Huge dragon-headed clouds tower in an azure sky, and nine-masted schooners plow in all directions the eternal blue, trailing in their wake schools of leaping porpoises.

[…] holding his head cocked to the side and his mouth set purselike, as he always did when he was fixing to deliver a pronouncement.

to coil a rope when not in use

While Robert and I were chatting generally about the craft brewing explosion, Piper arrived in the taproom. He didn't call her his “ale wife,” but it soon became apparent that she had “good wort cunning.”