"Tightening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... We'll be lucky now if we are in time for the morning editions." Scott was tightening his ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... but that last one hundred yards they could not, by all the eloquence of their leaders or the promises of Paradise from their priests, be induced to cross. Nor was it only the Afghans who felt the tightening strain; it was an anxious moment for the British, too, for given one slight slip, one weakhearted corner, and the whole thin line might have been swept away by the onslaught of ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... of democracy by passing our election reform and financing proposals, by tightening our laws regulating lobbying, and by restoring a reasonable franchise to Americans ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... the real sense of it came upon him. Suddenly he let go the lank throat of his enemy, and, by a supreme effort, flung him across the stage, where Jopp lay resting on his hands, his bleared eyes looking at Terry with the fear and horror still in them which had come with that tightening grip on his throat. ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... rose, forced the fellow to roll over, and hitched the fall of the line round both wrists again, and made it fast, so that the man lay, with his head drawn back by his own hands, which he could not move without tightening the ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... labor-intensive industries are steadily being moved off-shore and replaced with more capital- and technology-intensive industries. Taiwan has become a major investor in China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The tightening of labor markets has led to an influx of foreign workers, both legal and illegal. Because of its conservative financial approach and its entrepreneurial strengths, Taiwan suffered little compared with many of its neighbors from "the Asian flu" ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... departments on a piecemeal basis. Instead it has called on the President to present a comprehensive Executive Budget. The Congress has shown its satisfaction with that method by extending the budget system and tightening its controls. The bigger and more complex the Federal Program, the more necessary it is for the Chief Executive to submit a single budget ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... this operation I heard the wild whoops of the Indians directly behind me. Tightening the rein, I dug my heels into my horse's flanks and urged him forward, steering him between the numberless animals escaping from the fire. My poor horse knew not where he was going. I waited till the smoke began to curl round my head, then drawing the ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... run down and the machinery ceases to play, a heavy burden of lethargy settled down upon me, and I was weak and helpless as a child. Dull pain throbbed in my brain, as if it were girdled by a hard, tightening band. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... canal has not been abandoned. Ah! that boat has interrupted my dreams, and I feel quite wretched. I had hoped that the last had passed twenty years ago. Here it comes with its lean horse, the rope tightening and stretching, a great black mass with ripples at the prow and a figure bearing against the rudder. A canal reminds me of my childhood; every child likes a canal. A canal recalls the first wonder. We all remember the wonder with which ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... from Joffre became less frequent and more laconic. Their wording was like some trembling, fateful needle of a barometer, pausing, reacting a little, but going down, down, down, indicator of the heart-pressure of Paris, shrivelling the flesh, tightening the nerves. Already Paris was in a state of siege, in one sense. Her exits were guarded against all who were not in uniform and going to fight; to all who had no purpose except to see what was passing where two hundred miles resounded with strife. It ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... fast drawing to a close. The black war clouds were breaking and rolling away. Sherman had made his famous march to the sea. Through swamp and ravine, Grant was rapidly tightening the lines around Richmond. Thomas had won his title of the "Rock of Chickamauga." Sheridan had won his spurs as the great modern cavalry commander, and had cleaned out the Shenandoah Valley. Sherman was coming back from his famous march to ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... enclouding his brain, Laurence stands gazing upon these, and his heart is as though enwrapped with a dull tightening pain. ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... set and unseeing, and his thin lips trembling, Jose dragged himself up the stone steps to his little room and threw himself upon the bed. The bonds which had been slowly, imperceptibly tightening during these few months of precious liberty had been drawn suddenly taut. The Bishop, in the role of Inquisitor Natus, had just revealed a full knowledge of his dismal past, and had summarily dismissed him from the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... colouring was vivid and fresh. Before Finn knew what had happened, one coil of the sinuous reptile's body was about his left hind-leg, and, as the startled Wolfhound wheeled in his tracks, the big snake's head rose at him with a forbidding, long-drawn "Ps-s-s-s-t!" of defiance. The rapidly tightening pressure about his muscular lower thigh produced something like panic in Finn's breast; but, luckily enough, his panic resulted in speeding him toward precisely the right course of action. He feinted in the direction of his hind-leg, and then, as the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... so," said Renmark hurriedly, now that the truth had to come out; he realized, by the nervous tightening of the girl's unconscious grasp, how clumsily he was telling it. "He was with the volunteers this morning. He is not with them now. They don't know where he is. No one saw him hurt, but it is feared he was, and that he has been left behind. ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... themselves with firearms in hand, and thus did they remain all the night without giving any nourishment to the archbishop, except what a pious Franciscan religious could give him by applying to his lips a wet cloth, under pretext of tightening the strap with which the most holy sacrament was fastened to the afflicted prelate's breast. And he did not receive any other nourishment for a day and a half, until they took him to the island of Mariveles. Saturday, the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... Jacqueline, sweetly, slinging the drum across her hip and tightening the cords. She clicked the ebony sticks, touched the tightly drawn parchment, sounding it with delicate fingers, then looked up at the mayor ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... There was a tightening of the grasp as if in acquiescence and comfort; but the nurse came back to tidy the room, and still Fernando clung to Felix, and would not let him go. She opened the shutters, and then both she and Felix were dismayed to see how ill and spent her patient ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... means that we're to go into the cave, and get our game—is that it, Frank?" demanded the other, unconsciously tightening his grip on his rifle, as he glanced once more toward that yawning crevice, leading to unknown depths, where the wolf pack lurked during the daytime to issue forth when night ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... but the chasm between them did not close. Gray treated the mountain boy with a sort of curt courtesy, and while Jason tackled him, fell upon him with a savage thrill, and sometimes wanted to keep on tightening his wiry arms and throttling him, the mountain boy could discover no personal feeling whatever against him in return, and he was mystified. With the ingrained suspicion of the mountaineer toward an enemy, he supposed Gray had some ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... pay the debt I owe you," cried Jack, tightening his grip till the thief-taker blackened in ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to encourage self. 'Nora,' he said, 'would answer that self is all we have, and to destroy it and put in its place conventions and prejudices is to put man's work above God's. But Nora would not answer in these words till she had spoken with Mr. Walter Poole.' The name brought a tightening about his heart, and when Father Oliver stumbled to his feet—he had walked many miles, and was tired—he began to think he must tell Nora of the miracle that had happened about a mile—he thought it was just a mile—beyond ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... hear one answering, "You'll know in three hours. We'll be there then, if we are!" and slowly there would come to each man the knowledge that their journey was not to Ireland, but to France, and there would be a tightening of the lips, an involuntary movement here and there and then.... "Well, o' course, we're goin' to France! 'Oo the 'ell thought we was goin' anywhere else?" The ship would carry them swiftly down the Irish Sea and across the English Channel ... and ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... At night she would go over and over the details of their intercourse, seeing them, feeling them, living them in the light of later knowledge, till the torment was hardly to be borne. Three days and nights of this inner activity had brought back that sharp line between her brows and the bitter tightening ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... her despair silenced him. He could feel it like fingers tightening on his throat. He realized in a flash that this was how he, too, would be tempted to speak were he to lose Terry—that, having lost the best, any careless makeshift would suffice to comfort him. While he considered, ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... Various methods of tightening were tried, but none were very successful; and the wire hung in curves, some greater and some less, between ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... there so many days the process of recharging her will went on all the time; it spread to her face, too, and tightening movements were always in action at the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... direction of the stables, came a roar of men's voices, a sound of bursting and crashing through the under-wood, a thundering of heavy feet, followed by a whirring of frightened birds into the air. Brooks leaned forward breathing hard, and tightening his newly moistened grip on ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... the flags. She wondered impatiently why Bannon did not call to him. Then he raised his head, but before a word had left his lips she was speaking, in a clear tone that Max could plainly hear. She was surprised at herself. She had not meant to say a word, but out it came; and she was conscious of a tightening of her nerves and a defiant gladness that at last her real thoughts had ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... of his own suspicions. But as he drank, as he associated again with the same sort of people who had wasted his time in Cincinnati, he rapidly became franker and more inquisitorial. And she dreaded to see the look she knew would come into his eyes, the cruel tightening of his mouth, if in her confusion and eagerness she should happen not instantly to satisfy the doubt behind each question. He tormented her; he tormented himself. She suffered from humiliation; but she suffered more because she saw how his suspicions were torturing ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Balliol's attempt on Scotland, it was the obvious interest of the English king to maintain such relations with France as to prevent the tightening of the traditional bond between the French and the Scottish courts. There were plenty of outstanding points of difference between England and France, but neither country was anxious for war, and the result of this mutual forbearance enabled ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... Tightening, each with a whanging snap too tiny to be remarked within the mass of the ship, were the cables that attached the various items of the dump to their ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... you!" she cried fiercely, tightening her grasp on him. Then the angry fire in her tearful eyes seemed suddenly to melt into a soft flame, and the colour came faster to her cheeks. "Ah, how can you let me so disgrace myself! how can you see me fallen so low as to use the strength of my hands, and yet have no pity? Nino, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... standing in the doorway, looked out over the rows of silent baskets and felt her blonde hair tighten at the roots. The tightening came from instinct, even before her brain had a chance to function, from the instincts and training of ...
— I'll Kill You Tomorrow • Helen Huber
... "Sophia...!" he said thickly, colouring hotly. He was conscious of a tightening of his throat muscles, making speech a matter of difficulty. ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... wanted a permanent, ready source of war which the United States government could use, at any time, to salvage its own internationalist policies from criticism at home, by scaring the American people into "buckling down" and "tightening up" for "unity" behind our "courageous President" who is "calling the Kremlin bluff" by spending to prepare this nation for all-out war, if necessary, to "defend the interests of the free-world" ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... weeks General Santa Ana had been tightening the cordon of cavalry, infantry, and artillery about the place. It housed one hundred and eighty-three lank-haired frontiersmen, a portion of General Sam Houston's band who had declared for Texan independence. The Mexicans had cut them ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... the little mare stopped short by instinct, for he was not conscious of tightening the reins. "For the soul of me, I cannot get by this gate!" said he, trembling. "I never shall be my own man again till I see whether Mr. Higginbotham is hanging on the St. Michael's pear tree." He leaped from ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... accident had infuriated the Indians to the last degree. They were especially bent upon taking the Zane cabin, which held them off. Within the cabin matters were tightening up. The powder was getting low. The drain ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... continued Walker, tightening his grasp, "You've no manner of right here. I'll give you till I count ten and then I ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... the troubles with tents is their remarkable proclivity for tightening and slackening with the varying conditions of the weather. This means a constant loosening or tightening of the guy ropes, and the longer the guy ropes the more they will shrink or stretch according as they are wet or dry. This may be overcome to some extent ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... muffled tumult across the bridge. Coleman and his dragoman followed the last troop. The horses scrambled up the muddy bank much as if they were merely breaking out of a pasture, but probably all the men felt a sudden tightening of their muscles. Coleman, in his excitement, felt, more than he saw, glossy horse flanks, green-clothed men chumping in their saddles, banging sabres and canteens, and carbines slanted ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... an isolated phenomenon, having no bearing on the things below. Each huge globe of blinding whiteness was as it were clutched, compressed in a systole that was followed by a transitory diastole, and again a systole like a tightening grip, darkness, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... itself into the shape of a corkscrew between London Bridge and the Nore, the tug had besides continually to alter her course, thus, naturally, making us change ours too, as the tow-rope slackening one moment would cause the ship's bows to fall off, and then tightening like a fiddle-string the next instant her head would be jerked back again viciously into its former position, right astern of the little vessel at whose mercy we were, as if she insisted on the Silver Queen following ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... at Weldon's heels and flew up to his hair. He had a sudden flashing sense of being in a net that was softly tightening. In an agony of regret he wished that he had not that sheaf of "memoranda, etc." It was suddenly clear to him that ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... Himalaya has effectually separated the peoples living north and south of it, and the instances in history are rare of any collision between them. Of all such collisions the most important was that which has now to be described as the main cause of the tightening of the hold of China upon Tibet. The mountain kingdom of Nepaul was equally independent of the British and the Mogul Empire of Delhi. It was ruled by three separate kings, until in the year 1769 the Goorkha chief Prithi Narayan established the supremacy of that warlike race. The Goorkhas ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... plunge and 'rout' with violence, and at length ran furiously out from the tree. But he soon came to the end of his tether; and the quick jerk, which caused the tree itself to crack, brought him to his haunches, while the noose tightening on his throat was fast strangling him. But for the thick matted hair it would have done so, but this saved him, and he continued to sprawl and struggle at the end of the rope. The tree kept on cracking, and as I began ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... go farther," said General Trednoke, approaching Freeman, as he was tightening his girths, "I must tell you what is the object ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... on with tightening grip, While Sarah Jane behind, Having no hold To make her bold, ...
— The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a 'Golliwogg' • Bertha Upton
... all the while she kept right on renovating the Little Girl's personal appearance, smoothing a wrinkled stocking, tucking up obstreperous white ruffles, tugging down parsimonious purple hems, loosening a pinchy hook, tightening a wobbly button. Very slowly, very complacently the Little Girl drowsed off to sleep with her weazened little iron-cased legs stretched stiffly out before her. "Poor little legs! Poor little legs! Poor little legs!" crooned ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... spread slowly through the room; and the candle ceased to give a visible light. Then she felt as if an iron screw were tightening on her temples. She was suffocating, and felt a desire to sleep; but in her stomach she ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... for tightening the coupling-joints, when that cannot be sufficiently done by hand. When the hose are all put together a man is sent along the whole line with a pair of wrenches to tighten such of the coupling-joints as require it. The wrenches are generally made with a hole to ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... his watch in his hand. The hounds meantime were getting ready to start; one pressing before the other, taking a last look at shoe-strings, tightening in their belts, rubbing their hands, in their eagerness to rush out of the wood and commence the pursuit. They kept looking up at the Doctor's countenance, to endeavour to ascertain by the expression it wore whether time was nearly up. Those who had watches ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... attached to it: the simplest kind of break is shown in fig. 2, which represents a cart tilted upwards. Fig 1 shows the break itself; fig. 2 explains how it is fitted on to the cart. [Fig 1.] It will easily be understood how, by tightening the free end of the cord, the break is pressed against the wheels. The bent piece of iron shown in fig. 2, by which the bar of the break is kept in its place, may be replaced by a piece of wood, or ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... a 28% drop in GDP that year, with partial recovery in 1999-2001. Before the war, trade reform and price liberalization were the most successful part of the country's structural adjustment program under IMF sponsorship. The tightening of monetary policy and the development of the private sector had also begun to reinvigorate the economy. Because of high costs, the development of petroleum, phosphate, and other mineral resources is not a near-term prospect. However, unexploited offshore oil reserves could provide much-needed ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... autobiographic, historical, and romantic interest in Redgauntlet:—one cannot dwell on these and other things. The magic continued even in Woodstock—written as this was almost between the blows of the executioner's crow-bar on the wheel, in the tightening of the windlasses at the rack—it is not absent, whatever people may say, in Anne of Geierstein, nor even quite lacking in the better parts of Count Robert of Paris. But we must not expatiate on its effects; ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... the backyard, Bobby fussed around his space rocket a little: tightening a screw here—hammering in a nail there. Just until he could slip away without Mom ...
— Zero Hour • Alexander Blade
... part in tightening the meshes of the net that keeps evil-doers within bounds. It does its duty with kindliness, but without fear or favour; but the difficulties of the work are so enormous that they ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... snow two miles, with rags for shoes, to borrow a book to read before the sap-bush fire. See Locke, living on bread and water in a Dutch garret. See Heyne, sleeping many a night on a barn floor with only a book for his pillow. See Samuel Drew, tightening his apron strings "in lieu of a dinner." See young Lord Eldon, before daylight copying Coke on Littleton over and over again. History is full of such examples. He who will pay the price for victory needs never fear final defeat. Why ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... back, almost as though he expected Tom to strike him, but our hero did not raise his hand. There came a grim tightening of his lips, and into his eyes that had been dazed by the fall there was a look of anger, but that ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... and violent dislike to the newcomer, which, had he been questioned about it, he would have attributed to his elaborate choice of socks and tie, or to his habit of perpetually tightening the leather belt he wore instead of braces, as if he would compel that flabbiness of waist caused by soft living to vanish; but to himself he admitted that the antipathy was ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... to one big missive with an official-looking seal and a distinctly important legal aspect. On the contrary, to the outer eye or ear all that could be observed in Montague Nevitt's manner was the nervous way he went on tightening his violin strings with a tremulous hand and whistling low to himself a few soft and tender bars of some melancholy scrap from ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... flags of the floor, and at last his patience was rewarded. He heard the rattle of the bolts outside, and a tense eagerness thrilled his stalwart frame. The door came cautiously inward for a space of perhaps two feet and was then brought to a stand by the tightening links of a stout chain, fastened one end to the door, the other to the outer wall. Through the space that thus gave a view of the wide outer passage the Count saw Richart stand with pale face, well back at a safe ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... music served a good turn, and while the people were hurrying out the canvasmen, aided by the performers, Joe among them, drove in extra pegs, tightening those that had become loose, put on additional ropes, so that, by hard work, the big tent ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... the preceding stitch. These devices were all far from perfect in their operation, chiefly because they commenced to act too soon. In each case the pulling up commenced with the rise of the needle, and the tightening operation subjected the thread to all the friction of rubbing its way through both needle eye and fabric. Now, an ideal take-up should not commence to act until the needle has ascended above the fabric, and one of the most important steps toward perfection in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... when business compelled me one day to ride in to Salisbury. I had ordered some goods for my farm from England which had at last arrived. I had now to arrange for their conveyance from the town to my plot of land—a portentous matter. Just as I was on the point of leaving Klaas's, and was tightening the saddle-girth on my sturdy little pony, Oom Jan Willem himself sidled up to me with a mysterious air, his broad face all wrinkled with anticipatory pleasure. He placed a sixpence in my palm, glancing about him on every side as he ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... days the new prior arrived, and proved a very Tartar. At first he was absorbed in curing abuses, and tightening the general discipline; but one day hearing the vicar of Gouda had entered the convent as a novice, he said, "'Tis well; let him first give up his vicarage then, or go; I'll no fat parsons in my house." The prior then sent for Gerard, and he went to him; and the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... of relieving the condition of the laboring classes of the people, the government puts on them especially the heaviest load of the war expenses, by tightening the yoke of ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... feared to make the effort necessary to move or to turn away, lest the shunning motion should carry conviction to her heart. Alas! conviction of the probable danger to her father's life was already there: it was that that was calming her down, tightening her muscles, bracing her nerves. In that hour she lost ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... listening stolidly to the opening arraignment by the District Attorney. He was not surprised by any of it. The chain of circumstances which had begun to wrap itself around him that morning on Bald Mountain had never for a moment relaxed its tightening hold upon him. He had followed his friends that day and all of that night and had reached Lowville early the next day. He had found his mother there safe and his aunt and even Cassius Bascom, but had been horrified to learn that Ruth Lansing had turned back into the face of the fire in ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... straight, would naturally be left longer than the other, which is twisted round and round it. This tendency the performer counteracts by drawing it partially back through the slip-knot at each pretended tightening. When he finally covers over the knots, which he does with the left hand, he holds the straightened portion of the handkerchief, immediately behind the knots, between the first finger and thumb of the right hand, and therewith, in the act of covering over the knots, draws this straightened ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... party and went immediately to Marie. He found her on the veranda, reclining on a couch. The lamp-light from an open window fell on a pale face, startling in its changed expression. He silently took her hand, her fingers tightening in his grasp. She looked him steadily in the face, her swimming eyes not wavering. Then Henrik knew that he loved this girl yet. For a long time he had tried to forget her, tried to root out his love for her, tried to think that she was not for him. "I'll not try again," he had thought, "for ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... going to," she observed, sinking into the cushions. For a moment she felt rather limp, then a quiver passed through her, tightening the relaxed nerves. ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... tightening of his lips, Jimmie Dale settled himself in his seat so that he could watch the cab behind. There was trouble coming, intuitively he sensed that; and, he reflected bitterly, he might have known! It was ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... said Miss Avondale, suddenly tightening her hold of Randolph's arm in some instinctive feminine alarm. "I ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... eyes, but a cruel mouth and a most high, imperious bearing which, together with his rich clothes and jewels, betokened him a man of quality. Hearing who we were, he saluted us civilly enough; but there was a flash of enmity in his eyes and a tightening of his lips, which liked me ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... unavoidable hysterical femininity engendered in women by their subjected environment. Are you quite sure you consider Dawn merely a passing stranger not worth consideration?" I asked, looking him fair in the eyes; and the quick lowering of them and the tightening of his mouth satisfied me that he could not truthfully ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... a little way, then launched him into a gallop, tearing on and on, sun, wind, trees swimming, whirling like a vision, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, save the leaden pounding of his pulse and the breathless, terrible tightening in ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... breakfast, and securing the remainder of their provision as well as ammunition in the ample bosoms of their hunting frocks—which were always made large for such and similar purposes—tightening the belts about their bodies, and placing their rifles, locks downward, under the ample skirts of their frocks, to shield them from the rain, the whole party sallied forth upon their second day's adventure. ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... because they are composed spontaneously, but because they express spontaneities which are essentially external to themselves. In other words, the achievement of perfection, whether in prose or poetry, is comparable to the task of a piano tuner, who may spend a whole morning in tightening or relaxing the strings, but who knows at once, when he gets them, the minutely precise tones which the laws of ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... half-closed, yet he was by no means drowsing. On the contrary, his mind was essentially busy, and the occasional puckering of his dark brows, and the tightening of his strong jaws, suggested that his ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Holmes paced with light, swift steps about the room; he sat in the various chairs, drawing them up and reconstructing their positions. He tested how much of the garden was visible; he examined the floor, the ceiling, and the fireplace; but never once did I see that sudden brightening of his eyes and tightening of his lips which would have told me that he saw some gleam of ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for the unfettered wind Which from thy wilds even now methinks I feel, Chasing the clouds that roll in wrath behind, And tightening the soul's laxest nerves to steel; True mountain Liberty alone may heal 5 The pain which Custom's obduracies bring, And he who dares in fancy even to steal One draught from Snowdon's ever sacred spring Blots out the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... this which brought the tragedy, the thing you have asked me to tell you about," he said, unclenching his hands slowly, and then tightening them again until the blood ebbed from their veins. "Interests were coming in; the tentacles of power and greed were reaching out, encroaching steadily a little nearer to our cup at the foot of the mountain. ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... into the river and be drowned if you go on like this," said Leam, tightening her hold; and those small nervous hands of hers had an iron grasp when she chose to put out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... hours, did they?" asked Mr. Mason, his mouth tightening in a grim line. "Well, I'll give them just twenty-four hours before they land in jail. Come on, let us get back to the town. I want to set some ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... that hour Cyril Morland, under the parapet of his trench, tightening his belt, was looking at his wrist-watch for the hundredth time, calculating exactly where he meant to put foot and hand for the going over: 'I absolutely mustn't let those chaps get in front of me,' he thought. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... John," said the Cornal with a contempt in his utterance and a tightening of the corner of his lips. "I wonder at you changing words with him. What was it ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... Fellow," she spoke sharply, tightening the reins as she touched his flank with her spur, "we haven't time for foolishness! Generally, in fact always," accenting the last word, "horses—and men—go in the direction I want them to go! Why, you're as stubborn—as—as the Ramblin' Kid!" ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... her that she did not cry out, or even speak, but stood still, her hands tightening on his, her breast heaving. She was not, he knew, a woman who wept easily, and her eyes were dry. And he had it to be thankful for that it was given him to be with her, in this sacred relationship, at such a moment. But even now, such was the mystery that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... obtained. Allowing about five yards of rope between each two persons, I tied it in turn around the waist of Holman, Barbara, the Professor, Edith, and myself, and being thus prepared against a precipice in our path, Holman took the lead and we followed in single file as the tightening of the rope informed each one that the immediate leader was a ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... hesitated and there was a sudden tightening of the muscles in his arms, but Hawley, good-natured and imperturbable as ever, at once removed his collar and Will quietly ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... a difficult transition from a Soviet-style economy - with state ownership and control of productive assets - to a market economy. On January 1, 1990, the new Solidarity-led government implemented shock therapy by slashing subsidies, decontrolling prices, tightening the money supply, stabilizing the foreign exchange rate, lowering import barriers, and restraining state sector wages. As a result, consumer goods shortages and lines disappeared, and inflation fell from 640% in 1989 to 44% in 1992. Western governments, ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... cried, "if I remember right, you were for restoring the more rigorous and stringent forms of religion; drawing the rein and tightening the girth." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... if the police put up a hard game they can rescue her without his knowledge and spread a web for the fly to walk into later. But they must get a move on. This phone is nearly a mile from the farm, and Jackson is tightening nuts outside the villa I spoke of. Now, what's the ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... of the process. Give yourself with a blind submission into the arms of the brown Fate, and he will lead you to new chambers of delight. He lifts us to a sitting posture, places himself behind us, and folds his arms around our body, alternately tightening and relaxing his clasp, as if to test the elasticity of the ribs. Then seizing one arm, he draws it across the opposite shoulder, until the joint cracks like a percussion-cap. The shoulder-blades, the elbows, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... the attack without flinching, his hazel eyes full of an angry light and the sunburnt colour in his face paling a little. Then when she had finished, he turned slowly away and began tightening the feed strap ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... in that I saw the devilish cunning of Captain Swope. He knew what the effect would be upon the minds of the men of slackening his hell-ship discipline, and then, when the habit of passive endurance was weakened, suddenly tightening the reins. He knew that then the bit would be well nigh unendurable. Oh, Swope had calculated shrewdly; he foresaw the effect not only of an outburst of promiscuous brutality, but of the arrest of Newman, and the beating up ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... watch the wind and note whether it shifts its direction or alters its force. The boat is trimmed accordingly when the boat is put about. Easing or tightening the jib or main-sheet slightly will make a very ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... resistance, apart from the fact that his arms were bound to his body so tightly by one of the immense convolutions of the serpent's body—which it seemed to him was nearly as thick as his own—that it was impossible to move them by even so little as a single inch. And those deadly coils were tightening round him, too; he could feel the pressure increasing more rapidly than he could draw the breath into his already painfully labouring lungs; and he vainly strove to utter a cry to his companion for help. His elbows were being ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Harry noticed a tightening of discipline at their battery. The orders were sharp and they had to be obeyed. Nothing was wasted in politeness. Visitors were no longer allowed to gratify curiosity. Women and girls in their white or pink dresses were ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... did jerk on the rope, but more for the purpose of tightening the loop than for any other reason. Of course, the proceeding was followed by an ear-piercing scream. Janus promptly began to pull up on the line. Tommy's foot came up with it, leaving the other foot and one arm dangling ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... I heard them say as we left the house was, "Cry softly, or we'll put more medicine in!" And the last thing I saw was the tightening of the little hands over the poor shut eyes, as he tried to stifle his sobs and "cry softly." This told one what the "medicine" meant to him. One of the things they had put in was ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... carved angel-wings. But someone was with her,—someone whom Fontenelle recognised at once by the classic shape of his head and bright curly hair,—the man whom he had seen that very day on the Pincio,—Aubrey Leigh. With a jealous tightening at his heart, Fontenelle saw that Leigh held the soft plume of downy feathers which served Sylvie for a fan, and that he was lightly waving it to and fro as he talked to her in the musical, all-potent voice which had charmed thousands, and would surely ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... that Tom stood appalled. He knew that, at any instant, by the tightening of its folds the great boa could crush every bone of Ned's body; while the very closeness of its embrace rendered it impossible for him to strike at it, for fear of injuring its captor. There was not an instant to be lost. Already the ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... down the long room, she stopped suddenly and looked about her; where was her knitting? Her thoughts were in such a distracted tangle that the accustomed automatic movement of her fingers was imperative. She tucked the grimy pink ball of zephyr under her arm, and tightening her fingers on the bent and yellowing old needles, began again her fierce pacing up and down, up and down. But the room seemed to cramp her, and by and by she went across the hall into Nannie's parlor, where the fire had sprung into cheerful flames; here she paused for a while, standing with one ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... rested heavily upon Mrs. Symes's shoulder. "Assert yourself—don't be a fool! Let's have a drink." Mrs. Symes winced under her tightening grip. ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Those lying down got up and approached him. The women, with their children, dragged themselves nearer. Every one stopped talking. The apathy and indifference gave place to a strained attention. There was a kind of dreadful anxiety on every face—a tightening of the muscles round the eyes and mouths, as though the same horrible fear fixed the same mark there. I have never seen a crowd where personality was so stamped out by a single overmastering emotion. The gendarme began to read ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... adorn it. What I like to see, and watch with increasing joy and adoration, is the Club MEN at the great looking-glasses. Old Gills pushing up his collars and grinning at his own mottled face. Hulker looking solemnly at his great person, and tightening his coat to give himself a waist. Fred Minchin simpering by as he is going out to dine, and casting upon the reflection of his white neckcloth a pleased moony smile. What a deal of vanity that Club mirror has reflected, to ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... instant the fisherman at the lower end of the pool feels a tightening of his line. He gives it a quick twitch with his right hand, and prepares to pull in with his left. Leviathan has taken the bait; Cotton Mather has struck; the hook is well fastened in the roof of the fish's mouth and ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... all during the day, and at midnight a hurricane came out of the dark. All night we were pulling and hauling, running along the great logs in danger always of being washed away. We had to lash the lumber, tightening the chains, and trying to stop the logs from smashing the ship to pieces. It did not seem that we could ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... an even, if not rapid pace. The cowboys as their horses ambled on were loading revolvers, looking to their lariats, tightening the packs which they carried on the back of their saddles, and making ready for the hard task ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... tread behind her carrier, which must have been Mrs. O'Mara's, for a rich voice that belonged to it had said, "Shure it's a lovely sight, yer carryin' her around like a child. It's the lovely pair yez make, Mr. Francis!" And then she remembered a tightening of arms around her for an instant, before she was laid carefully on her own cot and ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... her, so that he did not see the hot blush which mantled in the clear ivory of her face, or the sudden tightening of the lips, as if she were struggling against some feeling, and ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... the ships themselves been forgotten. In turn each had been dry-docked, repaired, defects made good, down to the tightening of a loose screw, machinery overhauled and parts replaced where thought necessary, bottoms cleared of weed and coated afresh with anti-fouling composition, and hulls repainted, until each ship looked as though she had just been taken out of a glass case. And now there they all ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... the escaping levity remains dust-bound. This picture of electricity now enables us to give a realistic interpretation of certain phenomena which, in the interpretation which the physicist of the past was bound to give them, have contributed much to the tightening of ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... was the fault of Daniel, the immobile, as much as anyone. In an airy room, under comfortable conditions, probably it wouldn't have happened. Savina's suit, her shoes, the bags, hadn't been disturbed. There was a faint tightening of her grasp, and he bent close, but he distinguished only ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Wanless,' he says. That's what Mr. Menzies told him, the elderly man that he is—and now look at this. Young Glyde turns his back upon him, with no more notice taken than you or I would have of a flea on the arm. Insolence, that is. Downright insolence of an elderly man. Ah," said Mrs. Benson with tightening lips, "if ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... it came. He did not know why this sound of the boatman's horn always touched him so keenly and moved him so deeply. He could not have told why his eyes grew strangely dim as he heard it now, or why a strange tightening came around his heart. He was but an ignorant lad of the woods. It was not for him to know that these few notes—so few, so simple, so artlessly blown by a rude boatman—touched the deep fountain of the soul, loosing the mighty torrent pent up in every human breast. ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... by describing the army of revolution, and as he gave the figures of its strength (the votes cast in the various countries), the assemblage began to grow restless. Concern showed in their faces, and I noticed a tightening of lips. At last the gage of battle had been thrown down. He described the international organization of the socialists that united the million and a half in the United States with the twenty-three millions and a half in ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London |
