"Spike" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... believe in intervening chasms and precipices, and almost impossible to resist the idea that one might sally forth and climb up easily. I went into all sorts of places; armed with a great pole with a spike at the end of it, like a leaping-pole, and with pointed irons buckled on to my shoes; and am all but knocked up. I was very anxious to make the expedition to what is called 'The Garden:' a green spot covered with wild flowers, lying across the Mer de Glace, and among the most awful mountains: ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... mantle was over him in the house. Every quarrel therein about seat or bed comes to his decision. Should a needle drop in the house, its fall would be heard when he speaks. Above him is a huge black tree, like a millshaft, with its paddles and its cap and its spike. Liken ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... exercised an instinct for self-preservation. For instance, a log may refuse to pass a certain rock in the river which has offered no obstruction whatever to other logs. Then the lumberman, armed with his long pole, with its spike to push and its sharp hook to pull, must reach that rock and pull and prod the recalcitrant ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... without foundation in fact. It is asserted that the wretch was gibbeted alive, that he lived for several days, and that his sweetheart kept him alive with milk. Another tale is to the effect that a loaf of bread was placed just within his reach, but fixed on an iron spike that would enter his throat if he attempted to relieve the pangs ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... made suddenly, and simultaneously. One came in front, armed with a brick; there was one at each side, and one behind, and they closed up around me. I was struck on all sides; and, while I was attending to those in front, I received a blow on my head, from behind, dealt with a heavy hand-spike. I was completely stunned by the blow, and fell, heavily, on the ground, among the timbers. Taking advantage of my fall, they rushed upon me, and began to pound me with their fists. I let them lay on, for a while, after I came to myself, with a view of gaining ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the arch; the exact curve was marked on these planks and large spikes were driven part way into the planks along this mark. The end of a rod was then fastened by spiking it against the first projecting spike head and three men taking hold of the opposite end and walking it around until the rod rested against all the spikes on the curve. It took three men two 8-hour days to bend 46,000 lbs. of rods. Their wages ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... give me some idea about this here yarn he's spinning, so's I can lay for him with a spike." ...
— Captain Pott's Minister • Francis L. Cooper
... sea shone under the purple light of the rising sun with a rich rosy hue, beautifully in contrast with the different tints of the foliage of the deep woods already tinged with the brown of autumn. Spike Island lay "sleeping upon its broad shadow," and the large ensign which crowns the battery was wrapped around the flag-staff, there not being even air enough to stir it. It was still so early, that but few ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... No, take that one up; it is the bulb of a dwarf palm, each layer of the onion peels off, brown and netted, like the outside of a cocoa-nut. It is a clever plant that; from the leaves we get a vegetable horsehair; - and eat the bottom of the centre spike. All the leaves you pull have the same aromatic scent. But here a little patch of cleared ground shows old friends, who seem to cling by abused civilisation:-fine, hardy thistles, one of them bright yellow, though; - honest, Scotch- looking, large daisies or gowans; - potatoes ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up his quarrel, it seemed—began to ill-treat the crew as before. If any man did not do exactly what he wanted, the captain would tear off his cap, seize his hair, and then, kicking his legs, bring him down on the deck. One day he knocked a poor fellow down with a hand-spike, and thrashed him with a boat-stretcher; and soon afterwards threw a marlin-spike at the head of another, and wounded him severely in the ear. It surprised me that the men did ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... every ship was provided with a boarding-bridge 36 feet in length, which was pulled up by a rope and fastened to a mast in the fore part of the ship. As soon as an enemy's ship came near enough, the rope was loosened, the bridge fell down, and became fastened by means of an iron spike in its under side. The boarders then poured down the bridge into the enemy's ship. Thus prepared, Duilius boldly sailed out to meet the fleet of the enemy. He found them off the Sicilian coast, near Mylae. The Carthaginians hastened ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... word of honour that if the French or Germans came over to invade this land, I'd—" Peggy seized the ruler and waved it in the air with a gesture of fiercest determination—"I'd fight them! There! I'd shoot at them; I'd go out and spike the guns; I'd— I'd climb on the house-tops and throw stones at them. You needn't laugh, I tell you I should be terrible! I feel as if I could face a whole regiment myself. The spirit—the spirit of my ancestors ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... armed men poured over the sides of the surprised Frenchman, and drove the crew below. There was no resistance. The ship was captured in five minutes. The marines of the expedition had been sent ashore to spike the guns of the battery, and their work was performed with equal promptitude. Then all hands set to work rigging the captured vessel, and getting her ready for sea. On the shore the people were in the greatest excitement, beating drums, parading the few militia, and threatening dire ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... LINIMENT.—Two ounces oil of spike, two ounces origanum, two ounces hemlock, two ounces wormwood, four ounces sweet oil, two ounces spirit of ammonia, two ounces gum camphor, two ounces spirits turpentine. Add one quart strong alcohol. Mix well ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... The head was bare; there were plain gold rings in the ears; and the stark, half-malevolent eyes looked out, as though searching for a jam of logs or some peril of the river. In the horny right hand was a defiant pike-pole, its handle thrust forward, its steel spike stabbing ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... well in backing into the clear. Not seeing the troop train, I ran with a hammer and spike when he left the switch with the Arequipena ahead of him and spiked the track. Just then the troop train came in sight. I hurriedly boarded the Arequipena and started, Dobbie backing up at fast as ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... well as public. For I was no sooner returned from the pond, the first time I landed, than this old lady presented to me a girl, giving me to understand she was at my service. Miss, who probably had received her instructions, wanted, as a preliminary article, a spike-nail or a shirt, neither of which I had to give her, and soon made them sensible of my poverty. I thought, by that means, to have come off with flying colours; but I was mistaken; for they gave me to understand I might retire with her on credit. On my declining this proposal, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... a hockey match. You understand she had not committed suicide. Her heart had just stopped. I saw her, with the long lashes on the cheeks, with the smile about the lips, with the flowers all about her. The stem of a white lily rested in her hand so that the spike of flowers was upon her shoulder. She looked like a bride in the sunlight of the mortuary candles that were all about her, and the white coifs of the two nuns that knelt at her feet with their faces hidden might have been two swans that were to bear her away to kissing-kindness land, or wherever ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... called to him, and Matt turned about and said, "Hello, Caryl!" and yielded him a sort of absent-minded hand, while he kept his face turned smilingly upon the men. Some were holding the rails in position, and another was driving in the spike that was to rivet the plate to the sleeper. He struck it with exquisite accuracy from a wide, free-handed rhythmical swing ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... boats was now sent round to the north-east point of the island to ascertain the position and strength of the guns on that side. These boats, after a hot fight, during which they upset some of the enemy's guns, returned, and then made a gallant attempt to force the stockades in order to land and spike the guns bearing heaviest on the steamer. Away they dashed; they could see the barrels of the negroes' muskets gleaming through the stockades, and a terrific fire was opened on them. Still on they went, right up to the stockades. Axe in hand the works were attacked, but in vain they hacked and ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... with a crooked nail! how manfully he burst his fetters asunder! — climb up the chimney! — wrench out an iron bar! — break his way through a stone wall! — make the strong door of a dark entry fly before him, till he got upon the leads of the prison! then, fixing a blanket to the wall with a spike, he stole out of the chapel. How intrepidly did he descend to the top of the turner's house! — how cautiously pass down the stair, and make his escape to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... if it were between the fort and the river; but presently when one of Hamilton's cannon spoke, M. Roussillon saw the yellow spike of flame from its muzzle leap directly toward the church, and he thought it best to make a wide detour to avoid going between the firing lines. Once or twice he heard the whine of a stray bullet high overhead. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... propose to spike one of my guns," said James, who listened to the last remarks with profound emotion. "We are right, and Americans will support us. The Courant was started for a purpose, and we must not lose sight ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... magnified that mode, and though he was willing to do as I advised in the matter, he was evidently a little inclined to the more spectacular way of receiving the ordinance. Mrs. White suggested that it might save future trouble, and "spike a gun." So Jack, with four others, was taken down to Santa Rosa Creek, that went rippling and sparkling along the southern edge of the town, and duly baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... Ainnesley—why, Ainnesley wouldn't have a roof over his head if we failed in our obligations! You must know as well as I do why the banking interests took our paper to those amounts which made it possible for us to drive the first spike." ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... is sometimes found in a sitting position, as in graves recently discovered on Lord Wantage's estate, Berks. Coffins of hollowed trunks of trees were occasionally used, but these were not common. If the dead man was a warrior, his weapons were buried with him, and we find the head and spike of his spear, heads of javelins, a long iron broad-sword, a long knife, occasionally an axe, and over his breast the iron boss of his shield, the wooden part of which has of course ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... him. Invariably he spent some part of his day among his beloved peasants, and daily he recited with them public prayers. Often at night he and they together went up to the teeth of the Russian batteries on expeditions to spike the cannon. His inseparable companion, Niemcewicz, who slept with him in his tent till the-end came, describes how the silence of these nights was broken hideously by the wild, shrill cry of the reapers, by the sudden roar ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... the Ragged Orchid, a near relative of the foregoing, H. psycodes, but far less fortunate in its attributes of beauty, its long scattered spike of greenish-white flowers being so inconspicuous in its sedgy haunt as often to conceal the fact of its frequency. Its individual flower is shown enlarged at Fig. 12—the lip here cut with a lacerated fringe (H. lacera). The pollen-pouches ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... was flourishing his sword with as much apparent knowledge of how to use it as if it had been a marlin-spike. Ralph pushed it aside with a stout stick that he carried, and was passing on, when the singing soldier came up and said, "Never mind his name; but whether he be Presbyter Jack or Quaker George, he must drink to the health of the King. Here," he cried, filling a drinking-cup ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... at the projections of the cape, evidently placed there by the crew to attract the attention of vessels passing. The mizen mast and main topmast had been cut away, and there were a few marks of the axe upon her mainmast. The natives appeared to have taken notice of the ironwork, for some spike nails were found about their fireplaces; these traces, however, were not very recent, nor was it probable that any natives were upon the island at the ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... snakelike bodies, and ten reptilian legs apiece, terminating in fins which acted as wings. The bodies were of bright blue, the legs and fins were yellow. They were flying, without haste, but in a somewhat ominous fashion, straight toward them. He could make out a long, thin spike projecting ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... cruel as a man? Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, he presses the iron spike of ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... drum Hiram passed two lengths of Number 9 wire through large screweyes, making a double loop into which the hook of a light timber chain would easily catch. Into one end of the drum he drove a headless spike, upon which the hand-crank of the grindstone fitted, and ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... Spike Island is mentioned in Church History as a present given by a Munster King to St. Cartach, of Lismore. In modern times it was used as a convict prison, the convicts' labour being employed in the construction of the fortifications ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... the watchers and the marksmen. The entrance to the fort was a large folding gate of thick slabs. It was always on the side nearest the spring. The whole structure of the fort was bullet-proof and was erected without an iron nail or spike. In the border wars these forts withstood all attacks. The savages, having proved that they could not storm them, generally laid siege and waited for thirst to compel a sortie. But the crafty besieger was as often outwitted by the equally cunning defender. Some daring soul, with silent ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... a stiff, three-pointed vermilion-and-tinsel splendor. His Majesty the King fitted it on his royal brow. The Commissioner's wife had a face that children instinctively trusted, and her action, as she adjusted the toppling middle spike, was tender. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... his finger upon a paragraph and handed me the paper.... And I read where one "Spike" Frazer had been shot to death in a hand-to-hand fight with the police who were raiding a dive suspected of being the rendezvous of drug-fiends. Long wanted and at last cornered, Frazer had fought tigerishly and died ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... diagnose the case your way, Mr. Smith; that's a blamed sight better lard than I thought Muggins & Co. were making." And you'd have driven a spike right through that fellow's little joke and have nailed down his order hard and ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... the levity, cold, but none of the six could really believe it. However, after Hilton had coiled a twenty-penny spike into a perfect helix between his fingers, and especially after he and Temple had each chewed up and swallowed a piece of uranexite, there were no grounds left ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... lace for a bow string. I had hard work getting the first tiny blaze, but after that I've kept a bed of coals covered with sand as a reserve. I found a piece of wreckage and used part of it for a shelter. One part had a long spike in it and that I sharpened by scraping it on some of the shells. Then I got a piece of fat pine that had washed ashore and made me a torch. With this sharp spike and the torch I went fishing at night and got three ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... call it a really good, jolly adventure, such as you read of in books. Now, what we've got to do is to wait till they're asleep, cut off all their heads with their own cutlasses, seize the boat, row off to the lugger, wait till old Joe comes back, and then spike him with the points of cutlasses till he pilots us out safely. Then we've got to sail home as prize crew of the lugger, which would be ours. Stop! there's something ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... to the creeper spikes on his heels, and in objecting to the extra weight our guide said derisively: "We've quite enough to pack already, and I guess you don't want to dress us up with a green veil, a crooked club with a spike in the end of it, and fathoms of spun hemp, like them tourist fellows bring out to sit ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... five feet long, are used to kill the larger animals. The arrows are made of a yellow reed without joint or knot. A piece of hard wood is inserted into the end, and in this a square hole is made, tightly bound round with cotton to keep it from splitting. Into this square hole a spike is fitted, and dipped in the poison, while at the butt-end a couple of feathers are fastened to steady it in its flight. The hunter carries a number of these poisoned spikes. As the spike easily breaks off, or slips out when ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... shore battery, with which the English for four hours kept up a weak contest with their foes. Then the fleet sailed past the defences and up the river before a strong breeze, and Oglethorpe was obliged to spike the guns and destroy the war-material at Fort St. Simon's and withdraw to the stronger post of Frederica, where he proposed to make his stand. Not long afterward the Spaniards landed their five thousand men four miles below Frederica. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... apparatus, biting off red-hot ends of rods, closing its jaws together upon them in such a way as to form a four-square mould, then smartly hitting one end so as to make a projecting head: a railroad spike is turned off in a moment. See this other making "nuts" as smartly as a baker makes ginger-nuts: some are raw and some are cooked—that is, some are punched hot and some cold, sufficing for different purposes: the cold are the softer, and the easier to "tap" or perforate with the screw—thread. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... realize it, his sickness was bringing him day by day nearer to his far-away boyhood in the Inverness-shire hills, and it was easy to slip into the speech of the mother-tongue. Then, after a long pause, he went on: "He wasna wearing a beard, a red beard trimmed down to a spike—this writer-man, when ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... of the spikes in. Of course he went higher every time. They were just far enough apart for a man to get his foot on from one to another. As he went up he had one end of the coil of the rope round his wrist. When he got to the top he was to draw it up to fasten to the top spike, and lower himself down by it to the ground on the other side. At last I felt him pull hard on the rope. I held it, and put my foot on the first spike. I don't know that I should have found it so very easy in the dark to get up by the ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... spook," Patsy began, "I got the fearfulest thump on my crust that I've had since that marline-spike fell off the main yard on to me in the little affair of the Five ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... of her Cashmere robe were relieved at the throat by a knot of lilac ribbon, and amid its loops were secured clusters of violets, that matched in hue the long spike of hyacinth which was fastened in one side of the coiled hair, twined just behind the ear, and drooped low on the snowy neck. Before her on a gilded stand was the purple pyramid of flowers she had brought from the theatre, and beside ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... he had not time to make the least movement to avoid it. He fell at once where he stood, but attempted to rise again, when I gave him another prick which settled his business. He fell back heavily against the counter with a groan. One of the heads above was shaken off its spike by the concussion and struck him on the shoulder as he lay. His eyes, opening and shutting convulsively, seemed to gaze upon the ghastly object. He groaned again, and in a few moments was dead. I bent over him with the lantern, and soon ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... let her go, very well pleased to have got so well out of the hobble he was in. The instant the village lass who had done duty for Dulcinea found herself free, prodding her "cackney" with a spike she had at the end of a stick, she set off at full speed across the field. The she-ass, however, feeling the point more acutely than usual, began cutting such capers, that it flung the lady Dulcinea to the ground; seeing which, Don Quixote ran to raise her up, and Sancho to fix and girth ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... and honeycombs it; and riddled as it may occasionally be, still, if spike or nail finds substance enough to hold, or sufficient solidity to resist crushing, then, for many purposes, even such lumber is practically as good as the soundest timber; because when the tree dies the fungus dies, and thenceforth will absorb no more moisture ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... fought heroically but in vain; step by step they were driven back, the battery was recaptured, and the guns, which in the excitement of the advance the captors had omitted to spike, ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the woods the blackberry pickers were scattered about, lying and sitting on the ground in groups and pairs, chatting and watching the preparations going on before their eyes. Pretty and wild the preparations were. Under a big tree just at the border of the clearing a fire was kindled; a stout spike driven into the trunk of the tree held a tea-kettle just over the blaze. Wreaths of blue and grey smoke curling up above the tea-kettle made their way through the tree branches into the upper air, taking hues and colours and irradiations from the sunlight in their way. The forest behind, ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... their ranks came—a girl! Behind her, enormous pouch at his throat swelling in and out menacingly, in one paw a treelike, spike-studded mace, a frog-man, huger than any of the others, guarding. But of him I caught but a fleeting, involuntary impression—all my ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... victor, placing his foot on the body of the vanquished, and holding to his throat the point of the axe, which terminated in a spike or poniard. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... his entire time mowing the lawn with a large horse-drawn machine. This, when not in use, was often left outdoors. Upon it was a square wooden box, containing certain necessary tools, among them a sharp, spike-like instrument, used to clean the oil-holes when they became clogged. This bit of steel was five or six inches long, and was shaped like a pencil. For at least three months, I seldom went out of doors that I did not go with the intention of purloining that steel spike. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... with which that time had been improved by some of our people to another purpose. While the attention of the officers was engrossed by the transit of Venus, some of the ship's company broke into one of the store-rooms, and stole a quantity of spike-nails, amounting to no less than one hundred weight: This was a matter of public and serious concern; for these nails, if circulated by the people among the Indians, would do us irreparable injury, by reducing the value of iron, our staple ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... certain time, Rrisa came silently back, sliding into the soft dusk of that room almost like a wraith. He bore a silver tray with a hook-nosed coffee-pot of chased metal. The cover of this coffee-pot rose into a tall, minaret-like spike. On the tray stood also a small cup having no handle; a dish of dates; a few wafers made of the Arabian cereal called temmin; and a little bowl of ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... sake, if for nothing more; let the Conservatism that would preserve cut it away. Did no wood-forester apprise you that a dead bough with its dead root left sticking there is extraneous, poisonous; is as a dead iron spike, some horrid rusty ploughshare driven into the living substance;—nay is far worse; for in every wind-storm ('commercial crisis' or the like), it frets and creaks, jolts itself to and fro, and cannot lie quiet as your dead ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... inlaid and defended with brass, while many a plate and ring were indented in the handle, to hold the wood and the steel parts together. The axe itself was composed of two blades, turning different ways, with a sharp steel spike projecting from between them. The steel part, both spike and blade, was burnished as bright as a mirror; and though its ponderous size must have been burdensome to one weaker than himself, yet the young soldier carried it as carelessly ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... faint out in semitones: grey scabious, grey harebell, pale bed-straw, white meadowsweet, like the lace of an old lady's cap. But even so, if I must have a sunset glow of brown-pink, herb-willow gives it me. Pinch out the leader of each slim spike, and you make a different plant of it." Thus the poet embroidered the philosopher's text, and kept away from his ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... and Marlin, the coock, and our master's boy, had their hands stretched out, and with their backs to the rayles, and the master's boy with his back to the maine mast, all looking one upon the other, and in each of their mouths a mandler spike, viz., an iron pinn clapt closse into their mouths, and tyd behind their heads; and there they stood a whole houre, till their mouths were very bloody, an excellent ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 236, May 6, 1854 • Various
... Gad, wedge or spike of iron, Gainest, readiest, Gar, cause, Gart, compelled, Gentily, like a gentleman, Gerfalcon, a fine hawk, Germane, closely allied, Gest, deed, story, Gisarm, halberd, battle-axe, Glaive, sword, Glasting, barking, Glatisant, barking, yelping, Gobbets, lumps, Graithed, made ready, Gree, degree, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... a plate or paten (patine) Pight, adj., put, pitched Powder, n., dust of any kind Pricket, n., a spike used for candlestick, hence a candle Principles, n., indecomposable elements Pure, v.a., to ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... could see that they came from curiosity. The stout councilman was recognizable by his scarlet cloak and golden chain; a black, expensive-looking, swelling waistcoat betrayed the honorable and proud citizen. An iron spike-helmet, a yellow leather jerkin, and rattling spurs, weighing a pound, indicated the heavy cavalry-man. Under little black velvet caps, which came together in a point over the brow, there was many ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... railroad. The unanimous opinion was that such a project as the building of a railroad through territory like that over which we had thus far traveled would be a task so stupendous as to baffle all human ingenuity and skill. Yet, some twelve years later, the ceremony of driving the famous "last spike," completing the railroad connection between the Atlantic and Pacific, was performed on a sand flat very near the spot where we camped that night. The intervening period saw the establishment of the "pony express," which greatly facilitated the mail service (incidentally reducing ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... predictions and calculations stop. Beyond material glories we cannot count with certainty. The world has witnessed many powerful empires which have passed away, and left "not a rack behind." What remains of the antediluvian world?—not even a spike of Noah's ark, larger and stronger than any modern ship. What remains of Nineveh, of Babylon, of Thebes, of Tyre, of Carthage,—those great centres of wealth and power? What remains of Roman greatness even, except in laws and literature ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... severing the steel top from the ashpole, and then breaking through and engaging in hand-to-hand conflict with the knights. Behind the latter sat their squires, with extra spears and arms ready to hand to their masters; and in close combat, the heavy maces with their spike ends were weapons before which the light-clad horsemen went down like reeds before ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... (Colicroot, star grass, blackroot, blazing star, and unicorn root ) Bitter American herb of the Bloodwort family, with small yellow or white flowers in a long spike ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... now, rough grey stone. Upon it, there is what I thought at first was a sun-dial, and I wondered what it was doing there. Then I saw it had not a dial plate; only a strong cross-bar of wood, and the index finger, so to speak, was longer than one would expect, a sharp wooden spike. As I was wondering what it was a passer-by explained it. It is not a sun-dial, it is an impaling instrument. On that spike they used to impale alive goats and kids and fowls as offerings to the god Siva and his two wives, the deities to whose honour the three altars stand before ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... we could get out in the dark unobserved, and form close to the walls, so that their pickets lying around might not suspect us of purposing to issue forth, we might, when daylight dawned, make an attack upon their guns, and if we could spike these the assault would ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... sheep far under the curved broken rim of the main crater. Then began the stalk. Gale had taught the Yaqui something—that speed might win as well as patient cunning. Keeping out of sight, Gale ran over the spike-crusted lava, leaving the Indian far behind. His feet were magnets, attracting supporting holds and he passed over them too fast to fall. The wind, the keen air of the heights, the red lava, the boundless surrounding blue, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... entered through the embrasures with their bayonets fixed. Here, however, they met with no resistance: the enemy had abandoned the fort with precipitation. The British colours were immediately hoisted, and sentinels of marines posted upon the parapet. The next care was to spike and disable the cannon, break the carriages, and destroy the powder which they found in the magazine: nevertheless, the detachment was ordered to keep possession of the battery. This service being successfully performed, three ships were sent to reduce the other battery at Casdenavires, which consisted ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... I made the natives another visit, accompanied by Mr Forster and Mr Hodges, carrying with me various articles which I presented them with, and which they received with a great deal of indifference, except hatchets and spike-nails; these they most esteemed. This interview was at the same place as last night; and now we saw the whole family, it consisted of the man, his two wives (as we supposed), the young woman before mentioned, a boy about fourteen years old, and three ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... energy and skill of such men as Stanford, Crocker and Huntington. Imported Chinese coolies had met the labor demand and construction was speeded up. Actual building had begun in 1863 and six years later the two roads met at Promontory Point near Ogden in Utah, where the last spike ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... instruments for each division, each corps, each army, and one for my headquarters. There were wagons also loaded with light poles, about the size and length of a wall tent pole, supplied with an iron spike in one end, used to hold the wires up when laid, so that wagons and artillery would not run over them. The mules thus loaded were assigned to brigades, and always kept with the command they were assigned to. The operators were also assigned to particular headquarters, and never changed ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... for you they will bleed for you; the fount of tears feeds a river as well as betrays a hidden well. Good, then; good, then! He saw a future in all this. From the other spike of the dilemma he saw nothing but his impaling; in this case, if he was impaled, balm at least would be laid upon his wounds. Fra Battista determined to brazen it ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the other. Next thing I know some of 'em will be letting prisoners escape right under my nose, making us the laughing stock of these damned militia volunteers." (Canker entered service in '61 as a private in a city company that was militia to the tip of its spike-tailed coats, but he had forgotten it.) "I want these young idlers to understand distinctly, by George, that the first prisoner that gets away from this post takes somebody's commission with him. D'you hear that, Mr. Gray?" And Canker turned ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... the visions which her prayers had called before her faded away into the night, she saw again the dingy walls of the hated building, the gilt spike on the helmet of the policeman and the shining blade that caught the light as he moved on his beat. For one moment Vjera stood quite still. Then with a passionate gesture she stretched out both arms before ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... young bull with his keen, polished spike-horns, more active and dangerous but less confident than the over-antlered stags, would stand in the old wolf's path, disputing with lowered front the right of way. Here the right of way meant a good deal, for in many places on the high plains the scrub spruces grow so thickly that a man ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... my station, I started from what is called the "Beds," and God help St. Patrick if he lay upon them: they are sharp stones placed circularly in the earth, with the spike ends of them up, one circle within another; and the manner in which the pilgrim gets as far as the innermost, resembles precisely that in which school-boys enter the "Walls of Troy" upon their slates. I moved away from these upon the sharp stones with which the whole island ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... the bids. There were only a few of the crowds that did not spike him; three who were manifestly not of his style and two who never presumed to enter the game until the others had made their winnings. All sorts of methods had been used. The first bid came early; he was ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... at Rahen, is likewise a kind of pluralist Parish Priest with a parish in Kerry, administered in his name by deputed ecclesiastics, and other parishes similarly administered in Kerrycurrihy, Rostellan, West Muskerry, and Spike Island, Co. Cork. When a chief parishioner lies seriously ill in distant Corca Duibhne, Mochuda himself comes all the way from the centre of Ireland to administer the last rites to the ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... howled, one short eager blast, and angled in between the herd and a straggler on the edge of it, a yearling elk, a spike bull, his first antler growth consisting of two pointed spikes eighteen inches long. He was not alarmed,—but it was a new kind of coyote that faced him now, one that had learned pack hunting under the leadership of ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... possible; if dry, it should be soaked until quite soft. Cut some thin strips of hide for sewing or lacing. Now shape a bag or pocket of size sufficient to hold about a hundredweight of stone, and by puncturing the edges with a knife, marline-spike, or other pointed tool, sew together; make a handle of twisted or pleated hide, and having filled your bucket with dry sand or earth let it stand till the whole is quite dry, when it will be properly distended and will maintain its shape until ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... but the sound had not ceased to echo when, out of the horrible tangle about us, rose, with a swift, sinuous motion, a monstrous anacondalike arm, flesh pink in the electric beam, but covered with spike-edged spiracles! It curled itself over the edge of the hovering air ship and ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... step closer to the track boss and her voice hardened. "If these spikes were forced out by the impact of the engine, we ought to find torn spike holes inclining toward the end of ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... Advancing cautiously always, she stopped for long seconds at a time to reconnoitre, shifting her huge ears about and changing their shape, twitching her nostrils, and glancing hither and thither with bright little eyes. Sometimes they passed immense spike-tipped flowers ten feet in diameter, with fleshy yellow leaves which gave out a nauseating stench. Vines with long, recurved thorns and blossoms of deep scarlet, laced the undergrowth together and made passing dangerous. Fire-flies ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... says he. That's my principles, says I. They're the right sort, says he. But, says he (no offence), I think you wor wrong, says he, to pass the short turn in the ladie-shoes,[B] says he. I know, says I, you mane beside the three-spike headlan'. That's the spot, says he, I see you know it. As well as I know my father, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... but differ widely from them in being sterile and conspicuous. Not only the aborted flower-buds and their peduncles (which are elongated apparently through the principle of compensation) are brightly coloured, but so is the upper part of the spike—all, no doubt, for the sake of guiding insects to the inconspicuous perfect flowers. From such cases as these we may pass on to certain Labiatae, for instance, Salvia Horminum in which (as I hear from Mr. Thiselton Dyer) the upper ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... better than I could in any other way. I watch both Congress and our State legislatures, but the "scamps" are vastly better at promising than fulfilling. The politicians, of course, expect all this flutter and buncombe about doing something for women in New York—in California—in Iowa—is going to spike our guns and make us help the Republican party to carry all before it; but we must not ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... entirely by the voice and by a lead-dog who is especially trained for the purpose. The driver carries no whip, but has instead a stick about four feet in length and two inches in diameter, called an oerstel (oar'-stel). This is armed at one end with a long iron spike, and is used to check the speed of the sledge in descending hills, and to stop the dogs when they leave the road, as they frequently do in pursuit of reindeer and foxes. The spiked end is then thrust down in front of one of the knees or uprights of the runners, and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... himself, and being nothing loath to make inquiry concerning the strange objects around him, which his host was equally ready, as far as possible, to explain, Lovel was introduced to a large club, or bludgeon, with an iron spike at the end of it, which, it seems, had been lately found in a field on the Monkbarns property, adjacent to an old burying-ground. It had mightily the air of such a stick as the Highland reapers use to walk with on their annual peregrinations from their mountains; but Mr. Oldbuck was strongly ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... window openings, one or more, may next be cut, commencing beneath the second log from the top, and taking in three beneath it. Replace the logs above, and on the ends of those thus cut, both in windows and doors, proceed to spike a heavy plank, driving two nails into each log, about five inches apart, one above the other. This will hold them firmly in place, and offer a close-fitting jam for the door, and neat receptacle for the window sashes, which latter may now be ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... a confession. Peg Tatem in the toils. Timber pirates get prison terms. The lumberjacks' big Christmas. "Sit down, you rough-necks!" roars Hippy. Spike bares his soul. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... What anxiety I have endured for you! But now you are here all is well. What news do you bring, my liege? Is the churlish knight conquered? Where have you had him hanged, and where is his head? Placed on a spike above some town-gate? Tell me your tidings, and we will rejoice together." King Arthur only sighed heavily as he replied: "Alas! I have boasted too much; the churlish knight was a giant who has conquered me, and set me free on conditions." ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... sheath-knife, missing Wolf Larsen's throat by an inch. Another time he dropped a steel marlinspike from the mizzen crosstree. It was a difficult cast to make on a rolling ship, but the sharp point of the spike, whistling seventy-five feet through the air, barely missed Wolf Larsen's head as he emerged from the cabin companion-way and drove its length two inches and over into the solid deck-planking. Still another time, he stole into the steerage, possessed himself of ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... (junior editor of the Boomtown Spike), threw himself down on the sod, pulled his hat rim down over his eyes, and looked away over the plain. It was the second year of Boom-town's existence, and Seagraves had not yet grown restless under its monotony. Around him the gophers played saucily. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... it's plain as a marlin-spike, you ain't used to snakes and wimmen. In that partiklar your education's been shamefully neglected. Never kill a rattlesnake arter he's shut in his fangs and turns on his back for mercy—its sneakin' business. Never think a woman is dead till the sexton sends ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... keep a lookout forward, that the boat does not run into any danger; and also, when the boat comes to land, to step out first and hold it by the painter, that is, the rope which is fastened to the bow, while the others get out. Marco had a pole, with an iron spike and also an iron hook in the end of it, which he used to fend off with, as they called it, when the boat was in danger of running against any obstacle. This was ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott
... there came a polite knock at the door, and the lieutenant reappeared, bowing rigidly, one hand on his sword-hilt, the other holding his helmet by the gilt spike. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... with their points downwards, and their feathered shafts straight up. When the time for action comes, the sun-heat peels them off, from below and above, so quickly that you can see them cue under your eyes, and turn into a spiral by their continued contractions. They fall, spike downward, by the weight of the seed, and the sun finishes the work he began. Closer still the gimlet winds, and as it does so it bores down into the hardest soil: and such is their strange power of penetration, ...
— Parables of the Christ-life • I. Lilias Trotter
... compound off the newly painted quarter-deck stanchions whenever an opportunity of doing so presented itself. He was a healthy goat of voracious appetite. His gastric juices would have dissolved a marline-spike, and he even made short work of the greater portion of a pair of ammunition boots belonging to the Sergeant-Major of Royal Marines, and devoured with every symptom of relish a sheaf of official and highly important documents lying on the ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... inflorescence usually met with are the spike, raceme and panicle. When the spikelets are sessile or borne directly along an elongated axis as in Enteropogon melicoides the inflorescence is a spike. If the spikelets borne by the axis are all ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... understand the marine technicalities Mr. RUSSELL introduces into his stories without explanations such as this, it would be difficult to say. But with such assistance, a studding-sail-boom becomes as easy of identification as a marling-spike lashed to a forecastle spinaker-boom, close hauled aport under trysails, blowing out like flags from the grips of clew-lines and leech-lines towards the close of a second dog-watch! Shiver LINDLEY MURRAY'S timbers! but what can be finer than a bulkhead battened down with the scandalised main-sail ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... With voice like thunder, Declares such plunder he roust dislike, They next may rowl in And sack Haulbowline, Or on a sudden run off with Spike. His peace is vanished, His joys are banished, And gay or happy no more he'll be, Until those Cork men And wild New York men Are sunk together beneath ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... laughter. Syme's egotism held hard to the first course for a few seconds, and then suddenly adopted the third. Taking his own blue police ticket from his own waist coat pocket, he tossed it on to the table; then he flung his head back until his spike of yellow beard almost pointed at the ceiling, and ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... individual horse, so that the side pieces bear evenly and smoothly without gouging the withers or chafing the back, you are possessed of the handiest machine made for the purpose. Should individual fitting prove impracticable, get an old LOW California riding-tree and have a blacksmith bolt an upright spike on the cantle. You can hang the loops of the kyacks or alforjas—the sacks slung on either side the horse—from the pommel and this iron spike. Whatever the saddle chosen, it should be supplied with breast-straps, breeching, ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... when we mean spike-tailed coats), has an eye on the scourge of Rum, and will eventually stamp it out. "But why," asks the Impracticable, "does not Society stamp it out at once?" "Why does not the sun shine twenty-four hours in ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... with an open fetlock joint due to a spike-nail puncture. Lameness was excessive, and joint greatly swollen. Tincture of iodin was injected into the wound and towels dipped in hot antiseptic solutions were applied for several hours daily until the acute stage had passed. Later the mare was turned out ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... the well-known equinoctial sun-dial. It can easily be cast in lead. The spike points towards the elevated pole, and the rim of the disc is divided into 24 equal ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... under the trees and looked at the harbor—its waters cut by many a flying keel, at Spike Island lying in the sun, all its fortifications as silent and lonely looking as if no convict nor any other living creature was there. Steamboats for "a' the airts the winds can blaw," were passing out and away, leaving a train of smoke behind ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... coming out more or less black; although, if sufficiently pretentious, they can monstrously caricature, especially if they begin with the modest time-worn admission that they are more familiar with the marling-spike than with the pen. But even the caricature born of pretentiousness will not prevent the unpremeditated betrayal of conditions, facts, and incidents, which help reconstruct the milieu; how much more, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... Monkstown Castle on the hill to the right, and the grounds of Ballybricken, a beautiful intermixed scene of wood and lawn. The high shore of the harbour's mouth opens gradually. The whole scene is land-locked. The first view of Haulbowline Island and Spike Island, high rocky lands, with the channel opening to Cove, where are a fleet of ships at anchor, and Rostellan, Lord Inchiquin's house, backed with hills, a scenery that wants nothing but the accompaniment of wood. The view of Ballybricken changes; ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... although we never could persuade him to confess his penchant; and, on this occasion, he had attached himself to their immediate sleigh. Provided, like the Canadians, with poles terminated by an iron hook at one end and a spike at the other, we made our way after their fashion, but in quicker time than they possibly could, harnessed as they were in the sledges. With the aid of these poles, we cleared, with facility, chasms of from ten to twelve feet, and, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... certain that the storm was abating; yet the wreck was drifting rapidly toward the inexorable rocks. Wave after wave passed over the uppermost part of the tower, and sometimes the water smote her so that her head reeled, and her senses became dimmed for some moments. A coil of rope hung from a spike in the wall, and fastening an end of it around her slim waist, she bound herself to a ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... younger man. "Over there—through the gap; just down below that spike with a snow cap." He stretched out a long, muscular arm, and his companion edged up to it and sighted along its length and over the index finger as if it were the barrel of a rifle, and stared, scowling, at the distant maze of mountain ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... that Capt. Spike should arrive when his foot touched the bottom of the yawl. The men were getting impatient and anxious to the last degree, and the power of Senor Montefalderon to control them was lessening each instant. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... pedestals on which these immages are fixed are sometimes cut out of the solid stick with the canoe, and the imagary is formed of seperate small peices of timber firmly united with tenants and motices without the assistance of a single spike of any kind. when the natives are engaged in navigating their canoes one sets in the stern and steers with a paddle the others set by pears and paddle over the gunwall next them, they all kneel in the bottom of the canoe and set on their ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... of new life and delight, when we pass from the streets of London to those of Abbeville or Rouen, as the quaint points and pinnacles of the roof gables and turrets. The commonest and heaviest roof may be redeemed by a spike at the end of it, if it is set on with any spirit; but the foreign builders have (or had, at least) a peculiar feeling in this, and gave animation to the whole roof by the fringe of its back, and the spike on its forehead, so ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... backbone, all the way from my shoulder blade down to where my ribs attach to my backbone, and the only way I get any relief from the pain is to have some one kick me along the side." (She was a witch, and concealed in her robe a long sharp steel spike. It was placed so that the last kick they would give her, their foot would hit the spike and they would instantly drop off into a swoon, as ...
— Myths and Legends of the Sioux • Marie L. McLaughlin |
