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When we got into the sleepin' shanty there was a couple of fellers with hand-spikes breakin' up the benches and knockin' things around most terrible. 'Say, boys, yelled the foreman, and then he began to swear most awful. They didn't seem to pay much attention, but kept on knockin' around and swearin'. 'Come, now, says the foreman, kind o' coaxin' like, 'this ain't no way to act.
By means of hand-spikes and rollers, the rafts, as they were finished, were launched, when the boatswain and his mates commenced rigging them in the best fashion they could, while the sail-makers were employed in cutting out the canvas, some of which had been kept in store, the rest being, taken for the roofs of the huts.
"Lay 'em aboard, boys, and give 'em Jack's play!" The whole party sprang forward, and from that moment all order ceased. Fists, hand-spikes, of which many were on the bank, and the butts of muskets, were freely used, and in a way that set the spears and weapons of the Arabs at defiance. The Captain, Mr. Sharp, John Effingham, Mr.
He had accepted the world as the world, but now he was comprehending the organization of it, the play and interplay of force and matter. Spontaneous explanations of old matters were continually arising in his mind. Levers and purchases fascinated him, and his mind roved backward to hand-spikes and blocks and tackles at sea.
Captain Truck nodded, and proceeded to look into the condition of his ground-tackle. It was a joyous but an anxious moment when the hand-spikes were first handled, and the slack of one of the chains began to come in. The ship had been upright several hours, and no one could tell how hard she would hang on the bottom.
It is a massive block of timber moving on a pivot, which is turned round by wooden levers, called capstan bars, or hand-spikes, and is used for any purpose that requires great tractive power the drawing in of the cable, for instance, or warping the ship; which means that a rope is fixed on shore, or by an anchor to the bottom of the sea, and the other end of it is coiled round the capstan, so that when the capstan is forced round by the handspikes, the rope coils on to it, and the ship is slowly dragged forward.
A man, who looked like the captain, standing near the deserted wheel, looked at us intently for a few seconds, and then, observing that we were all ready to give him our starboard broadside, answered in the affirmative; whereupon our people, several of whom had a smattering of French, gave three hearty cheers as they dropped the lanyards of their locks to the deck, and laid down their rammers, sponges, and hand-spikes.
The men with hand-spikes roll them, one upon the top of the other, until the heap is seven or eight feet high, and ten or twelve broad. All the chips, sticks, and rubbish are then picked up and thrown on the top of the heap. A team and four good men should log and pick an acre a day when the burn has been good. My hive worked well, for we had five acres logged and set fire to the same evening.
Well, let them come we will have no ceremony in resisting them; they are not in the Act of Parliament, and must take the consequences. We have nought to fear. Get stretchers, my lads, and hand-spikes; they row six oars, and are three in the stern sheets they must be good men if they take us." In a few minutes Lord B. was close to the smuggler. "Boat, ahoy! what do you want?"
How often do we hear a man assert that his horse would have been down with him forty times if he had not held him up; that he has taken his horse up between his hands and legs and lifted him over a fence; or that he has recovered his horse on the other side! These are vulgar errors, and mechanical impossibilities. Could ten men, with hand-spikes, lift the weight of a horse? Probably.
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