"Tarpaulin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... firewood from the forest made a camp fire in front that kept everybody toasting warm in ordinary weather. The regimental and company officers had similar quarters, improved sometimes by a roof of canvas or tarpaulin beneath the evergreen thatch. There were but few days in the East Tennessee winters when such shelter was not a sufficient protection for men young and accustomed to hardship. It was in fact more comfortable than life in tents at ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... the small telescope from where it hung and made his way back again on deck, where he focussed the glass and began to scan the brig, scrutinising her rig and everything that he could command, from trucks to deck, making out the long gun covered by a great tarpaulin, and then bringing the glass to bear upon such of the crew as came ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... out. While the boy was holding to one end and I to the other, I went on and explained that I had that day bought out Mr. ——, and as I had no knowledge of the dry-goods business and couldn't tell a piece of calico from an Irish tarpaulin, that they must not blame me if I sold them silk ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... to the head of Crooked River, came upon an abandoned sled and its impedimenta. Snow and rain and summer sun had bleached its wood, its runners were red streaks of rust, its rawhide lashings had been eaten off, but snugly rolled inside the tarpaulin was a sack of mail. This mail the travelers brought in with them, and the Nome newspapers, in commenting upon the find, reprinted the story of that tragic fight for life in the Arctic hurricane, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... waife, 'er says, 'Pon mai word, thur's a man taak'n our vottygraff.' And thur 'e was, tu, with a black tarpaulin awver 'is 'aid! 'Come away, me dyur,' says she; 'ai'm not gwaine to paay vur naw vottygraffs. Ai 'ad one done at Laanson 'oss shaw when ai was a gal, and it faaded clean away insaide a twelve-month.' Zo us gaws back along the staation ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... names now. Horace Greeley, gray-haired and beaming, was in sailor costume—white duck pants, blue shirt, open at the breast, large neckerchief, loose as an ox-bow, and tied with a jaunty sailor knot, broad turnover collar with star in the corner, shiny black little tarpaulin hat roosting daintily far back on head, and flying two gallant long ribbons. Slippers on ample feet, round spectacles on benignant nose, and pitchfork in hand, completed Mr. Greeley, and made him, in my boyish admiration, every inch a sailor, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... at the gate. There were three men in the waggon, and one of them was the Grinstun man, as cheerful as ever. What was in the waggon could not be seen, as it was covered over with buffalo robes and tarpaulin, but the detective could have sworn he saw it move, and give forth a sound not unlike a groan. Mr. Rawdon jumped down, telling a certain Jones of truculent countenance to drive on, as he guessed he'd walk ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... George, I'm glad to hear it! I hope he'll keep so, that's all. I am glad I left that fool. He'd not my notions at all. We split two days ago, and I made tracks for the old diggings; got down as far as Tarbury under a tarpaulin in a goods train—there's some sense in a goods train—and then lay close by a weir of the canal, and got aboard a barge after dark. Nothing breaks a scent like a barge. And it went the right way for my business too, and travelled all night. I kept close ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... hitched his shoulders and the movement showed that his burden was indeed no more than a cunning counterfeit, a bundle of hay rolled inside a tarpaulin. ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... chill, now. Kirk decided that it must be night, though he didn't feel sleepy. He crawled under the tarpaulin which Ken kept to cover the trunks in foul weather. In doing so, he bumped against the engine. There was another maddening thing! A good, competent engine, sitting complacently in the middle of the boat, and he not able to start it! But even if he had ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... his impassive face, he received the Baron's instructions; then he left the room; and five minutes later a large military wagon, covered with miller's tarpaulin stretched in the shape of a dome, was being rapidly driven away under the heavy rain at the gallop of ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... There are gas-lamps flaring down in Ratcliff Highway, and the sound of squeaking fiddles and trampling feet in many public-houses tell of festivity provided for Jack-along-shore. The emporiums of slop-sellers are illuminated for the better display of tarpaulin coats and hats, so stiff of build that they look like so many sea-faring suicides, pendent from the low ceilings. These emporiums are here and there enlivened by festoons of many-coloured bandana handkerchief's; ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... most important articles are flour, tea, sugar, and tobacco. All should be husbanded with extreme care, and weighed from time to time. The flour is best carried in canvass bags, containing 100 pounds each, and should at the termination of each day's journey, be regularly piled up and covered with a tarpaulin. Tea, sugar and tobacco lose considerably in weight, so that it is necessary to estimate for somewhat more than the bare supply. With regard to the salt meat, the best mode of conveying it appears to be in small barrels ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... said to myself as I approached timidly, for I knew now that I was opposite to the little heap of powder-kegs that had been brought out of the magazine with so much risk, and were lying covered over with canvas and a tarpaulin, whose surface was ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... her last voyage to Calabria, having taken macaroni from Amalfi and bringing back wine of Verbicaro. A fine boat, the Giovannina, able to carry twenty tons in any weather, and water-tight too, being decked with hatches over which you can stretch and batten down tarpaulin. A pretty sight as she ran up to the end of the breakwater, old Luigione standing at the stern with the tiller between his knees and the slack of the main-sheet in his hand. She was running wing and wing, with her bright new sails spreading far over the water on each side. ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... with the fire banked and a gentle pressure of steam simmering in the boiler. It was his only chance, and he seized it. But to his dismay, when he reached the machine, which lay just round a bend in the road, he found it shrouded with a huge tarpaulin. However, this suggested a desperate chance. He whipped nimbly inside the covering and hid in the coal-box. Lying there, he heard the ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... place in half an hour than another man could have done in a day. He also made acquaintance with the vessel that was to sail for Copenhagen—a black sulky-looking boat, christened very appropriately the Crow, with a black sulky-looking captain, who was lying on a heap of tarpaulin on the deck, smoking a pipe in his sleep. Mr. Carter stood looking over the quay and contemplating this man for some moments ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... indeed, and that there was a little group of other men standing at a short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made. The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, a little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpaulin. It looked no ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... line itself there was often no better shelter than an old tarpaulin or sheet of corrugated iron stretched across the trench. At some 'posts' there was nothing better to sit on than the muddy 'fire-step' or at best half a duckboard or an old bomb box. Despite continuous efforts to keep one ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... a hair the barrier betwixt right and wrong, which a very few barrels are enough to do with a man who has sapped the foundations. Treading softly for fear of a spark from his boots, and guarding the lantern well, Carne approached one of the casks in the lower tier, and lifted the tarpaulin. Then he slipped the wooden slide in the groove, and allowed some five or six pounds to run out upon the floor, from which the cask was raised by timber baulks. Leaving the slide partly open, he spread one end of his coil like a broad lamp-wick in the pile of powder which had ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... my pride mount above my resentment. By this engine, whose springs I am continually oiling, I play them all off. The busy old tarpaulin uncle I make but my ambassador to Queen Anabella Howe, to engage her (for example-sake to her princessly daughter) to join in their cause, and to assert an authority they are resolved, right or wrong, (or I could do ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... leaped through the tumbling waters. But Bill soon saw that if she was to handle in such a sea he would have to reduce speed or risk getting swamped. He therefore throttled down the engine and rigged a tarpaulin over the bow to keep out the wave crests, part of which ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... o'clock, we found that the miseries of coaling were not yet over, and that there had been numerous visitors from the shore. Everything on deck looked black, while below all was pitch dark and airless, every opening and crevice having been closed and covered with tarpaulin, to keep out the coal dust. It took seven hours to complete the work, instead of two, as was hoped and promised, so our chance of starting to-day is over. This seemed the more disappointing, because, had we foreseen the delay, we might have made ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... other sea-ports at the time, toward "those who go down to the sea in ships." "Free trade and sailors' rights" just then expressed the sentiment of the country. In my clothing I was rigged out in sailor style. I had on a red shirt and a tarpaulin hat, and a black cravat tied in sailor fashion carelessly and loosely about my neck. My knowledge of ships and sailor's talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a ship from stem to stern, and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor like an ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass
... the Captains will have them; and if they offer to do otherwise, the Captains swear they will run them through. He says that he heard Captain Digby (my Lord of Bristoll's son, a young fellow that never was but one year, if that, in the fleete) say that he did hope he should not see a tarpaulin have the command of a ship within this twelve months. He observed while he was on board the Admirall, when the fleete was at Portsmouth, that there was a faction there. Holmes commanded all on the Prince's side, and Sir Jeremy Smith on the Duke's, and every body that come ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... occasion. It was a pair of white pants, made "sailor fashion," with a short red frock, and a patent-leather belt. These garments, owing to the coldness of the weather, were worn over their usual clothes. The hat was a tarpaulin, with the name of the club in gilt letters on the front, and upon the left breast of the frock was a ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... owner of as rich a domain as any in the land!" The attempts of this poor sailor to obtain his rights were then represented. "He learned the bitter truth, gentlemen, that a poor seaman, a foremast hand, with a tarpaulin hat and round-jacket, stood little chance of being heard, as the accuser of the rich and the powerful—the men who walked abroad in polished beavers, and aristocratic broad-cloths." Aristocracy having once been brought upon the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... rubbish on his shoulders, and accompanied by a stout servant-girl also heavily laden with marine curiosities. There were sou'westers, and tarpaulins, and skull-caps; frieze jackets, and overalls, and hickory shirts; tarpaulin coats, and heavy sea-boots, and duck blouses with old bunches of oakum sticking out of the pockets; there were coils of rope-yarn well tarred, and jack-knives in leather cases, still black with whale-gurry: and a few telescopes ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... pipes and threw them overboard. The thought of being seen from shore was almost incitement enough for murder. They refused to turn a hand to anything that night, but sat sulking below the sloping roof of reeds and tarpaulin that did duty for a deck, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... that it followed him like an odoriferous halo, and procured him a number of unpleasant nicknames. The principal ingredient was salted herring; but there was also a suspicion of tarred ropes, plug tobacco, prunes, dried codfish, and oiled tarpaulin. ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... day there was a deal of mysterious coming and going aboard the brigantine, and in the afternoon a sailboat went up to the town, carrying the captain, and a great load covered over with a tarpaulin in the stern. What was so taken up to the town Barnaby did not then guess, but the boat did not return ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... difficulty they disentangled the long-boat from the wreck, and thought themselves fortunate in being able to catch hold of a couple of small oars, with a studding-sail-boom for a mast, on which they hoisted a fragment of their main-hatchway tarpaulin for a sail. One ham and three gallons of water were all the provisions they were able to secure; and in this fashion they were set adrift on the wide sea. The master of the ship, with two gentlemen who were passengers, preferred to stick by the vessel ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... three ours, besides the four fishermen, two to manage each canoe. We were thus carried along side the piratical schooner, when all their fire arms were passed on board of her; the arm chest, which was in the stern sheets and covered with a tarpaulin, opened, several long knives and machetes taken out, their keen edges examined with the greatest scrutiny and passed on board the canoes for the expressed purpose of ...
— Narrative of the shipwreck of the brig Betsey, of Wiscasset, Maine, and murder of five of her crew, by pirates, • Daniel Collins
... at the corner of the wharf, a boat, or, rather, a sort of scow, for it was larger than a boat though oars lay along its thwarts, was moored. It was partly decked over, and she could see a small black opening into the forward end of it, though the opening itself was almost hidden by a heap of tarpaulin, or sailcloth, or something of the kind, that lay in the bottom of the craft. She nodded her head. They might all of them use ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... went up for five minutes. Then the biplane was rolled over to the big shed attached to the gymnasium,—a place usually used for housing carriages and automobiles during athletic contests. Here one end was cleaned out and the Dartaway was rolled in, and the engine was covered with a tarpaulin brought from ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer
... actually stripped every rag of clothing from his body. He was thought to be dead, but soon re-appeared at his post, with a strip of canvas about his waist, and fought bravely until the end of the action. Some days before the battle, a gentleman of Oswego gave one of the sailors a glazed tarpaulin hat, of the kind then worn by seamen. A week later the sailor re-appeared, and, handing him the hat with a semi-circular cut in the crown and brim, made while it was on his head by a cannon-shot, remarked calmly, "Look here, Mr. Sloane, how the damned ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... gallery doors, funnels, and scuttles, which I soon saw were blown off; I rushed forward and got them secured again, and in coming aft found the hatches had all been blown off; the two foremost main-gratings had gone down the hatchway. The after one I assisted to replace, also the tarpaulin, which was excessively hot, and left the carpenter to get it secured on. I next thought of the magazine, where I dreaded some accident. On my way aft, I met some people again bringing Mr. Banks up ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... which grow wider and wider until at last it joins the broad vast sea—where some halt to rest from heavy loads and think as they look over the parapet that to smoke and lounge away one's life, and lie sleeping in the sun upon a hot tarpaulin, in a dull, slow, sluggish barge, must be happiness unalloyed—and where some, and a very different class, pause with heaver loads than they, remembering to have heard or read in old time that drowning was not a ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a thousand feet thick. But since we had spread our blankets, the persistent waters had soaked down and through. The thousand-foot roof had a sprung a leak. Three separate and distinct streams of water ran as from spigots. I lowered my torch. The canvas tarpaulin shone with wet, and in its exact centre glimmered a pool of water three inches deep and at least two feet ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... Adolphe said eagerly; "I have an idea! The hatches are covered with tarpaulin. If you could hide in the forecastle during the night you might cut away all the top underneath the tarpaulin and prop it up, so that if anyone trod on it in the morning they would not notice what had been done. Then when they have pushed off you could knock away the props, the board would tumble ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... white face and two bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us. Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The hood was up, and a piece of tarpaulin was stretched from it across to the coachman's seat, blocking out the view except for the little we could see ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... ship on the voyage to Cape Town: it was caused by an overturned lamp and easily extinguished. The second was during our first winter in the Antarctic, when there was a fire in the motor shed, which was formed by full petrol cases built up round the motors, and roofed with a tarpaulin. This threatened to be more serious, but was also put out without much difficulty. The third and fourth cases were during the winter which had just passed, and were both inside ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... upon the next comer. And how they did come, to be sure! There was the Gypsy, the Creature of the Gravel-Pit, the long-legged, long-armed thing from the Long Walk—she could make her arm stretch the whole length like elastic—the enormous Woman of the Haystack, who lived beneath the huge tarpaulin cover, the owner of the Big Cedar, and the owner of the Little Cedar, all treading ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... the Kansas, and she dreaded this new terror more than the mad fury of the seas. But, if the men were fighting for their lives and her's, she must help, too. That was clear. She had a weapon, a loaded revolver, which she had picked up from beneath a boat's tarpaulin lying on the spar deck. She opened her door and peered out. She could not see any one, and the rattle of a hail-storm overhead effectually dulled any other noise. But several shots fired again in the fore part of the ship were audible above the din of the pelting hail. So she ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... is sad work for women and children!" said the honest tar, drawing a large tarpaulin over the mother and child. Blinded and drenched by the pelting of the pitiless shower, Flora crouched down in the bottom of the boat, in patient endurance of what might befal. The wind blew piercingly cold; and the spray of the huge billows ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... while my mind was intent on fish. I could see her all the time, as I thought, out of a corner of my eye, tethered to a tree twenty yards away. After a couple of hours I began to think of food. I collected my fish in a tarpaulin bag, and moved down the stream towards the mare, trolling my line. When I got up to her I flung the tarpaulin ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... continued to fall, and the ruins, covered with tarpaulin and watched by sentries, were left undisturbed. The Desprez' meanwhile had taken up their abode at Tentaillon's. Madame spent her time in the kitchen, concocting little delicacies, with the admiring aid of Madame Tentaillon, or sitting ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very hot. There was scarcely a stir in the air, and the sun beat down on the sand-hills in no gentle manner. The perspiration ran down the men's faces as they carried, and the flies were beginning to come. After lunch Job set up two impromptu wigwams, stringing a tarpaulin over each, and under these shelters the men rested till 4 P.M. By camping time the outfit had been moved up over the portage about a mile, and I had learned something ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... the King's uniform before, either in scarlet as a Soldier in his armies, or of blue and tarpaulin as a Sailor in his Fleets, or of brown as a Riding Officer in his customs,—under which guise a man may often have doughty encounters with smugglers that are trying to run their contraband cargoes, or to hide their goods in farmers' houses,—or ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... food eventually, that she tells one of her friends that cases of tinned meats from Paris would be of no use to her. The worst of the encampment seems to have been that it interfered with her usual pastime of sketching, which could not be carried on in the evenings under a tarpaulin, by the light of ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... children were in school. Except on a Sunday Audrey had never before seen a procession of villagers, and these villagers must have been collected out of the fields, for the procession was going in the direction of, and not away from, the village. The handcart was covered with a tarpaulin.... She knew what had happened; she knew infallibly. Skirting the boundary of the grounds, she reached the main entrance to Flank Hall thirty seconds before the handcart. The little dog, delighted in a new adventure, yapped ecstatically at her heels, and then ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... long nine; and there, to our horror, were the five rogues busy about her, getting off her jacket, as they called the stout tarpaulin cover under which she sailed. Not only that, but it flashed into my mind at the same moment that the round-shot and the powder for the gun had been left behind, and a stroke with an axe would put it all into the possession of the evil ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... slipped away, and after Mart had reported to Captain Hollinger and secured his motion-picture camera, he found his chum waiting in the boat, where Dailey and Yorke, Borden and Birch were at the oars. Waving farewell to the ship, they moved away; Bob nudged Mart and pointed to a tarpaulin under the stern. ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... measure removed. Midway down, a plank crossed the screw-well from side to side; on this I placed myself and observed the action of the screw underneath. The eye was rendered sensitive by the moderation of the light; and, to remove still further all disturbing causes, Lieutenant Walton had a sail and tarpaulin thrown over the mouth of the well. Underneath this I perched myself on the plank and watched the screw. In an indigo sea the play of colour was indescribably beautiful, and the contrast between the water, which had the screw-blades, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... wide opposition of habits to these tarpaulin men follow the less dashing and showy race sometimes called "star-gazers," sometimes "dictionary-men," who are also occasionally taunted or dignified by their messmates with the title of "philosophers." The object of most of these ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... the ship, which was a regular flight of stairs, had hardly been rigged before a white barge, pulled by four men, came alongside. The oarsmen were dressed in blue uniform, and wore tarpaulin hats, upon which was painted the word "Grace," indicating the yacht to which they belonged. The bowman fastened his boat-hook to the steps, and the rest of the crew tossed their oars in man-of-war style. In the stern-sheets, whose seats were cushioned with red velvet plush, were three persons, ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... walk can be finished; it may then be protected from further action of the frost by covering it first with paper and then with a mattress of sawdust, shavings or sand and covering the whole with a tarpaulin. Methods of heating concrete materials and rules for compounding salt solutions are given in Chapter VII. The danger from sun arises from the too rapid drying out of the surface coating; the task then is to hold the moisture in ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... frenzied little yelp with our deeper note, will pull us out into the middle of the dock, then round, and slowly through the big gates, into the locks. The hatches are already on the after combings, and sailors are spreading the tarpaulin covers over them and battening down with the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... a piece of tarpaulin and insert the package in the little keg, which measures six inches by three and a half. It is perfectly watertight and will stand any amount of knocking ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... about the scene, and the ducks that live at the fishermen's houses come waddling down to see about any little fishes that may be thrown away upon the sand; and men with tarpaulin coats and flannel shirts sit on old anchors and lean up against the boats, smoking short pipes while they talk about cod, and mackerel, and mainsails and booms; and, best of all, the delightful sea-breeze comes sweeping in, browning our ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... the warp was, of course, out of the question, so we rigged a sail from the big hatchway tarpaulin. We lashed the hatch-battens together in the form of a parallelogram, fastened the sail to this, and stayed the structure by means of various devices. We slipped our cable and made for the bar. Wind, tide, and sea were all with us; had the tide ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... landing stage, and, as they watched, a flight of rockets leaped forward from under its wings. Cardon saw the orderly-driver of the ambulance jump down and start to run for the open lift-shaft. He got five steps away from his vehicle. Then the rockets came in, and one of them struck the tarpaulin-covered pile of boxes beside the ambulance. There was a flash of multicolored flame, in which the man and the vehicle he had left both vanished. Immediately, ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... found a large tarpaulin spread out as though it covered some hidden boxes, and, calling to me, she had tried to raise the tarpaulin to look beneath it. But in standing up to do so she unfortunately missed her foothold on the slippery rock, and falling backward was plunged into ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... A seven-by-seven three-man A-tent, which would weigh between twenty and thirty pounds if made of duck, means only about eight pounds constructed of this material. And it is waterproof. I own one which I have used for three seasons. It has been employed as tarpaulin, fly, even blanket on a pinch; it has been packed through the roughest country; I have even pressed it into service as a sort of canoe lining; but it is still as good as ever. Such a tent sometimes condenses a little moisture in a cold rain, but it never "sprays" as does a duck shelter; it never ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... gun—yes, it's a twelve-pound carronade, under the tarpaulin, for'rard of their foremast, and they're clearin' it away for sarvice. We shall have something doin' 'fore the end ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... weeks in Balaclava, spending my days on shore, and my nights on board ship. Over our stores, stacked on the shore, a few sheets of rough tarpaulin were suspended; and beneath these—my sole protection against the Crimean rain and wind—I spent some portion of each day, receiving visitors and ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... back the campus was festooned with Japanese lanterns, little tables ready for bowls of lemonade stood under all the biggest trees, and a tarpaulin dotted with camp chairs covered a roped-off enclosure near the back steps ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... horses, Kermode," directed one of the party, and the team moved on again while the leader, walking beside the sled, hastily examined its load. Several small cases lay beneath a tarpaulin. ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... removed the plates and went to the boat. He returned, dragging the foremast and foresail, which were small, and called Welch out. They agreed to rig the mainsail tarpaulin-wise and sleep in the boat. Accordingly they made themselves very busy screening the east side of Miss Rolleston's new abode with the foresail, and fastened a loop and drove a nail into the tree, and looped the sail to it, then suddenly bade her good-night in cheerful tones, and were gone ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... to duck some ignorant fellow or landsman, frequently played on board ships in the warm latitudes. It is thus managed: A large tub is filled with water, and two stools placed on each side of it. Over the whole is thrown a tarpaulin, or old sail: this is kept tight by two persons, who are to represent the king and queen of a foreign country, and are seated on the stools. The person intended to be ducked plays the Ambassador, and after repeating a ridiculous speech dictated to him, is led in great form up to the throne, and ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... was in the barn attending to the cattle. He had on a tarpaulin straw hat, and a farmer's frock of blue mixture that hung down below the tops of his cowhide boots. I looked sharply at the man, and found it was Mr. George Ripley. The "second horn" sounded; it aroused the dog, who howled pitifully or musically—in ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... only in a partially sheltered state. The joiners had just completed the covering of the roof with a quantity of tarpaulin, which the seamen had laid over with successive coats of hot tar, and the sides of the erection had been painted with three coats of white lead. Between the timber framing of the habitable part, the interstices were ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... last trip was made and the goods piled on the beach and covered with a large tarpaulin, it was dark and all were utterly worn out by their labors. The girls had prepared an extra good supper, and of this they ate heartily and then sat around a little while, when they went ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... Marseilles and far America. Dark-skinned, wild-eyed, ragged, very dirty, they had never seen the sea before, and the sight of a porpoise held them spellbound. They lived on the after-deck, mostly cooking their own food, the women and children sleeping beneath a large tarpaulin that the sailors stretched for them across the width of deck. At night they played their pipes and danced, singing, shouting, and waving their arms—always the same ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... were in the open. Shriller than the scream of shells above them was the skirl of pipes, going with them. The Pipe Major of the 8th Gordons was badly wounded, but refused to be touched until the other men were tended. He was a giant, too big for a stretcher, and had to be carried back on a tarpaulin. At the dressing-station his leg was amputated, but he died after two operations, and the Gordons ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... of a strange, huge, top-heavy vehicle, that seemed like three yellow carriages stuck together, and a mountain of luggage at the top under an immense black tarpaulin, which ended in a hood; and beneath the hood sat a blue-bloused man with a singular cap, like a concertina, and mustaches, who cracked a loud whip over five squealing, fussy, pugnacious white and gray horses, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... camp-site for himself, he unsaddled his horse, threw the pack off the other, and, hobbling both animals, he turned them loose. His roll of bedding, roped in canvas tarpaulin, he threw under a spruce-tree. Then he opened his oxhide-covered packs and laid out utensils and bags, little and big. All his movements were methodical, yet swift, accurate, habitual. He was not thinking about what he was doing. It took him ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... city. He was instructed to find the "Hon. Samuel Tucker," and to deliver to him the packets in his charge. When the messenger arrived, Tucker was working in his yard. The messenger saw a rough-looking person, roughly clad, with a tarpaulin hat, and his neck bound with a flaming red bandanna handkerchief. Never once thinking this person could be the man he sought, he leaned from his horse, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... he could not, in the imperfect light, and the dazzling of the sun-spot at which he had been staring, make out what it was, or how it came to be up there—unsupported as far as he could see. He rose to examine it, lifted a bit of tarpaulin which hung before it, and found a rickety box, suspended by a rope from a great nail in the wall. It had two shelves ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... unconscious. They'd been underground—and in low gravity—long enough to be utterly unable to face the idea of open spaces. Even now there were some who had to be carried, but there were some tougher ones who were able to walk to the rocketship if Pop put a tarpaulin over their heads so they didn't have to see the sky. In any case Pop was essential, either for ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... a forest path, Philip presently caught the flicker of a camp fire ahead. There was a huge tarpaulin over the wagon and a canopy above the horses. Storm-proof tents loomed dimly among the trees. A brisk little man whose apple cheeks and grizzled whiskers Philip instantly approved, trotted importantly about among the horses, humming a jerky melody. Johnny was fifty and looked a hundred, but ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... rangy in build, lean and hard from life in the saddle, bronzed like Indians, still-faced, and keen-eyed. Two of them appeared to be tired out, and lagged at the camp-fire duties. When the meager meal was prepared they sat, cross-legged, before a ragged tarpaulin, ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... that a snag, a sunken log, had penetrated the bottom. Fearing that she would go down and drag other barges with her, she was detached and a line passed to the shore, then luckily near. A crew shoveled the coal from the ugly rent. The snag was cut away and vain attempts were made to pass a tarpaulin under and so stop the hole. Paul stood near his friend Tom, and suggested that he dive under, take a rope with him, and so enable them to pass a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... subterranean passages crossed the mind of the listener, and he thought of tall boots and a tarpaulin. ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... hard work, in which we assisted, produced something a trifle more nautical and seaworthy than the first craft. The ground with a few boards spread upon it was the deck. Tarpaulin sheets were arranged on sticks to represent sails, and we located the vessel so cleverly that two slender trees shot out of the middle of it and served as ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... before the sea, sir; so do I." The captain replied: "If you propose such a thing again, sir, I'll break your head as soon as I can get loose from here. Keep the men in heart." At noon the second mate came forward with a white face, saying: "The tarpaulin's gone off the after-hold, sir." The captain was badly put out by hearing this, but he shouted: "Lash the men how you can, and try to make fast again." While the men (with ropes round their waists) were wrestling with the tarpaulin, a wave doubled over ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... and methods of the drive. Soon he came upon a bateau pulled high on the river bank. There were boxes in the bateau, covered by a tarpaulin whose stripings of red signaled danger. He found a sack in the craft. He pried open one of the boxes and out of the sawdust in which they were packed he drew brown cylinders and tucked them carefully into the sack. The cylinders were sticks of dynamite. The sack was capacious ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... 1697, came a workman of foreign birth, who found humble quarters in a small frame hut and entered himself as a ship-carpenter at the wharf of Lynst Rogge. There was nothing specially noticeable about the stranger, who wore a workman's dress and a tarpaulin hat. But with him were some comrades dressed in the strange garb of Russia, who attracted the attention of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... stooped to pick it up an exclamation escaped her. She had been resting her head against the up-curving prow of the canoe, and now, as she moved, she became aware, by a sharp painful tug, that her hair had become entangled in some torn rivets embedded in the tarpaulin. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... "Let us get a tarpaulin and cover that hole," said Dick. "I'll do it," he added. "I can't get any wetter than I am," and he gave ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield
... fellow-countrymen, who were also in hiding (for they had been captured as passengers in a merchant vessel), he secured a fishing-smack. "Josh" now covered his uniform. Putting on an old coat with a tarred rope tied around his waist, a pair of torn trousers, and a tarpaulin hat, the disguised Jack-tar ran the little vessel down the River Plym, just as day was dawning. The forts and men-of-war were safely passed, and the little shallop tossed upon the gleaming ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Judicature, to try one another for Piracy, and he that was a Criminal one day, was made a Judge another. I shall never forget one of their Trials, which for the curiosity of it, I shall relate. The Judge got up into a tree, having a dirty tarpaulin over his shoulders for a robe, and a Thrum Cap upon his head, with a large pair of spectacles upon his nose, and a monkey bearing up his train, with abundance of Officers attending him, with crows and hand-spikes instead of wands and tip-staves ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... Rubber and gutta-percha and manufactures thereof, alone or mixed with other substances (except silk), and oilcloths and tarpaulin. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... with him back toward his bug. It lacked not only top and side-curtains, but even windshield and running-board. It was a toy—a card-board box on toothpick axles. Strapped to the bulging back was a wicker suitcase partly covered by tarpaulin. From the seat peered ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... and he made his way to the spot where their stores and provisions were piled. A moment later he returned with the canvas tarpaulin that had been used as a cover. "Here's our flag," he said, waving the heavy piece of canvas around ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and the Treasure Cave • Ross Kay
... the tight dress coat, silk cap, and kid gloves of an undergraduate at Cambridge, to the loose duck trowsers, checked shirt and tarpaulin hat of a sailor, though somewhat of a transformation, was soon made, and I supposed that I should pass very well for a jack tar. But it is impossible to deceive the practised eye in these matters; and while I supposed myself to be looking as salt as Neptune himself, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... open, and the red comforter and tarpaulin hat of one of the breakmen showed itself a moment. Presently after, "Can't get on," was repeated by several voices in the various tones of assertion, interrogation, and impatience. The women folks, having nobody to ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... dead lad; and he set himself wildly to chafe my hands, and put spirit at my lips. I was then nigh dead with want of sleep and fatigue, for I had not rested during the fight with the ironclads; and when he covered me with the small tarpaulin, and made a rough pillow in the bow, I went to sleep almost at once; and was as one drunk with the torpor ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... commissariat waggons being some way ahead, and crept under a tarpaulin for protection from the fierce ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... Stewart were quite the best at looking after themselves, and carried more gear than all the rest of us put together. At Syderstone Common an inquisitive general ordered the tarpaulin to be taken off the General Service wagon, and the first things which caught his eye were Sharpie's tennis racket and golf clubs. At Gara munitions of war had to be left behind to find room on the truck for his patent washstand. By the time ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... the cuddy and dragged out the small canvas tarpaulin which I used to cover the engine at night. With this, a cod line, the boathook, and my one oar I improvised a sort of jury rig which I tied erect at the forward end of the cockpit. Then I went aft and took the wheel again. The tarpaulin made a poor apology for a sail, but I ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... it became feasible to go on deck: which was a great relief, notwithstanding its being a very small deck, and being rendered still smaller by the luggage, which was heaped together in the middle under a tarpaulin covering; leaving, on either side, a path so narrow, that it became a science to walk to and fro without tumbling overboard into the canal. It was somewhat embarrassing at first, too, to have to ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... look, he relented, directed his men to fasten a tarpaulin over me, and lash it and me to the mast, and there I lay till we reached Stromness. The sea broke heavily and dangerously over the vessel. But the Captain, finding shelter for several hours under the lee ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... considering the chief characteristics of Croesus, was quite in accord with the customs of modern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange, himself, skillfully fixed the pack in place—adjusting the saddle with careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top, and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their march, also, would place Croesus first; which position—the novelist, again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... reached a little summer-house, into which she turned, pulled down some tarpaulin to cover her, and, crouching in the corner, lay still, her ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... other in their cages, and were thrown overboard like little bluish babies; and the big monkey, Jacko, scoured about the ship and rested willingly in my arms, to the ruin of my clothing; and the man of the stallions made a bower of the black tarpaulin, and sat therein at the feet of a raddled divinity, like a picture on a box of chocolates; and the other passengers, when they were not sick, looked on and laughed. Take all this picture, and make it roll till the bell shall sound ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... above were still jammed fast in the guides, but the first blow had been struck. They spent the rest of the day grooming the donkey-engine, which stood immediately forward of the engine-room hatch. Its tarpaulin, of course, had been stolen, and eight warm months had not improved the working parts. Further, the last dying hiccup of the Haliotis seemed—or it might have been the Malay from the boat-house—to have lifted ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... noon hour had arrived the eight men who were discovered to be in various stages of diphtheria were comfortably housed in a roomy building rudely constructed of logs, tar paper, and tarpaulin, with a small cook-house attached and Tommy Tate in charge. And before night had fallen the process of disinfecting the bedding, clothing, bunk-house, and cookery was well under way, while all who had been in immediate contact with ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... joiner rose and stepped to a rough litter covered by a tarpaulin. The latter, being turned back, displayed a travelling armoury of tools. As he lifted two axes out of their slots, Winchester came thrusting out of ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... were hauling something across the weed, of a very fair bulk, at which we warmed to our work, guessing that it was the bread which they had promised us, and so it proved, and done up with great neatness in a long roll of tarpaulin, which had been wrapped around both the loaves and the rope, and lashed very securely at the ends, thus producing a taper shape convenient for passing over the weed without catching. Now, when we came to ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... deceitful calm fresh dangers brooded. Two doctors had stolen into the ship, unseen by human eye, and bided their time. Unable to act at sea, owing to the combined effect of wind and current, they concealed themselves on deck under a black tarpaulin—that is to say, it had been black, but wind and weather had reduced it to a dirty brown—and there, adopting for the occasion the habits of the dormouse, the bear, the caterpillar, and other ephemeral productions, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Wallace. There were few tracks of visitors among the signs left by cattle and an antelope, except the prints of one mounted man who had led two horses. The two horses he found hobbled beside the spring, and with them were a tarpaulin-covered pile of provisions, bedding, and utensils, together with packsaddles. A paper impaled on a willow twig near by he pulled down, to find a ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... already shooting from the port-holes. The head fast was cast off, and the ketch fell astern. But the stern fast became jammed and the boom foul, while the ammunition of the party, covered only with a tarpaulin, was within easy reach of ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the fire and frying the bacon and the beat of the waves, but I did not like the smell of the tent. It was stuffy. I had been generously given that shelter for my own, while the male members of the party slept by a log (not like one, J—— confessed to me) under a tarpaulin—I mean "tarp"—with stars above them except when obscured by fog. My cot was short and low and I am not, so that I spent the night tucking in the blankets. The puppies enjoyed it all thoroughly. Though they must have been surprised by the ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... front of the house: but this interfering with the lady's desire to have a viranda, which she said could not he dispensed with, she had raised the whole portico to the second story, where it stood, or seemed to stand, upon a tarpaulin roof. But Mrs. Raffarty explained, that the pillars, though they looked so properly substantial, were really hollow and as light as feathers, and were supported with cramps, without disobliging the front wall of the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... forgot temporarily the more-or-less indefinite purpose which had brought him hither. He joined a cluster of watchful persons who hopefully had collected before the scrolled and ornamented wooden entrance of a tarpaulin structure larger than any of the rest. From beneath the red-and-gold portico of this edifice there issued a blocky man in a checkered suit, with a hard hat draped precariously over one ear and with a magnificent jewel gleaming out of the bosom of a collarless ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... cottage. My father had cut from a cellar in the cottage into the drain, and as it was large enough for a man to kneel down in, he used to come in at low-water with his coble, and make fast the goods, properly secured from the wet and dirt in tarpaulin bags, to a rope, which led from the cellar to the sea through the drain. When the water had flowed sufficiently to cover the mouth of the drain, he then threw the bags overboard, and, securing the boat, went to the cottage, hauled up the articles, and secured them too; d'ye understand? My father ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... or arms, in which the rain getting in, is conducted to the very heart of the stem and body of the tree, which it soon rots: In this case, if there be sufficient sound wood, cut it to the quick, and close to the body cap the hollow part with a tarpaulin, or fill it with good stiff loam, horse-dung and fine hay mingled, or with well-temper'd mortar, covering it with a piece of tarpaulin: This is one of the worst of evils, and to which the elm is most obnoxious. Old broken ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... walked down the beach until they came to the spot where they saw the sailors. Here aunt Amy gave Minnie a tract to carry to a stout sailor, who had on a large tarpaulin hat. She ran up to the man, with one of her sweetest ...
— Aunt Amy - or, How Minnie Brown learned to be a Sunbeam • Francis Forrester
... to it, was but a small one—the boat not being built to carry passengers—and so dusky that I could not make it out well; for the skylight was covered with a tarpaulin—put there, I suppose, to protect it when the gale came on that the steamer was wrecked in—and all the light there was came in from one corner where the covering had fetched away. It gave me a sort of shivering feeling when ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... of a horse when much startled are highly expressive. One day my horse was much frightened at a drilling machine, covered by a tarpaulin, and lying on an open field. He raised his head so high, that his neck became almost perpendicular; and this he did from habit, for the machine lay on a slope below, and could not have been seen with more distinctness through the raising of the head; ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... the chill of morning. They all wore linen trousers, and their bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes. The rest of their costume was a fantasy of wretchedness. Their accoutrements were horribly incongruous; nothing is more funereal than the harlequin in rags. Battered felt hats, tarpaulin caps, hideous woollen nightcaps, and, side by side with a short blouse, a black coat broken at the elbow; many wore women's headgear, others had baskets on their heads; hairy breasts were visible, and through the rent in their garments tattooed designs could ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... wood of the true cross. These are the fellows that some officers never pretend to damn, however much they may anathematize others. These are the fellows that it does your soul good to look at;—-hearty old members of the Old Guard; grim sea grenadiers, who, in tempest time, have lost many a tarpaulin overboard. These are the fellows whose society some of the youngster midshipmen much affect; from whom they learn their best seamanship; and to whom they look up as veterans; if so be, that they have any reverence in their souls, which is ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... shortly, intending to ride for the point where the tarpaulin was being waved before it was too late. But as he wheeled Streak he realized that the havoc had been wrought, for the cattle nearest him were on their feet, snorting with fright—a sensation that had been communicated to them by contact with ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... a.m. I was able at last to march on to join General Coke's Brigade in Colenso, and to get my guns into position. I was very exhausted and was feeling rather ill, but I was able to dine with the General under a tarpaulin and had much talk over old times in the Mauritius in 1898. It was a very wet evening, and my men who were bivouacking with no tents had a bad time of it. The sudden cessation of firing most of the day seemed ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... I stowed in the ends of the canoe, the heavier in the middle and along the bottom, thus economizing space and lending to the stability of the canoe. Over the top of the midship stores a floor was made, which, housed over by a tarpaulin roof reaching three feet above the deck of the canoe, supported by a frame of bamboo, gave us sitting space of four feet from the floor to the roof, and twelve feet long amidships. This arrangement of cabin in the centre gave my passengers a berth where ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... it flows then most abundantly. Boots are made of it by the Indians, through which water cannot penetrate; and the inhabitants of Quito prepare a kind of cloth with it, which they apply to the same purposes as those for which oil-cloth or tarpaulin, it used here. This, no doubt, is similar to the cloth now prepared with this substance in America, the use of which yields so ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... few things in the way of boats, but this 'ere's a—well, what do you make of it?" He pulled the tarpaulin back, and disclosed a vessel whose hull was nearing completion. I did not ask if it was Pascoe's work. It was such an amusing and pathetic surprise, that, with the barge-builder's leering face turned to me waiting for my guess, there ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson |
