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Tarpaulin

noun
1.
Waterproofed canvas.  Synonym: tarp.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tarpaulin" Quotes from Famous Books



... Slow down!" called out Uncle Dick, who had begun to pull the tarpaulin over the cargo. "I can't judge the water in ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough

... rain, which seemed to have worn itself out by coming down so fast, was nearly over too; and 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 duck nimbly every five minutes ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens

... from 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 ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... as we had breakfasted this morning, we prepared to cross, to assist us in which undertaking we contrived to construct a sort of punt by taking the wheels and axletrees off one of the carts. We then placed the body of the cart on a large tarpaulin, the shafts passing through holes cut for them, the tarpaulin tightly nailed round them. The tarpaulin was then turned up all round, and nailed inside the cart; by this means it was made almost water-tight. ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... removed his tarpaulin, scratched his bald head, and said only two. The boys lay on their oars, as it is called ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic

... be glad to see a porcelain bathtub again," yawned Jennie, breaking in. "I don't really feel as though a sponge-down in an icy cold brook with a tarpaulin around one for a bath-house is altogether the ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson

... No blustering, rum-drinking tarpaulin was the captain who sailed the Independence, the Ocean Queen, or the Dreadnought but a man very careful of his manners and his dress, who had been selected from the most highly educated merchant service in the world. He was attentive to the ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine

... 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 of a headland, saved both the ship and the passengers. When at last ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... curious military combination, slept under a great tarpaulin canopy, originally used for covering commissary stores from the rain. Our meals were taken in the open air, and prepared by Skyhiski; but there was a second tent, provided with desk and secretary, where Mr. Fogg performed his clerk duties, daily. When I had relieved my Pegasus of his saddle, and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... boat was raised to the surface and lashed to the side of the barge. Mr. Jarley very quickly tacked a tarpaulin over the hole in her bottom, and then she was pumped out. Further repairs were made and by night the Bright Eyes was riding safely to her own anchor and Mr. Jarley pried open the rusted ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... was a favorable day and the breeze was with us. We pushed up a tarpaulin on our paddles for a square sail, and covered the distance to the west shore of La Baye in a few hours. Before night we were lifting the rush mats that hung before the ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... the sound the bell of Tarpaulin Cove reassured him, and after a time he heard the unmistakable blast of the great reed horn of Nobska uttering its triple hoot like a giant owl perched somewhere in ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... both 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, wedged alongside of ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... represents the broken seals. His boots are the legacies of two black jacks, and till he pawned the silver that the jacks were tipped with it was a pretty mode of boot-hose-tops. For the rest of his habit he is a perfect seaman, a kind of tarpaulin, he being hanged about with his coarse composition, those ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... crossed the tracks and reached the line of trucks it was indeed to find that an opportunity for further escape was right before them. For here were half a dozen trucks stacked high with hay, and each covered with a tarpaulin. To cast off one end of the tarpaulin, to burrow a hole in the hay, to tread their way into the stacks, and to hack a space sufficient to accommodate their bodies was no great difficulty, and though, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... the water of the fountain was barren and mutilated; and the bath was partly covered in with loose boards, the exposed part accommodating a heap of coals in one corner, a heap of potatoes in another, a beer barrel, some old carpets, a tarpaulin, and a broken canoe. The marble pavement extended to the outer walls of the house, and was roofed in at the sides by the upper stories which were supported by fluted stone columns, much stained and chipped. The staircase, towards which Trefusis led his visitors, ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw

... inches of snow. The forest was beautifully white. A fine dazzling snow was falling. I walked to the roaring camp-fire. Jim's biscuits, well-browned and of generous size, had just been dumped into the middle of our breakfast cloth, a tarpaulin spread on the ground; the coffee pot steamed fragrantly, and a Dutch oven sizzled with a great number of slices of venison. "Did you hear the Indian chanting?" asked Jones, who sat with his horny hands to ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... entirely forgotten the 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... found the best curiosity of the museum. The first I saw of it was a longish mound of earth with a twist to it. Digging off the earth with my hands, I found underneath tarpaulin stretched on boards, so that this was plainly the roof of a cellar. It stood right on the top of the hill, and the entrance was on the far side, between two rocks, like the entrance to a cave. I went ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Harry hid himself under the tarpaulin, leaving a hole open near to the mouth of the bag. He had not remained more than a few minutes in this concealment when one of the birds flew down, and alighted on the edge of the boat. After a glance round to see that all was right, it jumped into the bag. A moment after, Harry, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... had been informed that wine and spirits had been disappearing unaccountably at a particular station. He visited the place with one of his men, spent the night under a tarpaulin in a goods-shed, and found that one of the plate-layers was in the habit of drawing off spirits with a syphon. The guilty man was handed over to justice, and honest men, who had felt uneasy lest they should be suspected, ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... a hill at top speed when Jack suddenly gave a gasp. Right in front of them, vividly outlined in the searchlight's glare, was an obstacle. A big wagonload of hay, covered with a tarpaulin, and deserted by its driver who, despairing of mounting the hill in the storm, had unhitched his horses and driven off ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner

... most delicious meat, beans, and potatoes. From the mess-box he brought bread and apricot pie. From a near-by spring he brought us a bright, new pail full of clear, sparkling water, but Mrs. Louderer insisted upon tea and in a short time he had it ready for us. The tarpaulin was spread on the ground for us to eat from, and soon we were showing an astonished cook just how much food two women and a child could get away with. I ate a good deal of ashes with my roast beef and we ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... covered with a tarpaulin, attracts my attention. It measures about a yard and a half in height, and a yard in width and depth. It has been placed here with the care required by these words in Russian, written on the side, "Glass—Fragile—Keep ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne

... was uncommonly incredulous. It was a little row of houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes; with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into the gaps. Here, the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept fowls and rabbits, erected rotten summer-houses (one was an old boat), ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... drizzling more or less all day, increased. Our supplies were taken from the wagons, a piece of tarpaulin found to protect them, and as the fire began to blaze and the water to heat, Mrs. Gardner and I found the way into the bags and boxes of flour, salt, milk, and meal, and got material for the first gallons of gruel. I had not thought to ever make gruel again over a camp-fire. I can ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton

... in remarkable fashion the periodical hurricanes of wind and rain. They kept us fairly dry, too, for we were careful to ditch them well. There was room for two men to sleep in the turret of a Rolls, and they could spread a tarpaulin over the top to keep the rain from coming in through the various openings. The balance of the men had a communal tent or slept in the tenders. The larger tents in the near-by camps blew down frequently, but with us it happened only occasionally. There ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... the redwoods at the pool. From a cache behind a hollow rotting log my companion brought out a variety of things,—a fifty-pound sack of flour, tinned foods of all sorts, cooking utensils, blankets, a canvas tarpaulin, books and writing material, a great bundle of letters, a five-gallon can of kerosene, an oil stove, and, last and most important, a large coil of stout rope. So large was the supply of things that a number of trips would be necessary to ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... by a tarpaulin roof, is attached to the charming island of Croissy by two narrow foot bridges, one of which leads into the center of this aquatic establishment, while the other unites its end with a tiny islet planted with a tree and surnamed "The ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... be. She wanted to keep everything for her lover, and that raised the exasperation of the eighteen to its height, and so one night when she and the clown were asleep, among all these fasting men, the eighteen threw themselves upon them. They wrapped the despot's arms and legs up in tarpaulin, and in the presence of the woman, who was firmly bound, they flogged him till he was black ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... ran towards the dwelling. In the twilight it was just possible to see that it was built of planks and covered with a thick tarpaulin. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... the horrible peril in which he was placing himself. Four men clung to the bottom of the ladder, and yet, with Dale's weight half-way up to help them, could not for a moment keep it steady. On top of the rick one of the tarpaulin sheets had broken loose; the cruel wind was tearing beneath it, wrenching out pegs and cordage, snatching at thatch-hackle, and making the stout ropes that should have held the sheet hiss and ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell

... provided him with an outfit the inevitable tarpaulin had not been neglected. Hollis remembered that this was attached to the cantle of the saddle, and so, after he had proceeded a little way along the crest of the ridge, he halted the pony, dismounted, unstrapped the tarpaulin, and folded it about him. Then he remounted and continued ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer

... we pushed on as fast as we could; but the road was too rough for speed and we were a long way from our camping-place when a tremendous downpour burst upon us, and in the twinkling of an eye our path was a rushing mountain torrent. Dry under my tarpaulin I could enjoy the scene, splendid masses of blue-black clouds shot with vivid flashes of lightning that served only to show the badness of the way and the emptiness of the country. I will say for Ivan, the tarantass ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall

... again, but the weather was cloudy, so that I could make nothing out distinctly. In the afternoon, Wylie shot three teal, of which there were numbers on the lake. At night, our baggage and clothes had nearly all been destroyed by fire, a spark having been carried by the wind to the tarpaulin which covered them, and which, as it had been but newly tarred, was soon in a blaze. I was fortunate enough, however, to observe the accident in time to ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... swung 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 ask questions of, had nothing for it but to ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the country-side, stuck away in barns, covered with hay, hidden in woods. A hawk could not have discovered any of them without coming within reach of a gun. But that night he only wanted one of the machines, and it was handy and quite prepared under a tarpaulin between two ricks not a couple of miles away; he was going to Berlin with that and just one other man. Two men would be enough for ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... of the room in silence; impressed with profound awe of this unknown, so versed in freebooting history. It was to him a wonderful instance of the revolutions of mighty empires, to find the venerable Ramm Rapelye thus ousted from the throne; a rugged tarpaulin dictating from his elbow chair, hectoring the patriarchs, and filling this tranquil little realm with ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving

... the rest, they appointed a mock Court of 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 ...
— Pirates • Anonymous

... cove, the pier, the white tents of the quartermasters, the tarpaulin-covered piles of provision-boxes, and the throng of soldiers, insurgents, and refugees on the beach, we climbed a steep bank, crossed the railroad-track just west of the red-iron bridge, and joined a company of the Second Infantry on its way to ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan

... the harve-sac Which I have stowed my little all in, And sleep, though moist about the back, Serenely in an old tarpaulin. ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... though irreverent, was decidedly peaceful. He was unarmed, and wore the ordinary cape of tarpaulin and sea boots of a mariner. Except a villainous smell of codfish, there was little about ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... It was in one of them turns I see the ghost. I supposed afore that ghosts always appeared in white, but this one didn't. He was dressed just like any other fisherman, in a dark grey jacket and trowsers and a tarpaulin. It seemed to me at first he wanted to git out of the way, but I made tracks for him, for I didn't then a bit mistrust about its being a sperit, and halloed out, 'Who's that?' The sperit, as soon as he heard me, came straight up, and then I noticed he had two fish dangling ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... a most gorgeous affair. We were determined to do everything in the best possible style, and everybody helped. We first rigged up a trestle table beside the train and stretched a tarpaulin above it to shelter us from the fierce heat. Three of our number were then despatched to secure all the green stuff they could for decorative purposes, and as the good people of De Aar were quite ready ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett

... sea chest, and from under his belongings pulled out a second chest. Fitting a key to the lock, he lifted up the lid. Chris, perched on his shoulder, peered over to see the contents. They were disappointing—merely a gray powder carefully packed in a piece of tarpaulin. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson

... do there? that they came on shore without leave; and that they should not plant or build upon the island; it was none of their ground." "Why," says the Spaniard, very calmly, "Seignior Inglese, they must not starve." The Englishman replied, like a rough tarpaulin, "They might starve; they should not plant nor build in that place." "But what must they do then, seignior?" said the Spaniard. Another of the brutes returned, "Do? they should be servants, and work for them." "But how can you expect that of them?" says the Spaniard; "they are not bought with ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... projecting fly. A huge pile of firewood had been dumped down in front of it, and at that very moment one of the askaris, kneeling, was kindling a fire. Behind the big tent, and at some remove, gleamed the circle of porters' tents each with its little blaze. Loads were piled neatly, covered with a tarpaulin, and the pile guarded ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... 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 all next ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... upon all alike, pattering upon the hood of the taxi-cab, trickling down the front windows; glistening upon the unctuous hair of those in the street who were hatless; dewing the bare arms of the auctioneers, and dripping, melancholy, from the tarpaulin coverings of the stalls. Heedless of the rain above and of the mud beneath, North, South, East, and West mingled their cries, their bids, their blandishments, their raillery, mingled their persons in that ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer

... 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 scene, was made to figure largely in several ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... 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 ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane

... wish for it, and do not believe the people of England will consent to such a change," remarked the Captain; "but as I am a tarpaulin, as they call us, I do not trouble myself with affairs on shore, and it is my business to obey the laws, and do my duty to whatever king is ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston

... to, a cable length away, the captain of the Francis Spaight bestirred himself and ordered a tarpaulin to be thrown over O'Brien's corpse. A boat was lowered from the stranger's side and began to pull toward them. John Gorman laughed. He laughed softly at first, but he accompanied each stroke of the oars with ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... 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 in it ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... there. He was relegated to a large marquee, the sides of which were always rolled up. In the centre stood two tables, one occupied by medicines and the other by the dishes and food of the establishment. Stretched on the ground was a large tarpaulin, whereon, with a blanket apiece, eighty or more hors de combat heroes had their abode. Everything was as good as could be had in Mudros; but in those days Mudros lacked almost everything that could be desired. The water-supply was bad; food, ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... his visit to the factory, Lister sat one morning under a tarpaulin they had stretched across the hulk. The paint on the canvas smelt as if it burned, but the awning gave some shade and one could not front the sun on the open deck. The sea breeze had not sprung up and dazzling reflections played about the oily surface of ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... side of the road until it came abreast of them. The waggon was covered with tarpaulin sheetings in front and at the sides, but behind some glimpse could be caught of the contents. They consisted, as far as Robert could see, of a number of packets of the same shape, each about two feet long and six inches high, arranged symmetrically upon the top ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle

... labor, Bob 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 ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney

... 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 bad unison with it. Soon ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... along the road to the left. Hurriedly, the detective became Mr. Chisholm, and joined the dominie 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 the rest ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... 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 in their arms. On reaching the ward-room, I saw through the windows ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... they were not dangerous in broad daylight. There were no ghosts, but what was the signorino doing all this while in an empty house? The car was there, drawn up at the side of the road under the trees, and Vincenzo fussed round it, pulling the tarpaulin covers more over the seats; he had them in place when it occurred to him to look underneath for the fur rug. ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton

... to be shipped. Each dray carried about twenty bales, and was drawn by ten stout oxen. The drays were low, like those of brewers, had no sides, but upright pins to keep in the bales, those at the corners being of iron. The bales were secured by ropes, with a tarpaulin to be thrown over them in case of wet. Dick Boyce and Tom Wells had to set off again at once. Sam wanted very much to go with them. He had a fancy for the life they led, as many a boy would have, but his father could not ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide and two deep.... At nine o'clock every night "the gun fired," the gun being mounted in a separate fortress made of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by a tarpaulin ... umbrella.— C. Dickens, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... 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 more about what ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... Mr. Cledd, Roger then instructed him to throw down a tarpaulin, which he did, and this we made fast about the twenty bags. Having taken several turns of a rope's end round the whole, Roger, carrying the other end, climbed hand-over-hand the rope by which we had lowered ourselves, and I followed ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... 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 ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant

... whole passage the brothers had attracted universal attention, and won the good will of all; and now, as they stood arm in arm, amid all the hurry and bustle of the "first hour in port," not a sailor passed them but raised his dusty tarpaulin with a hearty "good e'en to the lads," and the passengers, as they reached the shore, would look up through the crowd once more at their young faces, to gain one more smile or one more parting wave of the hand, thinking, perhaps, it might be the ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... 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

... of the 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 ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... black silver-ornamented saddle of Mexican make, a lariat and canteen, and a small pack rolled into a tarpaulin. ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey

... one of the crew of the ketch Mary, of Salem, captured by Captain Pound. He joined the pirates, and was killed at Tarpaulin Cove. ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... the coverlet of fowl I followed him tip-toe across the dewy mead to the tarpaulin which he ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various

... then Sam 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 ...
— The Rover Boys in the Air - From College Campus to the Clouds • Edward Stratemeyer

... better than these bird guns," cried Standish contemptuously touching with his foot the pile of weapons covered with a tarpaulin lying in the bottom of the boat. "And it drives down upon us like a charge of horse. Here, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... 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

... at the shoot of the Cunard steamer, off to-morrow, as the stocks in trade of several butchers, poulterers, and fishmongers, poured down into the ice-house; he was coming aboard of other vessels, with his kit in a tarpaulin bag, attended by plunderers to the very last moment of his shore-going existence. As though his senses, when released from the uproar of the elements, were under obligation to be confused by other turmoil, there was a rattling ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... sentinels at each end of the bridge were passed without questions, for, early as it was, the carts were coming in with farm produce. As yet the streets of the town were almost deserted, and the farmer, who, before starting, had tossed a tarpaulin into the back ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... the small boat pulled away in the dark, for there was activity apparent on the destroyer not warranted by a mere rescue at sea. Gun-crews rushed to their stations; the tarpaulin covers were off of the guns, and their slender lengths gleamed where they covered ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various

... well enough, though it covered no more than a few miles. At night they camped upon great squares of tarpaulin and in the morning resumed their webfooted way. But the night had not proved restful, for over the edges of every tarpaulin the eager grass had thrust impatient runners and when the time came to decamp more than half the canvases had been left in possession of the weed. The second day's progress ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... with such unexpected rapidity that flames were 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 the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... 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 which ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie

... communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs like breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can't bear ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... 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

... deep enough there to float the boat with any body in it. The servants handed him out the great cans they used at school-teas, full of hot coffee, and baskets of bread, and he placed them in the boat, covering them with a tarpaulin. Then Helen appeared at the door, in her waterproof, with a great fur-cloak—to throw over him, she said, when she took the oars, for she meant to have her share of the fun: it was so seldom there was any going ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... Mr. Hardinge. My guardian was walking slowly, his face sorrowful and dejected, and his eyes fastened on every ship he passed, as if looking for his boys. He saw me, casting a vacant glance over my person; but I was so much changed by dress, and particularly by the little tarpaulin, that he did not know me. Anxiety immediately drew his look towards the vessels, and I passed him unobserved. Mr. Hardinge was walking from, and I towards the John, and of course all my risk terminated as soon as ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... every moment to clutch the bulwark rail and pant for breath. He heard the shrill bird-like notes of the bosun's pipe. He saw the hands emerging from the forecastle, like bees out of a hive; he watched them surrounding the main-hatch. He watched the tarpaulin and locking-bars removed. He saw the hatch opened, and a burst of smoke—black, villainous smoke—ascend to the sky, solid as a plume in ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole

... next morning to a full sense of the unpleasant task before him, and, after irritably giving orders for the removal of the tarpaulin from the skylight, a substitution of the ingenious cook's for the drawn blinds ashore, sat down to a solitary breakfast and the composition of a telegram to Captain Barber. The first, a beautiful piece of prose, of which the key-note was resignation, contained two shillings' ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... tragic scenes. There was a shipwreck in it, and passengers were brought ashore in the breeches buoy, just as she had seen sailors brought in on practice days over at the Race Point Lifesaving station. And there was a still form stretched out stark and dripping under a piece of tarpaulin, and a girl with long fair hair streaming wildly over her shoulders knelt beside it ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston

... 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 ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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

... and by which I shall continue to know it until I am on the soil of France. My symptoms have scarcely established themselves comfortably, when two or three skating shadows that have been trying to walk or stand, get flung together, and other two or three shadows in tarpaulin slide with them into corners and cover them up. Then the South Foreland lights begin to hiccup at us in a way ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... hooker once," said Karlssen, "And Bill, as was a seaman, died, So we lashed him in an old tarpaulin And tumbled him across the side; And the fun of it was that all his gear was Divided up among the crew Before that blushing human error Our ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various

... dog-kennel. Strap, as a favourite, lived in the house; but he kept a greyhound in the garden, in a kennel surrounded by a sort of run made of iron poles and galvanised wire. It was roofed in with wire also, for the convenience of stretching a tarpaulin in wet weather. Here it was that he bestowed the strange being rescued ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... asked for their discharge, went over the ship's side into the boat, and rowed away amidst the jeers and howlings of the crew. The rest assembled aft, and drew up the articles of their association. A square of black tarpaulin had the white skull painted upon it, and was hoisted ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of the actors and actresses, whom they designated by name, and to post these writings on the walls of the theater, thus defying the police. One day there were found on the shore two little boats covered with tarpaulin, which these gentry probably used in their ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... guns away behind us are doing their best now to give them a rest by strafing the Germans. One or two men are in each forward sap keeping a look out; the rest sleep, a motionless sleep, in the earthy shelter pits that have been scooped out. One officer sits by a telephone under an earth-covered tarpaulin, and a weary man is doing the toilet of a machine gun. We go on to a shallow trench in which we must stoop, and which has been badly knocked about.... Here we have to stop. The road to Berlin is not opened up ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells

... road a steam roller stood, with its tarpaulin drawn over it for the night. In the field, along the wooden fence, some loads of dross had been shot between the haycocks; lengths of sod had been stripped off the soil and thrown in a heap, and planks had been laid down for the wheelbarrows. A rake, which some haymaker had left, stood planted ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton

... the crowded beach, Sandy Black and Jerry Goldboy proceeded towards the town of tents among the sandhills. On their way they passed several large tarpaulin-covered depots of agricultural implements, carpenter's and blacksmith's tools, and ironware of all descriptions, which had been provided by Government to be sold to the settlers at prime cost—for this grand effort at colonisation was originated and ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... comfortable couch, and unlimited 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 division and corps headquarters, but with us tents were ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... electric light, a short train was side-tracked, engineless, waiting until the time should come when the road again would be open, and the way over the Pass free. One glance told him what it was: the tarpaulin-covered, snow-shielded, bulky forms of his machinery,—machinery that he now felt he could personally aid to its destination. For there was work ahead. Midnight found him in a shack buried in snow and reached only by a circuitous tunnel, a shack where men—no ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... was the Two Capes at anchor in Table Bay, the sails all furled except the fore-topsail which hung in the gear. A gig manned by six sailors in tarpaulin hats with an officer in the stern sheets swung with dripping oars across the dark water of the foreground; on the left an inky ship was standing in close hauled on the port tack with all her canvas set. It was lighter about the Two Capes, and at the back ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... Dr. Livingstone's life. The girls were crying. The church lads stood alarmed and awed. Then they raised her in her camp-bed and marched with her the five miles to Ikpe. Next morning they lifted the bed into a canoe and placed her under a tarpaulin and paddled her down the Creek. They landed at Okopedi beach, where she lay in the roadway in the moonlight, scarcely breathing. The agent of a trading-house brought restoratives and sent for Dr. Wood, then at Itu, who accompanied her to Use and waited the ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... had emerged into the open again last summer for a town-booming Rodeo twenty miles down the steel from Buckhorn. It looked like the dinosaur skeleton in the Museum of Natural History, with every vestige of its tarpaulin top gone. But Whinnie has already sewed together a canvas covering for its weather-beaten old roof-ribs, and has put clean wheat-straw in its box-bottom, so that it makes a kingly place for my two kiddies to play. I even spotted Dinkie, enthroned high on the big driving-seat, ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... Following 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 ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... 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 ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... quay as I spoke, and there was a great bustle on deck, no doubt landing the Prince's motor, which had stood concealed on the forward deck under an enormous tarpaulin. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... little tired for a while until its decks and sails were dry and clean again, and I thought it was just like a bird that has shaken and plumed itself. I was sorry to leave it. The captain and the mate and the sailors, who had wrapped me up in their great, stiff tarpaulin coats and placed me in a safe corner where I could sit out and look, were also sorry ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... hundred yards of the Durham when Quest gave a little exclamation. From the other side of the steamer another tug shot away, turning back towards New York. Huddled up in the stern, half concealed in a tarpaulin, was a man in a plain black suit. Quest, with a little shout, recognised the man at the helm from his long ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... tiling, slates, slating, leads; barrack [U.S.], plafond, planchment [U.S.], tiling, shed &c (abode) 189. top, lid, covercle^, door, operculum; bulkhead [U.S.]. bandage, plaster, lint, wrapping, dossil^, finger stall. coverlet, counterpane, sheet, quilt, tarpaulin, blanket, rug, drugget^; housing; antimacassar, eiderdown, numdah^, pillowcase, pillowslip^; linoleum; saddle cloth, blanket cloth; tidy; tilpah [U.S.], apishamore [U.S.]. integument, tegument; skin, pellicle, fleece, fell, fur, leather, shagreen^, hide; pelt, peltry^; cordwain^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... 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

... collected together such things as we should require, and laid out on the deck provisions sufficient to maintain us for several weeks, purposing to load the canoe with as much as she could hold consistently with speed and safety. These we covered with a tarpaulin, intending to convey them to the canoe only a few hours before starting. When night spread her sable curtain over the scene, we prepared to land; but first kneeling along with the natives and the teacher, the latter ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... a specially constructed "hall" in the desert. Sandbags were the mainstay of the platform and a large tarpaulin, G.S., formed the drop-scene. The walls were of rough canvas, upon which it was inadvisable to lean, lest the whole structure collapsed. Primitive, no doubt, but it suited the environment; and I have never seen in the most elaborate West-end theatre ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett

... was quite white, and fell in long silvery locks over his shoulders, while a heavy snow-white beard covered his breast. There was always something in his appearance denoting the sailor. Perhaps it was that he always wore loose pantaloons,—white in summer, and blue in winter,—and a sort of tarpaulin hat, with long blue ribbons tied around it, the ends flowing off behind like the pennant of ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes

... roof of a building. It was a strange sight—the moon seemingly singling out every sleeper for me. Another night we went together over to the Queen's Shades, near Billingsgate. On the top of a number of barrels, covered with tarpaulin, seventy-three fellows were sleeping. I had the whole lot out for ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... packages of goods he came upon a small derrick, set firmly into the solid rock at both top and bottom. It had a substantial block-and-fall attachment, and was swung inward. At this point also a heavy tarpaulin, reaching from floor to ceiling, was ...
— The Copper Princess - A Story of Lake Superior Mines • Kirk Munroe

... models, find a stack cover, a tarpaulin, a tent fly, an awning, or buy some wide cotton cloth, say 90-inch. All the shapes may be repeatedly made from the same piece of material, if the rings for changes are left attached. In Nos. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, a portion of the canvas ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... the creed of her who sat now on the deck of this labouring steamer as it ploughed its passage home, where were her friends and her lover. The tarpaulin had proved unnecessary, for she was sheltered by the deck-buildings from spray. Her book was also unnecessary, for she was more congenially occupied in this pleasant web of thought, and she sat there in ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson

... so wet and rough that it was impossible for the men to go for any more luggage. Happily, it is covered over with a tarpaulin from the Surrey, so we hope it will not get much damaged. That which was brought yesterday got rather wet, and we have had to unpack and dry pillows and other things. At present we are unpacking only what is absolutely necessary, which is ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... rolled up in an army blanket and a tarpaulin. Strokher turned in below in the cabin upon the fixed lounge by the dining-table, while Ally Bazan stretched himself in one of the bunks in ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... 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 fast upon ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood

... Turks unloading the shells, some of the drivers were talking about a strange sight they had seen down the road near Albert (pronounced Albare), when loading up at the ammunition dump. They told us that huge contraptions covered with tarpaulin were lying on the side of the road, with six-pounder guns protruding from their sides; in conversation the drivers referred to them as land boats, and some, as land dreadnaughts. Speculation ran rife as to their purpose. We were soon to see. Next ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... 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 ...
— The Rover Boys on the Plains - The Mystery of Red Rock Ranch • Arthur Winfield

... forests, beside rivers, before we noticed, drawn up along the side of a quarter of a mile of road, an endless procession of big grey motor-lorries. Every one was exactly like the next—a tall grey hood in front and a long grey tarpaulin behind. It was the first sign of the front. Presently a French regiment went by along a country road—not at all unlike our Australian troops in some ways—biggish fellows in grey-blue overcoats, all singing ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... breaking a short cut 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 ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach

... searched about, and found nothing. Then Julia begged them to be silent. She whispered, "Alfred!" And instantly a faint voice issued from the top of a waggon laden with hay and covered with a tarpaulin. "Julia." ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... was Jack who made the discovery. Perk saw him step over, while they were still on deck, and lift a ragged tarpaulin that seemed to cover some bulky object toward the stern of the sloop. After that one look Jack gave the well-worn covering a hitch and a toss that sent it flying revealing something that caused Perk's eyes to stick out with astonishment, not mentioning a sudden ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb

... the prisoners; huddled together on deck, with no shelter but an extemporized tarpaulin tent between them and the pelting of the pitiless storm, which drenched the decks alternately with salt water and fresh, as the heavy rain-squalls came down, or the sea, glittering with phosphoric light, came dashing over the weather bulwarks. There was, however, no alternative. The berth-deck ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... bilge water, tobacco and rum warned him that his expected visitor was approaching. And an instant after the door was opened, and a short, stout, dark man in a weather-proof jacket, duck trousers, cow-hide shoes, and tarpaulin hat entered. ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... was not until the last trip that Albert went with him, carrying besides his gun a small pack. The weather was still propitious. Once there had been a light shower in the night, but Albert was protected from it by the tarpaulin which they had made of the wagon cover, and nothing occurred to check his progress. He ate with an appetite that he had never known before, and he breathed by night as well as by day the crisp air of the mountains tingling with the balsam of the pines. It occurred to Dick that to be marooned ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler

... ration had been taken to a covered hand-cart. The guard told them to push it, and at the same time handed them shovels and picks. Under escort they dragged this mysterious load, which was carefully covered with a tarpaulin, for about three miles to a very lonely spot. At last they came to a deep hole. They were compelled to back the cart to the brink of the pit, and were then curtly ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... on the north shore of the river, was in sight of the Red Mill. There were four sacks of flour to be transported, and already Uncle Jabez had placed two of them in the bottom of the boat, upon a clean tarpaulin. ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson

... season, and were briskly attending to it. Next, there was Jack,—good sailor Jack,—sitting upright, soberly dressed in snug-fitting clothes, and a high black stove-pipe hat, when at heart he longed to wear his tarpaulin and move about on his sea-legs again. His only consolation was to feel the carriage roll and pitch over the few uneven places along the road, to pull at his "tiller-ropes," as he called the reins, and "guide the craft as trim" as he could. Honest Jack, ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... the 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 agaan and comes 'awm just in taime ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various

... 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 ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... Prince Albert is costumed in a scarlet military coat, with heavy and rich decorations, gold epaulets, crimson sash, buff vest and breeches, side arms and chapeau. Sailors' costume consists of a white shirt, with blue collar and cuffs, black handkerchief about the neck, and black tarpaulin. While the curtain is up, the band should play "God save the Queen." This piece requires great quantity of light, which should come from the side where the barge is ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... 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

... hearty good-by from his wife the party started away. The Yankee sentinels at each end of the bridge were passed without questions, for early as it was the carts were coming in with farm produce. As yet the streets of the town were almost deserted, and the farmer, who before starting had tossed a tarpaulin into the back of the ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... this 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

... around the chicken-coop on top the 'midship- house. And the chickens, featherless but indomitable, were enjoying the milder weather as they pecked at the grain and grits which the steward had just placed in their feeding-trough. The tarpaulin that covered their pen had been ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... 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 he got to Palestine Johnnie Smith really ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie

... interest to mention the most important items of outfit and the food supply with which we were provided: Two canvas-covered canoes, one nineteen and one eighteen feet in length; one seven by nine "A" tent, made of waterproof "balloon" silk; one tarpaulin, seven by nine feet; folding tent stove and pipe; two tracking lines; three small axes; cooking outfit, con- sisting of two frying pans, one mixing pan and three aluminum kettles; an aluminum plate, cup and spoon for each man; one .33 caliber high- power Winchester rifle ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... 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, with bells on their necks and bushy fox-tails on ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... authority was not to be ignored. In three minutes a huge tarpaulin was being dragged ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... out their arms and were pulling her in towards the shore, while Jerry Bird, who acted as gunner, was standing on the forecastle, busy apparently in loading the gun mounted on it; the greater portion of which was, however, covered up with a piece of tarpaulin, so that the natives might not discover what was there. The rest of the crew not pulling had their muskets in their hands ready for use. All this ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... "you know I'm used to bein' alone an' managin' things for myself. After you get them up you may send down a couple of men with some provisions and their hatchets. For to-night I can make the poor fellow all snug with the tarpaulin of your boat." ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne

... 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; nor if any sound had proceeded from it, could ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... stacked along the railroad and the river for miles, awaiting shipment; for the farmers have no rain to fear, and the grain crop is thrashed in the field, bagged, and stacked along the road, without even a tarpaulin ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff



Words linked to "Tarpaulin" :   canvass, canvas, tarp



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