"Adrift" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... adrift!" cried Ruth. "I have a very dear friend I must introduce you to. Oh—" she hesitated and turned to the Governor, "is Mr. Comly a roamer? Has he a ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... safety and that of all on board her, why not throw them overboard, and so relieve the little vessel of their weight and give her the best possible chance to weather the gale? Henderson and the boatswain were rather opposed to this plan, the gunner suggesting, as an alternative, that we should cut adrift from the wreckage that was holding us head to wind, and endeavour to get before the wind and scud; and to this view they still adhered, even after I had pointed out to them that the island of Hayti constituted ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... corruption and other economic crimes; and (c) keep afloat the large state-owned enterprises many of which had been shielded from competition by subsidies and had been losing the ability to pay full wages and pensions. From 80 to 120 million surplus rural workers are adrift between the villages and the cities, many subsisting through part-time low-paying jobs. Popular resistance, changes in central policy, and loss of authority by rural cadres have weakened China's population control program, which is essential ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... getting a scare from something big and flimsy that was drifting loose, I got my hand on the cord quite close to the studs, and reached them. I lit the little lamp first of all to see what it was I had collided with, and discovered that old copy of Lloyd's News had slipped its moorings, and was adrift in the void. That brought me out of the infinite to my own proper dimensions again. It made me laugh and pant for a time, and suggested the idea of a little oxygen from one of the cylinders. After that I lit ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... Boarders must be warned an' watched, elseways we shall hev all in the house afloat, 'cepting the stoves an' flat-irons, by-'n'-by. Somebody at Mrs. Moyler's acted so, and the house was like a roarin' sea, with the baby adrift in his little cradle, and the roaches a-swimmin' ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the channel- scoured bottom, we were sucked against a big dock and smashed and bumped down a quarter of a mile of its length before we could get clear. Two hours afterward, on San Pablo Bay, the wind was piping up and we were reefing down. It is no fun to pick up a skiff adrift in a heavy sea and gale. That was our next task, for our skiff, swamping, parted both towing painters we had bent on. Before we recovered it we had nearly killed ourselves with exhaustion, and we certainly had strained the sloop in every ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... thousand, in fact, "thirty, thirty, Kuzma Kuzmitch, and would you believe it, I didn't get seventeen from that heartless man!" So he, Mitya, had thrown the business up, for the time, knowing nothing about the law, but on coming here was struck dumb by a cross-claim made upon him (here Mitya went adrift again and again took a flying leap forward), "so will not you, excellent and honored Kuzma Kuzmitch, be willing to take up all my claims against that unnatural monster, and pay me a sum down of only three thousand?... You see, you cannot, in any case, lose over it. On my ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... itself among gems. In a few words he told how the Fair Emily crashed on to a reef in the middle of the night, and how, owing to the darkness and confusion, the boat into which he had got with Stobell and Tredgold was cast adrift; how a voice raised to a shriek cried to them to pull away, and how a minute afterwards the schooner disappeared ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... months—from the seventh to the ninth month. On consideration the drama is of interest. O'Iwa is killed at Yotsuya. With the dead body of the wakato[u] Kohei she is fastened to a door, and from the rear the scoundrel sets them adrift. Fishing at Ombo[u]bori, Iemon sees them float by. From Yotsuya to Sunamura is a very great distance. It would occupy a woman's legs for the space of a day; or faint-hearted fellows, water drinkers, such of the kind as would ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Malacca; numerous vessels, including commercial shipping and pleasure craft, have been attacked and hijacked both at anchor and while underway; hijacked vessels are often disguised and cargoes stolen; crew and passengers are often held for ransom, murdered, or cast adrift ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the Church in the presbyterate; and the national sentiment approved of the change. But there was no necessity for upsetting the whole cathedral system, and rooting out the whole cathedral staff, because the bishop was turned adrift. Had the Canonries been spared, an immense boon would have been secured for the Reformed Church. Had the stipends attached to them not been alienated, the Church would have possessed, at all its most important centres, a staff of clergymen chosen for their ability and worth, for their learning and ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... that this gentleman was his confidential friend, and would think, with an anxious heart, could her struggling tendency to dislike and fear him be a part of that misfortune in her, which had turned her father's love adrift, and left her so alone? She dreaded that it might be; sometimes believed it was: then she resolved that she would try to conquer this wrong feeling; persuaded herself that she was honoured and encouraged by the notice of her father's friend; and hoped that patient observation ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... sails; and the British ships, tacking, made all sail in pursuit. The Newcastle was on the Constitution's lee quarter and directly ahead of the Leander, while the Acasta was on the weather-quarter of the Newcastle. All six ships were on the port tack. The Constitution cut adrift the boats towing astern, and her log notes that at 12.50 she found she was sailing about as fast as the ships on her lee quarter, but that the Acasta was luffing into her wake and dropping astern. The log of the Acasta says, "We had gained ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Frederick, silent, absent, sad; she remembered her grandfather, cold, sarcastic, severe; and every ensuing day she experienced fits of dejection or fits of terror and repulsion, to which even the most healthy young creatures are liable when they find themselves cut adrift from what is dear and familiar. Happily, these fits were intermittent, and at their worst easily diverted by what interested her on the voyage; and she did not encourage the murky humor: she always ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... felt his courage failing, he said, "Good-by, Marg'ret," and turning abruptly, waded in to his ankles and bent over the log to give it that final impetus which was to set it adrift. In his heart were several things: the desire to make good, fear of the river, and, poignant and bitter, the feeling that Margaret did not understand. He was too young to believe that death might really be near him (almost reckless enough not to care if he had), but keenly aware that his undertaking ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... inflate a sizeable globe to that pressure. Jones was arranging tiny Dabney field robot-generators with tiny atomic batteries to power them. Each such balloon would be a Dabney field "plate" when cast adrift in emptiness, and its little battery would keep it in operation for twenty years ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... sometimes supported by posts, sometimes resting on the ground, placed in baskets perched on pinnacles of rock or hung to the branches of trees,—the last being the mode often adopted in the case of children. Lastly, some nations were accustomed to sink their dead beneath the water, or turn them adrift in canoes. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... instead of being offered up as sacrifice, we offer up ourselves. Still there are degrees. HARTINGTON given up something; CHAMBERLAIN chucked himself away; JAMES might have been on the Woolsack. But think of me, dear TOBY, and all I've sacrificed. Four years ago a private Member, adrift from my Party; no chance of reinstatement; not even sure of a seat. Now Chancellor of the Exchequer, with L5000 a-year, and a pick of safe seats. Too much to expect of me, TOBY; sometimes more than I can bear;" and JOKIM hid his face in his copy of the Orders of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various
... standing on his dignity. Yet still our landowners keep taking to philanthropy, to converting themselves into philanthropic knights-errant, and spending millions upon senseless hospitals and institutions, and so ruining themselves and turning their families adrift. Yes, that is all that ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... and regarded Blake affectionately. "You have been a good nephew, Dick, and since you came home I have felt that I ought to make some provision for you. That, of course, was my intention when you were young, but when the break occurred you cut yourself adrift and refused assistance." ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... writing; and so we find it existing in various and somewhat conflicting editions. "Some hundred years ago," says Mr. Wilson, "a few of the M'Leods landed in Eigg from Skye, where, having greatly misconducted themselves, the Eiggites strapped them to their own boats, which they sent adrift into the ocean. They were, however, rescued by some clansmen; and, soon after, a strong body of the M'Leods set sail from Skye, to revenge themselves on Eigg. The natives of the latter island feeling they were not of sufficient force to offer resistance, went ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the soldier whom England had turned adrift, and France had won in her stead, concluded his long oration by dropping on his knees to refill ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... lives! secrets, known only to ourselves, that change the face of all nature before our eyes, we are sent adrift on every passing current, to explore the truths of experience for ourselves, and sad lessons some of them are, which we read through our gathering tears, and learn ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... had loved her as a sister. Her beauty had always fascinated and charmed him. To see her now, cast adrift on this troubled sea of love and fear, was a ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... words, the cautious tone, the whole person left a strong uneasiness in the mind of Mr Powell. He started walking the poop in great mental confusion. He felt all adrift. This was funny talk and no mistake. And this cautious low tone as though he were watched by someone was more than funny. The young second officer hesitated to break the established rule of every ship's discipline; but at last could not resist the temptation ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... nations of the world. The very servant girls feel this, and the poorest peasant woman now having what she calls a 'tay brakefast' is willing to go back to porridge if the country was once rid of the English. Never you mind what will happen to us. Cut us adrift, and that will be all we ask. If we need help we can affiliate with America or even France. The first is half our own people, the second understands the Irish nation, which fought for centuries ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Once more adrift, I wend my way dockwards, pause at the Seamen's Mission, hesitate, and am lost. I enter a workhouse-like room, and a colourless man nods good-afternoon. Conveniences for "writing home," newspapers, magazines, flamboyant almanacks of the Christian Herald type, Pears' ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... Mandluff's store. There was to be a "camp-meeting" in honor of Norman Anderson's successful return to his liberty and his cronies. It gave Norman, the greatest pleasure to return to a society where it was rather to his credit than otherwise that he had gone on a big old time, got caught, and been sent adrift by the old hunk that had tried to ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... to himself, had again to make his escape. At first he only dismissed his military suite; afterward he separated from his faithful servant in the hope that separately they might more easily baffle their pursuers. Next he had to turn his horse adrift, as the poor animal was incapable of continuing his journey. Thus he made his way alone and on foot toward the frontiers of his native land. After a while, looking down from the top of a piece of elevated ground, he perceived a large body of Turks, from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the woman who sees herself left behind with her dead gods should cry out against change as the ruin of her hopes. It is equally understandable that those who find themselves adrift should doubt the home as an institution. At the bottom of the revolt of thousands of our "uneasy women" of to-day lies this doubt. The home failed them, and with the logic of limited experience they cast ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... was to return to Europe; but she did not want to go alone. The vision of her solitary figure adrift in the spring mob of trans-Atlantic pleasure-seekers depressed and mortified her. She would be sure to run across acquaintances, and they would infer that she was in quest of a new opportunity, a fresh start, and would suspect her of trying ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... all night from the east-north-east; the ground at daylight a perfect bog. From the severity of the night some of our sheep got adrift but were recovered during the day. The creek, nine-tenths of which was yesterday dry, is now running a strong stream and momentarily increasing. Got all the animals across to this side during the forenoon as the rain appeared ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... of the Outer Hebrides," said Gerald, with the eagerness that belonged to authorship, "so that there could be any amount of Scottish songs. Prospero is an old Highland chief, who has been set adrift with his daughter-Francie Vanderkist to wit-and floated up there, obtaining control over the local elves and brownies. Little Fely was a most ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... from the castle to the beach, and by their glare they robbed the merchants of their valuable cargo. It was near midnight before their rapacity was satisfied. Don Alphonzo ordered the vessel to remain where she laid until daybreak, when he intended to set her adrift, with all her crew on board, that he might see them dashed on to those rocks which you see down yonder. The Don then commanded a feast to be set in the banqueting hall, in the base of the north tower. He ordered every man in the castle to attend the revel, that ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... horizon now, and the Northumberland lay adrift in a river of silver. Every spar was distinct, every reef point on the great sails, and the decks lay like spaces of frost cut by shadows black ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Sky Scraper, Sulky Sail, and by several other aliases; that the captain and crew fell out over a division of plunder, of which Kidd wanted the lion's share, the upshot being that he and Yawl, who had taken sides with him, were shoved into the dinghy and sent adrift. In these circumstances they naturally made for the nearest land, which proved to be Quipai, and deeming it inexpedient to confess that they were pirates, pretended to be castaways. They built the sloop with the idea of stealing ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... about. The plain truth of the story. The letter was a lie from beginning to end, of course. It made me out a heartless scoundrel. I had been the ruin of the girl—a helpless innocent; and now, after all these years, wanted to cut her adrift, not caring what became of her. My defence seemed to Henrietta no defence at all. The fact that there had been such an episode in my life was quite sufficient. Everything must be at an end between us, at once and ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... after his departure, the queen, "who had never conceived before" (which varies both from Greene and Shakspeare), produces a daughter, which the king resolves to get rid of by turning it adrift at sea in "a little boat." He so informs the queen, and she in great grief provides the outfit ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 • Various
... restraint fell on them, and for the first time Annie felt herself an alien, a stranger, far adrift from familiar shores. She shivered in ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Crathie's face grew red as the sun in a fog. He was an elder of the kirk, and had family worship every night as regularly as his toddy. So the word was as offensive and insolent as it was foolish and inapplicable. He would have turned Malcolm adrift on the spot, but that he remembered—not the favour of the late marquis for the lad—that was nothing to the factor now: his lord under the mould was to him as if he had never been above it—but the favour ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... disappearance, because he entered the cave on the northwest side, where it was masked by shrubbery. One night the officers landed on this island after he had gone into hiding, and after diligent search discovered his boat drawn up in a covert. They pushed it into the lake, where the winds sent it adrift, and, his communication with the shore thus cut off, the outlaw perished miserably of hunger. His skeleton was found in the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... offspring were a fair example of these irresponsible people. Like a ship adrift without skipper or rudder, they were at the mercy of every adverse wind of misfortune. Each morning they went out with frantic energy to earn or in some way procure sustenance for one more day. Young Dave hounded the sponge fishermen ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... the girl in one canoe, were soon a quarter of a mile in advance of the others, and lifting their paddles from the water they floated with the slow current. The singing voices of the party behind them came softly adrift along the water. All of the singers were young and the songs had to ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... for five, seven, or nine years; the Government requiring one pound ten shillings sterling from the person who takes them. Unless applicants come forward, these victims of British philanthropy are turned adrift, to be supported as they may, or, unless Providence take all the better care of them, to starve. For the sick, however, there is admittance to the Government Hospital; and the countrymen of the new-comers, belonging to the ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... is made. We are grasping opportunities and compelling adverse circumstances and forces to work together for our profit. Under the wise leadership of Booker T. Washington, we are finding our bearings and casting anchor in the dark and muddy waters of industrial conditions in which we were sent adrift without rudder, compass or means of existence less than ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... return to Beaulieu within the year, and if his brother's dogs were to be set upon him if he showed face upon Minstead land, then indeed he was adrift upon earth. North, south, east, and west—he might turn where he would, but all was equally chill and cheerless. The Abbot had rolled ten silver crowns in a lettuce-leaf and hid them away in the bottom of his scrip, but that would be a sorry ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... period. According to the custom, the monks carried Kate, insensible with anguish of mind, to the sanctuary of their chapel. There for some days they detained her; but then, having furnished her with a horse and some provisions, they turned her adrift. Which way should the unhappy fugitive turn? In blindness of heart she turned towards the sea. It was the sea that had brought her to Peru; it was the sea that would perhaps carry her away. It was the sea that had first ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... all, they must allow them to come aboard, and also secure the boat. Any premature action was bound to ruin the whole affair. If one of the men got away, or the boat was set adrift, it would avail the prisoners of the hulk nothing. They wanted a means for leaving the hostile land, and the mere capture of these two men, who evidently intended to take them by surprise, would not ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... repugnance. He was something of a surgeon, and knew what he, was about. His task over, he made up the fire, warmed some food, fed the old man, and helped his waning strength with the contents of his flask. 'At least you placed all my property in the dug-out before you set me adrift,' he said; 'may I ask ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... of either red men or white, they did not use the canoe which was at hand, but recrossed the stream on the tree trunk which had brought them over in the first place. This done, they cast the tree adrift and lost not a moment in ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... all-day struggle, it is quite possible that they might have won, after all; for the guns were so well served, and the rifle volleys directed with such deadly aim, that the boats and their crews were beginning to suffer severely. Already two of the towed boats had been sunk, and had been cut adrift so that they should not delay the others; and so terrible was the punishment inflicted by their enemies that the landing party could not afford to stop to pick up their crews. The bay was known to be swarming with sharks, and it was not therefore probable that very many, even of the ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... the Dutch fleet in the Baltic under a convoy of five frigates. These last he took, together with half the number of the trading ships; but falling in with the outward bound fleet convoyed by thirteen ships of the line, he was obliged to burn four of the frigates, turn the fifth adrift, and part with all his prizes except fifteen, which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... are very high. We sailed along the shore of the island of Pico, under a stately green pyramid that rose up with one unbroken sweep from our very feet to an altitude of 7,613 feet, and thrust its summit above the white clouds like an island adrift in a fog! ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... with small snow, and as disagreeable and dangerous for people adrift upon floating ice as can well be imagined. If the women, however, gave their husbands a thought, or spoke of them to us, it was only to express a very sincere hope that some good news might shortly arrive of their success. Our singing party had not long been ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... carefully for concealed weapons as they stood with hands elevated above their heads. Once satisfied that they were unarmed, she set them to work cutting the cable which held the Kincaid to her anchorage, for her bold plan was nothing less than to set the steamer adrift and float with her out into the open sea, there to trust to the mercy of the elements, which she was confident would be no more merciless than Nikolas Rokoff should he ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to him with his broad-brimmed hat. Three of the black dots along the gently rising slope far ahead had leaped from their mounts and were slowly crawling forward, while one of them, his horse turned adrift and contentedly nibbling at the buffalo grass, was surely signaling that ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... Pathfinder, in the distances, but wrong in the course. I'm afraid the child will get the Sergeant adrift, at the very moment when we had him in the best of the water and in the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... at freshet-flow, was always swept into the toils of the inexorable wheels. Yet, if she were reckless and without heed a few minutes before, I am told that now she was calm. As she is present, I must refrain from too much eulogy of her behaviour. Violette gave the alarm that Marie was adrift in the river without a paddle, and in a few seconds, every body living near had turned out, and were running down the shore. Several brought paddles, but it took hard running to keep up with the canoe, ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... "Adrift," released back in 1912, showed an incident that in real life would have been impossible. The rejected suitor of a woman who is afterwards seen on the downward path seeks to relieve his lonely existence by the adoption ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... were vain: the Saracens forced them aboard, and turned the little craft adrift into the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... mean only that to the world; and so you would be cut adrift from both sides, as all women are who move from where they rightfully belong to where they ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... that a command of the English language is part of our inheritance, one can only reply that beauty is almost always dumb. Male beauty in association with female beauty breeds in the onlooker a sense of fear. Often have I seen them—Helen and Jimmy—and likened them to ships adrift, and feared for my own little craft. Or again, have you ever watched fine collie dogs couchant at twenty yards' distance? As she passed him his cup there was that quiver in her flanks. Bowley saw what was up-asked Jimmy to breakfast. Helen must have confided in ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... assertions. The present Commission has ample powers to ascertain this fact at least: and we will venture to assert, that not one instance of starvation will have been proven before it; and that out of the hundreds of thousands who were reported to have been mercilessly turned adrift to perish at the backs of ditches, forty-nine fiftieths will be found well and hearty, and in the occupation of those lands from which they were said to have been expelled. That ejectment-processes were served, and decrees obtained, which, if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... attempted no defence when he saw that Argall had hostile intentions; but the Jesuit Du Thet did his utmost to rally the men to arms, and was the first to fall a victim. Fifteen of the prisoners, including Saussaye and Masse, were turned adrift in an open boat; but fortunately, they managed to cross the bay and reach the coast of Nova Scotia, where they met with some trading vessels belonging to St. Malo. Father Biard and the others were taken to Virginia by Argall. Biard subsequently ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... longer," said she, unfastening the painter of the skiff and throwing it into the water, thus permitting the boat to go adrift. ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... wandering demon of Drunkenness finds a ship adrift, —no steady wind in its sails, no thoughtful pilot directing its course,—he steps on board, takes the helm, and steers straight ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... from the chow city, two-score li inland, and charging through the streets, hacking and slashing the infested air, had driven the goblins over the walls, with a great shout of victory. A priest had freighted a kite with all the evil, then cut it adrift in the sky. A mob had dethroned the God of Sickness, and banished his effigy in a paper junk, launched on the river at night, in flame. A geomancer proclaimed that a bamboo grove behind the town formed an angle most correct, ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... period by Fred Pemberton. The nerves of the latter were not remarkably steady, and as he stepped on board the schooner, he neglected to take the painter with him; and the consequence was, that the boat went adrift. It is good generalship to keep the line of retreat open; and Fred's neglect had deprived them of all means of retiring from the scene of action. The only alternative was to fight their way through, and find safety ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... she sent the car along with reckless disregard for comfort or safety. Her mind was groping for something tangible in the way of intentions. What was she to do with this creature? What was to become of her? At what street corner should she turn her adrift? The idea of handing her over to the police did not enter her thoughts for an instant. Somehow she felt that the girl was a stranger to the city. She could not explain the feeling, yet it was with her ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... conversation was in progress, precipitated Carden's action. He interpreted the manoeuvre as indicating a wish to get to windward, which the "Macedonian's" then course, far off the wind, would favor. He therefore hurriedly gave the order to haul up (2), cutting adrift the topmast studdingsail; a circumstance which to seamen will explain exactly the relative situations. That he had rightly interpreted Decatur's purpose seems probable, for in fifteen or twenty minutes the "United States" again wore (a), resuming ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... of Police, now livid with rage, summoned the guard. By Ivanoff's orders Kaleshnikoff was then bound hand and foot, flogged with rope's ends into a state of insensibility, and flung, bruised and bleeding, into his boat. The latter was then cast adrift, and the police barge proceeded on ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... rifle. He could see so clearly that huddle of figures upon the head of the landing stage that he confidently apprehended being fired upon at any moment; but minutes lengthened and he was not. Either the Germans were looking for bigger game than a dory adrift, or the dazzling flare hindered more than ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... adrift upon the ocean in an open boat, their food and their water dwindling hour by hour, who eagerly watch a white topsail or a faint wreath of smoke which seems for a time to be approaching, yet soon sinks beneath the horizon and leaves them alone upon the waste; the garrison of Ladysmith ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... ready to embark now. Here is the harbor; and there lies the Great Eastern at anchor,—the biggest island that ever got adrift. Stay one moment,—they will ask us about secession and the revolted States,—it may be as well to take a look at Charleston, for an instant, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... rooms, left her plants and her birds with Mrs. Gallilee, and came up to Shubarton Place in the beginning. There were no servants there; everything was adrift; the terrible blows of life take people between the harness, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... away, and the tentacles did not move. The curious fish, however, seemed determined to come no nearer, and at last the waiting tentacles came stealthily to life. Almost imperceptibly they drew themselves forward, writhing over the bottom as casually as weeds adrift in a light current. And behind them those two great, inky, impassive eyes, and then the fat, mottled, sac-like body, emerged furtively ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... about 52 deg. north latitude, in that expanse of water which has ever since been appropriately known ass Hudson's Bay. A mutiny having broken out among his crew, he and eight others having been forced into a small boat, on the 21st of June, 1611, were set adrift on the sea, and were never heard ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... now,—that was final. The fair dream-structure which had risen anew that afternoon had fallen again in a tragic moment's space. The mountain blood in Mr. Follet would never forget or forgive. He must leave the place forever. He was adrift again in the world. There would never be tender home ties for him,—he could never love another, no one could be a part of his very self like little Nancy. He dropped down upon a little seat which he had fixed there for ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... afraid of them, and they see perfect independence in their grasp. And what would be the spectacle if they were to cut themselves loose from England? The big ship might be inconvenienced by the loss of the tender; the tender would fall adrift on the Atlantic, with pilot and captain at sword and pistol, the crew playing Donnybrook freely. Their cooler heads are shrewd enough to see the folly, but it catches the Irish fancy to rush to the extreme, and we have allowed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ice, but they were too late. The edge of the ice was high and the pans were moving rapidly, and to their chagrin they heard a smashing and splintering of wood, and the next instant were aware that the stern of the boat had been completely bitten off and that they were adrift on an ice pan, cut off from the land ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... torture. One day, some of us, while walking the poop, had our attention directed to a sucking-fish, about two and a half feet in length, which had been made fast by the tail to a billet of wood, by a fathom or so of spun-yarn, and turned adrift. An immense striped shark, apparently about fourteen feet in length, which had been cruising about the ship all the morning, sailed slowly up, and turning slightly on one side, attempted to seize ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... Asiatic side, where most of her men were taken off under fire. The Ocean, after going to her assistance, struck a mine and went down about 6 o'clock. Not more than 40 per cent. of the injuries sustained in the action were attributable to gunfire, the rest to mines sent adrift from the Narrows. Of the 16 capital ships engaged, three were sunk, one had to be beached, and some of the others were hardly ready for continuing the ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... was conceived to put Hudson and all the sick members of the crew in the shallop or small boat that the Discoverer carried and turn them adrift, and all the details of this were worked out by Greene and some other leading spirits among the mutineers. Hudson was seized and bound; the sick were told to get up from their bunks and take their places in the shallop. Even the boy, John Hudson, was placed there also,—and the carpenter, ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... heard the call, but as his name had not been mentioned he dared not take it upon himself to move so much as one of his tightly braced feet. He seemed to feel that if he did so it would be at the risk of his life; and the thought of being cast adrift on that raging sea filled him with ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... men were saved by casting adrift on Pattern 3 target. The steam pinnace floated off her clutches, ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... Further, Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. ii) that "it is a sign of fortitude to cut oneself adrift from all the deadly pleasures of the passing show." Now noisome pleasures and delights are the concern of temperance rather than of fortitude. Therefore it seems that fortitude is not the gift corresponding to the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... he invited them to his home. On arriving at the hut Scott and his lubras prepared for their guests a beautiful meal of kangaroo and potatoes. This was their only food as long as they remained on King's Island, for Scott's only boat had got adrift, and his flour, tea, and sugar had been all consumed. But kangaroo beef and potatoes seemed a most luxurious diet to the men and women who had been kept alive for three weeks on ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... the canoe adrift, and float down the stream with it," whispered Stover, so softly that Dan could scarcely hear him. ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... within reach. The boat keepers acted very wisely; all of them got into the gig and towed the other boats astern, so that if the Malays came along, either in their prahus or in their boats, they could have cut them adrift and made a race of it down to ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... harbor's edge he raced. Then, seeing the rowboat adrift, Hal, after one more look at the sinking submarine, leaped into the water without stopping even to ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... quarrels. For a century that principle had been the pole-star of American foreign policy; no other people had such a wrench to make from their moorings before they could enter the war, and no other people can understand what it cost the Americans to cut themselves adrift from their haven of democratic pacifism in order to fight for ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... lower into shore he beheld the Jean in travail at the Duglas mouth. The tide had come fully in while he was absent, the delta that before had been so much lagoon and isle was become an estuary, where, in the unexpected tide and rush of the river, the logs of fir and oak were all adrift about the sides of the vessel. Every hand was busy. They poled off as best they might the huge trunks that battered at the carvel planks and pressed upon the twanging cable. Forward of the mast Black Duncan stood commanding in loud shouts that could ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... soon found that his words were falling upon deaf ears, and were perfectly useless. She had cut herself adrift from her aunt and uncle, whom she cordially disliked, leaving them a letter to tell them that as she was now her own mistress, she never meant to trouble them or Mr. Greenbank again, and she ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for the pacification thereof." In the settlement that followed the war, however, it was deemed undesirable to set the young republic adrift upon the stormy sea of international politics without a guiding hand. Before withdrawing American troops from the island, Congress, in March, 1901, enacted, and required Cuba to approve, a series of restrictions known as the Platt amendment, limiting ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... the White Pine wrecking expedition completely broken up, and only its leader was left to carry out, if he could, its objects. Even he had been set adrift in an oarless skiff, with the hope that he would be so long delayed in reporting to his employers as to allow time for the captured logs to be put underground before another demand ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe
... for, persevering in the search and sailing far to the north, he came, at last, into the great bay also named for him, where tragic fate lay waiting. For there, in that icy fastness of the north, his mutinous crew bound him, set him adrift in a small boat, and sailed ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... the first to try his fortune. He had chosen the tale of a young girl cruelly turned adrift in a forest and left there to die, and he related it with every circumstance that could render it more piteous. Soon every lady in the court was weeping, but to the eyes of the Princess Elene came no tears, which made Prince Tristan angry, so ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... formally signalized by an epoch-making decision. In November, 1769, Charles Stewart, once a merchant in Norfolk and later receiver general of the customs of North America, took to England his Negro slave, James Somerset, who, being sick, was turned adrift by his master. Later Somerset recovered and Stewart seized him, intending to have him borne out of the country and sold in Jamaica. Somerset objected to this and in so doing raised the important legal question, Did a ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... ordered that the cables of the Esmeralda were not to be cut, but that after taking her, the force was to capture the Maypeu, a brig of war previously taken from Chili, and then to attack and cut adrift every ship near, there being plenty of time before us. I had no doubt that, when the Esmeralda was taken, the Spaniards would desert the other ships as fast as their boats would permit them, so ...
— 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
... said has vexed you," he began, "tell me so plainly, Miss Isabel, and I'll ask your pardon. But don't throw my rank in my face. I cut adrift from all that nonsense when I took this farm and got my living out of the horses. What has a man's rank to do with a man's feelings?" he went on, with another emphatic dig of his stick. "I am quite serious in asking if you like me—for this good reason, that I ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... sit on the top step of your front veranda, just as you sat there on such a day, nearly three years ago. As on that day, you are talking of the future; but you are in a very different frame of mind to-day. In a few short weeks you will be adrift upon a sea of domestic uncertainty. For weeks you have visited the noisy city, hunting the proud and lofty mansion and the tortuous and humiliating flat, and it has all come to this—a steam-heated "family-hotel," until such time when you can find summer quarters; and then, ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... and run away with us, for there were only forty men on board who knew how to go aloft except a few of the marines. The pilot made his appearance, and soon afterwards down went the bridles, and we were fairly adrift. We reached the Nore, and let go the anchors in a hail squall, and it was with the greatest difficulty we got the top-sails furled. The admiral, having proof positive that we were as helpless as a cow in a jolly-boat, took compassion on us and sent fifty more men from ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... all that remained of good in him. In losing Evelyn, whom he had loved with all the idealism and reverence of a reckless man for a good woman, he believed, in the bitterness of his spirit, that he had lost all; that he had been cut adrift from the last mooring to a better future, that nothing could hold him back now. And for a time it had been so, and he had drowned his trouble in a sea in which he ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... alarm and suspicion of the country-folk, who, on visiting the Abbey, would now and then catch sight of an aged lay-brother, or monkish domestic, who had been retained in the service of the Byrons long after the Canons had been "turned adrift." He would naturally keep out of sight of a generation who knew not monks, and, when surprised in the cloisters or ruins of the church, would glide back to his own ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... dragging our anchor, and with our last remaining bit of steam, we reached a place shallow enough for anchorage. It was literally the last gasp of the engine that put us in safety, for a moment more and we should have been adrift on the trackless sea. ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... be a child?" he thought. "It is not on my account that she came here, but on Rosas's. Our friends' friends are our lovers. Egad! on my word, I was almost taken in again, nevertheless! Compelled, in order to cut adrift again, to make another journey to ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... himself being carried along, and, a little later, he was laid down on what he felt was the bottom of a boat. A moment later he could tell by the motion of the craft that he was adrift on the Delaware. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... Lessingham may have all the most delightful qualities in the world, but he has attached himself to a country which no English man or woman will be able to think of without shuddering, for many years to come. You can't dream of cutting yourself adrift from your friends and your home and your country! It's too unnatural! I'm not even arguing with you, Philippa. You couldn't do it! I'm wholly concerned with Mr. Lessingham. I cannot forget what we owe him. I think it would be hatefully cruel of ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and sail adown, And motion neither slow nor swift, With dark-brown hull and shadow brown, Half-way between two skies adrift, The barque went ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... and still is to mark ownership. In our lumber regions up in the Northwest it is customary to clear a small spot on a log and strike it with the blunt end of a hatchet containing the initials of the owner, and then send it adrift down the stream with hundreds of others, and though it may float miles unguarded, that mark of ownership is respected. On the Western plains it is common to see mules with an initial branded on the flank. In both cases the initial is the owner's seal, recognized by law as ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... what he grasps. Now the whole company rush towards the water, and the pater deposits the supposed devil on board the raft, on which the palongs row off with the greatest possible expedition, dragging the captive out to sea, to a considerable distance, when, having turned him and his vehicle adrift, they row back with the utmost speed to shore. For two days the enemy may survive this rough usage, and again land in safety, if driven on shore by the tide or wind, but on the third day he must die. Should he land at another village, he then does the mischief ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... paddled the float to the place where the boats were moored, and cast them all adrift. The slight current of the lake carried them slowly down to the river, and the listeners returned to the shore, and reported what they had done to the colonel. The whole party were then driven round ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... length was decked over, with a trunk cabin, in which were transoms large enough for four berths, with a cook-room forward. She was handsomely fitted up, and Little Bobtail wondered how she happened to be adrift. He hoisted the mainsail, and in a few moments ran her into a little bay under the lee of Blank Island, where he anchored her. As she had an anchor it was evident that she had not broken away from her anchorage. Having secured the old boat at a safe distance from the yacht, ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... boats, causing great confusion and dismay in their ranks. However, Mr Hayles pulled in, ably seconded by a seaman lent from the Agamemnon, Stephen Trewavas, who, though already wounded from the fire of the enemy, cut the hawsers and cast the boats adrift. Mr Hayles was also wounded. Trewavas obtained the Victoria Cross for his coolness and determination ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... to clear the line on board, they had cut some of the entangled parts, and in the confusion and hurry, severed the wrong part, so that the end went overboard, and I had half the coil of line hanging to me, and at the same time was adrift from the ship. They immediately hailed me to return, but from the booming of the waves I could not hear what they said, and thought that they were encouraging me to proceed. I shouted in return to show the confidence which I ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... went forth and beat tuba with short sticks, then threw water upon it, and as a final procedure cast the bark into the river and again beat it. From the group of the most important people an old man then waded into the water and cast adrift burning wood shavings which ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... and, when the winter came, even dangerous; a few pilots were lost and some spent hours adrift on wrecked seaplanes. Here is the report of a December experience of Squadron Commander J. W. Seddon, ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... thought to be a small matter. Soon another was broken and then another. Still this was not of much consequence. One by one more were broken but unheeded because each was so small. Finally all were broken, and the boat went adrift. A little care does not seem to be of much consequence. But the Bible says to be "careful for nothing," and to "cast ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... talking about what followed? I hadn't the ghost of a show from the start. Do you think you know anything about London? Believe me, you don't until you have been cast adrift in it with empty pockets. It's a city of vampires and stony hearts, a seething inhuman hell where you can wander till you drop and die without anyone giving a pitying glance—much less a helping hand. Even a man's guardian angel deserts ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... home! To that new bridal nest, which, be it the poorest dwelling on earth, seems—or should seem—holy, happy, and fair! What a coming home it was! Better, she thought, that he had cast her adrift, or torn himself from her and placed the wide world between them. Rather any open separation than the mockery ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... things continued the whole day. The seas followed in rapid succession, and each, as it struck the vessel, caused her to shake all over. At each blow from a wave the rolling and pitching ceased for a few seconds, giving the impression that the ship had broken adrift, and was running with the wind, or in the act of sinking; but when another sea came, she ranged up against it with great force. This latter effect at last became the regular intimation to the anxious men below that they were still riding ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... disaster, a consequence in the train of such proceedings, of greatly wider and more malignant operation still, on the habit and condition of the working classes, gathered in hundreds around the mushroom establishment, and then thrown adrift among the other wrecks of its overthrow, in utter helplessness and destitution on society. This frenzy of men hasting to be rich, like fever in the body natural, is a truly sore distemper in the body politic. No doubt they are also sufferers themselves, piercing their own hearts ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... he looked at it! Menie knew that he was adrift on an ice raft, and he was terribly frightened. Nip and Tup cuddled close to him and ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... and looked down over the long sweep of the water. The evening sky was a dull gray, almost black, but the rain had ceased to fall, and just then above us there was a break as if the absent moon was working to cut the clouds adrift. A kind of luminous darkness closed around us. It was beautiful. The massed buildings rose a blurred outline between the river and the sky like great beasts crouching and ready to spring, while through the steel-black circlings of the bridge row ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... step of our road carries us homeward and to safety. If we never find a drop of water on the road, our animals have enough to carry those who have to bear the whole journey to their goal, and as the animals succumb they will be shot or turned adrift.' The event showed Belt's sagacity. The unfortunate government expedition left Melbourne loaded with camp-followers and impedimenta, and by the time they reached a few stages beyond Cooper's Creek were well-nigh exhausted. ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... Laddie made little boats and set them adrift in the blue water. Rose and Vi played with their dolls, for they had each brought two or three of them. Mun Bun and Margy dug in the sand with sticks which they picked up on the shore ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandma Bell's • Laura Lee Hope
... is a perpetual theme for small-talk. It usurps the place of the weather, which is turned adrift, or laid up in ordinary for future use. Nevertheless it (I mean the palace) is a remarkable achievement, after all; and I speak sincerely when I say, 'All honor and glory to Paxton!' If the strings of my poor little lyre were not rusty ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... brother had replied:—"Don't you talk of clearing out, not till Miss Tarver she tells you." Moses' answer was:—"I'm agreeable, Dave"; and the matter dropped until some time after, when he had made Dolly Tarver's acquaintance. She, on hearing that her union with David would send Mo again adrift, had threatened to declare off if such a thing was so much as spoke of. So Moses had remained on, in the character of a permanency saturated with temporariness; and, when the little boy Dave began to take his place in Society, proceeded to appropriate—so said the child's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... of the evils that were predicted to follow from the occupation of Rome by a foreign power have been too speedily realized. Already several convents and other ecclesiastical institutions have been seized and sold, and their inmates sent adrift. A number of colleges founded and endowed by the piety of foreign Catholics have been confiscated. Public religious processions through the streets of Rome have been prohibited. These and other outrages are perpetrated by a government which solemnly pledged ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... wanted. I knew it wasn't a Bible, for we had one at home, but further than that I could not go. Now, if knowing how to buy a book is a part of complete living, then, in that blond presence, I was hopelessly adrift. I had been taught that gambling is wrong, but there was a situation where I had to take a chance or show the white feather. Of course, I took the chance and was relieved of my money by a blond who may or may not ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... go down to the boats every time the clock strikes, to see if they are all right. If they should get adrift, you know, our game ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... revealed what she had done, and first stabbing her husband, she calmly perished in the flames with the Huns. Another version relates, however, that she murdered Atli with Sigurd's sword, and having placed his body on a ship, which she sent adrift, she cast herself into the sea and ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber |
