lay hold of

He laid his hands upon my shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: “Avail yourself of this evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don’t know what may happen to him. Don’t let anything happen to the portable property.”

“There are countries you visit that lay hold of you and don’t let go, even if you diligently attempt to remain a tourist.”

But now he intends to lay hold of the best, most perfect part of the city, to claim for his own purposes a civic celebration that has long been a festival of diversity, inclusion and old-fashioned, mostly apolitical fun.

I lay hold of my rifle to see that it is in trim.

They are soundless apparitions that speak to me, with looks and gestures silently, without any word—and it is the alarm of their silence that forces me to lay hold of my sleeve and my rifle lest I should abandon myself to the liberation and allurement in which my body would dilate and gently pass away into the still forces that lie behind these things.