"Lurch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and its occupants "made haste rather as they could than as they would," to leave it. In the confusion and tumbling about of heavy boxes Mary might have been badly hurt, had not the young gallant, quickly springing to his feet, caught her as she was thrown forward by a second lurch of the unwieldy thing, and, lifting her up, carried her out of the way of falling luggage and struggling horses to a ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... the corner into Knight Street there was Arlo Weeks, Junior, just ahead of her. Arlo Junior, the cause of the morning's trouble! Arlo Junior, the cause of Olga's leaving the Days in the lurch! More, Arlo Junior, who was the spring of Janice Day's deeper trouble, for if it had not been for that mischievous wight, Olga Cedarstrom could not have run off ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... lumbered away on its journey, she followed it with her eyes, as a government clerk at Cayenne or Noumea gazes after the steamer about to return to France; she made the trip with it, knew just where it would stop, at what point it would lurch around a corner, grazing the shop-windows with ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... us in the lurch," said Doc. "And the game promises to be interesting once more. I don't like racing on the flat. It's the ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... saw the little pink image lying on the bricks, and with a lurch forward bent to examine it. Miss Terry flattened her nose against the pane eagerly. She expected to see him fall upon the Angel bodily. But no; he righted himself with a ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... having been one through the country of the Wa-Kikuyu. So strong was their desire to be in immediate touch with our district that, when a part of the hired Wa-Taveta road-makers, on account of some misunderstanding, left them in the lurch, the Masai themselves took their places, and, taking turns to the number of 3,000, they carried on the work with an energy which no one could have supposed to be possible in a people who not long before had been so averse to labour. We decided to reward this proof of strong attachment and of ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... car followed him. The door closed, and Bell was in a padded silence that was acutely uncomfortable for a moment. A dome light glowed brightly, however, and he lighted nearly the last of the cigarettes from Asuncion with every appearance of composure as the car started off with a lurch. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... left in a shabby way To Marcadee, with an abbot to pray And pother with "consolation," Reminding 'twas never too late to search For mercy, and hinting that Mother Church Was never known to leave in the lurch A king with a fat donation. But the abbot was known to Richard well, As one who would smoothen the road to hell, And quite as willing to revel As preach; and he always preached to "soothe," With a mild regard for "the follies of youth,"— Himself, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... beheld him re-enter the Palace, and found himself, as he supposed, left in the lurch.—"Now, plague on ye," he muttered, "for a cunning auld skinflint! that, because ye are an honest man yoursell, forsooth, must needs deal with all the world as if they were knaves. But deil be in me if ye beat me yet!—Gude guide us! yonder comes Laurie Linklater next, and he will be ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... window, Billy was having his own troubles. He had tried to find a better place to hide than under the table and had come out to do so when an extra hard lurch of the balloon had sent him headlong the entire length of the dining saloon. He hit his head against the partition at one end of the room and then was flung back to the other end again. As the balloon was changing its course every minute, he could not regain his bearings. One minute the balloon ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... The ice raft gave a lurch that nearly sent him into the water, but Kesshoo caught him and pulled him ...
— The Eskimo Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... more leisurely period of life at which I have arrived, to admire myself when I recall how many articles I had to write, how many prints and drawings, statues and pictures, I had to look at in order to write them, and my success in never leaving my editors in the lurch. My admiration is the greater because nobody could know as well as I how slow I have always been with my work and also, to do myself justice, how conscientious, as I do not mind saying, though to be called conscientious by anybody else would seem to me only less offensive than ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... master carries me to church, And often am I blamed Because I leave him in the lurch As soon as text is named; I leave the church in sermon-time And slink away to Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... to say, at least to the successful one. He bent over the dead panther, and examined it with curiosity. Will was loudly lamenting the fact that once again he had found himself left in the lurch. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... there at the old man's head, 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
... said it there was an outcry, a sudden lurch of the vessel, a flapping of the sails and ropes, and a vast shadow swept by them, the hull of a huge steamer, so near that they could almost have touched it with an outstretched hand. But as it ploughed its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... regret. The place was seen, but not knowing the streets it is not to be described." When the girl carried out the dishes, to bring in more wine, Dentatsu raised heavy reproachful eyes—"Then Jimbei would run away, leave the priest in the lurch." He cast a look at the hateful ryo[u]gake, stuffed with recent spoil. Jimbei froze him into silence—"From the town there is no escape. Leave the matter to Jimbei. Drink: even if the liquor chokes."—"A means ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... saw him coming. It was like one of those dreams he'd had where he was unable to move, his muscles frozen, as some unknown horror stalked him. It could only end in a terrifying fall through cold space towards a tremendous lurch against the bedsprings that brought little comfort until his pounding heart came back to normal. But this was no dream; it was a known horror that stalked him, and it could not end as a dream ends. It ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... the water. At last I saw him, and brought him up on one side of the packet, and caught hold of the paddle-wheels, when the people, who crowded the deck, rushed to see us, and gave the packet such a 'lurch over' that we were again dipped overhead in the water. I was never nearer being drowned than at this moment; but 'mercy to my rescue flew,' for the captain, who had been asleep in the cabin, rushed on deck, ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... been misled by the reports in the papers, and I am glad it is all a mistake. Now one thing more before I go. Did it ever occur to you that while you and your family are all out in your yacht together some day, a sudden squall, a quick lurch of the lee scuppers, a tremulous movement of the main brace, a shudder of the spring boom might ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... any one of the elder ladies that the young officer's leave would be over in another week. Geraldine was glad that Francie should be freed from the trial of seeing attention absorbed by Maura, and herself so often left in the lurch, so far as that young lady could contrive it, for though not a word was said, the brightened eye and glowing cheek, whenever Lord Ivinghoe brought her forward, or paid her any deference or civility, were dangerous symptoms. Peace of ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at the moment giving a lurch to port, as a fresh blast of wind caught her weather side, sending a big sea over the waist, I rolled up against him as I answered ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... management with avidity; she was the saving of the great national theatre for the season. Nothing was talked of but Madame Saqui's fire-works and flame-colored pantaloons; and nature, Shakespeare, the legitimate drama, and poor Pillgarlick were completely left in the lurch. ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the canoe giving a dangerous lurch as she leaned forward in her seat to catch my answer. Perhaps, after all, the wisest way was to grant her request and make light of it, easing her anxiety without too ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... A lurch, and he was dangling at arms' length. His toes could find no foothold. To drop even an inch or two was certain death: for he would land on a slope almost sheer; and the impetus must ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... uttered these last words his hand had drawn the bemused innkeeper towards him: with their utterance he suddenly released his grip, thereby causing Master Vallance to lurch heavily backward and bump his shoulders sorely against the inn wall. The stranger thrust his face close to Master Vallance's, and while a succession of grimaces rippled over its sunburned surface he continued, in a tone of ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... venerable daughters of time ought to be better pleased by the examination, than by regarding the French bayonets and General Bonaparte, Member of the Institute, fifty years ago, running about with sabre and pigtail. Wonders he did, to be sure, and then ran away, leaving Kleber, to be murdered, in the lurch—a few hundred yards from the spot where these disquisitions are written. But what are his wonders compared to Waghorn? Nap massacred the Mamelukes at the Pyramids: Wag has conquered the Pyramids themselves; dragged the unwieldy structures a month ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... looked 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 it ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... grim emphasis, dwelling on each, the whole life of the wasted face concentrated in the terrible black eyes, which gazed past the two figures within their immediate range into a vacancy peopled with horror. Then a film came over them, the grip relaxed, and she fell back with a lurch of the rocking-chair ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Berry essay to push by; three times at the critical moment did the tractor lurch drunkenly across our bows; and three times did Pong fall back discomfited. The dust, the reek, the vibration, the pandemonium, were combining to create an atmosphere worthy of a place in the Litany. One's senses were cuffed and buffeted almost to ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... them the chance. After a few 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 anyone, ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... sat quietly by her side. Once or twice he bent forward to protect the camera when the sledge gave a lurch. ...
— Ships That Pass In The Night • Beatrice Harraden
... sure of it. 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
... instance of rupture of the sciatic nerve caused by a patient giving a violent lurch during an operation ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... and secured my rooms," said Mr. Potiphar to everybody he met; "I am not to be left in the lurch, my dear sir, it isn't my way." And then he marched on, Gauche Boosey said, as if at least both sides of the street were his way. He's changed ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... my brother in the lurch?" the hakim asked them; and though they murmured, they thought better of ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... manse of Deeside no cheerful picture that wild New Year's Day. The green gate which had so long hung on one hinge, periodically mended ever since the minister's son broke the other swinging on it the summer of the dry year before he went to college, now swayed forward with a miserably forlorn lurch, as though it too had tried to follow the funeral procession of the man who had shut it carefully the last thing before he went to bed ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... at Manningtree the train gave a lurch, and a horse-shoe he had carefully placed in the rack above him slipped through the netting, falling with a musical ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... future? 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 ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... ever asserted that Mr. Chamberlain left his comrades in the lurch, failed to support a friend in a tight place, or accepted help from others and then was careless about helping them in return or making them acknowledgment for what they had done. Remember that it is very rare in the case of a public man ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... unforeseen incident, and the mind of the young Roman viewed it rapidly in all its lights. On the one side, he would be relieved of an awkward following that might at any moment begin to suspect him; on the other hand to leave these in the lurch would be to invite prompt suspicion. Still, they were fifty yards or more in advance, their horses were good, and more space would be gained before the tangle at the gate could be straightened out; therefore he waved his ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... home-sickness came more strongly upon him, and his heart went back to the nest, and the pine-top, and the old home. When one sleeps soundly, it is seldom that one remembers one's dreams; but when one is apt to be roused by an unexpected lurch of the ship, by the moan of a fog-whistle, or the scream of an engine, one becomes a light sleeper, and the visions of the night have a strange reality, and are easily recalled. And now the thrush ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Mihailovitch. I thought him most uncleanly in his habits, and I was compelled to sleep in the same room with him. Certainly it was true that washing was not one of the most important things in the world to him. In the morning he would lurch out of bed, put on a soiled shirt and trousers, dab his face with a decrepit sponge, take a tiny piece of soap from an old tin box, look at it, rub it on his fingers and put it hurriedly away again as though he were ashamed of it. Sometimes, getting ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... crowded streets. Shock and recoil of traffic. The stock-still brick facade of an old church, against which the waves of people lurch and withdraw. Flare of sunshine down side-streets. Eddies of light in the windows of chemists' shops, with their blue, gold, purple jars, darting colours far into the crowd. Loud bangs and tremors, murmurings out of high windows, whirring of machine belts, blurring of horses and motors. A ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... entire bulk, which had been almost upright just a few seconds before, suddenly lurch over away from us. Then she seemed to stand upright in the water, and the next instant the keel of the vessel caught the keel of the boat in which we were floating, and we were thrown into the water. There were only ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... there were no will, James, Jr., would get the whole, she thought. If there was a will already in the house, in that old davenport, what then? Would Shapless get the money? She grew keen in speculation. To leave her in the lurch, to give it all to that greasy Shapless, would be the most natural trick in the world for an incisive old fellow ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... which Michael was standing receded out of sight, and when it reappeared again it was quite close to her, swaying and nodding like a mandarin. Instinctively she put out her hand to steady it, but it leaned nearer and nearer and finally gave a huge lurch and swooped down on top of her, and the studio and everything in it faded out of sight. . ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... went the clashing gears as the car got under way with a lurch that spoke volumes for the driver. It was tough to be held to the ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... inside this creaking basket. He spread out clutching arms. He did stand on his head, more or less, his tow-beard came off and got in his mouth, and his cheek slid along against padding. His nose buried itself in a bag of sand. The car gave a violent lurch, and ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... where they cannot be detected. He may suddenly drop into a 'hole,' which is really a downward current of air, or he may get a terrific bump when he strikes a rising current. A freakish whim of the winds may unexpectedly take away the air support from under one of the wings, and he will lurch and dip ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... but, as he paid no attention, he told Anderson to take the lines from him. In attempting to obey the Captain's order, Anderson lost his footing and fell out of the wagon. The Captain now sprang forward, put his foot on the brake to lock the wheels, when a sudden lurch of the wagon caused him to lose his balance, and he fell headlong on the prairie. Fortunately, he alighted near a deep gully, where the water had cut out the bank, and, rolling himself into it, he looked out and saw Anderson crawling into a bunch of ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... to the great surprise of all who witnessed so curious an act of daring. He then braced himself in his saddle, and commenced to look defiant in the "teeth" of the gale. He had not, however, remained long in this position, when a sharp sea struck the "Two Marys," causing her to lurch to starboard, and prostrating old Battle broadside upon the deck. Nor did the sea, which was mightier than the major, vouchsafe the slightest respect for him, inasmuch as it sent him head foremost against the knight heads, and with so much force, that, had not his skull been ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... to see you, Lord Lindfield," she said. "I am delighted. I am only just home, you know—or perhaps you don't, for why should you? Do leave your acquaintance in the lurch, now you have found a friend—it would have been prettier of you, by the way, to have said two friends—and join us. Alice dear, carry Lord Lindfield off under your cloak to the ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... least!" she thought, impatiently, and it was all she could do to refrain from spurring on her horse and leaving him in the lurch as she had done once before, that day. He was faint-hearted, pusillanimous! What if it were only for her sake that he feared? All the worse for him! She did not want his solicitude; it was an offence ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... overboard? No; a sharp blow showed him that he had only fallen down the hatchway, and after lying still a moment, he heard the voices of Lanty and Hebert, and presently they were all tossed together by another lurch ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gallantly swore that she should not be deprived of her place in the front row, and bade her not be frightened, assuring her that he would protect her, and that the fight would be well worth seeing. As he spoke, the mass of faces before Lydia seemed to give a sudden lurch. To save herself from falling, she slipped her arm through the butcher's; and he, much gratified, tucked her close to him, and held her up effectually. His support was welcome, because ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... thing happened. Whether due to the effort he had made in the throw, or to a lurch of the tug in the waves we left behind us, or to a stumble over some obstruction, I could not say. But we saw the man suddenly pitch forward over the low bulwarks of the tug into ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... know? 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 ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... last six months. Her duties, she says, will be of a twofold nature: she will help Mr. Poole with his literary work and she will also give music lessons to his daughter Edith. Mr. Poole lives in Berkshire, and wants her to come down at once, which means she will have to leave me in the lurch. "You will be without an organist," she writes, "and will have to put up with Miss Ellen McGowan until you can get a better. She may improve—I hope and think she will; and I'm sorry to give trouble to one who has been so kind to me, but, you see, I have a child to look after, and it is difficult ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... 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! ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... breaking of masts, eager consultation among the ship's officers, water, wind, confusion; but the masts were mended and they "committed themselves to the will of God and resolved to proceed." Big John Howland, coming on deck, was thrown into the sea by a lurch of the ship, but with a rope was hauled in again and saved. Before they came to land a little boy was born in the Hopkins family, and they named him Oceanus; and Samuel Fuller's servant, a young man named William Butten, died as they ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... the stateroom and into his arms, a slim, boyish figure in her snug leather jacket and breeches. Together they were flung violently against the partition by a heavy lurch of the vessel. ...
— Creatures of Vibration • Harl Vincent
... will see that thou hast it before Saturday with all the pleasure in life." "Ay, ay," rejoined Belcolore, "you all make great promises, but then you never keep them. Think you to serve me as you served Biliuzza, whom you left in the lurch at last? God's faith, you do not so. To think that she turned woman of the world just for that! If you have not the money with you, why, go and get it." "Prithee," returned the priest, "send me not home just now. For, seest thou, 'tis the very nick of ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... noise was heard; a real water-spout fell on the deck of the brig, which was lifted in the air by a huge wave. The crew uttered a cry of terror, while Garry, still firm at the wheel, kept the course of the Forward steady, in spite of the fearful lurch. ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... on the reins; but two men would hardly have held him. The next moment, with a mad rattle of wheels and red sparks flashing under the battering hoofs, we went flying into the long dark hollow, while I think I prayed that the Devil might keep his footing on the loose stones of a very bad road. One lurch flung Grace against the guard-rail, the next against my shoulder, and I remember feeling when the little hand fastened on my arm, that I would gladly have done battle with ten wild horses were she also not ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... these layers gleam the fiery eyes of my savage. I thought I was a Christian, I have endeavored to do my duty to my day and generation; but of a sudden Christianity and civilization leave me in the lurch, and the "old Adam" within me turns out to be just such a fierce Saxon pirate as hurtled down against the white shores of Britain fifteen hundred ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... lurch of the hatchway on which he was drifting, and the sound of a slithering motion as of some heavy body being dragged along some rough surface, made him turn ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... play us a trick, and leave us in the lurch, now that we are all ready for a start?" asked the mate, with some ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... well-nigh against his will to face me once more, when my double hit again floored him incontinently, when the ship, giving a lurch to leeward at the same time, rolled him into the scuppers, as before at ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... exclaimed, "you are nice, you are, to have left me in the lurch like this! It was impossible for my carriage to get near, so I've had to come on foot through all those horrid people who have ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... 'ear? Why, thee 'st left out the best part o' Snooks' life; he were keepin company wi' a gal and left her in t' lurch: but I 'ope thee 'st shown up ur carater well in other ways—he be the worst man as ever lived in ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... thinner and shriller and higher than the other. Miriam listened. What could be going on?... both voices were almost screaming... together... one against the other... it was like mad women.... A door broke open on a shriek. Miriam bounded to the schoolroom door and opened it in time to see Anna lurch, shouting and screaming, part way down the basement stairs. She turned, leaning with her back against the wall, her eyes half-closed, sawing with fists in the direction of Fraulein, who stood laughing in her doorway. After one glance Miriam recoiled. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... breeze the canvas fill'd, Lifting us o'er the bright-ridged gulf, And every lurch my darling thrill'd With light fear smiling at itself; And, dashing past the Arrogant, Asleep upon the restless wave After its cruise in the Levant, We reach'd the Wolf, and signal gave For help to board; within caution meet, My bride was placed within the chair, The red flag wrapp'd about ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... startling figure—that of Perkins, drenched and bedraggled, his eyes almost starting from their sockets as he staggered toward his cottage. Chunk's courage at last gave way; he turned and fled, leaving Zany in the lurch. Frightened almost to the point of hysterics, she crept to her bed and shook till morning, resolving meanwhile to have done with Chunk and all his doings. The next day Mrs. Baron found her the most diligent and faithful ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... and ascertain what has become of our young adventurers and their rugged old companion. We left them sitting on the bow—or rather perched there in positions none too secure in case of a sudden lurch of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... from the tonneau, helping herself to a chocolate, upon which Betty's eye had just rested longingly. "I've been bumped around so much I can't tell whether I'm a girl or a scrambled egg. Now, look what you did!" A sudden lurch of the big car had sent the box of chocolates to the floor, where its contents rolled about aggravatingly at their feet. "Come back here, Mollie Billette, and pick them ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... pale flame that waits shivering with eagerness till we sweep by. It leaps monstrously across the blackness, alights on the precise tip of our nose, pirouettes there an instant, and swings off. Our roaring bow sinks as though that light were lead—sinks and recovers to lurch and stumble again beneath the next blow-out. Tim's fingers on the lift-shunt strike chords of numbers—1:4:7:—2:4:6:—7:5:3, and so on; for he is running by his tanks only, lifting or lowering her against the uneasy air. All three engines ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... gone on their doubtful quest. Be that as it may, his attitude did not encourage light conversation. Even Coke withheld some jibe at the unfortunate mate's expense. A chill silence fell on the little group. The more imaginative among them were calculating the exact kind of lurch taken by the unstable raft that would mean "drowning ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... next I knew, it starts wallowin' right at us. It keeps comin' and comin', gettin' up speed all the while, and if there hadn't been a four-foot stone wall between us I'd been lookin' for a tall tree. I thought it would turn when it came to the wall. But it don't. It gives a lurch, like a cow playin' leap-frog, and over she ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... me in the lurch again: partly perhaps from taxing them with a little more Reading: partly from going on the Water, and straining after our River Beacons, in hot Sun and East Wind; partly also, and main partly I doubt, from growing so much older and the worse for wear. I am afraid ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... energies are given to Astronomy May sacrifice a literary name. In the Royal Academician may be buried a facility For prosecuting Chemical Research, But he knows that if he truckles to the Curse of Versatility, Competitors will leave him in the lurch. ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... vessel, tight and strong, with powerful engines, with a cargo worth one hundred thousand dollars, floundering as soon as she left the harbor, taken down with her crew of forty-five men, because the captain failed to have her properly ballasted. The moment she began to lurch, all the wheat tumbled over to the lower side, and down into the ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... suppose—and graduated at the Frivolity Theatre as a masher. In common with the other gilded youth of the day, he worshipped at the gas-lit shrine of Musette, and the goddess, pleased with his incense, left her other admirers in the lurch, and ran off with fortunate Mr. Whyte. So far as this goes there is nothing to show why the murder was committed. Men do not perpetrate crimes for the sake of light o' loves like Musette, unless, indeed, some wretched youth embezzles ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... frightful violence, and the water was gaining on them so fast that little hope remained. The ship was driving rapidly towards the rocky coast, against which she must have been dashed to pieces had she kept afloat a few minutes longer, but she gave a lurch and went down, rose again for an instant, and with another lurch sank, and all was over,—and there were nearly two hundred and fifty human beings struggling with ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... to, and sharing in, the spoliation of Poland. [Sidenote: Partition of Poland.] Her own share of the spoils was the acquisition, by the first treaty of partition (August 5, 1772), of Galicia and Lodomeria. Turkey was left in the lurch; and Austrian troops even occupied portions of Moldavia, in order to secure the communication between the new Polish provinces and Transylvania. At Constantinople, too, Austria once more supported Russian policy, and was rewarded, in 1777, by the acquisition of Bukovina from Turkey. In ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... terror. Her hands took hold upon me with the instinctive clutch of an infant. The chaise gave a flying lurch, which took the feet from under me and tumbled us anyhow upon the seat. And almost in the same moment the head of Bellamy appeared in the window which Missy had left free ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the season allowed, the Roman troops crossed the frontier of Pontus. There they were opposed by king Mithradates with 30,000 infantry and 3000 cavalry. Left in the lurch by his allies and attacked by Rome with reinforced power and energy, he made an attempt to procure peace; but he would hear nothing of the unconditional submission which Pompeius demanded—what worse could the most unsuccessful campaign bring to him? ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... our hot coffee and our pork and beans, and flapjacks when the cooks were in the humor; to hook the teams to the wagons and break corral, and amidst cracking of lashes stretch out into column, then to lurch and groan onward, at snail's pace, through the constantly increasing day until soon we also were wrung and parched by a relentless ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... and was in hopes of soon vanquishing him, especially with the aid of Arabio's horse, but he became suspicious of the latter and treacherously murdered him, after which he accomplished for the time being nothing further. For the cavalry, enraged at Arabio's death, left the Romans in the lurch and most of them took the side of Fango. [-23-] After these skirmishes they concluded friendship, agreeing that the cause for war between them had been removed. Later Fango watched until Sextius, trusting in the truce, was free from fear, and invaded Africa. Then they joined ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... of miles from land and the sky always clear for observations. Few of the watch got much sleep, because of the perpetual bracing; and all the while the ship rolling and sending, in the long, glassy ocean swell, unsteadied by the empty sails, which swung out with one lurch as though full, and then slapped back all together against the masts, with a swing and a jerk and a thud that made every spar tremble, and the vessel herself quiver in unison. Nor were we alone. Frequently ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... the lurch 160 Some other themes) assault the Church, Who therefore writes them in her lists As Satan's limbs and atheists; For each sect has one argument Whereby the rest to hell are sent, Which serve them like the Graiae's tooth, Passed round in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of things when you're only trying to be nice and friendly to them. I like to be a brother to a girl and to go sailing with her, and fishing, and not have her bother me about her feet getting a little bit wet, and not scream bloody murder when the boat gives a lurch. That's the kind of girl ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... of some shuffling steps in the passage outside, a lurch as of some drunken and unsteady figure, some whispered words, and then a burst of ribald laughter just outside the door, decided him. No: her wedding night should not be here. Keen in his sympathy with ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... departure; for, taking his driver unawares, he suddenly started after the flying white steed, breaking into a lumbering gallop, that set plumes nodding, curtains flapping, and glasses rattling, and made the huge unwieldly vehicle lurch and bob about in a way to threaten a ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... from convinced; but if you have made an engagement with an executioner, it is a point of honour not to sneak off and leave him in the lurch, when he has taken the trouble to sharpen his axe, and put on his red suit and ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... of his body until it 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. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... 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
... him go out into the freezing darkness. Between the saloon and the Plaza Circle he fell twice on the ice, but contrived to find his feet again and lurch on through the ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... a tire. Striking the high places, crowding on the speed, holding to a straight-away course like a merciless fate, the horseman heard an air cushion go, felt the lurch and lameness of the car, and steadied it back upon its road. He did not retreat by so much as a hair the lever advancing his spark. He did not budge the gas control, but left it still wide open. If all of his tires should blow out together ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... vans, loaded with merchandise, and 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 they continued ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... 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. As it was I had a minute's hard fighting before I got them under. ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... upper story of the house, with a roar that shook the whole remaining fabric of the building, crashed to earth in an avalanche of stone and brick and flying slates, whilst the stairway upon which he had been standing gave a sickening lurch, rocked, and fell out sideways into the hall in a smother of dust ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... the ebbing tide. A sudden fear seized her. She turned the boat's head towards the shore, but it was swept quickly round again; she redoubled her exertions, tugging frantically at her helpless oars. She only succeeded in getting the boat into the trough of the sea, where, after a lurch that threatened to capsize it, it providentially swung around on its short keel and began to drift stern on. She was almost abreast of the battery now; she could hear the fitful notes of a bugle that seemed ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a grating sound and splintering of wood, followed by a lurch of the boat and a splashing of cold water in his face brought Lane back to ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... same with those who desire to fill drunkards' graves. The time is almost here when all positions of profit and trust will be carefully and judiciously handed out, and those who do not fit themselves for those positions will be left in the lurch, whatever ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... last of the nets, and received their wages, they stepped ashore with a certain pride; and generally they put both hands in their pockets as a real fisherman would do; and perhaps they would walk along the quays with a slight lurch, as if they, also, had been cramped up all the long night through, and felt somewhat unused to walking on ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... days of good Queen Bess,— Or p'raps a bit before,— And now these here three sailors bold Went cruising on the shore. A lurch to starboard, one to port, Now forrard, boys, go we, With a haul and a "Ho!" and a "That's your sort!" To ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... how things stand. Our craft, as you see, is small, and leaky, and three-parts rotten; a single lurch, and she will capsize without more ado. And here are all you passengers, each with his luggage. If you come on board like that, I am afraid you may have cause to repent it; especially those who ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... failed at last, and they silently slunk away. At length, however, Ferdinand Morris met Miss Harden, and conceived the idea of marrying her for her money. When he had once got possession of her fortune, he proposed to leave her in the lurch. ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... 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 feeding and children ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... to back her husband: if SHE leaves him in the lurch, there is little hope for him. For of ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... Suddenly with a terrific lurch the train was derailed and plunged down an embankment, not steep but rocky. The heavy Pullman toppled over, then planted itself firmly in a bed of fresh earth, and was still. There were wild cries of fear and pain, a loud crashing of glass lamps, ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... should succeed the first time. Let me see; this is the fourteenth. These clocks run fourteen days, and, therefore, you may expect him again about the twenty-eighth. For myself, I think you are giving him an immense deal of unnecessary trouble, and that if he left you in the lurch it would only serve you right; but you have the world with you, I'm told. A girl is supposed to tell a man two fibs before she ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... as Jack reached the door of the conning tower, and started inside, the Monarch gave a violent motion. She seemed to stop for a moment, and then, with a great lurch, turned completely over, throwing the occupants to the ceiling. Then she plunged straight down to the earth, through the centre of the whirlwind, like ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... 'A 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 ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... stay to argue, for his beer was nearly gone. He was glad, he said, to meet me, and he'd see me later on; He guessed he'd have to go and get his bottle filled again, And he gave a lurch and vanished in the ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... almost by miracle, escaped being lost; but having, in common with the lascars, taken the precaution to lash a rope round his waist, we were able, by its means, to extricate him from danger; at the same time the vessel made an appalling lurch, lying down on her beam-ends, in which position she remained for the space of two minutes, when the maintopmast, followed by the foretopmast, went by the board with a dreadful crash; she then righted, and we were all immediately engaged in going aloft, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 275, September 29, 1827 • Various
... hands all around with the young Frenchmen, and a few moments later announced that they must be on their way. The Frenchmen escorted them to their car, which was now ready and waiting for them, and, as Hal sent it forward with a lurch, they sped the lads on their way ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... reasons, my dear," came the response. "One, because he wanted to leave me in the lurch. Another—it will be easier to keep an eye on him until Naughty is returned, or"—her voice had the vindictive ring of a Roman matron's—"this person's culpability is proven. Naughty is ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... whips, the mules caught their spirit, and with bump and lurch and rattle we swung down the narrow crack between adobe walls that ended before the old Exchange Hotel at the corner of ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... while the tinker fell asleep, Robin made haste away, And left the tinker in the lurch, For the great shot ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... upon a chair as footsteps were heard slowly, heavily, and somewhat unsteadily ascending the stair. The arrival was Edmund Crabbe, with the lurch of recent dissipation in his gait and his blue ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... upon him a withering glance of scorn as rebuke to his unseemly levity, venturing to lurch ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... chickens counted before they are hatched, alias, Marion and the author sent by Gen. Gates to prevent the escape of Cornwallis, before he had run — the British and American armies meet — Gates and his militia-men leave De Kalb in the lurch — his gallant behavior, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... such he 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 |
