Poopdeck

“ The Yorkshireman seized the knife, and the Iroquois, with a long leap, jumped Silas to hold him down. The negro cook held Bill, who raged to get at his enemy again, screaming, "Leave go! Leave go!"
"What's all this? Now, what's all this about?" Captain Home, attended by the mate and the boatswain, came surging along the gangway. "I'll show who's master here!" He pointed to Auld Jock, and ordered the bos'n to "clap that man in irons!" The bos'n laughed. "What, sir!" asked the mate. "For saving a man's life?" ”

“ How we lived for the first three months after her arrival, when she roamed the house at her own sweet will, has been a source of wonder ever since; certainly it was in much discomfort; when working, sitting with our scissors and thread in our pockets, for if they were placed on the table, in an instant they were carried to the top of the window cornice, Poppet's favourite retreat. Sometimes, if coaxed by an apple, she would drop them; at other times no blandishments would prevail, and she would sit drawing her sharp little teeth over the thread, cutting through every row. ”

“ Abaft, a poop, higher than the bulwarks, extended forward, between thirty and forty feet, under which was the cuddy or dining-room, and state-cabins, appropriated to passengers. The poop, upon which you ascended by ladders on each side, was crowded with long ranges of coops, tenanted by every variety of domestic fowl, awaiting in happy unconsciousness the day when they should be required to supply the luxurious table provided by the captain. In some, turkeys stretched forth their long necks, and tapped the decks as they picked up some ant who crossed it, in his industry. ”

“ He shoved the hatch aside, letting the starlight into the dark forecastle of the barge, then pulled on his boots, and scrambled up upon the white, dimly glittering frost of the deck. Stiff with cold, he flogged his arms about his body until his fingers tingled with pain, and stamped until he felt the blood returning into his numb feet. Then he went aft, and opened the cabin hatch. He took the flint and steel from his pocket, struck a brisk shower of sparks into the tinder, kindled a sulphur match, and held the blue light down. His mother lay in the bunk, stone dead. ”

“ The season of the year forbids Mr Pococke to take the sea against ’em, but he has thought it well to carry his ships to Ballisore Road, there to keep watch in case of an attempted attack on Bengall, and the vessels dropped down the river to-day. Many friends and relations of the officers were permitted to share the passage as far as Culpee, and Captain Latham complimented me with an invitation on board the Tyger, so that I was able to enjoy Mr Fraser’s company for a little longer. ”

“ Brand?" cried the destroyer circling round the terrified horse like an eagle round a mosquito, the faintest airs from the river just whispering under her aeroplanes, and barely strong enough to give her steerage way.
"Brand is in chains at the Palace!" the trooper yelled so that his voice broke in a wail. "Lie low and help us, we're luring the yacht down with Brand's private signal. Captain Talbot will give the order to fire!" ”

“ On the right sat Iron Dale, Jesse, and myself, and all our posse, very ill at ease. On the left were two gaunt American stockmen, both wearing hats, while one had the star of a United States marshal. Beside them sat the general public, consisting of Tearful George, two ranch-hands, an Indian, and the captain's bulldog. Wee James, the captain's grandson, sat with the dog at first, but presently he inter [Pg 191] rupted the court to say that he would like to sit on me. He sat with considerable weight for so small a person.
At Captain Taylor's entrance the constable ordered us all to stand. ”

“ The Pococks were a quantity as yet unmeasured, and as he had practically brought them over, he had to that extent exposed himself. He wanted to feel right about it, but he could only, at the best, for the time, feel vague. "I shall look to you, you know, immensely," our friend had said, "to help me with them"; and he had been quite conscious of the effect of the remark, and of others of the same sort, on Waymarsh's sombre sensibility. He had insisted on the fact that he would quite like Mrs. Pocock—one could be certain he would ”

“ In 1637, at Laud's instance (Wood, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iv. 318) , Pococke again set sail for the east, for the purpose of further study under native teachers, and to collect more manuscripts. This time he travelled with his ‘dear friend’ John Greaves [q. v.] Pococke, besides his fellowship, now possessed private means by the recent death of his father, and probably received some further assistance from Laud, or, through Greaves, from Lord Arundel. Thomas Greaves [q. v.] , ‘lector humanitatis’ (Latin reader) at Corpus, was appointed his deputy in the Arabic lecture during his absence. ”

“ For mother just escorted that nigger right through the galley, out at the other end, over the port rail, and boosted him into the blue harbor, for the first and only bath he'd ever had. Then she took off her horn spectacles, her old buckskin gloves, and her bonnet, and sot to cleaning a galley which hadn't been washed since the days of President Lincoln. Floor, range, walls, beams, pots, kettles, plates and dishes, she washed and scrubbed and polished. She hadn't time to listen to the wet nigger or the mate, and narry a man on board could get more than yea or nay out of mother. ”

“ How Miss Allen and Curtis climbed down off the poop, I could never guess. The deep notes of the wind rushing through the rigging drowned all sound save the cries of Hawkson and Gull, who, hanging on to the poop-rail, bawled for the men to man the braces and get the ship hove to. ”

“ An ideal rigour would perhaps postpone the trial till after the Pococks had shown their spirit, and it was to an ideal rigour that he had quite promised himself to conform.
Suddenly, however, on this particular day, he felt a particular fear under which everything collapsed. He knew abruptly that he was afraid of himself, and yet not in relation to the effect on his sensibilities of another hour of Mme. de Vionnet. What he dreaded was the effect of a single hour of Sarah Pocock, as to whom he was visited, in troubled nights, with fantastic waking dreams. She loomed at him larger than life ”

“ He gave his friend till the very last moment, till they had come into sight of the hotel; and when poor Pocock only continued cheerful and envious and funny, he fairly grew to dislike him, to feel him extravagantly common. If they were all going to see nothing!—Strether knew, as this came back to him, that he was also letting Pocock represent for him what Mrs. Newsome wouldn't see. He went on disliking, in the light of Jim's commonness, to talk to him about that lady; yet just before the cab pulled up he knew the extent of his desire for the real word from Woollett. ”

“ You don't show your claws. I felt just now in Mrs. Pocock no symptom of that. She isn't fierce," he went on. "I'm such a nervous idiot that I thought she might be."
"Oh, don't you know her well enough," Pocock asked, "to have noticed that she never gives herself away, any more than her mother ever does? They ain't fierce, either of 'em: they let you come quite close. They wear their fur smooth side out—warm side in. Do you know what they are?" Jim pursued as he looked about him, giving the question, as Strether felt, but half his care—"do you know what they are? ”

“ The flow of tide having of course set the Indiaman's stern up-stream, the ladies on the poop could be seen clustered across the taffrail, with the careful married gentleman in the middle of them, more dignified than ordinary, as they one and all strained their eyes into the dusk before them; when one of the men came down the poop-stairs behind me, and, on turning, I saw to my surprise that it was Jacobs, he being still more astonished to see me on deck. ”

“ But she had lost for a moment the thread. "If it devolves on the Pococks, why do you stay?"
"Just to see that I do play fair—and a little also, no doubt, that they do." Strether was luminous as he had never been. "I came out to find myself in presence of new facts—facts that have kept striking me as less and less met by our old reasons. The matter's perfectly simple. New reasons—reasons as new as the facts themselves—are wanted; and of this our friends at Woollett—Chad's and mine—were at the earliest moment definitely notified. If any are producible Mrs. Pocock will produce them ”

“ How many odd moments as well as times of painful suspense the tea-tray has bridged over. Many a time the period of waiting for the kettle to boil has given the necessary pause to think that has changed a whole life, and the need of balancing a cup and saucer in the hand has made an excuse for looking down when looking up would have betrayed the whole.
As Jeanne pottered and poured, Poppea's wandering eyes caught upon a mere speck in the distance on the lower Bridgeton road. As it reached the great span over Moosatuck it took the shape of horse and wheels. ”

“ In a priceless vase near the open window they held their heads in high disdain—those four red poppies who had gleefully chuckled and chatted together on the yesterday; but the fifth and silent poppy drooped upon her breast. I turned to go; she did not stay me; I stole to the door. "Take us away with you," cried those four garrulous poppies; "we are willing to die, and at once if need be, but not here in her hateful presence. Take us away." But the poppy on her breast only drooped and drooped the more and said not a word. ”

“ Pocock, so far as you may care to hear. I've seen her quite a number of times, and I was practically present when they made acquaintance. I've kept my eye on her right along, but I don't know that there's any real harm in her."
"'Harm'?" Mme. de Vionnet quickly echoed. "Why, she's the dearest and cleverest of all the clever and dear."
"Well, you run her pretty close, Countess," Waymarsh returned with spirit; "though there's no doubt she's pretty well up in things. She knows her way round Europe. Above all there's no doubt she does love Strether."
"Ah, but we all do that—we all love Strether ”

“ Pocock married Ann, daughter of John Evans of Bristol. His sons Isaac [q. v.] and William Innes [q. v.] are noticed separately.
Though Pocock earned his reputation mainly by his pictures of naval engagements (for which the wars of his time supplied ample material) and other sea pieces, he also painted landscapes in oil and water-colour. As an artist he had taste and skill, but his large naval pictures, though accurate and careful, are wanting in spirit, and in water-colours he did not get much beyond the ‘tinted’ drawings of the earlier draughtsmen. ”

“ When Poppy woke up, there hung the spoilt shoes over the mantel-piece; and, as soon as she was dressed, papa came in with a long cord, one end of which he tied round Poppy's waist, and the other to the arm of the sofa.
"I'm very sorry to have to tie you up, like a little dog; but I must, or you will forget, and run away again, and make mamma ill."
Then he went away without his morning kiss, and Poppy was so very unhappy she could hardly eat her breakfast. She felt better by and by, and tried to play; but the cord kept pulling her back. She couldn't get to the window ”

“ It is just possible (if this is an old word) that the Pochard may have been thought to potch into the water more than some other kinds of ducks. A bunch of Pochards certainly do make a great splash sometimes when they alight. ”

“ He knew everything, Strether more and more felt, that he thus disclaimed, and his little punishment was just in this doom to a second fib. What falser position—given the man—could the most vindictive mind impose? He ended by squeezing through a passage in which, three months before, he would certainly have stuck fast. "Mrs. Pocock will probably be ready herself to answer any inquiry you may put to her. But," he continued, "but———" He faltered on it.
"But what? Don't put her too many?"
Waymarsh looked large, but the harm was done; he couldn't, do what he would, help looking rosy. ”

“ Rose flew from the kitchen through the living-room toward the arbour, and met Poppet running to her.
The mother s first thought was one of thanksgiving that the child was alive and apparently unhurt, for in the few seconds which had followed the cry, unspeakable fears had darted like forked lightning across the confused darkness of her brain. Her imagination had pictured Poppet attacked by a mad bull, or a desperate tramp, perhaps a lunatic. ”

“ At last Mahon and I had to crawl forward and cut the rope with an ax. There was no time to cast off the lashings. Red tongues could be seen licking the wilderness of splinters under our feet as we made our way back to the poop.
"Of course they very soon found out in the steamer that the rope was gone. She gave a loud blast of her whistle, her lights were seen sweeping in a wide circle, she came up ranging close alongside, and stopped. We were all in a tight group on the poop looking at her. Every man had saved a little bundle or a bag. ”

“ The short, hairy man might have spoken also, but had no time.
"Get off the poop," yelled Seldom. "Go forrard, where you belong." He stood close to the bucket-rack around the skylight. Seizing bucket after bucket, he launched them at his visitors, with the result that the big man was tumbled down the poop steps head first, while the other two followed, right side up, but hurriedly, and bearing some sore spots. Then the rest of the men set upon them, much as a pack of dogs would worry strange cats, and kicked and buffeted them forward. ”