"Tenter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had waited the while on tenter-hooks. This welcome news broke upon them like the sun at midnight; and Hadden burst into a storm of tears, sobbing aloud as he heaved upon the tackle. But the work went none the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... sake, Aaron, don't keep me on tenter-hooks!" cried Mrs. Rushton, no longer able to restrain her curiosity. "What can Teddy have to say that ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... despise; or sometimes in a conflict with their own kind— when stimulated by warrior pride, and the promptings of the tribal vendetta. On other occasions, they are sufficiently careful of their skins—more especially in an encounter with the white trappers, or even travellers who tenter the prairies from the east. Of all other weapons, they dread the long rifle of the hunter. It is only after stratagem has failed—when do or die becomes a necessity—that the horse-Indian can bring himself to charge ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... I think. And I'm not going to be caught up on the tenter-hooks of conscience as to all my meanings, Miss Cotton. I don't know them all. But I'm not one of the Aliceolaters, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... deaths. Fifty or sixty were placed together in one house, which being set on fire, they all perished in the flames. Many were stripped naked, and being fastened to horses by ropes placed round their middles, were dragged through bogs till they expired. Some were hung by the feet to tenter-hooks driven into poles; and in that wretched posture left till they perished. Others were fastened to the trunk of a tree, with a branch at top. Over this branch hung one arm, which principally supported ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... of dreamless sleep? Who bricks would make, sans straw or clay? "Call spirits from the vasty deep," Or weave a lofty, living lay? Let him be heartened, jocund, gay, Nor hopeless writhe on tenter-hooks,— They meet no barriers who essay The easy road of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... more than her tears being her ill-bred apology that she "had been 'feared baby wouldn't know her again." I would have told her they didn't know any one for years had I not been afraid of the girl Jenny, who dandled the infant on her knees and talked to it as if it understood. She kept me on tenter-hooks by asking it offensive questions, such as, "'Oo know who give me that bonnet?" and answering them herself, "It was the pretty gentleman there;" and several times I had to affect sleep because she announced, "Kiddy wants to kiss the ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various |
