"Swoop" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swoop On the air, or loop Through the trees, and then go soaring, O: To group with a troop On the gusty poop While the wind behind is roaring, O: I skim and swim By a cloud's red rim And up to the azure flooring, O: And ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... and hearing his hail, the gulls gather, and swoop around his head in continuous screaming. In larger numbers, and with cries more stridulent, as his comrades come forth out of the cave, one after ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... Colston, and signalled for the three propellers to work at their utmost speed. The order was instantly obeyed; the fan-wheels ceased revolving, and under the impetus of her propellers the Ariel leapt forwards and upwards like an eagle on its upward swoop, rose five hundred feet in the air, and then swept over Kronstadt at a speed of more than ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... Prater Canyon. Quaintance found near the rimrock a quarter of a mile from the prairie-dog town the skeletons of two prairie dogs between a sliver of a dead pinyon branch and the branch itself. Another skeleton lay on a dead limb fifteen feet from the ground. A red-tailed hawk once was observed to swoop down, seize a prairie dog and fly down the canyon. The four colonies found in the Park were in Prater Canyon, in Morfield Canyon, in the east fork of School Section Canyon, and in Whites Canyon. The last two were smaller ...
— Mammals of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado • Sydney Anderson
... Mikado Kwammu, in A.D. 788, built on the highest mountain called Hiyei a superb temple and monastery, giving it in charge of the Ten-dai sect, that there should ever be a bulwark against the evil that might otherwise swoop upon the city. Here, as on castellated walls, should stand the watchman, who, by the recitation of the sacred liturgies, would keep watch and ward. In course of time this great mountain became a city of three thousand edifices ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... her plate a wing-bone from his own, and Aunt Abigail, with one deft swoop, contributed the neck from the platter. As fast as she could, Elizabeth Ann fed these to Shep, who woofed them down at top speed, the bones crunching loudly under his strong, white teeth. How he did enjoy it! It did your heart good to ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... showed, by repeated instances, his own natural bent and genius, which no difficulties were strong enough to overcome. His first great action on record, although not successful in the end, and tinctured with the innocence of youth, is yet highly creditable to him. He made a general swoop of a hundred and twenty nightcaps belonging to his companions, and disposed of them to his satisfaction; but as it was discovered that of all the youths in the college of Clermont, he only was the possessor ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... no! The creek takes a great swoop, below Crofield, and the road's a short cut. There'll ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... that Hart, who was formerly the extreme right, would now become almost the extreme left, and, having thus extended his right arm, to cross the river where it flowed east and west, and make a still wider swoop on the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... either side with those sly and stealthy eyes of his for a possible intruder, suggests to the observing mind the whole living drama of his native forest. One sees in that vivid world the watchful monkey ever ready to swoop down upon the tempting tail-feathers of his hereditary foe: one sees the canny parrot ever prepared for his rapid attack, and ever eager to make him pay with five joints of his tail for his impertinent interference with ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... fighting-machine will rush up the air as swiftly as possible, and then, with a rapid contraction of its bladders, fling itself like a knife at the sinking war-balloon of the foe. Down, down, down, through a vast alert tension of flight, down it will swoop, and, if its stoop is successful, slash explosively at last through a suffocating moment. Rifles will crack, ropes tear and snap; there will be a rending and shouting, a great thud of liberated gas, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... chuckled Big Bob Jeffries, confidently. "I'm only trying things out so far. When the right time comes, me to cash in with a ball clean over that short field fence. They'll never find it again either, if I get the swoop I'm ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... weather;" and the mist as she spoke came rolling down the sound with the swoop of a falcon. Hitherto they had been singularly fortunate. "Fine weather and fair winds," had been the usual morning greeting; or if a passing squall appeared it had found them near to some sheltered loch, or inlet. Lord Forfar was for putting into Boisdale, ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... round, each apparently doing its utmost to get above the other. The two, however, were very evenly matched, for, whereas the kite had its strong beak and talons, deadly weapons for seizing and rending when at close quarters, and could make a powerful swoop at his prey—the heron, though an awkward bird in the air, and ungainly in its movements, had yet its long, sharp, bill, with which it could receive its enemy as it were “at point of bayonet,” and even transfix him, should he make a reckless onset. Again and again, when the kite ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... out a quarry from among the carrion crew. It was curious to see the efforts of the two birds to get above each other; one to make the fatal swoop, the other to avoid it. Now they crossed athwart a bright feathery cloud, and now they were against the clear blue sky. I confess, being no sportsman, I was more interested for the poor bird that was striving for its ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... the canoe down at a pace past control; as it sped straight for the point of the smooth water, and so, seeming to be warned by the roar it met, balanced itself fore-and-aft for one swift instant and plunged with a swoop ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... island of Java seemed likely to be entirely submerged. Enormous waves dashed against the shore, and in some cases forced their way inland, while enormous crevices opened in the ground, threatening to engulf at one fell swoop all the inhabitants and ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... fourteenth century Valenciennes was so wealthy that Jean Party, provost in 1357, was regarded as the richest man in Europe. He went to Paris during the fair of the Landit, and for his own account bought up all the goods brought there for sale at one swoop; he then retailed them at a great profit. He was invited to attend the court of France, and went there so magnificently attired as to excite the jealousy of the French nobles, who treated him in consequence with undue arrogance. He took off his cloak, enriched with fur ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... ludicrous conflagration that perhaps ever occurred was that at Mr. Phillips's workshop, when the whole of his stock of instruments for extinguishing flame were at one fell swoop destroyed. "'Tis rare to see the engineer hoist with his own petard," says the poet; and certainly it was a most laughable contre-temps to see the fire-engines arrive at the manufactory just in time to witness the fire-annihilators annihilated by the fire. A similar ...
— Fires and Firemen • Anon.
... rejoined Balzac, "as seriously as possible," and he continued to let his men be taken. At last he had only one man left, but he had so managed the moves that, without my father being aware of it, this last man was in a position to take all the men my father had left in one single swoop,—and there were a good many, for M. de Balzac had taken only six up to that move. From that time onward my father regarded him as one of the keenest minds that had ever lived." (Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Touraine, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... chance to do that," said Varney. "Miss Fortune can induce him to discharge his pistols in some feat of marksmanship and we will swoop down before he can ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Especially when then don't happen to be any ships in for a few days, which means, of course, nothing to unload. That's the time; there's plenty of men almost starving then. They have no trade to go to, or can get no work at it, and they swoop down to the docks for work, when they had much better ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... cannot think it: 'Tis but a snare he winds about us both, To swoop the sire and son ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... live thing under the terrific strain. At each downward swoop, before the upswing began, there was a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... follow the attacking infantrymen and flash back wireless reports of the engagement. Only through them can communication be maintained when, under the barrier fire, wires from the front lines are cut. Sometimes it falls to our lot to guard these machines from Germans eager to swoop down on their backs. Sailing about high above a busy flock of them makes one feel like an old mother hen ...
— Flying for France • James R. McConnell
... months ago—would not harm the meanest reptile that crawls, now thirst for vengeance—vengeance," repeated the old man, in a shrieking, hysterical tone, "upon those who have wronged me! I will exterminate them at one fell swoop—exterminate them all—all!" And his voice rang screechingly and wildly through the lofty room of that ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... of civilization in the shape of the splendid iron poles of the Indo-European Telegraph Company. Half a dozen times this afternoon I become the imaginary enemy of a couple of cavalrymen travelling in the same direction as myself; they swoop down upon me from the rear at a charging gallop, valiantly whooping and brandishing their Martini-Henrys; when they arrive within a few yards of my rear wheel they swerve off on either side and rein their fiery chargers up, allowing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... jarring thunder, loud and terrible, broke, peal after peal, on the ear! Then the howling wind, like ten thousand furies, came crashing and roaring through the forest, bearing whole trees on its driving wings, while others bent low before the blasting swoop of its ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... at table in my London boarding-house meant that, though he put it in a way all his own. He was a benevolent enough crank, but no friend of preaching. Being a crank, he condemned preachers with one fell swoop:— ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... And made a slave of me,—of me, a prince! All was fulfilled at last. I fled from them, In rags and sorrow. Nothing but my heart, Like a strong swimmer, bore me up against The howling sea of my adversity. At length o'er Sana, in the act to swoop, I stood like a young eagle on a crag. The traveller passed me with suspicious fear: I asked for nothing; I was not a thief. The lean dogs snuffed around me: my lank bones, Fed on the berries and the crusted pools, Were a scant morsel. Once, a brown-skinned ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... let any one hear you make such a remark. One of these fine days somebody will swoop you up and run off with you. I don't know but that I could play the part fairly ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... wheels go round and the fabric is slowly and intricately spun and only pessimists and bigots fail to see evidence of any purpose in it all. Now what has your Blue Disease done? It has taken the whole plot out of life at its present stage of development at one fell swoop. It has killed Desire—put out the furnace before the pattern in the ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... this train of thought, she retraced her steps. But just as she was starting to join her other cousins, she unexpectedly descried, ahead of her, a pair of jade-coloured butterflies, of the size of a circular fan. Now they soared high, now they made a swoop down, in their flight against the breeze; much ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... look—here's a whole benchful accounted for at one swoop." Still Jemmy did not reply. The sunbeam drifting between the benches before him fell on a little patch of earth—a patch collected by one of the slaves whose comrades, humouring his whim, had brought him a handful or two in their pockets whenever they returned from shore. ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the tower and lure." They tower aloft and swoop down on partridge, rabbit, or heron, finally returning to the lure; and be it noted that the lure is a sham bird, with a "train" of food to entice the falcons back ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... bombardments, might have been pardoned for relieving their feelings more emphatically than by shrugging their shoulders and saying, "C'est la guerre." England, inviolate for so many centuries that the swoop of war on her homesteads had long ceased to be more credible than a return of the Flood, could hardly be expected to keep her temper sweet when she knew at last what it was to hide in cellars and underground railway stations, or lie quaking in bed, whilst ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... it!" the little boy cried. With his hat he made a swoop for the butterfly, and then suddenly he and Flossie, who was close behind him, tumbled down through a hole in the ground, which seemed quickly to open at their very feet, ...
— The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island • Laura Lee Hope
... outdone," said Lady Beach-Mandarin, squeezing Lady Harman's fingers with enthusiasm. "And what a charming garden you have, and what a delightful situation! Such air! And on the very verge of London, high, on this delightful literary hill, and ready at any moment to swoop in that enviable great car of yours. I suppose you come a great deal into London, ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... look-out is kept. An oily gleam in the sea tells the knowing fisherman that the shoal is there; or he may see a Gull swoop down and carry off a Herring. Then the nets are put out in the path of the shoal. A big fleet of fishing vessels may let down a thousand ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... old ladies beside me, who had duly paid for their seats, waxed very red and indignant, and discoursed to each other audibly about the impudence of these mountebanks; but as soon as the show-woman caught a whisper of this, she was down upon them with a swoop: if mesdames could persuade their neighbours to act with common honesty, the mountebanks, she assured them, would be polite enough: mesdames had probably had their bowl of soup, and perhaps a glass of wine that evening; the mountebanks also had a taste for soup, and did not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of hills. You see if when we get to the top here, it don't all go down full swoop like a house wall right bang to ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... and the conductor to wave the people aboard, there was a loud clatter of hoofs, and the rickety old Lakerim carryall came dashing up, drawn by the lively horses Sawed-Off had once saved from destroying themselves and the Dozen in one fell swoop down a steep hill. The carryall lurched up to the station came to a sudden stop, and out bounced—who but Sawed-Off himself, loaded down with bundles, and yelling at the top of ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... see a funeral cortege of black men in spotless white robes; they bear a black corpse in a white shroud. The body is hastily deposited within the area on its bed of stone and mattress of charcoal. The vultures swoop down to the feast. In a short while, satiated, they rise on heavy wing and lazily resettle ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... a day in the very heart of the summer, a day of cloudless skies and wonderful, magic breezes, a day for the dreaming—and perchance for the fulfilment—of dreams. Swift and noiseless as the swoop of a monster bird the motor glided on its way; now rushing, now slackening, but never halting. Sometimes it seemed to Anne that she sat motionless while the world raced by her. She had often seen herself thus. And then with a thrill of the pulses came ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... before a horse jumps it slows, sidles, gathers itself together, goes up like a monster wave, and pitches down on the further side. Hedges and sky swoop in a semicircle. Then as if your own body ran into the horse's body and it was your own forelegs grown with his that sprang, rushing through the air you go, the ground resilient, bodies a mass of muscles, yet you have command too, upright stillness, eyes accurately judging. Then the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... man he didn't know; and the stranger had said something, a harmless stupid remark enough, about the tired business man and the sort of musical-comedy he liked; whereupon both Constance and Violet had made a sort of concerted swoop and changed the subject almost violently. John Williamson made a practise of going to the Globe, he knew, but that John, who never spotted an allusion in his life, should have come home and passed ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... more, but that was enough to reveal the black, seething hell the Rebellion has brewed. Can there be any peace with miscreants who thus deliberately plan the murder, at one swoop, of hundreds of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... overhead across the space beside the higher fastening of one of these festoons, hanging forward from a little ledge of masonry and handling some well-nigh invisible strings dependent from the line. Then suddenly, with a swoop that sent Graham's heart into his mouth, this man had rushed down the curve and vanished through a round opening on the hither side of the way. Graham had been looking up as he came out upon the balcony, and the things he saw above and opposed to him had at first ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... comes of this dashed Swoop of the Vulture business," he grumbled, as he paced before his tent, ever and anon pausing to sweep the city below him with his glasses. "I should like to find the fellow who started the idea! Making me look a fool! Still, it's just as bad for ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... into their stride. Long streaks of dust whipped up in different places; the silver-white grass bent to the ground; round bunches of sage went rolling before us. The puffs grew longer, steadier, harder. Then a shrieking blast howled on our trail, seeming to swoop down on us with a yellow, blinding pall. I shut my eyes and covered my face with a handkerchief. The sand blew so thick that it filled my gloves, pebbles struck me hard enough to ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... out unless some of our heaviest depositors get the fever and swoop down upon us. I appreciate your feelings in an affair of this kind, coming so swiftly upon the heels of the other, but I want to give you my personal assurance that the money you have here is safe. I called you in to ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... God! We come! We come! In swoop for fierce flesh, like a bird of prey, In scent of the blood of the brave to-day, By the splendor of God! We come! We come! Sword in hand, for the Love of God! Since blood is holy and royal wine, Advance! Drink health to the Norman line, Sword in ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays. He leaped the fence and saw that all nature was a garden[143]. He felt the delicious contrast of hill and valley changing imperceptibly into each other, tasted the beauty of the gentle swell, or concave swoop, and remarked how loose groves crowned an easy eminence with happy ornament, and while they called in the distant view between their graceful stems, removed and extended the perspective by delusive comparison."—On ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... all this came to an end very suddenly. Hardy lost the greater part of his money at one swoop; he had inherited, I think, a certain share in his father's business; he had one brother, older than himself, who carried the business on. Hardy never looked into money matters, but simply spent whatever came ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... "No, I'd swoop along over the forests up here until I picked out all the camps of the Indians and Tories. I'd pick out the Butlers and Braxton Wyatt and Coleman, and see what mischief they were planning. Then I'd fly away to the East and look down at all the armies, ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... last night and sort of talked things over while Mr. Benbridge and other patriotic citizens of Lafayette were engaged in organizing a number of noble and brave-hearted gentlemen into a company of soldiers to give battle to the bloodthirsty red man who is about to swoop down upon us, with tommyhawk and knife and rifle, to ravage our lands and pillage our women—er—I mean pillage our lands and—er—so forth. As I was saying, your honour, we talked it over and seeing as how we have all enlisted ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... we think, to abolish at one fell swoop such an ingenious fabric of idleness as this. A revolution in the whole system of social life, in the whole conception and drift of feminine existence, is a little too much to ask. As it is, woman wraps herself in her indolence, and is perfectly satisfied with her ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... wind, but, like steamers, impelled by unseen powers within them. Alas! that power was not the force of innocent steam, but the arms of Christian rowers chained to the oar. Sure as the pounce of a hawk upon a partridge was the swoop of the corsairs upon the French vessel. A signal to surrender followed, but the captain boldly refused, and armed his crew, bidding them stand to their guns. But the fight was too unequal, the brave little ship was disabled, the pirates ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... This barrenness of Spirit, and to be My own Soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased To justify my deeds unto myself— The last infirmity of evil. Aye, Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, 30 [An Eagle passes. Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, Well may'st thou swoop so near me—I should be Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, With a pervading vision.—Beautiful! How beautiful is all this visible world![120] How glorious ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... flight of two big birds in the air. Now the smugglers' craft would be mounting upward, with the Falcon after her. Again she would shoot toward the earth, and Tom would follow, with a great downward swoop. ...
— Tom Swift and his Great Searchlight • Victor Appleton
... can all have a chance at them," said Mr. Choate with a smile. "It would be interesting to have a motion-picture record of the thoughts which flash through the mind of the average inland fisherman the first time he feels the tiger-like swoop of a five-foot barrancuda, the fierce yank of a hundred-pound amber-jack, or the sullen surge of a big grouper on his line; for even when armed with the heaviest rod, and a line as big around as a silver dollar, he is pretty sure ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... roadway, With open-blown jackets, Like black, soaring pinions, They swoop down the ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... courteous men helped us carry our cargo, by an intricate official route, over coils of rope and chains, over lines of shafting, and along dizzy walks overhanging the yawning basin; while the Doctor, directed to a certain chute in midstream, took unladen Pilgrim over the great dam, with a wild swoop which made our eyes swim to witness ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... circle. As the circle narrows, the agitation inside is indescribable; fish jumping in all directions—a moving mass of glittering scales and fins. The larger ones try to leap the barrier, and are caught by the attendant mullahs, who pounce on them with swift dexterity. Eagles and kites dart and swoop down, bearing off a captive fish in their talons. The reed fence is doubled back on itself, and gradually pushed on till the whole of the fish inside are jammed together in a moving mass. The weeds and dirt ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the chief, food and wine were brought to her, while the brigands gathered together and listened eagerly to this counsel and to that. There were many who, like Vasilici, had taken to the hills merely to swoop down upon the defenceless for pillage and for ransom, who cared nothing who might sit upon the throne in Sturatzberg, and among these there was a certain resentment that latterly there had come a change into the councils, that the organization was in danger of growing ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... fell. A well-known mining weekly, which I here poetically veil under the title of the Red Dog "Jay Hawk," was first to swoop down upon the tuneful and unsuspecting quarry. At this century-end of fastidious and complaisant criticism, it may be interesting to recall the direct style of the Californian "sixties." "The hogwash and 'purp'-stuff ladled out from the slop-bucket ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... research to which psychologists are addicted. As M. Comte's style is here unusually vivacious, we will quote the whole passage. Are we uncharitable in supposing that the prospect of demolishing, at one fell swoop, the brilliant reputations of a whole class of Parisian savans, added something to the piquancy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... a secret attack, an unwarned invasion, upon England. France is the key to the situation. If, without the warning that must come through the delay of picking a quarrel and entering into an open war with the Republic, the German army can swoop down in the night, cross the frontier, and gain immediate possession of the ports of France, in five hours' time it can be across the English Channel, and its hordes pouring down upon a sleeping people. To carry out this programme, the first step would, of course, be to secure knowledge ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... few moments, for the thought occurred to him that the bird might make a swoop at him, as he had read of eagles acting under similar circumstances; but the next moment he had thought of what power there would be in the blow of a fist striking a bird in full career, and knowing full well that it must be fatal to the raven, he continued ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... from the tree-tops, See us swoop upon your flock; Yield us wool to make our nests warm In ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... two o'clock; for I could not guess the effect of this telegram, should it be read by Pendleton. I found him impassive and keen-eyed, and I waited longer than usual for that aquiline swoop of his, as he turned in his revolving chair. I felt sure then that he had not read the ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... noon on the day following that on which Lopez had made his sudden swoop on Mr. Parker and had then dined with Everett Wharton, he called at Stone Buildings and was shown into the lawyer's room. His quick eye at once discovered the book which Mr. Wharton half hid away, and saw upon it Mr. Mudie's ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... existence have been admitted establishing so awful a proportion of violations and penalties? If there be no balancing sphere beyond, then all should pass through the experience of a ripe and rounded life. But there is the most perplexing inequality. At one fell swoop, infant, sage, hero, reveller, martyr, are snatched into the invisible state. There is, as a noble thinker has said, an apparent "caprice in the dispensation of death strongly indicative of a hidden sequel." Immortality unravels the otherwise ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Drake's orders were changed. He had been going as a lion. The peace party now tried to send him as a fox. But he stretched his instructions to their utmost limits and even defied the custom of the service by holding no council of war when deciding to swoop on Cadiz. ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... fibres, then used for such purposes. His trained leopard or cheetah had drawn the beast from his lair, and by cunning devices had led him on until the unfortunate lion was half-entrapped. Just then, with a sudden swoop, a great golden eagle dashed down upon the preoccupied cheetah, and buried his talons in the leopard's head. But the weight of his victim was more than he had bargained for; the cheetah with a quick upward dash dislodged one of the great bird's talons, and, turning as quickly, caught the ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... as a Rajput rides, with a swoop and a swinging sabre and a silent, tight-lipped vow that he would prove himself. Green though he was yet, he knew that the troop had found for him—had rounded up for him—had made him his opportunity; so he took it, right under their eyes, straight in the teeth of the stoutest ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... fang-edged skyline of lower Manhattan lifting its gray shafts through wet streamers of fog; she saw flotillas of squat ferry-boats shouldering their ways against the sullen heave of the river's tide-water; she heard the discordant shriek of their steam throats; she saw the tilting swoop of a hundred gulls, buffeting the wind; but she was conscious only of the vista of oily water ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... swift feet, for he was afraid. But the great god ceased not, but arose upon him with darkness on his crest, that he might stay noble Achilles from slaughter, and ward destruction from the men of Troy. And the son of Peleus rushed away a spear's throw, with the swoop of a black eagle, the mighty hunter, strongest at once and swiftest of winged birds. Like him he sped, and on his breast the bronze rang terribly as he fled from beneath the onset, and behind him the River rushed on with a mighty roar. As when a field-waterer ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... seconds from the time when he first caught sight of it that the aeroplane came perpendicularly above his head, the whirring ceased, and the machine descended with graceful swoop upon the well-cropt turf within fifty yards of the spot where the two golfers stood. As soon as it alighted, Mr. McMurtrie handed his sticks to the caddie, and, as one released from a spell, hurried to meet the man who had just ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... up and down, and cross the lane, and rising suddenly almost to the tops of the oaks swoop down again in bold sweeping curves. The broad, deep ditch between the lane and the mound of the wood is dry, but there are no short ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... swoop up the lake. The zephyr became a breeze, the breeze half a gale. The leaden sheet of water was torn into white tatters, and the waves began to crash on the ice-rimmed shore, sending sheets of spray into the trees, and making it impossible for ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... sublime! Swoop o'er the Land to-day— So the mist of wrong and crime, The breath of our Evil Time Be ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Just short of the roofs the taut wings flash a reverse, there is a lightning swoop, a startling hollow wind-sound, and the rushing bird is beating skyward again, hawking deliberately as before, and uttering again his ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... stooped lower, just skimming the tops of strange trees, the most horrible vegetable forms that I have ever beheld. And then, without warning, we were seized and pushed overboard, while the vessel, making a broad swoop, quickly disappeared. Henry alone uttered a loud cry ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... men. As soon as the brig was hove to, I took one glance to windward. I thought I saw Uncle Jack and the boy, but I also saw what filled me with alarm, a huge albatross flying above, apparently about to swoop down upon them. It was but a glance, for I sprang over to the other side to jump into the boat, eager to be among those going to save them. The second mate was already in the boat, three other hands following. As soon as we got under the stern of the brig, we saw the captain standing ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston
... unfortunately situated are extinguished suddenly by a single swoop of an avalanche, carrying down immense numbers of trees, together with the soil they were growing upon. Others are obliterated by land-slips, earthquake taluses, etc., but these lake-deaths compared with those ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... grasp. With Red Jim escaped and his promise to the rancher unfulfilled, what would become of his permanent hold on Oliver Jordan? Ay, and Red Jim, once more in safety and mounted on that matchless horse, would swoop down on the Valley of the Eagles and strike to kill, ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... sent in search of us, we can vanish away long before they can catch us. Nunez does not use the direct road over the brow for his attack, but follows the Santona or Vittoria road for a while, and then makes a swoop round. He does not want to bring the French up to this village, for his family and the families of many of the ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... storm and rack, You shall see our galley pass, As a serpent, lithe and black, Glides through the waving grass. As the vulture swift and dark, Down on the ring-dove flies, You shall see the Rovers bark Swoop down upon his prize. Hurrah! For ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cruel old lady. She sports with her victims like a cat with a mouse. And just when the poor scared things, having escaped one terrible swoop of her hand, take breath, she comes down remorselessly with the other hand, and dashes away hope ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... in one swinging swoop, and I wished that Jerry and I had been strong enough to do that last night. Greg had only time for one gasp before he was quite comfortable against our man's shoulder. But he was brave, because it must have hurt like anything, even then, and I could ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... blackness,—the pale glint of the moonbeams only illumining it faintly as a cloud may be edged with a suggestion of light. It was not motionless,—it stirred now and then as though about to lift itself to some supernatural stature and bend above me or swoop down upon me like an embodied storm,—and as I still gazed upon it fearingly, every nerve strained to an almost unsupportable tension, I could have sworn that two eyes, large and luminous, were fixed with a searching, pitiless intensity on mine. It is impossible ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Imperialists were fairly up the glen and out of sight and the Dutch were plodding their way in. Then I'd launch the Highlanders, sword in hand, down the slope of that hill, and cut off the rear-guard, and take the baggage at a swoop, and in half an hour the army would be disabled and the third part of it put ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... characteristic of landlord power, as felt by the tenant, is arbitrariness. The agent may make any rule he pleases, and as many exceptions to every rule as he pleases. He may allow rents to run in arrear; he may suddenly come down upon the defaulter with 'a fell swoop;' he may require the rents to be paid up to the day; he may, without reason assigned, call in 'the hanging gale;' he may abate or increase the rents at will; he may inflict fines for delay or give notices to quit for the sole purpose of ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... patrolling under lowered speed, swerved and darted a wine-colored, surrey-built touring car with a cape top. Durkin recognized it at a glance; it was Penfield's huge machine. Its movement, as it swung in toward the startled woman, seemed like the swoop of a hawk. It appeared to stop only for a moment, but in that moment two men leaped from the wide-swung tonneau door. When they clambered into it once more Durkin saw that Frank was between them. And one of the men was MacNutt, and the ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... handkerchief in a strange way, and with one fell downward swoop, in a few seconds the monster eagle had alighted ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... contentedly munching a red apple told that he had already made his hawk-like descent on the stand of the market woman, and was now seeking to distract her attention so that his companion might also swoop down to seize a prize, when they would go off, laughing uproarously, as though they considered ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... the bit of closely folded paper with a sharp sound of triumph there came with it a thick letter which dropped on the red tiles. He snatched at it but Honor's downward swoop was swifter. She stood staring at it, her eyes opening wider and wider, turning the plump letter in ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... car's flight down the mountain suggested the swoop of a swallow that is skimming the ground, so swiftly and smoothly and gracefully it swept down the long straight reaches and soared in and out of the bends and around the corners. We raced after it, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... eagle reasoned it out that the sack must be filled with the best food that the boy could wish for, so he darted toward it. But before the bird could get there a terrible clamour arose about him. Sparrows, crows, and swallows came rushing up with wild shrieks, thinking that the eagle meant to swoop down upon some bird. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... with a terrific swoop, there burst upon the forest a great storm, with loud-rolling thunder and a drenching downfall of rain. We had been too grimly engrossed in the affairs of the earth to note the darkening sky. The tempest broke upon us unawares. The wind fairly roared through the branches high above us; blinding ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... engaged, a sonorous trumpet sound was heard behind the clump of small trees near us. A moment later and two magnificent wild swans sailed over the tree-tops and above our heads. They made a tumultuously wild swoop to one side on discovering the near proximity of their enemy man but were too late. Almost before any of the party had time to move a muscle, two sharp cracks were heard, and both swans fell stone dead, with a heavy splash, at the ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... non-committal and dignified, rather like dusty pallbearers in an undertaker's wagonette, that I promptly decided they had come to foreclose a mortgage and take my Dinky-Dunk's land away from him, at one fell swoop! ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... abstract improbability in the Lepidoptera, which probably stand nearly or quite as high in the scale as these insects, having sufficient mental capacity to admire bright colours. They certainly discover flowers by colour. The Humming-bird Sphinx may often be seen to swoop down from a distance on a bunch of flowers in the midst of green foliage; and I have been assured by two persons abroad, that these moths repeatedly visit flowers painted on the walls of a room, and vainly endeavour to insert their proboscis into them. Fritz Muller informs me that several ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the eagle as a religious, though not necessarily a "sacred," symbol by prehistoric races, may easily be imagined, if we consider that the eagle is a bird of tremendous power; and that it soars to unreachable heights; and that it unquestionably was at some time seen to swoop down and carry off the serpent, possibly even ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... of these tribes were already making themselves dreaded. Its flat bottom enabled them to beach the vessel on any fitting coast; and a step on shore at once transformed the boatmen into a war-band. From the first the daring of the English race broke out in the secrecy and suddenness of the pirates' swoop, in the fierceness of their onset, in the careless glee with which they seized either sword or oar. "Foes are they," sang a Roman poet of the time, "fierce beyond other foes and cunning as they are fierce; the sea is their school of war and the storm their friend; they are ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... wait to be interviewed. With a swoop, the airplane left the ground and started upward. His pursuers were so close at hand they could almost grasp the wheels, as they leaped upward. Yet not quite. Bullets whistled about him, and several pinged against the body of the machine with a sharp metallic ring. Bob thanked his stars ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... not for your imitation. Burke happened to be a genius, with a swoop and range of mind, as of language to interpret it, with a gift to enchant, a power to strike and astound, which together make him, to my thinking, the man in our literature most nearly comparable with Shakespeare. Others may be more to your taste; you may love others ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... this pair of words does not furnish an example of Inclusion. But as "dig" is frequently appropriated to "spade"—as we have often thought of those words together—this is a case of strong Concurrence. The term "swoop" is almost exclusively applied to "eagle." A certain action or movement of the eagle is termed swooping. But "eagle" does not mean "swoop," nor does "swoop" mean "eagle." We always think of "eagle" when we think of "swoop," but ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... afford to dream. He once remarked confidentially to a friend, "I veel make ze millions and millions by ze great enterprizes in America, and zen I veel go home to France, and veel capture my comrades in ze French armee, an veel plot and plan, and directly zey veel put me in command, and zen I veel swoop down on ze government, and first zing you know I veel mount the zrone." One time his agent at Medora, his ranch on the Northern Pacific, wrote him at New York about the loss of three thousand head of sheep, the letter going into all the details of the affair. The Marquis turned ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... you not to expect plain sailing?" she continued with a knowing look; "and Ada Irvine is a perfect hurricane. She will swoop down on you at every opportunity, and bluster and blow; but let her alone ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... will be flying around again over this field in a night or so,—the moon is 'most full now, and the nights are light,—and I've got to be able to signal him just how to find the powder magazine and the other munitions. Then he can swoop right over there and drop one of his little souvenirs where it will do the most good and fly away home. I advise you to keep away from that section ...
— The French Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... particulars, to be sure. How the tails of the entire flock disappeared in one fell swoop—whether by malice aforethought, at the instance of a lurking enemy, or in a miraculous accident, whilst the young shepherdess slept at her charge—has never been told, though thousands of wondering pows, multiplied by ten, have wanted to know. Perhaps it is better not explained. ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... like bits of paper. Lanes, hundreds of yards in length, were cleared among the palm trees by the whirling wind, which seemed to perform a demon-dance of revelry among them. In some cases it snapped trees off close to the ground. In others it seemed to swoop down from above, lick up a patch of trees bodily and carry them clean away, leaving the surrounding trees untouched. Sometimes it would select a tree of thirty years growth, seize it, spin it round, and leave it a permanent spiral screw. I was in these ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... swoop of a carrion bird an instant afterward—and the deafening strike. The Austrians had varied a little. A shrapnel battery had been emplaced among the rapid-fire pieces during the recent interval. A hundred yards down the works to the east ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort
... beautiful rolling country, but not green. It's all brown, just a mess of earth. It's pitted with holes just like sand after a hailstorm. In the distance you can see real lovely trees, but nothing grows where the strafing is. Overhead the martins flicker and swoop, and starlings sail by in circling clouds, while the colossal noises crash ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... sudden dip from the rich, flat country of Normandy down the steep cliffs to the sea. Cancale is like the rest of it. The town itself stands on the brink of a swoop to the sands; the fishing-village proper, where the sea packs it solid in a great half-moon, with a light burning on one end that on clear nights can be seen as far as Mme. Poulard's cozy ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... takes the place of the table as a receiver of muscular vibrations. What tempts me to believe in the transfer of thought without physical connection is that, given telepathy, all the mysterious phenomena that have persisted in popular belief through the centuries could be swept away at one fell swoop. By telepathy, working mainly through the Sub-Consciousness, I will explain you Clairvoyance (that is, not the mere seeing of pictures, which is a phenomenon akin to dreaming, but the vision of other people's Sub-Consciousnesses), ghosts, witchcraft, possession, wraiths, Mahatmas, astral ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... upon his own deck by a sweeping blow from Hennessy's cutlass. Then, followed by Arguello's curses, the Irish captain went back to his brig and set sail for Callao, leaving Martinas to get the better of his wound and swoop down upon the natives of Easter ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... and strikers in the time of Jefferson. No, it wuz when our republic begun to copy the sampler of old nations' luxury, aristocracy and enormous wealth for the few and poverty and starvation for the many. Copyin' the old feudal barons and thieves who used to swoop down on weaker communities and steal all their possessions, only they gained by force what is gained now by corrupt legislation. Anybody would think," sez Arvilly, "that as many times as that sampler has been soaked in blood, and riddled by bullets, our country wouldn't want to foller it, but ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... the water before him from high in the air. The water spouted up, causing an osprey to swoop down, but to ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... of its velocity and weight. Its momentum, calculated in foot-tons, was something incredible. It had been seen to destroy a four year old bull by a single impact upon that animal's gnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever been known to resist its downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay it; it would splinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy honors in the dust. This irascible and implacable brute—this incarnate thunderbolt—this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in the shade of an adjacent tree, dreaming ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... against that menace—to gain (by inspiration from the titular genius of commerce and craft so conspicuous in that famed art representation[6] exhibited in his Bourse) a dazzling prize for his nation by one fell swoop and, so to say, with folded arms, just by pitting against the English his almost forgotten and long-neglected clan, the Boer nation, inciting them to usurp Great Britain in South Africa, Holland sharing the spoils. See here the master mind exulting ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... was a fierce one. With the mass of fire between us and the ground directly below, blinded by the smoke and half suffocated by the heat, we were not conscious of the good fortune that awaited us, until, with a swoop and a plunge, we found ourselves submerged, and, with an equal velocity, immediately thrown back again by the buoyant force of the balloon into the open air. The flood of fire in which we had descended was instantly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... softly-breathed, high chromatics, with the deep-voiced bass, creating an atmosphere of the vast loneliness of wild mountain heights; the gradual descent to spell-binding silence and then the startling shriek and swoop down of the eagle—all these are suggested in this tiny piece with unmistakable power. The Eagle is remarkable for its programme music aspect in the light of MacDowell's later works, for in these it is perfected suggestion and ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... fact; though clouds of night Down on thy watch tower stoop: Though thou shouldst see thine heart's delight Borne from thee by their swoop. ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... mole. Here shall I wait in vain till figs be set, And till the spring disclose the violet. Through all my wilds a tameless mouse careers, And in that narrow boundary appears, Huge as the stalking lion of Algiers, Huge as the fabled boar of Calydon. And all my hay is at one swoop impresst By one low-flying swallow for her nest, Strip god Priapus of each attribute Here finds he scarce a pedestal to foot. The gathered harvest scarcely brims a spoon; And all my vintage drips in a cocoon. Generous are you, but I more generous still: ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he shrilly commented. "Here it is wrong!" And, grabbing up a slice of chalk, he made a deft swoop toward the material. Suddenly his arm stayed in mid air and he laid down the chalk with a muscular effort. "I think I take ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... crew too badly shot up to offer an effective bombardment. She was drifting helplessly under tattered ribbons of canvas and the Royal James, whose sails had suffered far less, bore down upon her opponent with the swoop ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... distance to look for a stick to throw at it; but when I turned again, the creature was just disappearing into the water. It is their habit to lie quite still, and catch animals that come near them. Whether or not it was waiting until I came within the swoop of its mighty tail I know not, but I had the feeling that I had escaped a great danger. It was curious that it should have been so bold only a few days after Mr. Hollenbeck had been down shooting at them. There were not less than twenty ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... prices! It should seem that "there were giants," both in purse and magnitude of metal, "in those days!" But a mighty "man in valour" has recently sprung up amongst us; who, spurning the acquisition of solitary lots, darts down upon a whole Library, and bears it off "at one fell swoop." Long life to the spirit which possesses him! It ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... we might solve all these mysteries in one swoop," he said. "I am going down to-day to inspect the Secret House—that is where one end of ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... Craig, it ees right I should go. Besides, I am well acquaint wiz ze commandant. Zen let us consider ze business as settle. I sall away to ze Kasbah, and zen in due time look for ze swoop of ze French zouaves. Begar! if Emile Constans may have a hand in ze capture of zat deevil, ze reward will allow him to visit ze adorable Paris again. I am off. I sall ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... was quite resolute about it; and Nicky-Nan, by his earlier reception of notices to quit, had not bettered any chance of resisting. Still—had Nicky-Nan known it—Mr Pamphlett, like many another bank manager, had been caught and thrown in a heap by the sudden swoop of War. Over the telephone wires he had been in agitated converse all day with his superiors, who had at length managed to explain to him the working of ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... trounced the authors of them. He was prompt to take up any poor devil's quarrel and risk his neck to right him. The common folk held him dear, and his memory is still green in ballad and tradition. He used to go on the highway and rob rich wayfarers; and other times he would swoop down from his high castle on the hills of the Neckar and capture passing cargoes of merchandise. In his memoirs he piously thanks the Giver of all Good for remembering him in his needs and delivering sundry such cargoes into his hands at times when ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... up to the fact that death was at work in the shape of an enormous volume of water, that, like a wall, came down, tearing the tallest trees with it, carrying away scores of villages at one fell, sure swoop into utter destruction. The scene six days after the event—when the river has subsided into its normal breadth and depth during the monsoons—is simply awful. Wherever we look, we find something very suggestive of the devastation that has visited the country; fields ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... that Pelican bird made a swoop for poor Bully, and before the frog boy could get out of the way the bird had gobbled him up in his big bill. There Bully was, not exactly swallowed by the bird, you understand, but held a prisoner in the big pouch, or ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... earliest daffodils, When, before sunrise, the cold clear hours Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils,— Deep in the leafage the cuckoo cried, Perch'd on a spray by a rivulet-side, "Swallows, O Swallows, come back again To swoop and herald ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... rich clothing, silks and other stuffs, wine, vestments, and altar hangings from churches, arms and armour, hides and skins. The prices obtained were far below the real value of the articles, for money was scarce, and none could say when the Danes might again swoop down and clear out the contents of the warehouses. Nevertheless the sum obtained was a large one for those days, and this did not include the value of the gold and silver goblets, salvers, vases, and utensils used in the celebration ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... to whom? Whither thou goest I will go. Then, the faint whistling of another shell dawned, and his blood became small and still to receive it. It drew nearer, like some horrible blast of wind; his blood lost consciousness. But in the second of suspension he saw the heavy shell swoop to earth, into the rocky bushes on the right, and earth and stones poured up into the sky. It was as if he heard no sound. The earth and stones and fragments of bush fell to earth again, and there was the same unchanging peace. The Germans ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... for the German territory as though to make observations or take photographs. It was the belief of the French airmen that the Huns would swarm out to attack these planes, or else to give battle to the machine in which Tom and Jack rode. And, in such an event, the swift Spads would swoop down out of a great height and ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... of the families of the habitans after this swoop of your foragers?" asked the Seigneur de Beauce, a country gentleman who retained a few honorable ideas floating on top of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... bewildering smile. She was dressed with exceeding smartness and wore several bangle bracelets that glittered and rattled and tinkled with every movement of her hands. Matthew was covered with confusion at finding her there at all; and those bangles completely wrecked his wits at one fell swoop. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "They were," says Beckwith, "pre-eminent in predatory warfare. Small parties, consisting of from five to twenty or more, were the usual number comprising their war parties. These would push out hundreds of miles from their villages, and swoop down upon a feeble settlement, or an isolated pioneer cabin, and burn the property, kill the cattle, steal the horses, capture the women and children and be off again before the alarm could be given." They were always strongly on the ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... through the still, cold air. The pale-blue shadows on the western side of the road grew longer. The sun, declining through its shallow arch, dropped behind the tree-tops. Darkness followed swiftly, as if it had been a bird of prey waiting for this sign to swoop down upon the world. ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... with amazed indignation. One at a time was the usual forfeit, but to lose five "at one fell swoop" seemed excessive, and would make a considerable difference to her weekly record. She blazed against the injustice. No girl in the form had ever ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... It is foolish to set up a partnership in the dark. Is there anyone, Evelyn, who may swoop down upon us at a moment's notice, and carry you off to share ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that beat in vain against the steel sides of our great ships to-day, but there were many outlaws and pirates who followed the sea and made every voyage a peril. There were dark-skinned Moslems or Moors who would swoop in their swift boats upon Christian craft to kill or capture all on board, selling their prisoners into the horrible slavery of the Far East. There were also fearful tales of serpents and dragons that lived in the far waters of the "Sea of Darkness," for so the Atlantic ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... enriched by the spoils of their neighbours, and supported by a warlike youth, eager to enlist under their banner at the first call,** must have been often tempted to quit their barren domains and to swoop down on the rich country which lay at their feet. We are ignorant of the course of events which, towards the close of the XVIIIth century B.C., led to their gaining possession of it. The Cossaean king who seized on Babylon was named Gandish, and the few inscriptions ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... his people together an' swoop down with them on the murderin' convicts. He found out from signs, that I couldn't make nothin' of, that his tribe had divided into two parties, one going towards a hunting-ground called Big Cypress, an' the other to another ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely |
