"Offing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Carpenters and laborers were oddly jumbled upon the list of emigrants with jewellers, perfumers, and gold refiners, and "gentlemen" held prominence in numbers and influence. The officers outnumbered the privates. The little fleet was hardly out of the offing when the struggle for power began. The voyage was not half accomplished when John Smith was charged with complicity in a discovered mutiny. He had intended, it was alleged, to murder his superiors, seize the fleet, and make himself king of Virginia. The "General History of Virginia" ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... courage blameless, Thy port assured in a happier land than mine. But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine. As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line In the offing scatterest foam, ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... brandy for opium to sell to the Chinese, who are forbidden to buy or use it. Whether the coolie trade was included in its iniquities or not, I cannot say. Very possibly that was the return cargo. From Ceylon they proceed to Siam, and thence to Hong-Kong, where they drop anchor in the offing, and by a special custom the cargo is sold and paid for in sycee silver before disfreighting, and the bullion is in the safe of the huge smuggler, although the opium has not yet been removed. The Chinese restrictive laws are very severe; but when we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... disengaged her hand and drew away a pace or two; and when Lanyard had satisfied himself that there were no Apaches in the offing, he turned to see her standing there, just within the mouth of the alley, in a pose of ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... Acre's proud turrets an ensign is flying, Which stout hearts are banded till death to uphold; And bold is their crying, and fierce their defying, When trench'd in their ramparts, unconquer'd of old. But lo! in the offing, To punish their scoffing, Brave Napier appears, and their triumph is done; No danger can stay him, No foeman dismay him, He conquers or dies by his ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the town meeting to the Whittaker place, felt lonesome likewise. Not for the Deacon's reason—he met no one on the main road, save a group of school children and Miss Phinney, and, sighting the latter in the offing, he dodged behind the trees by the schoolhouse pond and waited until she passed. But the captain, his trouble now heavy upon him, did feel the need of sympathy and congenial companionship. He knew he might count upon Dimick and Asaph, and, whenever Keturah's supervision could be evaded, upon Mr. ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... names?" demanded Roger eagerly, as he counted the great gray ships in the offing. "Fourteen, ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... they were well out of sight of the port of Overton. On the third day they were stretching off the land, to meet the first of the tide, under a light breeze and smooth water, when Newton perceived various objects floating in the offing. A small thing is a good prize to a coaster; even an empty breaker is not to be despised; and Newton kept away a point or two, that he might close and discover what the objects were. He soon distinguished ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... or drive down to Elberon when there is a sea-breeze, especially if there happen to be a dozen yachts in the offing. Such elegance as this watering-place has lies in this direction; the Elberon is a refined sort of hotel, and has near it a group of pretty cottages, not too fantastic for holiday residences, and even the "greeny-yellowy" ones do not much offend, for eccentricities ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... GOOD OFFING. To keep well off shore while under sail, so as to be clear of danger should the wind suddenly shift and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... feared the same result again. But still a faithful few were there, who kept their daily watch. Two weeks have passed. It is Friday morning, the 27th of July. They are up early, and looking eastward to see the day break, when a ship is seen in the offing. She is far down on the horizon. Spy-glasses are turned toward her. She comes nearer; and look, there is another, and another! And now the hull of the 'Great Eastern' looms up all glorious in that morning sky. They are coming! Instantly all is wild excitement on shore. Boats ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... slightly premature," returned the Great Representative, pointing towards a more or less majestic pile in the offing. "There was some talk of rebuilding the structure some short while ago, but a viaduct near the Tower was considered preferable. When it is opened, there will be Knighthoods for the Sheriffs, and a Baronetcy ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 103, July 16, 1892 • Various
... he cried, "and row these children and the passenger out a mile from the ship—two miles, three miles, make an offing." ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... mockery or malice have we here?" cried Herve Riel. "Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? Talk to me of rocks and shoals?—me, who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell, 'Twixt the offing here and Greve, where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... shore party, and carry them to the nearest village, the "Adams" continued her course, intending to put into the Penobscot River. While making for this point, a sail was sighted, which proved to be the British brig-sloop "Rifleman." The corvette gave chase, but the Englishman kept well in the offing; and, as the condition of the American crew was such that to lead them into action would have been imprudent, Morris abandoned the pursuit, and, putting into the Penobscot, dropped anchor off Hampden. Here, for the present, we ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... reading Robinson Crusoe like other boys, I was absolutely ignorant of the life and all concerning it. Indeed, up to then, although it may seem hardly credible, I had only once actually seen the sea, and a ship in the distance—far-away out in the offing of what appeared to me an immeasurable expanse of space. This was when father took my sister Nellie and me for a day's visit to Brighton. It was a wonderful experience to us, from the contrast the busy town on the coast offered to ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... characteristic stair-like arrangement to which the rock owes its name; and the sun set as we were bearing down in one long tack on the Small Isles. We passed the Isle of Muck, with its one low hill; saw the pyramidal mountains of Rum looming tall in the offing; and then, running along the Isle of Eigg, with its colossal Scuir rising between us and the sky, as if it were a piece of Babylonian wall, or of the great wall of China, only vastly larger, set down on the ridge of a mountain, we entered the channel which ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... before noon next morning four strange sails were seen in the offing, which, before long, were made out to be the dreaded Madagascar pirates, with the Cassandra, Victory, and two prizes they had just taken. The sight of them struck Brown with terror, though a little reflection would have shown him that the ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... exquisite scene broke upon him—the harbour entrance, with the antique castles pretending to guard it; the vessels (his own amongst them) in the land-locked anchorage; the open sea beyond, violet blue to the morning under a steady off-shore breeze; white gulls flashing aloft, and, in the offing, a pair of gannets ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... on to blow at Vera Cruz, all the vessels remaining near the city let go an extra anchor and batten down the hatches; or, wiser still, they let go their ground tackle and hasten to make an offing. The natives promptly haul their light boats well on shore; the citizens securely close their doors and windows; while the sky becomes darkened by clouds of sand driven by fierce gusts of wind. It is a fact that passengers have been ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... mouth of the river Terias. Starting early next day, they proceeded along the coast, and, crossing the bay of Thapsus, came in sight, for the first time, of their great enemy, Syracuse. The main body of the fleet remained in the offing, but ten triremes were sent forward to reconnoitre the Great Harbour, and get a nearer view of the fortifications. When the little squadron came within hearing of the walls, a herald proclaimed ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... perhaps Myrtis' girl-chum from Westover. They will play five sets, running into scores like 19-17, and at lunch time will make plans for a ride into the country for the afternoon. Daddy will stick around in the offing all dressed up in his tennis-clothes waiting to play with Uncle Ted, but somehow or other every time he approaches the court the young people will be in the middle ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... sit and ponder on the immensity of the ocean and dream of the lands beyond the horizon. From here the whole seaboard, from Thatcher's Island to York and Wells, is in view; the Isles of Shoals loom up on the horizon, while the offing is dotted with coasters and yachts of every rig and construction. Calm, indeed, must it be when no wind is felt on Boar's Head; and during those exceptional days of the summer, when the land-breeze prevails, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... dusk they embarked from Diablo and sped across the rippling water to the launch which lay in the offing. Looking back from the stern-seat, Gregory saw the man on the ledge gazing after ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... whence this tide comes, or where it goes, but when it begins to rise in my heart, I know that a story is hovering in the offing. It does not always come safely to port. The daily routine of ordinary life kills off many a vagrant emotion. Or if daily humdrum occupation does not stifle it, perhaps this saturated solution of feeling does not happen to crystallize about any concrete fact, episode, word or phrase. In ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... of the jetty, he looked out earnestly seaward, in the endeavour to trace out which of the many ships in the offing could be the ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... populous with craft of all rigs, for this is the highway to the great interior, and some of them were bound to Cuyab, 2,600 miles in the heart of the continent. During the night a ship on fire in the offing lit up with great vividness the silent waste of waters, and as the flames leaped up the rigging, the sight was very grand. Owing to calms and light winds, our passage was a slow one, and I was not sorry when at last I could say ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... no landing was to be attempted that day, the young men so reported to General Linares at Sevilla, where they also spent the night. Another day of suspense and anxious waiting was passed, with the American transports rolling idly in the offing, and making no effort to discharge their human freight. At the same time the war-ships kept the Spaniards in a state of feverish excitement by shelling every place along twenty miles of coast where a landing ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... as this. Then while I watched I saw a blue flare in the bows, only for a moment, as if a man had lit a squib and flung it overboard, but I knew from it she was a contrabandier, and signalling either to the shore or to a mate in the offing. With that, courage came back, and I resolved to make this flare my signal for getting down into the hole, screwing my heart up with the thought that if Blackbeard was really waiting for me there, 'twould ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... directly on them. We immediately fired a gun and hauled our wind, and then fired a second to warn the ships astern of us of the danger. When we hauled off we could not clear them, and it was more than an hour before we got an offing. They were the "Double-headed shot" keys. Our signal was made for the captain and master to repair on board the admiral. The latter, we understood, was well hauled over the coals, and he came on board looking like a boy who had been whipped. He thought it was "moral impossible" (for that was ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... is again a contrast to the first two types. An Alimentive man will roll into the offing at a quarter, or more likely, a half hour past the time, smilingly apologize and be so naive you forgive and ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... right, stretched the blue line of the Bay, where a single ship-of-war tacked lazily and kept a two-miles' offing. The smoke of the guns, drifting down on the land-breeze from the summit of Mount Olia, now hid her white sails, now lifted and revealed them in the late afternoon sunshine. But although blue held ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the ocean, in the space between the more distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction—as well in ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... let go the sheets, man the down-hauls, lower ties and brails. Let us steer to the west, let us regain the high sea; head for the buoy, steer for the bell—there's an offing down there. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... this boat the brother of the customer of Surat, and three or four others. All these remained with us till the 7th, when we came to anchor at the bar of Surat, in eight 1/4 fathoms at high water, and six 1/2 at neap tides. At spring tides, however, I have found the tide to rise in the offing three fathoms, and even three 1/2. The latitude of our anchorage was 21 deg. 10' N. and the variation 16 deg. 20' or 16 deg. 27'.[79] On the 11th, Thomas Kerridge came aboard, with a certificate or licence under the seals of the justice ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... different parts of the coast, being directly opposite to the remarks of Captain Cook, it may be proper to state them. That great and able seaman says, in his notice of the current on this coast, that 'It always ran with more force in shore than in the offing.' Now, in going to the northward the sloop was kept as near in shore as circumstances would permit; but the whole sum of southing produced in eight entire days, from latitude 33 degrees 45 minutes to 24 degrees 22 minutes south, was sixty-five miles, almost the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... mockery or malice have we here?" cries Herve Riel: "Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues? Talk to me of rocks and shoals?—me, who took the soundings, tell On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell 'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river disembogues? Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for? Morn and eve, night and day, Have I piloted your bay, Enter'd free and anchor'd fast at the foot of Solidor. Burn the fleet and ruin France? ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... value.—N. B. He is a cousin to a family of Petersons, which was the name of the husband of my sister-in-law; so there is room to hope it may be worth more than be reports.—10th November, 10 A.M. May God pardon all our sins! An English frigate, bearing the Parliament flag, has appeared in the offing, and gives chase.—11 A. M. She nears us every moment, and the captain of our vessel prepares to clear for action. May God again ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... boarders, of course—was scarce around Wellmouth Port. First the Kelly lady begun to flag Cap'n Jonadab and me, but we sheered off and took to the offing. Jonadab, being a widower, had had his experience, and I never had the marrying disease and wasn't hankering to catch it. So Emma had to look for other victims, and the prophet-shop looked to her like the most ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... eyot, and most in a little wood of berry-trees, as quicken and whitebeam and dog-wood, and sported with the birds, who feared her not, but came and sat on her shoulders, and crept about her feet. She went also and stood a while on the southern shore, and looked on the wide water dim in the offing under the hot-weather haze, and longed to be gone beyond it. Then she turned away, and to the other shore, and gat her fish and strung them on the string, and made them fast to her middle, and so took the water back again to the yellow strand, where now was no one awaiting ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... and so found a native boat. O'Hara wouldn't wake, so I just lifted him on board like a sack, tossed in his cornet and my bombardon, tumbled in on top of them, and started to row for dear life towards the ship's light in the offing. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... course, not oblivious to the great changes which have occurred in the conditions and means of naval warfare since the rules hitherto governing legal blockade were formulated. It might be ready to admit that the old form of "close" blockade, with its cordon of ships in the immediate offing of the blockaded ports, is no longer practicable in the face of an enemy possessing the means and opportunity to make an effective defense by the use of submarines, mines, and air craft; but it can hardly be maintained that, whatever form of effective blockade may be made use of, it is impossible ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... roared with unaccustomed rage, the sea rose into large billows, and a ship was seen tossing in the offing. The Islanders, whose experience of navigation extended only to a slight paddling in their lagoon, in the half of a hollow trunk of a tree, for the purpose of fishing, mistook the tight little frigate for a great fish; and being now aware of the cause ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... enough, but I may be excused for mentioning one scene that very much struck me, and of which I am now the only (white) one left who was present at it. We were paying a visit for the first time to an island, and—the vessel being safe in the offing—the Bishop asked me if I would go with them as he sometimes did on similar occasions. We pulled in to a small inner islet among a group, where a number of (say 200) natives were collected on the beach. Seeing they looked as if friendly, he waded on shore without hesitation and joined them; the reception ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eh? Surrounded entirely by police. Mr. Stafford King in the offing, waiting outside in a taxi, or probably waiting on the mat," said the colonel in the same tone. "Well, well, you're quite safe ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... of summer had come at last. Over Southampton Water broke a cloudless August day. The musical cries of the sailors who were at work on the Saint Mary, the James, and the Catherine, in the offing— preparing for the King's voyage to France—came pleasantly from the distance. From the country farms, girls with baskets poised on their heads, filled with market produce, came into the crowded ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... sails looking like the wings of white birds, were in the offing; to the right and left rose the high cliffs; a sort of cape interrupted the view on one side, while on the other the coast-line stretched out till it could no longer be distinguished, and a harbor and some houses could be seen in a bay a little way off. ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... schooner in the offing, With her topsails shot with fire, And my heart has gone aboard her For ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... nearer the shore, till at last we were only a few hundred yards distant. As it was, however, I felt very much surprised; for having passed it twice before, both times in steam vessels, and having seen with what care the captains endeavoured to maintain a wide offing, I could not conceive the reason of our being now so near this dangerous region. The wind was blowing hard towards the shore, if that can be called a shore which consists of steep abrupt precipices, on which the surf ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... a little way on that course, and then paid off again, and seemed inclined to range along the coast. But presently she was up in the wind again, and made a greater offing. She was sailed in a strange, vacillating way; but Hazel ascribed this to her people's fear of the reefs he had indicated to all comers. The better to watch her maneuvers, and signal her if necessary, they both went up to Telegraph Point. They could ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... 10, does not comprehend judicial decisions. Yet even in these cases, it will intervene to protect contracts entered into on the faith of existing decisions from an impairment which is the direct result of a reversal of such decisions, but there must be in the offing, as it were, a statute of some kind—one possibly many years older than the contract rights involved—on ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... did not think it was our business to have it known who we were, or that such a kind of people as we had been seen on the coast. However, we were obliged to keep to the northward, keeping as good an offing as we could with respect to the ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... are!" he exclaimed. "Had your evening dance? Good. I ordered this little hopeful pour passer le temps. They've two more baubles in the offing, and sharp at one-thirty we start on fried eggs and beer. Judging from the contracts into which my wife has entered during the last six minutes, we shall be here till three." Here he produced and prepared to inflate an air-cushion. "The great ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... thou bidest with me; we shall go down to the sea when the storm begins once more; thou shalt see the billows rushing upon the land like wild, white-maned horses—and then the whales far out in the offing! They dash one against another like steel-clad knights! Ha, what joy to be a witching-wife and ride on the whale's back—to speed before the skiff, and wake the storm, and lure men to the deeps with lovely songs ...
— The Vikings of Helgeland - The Prose Dramas Of Henrik Ibsen, Vol. III. • Henrik Ibsen
... cliffs of Kerry or Clare, on a cloudless autumn day, when not a breath of wind is stirring, you may see rank after rank of heavy purple billows rolling sullenly in from the offing: these are messengers coming to tell us of battles fought a thousand leagues to the westward, in which they, too, have borne their part. Before the mail comes in we are prepared to hear of a storm that has worked ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... With the opening of the sockeye season on the Fraser and in the north the Japs abandoned trolling for the gill net. The white trollers returned to their first love because he courted them assiduously. There was always a MacRae carrier in the offing. It cost MacRae his sleep and rest, but he drove himself tirelessly. He could leave Squitty at dusk, unload his salmon at Crow Harbor, and be back at sunrise. He did it many a time, after tallying fish all day. Three hours' sleep was like a gift from the gods. But he kept it up. He had a ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... fisherman, "I won't do him no harm. I'll sell him for a sailor to the ship that lies in the offing, and then I'll take his show and travel about the country with it, ...
— Prince Vance - The Story of a Prince with a Court in His Box • Eleanor Putnam
... Navy when they grew up. They knew what it meant, too. The great battleships from Plymouth ran their speed-trials off Polpier: the westward mile-mark stood on the Peak, right over the little haven; and the smallest child has learnt to tell a Dreadnought in the offing, or discern the difference between a first-class and a second-class cruiser. The older boys knew most ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... following the earthquake, but sometimes after the interval of even half an hour, and from distant islands being affected similarly with the coasts near the focus of the disturbance, it appears that the wave first rises in the offing; and as this is of general occurrence, the cause must be general: I suspect we must look to the line where the less disturbed waters of the deep ocean join the water nearer the coast, which has partaken of the movements of the land, as the place ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... whole matter of piracy had been so strange and unlooked for that all the while he had been hidden under the sail (where he had retreated by the Skipper's orders as soon as Mr. Bill Hen Pike appeared in the offing), he had been trying to persuade himself that he was asleep, and that the monkeys were dream-monkeys, very lively ones, and that by-and-by he would wake up once more and find himself in bed at ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... of the Wady el-Maka'dah we halted six days (December 24—30); this delay gave us time to correct the misapprehensions of our flying visit. The height of the Jebel el-Abyaz, whose colour makes it conspicuous even from the offing when sailing along the coast, was found to be 350 (not 600) feet above the plain. The Grand Filon, which a mauvais plaisant of a reviewer called the "Grand Filou," forms a "nick" near the hill-top, but does not bifurcate in the interior. The fork is of heavy greenish porphyritic ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... in Leghorn Road, received an express from Genoa, that the French fleet, consisting of fifteen sail of the line and three frigates, was seen on the 6th instant off the Isle of Marguerite. This intelligence corresponding with a signal made from the Moselle, then in the offing, for a fleet in the north-west quarter, he immediately caused the squadron to be unmoored; and, at day-break the following morning, put to sea, in ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... three centuries. For this was the grain elevator at Newport News, spouting its endless stream to feed the Old World, and standing almost on the spot where those first settlers in the New World, sick and starving, once begged and then fought the Indians for corn. Lying in the offing were great ships from overseas that had come to this land of the ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... else in store. The sea is black, with sufficient swell on it to cause a few crested waves here and there to gleam intensely white by contrast. It is early in the day, nevertheless there is a peculiar darkness in the atmosphere which suggests the approach of night. Numerous vessels in the offing are making with all speed for Ramsgate harbour, which is truly and deservedly named a "harbour of refuge," for already some two dozen ships of considerable size, and a large fleet of small craft, have sought and found shelter on a coast which in certain conditions ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... I take my pen in hand to record? The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-day under full sail? The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that envelops me? Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me? —no; But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... the first, And so the second midnight to the cliff We went. I mind me how the round moon rose, And how a great whale in the offing plunged, Dark on the golden circle. There we cut A space of turf, and lifted it, and ran Our knife-points sharp into our arms, and drew Blood that dripped into the warm mould and mixed. So there under the turf our plighted faith Starts ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... old women, to enliven the hours, Attend with gay garlands and sacred flowers, The emblems of grief—artificial, 'tis true, But very like nature in a general view. Lord Graves will preside, and vice-president Coffin Will pilot the public into the offing. The College of Surgeons and Humane Society Have promised to send a delightful variety. The Visitors all are physicians of fame; And success we may, therefore, dead certainty name. To the delicate nervous, who'd wish a snug spot, A romantic temple, or moss-cover'd ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... responsibility, and never was watch kept with keener observation. Eye, ear, brain—the whole being was absorbed in duty. Not a sight escaped him—from the changes of cloud in the lowering sky over the offing, to the deepening of shadows in the alley of Wolfe's Cove. Not a sound passed unheard—from the fluttering wing of the sparrow that had built its winter nest in the guns of the battery, to the swift dash of the chipmunk over the brown glacis of the ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... that's right; you will then be able to make a good offing before the land-breeze drops," returned the admiral. "Well," he continued, "good-bye, my boy, and a successful cruise to you. And if, when you return, you bring Morillo with you, or can assure me of his destruction, you shall have t'other swab; for ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... prepared, and sent off next day in one of the stone-lighters. On the 9th July the stone was placed in a praam-boat, decorated with colours for the occasion. Flags were also displayed upon the beacon and from the shipping in the offing. The stone was gently lowered into the water, which occupied the site of the building, amidst the cheering of all present. The stone was necessarily landed at high water, for want of a sufficient length of railway for conveying it along ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... we are writing, however, but a dozen living beings were visible in or about all these craft. The intelligence that a strange lugger, resembling the one described, was in the offing, and had drawn nearly all the mariners ashore; and most of the habitues of the port had followed them up the broad steps of the crooked streets which led to the heights behind the town; or to the rocky elevation that overlooks the sea from ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Nelson, and for two days cruised the offing, scanning the sea for the rest of his fleet. Early on September 5 the sails of three vessels heaved and rose above the watery horizon. Never doubting these were his own ships, Iberville signaled. There was no answer. A sailor scrambled ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... anchor. I gave him the boat, with all the men except four, which I kept with me. The poor fellow probably lost more men, for he cut his cable, and got out before me. I weighed my anchor, but had one of my men killed by a musket ball in doing it. I stood out after the midshipman. We had gained an offing of four miles, when a violent gale and snow-storm came on. The sails belonging to the vessel all blew to rags immediately, being very old. I had no resource, except to anchor, which I did on a bank, in five fathom water. The other vessel lost all her sails, and, having no anchor, as I then conjectured, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... England, leaving only a frigate and the "Venerable," commanded by Admiral Duncan, with my father as his flag-captain. To deceive the Dutch, they continued to make signals, as if the rest of the fleet were in the offing, till they could return to England; when, without delay, Admiral Duncan and my father went alone on board each ship, ordered the men to arrest the ringleaders, which was done, and the fleet immediately returned to its station off the Texel. At last, on the morning of the ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... are to be the fourth part of the fleet, and the lightest and best sailers; but they must not move in rear of the fleet, because they would not see well what is passing so as to give timely succour, and therefore they ought always to keep an offing on that side or flank of the fleet where the flagship is, or on both sides if they are many; and if they are in one body they should work to station themselves to windward for ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... door he could see Collins, perched on a high stool before the shelf-like desk. From the open window came the clear, musical note of the circular saw, the fresh aromatic smell of new lumber, the bracing air from Superior sparkling in the offing. He felt tired. In rare moments such as these, when the muscles of his striving relaxed, his mind turned to the past. Old sorrows rose before him and looked at him with their sad eyes; the sorrows that had helped to make him what he ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... kind of march—I suppose a battery of howitzers never before found itself mounted upon cars, ready to open fire at once and bang away into the offing with shrapnel or into the bushes with canister. Our line extended a half-mile along the track. It was beautiful to stand on the bank above a cutting and watch the files strike from the shadow of a wood into a broad flame of moonlight, every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... girl stood ankle-deep in green grasses, a bath of sunlight falling about her, a tingle of salt wind humming up the river from the bay's offing. She was clad in gray wool, and wore no hat. Her soft hair, the color of ripe wheat, blew about her temples, shadowing eyes of fathomless black. The wind had brought to the light and delicate brown of her complexion a trace ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... Lo! in the offing the white sails are gleaming, Ships from afar to the land drawing nigh; Laden with men, strong and brave to meet danger, Stalwart of form, fair of skin, blue of eye. Boldly they land where the white man is alien; Women ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... lives. On the iron-bound coast of Connaught, over 2,000 men perished. In Galway harbour, 70 prisoners were taken by the Queen's garrison, and executed on St. Augustine's hill. In the Shannon, the crew of a disabled vessel set her on fire, and escaped to another in the offing. On the coasts of Cork and Kerry nearly one thousand men were lost or cast away. In all, according to a state paper of the time, above 6,000 of the Spaniards were either drowned, killed, or captured, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... the journals of the time the moving recital of the sufferings of the crew of the frigate "Medusa," abandoned on a raft in mid-ocean. Choosing the moment when the fifteen survivors of the hundred and forty-nine men who had embarked on the raft sighted the sail in the offing which meant their deliverance, he worked with an energy and fire which have remained remarkable in the annals of art. Certain of the figures, all of which are more than life size, were painted in a day, and when the Salon of 1819 opened, the picture ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... the old man standing outside his cottage, with his old spy-glass under his arm, waiting for them, and apparently he had been filling up the time by watching three or four vessels out in the offing. ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... grow worse as time goes on. The prospect is not a good one. "But something will turn up," says Josephine. She need not worry, for she has money in the bank, and no doubt there is a young man in the offing, on the other side of ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... of the sea came from the offing, mingled with the resinous smell of pine logs, and of the large nets with great pieces of sea-weed clinging to them, which were drying ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... sight of Davy Hull, hanging uncertainly in the offing. He rose at once, said a few words in a quiet, emphatic way to Rivers—words of conclusion and dismissal—and advanced ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... He had seen Jerry in operation before. The young reporter didn't mind any kind of insult if there were a story in the offing. Rick guessed the newspaper trade wasn't a place ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... or four days an unusual amount of vigilance was observable on board the men-o'-war, especially the frigates and gun-brigs, all of which kept well in the offing during the day, evidently on the lookout for prowling picaroons, and closing in again upon the convoy at night; but nothing was seen to keep alive suspicion; no ships of any description were encountered, save a couple of English frigates, each of which replied ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... after we lost sight of the Swallow, and never saw her afterwards.[48] At first I was inclined to have gone back into the streight; but a fog coming on, and the sea rising very fast, we were all of opinion that it was indispensably necessary to get an offing as soon as possible; for except we pressed the ship with sail, before the sea rose too high, it would be impracticable either to weather Terra del Fuego on one tack, or Cape Victory on the other. At noon, the Islands of Direction bore N. 21' W. distant three leagues, Saint Paul's cupola ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... after he caught sight of Timothy waiting for him. Paul opened his arms to him. Thoughtest that I was lost to thee for ever, Timothy? God whispered in my ears, Timothy answered, that he would bring thee back safely, and the ship is already in offing. It would be well to go on board now, for at daybreak we weigh anchor. Thou'lt sleep better on board. And Paul, who was too weary even to answer, allowed himself to be led. And, too weary to sleep, he lay waking often out of ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... third day he hove the Sally to; being a stout craft and not overladen she weathered the gale with the loss of a jib, and was about making topsails again when a full-rigged ship was descried in the offing giving signals of distress. Night was coming on very fast, and the sea was yet running too high for a boat to live, but the gallant captain furled his topsails once more to await the morning. It could be seen from her signals that the ship was ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... whopping Whales in the offing, Brave boys! And them he did loudly h-a-a-ail; But to such a voice as his'n They worn't a-going to listen, Especially that big black Whale, Brave boys! Most especially ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 9th, 1892 • Various
... (who are by nature inquisitive creatures) were still hanging about in the offing to see if anything of interest was going to happen. Polynesia, the plotter, while the Doctor was occupied with his new patient, signaled to them and drew them aside for a ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... were hidden in the mountain crevices or among the osier bushes. But the best of all was the old fisherman who lived there. Dunfin had heard that in his youth he had been a great shot and had always lain in the offing and hunted birds. But now, in his old age—since his wife had died and the children had gone from home, so that he was alone in the hut—he had begun to care for the birds on his island. He never fired a shot at them, nor would he ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... her intelligent great eyes were fastened on Enoch's with an expression so discerning and so sympathetic, that he bit his lip and turned from her to the Navaho, who prayed in the burning desert before him. The reporters, who had been hovering in the offing, closed in on Diana immediately. When she was free once more, Enoch turned back ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... next novelty to startle and lure this blase town; amusement forecasters already see in the offing a Fall invasion of the mysterious Chinese airs which are now having such a vogue in London under the general term of ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... sailed in company, it has often happened that not every vessel has been actually engaged in the capture of the prize, though they may have been rendering valuable assistance in a variety of forms, such as watching in the offing, guarding an open outlet of escape to the intended prize. In the disputes arising from these joint captures, Sir William Scott was the first to establish a settled intelligible system, on principles that might become ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... the white foam out of their mouths and drove it along the beach, where it hung gleaming on the bushes, and then vanished into nothingness. Right up to the shore they dashed, and then fell dead. But fresh hordes stormed shoreward from the offing, as though the land must be over-run by them; they reared, foaming, and struck at one another; they sprang, snorting and quivering, high in the air; they broke asunder in panic; there was never an end to it all. And far out in the distance ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... took in the fact of the audience having increased and a policeman in the offing. She ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... from hence, steering S.S.E. to 12 deg. 30' S. latitude, where we found an island like that of Taumaco, and with the same kind of people, named Tucopia. There is only one small anchoring place; and passing in the offing, a small canoe with only two men came to me to make peace, and presented me with some bark of a tree, which appeared like a very fine handkerchief, four yards long and three palms wide; on ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... appropriate, more fitting, than this specimen of human skill, whose beautiful model and elegant tapering spars were now all that could be discovered to break the meeting lines of the firmament and horizon of the offing. ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... To the left extended the snow-white cliffs, throwing in shadow part of the ocean, and bringing forward their own illumined walls in bold relief against the dark blue sea. Ships of every size, from the floating castle in the offing to the tiny pleasure boat, whose white sails shining in the sun caused her to be distinguished at some distance, skimming along the ocean as a bird of snowy plumage across the heavens, the merchant vessels, the packets entering ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... off the entrance of the port; and a concourse of volunteers, from all parts of Europe, hastened to share in the defence of this last bulwark of Christendom in the Grecian seas; while the Maltese, Papal, and Neapolitan galleys cruised in the offing, to intercept the supplies brought by sea to the Ottoman camp. The Turks, meanwhile, with their usual stubborn perseverance, continued to push their sap under the ravelin of Mocenigo, and the Panigra bastion which it covered; and though their progress was retarded, and their works ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... arm. The Spaniards, I expected, would be off their guard, and consider themselves safe from attack for that night, since, by way of ruse, the other ships had been sent out of the bay under the charge of Captain Foster, as though in pursuit of some vessels in the offing. ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... clasped over his ears, as if the awful word were following him, he flew rather than fled. It was nearly low water, and the wet sand afforded an easy road to his flying feet. Betwixt sea and shore, a sail in the offing the sole other moving thing in the solitary landscape, like a hunted creature he sped, his footsteps melting and vanishing behind ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... fenceless prairie Where the quick cloud-shadows trail, To our neighbour's barn in the offing And the line of the new-cut rail; To the plough in her league-long furrow With the gray Lake gulls behind— To the weight of a half-year's winter And the ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... of January, 1805, that the look-out frigate in the offing signalled to the admiral that the French fleet had put to sea. At that season there was much gaiety, in dances, private theatricals, and other amusements, on board the different ships in the harbour, and preparations for an evening's entertainment were going on at the moment the stirring signal ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... You would rave at this climate which is wetter far than that of England. There are the Wicklow hills (mountains we call them) in the offing—quite high enough. In spite of my prejudice for a level, I find myself every day unconsciously verging towards any eminence that gives me the freest view of their blue ranges. One's thoughts take wing to the distance. I fancy that moderately ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... he was for funds, Clemens at this time regarded himself as a potential multi-millionaire. The type-setting machine which for years had been sapping his financial strength was believed to be perfected, and ship-loads of money were waiting in the offing. However, we ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... increased in magnitude, and the comb of the sea was far more menacing to the boat. This would not have been the case had the rocks formed a lee; but they did not, running too near the direction of the trades to prevent the billows that got up a mile or so in the offing, from sending their swell quite home to the reef. It was this swell, indeed, which caused the line of white water along the northern margin of the coral, washing on the rocks by a sort of lateral effort, and breaking, as a matter of course. In many places no boat ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... to whom she specially referred had gone to sit down now by her brother, who was scanning a vessel in the offing with ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... teethers to dig in, and there was an effect of superior fashion in the gossipers on the piazza, one to every three of the three hundred feet of the piazza, rocking and talking, and guessing at the yachts in the offing, and then bathing and coming out to lie on the sand and ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... house, making our mouths water with expectation, for we had now been a long time without them, and it is only then that one realizes their value. In the far distance we discerned the Roman Catholic Mission church, the primitive building showing up boldly in the offing, whilst our canoemen, now nearing their own home, broke into an Indian chant, and were in high spirits. They expected a big feast that night, and so did we! I had been a bit under the weather, with flagging appetite, but felt again the ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... school-closing in the offing and lessons and examinations getting harder and harder, the girl scarcely had time to keep her own clothing neat and mended. She knew that right now daddy was wearing ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... seemed, for the cutter was flying back to us under sail and oars; and before she reached us, the first Danish ships were clear of the Swanage headlands, making for the offing. Then I got my ships into line abreast, and Thord worked up Odda's five alongside us to seaward; and all the while the Danish sails hove into sight in no sort of order, and seeming so sure that none but friends could be afloat that they paid no heed ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... though himself a creditor, had never heard the idea of credit. A guinea might be owing, and Sheridan, seldom remembering his purse, had but a shilling, which even in a court of Irish law seemed too small a compromise to offer. Black looked the horizon, stormy the offing, and night was coming on, whilst the port of consignment was now within thirty minutes' sail. Suddenly a sight of joy was described. Driving before the wind, on bare poles, was a well-known friend of Sheridan's, Richardson, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... to care for my horse, whom I had somewhat neglected in the morning. From time to time I went down to the edge of the wood; but there was no change in the pavilion, and not a human creature was seen all day upon the links. The schooner in the offing was the one touch of life within my range of vision. She, apparently with no set object, stood off and on or lay to, hour after hour; but as the evening deepened, she drew steadily nearer. I became more convinced that she carried Northmour ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... orange-trees in which the Oriental city of Jaffa lies buried; we passed through the walls, and rode again down narrow streets and among swarms of animated rags, and saw other sights and had other experiences we had long been familiar with. We dismounted, for the last time, and out in the offing, riding at anchor, we saw the ship! I put an exclamation point there because we felt one when we saw the vessel. The long pilgrimage was ended, and somehow we seemed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hour both vessels were hull down in the offing, and were soon invisible from our point of view. The early ride and subsequent excitement had developed in us a healthy appetite, and we were strongly reminded of the fact that we had not breakfasted. We were near the little hamlet of Lenore, where there was a small ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... for hours if he should have chanced to brush against a millionnaire. Reality was his romance; he gloried to be thus engaged; he wallowed in his business. Suppose a man to dig up a galleon on the Coromandel coast, his rakish schooner keeping the while an offing under easy sail, and he, by the blaze of a great fire of wreckwood, to measure ingots by the bucketful on the uproarious beach: such an one might realise a greater material spoil; he should have no more profit of romance than ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... in the Channel I saw a single panting, eager steam vessel making ifs way to Belfast Lough, and the large barque which I had observed in the morning still beating about in the offing, endeavouring to pass to ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Quebec. Some of Durell's ships destroyed the French 'long-shore batteries near this Traverse, at the lower end of the island of Orleans, while the rest kept ceaseless watch to seaward, anxiously scanning the offing, day after day, to make out the colours of the first fleet up. No one knew what the French West India fleet would do; and there was a very disconcerting chance that it might run north and slip into the St Lawrence, ahead of Saunders, in the same way as the French ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... were the adventures chosen for representation by Dexter's brush. The first picture showed me a harbor on a rocky coast. A vessel was at anchor, with the helmsman singing on the deck. The sea in the offing was black and rolling; thunder-clouds lay low on the horizon, split by broad flashes of lightning. In the glare of the lightning, heaving and pitching, appeared the misty form of the Phantom Ship approaching the shore. In this work, badly as it was painted, there ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... to the seaside, is the wash of a great sea wave, such as swept in last year upon the island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies; such as swept in upon the coast of Peru this year. The sea moans, and sinks back, leaving the shore dry; and then comes in from the offing a mighty wall of water, as high as, or higher than, many a tall house; sweeps far inland, washing away quays and houses, and carrying great ships in with it; and then sweeps back again, leaving the ships high and dry, as ships were left ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... most of the time with my head on my hands, looking at the sea breaking against the rocks, shagged around the bases with sea-weed. It is a sunny forenoon, with a cool breeze from the southwest. The mackerel craft are in the offing. Mr. Laighton says that the Spy (the boat which went to the mainland this morning) is now on her return with all her colors set; and he thinks that Pierce is on board, he having sent Mr. Thaxter to invite him ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in a rickety sampan across the harbour of Sourabaya involves numerous collisions with fruit-boats, canoes, and rafts, before reaching the steamer in the offing. Intervals of comparative safety permit cursory observation of the gorgeously-painted praus with upturned stern, curving bamboo masts, and striped sails, the outline of the gaudy boats accentuated by a black line, ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... eastward, and there was a good deal of sea running. As we were shoving out, the London agent, a jolly little round-faced fellow, in black clothes, and a bald white head, called to us, and said that he wanted to board a vessel in the offing, and asked whether we would take him. This was all a ruse, as he intended to go on board of the brig with us to settle matters, and then return in the pilot boat. Well, we hoisted our jib, drew aft our ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... be. You never can tell," said Will, with a look around the horizon as though to discover some mysterious and suspicious vessel in the offing. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... have thought that men could not have borne to live so, in such deadly insecurity. But probably they troubled their heads little about the pirates, kept the women and children at home, and set a retainer on the cliff in open weather, to scan the offing for the light-rigged barques, while poorer folk took their chance. We live among a different set of risks now, and think little of ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... objected to. I know that skipper; his notion of yachting is to lie in what he calls the "offing," where he can be well in touch with his wife and family, to say ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... made a visit to the Russian-American Company's Establishment of New Archangel. This exhibited considerable signs of commerce. In the harbour were five sailing vessels from 250 to 350 tons; besides a large bark in the offing in tow of a steamer, which brought advices from St Petersburgh down to the end of April. An officer came off conveying Governor Etholine's compliments and welcome. The party landed, and were received in the residence situated on the top of a rock. The Governor's ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... Guardian-Mother in the offing was hailed with rejoicing by every person belonging to the Maud. Off on an independent cruise as the boys were, and "when the cat's away the mice will play," it would not have been strange if they had enjoyed their freedom from the ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... years afterwards, on a still evening, about the same time of the year, a boat was lowered from a distant vessel in the offing. Three men pulled ashore as the broad full moon rose up, red and dim, from the mist that hung upon the sea. The roll of the ocean alone betokened its approach. Its melancholy murmur alone broke the universal stillness. The lights came out one by one from the village ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... as a fair-sized ocean steamship, it looked, on that little lake dotted with pleasure craft, like a leviathan. Men were busy in the cars, fore and aft. The mooring ropes were cast off as the vessel gained an offing, and ballast being thrown out she began to rise slowly. The propellers began to whir, and the great craft swung around breasting the breeze and moved slowly up the lake. The crowd cheered. Count von Zeppelin, tense with excitement, alert ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... to fall upon the hills, and washing away the ochreous earth lying upon the slopes, descend in muddy torrents into the hollows of the valleys. The Adonis river begins to swell with the ruddy waters, which, on reaching the sea, do not readily blend with it. The wind from the offing drives the river water back upon the coast, and forces it to cling for a long time to the shore, where it forms a kind of crimson fringe.* This was the blood of the hero, and the sight of this precious stream stirred up anew the devotion of the people, who donned once more their weeds of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... this might do on soundings, and in an offing where one knew the channel," returned old Cap; "but in an unknown region like this I think it unsafe to trust the pilot alone too far from the ship: so, with your leave, we will ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... afternoon when the lookout forward gave the news that there was a ship in the offing. Immediately the Vaterland altered her course slightly and headed for the newcomer, which it developed was a ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... had them in its charge, and again they experienced its protecting care. The breeze sent by Our Lady of Utrera rose to a gale, then to a furious tempest; and the grateful Adelantado saw through rack and mist the ships of his enemy tossed wildly among the raging waters as they struggled to gain an offing. With exultation at his heart the skilful seaman read their danger, and saw them in his mind's eye dashed to utter wreck among the sand-bars and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... pitiful return had hurt her sorely. There was a full moon in the sky, and the cold, gray waters tossed restlessly under it. "Lord help us, we must bear what's sent!" she whispered; then she noticed a steamboat with closely reefed sails lying in the offing; and added thankfully, "There is 'The Falcon,' God bless her! And it's good to think that Andrew Binnie isn't far away; maybe he'll be wanted. I wonder if I ought to send a word to him; if Sophy wants to see him, she shall have her way; dying folk ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... doctor for Lafarge, my clerk. Lafarge did his prettiest in rushing to the telegraph. But no! A freshet on the Chowan River, or a raid by Foster, or something, or nothing, had smashed the telegraph wire for that night. And before that despatch ever reached Wilmington the navy agent was in the offing in ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... I come, Martin! what the mischief have you been about, keeping us dodging in the offing all this while?" demanded Williams fiercely. "Hook on the tackles, and let us be ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... the clouds broke, about noon, close down on the angry horizon a drift of smoke appeared, shortly resolving itself into a steamer. She lay to in the offing, and through his glasses Glenister saw that it was the Roanoke. As the hours passed and no boat put off, he tried to hire a crew, but the longshoremen spat wisely and shook their heads as ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... full breadth and outline. Late years are still in limbo to us; but the more distant past is all that we possess in life, the corn already harvested and stored for ever in the grange of memory. The doings of to-day at some future time will gain the required offing; I shall learn to love the things of my adolescence, as Hazlitt loved them, and as I love already the recollections of my childhood. They will gather interest with every year. They will ripen in forgotten corners of my memory; and some day ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beliefs into an umpire any better than before. That night we left the quaint city of Cork behind and, after a beautiful ride of eleven miles by train, found ourselves standing on the docks at Queenstown, where a tender was in waiting to convey us to the White Star steamer that awaited us in the offing. ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... the world has been painted so much as Scheveningen. Mesdag, Maris, Alfred Stevens, to name only a few of the artists, have found here themes for many paintings, and the scene is a wonderful one when the homing fleet of "Boms," as the fishing-boats are called, appears in the offing to be welcomed by the fisherwomen. There are other smaller watering-places on the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... great folk from Lon'on, besides country folk o' quality,—to meet the Duchess o' Camberhurst, and she's the greatest of 'em all. Lord! There's enough blue blood among 'em to float a Seventy-four. Nat'rally, the Cap'n wanted to keep a good offing to windward of 'em. 'For look ye, Jerry,' says he, 'I'm no confounded courtier to go bowing and scraping to a painted old woman, with a lot of other fools, just because she happens to be a duchess,—no, damme!' and down 'e sits on the breech o' the gun here. But, just then, my lady heaves into ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... wind had entirely left us, the flood was making strong, and there was a prospect of our being compelled to anchor. The bark was nearly hull-down in the offing, and the top-gallant-sails of the Don Quixote were just settling into the water. All this was very provoking, for there might be a good breeze to seaward, while we had it calm inshore. The suspense was short, for a fresh-looking ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... stands the wondrous Mirror, Tabarino-Kagami, reflecting the state of souls and all the happenings of the world. A landscape now shadows its surface,—a landscape of cliffs and sand and sea, with ships in the offing. Upon the sand a dead man is lying, slain by a sword slash; the murderer is running away. Before this mirror a terrified soul stands, in the grasp of a demon, who compels him to look, and to recognise in the murderer's features his own face. To the right of the throne, upon a tall-stemmed flat stand, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... his chair. He shunned the governor's searching eye, and affected to be watching a ship in the offing, of which a view was ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... Estimates. Instantly Commodore HARCOURT appeared in offing; landed on Front Opposition Bench, diffusing unwonted smell of stale mussels and seaweed. Commodore looked very imposing pacing down quarter-deck towards Mace, with telescope under his arm, sou'wester pulled well over his ears, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the offing shone, And faded into foam: And down the noontide, one by one, The pale, proud ships would roam; Each sailor to his love went on; Each wanderer to ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... could be seen the yellow bodies of the bathers. A dozen bare-legged men got hold of a yacht under sail with as many passengers on board, and pushed it forcibly right down into the sea, and then up sprang its nose and it heeled over and shot suddenly off, careering on the waves into the offing where other yachts were sliding to and fro between the piers, dominating errant fleets of rowboats. And the piers also were loaded with excited humanity and radiant colour. And all the windows of all the houses and hotels were open, and blowing with curtains and flowers and hats. ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... ship channel, with the unconquered Half-moon upon one side and the incomplete batteries and platforms of Bucquoy on the other, still defiantly opened its passage to the sea, and the retiring fleets of the garrison were white in the offing. All around was the grey expanse of stormy ocean, without a cape or a headland to break its monotony, as the surges rolled mournfully in upon a desolation more dreary than their own. The atmosphere was murky and surcharged ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... again left to my care, the masters of the ships having had previous orders from Captain Phillip to prepare for sea. On the 26th, I made the signal for the transports to get under way. We perceived this morning two large ships in the offing, standing in for the bay, under French colours: these ships had been observed two days before, but the wind blowing fresh from north-west, they were not able to get in with the land. I sent a boat with an officer to assist them in, and about an hour after, a breeze sprung up from the south-east, ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... affluent and technologically powerful economy- the fifth largest national economy in the world - has become one of the slowest growing economies in the entire euro zone, and a quick turnaround is not in the offing in the foreseeable future. Growth in 2001-03 fell short of 1%. The modernization and integration of the eastern German economy continues to be a costly long-term process, with annual transfers from west to east amounting to roughly $70 billion. ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... underwent such repairs as soon enabled her to proceed on her voyage. Where the yellow flag is seen flying, on Dawes's Point, there is a Battery, and Lookout-house, to communicate with the signals for ships in the offing at South Head. The River round the point leads to several agricultural and farming districts, and to Parramatta. On the hill is the Citadel, with the union flag flying, and two Government Wind-mills, one built of wood and the other of stone, ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... surprised to find somebody so young as Brother Dunstan in charge of a monastery, especially as he said he was only a novice as yet. It appears that all the bigwigs—or should I say big-cowls?—are away at the moment on business of the Order and that various changes are in the offing, the most important being the giving up of their branch in Malta and the consequent arrival of Brother George, of whom Brother Dunstan spoke in a hushed voice. Father Burrowes, or the Reverend Father as he is called, is preaching ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie |
