United States or Greenland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
About four bells in the forenoon watch, that day, a few light cats'-paws were seen stealing over the surface of the water from the southward, and the sails of the several vessels were properly trimmed to meet them.
The glassy surface of the water was every now and then slightly ruffled by gentle, scarcely perceptible breaths of wind, such as are called by seamen "cats'-paws," from their having, I suppose, no more effect in disturbing the water than would the paw of a cat. They came and went continually.
Presently cats'-paws began to play over the mirror-like expanse, and then to disappear; the sails slowly bulged out, and speedily again hung down as listlessly as before against the masts. The dark line grew brighter and brighter; presently the loftier sails swelled out, and the ship began to glide smoothly over the ocean.
"Everything is lost through this shillyshallying timidity, called prudence," cried Paul Jones, starting to his feet; "to be effectual, war should be carried on like a monsoon, one changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim. But in vacillating councils, statesmen idle about like the cats'-paws in calms. My God, why was I not born a Czar!" "A Nor'wester, rather.
Her courses were hauled up, on account of the lightness of the air; but all her upper sails stood, and were carefully watched and trimmed, in order to make the most of the cats'-paws, or rather of the breathings of the atmosphere, which occasionally caused the royals to swell outward. On the whole, she might be drawing nearer to the lugger at the rate of about a knot in an hour.
I was a witness in Atlanta once, an' I know what moonshiners go through. Your pa ain't to say actually loaded down with caution, an' he's just the easy-goin' reckless sort that Sebastian makes cats'-paws of." "'Sh!" said Dolly, for Mostyn was quite near He was smoking an after- supper cigar. "Got the mate to that?" Webb asked easily.
As the voyagers watched the approaching foe, to their great joy they saw cats'-paws playing over the ocean; then their sails were filled by a breeze, which increased to a fresh gale, and away they flew on their desired course. Still the Spanish ships followed, and the next morning appeared to be gaining on the Golden Hind.
Little Alice had gone to bed; we had refused to allow her to go to see what was going on, and yet listened to Tommy Gregg's report, which was not, I suppose, to our credit. I have often thought that punctilious people will use cats'-paws to gratify curiosity when they would scorn to use them for anything else.
He wind came away about an hour and a half before sunrise, a gentle breeze out from the north-east, coming down to us first of all in the form of a few wandering cats'-paws, that just wrinkled the oil-smooth surface of the ocean and were gone again, and finally settling into a true breeze that fanned us along at a speed of some four knots, the schooner proving to be a fairly speedy little vessel.
Some morning we shall wake to find murder done." "How quickly you are learning," Storch answered, flinging his coat aside. "Are you fair?" Fred went on, passionately. "If you have your convictions, why not risk your own hide to prove them? Why make cats'-paws of the others?" Storch took out his pipe and lighted it deliberately. "Prospective martyrs are as plentiful as fish in a net," he answered.
Word Of The Day