"Gaff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the deck-load and tore loose the halliard. Instantly the sail came down with a rush, the gaff striking the boom with a bang. Across the hills came the storm. It could be heard a mile or more away, and in a few minutes the first drops of rain pattered upon the deck. Eben struggled to gather together the sail as it flopped in the first ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... knowing how much real cause she had to be afraid, returned home with her family. When near the house she met Gaff and Jake, negroes belonging to the farm, who had been in the field at work, running towards her, in great terror, declaring that they ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... order was to set the main gaff-topsail; and then we had all sail on. We turned the bend of the river just after the last sail had been set, which gave us the wind over the starboard quarter. I was confident we were making twelve knots an hour, and the skilful firing of ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... by the government, and great care is taken in the breeding of game fowls, which are very large and heavy birds. They are armed with a curved double-edged gaff. The exhibitions are usually crowded with half-breeds or mestizos, who are generally more addicted to gambling than either the higher or lower classes of Spaniards. It would not be an unapt designation to call the middling class cock-fighters, ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... "So MacGrawler peaches,—blows the gaff on his pals, eh! Vel, now, I always suspected that 'ere son of a gun! Do you know, he used to be at the Mug many 's a day, a teaching our little Paul, and says I to Piggy Lob, says I, 'Blow me tight, but that cove is a queer one! and if he ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with companionways fore and aft, covered with hatches made to slide in grooves. Next, with chisel, spoke-shave, and sand-paper, I prepared the mast and fitted a top-mast to it, and secured it in its place with shrouds and stays of fine, waxed fishing-line. The boom and gaff were then put in place, and Fanny Wrigley (who had aforetime made my pasteboard armor and helmet) now made me a main-sail, top-sail, and jib out of the most delicate linen, beautifully hemmed, and a tiny American flag to hoist to the peak. It only ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... river. The man, who was in fishing clothes, sauntered at her side, smoking a cigarette; while behind them came old Sandy Murray, the grizzled, fair-bearded head keeper, carrying the salmon rods, the gaff, creel, ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... on his own hind legs then. He got there if he was strong—mebbe; he bogged down on the trail good and plenty if he was weak. We didn't have any of the artificial stuff then. A man had to have the guts to stand the gaff." ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... thought The Dutchman would win I'd buy him. I like game horses, and men, too—that'll take the gaff and try." ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... of three hundred pounds a year. I suppose they also handed on to me a hare-brain humour, which it has been my chief delight to indulge. I received a good education. I can play the violin nearly well enough to earn money in the orchestra of a penny gaff, but not quite. The same remark applies to the flute and the French horn. I learned enough of whist to lose about a hundred a year at that scientific game. My acquaintance with French was sufficient to enable me to squander ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Happily, our gaff stood, although our topmast was carried away by her foreyard-arm, and came down with a crash on deck, papa narrowly escaping being struck. The next instant we ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... and top-gallant sails were speedily set, the braces were manned, and the yards trimmed. Gage had the helm, the pilot standing near him to give out the courses. The main gaff-topsail was next set, and the Josephine was then under full sail. With the wind fair, and everything drawing, she flew through the Goulet at the rate of ten knots an hour. Peaks was as busy as a bee, and in person saw that every rope was properly coiled ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... "just have it to say you killed a salmon in the new style. The day is promising better. I'm sure we'll have sport yet. Hilloa! I've another!" and Murphy began hauling in the salmon. "Billy, you rascal, get ready; watch him—that's it—mind him now!" Billy put out his gaff to seize the prize, and, making a grand swoop, affected to miss the fish. "Gaff him, you thief, gaff him!" shouted Murphy, "gaff him, ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... the right thing to drink was shandy-gaff, but, to keep up her Continental reputation, Madame Frabelle said she would like a little light wine of ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... Brad," put in Joey sharply, noting the look in the boy's pale face. "Don't talk like that. 'E's not used to that sort o' gaff. Let me talk ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... to breakfast with Blair at the little table in the sunny corner. Instead, she ordered some coffee and toast at Jim's Waffle Shop in the village and was hard at work sketching on the wharf before eight o'clock. She had suddenly remembered a promise to sketch Capt. Warren's dog holding the gaff, a feat of which both Pal and his master were justifiably proud. Indeed, so long had the arrangement been made and so entirely had it been neglected, that no one was more surprised than the Captain himself at ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... what he was talking about. The wind blew a gale and the rain fell in torrents. Just before the storm reached them, Captain Beardsley thought it would be wise to shorten his canvas, but all he took in were the gaff-topsails and fore-topmast staysail. Shortly afterward it became necessary to reef the sails that were left, and when that had been done the captain declared that he wouldn't take in anything else, even if he knew that the wind would take the ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... and than which none accords so well with the hoarser murmur of the brawling stream; till at last, after many an alternate hope and fear, the glittering prize turns up his silvery unresisting broadside, in meek submission to the merciless gaff. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... fair. The drop coves maced the joskins at the gaff; the ring-droppers cheated the countryman ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... the girl a lot about the way a man looks at his job. 'If I take up the cards I can't be a quitter,' he said. 'It would hurt my record. And my record is the equivalent of credit and capital. I can't afford to have any weak spots in it. I'll take the gaff rather than have it said about me that I've lain down on a job. I'm going on with this ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Bend. Used aboard yachts for bending on the gaff topsail halliards. It consists of two turns around a spar or ring, then a half hitch around the standing part and through the turns on the spar, and another half hitch above ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... the mizzen royal disappeared, followed by the top-gallant sail, topsail, and cross-jack courses, seeming to melt away under the eye like a misty veil, while, almost in a moment of time, there appeared a spanker, gaff topsail and gaff top-gallantsail in their place, while the vessel still held ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... am on it! Didn't One-eye say Tippoo Tib is alive and in Zanzibar? The old rascal! Many a slave he's done to death! Many a man be's tortured! I propose we catch Tippoo Tib, hide him, and pull out his toe-nails one by one until be blows the gaff!" ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... taking it down with a broad-axe and in finishing it with a plane until I got it as it should be; and from the flag-staff at the steamer's stern I got out with very little trouble a good boom and gaff. ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... Mr. Binks; for, to my mind, she's an out-and-out Yankee sloop-of-war. Ay! there goes his colors up to the gaff! so up with our ensign, or else he'll be ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... And he was gladde to here theym talke of the welfare and holynesse of theyr kynge Saynt Edward. And whan he shold depart fro theym, thenne he tolde theym what he was, and sayd, 'I am JOHAN THE EVANGELYST; and saye ye vnto Edward your kyng, that I grete him well by the token that he gaff to me, thys rynge, with hys ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... gave tongue to a profusion of oaths, which seemed to be directed, in the main, against Gray, but also included the boatswain, raised himself on his arm, and shook his fist in my face, muttering "my share," and "not a brown less," and something about "blowing the gaff." ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... an hour and three-quarters from the commencement of the action, when, the Virginie's mizen-mast and main-top-mast being shot away, the Indefatigable unavoidably went a-head. In addition to her former damage, she had lost her foreyard and gaff, and her rigging was so much cut that she was unable immediately to shorten sail. The Virginie was completely riddled. Some of the Indefatigable's shot had even gone through the sail-room and out at the opposite side of the ship. She had four feet water in her hold, ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... thumb. Can you believe it, Ridgeway—in this very cabin here?" Then he went on with a suggestion of haste, as though he had somehow made a slip. "Well, at any rate, the disease seems to be catching. Next day it's Bach, the second seaman, who begins to feel the gaff. Listen: ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to take the gaff and thrust, And from an inner courage gain A faith in toil and love of truth; They pray to ...
— Some Broken Twigs • Clara M. Beede
... be crowded, nor far enough to be lonely—stood the houses,—comfortable, spacious, compact,—"with no nonsense about them." The Mong lay like a mere blue thread in the distance, its course often pointed out by the gaff of some little sloop that followed the bends of the river up toward Suckiaug. The low rolling shore was spotted with towns and spires: over all was spread the fairest blue sky and floating specks ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... detail, however, of the dinghy while he lay on the deck of the "Petite Jeanne"; how the runner fitted to the mast; whether the halliards were likely to run sweetly through the sheaves or were knotted and would jamb. He knew the weight of the gaff and the great tan-soddened sail to a nicety. Some dark night, he had thought, on the Dogger, he would slip overboard and take his chance. He had never looked for thick weather at this time of year off the Banks, ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... huge bulk dash out of the water; you will hear his voice, which resembles that of the gorilla. This may go on for a long time: if the stoot be full-grown it will take you quite an hour to bring him alongside the boat. Then comes the problem of how to get him in—the hardest of all. The gaff, if possible a good French gaffe, is indispensable, but the kilbin, a marine life-preserver resembling a heavy niblick, is a handy weapon at this stage of the conflict. Strike the fish on the head repeatedly—but never on the tail—until ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... and forecastle batteries; or, in other words, that she was a frigate. As she had opened the town of Porto Ferrajo several minutes before she was herself seen from the Feu Follet, an ensign was hanging from the end of her gaff, though there was not sufficient air to open its folds, in a way to let the national character ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... all loaded down with country homes— and passed by the forts to salutes from their biggest cannons. The Abraham Lincoln replied by three times lowering and hoisting the American flag, whose thirty-nine stars gleamed from the gaff of the mizzen sail; then, changing speed to take the buoy-marked channel that curved into the inner bay formed by the spit of Sandy Hook, it hugged this sand-covered strip of land where thousands of spectators acclaimed ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... "At the gaff, off a young cove as was reg'lar screwed up. I could 'ave took 'is nose off if I'd a wanted it, and he wouldn't ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... canoe leave Lyndon's Landing, than two corresponding ones were sure to shoot out, apparently actuated by the same persuasion that there was no more likely place for a fish than the snag round which she was trolling, and ready to gaff a maskinonge, or help to land an obdurate ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Champion, he had made larger sails for his boat, and added a flying-jib and a gaff-topsail, and he found that ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon |
