the populace disturbed the quiet order of the country; except in war, how could ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... of despair. A Liverpool pilot, who happened to be in the packet, now raised his voice and exclaimed, "It is all over—we are all lost!" At these words there was a universal despairing shriek. The women and children collected in a knot together, and kept embracing each other, keeping up, all the time, the most dismal lamentations. When tired with crying they lay against each other, with their heads reclined, like inanimate bodies. The steward of the vessel and his wife, who was on board, lashed themselves to the ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... thousands of individuals offering her millions, which she never accepted, would have so far degraded herself and the honour of the nation, of which she was born to be the ornament, as to place herself gratuitously in the power of a knot of wretches, headed by a man whose general bad character for years had excluded him from Court and every respectable society, and had made the Queen herself mark him as an object of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... painting. She was tall, and the magnificent proportions of her figure were enhanced rather than marred by the severely plain dress of dark print that she wore. The heavy masses of her hair, a shining auburn dashed with golden foam, were coiled in a rich, glossy knot at the back of the classically modelled head and rippled back from a low brow whose waxen fairness even the breezes of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... splashing high. It was wild and tough, the slam of man meeting man. Drew wrested a guidon from the hold of a blue-coated trooper as Hannibal smashed into the other's mount with bared teeth and pawing hoofs. Waving the trophy over his head and yelling, he pounded on at a knot of determined infantry, aware that he was leading others from Buford's still-mounted headquarter's company, and that they were going to ride right over the Yankee soldiers. Men threw away muskets and rifles, raised empty hands, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... nipping air of Miss Marlett's shuddering establishment, and by the frosty light of a single candle. This young lady was tall and firmly fashioned; a nut-brown maid, with a ruddy glow on her cheeks, with glossy hair rolled up in a big tight knot, and with a smile (which knew when it was well off) always faithful to her lips. These features, it is superfluous to say in speaking of a heroine, "were rather too large for regular beauty." She was perfectly ready ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... and they did not hold well on a steel deck. I took a few looks out at the sea and it was a daisy. I saw the Captain who came in and reported very bad weather, but he hoped to clear Cape Ushant. Captain Perry reported that the ship was making about half a knot an hour sometimes, sometimes not making anything, wouldn't steer, and half the time in the trough of the sea, if there was any trough to be found, for a cross gale had turned the sea into pyramids. He also informed me that everything had been made fast, that the men were cheerful and that ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... rolled upward and onward, blazing down on the huddled adobes, and slowly filtering into the room. With his back to the bar, Pete idly flicked bits of a broken match at a knot-hole in the floor. Tired of that, he rolled a cigarette with one hand, and swiftly. Pete's hands were compact, of medium size, with the finger joints lightly defined—the hands of a conjuror—or, as The Spider thought, of a born gunman. And ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Missy clinging to the pole brought the old man to his senses, but it took David and the doctor to drag Courant away. For a moment they were a knot of struggling bodies, from which oaths and sobbing breaths broke. Upright he shook them off and backed toward the bank, leaving them looking at him, all expectant. He growled a few broken words, his ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... present popularity and present profit. When his plays had been acted, his hope was at an end; he solicited no addition of honour from the reader. He therefore made no scruple to repeat the same jests in many dialogues, or to entangle different plots by the same knot of perplexity, which may be at least forgiven him, by those who recollect, that of Congreve's four comedies, two are concluded by a marriage in a mask, by a deception, which perhaps never happened, and which, whether likely or not, he did ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... are so constructed as to rise at least a foot above the pony's back." He adds with reference to another point in the text: "I noticed a few Shan ponies with docked tails. But the more general practice is to loop up the tail in a knot, the object being to protect the rider, or rather his clothes, from the dirt with which they would otherwise be spattered from the flipping of the animal's tail." ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... forgot to make the knot in the bandage he was tying about the sweeper's head. The sweeper forgot the pain of his new headache and the blood which trickled down his face and fell upon the front of his overalls. As though governed by the same set of wires these two swung about, ...
— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... the stirrup over the top of the saddle and fished under the now quiet horse for her dangling surcingle. Having secured it, he untied the strap and examined it to see if it were sufficiently long to permit of tying another knot. Deciding that it was, he tied one end in the ring in the saddle and, passing the other through the ring of the girth, drew it up with a strong, steady pull. His side face against the saddle, as he pulled, permitted him ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... Philo Gubb said. "A fellow can tie a knot, or he can un-tie it, can't he? He can hitch a horse, or he can un-hitch it. And if a man can burgle, he can un-burgle. A mercenary burglar would naturally burgle things out of a house after he had burgled himself in, but a generous-hearted burglar ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... which it has once given way; and it is long before a principle restored can become so firm as one that has never been moved. It is a fine remark of a Russian writer, that "Habits are a necklace of pearls: untie the knot, ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... bayou was the worst. It had put off its everyday sleepiness with a roar. A chicken coop wallowed by as the boy struggled with the knot of the painter which held the outboard. And after the coop traveled a dead tree, its topmost branches bringing up against the plantation landing with a crack. Val waited for it to whirl on before he got on board ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... said this he sprang up, and going over to where the chain was hanging, took it from its place, and coiling it up into a knot, returned to George's side. The chain was made of large iron links, with several sharp, square swivels in it, and these Abdu so placed that they projected from the rest. Having arranged it to his fancy, he seized his prisoner's hair, and raising his head by it, placed the bunch of chain ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... wild laugh Chloe passed on. The scrub thinned toward the point of the peninsula, where the rim-rocks rose sheer two hundred feet above the level of the lake. Chloe caught sight of MacNair's Indians leaping before her, and, beyond, the crowding knot of men who gave ground before the rush of the Yellow Knives. One by one the men dropped, writhing, into the snow. The others gave ground rapidly, shooting at their advancing enemies, cursing, ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... the talk and loud reports, That ever gaed against her, Meg proves a true and carefu' wife, As ever was in Anster; And since the marriage-knot was tied, Rob swears he coudna want her; For he loves Maggie as his life, And Meg ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... demanding surrender, clamorous for recognition, and now having allowed the claim he was again forced back on the unsolved question of his own history. It was as if some imp of mischief had coupled his love to the Past, and had left him without knowledge to loose the secret knot. The silence became intolerable for fear of the next words that might break it from his companion. It would be better to take control himself—so he slackened speed a little and had the satisfaction of hearing Peter Masters heave ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... accounts a law-abiding citizen—of course the theologian in him failed to take the black powder into account—smitten down in your prime by what he was electing to call the hand of Divine Providence. Of course, it tousled up all the notions I had been stroking down so carefully. He came on a knot—from his own story, I think it was the question as to why a purely innocent Opdyke was chosen as an object of wrathful vengeance. Then he immediately went panicky. That's the erratic strain in him. Up to a certain point, he's logical; ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... The mother of Ab belonged to the very cream of the cream, and was dressed accordingly. Her garb was elegant but simple; it had, first, the one great merit, that it could easily be put on or taken off. It was sustained with but a single knot, a bow-knot—they had learned to make a bow-knot and other knots in the stone age, for, because of the manual requirements for living, they were cleverer fumblers with their fingers than we are now—and the lady here described had tied her knot in a ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... steady it by using both hands, changed his attitude from one that was awkward to another still more so, and finally drew the trigger with a sort of desperate indifference, without having, in reality, secured any aim at all. The consequence was, that instead of hitting the knot which had been selected for the mark, he missed the ark altogether; the bullet skipping along the water like a stone that was thrown ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... the life of the school in those entertainments for which Charterhouse has always been famous, and his reputation as a wit followed him from the stage into the playground. B.-P. was a keen footballer, and whenever he kept goal there was always a knot of grinning boys round the posts listening with huge delight to their hero's facetiae. He also had the habit, such were his animal spirits, of giving the most nerve-fluttering war-whoop imaginable when rushing the ball ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... about their all being alive, but, for a time, even this had been in doubt. They were still stunned, but they managed to gather in a knot about Jimmy. They were hardly able to breathe, partly because of the shock and partly because of ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... dinner, thinking to have had Mr. Coventry, but he could not go with me; and so I took Captn. Murford. Of whom I do hear what the world says of me; that all do conclude Mr. Coventry, and Pett, and me, to be of a knot; and that we do now carry all things before us: and much more in particular of me, and my studiousnesse, &c. to my great content. To White Hall to Secretary Bennet's, and agreed with Mr. Lee to set upon our new adventure ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... and Aunt Lydia, hypnotized as she was by the telephone conversation, had presence of mind enough to open the door and receive a square box tied with purple ribbon. She dexterously untied the loose bow knot, and withdrew from its tissue wrappings, a fragrant bouquet of violets. An envelope enclosing a card fell to the floor. With suppleness hardly to be expected from one of her years, she stooped to pick it up, and in a twinkling had the donor's name ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... to inform Meehaul, took two ribbons out of her pocket, one white and the other black, both of which she folded into what would appear to a bystander to be a simple kind of knot. When the innkeeper's son and the waiter returned to the hall, the former asked her what the nature of her business with him might be. To this she made no reply, except by uttering the word husht! and pulling the ends, first of the white ribbon, and afterwards of the black. The ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... tumult around is something deafening, for it is holiday times and the people feel particularly self-indulgent and disinclined for self-denial. In the midst of the uproar, from out the chaotic mass of rainbow-colored costumes, there forms a little knot of mollahs in huge snowy turbans and flowing gowns of solid blue or green, and at their head the gray-bearded patriarchal-looking old khan of the village in his flowered robe of office from the governor. These ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... still in view We slight as old and soil'd, though fresh and new. How bright wert thou, when Shem's admiring eye Thy burnisht, flaming Arch did first descry! When Terah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot, Did with intentive looks watch every hour For thy new light, and trembled at each shower! When thou dost shine darkness looks white and fair, Forms turn to Musick, clouds to smiles and air: Rain gently spends his honey-drops, and pours ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... chestnut blonde, fair, cool, quiescent—a type out of Dutch art. Clad in a morning gown of gray and silver, her hair piled in a Psyche knot, she had in her lap on this occasion a Java basket filled with ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... undressed himself slowly, reckoning up his gains, smiling at his mask of a face in the large mirror, and hatching his little plots every knot he untied, every button he released. At last he got into bed, and slept as easily and serenely as any ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... reject, and be justified in rejecting, the philology of the doctors of Salamanca, or on which the mere astronomer would reject, and be justified in rejecting, the philology of Turrettine and the old Franciscans. I would, in any such case, at once, and without hesitation, cut the philological knot, by determining that that philology cannot be sound which would commit the Scriptures to a science that cannot be true. Waiving, however, the question as a philological one, and simply holding with Cuvier, Parkinson, and Silliman, ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... to the tree, he found that the weight and strain had dragged the knot so tight that it was past untying. He was obliged to gnaw it with his teeth. He chewed and gnawed for more than twenty minutes. At last the rope gave way with such a sudden jerk that it nearly pulled his teeth out, and quite knocked ...
— A Collection of Beatrix Potter Stories • Beatrix Potter
... the tomb. But I was not prepared for the sight of the white casket as it was wheeled into the church, with the solitary mourner, her promised husband, slowly following all that was left of his bride-to-be, robed as for the bridal and her shimmering veil tied in a large bow knot and the bridal wreath placed lightly upon the casket with lilies of the valley and maiden-hair ferns, trailing in graceful festoons around the casket. Truly all the heroes do not face the cannon's mouth. It requires bravery beyond conception to do this ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... that she did was done as perfectly as her ability could warrant. And that ability was very great indeed, and displayed itself in small details as well as large attempts. Whether she merely twisted her golden-brown hair into a knot, or tied a few flowers together and fastened them on her dress with a pearl pin, either thing was perfectly done—without a false line or a discordant hue. Her face, form, voice and colouring were like a chord of music, harmonious,—and hence the impression of satisfaction and composure ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... gigantic handwriting, which revealed so impenetrable, so imperturbable a will, they sought to trace His influence only in some bewildered region of the human spirit, the struggles of inherited conscience, the patient charity of men, that would seek to knot up the loose ends which, in their pathetic belief in self-developed principles, they could not help imagining that the Maker of all had ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... beat that!" groaned Phil. "Hold up your side of him, Milt! He's getting darned heavy!... Here we've sacrificed ourselves to save this guy's nerves ... and then, in this last five minutes, we get all upset ourselves! My stomach's tied up in such a knot that I couldn't even digest ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... before you, in a clear and convincing light, the importance of Union to your political safety and happiness. I have unfolded to you a complication of dangers to which you would be exposed, should you permit that sacred knot which binds the people of America together be severed or dissolved by ambition or by avarice, by jealousy or by misrepresentation. In the sequel of the inquiry through which I propose to accompany you, the truths intended to be inculcated will receive further confirmation from facts ...
— The Federalist Papers
... receiving his consent. "In the first place you show a fine decision, and secondly you've listened to the voice of reason, to which you generally pay so little heed in your private affairs. There's no need of haste, however," she added, scanning the knot of his white tie, "for the present say nothing, and I will say nothing. It will soon be your birthday; I will come to see you with her. Give us tea in the evening, and please without wine or other refreshments, but I'll ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Pauline, the daughter of Lisa Macquart, and Claude, Jacques, Etienne, and Anna, the four children of Gervaise, her sister; there, at the extremity, is Jean, their brother, and here in the middle, you see what I call the knot, the legitimate issue and the illegitimate issue, uniting in Marthe Rougon and her cousin Francois Mouret, to give rise to three new branches, Octave, Serge, and Desiree Mouret; while there is also the issue of Ursule and the hatter Mouret; ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... alarming view of the case. The Indians numbered about a dozen, and half of these could be seen in a knot, gesticulating in their extravagant manner, while the others were running up and down the shore as if they had detected ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... our author five guineas, and then asked him, "How do you mean to earn your livelihood in this town?" "By my literary labours," was the answer. Wilcox, staring at him, shook his head: "By your literary labours! You had better buy a porter's knot." Johnson used to tell this anecdote to Mr. Nichols: but he said, "Wilcox was one of my best friends, and he meant well." In fact, Johnson, while employed in Gray's inn, may be said to have carried a porter's knot. He paused occasionally to peruse the book ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... sweeter than the nosegay in his hand; the admiring crowd lament that so lovely a youth should come to an untimely end:—even butchers weep, and Jack Ketch refuses his fee rather than consent to tie the fatal knot." The preservation of the character and costume is complete. It has been said by a great authority—"There is some soul of goodness in things evil":—and the Beggar's Opera is a good-natured but instructive comment on this text. The poet has ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... at her veil, which was tied in a hard knot; but in a few minutes everything was off, and the three Margaret Montforts stood ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... felt his affable host's secret animosity and was stimulated by it, or for another reason, suddenly blossomed into an entertainer. When her father was present he addressed Colina's ear, her chin or her golden top-knot, never her eyes. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... preacher. He wore a tall beaver hat, though the day was warm, and a suit of ministerial black. His collar stood out in points on each side of his chin, and his throat rested on a heavy stock-cravat which went twice around his neck and was tied in a stout square knot under his chin on the second turn. Under this black choker was a shirt of snowy white, as was his collar, while his coat and trousers looked worn and threadbare. His face was smooth-shaven, and his hair once black was now turning iron-gray. He was ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... Hal, and bent his bow, "Just watch this famous shot; See that old willow by the brook— I'll hit the middle knot." Swift flew the arrow through the air, Madge watched it eager-eyed; But, oh! for Harry's gallant vaunt, The wayward dart ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... description by Prof. Zuccarelli, of Naples, of an unmarried middle-class woman of 35: "While retaining feminine garments, her bearing is as nearly as possible a man's. She wears her thin hair thrown carelessly back alla Umberto, and fastened in a simple knot at the back of her head. The breasts are little developed, and compressed beneath a high corset; her gown is narrow without the expansion demanded by fashion. Her straw hat with broad plaits is perhaps adorned by ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Making a slip knot of the line, he motioned for the hatch to be lifted and raised himself out of the turret as the lid ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... when you rub them. Yea, but, said Grangousier, which torchecul did you find to be the best? I was coming to it, said Gargantua, and by-and-by shall you hear the tu autem, and know the whole mystery and knot of the matter. I wiped myself with hay, with straw, with thatch-rushes, with flax, with wool, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... written for nations as well as for individuals. But our modern economic theory, the modern Teutonic state, is based on the belief: "Thou shalt covet, and the race that covets most and by power gets most, that race shall survive!" And here is the central knot of the whole dark tangle. The German coveting greater economic opportunities, knowing himself strong to survive, believes in his divine right to possess. It is conscious Darwinism—the survival of the fittest, materially, which he is applying to the world—Darwinism accelerated by an intelligent ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... with a wet bramble for a nose and two cairngorms for eyes. To the human observer he is decidedly well-looking; but to the ladies of his race he seems abhorrent. A thorough elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot order, he was born with a nice sense of gallantry to women. He took at their hands the most outrageous treatment; I have heard him bleating like a sheep, I have seen him streaming blood, and his ear ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... good speech—a great speech, Mr. Blount!" he said, as the branch train rattled in from the north. "If you can go all over the State making as good talks as the one we've just heard, you'll tie the whole shooting-match up in a hard knot for us fellows. But McVickar won't let you do it—not by ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... of me, too, you young blackguard! I'll tie you into a bow-knot and hang you on a tree, if I ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... way through a knot of young roughs, who evidently considered our appearance in the court an intrusion and were disposed to resent it. One of them put out his foot as Smith came up with a view to trip him, but Jack saw the manoeuvre in time and walked round. Another hustled me as I ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... nets are made by men in a simple open form of netting, worked on the common principle of the reef knot, and having diamond-shaped holes, with a knot at each corner of each hole. I shall refer to this form of netting as "ordinary network." The nets are made of thick, strong material, except as regards the hand fishing nets, which are made of the fine material used ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... bed of death? The thin fingers rested on a small and well-worn Bible, and a tiny package, wrapped in paper and carefully tied. The sacred volume was feebly pushed beneath her head, and mechanically she undid the knot, and drew forth a glossy lock of black hair. Wearily she pressed it to her lips several times, and again folding it away, her hands ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... Indians in their blankets and tumbled down upon the heap of boughs; the air trembled with a chorus of strange sounds as one by one they dropped off into a drowsy sleep, with an occasional wriggle as a knot, or the end of a limb, made itself felt through the many-folded blanket, and engraved a distinct dent upon the sleeper's back; while overhead, the giant cloud crept upward slowly, slowly toward the zenith, spreading east and west without a break. One half of the valley had vanished in the blackest ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... the recent experience of the French Revolution, exercised a sway in Scotland more undisputed and vigorous than it is now easy to understand. The younger men who inclined to Liberalism were naturally prepared to welcome an organ for the expression of their views. Accordingly a knot of clever lads (Smith was 31, Jeffrey 29, Brown 24, Horner 24, and Brougham 23) met in the third (not, as Smith afterwards said, the 'eighth or ninth') story of a house in Edinburgh and started the journal by acclamation. The first number appeared in October ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... eating one dozen large blue-mass pills, box and all; then it fell down a flight of stairs, and arose with a blue and purple knot on its forehead, after which it proceeded in quest of further refreshment and amusement. It found a glass trinket ornamented with brass-work —smashed up and ate the glass, and then swallowed the brass. Then it drank about twenty drops of laudanum, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and consideration in all the preliminaries of the sexual act. He must do all that he can to procure her pleasure, says Vatsyayana. When she is on her bed and perhaps absorbed in conversation, he gently unfastens the knot of her lower garment. If she protests he closes her mouth with kisses. Some authors, Vatsyayana remarks, hold that the lover should begin by sucking the nipples of her breasts. When erection occurs he touches her with his hands, softly caressing the various parts ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... every one, old and young, paid to her, and at the house afterwards I looked on while a boisterous knot were teaching ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... night. While collecting wood that evening, I found a bird's nest consisting of live leaves sewn together with threads of the spider's web. Nothing could exceed the airiness of this pretty contrivance; the threads had been pushed through small punctures and thickened to resemble a knot. I unfortunately lost it. This was the second nest I had seen resembling that of ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... George Noble had every stitch of her canvas on her, and was fairly "humming" along at nearly thirteen knots over the smooth water, and then when she spun into the narrow passage through which a seven-knot current was tearing, her speed became terrific, and I held my breath. The second mate and boatswain were at the wheel, and the crew were standing by the braces. The silence on board was almost painful, for the terrible roar of the current as it ...
— "Pig-Headed" Sailor Men - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... door a small knot of sympathisers was still gathered, notwithstanding the late hour and the badness of ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... burst into an immoderate fit of laughter; on recovering from which, he said to Mr Asterias, 'You have caught an odd fish, indeed.' Mr Toobad was highly exasperated at this unseasonable pleasantry; but Mr Hilary softened his anger, by producing a knife, and cutting the Gordian knot of his reticular envelopment. 'You see,' said Mr Toobad, 'you see, gentlemen, in my unfortunate person proof upon proof of the present dominion of the devil in the affairs of this world; and I have no doubt but that the apparition of this night ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... hymn, at dinner, I was too often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text, to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked. The closing hymn recalled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Colonel, and his brother Jung evidently thought so too when he chose him to assist in the capture of the conspirators in the attempt upon his life. Cheerful and lively, his merry laugh might be heard in the midst of a knot of his admirers, to whom he was relating some amusing anecdote, while his shrewd remarks were the result of keen observation, and proved his intellect to be by no means of a ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... effect, he ceases, after from four to six revolutions of the vessel on its axis for the small arteries, and from eight to twelve for the large ones. The hemorrhage instantly stops. The vessel which had been drawn out is then replaced, as the surrounding parts give support to the knot which has been formed at its extremities. The knot becomes further concealed by the retraction of the artery, and this retraction will be proportionate to the shortening which takes place by the effect of the twisting, so that it will be scarcely visible on the surface of the stump. ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... to on the dishes, an' 'twasn't long afore he was ready to clean hisself; which done, he was ready for the courtin'. But first he got out his dunny-bag, an' he fished in there 'til he pulled out a blue stockin', tied in a hard knot; an' from the toe o' that there blue stockin' he took a brass ring. 'I 'low,' says he, talkin' to hisself, in the half-witted way he has, 'it won't do no hurt t' give her mother's ring. "Moses," says mother, "you better take the ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... weight on it, until the branch was bent as far as possible towards the chateau—coming five or six feet nearer to the window where they were. Then Chiquita tied the cord firmly to the ornamental iron railing of the tiny balcony, with a knot that could not slip, climbed over, and grasping the cord with both hands, swung herself off, and hung suspended over the waters of the moat far below. Isabelle held her breath. With a rapid motion of the hands Chiquita crossed the clear space, reached the tree safely, and climbed down ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... any graven image of man, of bird or beast. Would that Moses had added: build no walls, for as soon as there are walls priests will enter in and set themselves upon thrones. The priests have taken the place of God, and I have come, he said, to cast them out of their thrones, and to cut the knot of the bondage of the people of Israel. I come, he said, with a sword to cut that knot, which hands have failed to loosen, and in my other hand there is a torch, and with it I shall set fire to the thrones. All the world as ye know it must be burnt up like stubble, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... noisily, the other energetically pulling up his belt as one tightens the loosened girth on a horse that has had an interval of rest. The young noble's glance leaped them completely in its haste to reach those who followed,—the knot of women, fluttering and rustling and preening like a flock of birds. But the bird he sought was not of their number. He stared blindly at the pilgrim as the wanderer shuffled past, muttering and beating his breast. Only one figure followed the penitent, and if that should not be she! Even though ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... small knot of brother professionals that he needed change of air and scenery, Nickie the Kid started out of town that afternoon. We next discover him seated under a spreading gum in a pleasant sweep of sunny landscape at Tarra, with his trousers in his hands, carefully ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... to one side, and disclosed to view the entrance to a natural cave, into the wall of which was stuck a naming, pitch-pine knot. Entering, the blanket was dropped, and preceded by a man, whose features the fitful glare of the torch failed to reveal, the two adventurers were ushered into the main ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... early hours of that day a knot of women, one of them beating a drum, others lugubriously chanting du pain, du pain, bread, bread, appeared in the streets of Paris. Growing in numbers as they advanced, an inchoate mob of women, men and boys, they ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... "quite as thick round as my leg," and raising his foot he planted it upon the serpent near to its tail. "Oh!" he shouted, as he started back, for at his touch the reptile drew itself up together almost in a knot, and then stretched itself out again, to the great delight of ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... obeyed, and while he devoted himself to his breakfast, old Bill Conway amused himself rolling pellets out of bread and flipping them at a knot-hole in the rough wall of ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the horrors of suspicion! And thou, great Prophet! if thou bearest in thy heart thy faithful followers—if all thy prayers in their behalf are heard—make mine ascend before the God of Justice! And since all the wisdom of the world could not untie the fatal knot in which we are bound, be pleased to employ in this work ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... at the table, and Lightmark, with a half-sheet of note-paper before him, was dashing off profiles. They were all the same—the head of a girl: a childish face with a straight, small nose, and rough hair gathered up high above her head in a plain knot. Rainham, leaning over, watched him with ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... get everything, and we get nothing but our board and clothes. We've humoured and pampered them until they have no sense of us and our needs," she concluded, twisting her hair angrily into a tight knot on ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... out clouds of bluish smoke into the clear air of the hot May morning. Then he looked at the position of the sun and verified the fact that his nickel watch had stopped again. The shaky little house hung like a chance knot in an endless wire in the middle of the glittering double row of rails that stretched from east to west across the flowery prairie. It looked like a ridiculous freak in the midst of the wide desert, for nowhere, so far as the eye could reach, was it possible to discover ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... Christopher still stood irresolute, for he was oppressed by the sense of this man-slaying, and knew not what he should do next, he saw three men separate from the knot of soldiers and ride towards the Towers, one of whom held a white cloth above his head in token of parley. Then Christopher went up into the little gateway turret, followed by Emlyn, who crouched down behind the brick battlement, so that she could see and hear without being seen. Having reached ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... necktie with one hand and pulled him down into the seat, and began to mow away corn into her mouth. The pop corn man blushed, looked at the rest of the passengers to see if they were looking, and said, as he replaced the necktie knot from under his left ear and pushed his collar down, "Madame, you are mistaken. I have never been a duke in Oshkosh. I live here at the Junction." The woman looked at him as though she doubted his statement, but let ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... a long deep sigh, but no other answer was demanded, for the knot of onlookers welcomed them eagerly to the benches beside the courts, and even the players—Gardner Haviland, Louis Chase, a fat young man in an irreproachable tennis costume; Warren Gregory and Joe Butler found time for ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... it, too, as we can be. But sometimes I've mistrusted something like what I discovered very indignantly one day when I was four years old, and fancied I was making a petticoat, sewing through and through a bit of flannel. The thread hadn't any knot ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney |
