"Ply" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mystic Three Around me ply their merry trade? — And Charon soon may carry me Across the gloomy Stygian glade? — Be up, my soul! nor be afraid Of what some unborn year may show; But mind your human debts are paid, As one by one the ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... religious warmth and unselfishness and nobleness, the dim consciousness that much that they said was undeniable; and on the other hand, the apparent wildness and recklessness of their words: and then public opinion began steadily to take its "ply," and to be agreed in condemning them. It soon went farther, and became vehement in reprobating them as scandalous and dangerous publications. They incensed the Evangelicals by their alleged Romanism, and their unsound views about ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... had to borrow a carriage. Why this economy? In order to have a storehouse full of garments, shoes and blankets, which he distributed gratuitously, with paternal kindness and prudence. This was a business which he never ceased to ply, in which he trusted only to himself, and with which he concerned himself ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... begun to ply between Dublin and Holyhead in 1819, and Maria Edgeworth's first experience of a steamboat was in crossing now to Holyhead. She disliked the jigging motion, which she said was like the shake felt in a carriage when a pig is scratching himself ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... system of grouping the oars, and putting only one man to an oar, continued down to the 16th century, during the first half of which came in the more modern system of using great oars, equally spaced, and requiring from four to seven men each to ply them, in the manner which endured till late in the last century, when galleys became altogether obsolete. Captain Pantero Pantera, the author of a work on Naval Tactics (1616), says he had heard, from veterans who had commanded galleys ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... with a couple of shovels, and, springing ashore from the canoe, he handed one to Winter, and began at once to ply the other most vigorously himself, ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... the boding owl, With fearful screams at distance cry; The evening breezes mournful howl, And bats their nightly circles ply. ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... which the Christians gazed,—one well calculated to make them tremble for the result,—for the hosts of Mohammed covered the hill-sides and plain like "countless swarms of locusts." On an eminence which gave an outlook over the whole broad space stood the emperor's tent, of three-ply crimson velvet flecked with gold, strings of pearls depending from its purple fringes. To guard it from assault rows of iron chains were stretched, before which stood three thousand camels in line. In front of these ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... wrecks and fragments of exalted wisdom which have floated down the stream of time from venerable antiquity, and been picked up by those humble but industrious wights who ply along the shores of literature, we find a shrewd ordinance of Charondas the Locrian legislator. Anxious to preserve the judicial code of the state from the additions and amendments of country members and seekers ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... ply their trade in several tents, the outside of which showed a collection of ludicrous portraits and prints of various kinds. The purpose of this stratagem was, of ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... do? turn porter? I was strong; but there was something besides strength required to ply the trade of a porter—a mind of a particularly phlegmatic temperament, which I did not possess. What should I do? enlist as a soldier? I was tall enough; but something besides height is required to make a man play with credit the part of soldier, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... with Tressady, to the pinnace, and setting them aboard, shoved them adrift, and I watched Abnegation ply feeble oars until the boat was through the passage in the reef and out ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... the blade before the wrist grows stiff and old; Hardly we learn to ply the pen ere Thought ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... of San Francisco do not ply their oars gratuitously. Even the shabbiest of shore-boats, hired for the shortest time, exacts a stiffish fare. It will cost Harry Blew a couple of dollars to be set aboard the Condor, though she is lying scarce three ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title. The quartermaster may, on the requisition of the Inspector of Settlements and Plantations, place at the disposal of the inspector one or more of the captured steamers to ply between the settlements and one or more of the commercial points heretofore named, in order to afford the settlers the opportunity to supply their necessary wants, and to sell the products of ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... heaving of a hand grenade, and they strike their colours. This is a craft of another guess build, and unless I steer wi' care she may put one in between wind and water before I so much as know that I am engaged. What think ye, heh? Should I lay myself boldly alongside, d'ye see, and ply her with small arms, or should I work myself clear and try a long range action? I am none of your slippery, grease-tongued, long-shore lawyers, but if so be as she's willing for a mate, I'll stand by her in wind and weather while ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Egyptian rifle rang out a sharp warning, and forthwith the entrenchments spurted forth smoke and flame. At once the British answered by a cheer and a rush over the intervening ground, each regiment eager to be the first to ply the bayonet. The Highlanders, under the command of General Graham, were leading on the left, and therefore won in this race for glory; but on all sides the invaders poured almost simultaneously over the works. For several ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... great enthusiasm. The assailant proved to be a discharged officer, named Robert Pate, subject to attacks of insanity. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to transportation for seven years.—Very shortly, fifteen screw steamers will ply between Liverpool and various ports in the Mediterranean.—Meyerbeer, the composer, has received the degree of Doctor from the University of Jena.—Dr. GUTZLAFF, who is preaching at Berlin and at ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the arms of Troy, with such allies, Think to what height will Punic glory rise. Win but the gods, their sacred off'rings pay; 65 Detain your guest; invent some fond delay. See low'ring tempests o'er the ocean ply, The shatter'd ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... life, it has lost whatever picturesqueness it might once have claimed. For a true canal population, bright and happy, living the same life from father to son and generation to generation, we must go to Holland. There these inland navigators ply their vocation with only one ambition, and that to become the owner of a tjalk, and to rear thereon a family of towers. It is said that the life is one that requires the consumption of unlimited quantitics of 'schnapps,' and the humidity of the atmosphere is ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... leaves grow green, and flowers are fresh and gay, Robin Hood and his merry men were all disposed to play. Thus runs a quaint old ballad which begins the next adventure. Then some would leap and some would run and some try archery and some ply the quarter-staff and some fall to with the good broad sword. Some again would try a round at buffet and fisticuff; and thus by every variety of sport and exercise they perfected themselves in skill and made the band and its prowess well known ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... is fraud. The parties so engaged are the vilest scoundrels; and that they are allowed to continue to ply their nefarious vocation is a foul blot upon the enlightened civilization of a so-called Christian country. A publisher who will insert such a notice in his journal, would advertise a brothel if he dared. While there is so much interest in the suppression of obscene literature, we ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... The Vicomtesse pushed me out of the room, and after that I was never allowed to be there when you had those flights. Curse the mosquitoes! He seized a fan and began to ply it vigorously. "I remember. You were giving Auguste a lecture. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... doctor, without ceasing to ply his dexterous hands in his art, "I'll jab these scissors into your back if you say ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... made by Mr. Napier is still in use in Mr. Boak's spinning factory at Dundee. His first essay at marine engineering was a contract undertaken in 1823, to build the engines for the Leven, a small paddle-steamer that used to ply between Glasgow and Dumbarton. When the Leven had been "put on the shelf," after having served its day, the engines were taken from her and removed to the Vulcan Foundry in Washington Street, to which Mr. Napier subsequently removed, and where these interesting memorials of the early ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... bottle: All his answers are divine, Truth itself doth Bow in wine. Hang up all the poor hop-drinkers, Cries old Sam, the king of skinkers; He the half of life abuses, That sits watering with the Muses. Those dull girls no good can mean us; Wine it is the milk of Venus, And the poet's horse accounted: Ply it, and you all are mounted. 'Tis the true Phoebian liquor, Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker. Pays all debts, cures all diseases, And at once three senses pleases. Welcome all who lead or follow, To ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... night Mrs. Cardew, who found herself seated near her favorite rector, began to ply him with questions with regard to Aylmer House. How had he heard of it, and why had he specially fixed on ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... you have seen. Steeled by a sense of my own danger, I was able to confront the woman whom I had so deeply wronged,—whom I had even endeavored to kill,—and ply her with those questions upon whose answers depended not only my honor, but my ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... woman?" "A little woodland bird told me about it in his singing; he gave me good tidings." "A little bird gossips of many things, but no one can understand him. How did you derive the meaning of his song?" "That was the effect of the blood of a wild dragon,..." and so forth. Wotan continues to ply the youth with questions, just as a kind old grandfather of humankind might lead on a child to talk, for the simple sake of hearing what he will say, for delight in his ingenuousness. The utmost tenderness for this joyous Walsung speaks in the tones of ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... his skiff, cast loose the fastening, and abandoned himself to the rapid current, which in that place runs like a mill-stream, and soon swept him off from the neighborhood. It was not, however, until he had drifted a great distance that he ventured to ply his oars; when he made his skiff dart like an arrow through the strait of Hell Gate, never heeding the danger of Pot, Frying-pan, or Hog's-back itself; nor did he feel himself thoroughly secure until safely nestled in bed in the cockloft of the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... not because it was felt to be justified; but rather, it passed unheeded. The stranger had questions to ply. ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... sentenced by the Tribunal in January, 1794. The night before his death he was calm, slept and ate well. When the jailer came for him he was eating his breakfast. He said, "Citizen, permit me to finish." Then, offering him a glass, he said, "Take this wine: you need strength for such a trade as you ply." D'Estaing, on his return from America, was commander at Grenada. He became a member of the Assembly of Notables, but being suspected by the Terrorists was guillotined on the 29th of April, 1793. The vicomte de Rochambeau was killed at the battle ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... the swordsman, He that dared to dye the grass sward of battle With the blood of the foe; And when Harald bade his men ply the swords in the strife, His manly words did ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... saying just now that I was disappointed at first, I had chiefly in mind the impression that assails me to-day in the whole precinct of St. Mark's. The condition of this ancient sanctuary is surely a great scandal. The pedlars and commissioners ply their trade—often a very unclean one—at the very door of the temple; they follow you across the threshold, into the sacred dusk, and pull your sleeve, and hiss into your ear, scuffling with each other for customers. There is a great deal of dishonour about St. Mark's altogether, and if Venice, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... not understand why he felt any anxiety to see Mrs. Errington refuse a beggar alms. Yet he would gladly have followed, like a spy, to behold a commonplace and dingy event. Despite the apparent reluctance of the beggar to ply his trade, Hindford felt convinced that presently the man would approach Mrs. Errington and be promptly sent about his business. Her negative would, no doubt, be eager enough even upon this exquisite and charitable morning. Wishing devoutly that, being a gentleman, ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... waving torch and tiny shout, The nimble foot they ply, And Fairy laughs are ringing out Beneath the midnight sky;— Then mortals hear the merry peals, And wonder at the sound, So like the chiming of harebells, When light ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... said, "we'll board yon fort with a rush and a cheer. The ladders will be placed on the walls, and under cover of a heavy fire from our musketry we'll go over them. Use only the cutlass when you gain the parapet and ply like men. Remember ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... cargoes or passengers for short trips. Also, to work to windward, to beat. Also, to ply an oar, to use ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... crumbs that have escaped from this broad table, and there they are every day for weeks together, still finding food. If you will consider the incredible number of little mouths, and the busy rate at which they ply them hour by hour, you may imagine what an immense number of grains of wheat must have escaped man's hand, for you must remember that every time they peck they take a whole grain. Down, too, come the grey-blue wood-pigeons and the wild turtle-doves. The singing ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Indians, intoxicated with triumph and the strong liquors they had seized, rushed in and began to ply the tomahawk. Montcalm, horrified, used every effort to stop the incipient butchery, and St. Luc, Bourlamaque and, in truth, all of his lieutenants, seconded him gallantly. Tandakora and his men were compelled ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a military zone of administration, with a civil zone behind it, and a weaker wavering zone of exploration and scout work before it.[337] Lord Curzon in his Romanes lecture describes the northwest frontier of India as just such a three-ply border. ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... force they flew, As Norsemen fly, They but retired, the fight anew Unawed to ply. Now o'er the bodies of his slain His way Carl makes; He thinks he has the city ta'en, But he mistakes. Thus for Norroway fight ...
— Tord of Hafsborough - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... central figure, emphatically indorsed his judgment. The other persons, and the action itself, he treated more freely, with evident regard to their value as secondary elements in the portrayal of Stafford; and it is easy to trace in the whole manner of his innovations the well-marked ply of his mind. The harsh and rugged fanaticisms, the splendid frivolities, of the seventeenth century, fade and lose substance in an atmosphere charged with idealism and self-consciousness. Generous self-devotion is not the universal note, but it is the prevailing ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... not fire at us, as to do so she would have had to yaw and thus lose ground, while we continued to ply her with our long gun. Her fore-topsail could not be set while the mast was being fished. An attempt was now made to hoist it; but the breeze at that instant strengthening, away went the mast, rigging and sail together. A ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... goin' past?" she asked, rising from her chair, and craning forward to bring her eyes on a level with the window, while she suspended the agitation of the palm-leaf fan which she had not ceased to ply during her talk; she remained a moment with the quiescent fan pressed against her bosom, and then she stepped out of the door, and down the walk to the gate. "Josiah!" she called, while the old man looked and listened at the window. "Who ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... Fourteenth street or Union Square, at night, without his being accosted by one of these girls, who, instead of asking him to purchase flowers, would invariably remark, "Give me a penny, mister?" by which term, afterwards, all these girls of loose character were known to ply their trade. Many of these girls were so exceedingly handsome as to be taken by gentlemen of means and well cared for, and one instance is known where a flower girl married a very wealthy man ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... pitcher, and his ease, And braves the sultry beams, and gladly sees His gates thrown open, and his team abroad, The ready group attendant on his word, To turn the swarth, the quiv'ring load to rear, Or ply the busy rake, the land to clear. Summer's light garb itself now cumb'rous grown, Each his thin doublet in the shade throws down; Where oft the mastiff sculks with half-shut eye, And rouses at the stranger ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... the whispering seethed over like a boiling pot. The knots were sundered; and gradually, one following another, the whole mob began to form into a procession and escort the curtained litter. Soon spokesmen, a little bolder than their mates, began to ply the Chancellor with questions. Never had he more need of that great art of falsehood, by whose exercise he had so richly lived. And yet now he stumbled, the master passion, fear, betraying him. He was pressed; he became incoherent; and then from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and gave her a cut on the arm and hand, so stinging that she cried out, and nearly fell from the cart. Out rushed Peter and flew at the factor, who from his seat of vantage began to ply his whip about his head. But Malcolm, who, when the factor appeared, had moved aside to keep Kelpie out of mischief, and saw only the second of the two assaults, came forward with a ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... glanced across and beheld in amused but amazed horror the Highlander's great feet encased in a new pair of carpet slippers adorned with pink roses and green ground, which made a startling contrast with his three-ply worsted stockings, magenta in colour, which his fond aunt had knit as part of his outfit for the Arctic regions ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... they hurried; and there on the sea-beach Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants. All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats ply; All day long the wains came laboring down from the village. Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting, Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from the churchyard. Thither the women and children ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... fellow—see how he gapes at every shop, as if he would swallow the wares.—O! Saint Dunstan has caught his eye; pray God he swallow not the images. See how he stands astonished, as old Adam and Eve ply their ding-dong! Come, Frank, thou art a scholar; construe me that same fellow, with his blue cap with a cock's feather in it, to show he's of gentle blood, God wot—his grey eyes, his yellow hair, his sword with a ton of iron in the handle—his grey thread-bare cloak— his step like a Frenchman—his ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... He has fits of some sort, and has just arrived from Switzerland, straight from the station, dressed like a German and without a farthing in his pocket. I gave him twenty-five roubles to go on with, and am going to find him some easy place in one of the government offices. I should like you to ply him well with the victuals, my dears, for I should think ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Naturally, therefore, the proceedings were not too orderly; children cried,[47] women talked and shrieked, now and then a wench prepared to push her way to the stage; the ushers had on these festivals anything but a holiday, and found frequent occasion to confiscate a mantle or to ply the rod."[48] ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... relations for Moslem burial. If the blow prove ineffectual a pardon is generally granted. When a citizen draws dagger upon another or commits any petty offence, he is bastinadoed in a peculiar manner: two men ply their horsewhips upon his back and breast, and the prince, in whose presence the punishment is carried out, gives the order to stop. Theft is visited with amputation of the hand. The prison is the award of state offenders: it is terrible, because the captive is heavily ironed, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... did wade, Oxford the foe invade, And cruel slaughter made,— Still as they ran up; Suffolk his axe did ply; (p. 421) Beaumont and Willoughby Bare them right ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... heard of this mishap, felt sorry for Grenfell. The man evidently had always been somewhat frail, and now he was past his prime; indulgence in deleterious whisky had further shaken him. He could not chop or ply the shovel, and it was with difficulty that his companions had borne his cooking, while it seemed scarcely likely that anybody would have much use for him in a country that is run by the young and strong. He sat still ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... while, then taking it out with effort, rising from her seat as she did so. By this time Deronda felt sure that she meant to wrap the wet cloak round her as a drowning shroud; there was no longer time to hesitate about frightening her. He rose and seized his oar to ply across; happily her position lay a little below him. The poor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of discovery from the opposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding her cloak half out of the water. She crouched and covered her face as if she kept a faint hope that she had not ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... down the axe, fling by the spade: Leave in its track the toiling plough; The rifle and the bayonet-blade For arms like yours were fitter now; And let the hands that ply the pen Quit the light task, and learn to wield The horseman's crooked brand, and rein The ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... him to consent to the murder, but she doubted his resolution: and she feared that the natural tenderness of his disposition (more humane than her own) would come between, and defeat the purpose. So with her own hands armed with a dagger, she approached the king's bed; having taken care to ply the grooms of his chamber so with wine, that they slept intoxicated, and careless of their charge. There lay Duncan, in a sound sleep after the fatigues of his journey, and as she viewed him earnestly, there was something in his face, as he slept, which resembled ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... aunt's walking-boots. One corner was Lucy's, which she occupied in conjunction with a little table, at which, from seven in the morning until bedtime, she worked with pen or needle (it was provoking she could not learn to ply both at one time), when she was not running about the house, or nursing a boarder's baby. On the rare evenings when her aunt could not find work of any description for her, Lucy was requested to take the Bible from the shelf, and read a chapter aloud. When her aunt ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... that clang. It arouses him, Heard far aloof! He laughs on us hammering The sword, the clear harness of iron, Armipotent paramour o' Venus.—— Red glows the charcoal. Bend to the task, my boys, Time flies apace, and speedily night cometh, When we no more may ply the anvil; Fate cometh eke, i' the murky midnight. Mark ye the pines, which rooted i' rocky ground,(17) Brave Euroclydon's onset at evening. Day dawns. The tree, which stood the tallest, Preeminent i' the leafy greenwood, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... stubborn and unyielding, this was twenty times more so, the great difficulty being that there was no vantage- ground to be had, in the shape of a firm footing, from whence to ply the axe. ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... orders in French of which both he and Sophia were proud, and a table was laid for them in a corner near one of the large windows. Sophia settled herself on the bench of green velvet, and began to ply the ivory fan which Gerald had given her. It was very hot; all the windows were wide open, and the sounds of the street mingled clearly with the tinkle of the supper-room. Outside, against a sky of deepest purple, Sophia could discern the black skeleton of a gigantic building; it was ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... her side; And the "Falcon" and the "Cerberus" make every bosom thrill, With gun and shell, and drum and bell, and boatswain's whistle shrill; But deep and wider grows the trench, as spade and mattock ply, For we have to cope with fearful odds, and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... be unpicturesque, especially if they have statues to help them out. The Spree abounds in bridges, and it has a charming habit of slow hay-laden barges; at the landings of the little passenger-steamers which ply upon it there are cafes and summer-gardens, and these even in the inclement air of September ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... along the banks of the Bidor we descended as far as the Perak which we crossed in order to do a part of the journey in train and then board one of the steamers that ply between Telok Ansom and the island ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... love and liking we took our leave of that people, setting over to the islands of [ ? ], whence the next day after, we set sail towards Cape St. Antonio; by which we past with a large wind: but presently being to stand for the Havana, we were fain to ply to the windward some three or four days; in which plying we fortuned to take a small bark, in which were two or three hundred hides, and one most necessary thing, which stood us in great stead, viz., a pump! which we set in our ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols
... sentiment of modesty, left her with the gift of a little money. His fellow-officers of the regiment greeted the incident with shouts of mirth: such behaviour was unheard of. Vauvenargues replied: "My friends, you laugh too easily. I am sorry for these poor creatures, obliged to ply such a profession to earn their bread. The world is full of sorrows which wring my heart; if we are to be kind only to those who deserve it, we may never be called upon at all. We must be indulgent to the weak who have more need of support ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... then 'tis time, our heads in mantles hiding, 2 Our feet on some stol'n pathway now to ply, Or with swift oarage o'er the billows gliding, With ordered stroke to make the good ship fly Such threats the Atridae, armed with two fold power, Launch to assail us. Oh, I sadly fear Stones from fierce hands on us and him will shower, Whose heavy ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... remarked, that we had had great comfort in our own home,—had entertained unnumbered friends, and had only ingrain carpets on our chambers and a three-ply on our parlor, and she doubted if any guest had ever thought of it,—if the rooms had been a shade less pleasant; and as to durability, Aunt Easygo had renewed her carpets oftener than we. Such as ours were, they had worn longer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... of people who do want to know, and who ply one with questions as to one's tastes and habits, are almost more trying than the purely narrative people, and induce a subtle sense of moral hypochondria. The perfect mixture, which is not a common one, is that of the person ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... moment he became his implacable enemy, made use of his position to ply the queen and Council with accusations against his brother-in-law, and when Tyrone replied to those charges the answers were intercepted. It took some time to undermine Elizabeth's confidence in the earl, having previously ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... results was somewhat damped, but they believed that the settlement of those issues was still so incomplete that public interest would surely rekindle. For many years the ruling thought of the Republican party leaders was to be watchful of any opportunity to ply the bellows on the embers. Besides genuine concern over the way in which the negroes had been divested of political privileges conferred by national legislation, the Republicans felt a tingling sense ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... auld Scotland's light, And Douglas bright, and Scrymgeour's might, And Murray Bothwell's gallant knight, And Ruthven light and trim— Kirkpatrick black, wha in a crack Laid Cressingham upon his back, Garr'd Edward gather up his pack, And ply his spurs and rin, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... various intervals by the grassy by-lanes that run out to the neighboring haciendas or parallel roads. At places where there is a slight elevation, the bottom of the road is worn several feet below the level by the carts which ply between Rivas and the lake. Opposite one of these, where the banks sloped at a sharp angle, we came upon General Henningsen and a detachment of musketeers resting on the right bank of the road, and halted beside them. The men were sitting under the shade of an adobe, refreshing themselves ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... Gabrielle. Then he turned to his friends. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "our good AEsop desires to speak to the lady of his love in private. We are all, I am sure, too sympathetic with his amorous ambition to interfere with his wishes. Let him ply his wooing untroubled. Stand apart, please, and ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes, 5 Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this Aeolian lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the New-moon ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... None doubted why the daughter of Hoc bewailed her doom when dawning came, and under the sky she saw them lying, kinsmen murdered, where most she had kenned of the sweets of the world! By war were swept, too, Finn's own liegemen, and few were left; in the parleying-place {16g} he could ply no longer weapon, nor war could he wage on Hengest, and rescue his remnant by right of arms from the prince's thane. A pact he offered: another dwelling the Danes should have, hall and high-seat, and half the power should fall to them in Frisian land; and at the fee-gifts, Folcwald's son ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... you be astonished on hearing the razor-grinder ply his vocation in the very depths of our solitudes; for here he is a flying instead of ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... trip out into the waters of the Atlantic, a journey that was not undertaken without trepidation. But, despite the fact that a great storm arose, the Phoenix made the trip in safety; and continued for many years thereafter to ply the Delaware between ...
— The Age of Invention - A Chronicle of Mechanical Conquest, Book, 37 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Holland Thompson
... and supposing that she would do as well as another for an hour's talk to keep him from a stagnant evening. If that were so, good-bye to her dreams. If she were no more to him than that there was no hope left in her life. For Keith might ply from port to port, seeing in her only one girl for his amusement; but he had spoilt her for another man. No other man could escape the withering comparison with Keith. To Jenny he was a king among men, incomparable; and if ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... all other considerations and it applies to the mail, the passenger, and the freight services. Between all the principal South American ports and England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, lines of swift and commodious steamers ply regularly. There are five subsidized first-class mail and passenger lines between Buenos Ayres and Europe; there is no such line between Buenos Ayres and the United States. Within the past two years the German, the English, and the Italian lines have been replacing ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... Printing Press at Fairport, and under your ancestral roof of Monkbarns. But, what will surprise you yet more, the parchment sheet which bears Aldobrand's motto in German contains printed matter in good Scots! This excellent and enterprising man must have set himself to ply his noble art in his new home, and in ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... are of absolute necessity for the safety of the place, but which are only then possible. In order to retard the completion of the first parallel, and the opening of the fire, it is necessary to try to discover the location of such parallel, as well as that of the artillery, and to ply them with projectiles. But, on their side, the besiegers will do all in their power to hide their works, and those that they are unable to begin behind natural coverts they will execute at night. It will be seen from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... of an hour Tim did the same, and the Pah Utah was this left alone to ply the canoe, the Newfoundland now and then raising his head and looking over the edge as if to satisfy himself that ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... here, and even more. They are in an excellent position for trade, for they are at a very few days' journey from all the islands of Maluco, Xlatheo [Matheo?], Borney, and Xaba, and they lie on the route of the galleons which ply between Yndia, Malaca, and Maluco, and which anchor at La Canela. The only thing to be feared is that the men from these galleons will enter the island, doing damage, and making a bad name for us. It would take a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... in the evening, all the other large ships, having silenced the guns to which they had been respectively opposed, joined the rest of the fleet. The four bombs being anchored near the shore, began to ply the town with shells and carcasses; so that in a little time the houses were in flames, the magazines of gunpowder blew up with the most terrible explosion; and about ten o'clock the whole place blazed out in one general conflagration. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... portended, we immediately pulled for the shore; but had scarcely altered our course when the stars disappeared, a tremendous noise struck upon our ears from seaward, and the storm was upon us. In the impenetrable obscurity of the night, not a trace of land could be discovered; but we continued to ply our oars, while each ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... pointing with his ice-axe to the threatening line of gigantic seracs on their tottering foundations which the slightest jar might send thundering down the steep. But Tartarin knew what that meant; he was not the man to ply with any such tales, and he went on ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... as built—a goodly ship of stout timber frame covered two-ply with hides seasoned and sea-worthy, well found in provisions against a long voyage, fitted with sturdy mast of pine and broad sail. And think of the Mass as sung, with special prayer to Him who is the confidence of them that are afar off upon the sea. And think of the ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... their fellow insects. Whatever the job, whatever the plunder, you will find parasites there. And yet, for all my daily visits, I never catch one of these in the neighbourhood of the summer burrows. How cleverly the rascals ply their trade! How well aware are they of the guard who keeps watch at the Halictus' door! There is no foul deed possible nowadays; and the result is that no Fly puts in an appearance and the tribulations of last spring ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... the Lady of Shalott I look into a mirror wide, Where shadows come, and shadows go, And ply my shuttle ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... Hongkong on the Quong Si, one of the Chinese boats that ply between Hongkong and Canton, under the British flag. A half-dozen American tourists were also on ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... willed it so. 'Tis well; Prometheus rules below. Their gusty games let wild winds play, And clouds on clouds in thick array Muster dark armies in the sky: Be mine a harsher trade to ply— This solid Earth, this rocky frame To mould, to conquer, and to tame— And to achieve the toilsome plan My workman shall ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... thy head, thy strength to find, And poking out thy small, long legs behind; And now thy pinions dost thou briskly ply; Preparing now to leave ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... holes were bored in the upper plank and three in the lower,—the holes being above each other, that is, in a vertical line. Through these holes the cord was passed, and, when tied, formed a powerful stitch of three ply. Besides this, we placed between the edges of the planks, layers of cocoa-nut fibre, which, as it swelled when wetted, would, we hoped, make our little vessel water-tight. But in order further to secure this end, we collected a large quantity of pitch from the ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... rise; for, fear of shame my song restrains.' A woman's fancies lightly roam, and weave Themselves into a fairy web. Should I Refrain? Ah! soon enough this pleasure, too, Will flee! Verily I cannot conceive Why I'm extolled. For woman 'tis to ply The spinning wheel—then to herself ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... quit their mooring, And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering, We're impatient, push from shore. "Have a care! that case holds liquor— Stop the boat—I'm sick—oh Lord!" "Sick, Ma'am, damme, you'll be sicker, Ere you've been an hour on board." Thus are screaming Men and women, Gemmen, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... the Romans assaulted the walls in two places at once, fear and consternation stupefied the Syracusans, believing that nothing was able to resist that violence and those forces. But when Archimedes began to ply his engines, he at once shot against the land forces all sorts of missile weapons, and immense masses of stone that came down with incredible noise and violence, against which no man could stand; for they knocked down those upon whom they fell, in heaps, breaking all their ranks and files. In ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... ft. from the center of the boat, consists of a 5 ply rubber belt 36 in. wide; running over iron drums at each end and intermediate iron friction rollers at 3 foot centers. Ratchet and pinion on each side of conveyer ladder give means for taking up the slack of the belt and adjusting the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... its name from some fancied contrast to the garrulous rocks that lie up yonder, half concealed by the forest. If you will ply the oars, gentlemen, we will now hold a little communion with the ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... and listened. I listened long and drank deep while the wondrous picture grew, but the tense cord at last snapped under the strain of the Murdstones and I broke into the sobs of sympathy that disclosed my subterfuge. I was this time effectively banished, but the ply then taken was ineffaceable. I remember indeed just afterwards finding the sequel, in especial the vast extrusion of the Micawbers, beyond my actual capacity; which took a few years to grow adequate—years in which the general contagious consciousness, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... the purpose of raising a fund of L62 a year, which was divided annually between the widows and children of poor watermen belonging to Putney and Fulham as a recompense to the fraternity, who were not allowed to ply on Sundays after the building of the bridge. This bridge was purchased by the Corporation of London, and by them transferred to the Board of Works, who erected in the years 1884-1886 the present substantial stone bridge on the site formerly occupied by the aqueduct of the Chelsea ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... and brave,—who all at last, Slain by the pitiless foe, shall lie in dust,— Grieve me so much as thine, when some mailed Greek Shall lead thee weeping hence, and take from thee Thy day of freedom. Thou in Argos then Shalt at another's bidding ply the loom, And from the fountain of Messeis draw Water, or from the Hypereian spring, Constrained unwilling by thy cruel lot. And then shall some one say who sees thee weep, 'This was the wife of Hector, most renowned Of the horse-taming ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... threads of the warp subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference in the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... midnight, there came two little Elves. They sat upon the shoemaker's bench, took up all the work that was cut out, and began to ply their little fingers. They stitched and rapped and tapped at such a rate that the shoemaker was amazed, and could not take his eyes off ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... here?" said the Prince, "a butcher, and I think fresh from his office. Do butchers ply their craft on Fastern's Eve? Foh, how ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... or dance as others do, Or ply my rock or reel? My heart will still return to dreams of you ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... or having my thoughts carried out to sea by the river which runs so freshly and so truantly, with so strong a current of temptation, a hundred yards away from my window—I often think that the strong necessity that compelled me to do my work, to ply my pen and inkpot out here in the leafy, blue-eyed wilderness, instead of doing it by typewriter in some forty-two-storey building in the city, is one of those encouraging signs of the times which links one with the great brotherhood of men and women that have heard the ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw only Henri and the hilt of the sword he ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... broken-down son of luxury in the Old World, fit for nothing in the New World but to ply, for hire, the task that might have led to his ruin when plied in sport—stopped at the door of my hut, and called out, "Friend, is not this the great Fenwick Section, and is not yonder long pile of building ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thy keen wit my worship may construe Into contempt of thy divinity; They please me too! But should it once befall These accidental charms to disappear, Leaving withal Thy sometime self the same throughout the year, So glowing, grave and shy, Kind, talkative and dear As now thou sitt'st to ply The fireside tune Of that neat engine deft at which thou sew'st With fingers mild and foot like the new moon, O, then what cross of any further fate Could my content abate? Forget, then, (but I know Thou canst not so,) Thy customs of some praediluvian state. ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... tongue; she is a creature of the chase. Let her escape unmangled, it will pass in the record that she did once publicly run, and some old dogs will persist in thinking her cunninger than the virtuous, which never put themselves in such positions, but ply the distaff at home. Never should reputation of woman trail a scent! How true! and true also that the women of waxwork never do; and that the women of happy marriages do not; nor the women of holy nunneries; nor the women lucky in their arts. It ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... mousing priesthood ply Their garbled text and gloss of sin, And make the lettered scroll deny Its living soul within: Still let the place-fed, titled knave Plead robbery's right with purchased lips, And tell us that our fathers gave For Freedom's pedestal, a ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... they might not die like rats in a hole, were captured and hung by their enraged uncle on the highest tree in their own domains. So was all the family of Hermanric destroyed except Theodoric and his young brother Diether: and against Theodoric Sibich now began to ply his engines of calumny. He represented to Hermanric that Theodoric's kingdom had for some time been growing large, while his own had been growing smaller, and hinted that soon Theodoric would openly attack his uncle. Meanwhile, and ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... it in his loin-cloth, and a patch of burning turf in his hand. Then nimbly climbed up to the hole, where he held the smoking turf before him, to keep off the bees from his naked body, and clinging tightly with his legs, he proceeded to ply the axe so vigorously, and with such skill, that the rotten bark soon gave way, the tree being little more than a shell, and he laid bare range upon range ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... perverse advocates, bribing judges, law-monging attorneys, prevaricating counsellors, and other such-like law-wresting members of a court of justice, to turn by those means black to white, green to grey, and what is straight to a crooked ply. For the more expedient doing whereof, these diabolical ministers make both the pleading parties believe that their cause is just and righteous; for it is well known that there is no cause, how bad soever, which doth not find an advocate to patrocinate and defend ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... reached the spot and began to ply screw-drivers and chisels until at length the strong lock yielded, and he ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... extremity or margin of the ring, cords of twisted twine were fixed, at intervals of about six inches. There were about sixty of these cords or stays, all of which met and were fastened at the end of the handle. A stout line, made of four-ply twine, was fastened at the top of the umbrella, and passing through a small hole in it was tied round the whalebones inside, and twisted down the stick to the handle, to which it was firmly secured. By this means the whole machine was, as ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... superlative adjectives, not merely to guard against exaggeration but because the superlative degree lacks conviction. The statement that "This is the best collar ever made" is not believed, but to say that it is a "fine" collar or a "good" collar for it is five-ply, and so forth, rings true. It is a better selling talk and so the superlative ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... the cobra, and for which no claims have ever been advanced; and the "snake charmers" or jugglers in whom this superior knowledge is supposed to center are so well aware of the futility of specifics, and the risk to which they are subjected, that few venture to ply their calling without a broad-bladed, keen-edged knife concealed about the person as a means of instant amputation in case of accident. Medical and scientific associations of various classes, in Europe, Australia, America, even Africa, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... told me that the club cut him as soon as Mrs. Stanhope left her husband. He went there one day after it was known, and no one saw him; finally he walked up to McLean, and would have sat down, but McLean said, 'Your company is not desired, Mr. Mostyn.' Mostyn said something in re-ply, and McLean answered sternly, 'True, we are none of us saints, but there are lines the worst of us will not pass; and if there is any member of this club willing to interfere between a bridegroom and his bride, I would like to kick him ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... peck, You'll find four shillings for his winding sheet. He had the poet's heart and God help all Who have that heart and somehow lose their way For lack of helm, souls that are blown abroad By the great winds of passion, without power To sway them, chartless captains. Multitudes ply Trimly enough from bank to bank of Thames Like shallow wherries, while tall galleons, Out of their very beauty driven to dare The uncompassed sea, founder in starless nights, And all that we can say ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... The idlers began to ply the occupants of the cab with a hundred questions which must be answered in some shape unless suspicion was to be aroused—and suspicion, under such circumstances, would mean the holding back of the train, and ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... their point of view, is criticism which draws down a reply; it is far more effectual than bald praise, forgotten as soon as read, and it costs more in consequence. Celebrity, my dear fellow, is based upon controversy. I am a hired bravo; I ply my trade among ideas and reputations, commercial, literary, and dramatic; I make some fifty crowns a month; I can sell a novel for five hundred francs; and I am beginning to be looked upon as a man to be feared. ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... morning service, and the school begins at ten. Half an hour of recreation on the playground prepares for the one-o'clock dinner, and school is resumed, until four; then comes an hour and a half of play or outdoor exercise, a half-hour service preceding the six-o'clock meal. Then the girls ply the needle, and the boys are in school, until bedtime, the younger children going to rest at eight, and the older, at nine. The food is simple, ample, and nutritious, consisting of bread, oatmeal, milk, soups, meat, rice, and vegetables. Everything is adjusted to one ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... on their heads, They ply their hoes on the ground, Clearing away the smartweed on the ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... you do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine: Besides, I like you not.—If you will know my house, 'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.— Will you go, sister?—Shepherd, ply her hard.— Come, sister.—Shepherdess, look on him better, And be not proud; though all the world could see, None could be so abused in sight as ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... ply her with persuasive woe! Soft supplications the hard heart subdue. Then, if my oracles the future know, ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... toothsome morsels of the deep. Most of the other steamboat lines by which I travelled in the United States and Canada seemed to me as good as could be expected under the circumstances. There is, however, certainly room for improvement in some of the boats which ply on the St. Lawrence, and the Alaska service will probably grow steadily better with the growing ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... neither made love to her in earnest nor flirted with her in jest. Indeed, Leam was too intense to be approached at any time with levity. As well dress the Tragic Muse in the costume of a Watteau shepherdess as ply Leam Dundas with the pretty follies found so useful with other women. She did not understand them, and it seemed useless to try to make her. If Edgar paid her any of the trivial compliments always on his lips for women, Leam used to look ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... when the scavengers came down from Montmartre to ply their matutinal avocations, they found the body of a woman lying on her face on the pavement. They raised her up and carried her to an hospital. She was not dead, as had been at first supposed; and when the unhappy creature came to her senses, she said that her name was Caroline Schimmel, that ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... the 25th, had increased to at least five leagues, the ice continuing to "pack" between us and the shore. The wind, however, now gradually drew round to the westward, giving us hopes of a change, and we continued to ply about the margin of the ice, in constant readiness for taking advantage of any opening that might occur. It favoured us so much by streaming off in the course of the day, that by seven P.M. we had nearly reached a channel of clear water, which kept open for seven or eight ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the city's hum, There let the cry, at dead of night, Be heard, 'They come, they come!' Mid scenes of sweet domestic bliss, Pour shells of livid fire, While red-hot balls among them hiss, To make the work entire And when the scream of agony Is heard above the din, Then ply your guns with energy, And throw your columns in Thro' street and lane, thro' house and church, The sword and faggot hear, And every inmost recess search, To fill with shrieks the air Where waving fields and smiling homes Now deck the sunny plain, And ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... interior, was suddenly beset and brought to a stand by an equal or greater number of government officials, deeply intent on a seizure, a most furious conflict would ensue, in which the combatants, growing desperate for the seizure or defence of the prize, would ply their hard yeoman fists, clubs, loaded whipstocks, or whatever was at hand, with terrible effect, and often prolong the melee till the snow or ground was encrimsoned with blood, and scarcely an uninjured man remained on the ground. Sometimes the besetting officials were made prisoners, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... considerable traffic. Bayonne furnishes carts, Biarritz carriages. Omnibuses ply to and fro; market-barrows are drawn frequently past; burden-bearers and peasants are met or overtaken trudging contentedly on. The latter cheat both the omnibus and themselves, for the fare is but a trifle, and the road hot and sandy. It is abundantly shaded by trees, but we agree that it is far ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... crests were cut into white foam by the increasing gale. Thunder roared in continued, successive peals, as if the heavens were breaking up, while rain descended in sheets. For a time the crews continued to ply their oars; but as the wind increased, these were rendered superfluous. They were taken in, therefore, and the men sought partial shelter under the tarpaulin; while Mr. Park and the two boys were covered, excepting ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... They soon began to ply me with questions. "Do you have the communion before the ceremony?" "No." "Do you use the "Ikleel" or crown, in the service?" "No, we sometimes use the ring." Said one, "I hear that you ask the girl if she is willing to take this man to ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... his life and methods. Tom and the Vicomte sat at each side of the hostess, of course, and they told us she practically did not hear a word they said, she was so anxious that the servants should do their duty and ply ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... fortune, after other adventures, he married a woman of beauty and wealth, and lived long enough with her, for her to bear him seven sons and seven daughters. He was afterwards reduced to want, so as to be obliged to ply in the streets as a porter for his livelihood. One day, as he walked alone on the sea-shore, ruminating on his hard fate, he was seized with a fit of devotion, and threw off his clothes, that he might wash himself, agreeably to the Mahometan custom, previously to saying ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... will have a chance To play an even game, And thrift and virtue swift advance To happiness and fame; No more will robbers ply their trade, Nor shout the tin-horn's spiel; The world will call a spade a spade When Teddy squares ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... him to the stable to help him put up his horse, blushing when he looked at her and talking very little, while the old mother, from the fence, followed him with her dim eyes. At once Chad began to ply both with questions—where was Uncle Joel and the boys and the school-master? And, straightway, Chad felt a reticence in both—a curious reticence even with him. On each side of the fireplace, on each side of the door, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... Each stitch or tie was six inches apart, and was formed thus: Three holes were bored in the upper plank and three in the lower—the holes being above each other, that is, in a vertical line. Through these holes the cord was passed, and, when tied, formed a powerful stitch of three-ply. Besides this, we placed between the edges of the planks layers of cocoa-nut fibre, which, as it swelled when wetted, would, we hoped, make our little vessel water-tight. But in order further to secure this end, we collected a large quantity of pitch from the bread-fruit tree, with which, ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... no one asks the "who" or "why"; Where no one doth the sinner ply With his embarrassments of guile; Where's ne'er a frown but brings a smile, And cares are crimes,—'tis sin to sigh, 'Tis wrong to let a jest go by, And hope is truth, and life is nigh, The bourns of the ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... only a thief of color, and plant trees to shut it away from the mouldering house. All the animals know better than this, as well as the more simple races of men; the old women of the southern Italian coasts sit all day in the sun and ply the distaff, as grateful as the sociable hens on the south side of a New England barn; the slow tortoise likes to take the sun upon his sloping back, soaking in color that shall make him immortal when the imperishable part of him is cut up ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... unskilled workmen. The superior intelligence of the skilled worker offers him definite advantages should he engage in these pursuits, and his actual skill gives him other advantages in the villages. He can leave his factory and go to the village, there on the spot to ply his trade or variations of it, when as a handy man, repairing tools, etc., he will make an easy living and by lessening the dependence of the village on the town do as much as the "food speculator" in worsening the conditions of the workman he ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... old breeches are there is a man! I declare I could both laugh and cry. These poor good men, merciful, zealous, with many sympathies and thoughts, there do they vehemently appeal to me, Et tu, Brute? Brother, wilt thou too insist on the breeches being old,—not ply a needle among us here?—To the naked Caliban, gigantic, for whom such breeches would not be a glove, who is stalking and groping there in search of new breeches and accoutrements, sure to get them, and to tread into nonentity whoever ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the shafts as snow, Though charging knights like whirlwinds go, Though bill-men ply the ghastly blow, Unbroken was the ring; The stubborn spearmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood, Each stepping where his comrade stood, The instant that he fell. No thought was there of dastard flight; Linked in the serried ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... part of philosophy Will I apply] Sir Thomas Hammer, and after him Dr. Warburton, read to virtues but formerly ply and apply were indifferently used, as to ply or apply ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... was right among the horses as they climbed the further hill, And the watchers on the mountain standing mute, Saw him ply the stockwhip fiercely, he was right among them still, As he raced across the clearing in pursuit. Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met In the ranges, but a final glimpse reveals On a dim and distant hillside the wild horses racing yet, With the man from ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... way now for sweepers. From one end of the room to the other they ply their coarse wooden brooms. Some officers are remarkably neat, and will scrape their floor space with pieces of glass from the broken windows; a few are listless, sullen, utterly despondent, regardless of surroundings, apparently sinking into imbecility; ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague |
