"Lurch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... blinded and dazzled we staggered helplessly against each other. It lurched again, and the hissing grew louder. I had shut my eyes perforce, I was making clumsy efforts to cover my head with my blanket, and this second lurch sent me helplessly off my feet. I fell against the bale, and opening my eyes had a momentary glimpse of the air just outside our glass. It was running—it was boiling—like snow into which a white-hot rod is thrust. What ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... But you know all about it. Secret no longer. Dr. MORTIMER GRANVILLE has told the Times how it's done. Consider it great shame. Takes the bread, so t' speak, out of one's mouth." Here the Sage gave a lurch and seated himself accidentally on a stuffed alligator. Seeing that his host was about to indulge in an untimely nap, PETER thought the moment had arrived to urge him to reveal his wonderful secret. "I implore ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... steering wheel, or whether the auto went into a rut from which it could not be turned, did not immediately develop, but the car suddenly shot from the straight road, and swerved to one side. There was a lurch, and the front ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... vessel, crashing and roaring down the deck, and washing hither and thither until gradually absorbed between the planks or drained away through the scupper-holes. On each of these occasions the poor rotten vessel would lurch and shiver in every plank, as if with a foreknowledge ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... general waltz and break down. One incident of this kind was rather laughable. One night, about midnight, the gale, which had been blowing violently, suddenly lulled, "as if," to use a sailor's phrase, "it had been chopped off!" Instantly the ship gave a tremendous lurch, which was the signal for a general breaking loose. Two or three others followed, so violent, that for a moment I imagined the vessel had been thrown on her beam ends. Trunks, crockery and barrels went banging down from ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... best cared for here, and, besides, if Manasseh goes away you will have to look after the iron works. New hands are to be engaged, and ever so much is to be done all over again. How can you think of leaving us in the lurch? There will be no one but you to manage things; you alone can direct the works and put bread into our ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... Hat stood glaring at him. Then, muttering something about "a mistake," he started to lurch towards the police car. As the officers turned shamefacedly to follow their chief, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... yet gone. He could feel the hands of the black-clad officers lifting him up and laying him upon some hard substance that rocked and dumped. Every lurch and thud was only dimly felt. Then he was placed upon something softer and carried into what he vaguely sensed was the interior of one of ...
— They Twinkled Like Jewels • Philip Jose Farmer
... begin to come from beneath it, like the crunch of snow under sledge-runners; the van begins to shake and the sounds cease. Silence reigns again. But now comes the clank of buffers, the violent shock makes the van start and, as it were, give a lurch forward, and all the cattle ...
— The Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... gateway, a front fender of the incoming car ripped through the rear fender above which Sofia was sitting. Thrown heavily against Victor, then instantly back to her place, she felt the car, with brakes set fast, turn broadside to the road, skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into the ditch on ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... like it," telegraphed Polly, nodding away to her. So Phronsie turned again to her watch, lest Grandpapa's head should slip from the blanket pillow in a sudden lurch of the cars. ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... cheating. A goldsmith consulted him about a hidden treasure; he pretended to invoke the aid of spirits, frightened the goldsmith, got sixty ounces of gold from him to carry on his incantations, left him in the lurch, and fled to Messina. In that town he discovered an aged aunt who was sick; the aunt died, and left her money to the Church. Balsamo assumed her family name, added a title of nobility, and was known henceforward as ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... heavily to one side. The rush of water that accompanied the lurch tumbled the Meadow-Brook Girls to the lower side of the cabin. A volume of water rushed over them, and the furnishings of the cabin were piled on top of them; in some instances a crushing weight pinioned ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Afloat • Janet Aldridge
... a cheek like a peach, like a peach, That is waiting for you in the church;— But he clings to your side like a leech, like a leech, And you leave your lost bride in the lurch. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... thousands a year. He could not name the men who had refused to play the game—for no one had ever heard of them. But it was so evident what would happen in this case! His friends would cast him off; his own client would get his price—whatever it was—and then leave him in the lurch, and laugh at him! "If you can't make up your mind to play the game," cried Oliver, frantically, "at least you can give it up! There are plenty of other ways of getting a living—if you'll let me, I'll take care of you myself, ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... of the ease and resource with which those of the day are wont to avail themselves of Nature's suggestions in the art of crossing flooded waters. The name of the river has gone, but not that of the three buoyant logs lashed together with strips of cane which with sullen lurch, take the wash of the boat. The boys jerk their heads in the direction and murmur "wur-gun," and speculate on the last user. The day is young. For the time being the best the ancient river has to show—the quintessence of the season, superb October—shall be ours. The cloudless sky is richly ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... protruded above the railing, the top of which was now across the lower end of his abdomen. Gradually he worked his body over, going backward, until there was sufficient excess of weight on the outer side of the rail; and then, with a quick lurch, he raised his head and shoulders and swung into a horizontal position on top of the rail. Of course, he would have fallen to the floor below had it not been for the line which he held in his teeth. With so great nicety had he estimated the distance between his mouth and the point where the rope ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... ain't more than one of them, for if there happens to be," he said to himself, "I ain't likely to get a chance to reload before they come down on me. It was an infernal mean piece of business in that crowd to sneak off that way and leave me in the lurch just when I was likely ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... she knows where I work, and I know she's hard up; so I don't like to go anywhere else, because if anybody asked me if he should go there, I couldn't honestly recommend him to; and yet, you see how it is, I shouldn't like to leave her in the lurch, if she knew I was just gone somewhere else ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... at this moment the ship gave a violent lurch, and the two fell, and, locked in each others embrace, rolled over to leeward; the skipper, who was unguarded in his astonishment, followed Langley's former wake over the table, which, yielding to the impulse, fetched away, capsized, and with the captain, also rolled ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... I don't care what the others say. I thought you were suffering—" But at that moment the boat gave a lurch which threw her across the threshold into Monty's arms. They crashed against the wall, and he held her a moment and forgot the storm. When she drew away from him she showed him the open door and freedom. She could ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... money to loan you two that ups an leaves me in the lurch, without no notice," Scraggs flared at them. "If you two stiffs ain't able to support yourselves you'd ought to apply for admission to the poorhouse or the Home ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... institution is sound; and I am not going to leave Prentice in the lurch. I telegraphed you, so that you could ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... left his deputy in the lurch, easily made a few acquaintances, and attempted a political career, in which path he had obtained a certain success in Guadaloupe; but he had not taken into account his horrible colonial accent, of which, notwithstanding every ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... word was finished Garnet's retort was bursting from him, "Thanks to you, you intermeddling——" He was cut short by the lurch of the carriage into a hole. It flounced him into the seat from which he had half started and faced him to the horses. With a smothered imprecation he rose and laid on the whip. They plunged, the carriage sprang from the hole and ploughed the ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... couch and corner filled with prostrate, despairing forms, with pale cheeks, long, willowy hair and sunken eyes, groaning, sighing, and apostrophizing the Fates, and solemnly vowing between every lurch of the ship, that "you'll never catch them going to sea again, that's what you won't;" and then the bulletins from all the state rooms—"Mrs. A. is sick, and Miss B. sicker, and Miss C. almost dead, and Mrs. ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... told him that when Scott's boat came along-side the ship a rope was thrown to them as usual to be made fast, and, unfortunately, both Scott and his brother sprang forward to catch it; the boat gave a violent lurch, and in a moment they were plunged into the sea, Morley Scott's head striking the ship's side as he fell. His brother was never seen again; they supposed he must have come up underneath the ship, and so ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... was torn in the turret through which the sea swept in a torrent. Fighting madly for the exit hatch into the chamber below, McClure was dashed off his feet by the lurch of the smitten submarine and sprawled against the steel side of the conning tower. With the spray dashing in his face Jack had a fleeting glimpse of his commander, and by a superhuman effort drew himself back into the turret against the mass of water. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... the pendulum has a heart- shaped wire structure D, that carries a sliding weight E. Normally, when the aeroplane is on an even keel, or is even at an angle, the weight E rests within the bottom of the loop D, but should there be a sudden downward lurch or a quick upward inclination, which would cause the pendulum below to rapidly swing in either direction, the sliding weight E would at once move forward in the same direction that the pendulum had moved, and thus counteract, for the instant ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... to deal with; he thinks it quite natural that if you put the idea into my head, I should be uneasy about my money; but I swear to you that he has it in his own hands, and that he had meant to keep it. He is just the man to abscond with all the money and leave us in the lurch, the scoundrel! He knows quite well that I will not dishonor the name I bear by bringing him into a court of law. His position is strong and weak at the same time. If we drive him to despair, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the scene—and I have a copy of it done by the same artist. I well remember (as if it was only yesterday) how anxious I was during the time you were away on the job, and how my heart was frequently in my mouth (as the saying goes) when the old ship gave an extra heavy lurch, and you and the dear old cutter were out of sight for a few seconds in the trough of the sea; and I often think now what a wonderful and merciful thing it was that we got that boat up without accident,—but you see we had so many willing hands on board that they ran away with her as soon ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights
... were we up one ascent than we were down again on the other side; and when we thought Simla must be in sight round the next turn, it seemed suddenly to become more hid than ever. In one of these ups and downs of life my machine, during a heavy lurch, fairly gave way to its feelings, and with a loud crash the pole broke, and down we both came, much to my temporary satisfaction and relief. A supply of ropes and lashings, however, formed part of the inquisitors' stores, and we were ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... It's this. OBEY ORDERS, IF YOU BREAK OWNERS. My orders are not to take off sail till Mr. drunken Barlow sees fit. You'll see a few happenings aloft just now if he don't see fit soon." Just at that instant she gave a lurch which sent one of the helmsmen flying. The mate leaped to his place with an angry exclamation. "Another man to the helm," he cried. "You, boy. Run below. Tell the captain she'll be dismasted in another five minutes." ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... go sousing off against the wall in a general smash; to sit at table holding your soup-plate with one hand, and watching for a chance to put your spoon in when it comes high tide on your side of the dish; to vigilantly watch, the lurch of the heavy dishes while holding your glass and your plate and your knife and fork, and not to notice it when Brown, who sits next you, gets the whole swash of the gravy from the roast-beef dish on his light-colored pantaloons, and see the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... English adventurer is capable of any act of desperation to save his wife and himself, and Citizen Chauvelin must not be left in the lurch. ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... men, ignoring their solemn duty, left their companions in the lurch without sense of shame or respect for the braves who fell fighting ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... play us a trick, and leave us in the lurch, now that we are all ready for a start?" asked the mate, with some anxiety on ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... though he did not show it, he felt that Meg had deserted him in his hour of need. "It wasn't fair to tell a man to bring folks home any time, with perfect freedom, and when he took you at your word, to flame up and blame him, and leave him in the lurch, to be laughed at or pitied. No, by George, it wasn't! And Meg must ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... of life would seem Free from the shallow, the reef, or bar, As they gently glide down the silvery stream With scarcely a ripple, a lurch, or jar; But under the surface, calm and fair, Lurk the hidden snags, and the secret care; The waters are deepest where still, and clear, And the sternest anguish forbids ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... for the safety of the boats. Early on the second day of warning they had been hoisted to the topmost notch of the cranes, and secured as thoroughly as experience could suggest; but at every lee lurch we gave it seemed as if we must dip them under water, while the wind threatened to stave the weather ones in by its actual solid weight. It was now blowing a furious cyclone, the force of which has never been accurately gauged (even ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... heard of one who was, and I don't believe one ever will be. As I said, it was a great day for me, but I don't remember that the oxen cared much about it. They sagged along in their great clumsy way, switching their tails in my face occasionally, and now and then giving a lurch to this or that side of the road, attracted by a choice tuft of grass. And then I "came the Julius Caesar" over them, if you will allow me to use such a slang expression, a liberty I never should permit you. I don't know that Julius Caesar ever drove cattle, though he must often have seen the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... be done with it; but, however much the minister sympathized with Black's desire, prudence forbade that his method should be adopted. So from log to log, and from hole to hole, Black plunged and stepped with all the care he could be persuaded to exercise, every lurch of the carryall bringing a scream from Maimie in front and a delighted chuckle from Hughie behind. His delight in the adventure was materially increased by his ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... little things her ladyship said, I felt rather hot in the collar, and discharged myself. That is, I gave them notice that I would go as soon as they could get another chauffeur. It would have been bad form to leave them in the lurch, without ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... had done this, in spite of the yacht beginning to heel over so that the cabin floor was a good deal higher on one side than the other, he folded his arms, frowned, set his teeth, and began the first steps of a hornpipe, but before he had gone far a lurch sent him head-first toward the port bulkhead. Here he saved himself by thrusting out his hands, ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... think I can get along." But after a few paces, a lurch of the ship flung her against Dunham's side; he caught her hand, and passed it through his arm without protest ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... Cabin-boy came in with four plates at once, and as he reached Freddie's chair the ship gave a deep lurch downward, and the four plates shot out of his arms across the room, showering the floor with chops, steak, bacon ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... were not men. Why won't they make friends?" said Grushenka, and went forward to dance. The chorus broke into "Ah, my porch, my new porch!" Grushenka flung back her head, half opened her lips, smiled, waved her handkerchief, and suddenly, with a violent lurch, stood still in the middle ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... suited, either by education, position, or tastes. No one acts the part of a butterfly among school-boys better than the black-eyed Gipsy girl has done among "fast-goers," swells, and fops. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she has trotted them out to perfection and then left them in the lurch, and those, when they have come to their senses, and had their eyes opened to the stern facts of a Gipsy's life, have said to themselves, "What fools we have been, to be sure," and they would have given any amount to have undone the past. The praise, flattery, and looks ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Mountain had left its vanguard in the lurch by refusing their signatures to the proclamation; the press had deserted: only two papers dared to publish the pronunciamento; the small traders had betrayed their Representatives: the National Guards stayed away, or, where they did turn up, hindered the raising of barricades; the Representatives ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... Star was at Beaver, and a steamboat was ready to tow her up to Pittsburg. The boy was standing on deck with the selting-pole against his shoulders, and some feet away stood Murphy, one of the boat hands, a big, burly fellow of thirty-five, when the steamboat threw the line, and, owing to a sudden lurch of the boat, it whirled over the boy's head, and flew in the direction of the boatman. 'Look out, Murphy!' cried the boy; but the rope had anticipated him, and knocked Murphy's hat off into the river. The boy expressed ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... looked then, tried to raise himself, but another lurch of the Bellophron sent him on his back, and myself on my beam-ends. As soon as I recovered my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... soldiers; I felt the fisherman step in, as a matter of fact he stepped in on to my toes; a dozen hands were on the gunwales: six soldier yells resounded, it seemed, in my very ears: there was the grit and rush of pebbles under the keel: a sudden lurch up of the bows, which brought the fairy lady's honey-scented lips to mine, and then the gentle lapping of deep blue ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... W.W. Jacobs. One in particular—Joe Smith, a sailor-man (an engine-greaser, I think)—was full of queer yarns and seafaring talk. He was a little man with beady eyes and a huge curled moustache. He walked about quickly, with the seamen's lurch, as I have noticed most seagoing men of the ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... of the Briggs brand could last no longer, the plebe gave an expected lurch sideways, falling flat, upsetting the bucket and causing much of the water flow along his own neck ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... my last three eggs was soon cooked to perfection, and I held the frying-pan over the side, while it drained through a fork; when, alas! there came a heavy lurch of the boat, and all the well-deserved breakfast was pitched into the sea, with a mild but deep-meant "Oh, how provoking!" from the hapless, hungry, lonely sailor. Shame that, preserved through such dangers, we should murmur at an omelet ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... feeling as if every minute were an hour, and he kept gurgling, "Tom's a bad boy—he gets money all the time, and I'm going to see what he's doing with it," with feeble waves of his legs, that put Polly in a fright lest he should roll off the sofa at every lurch of the steamer. ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... three took their wine very pleasantly; and even as they did so, the carriage with a lurch turned into the high-road and began ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the afternoon that we stood on the deck of a ship bound for France. The voyage had been full of dangers. Submarines had harassed us for days. One night such a lurch came to the ship as threw everybody about in their staterooms. We thought it was a storm until the morning came, and we were informed that it was a sudden lurch to avoid a submarine. The voyage had been full of uneasiness, ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... affair on hand, a very great affair, which was to make their fortunes ten times over. She must be patient; women couldn't understand business. If she resisted his coaxing and grumbled, he always had his threat ready. He would realise his profits and make off, leaving her in the lurch. Weeks became months. In pique at the betrayal of her famous stratagem, Alice had wanted to dismiss her servant, but Rodman objected to this. She was driven by desperation to swallow her pride and make a companion of the girl. But she ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... who walked with a sailor-like roll and lurch, revolved a little girl chattering like a magpie, and occasionally breaking into song, as if ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... as if I were a fragile piece of china, sat in the most sheltered corner of the boat, and held me securely against him, protecting me with his arm from any sudden lurch or ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... looked very grave. Ulrich said nothing; but her Grace replied, "You will make the girl vain, dear uncle." And Ulrich added, "Yes, and the image has such an expression, that if the real Eve looked so, I think she would have left her husband in the lurch and run with the devil himself ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... philosophically borne by either Papa or myself. One of the most persevering of these arose from my carelessness in having forgotten to bolt the door of a cupboard which I made use of, in our cabin, the consequence of which was that, with every lurch of the vessel, the door gave a violent slam, and our lamp having been put out at midnight, as it invariably was, we were in total darkness, and without the means of ascertaining whether the irritating noise proceeded, as we suspected, from the cupboard door, ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... was no alternative but to proceed, and their journey was resumed with some discomfiture to the occupants of the coach which now labored like a portly Spanish galleon, struck by a squall. They had advanced in this manner for some distance through furrow and groove, when the vehicle gave a sharper lurch down a deeper rut; a crash was followed by cries of affright and the chariot abruptly settled on one side. Barnes held the plunging horses in control, while the gentlemen scrambled to the ground and assisted the ladies ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... a large swell caused by the volcanic disturbances. The roll was extraordinarily severe, heaving the vessel down to her covering-board; and the great hill of water running silent and in darkness through the sea, so that it could neither be viewed nor heard, made the sickening lurch a ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... hard at me, but, without speaking, stepped sulkily into the ring, moistened his palms, looked at me again, and seizing the hammer, began to whirl it as he had seen me. Round and round it went, faster and faster, till, with a sudden lurch, he hurled it up and away. Indeed it was a mighty throw! Straight and strong it flew, describing a wide parabola ere ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... crashed inward, half wrenched from its hinges, precipitating him inside. He recovered himself and leaped forward. The room was swirling with blue eddies of smoke; Dago Jim, hands flung up, still grasping letter and pocketbook, pawed at the air—and plunged with a sagging lurch face downward to the floor. There was a yell and an oath from the Wowzer—the crack of another revolver shot, the hum of the bullet past Jimmie Dale's ear, the scorch of the tongue flame in his face, and he was upon ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... wanted to or not, and we waked the other boy, to send him forward, before we accepted the necessity. Half asleep, he got up, courteously declined my effort to help him by me as he crossed the boat, stepped round on the gunwale behind me as I sat, and then, either in a lurch or in some misstep, caught his foot in the tiller as his father held it firm, and pitched down directly behind Battista himself, and, as I thought, into the sea. I sprang to leeward to throw something after him, and found ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... little all the while as if I were taking all, and giving nothing in return: I mean, about Books, People, etc., with which a dozen years discontinuance of Society, and, latterly, incompetent Eyes, have left me in the lurch. If you indeed will come and read your Memoir to me, I shall be entitled to be a Listener only: and you shall have my Chateau all to yourself for as long as you please: only do not expect me to be quite what ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... fisherman's walk—two steps, an' overboard'? . . . I tell you I was in misery for the man. Any moment he might lurch overboard, or else throw himself over—one as likely as another with a poor chap in that state. Yet how could I help—cut off, without boat or any means to get ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in a certain rainy night to trepan brother Martin into a spunging-house, and there strip him to the skin. How Martin, with much ado, showed them both a fair pair of heels. How a new warrant came out against Peter, upon which Jack left him in the lurch, stole his protection, and made use of it himself. How Jack's tatters came into fashion in court and city; how he got upon a great horse and ate custard {153}. But the particulars of all these, with several others which have now slid out of my memory, are lost beyond ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... The lurch of the engine as they swung around a curve drew her attention to the track which was sweeping in upon them with dizzy continuity. Out there, ahead of the big black body of the locomotive, the funneled path of the headlight streamed away into the unknown. Far up the track the white mile-boards ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... His Shoes for to mend To take him on Sunday to Church But Jobson he swore He would cobble no more Tho' the people where left in the lurch. ...
— The Entertaining History of Jobson & Nell • Anonymous
... return the conductor gave them slips. Then he picked his lantern from the overhead rack whither he had tossed it, slung it on his left arm, and sauntered on down the aisle punching tickets. Behind him followed Jimmy. When he came to the door he swung across the platform with the easy lurch of the trainman, and entered the other car, where he took the tickets of the two women and the boy. One sitting in the second car would have been unable to guess from the bearing or manner of the two officials that ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... crying for a glass of it. And I'll thank you for a thimbleful to settle what I got.' Soon after, she began with tears to narrate the deathbed dispositions and lament the trifling assets of her husband. Then she declared she heard 'the master' calling her, rose to her feet, made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery, and with her head upon the lobster, fell into ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... profound political capacity, a woman without heart and without head, floundering in evil. Madame de Rochefide loves Madame de Rochefide only. She would have parted you from Madame du Guenic without the possibility of return, and then she would have left you in the lurch without remorse. In short, that woman is as incomplete for vice ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... exceedingly stiff, and by no means in good condition for walking, but there was no choice; and when Tip had got upon his legs, and given himself a good stretch and yawn, and licked my hand, as much as to say he had no intention of leaving me in the lurch, we started on our doubtful journey. In vain I tried to encourage the dog to lead the way; he would not stir from my side. Only once he darted after a kangaroo-rat, and caught it before it had gone twenty yards. This afforded a breakfast which I envied him. I now pushed on ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... her husband was at L5 charge to get these presently writ; that Sir W. Pen did give them Sir W. Coventry as from himself, which did set him up with W. Coventry, and made him what he is, and never owned any thing of Mr. Turner in them; by which he left him in the lurch, though he did promise the Duke of Albemarle to do all that was possible, and made no question of Mr. Turner's being what he desired; and when afterwards, too, did propose to him the getting of the Purveyor's place for him, he did tell Mr. Turner it was necessary to present ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... attracting any attention, to one of the hotels. There was nothing in his presence or manner to indicate that he was a person of any importance. Indeed, he presented a decidedly commonplace appearance, for he walked with an awkward lurch and bore himself in a slouchy fashion which made him even shorter than he was. Moreover, his uniform was faded and travel-stained, his close-cropped beard and hair were unkempt, and his attire was careless to the point of slovenliness. ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... he would have lain in this state of felicity it is impossible to say, for his slumbers were rudely interrupted by a slight lurch of the schooner, which caused the blocks and cordage attached to the sheet of the jib to sweep slowly, but with rasping asperity, across his face. Any ordinary man would have been seriously damaged—at least in appearance—by ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... first lurch my trunk tipped over, and all the bottles on the wash-stand bounded across to the bed, and most of them struck me on the head. It frightened me so that I shrieked, and Jimmie came running down to see ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... really resting upon a ledge of the rock on which she had struck: there was little to be seen in the darkness except a white line of breakers and a mass of something beyond—was it land? The ship gave a sudden outward lurch. There went up a cry to Heaven—a last cry from most of the souls on board the ill-fated Arizona—and then came the end. The vessel fell over the edge of the rocky shelf into deep water and went ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... bellow, a big black steer which had been pushing up on the inside turned his head and tried to gore the pony. There was not room, however, but the action so angered Wilbur that, pulling his six-shooter, he sent a bullet crashing to his brain. The steer gave a wild lurch, but did not fall immediately, and in an instant was forced to the edge and fell into the valley below. Instantly, Kit, even before Wilbur could speak or lay hand on the rein, gave a sidewise jump into the hole made by ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... all hands seized capstan bars. To the tune of a Dutch sailors' "chanty" the links of the cable slowly clanked inboard. With a lurch the Lena Knobloch swung as the anchor broke ground. Like a storm driven bird she was off in the wings of a northwester, lying far over even under the greatly ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... drawn by five to six horses or mules. For miles away they would see us coming, and crane their necks in wondering gaze as we approached. The mulish leaders, with distended ears, would view our strange-looking vehicles with suspicion, and then lurch far out in their twenty-foot traces, pulling the heavily loaded vehicles from the deep-rutted track. But the drivers were too busy with their eyes to notice any little divergence of this kind. Dumb with astonishment ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... you had never been in a great city before. Wait for me! Remember, I am going everywhere you go. You did not bring me this far from Bellvieu to leave me in the lurch, young lady." ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... a rumble, a creak, and a lurch, and the men began to unharness the animals. Albert awoke with a start and sat ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... first cry of the beast was again maintained. "I never did break a man's neck yet, Master Rob," he whispered, as they took their places on board, "and I never mean to if I can help it; but if those fellows had run off and left us in the lurch I'd have gone as far as I could ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... She stood quite still, staring out to where the Sunderbunds lay hidden under mist; then she put one bare foot upon the lower rail, and swinging herself up, sat sideways, leaning far over; in such a position that the slightest lurch of the ship would have sent her headlong into ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... expected collision, when a torpedo exploded under the Tecumseh, then distant a little over five hundred yards from the Hartford. From his elevated post of observation Farragut saw her reel violently from side to side, lurch heavily over, and then go down head foremost, her screw revolving wildly in ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... that there is no place for a friend, even if the friend be liked. Christmas, with all its kindliness and charity and good-will, is, after all, deuced selfish. Each little set gathers within its own circle; and people like me, with no particular circle, are left in the lurch. So you see, on the day of all the days in the year that my heart pines for good cheer, I'm ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... horsed, was next upon his flanks; but each time he reached forth to grasp the tail it was whisked beyond his reach. He succeeded at length in seizing it; but the bull, making a sudden lurch, whipped his tail from the rider's hands, and left ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... which sounded as if the gods had shattered the vault of the heavens a bolt streamed into a tree not a hundred yards ahead, and one of its limbs fell to the roadway. It was impossible to stop. She saw it and crouched behind the shield. With a lurch and a leap ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... been built in the Arabian Gulf for the voyage to the Red Sea, and all the peoples and the potentates refused their assistance. And it occurs to me to wonder that many others also, though they had received many gifts from Antony and Cleopatra, now left them in the lurch. The men, however, of lowest rank who were being supported for gladiatorial combats showed the utmost zeal in their behalf and contended most bravely. These were practicing in Cyzicus for the triumphal games which they were expecting to hold in honor of Caesar's overthrow, ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... the Winwoods' new secretary. Had not his Princess, for the most delicious reasons in the world, been made President? He scorned Ursula Winwood's suggestion that for this year he would allow Townsend to manage affairs. "What!" cried he, "leave my Princess in the lurch on her first appearance? Never!" By telephone he arranged an hour for the next day, when they could all consult together over ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... said Paulette; and the word jerked out of her, and my arms jerked nearly out of me. In the dark the wagon had hit something that felt like nothing but a boulder in the middle of my decent road. The wagon stopped dead, with an up-ending lurch, and nothing holding it to the horses but the reins. Why on earth they held I don't know. For with one almighty bound my two young horses tried to get away from me,—and they would have, if the reins had not been new ones. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... That is the portion of the case of which I have not spoken to you. You'll hear what Denham says. Now that Morley has left him in the lurch Denham will reveal Morley's connection with these matters. But Morley has secured a hostage in the person of Miss Anne. He has taken her away somewhere. His wife may know of his whereabouts. After we have seen ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... continued the patrol leader; "if that idea gets a firm hold of him he's bound to do everything he knows how so as to leave us in the lurch. In the end he might even decide to quit the swamp, and take his ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... However hard it may be, we cannot fight against impossibilities. We must only consider what is best for our people and take care that we give no one the opportunity to say: "You could have saved us, but you have left us in the lurch." Just because our cause is dark and difficult, we must use our minds and keep only the welfare of our people in view. I can only agree to accept the proposals that lie ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... for everybody. Life ain't spoilt her a mite. She's eighty-six an' I'm sixty-seven, and I've seen the time I've felt a good sight the oldest. 'Land sakes alive!' says she, last time I was out to see her. 'How you do lurch about steppin' into a bo't?' I laughed so I liked to have gone right over into the water; an' we pushed off, an' left her laughin' there ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... us both in the lurch, Susie," he said. "Good luck to you, beastie, and may you find a secure hiding place until your quills ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... there they stood viewing the fine landscape with one eye while the other watched the scene of devastation within. Everything was in great confusion after the accident, so it is not strange that the dolls were not missed when they slowly slid lower and lower till a sudden lurch of the car sent them out of the window to roll into a green field where cows were ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... fourth to his own devices—and that, too, was quite in keeping with the type of human vultures they were. They kept firing at Bud, and once he felt Sunfish wince and leap forward as if a spur had raked him. Bud shot again, and thought he saw one horseman lurch backward. But he could not be sure—they were going at a terrific pace now, and Sunfish was leaving them farther and farther behind. They were outclassed, hopelessly out of pistol range, and they must have known ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... staged his plays; Weaving a thread whose magic strands Entwine all English-speaking lands. Fifteen-eight-seven Scots' Queen Mary Lost her head through fate contrary. When Henry Eight had robbed the Church 'Twas found the poor were in the lurch; Poor Law A law was passed about this date To place the ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... what to include; for every detail must be included that is necessary to make the main incident possible. A young pupil wrote of a party in the woods. The girls had found pleasant seats in a car and were chatting about their friends, when they felt a sudden lurch, and soon one of the party was besmeared by slippery, sticky whites of eggs. Now, if eggs were in the habit of clinging to the roofs of cars and breaking at unfortunate moments, there would be no need of any explanation; but as the cook forgot to boil the eggs ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... tightly that the bit would slip back into the horse's mouth.... He moved from the middle of the road, and was conscious that Sheila had moved, too. His breath was coming quickly, and he felt again that sense of shrinking, that curious desire to run away. He saw a wheel of the cart lurch up as it passed over a stone in the road, and instantly panic seized him. "My God," he thought, "if that had been me!... He saw himself flung to the ground by the maddened horse and the wheel passing over his ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... what I could overhear I gathered that the ditched engine is still in the way; that they are trying to roll it over into the creek. Bless me! McGrath is getting terribly reckless!"—this as a spiteful lurch of the car flung ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... There was a swift lurch that sent him flying over the dasher. A confused vision of a roadside ditch full of weeds and bushes, and then he felt the reins in his hands and heard the snorting horses trample on the ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... year. Only man she was ever "real sweet on" was a teamster. When she was selling in the perfumes at five a week he used to take her to the picnics of the Social Dozen Pleasure Club. They would practice the Denver Lurch on Professor DeVere's dancing platform. At midnight he would give her a joy-ride home in his employer's delivery wagon. He still drives that wagon. She is in charge of suits and costumes and has several ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... amazed that the rash New Englanders should venture to pledge themselves so frankly to rebellion. Certainly no one who thought himself a loyal subject of King George could even contemplate rebellion; but, on the other hand, to leave Massachusetts in the lurch after so much talk of union and the maintenance of American rights would make loyal Americans look a little ridiculous. That would be to show themselves lambs as soon as Britons had shown themselves lions, which was precisely what ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... to lurch and heave on its axis. Vivid lights crossed and criss-crossed the atomic heavens. The fissures in the ground appeared now as black canals. The lower part of the circle of boulders disappeared. Off to the right came despairing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various |
