"Crack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time, were flying back to the shelter of the wagon-box, but ere they reached it—crack! crack! crack! three shots rang out in quick succession, and three lumps of quivering canine flesh sprawled ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... I left a director's meeting and vital engagements, with indecent firmness, to meet that ship. At crack of dawn on a raw morning in March I arose and drove miles to a freezing pier to meet it. And presently, as I stood muffled in a fur coat, an elderly, grizzled, small man, grim and unexhilarating—presently the soul ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... occasioned by the report of the first real American blow of the war when, late in April, 1917, the crack American freighter Mongolia showed the German Navy that the time had arrived when the long, strong arm of Uncle Sam was reaching out a brawny fist over the troubled waters ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... stand on his feet so Chick-chick kneeled down at his side to rub some circulation into his wrists and ankles. Suddenly a great noise of running was heard. Chick-chick looked out through the crack of ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... two others without compunction, as he had already lived upon their mother. It was a well-planned speculation on his part. As soon as little Gervaise was eight years old, she went to a neighbouring dealer's to crack almonds; she there earned ten sous a day, which her father pocketed right royally, without even a question from Fine as to what became of the money. The young girl was next apprenticed to a laundress, and as soon as she received two francs a day for ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... Despite the sleepless night sitting upright in the compartment, her eyes were fresh and alive. The desultory crack of a rifle drifting out of the town as if to greet them brought an impatience into her manner. ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... heard the sharp crack of rifles. They saw the dust spurting up. Doctor Spechaug heard himself howling as he became aware of peculiar stings in his body. Queer, painless, deeply penetrating sensations that made themselves felt all over his body—as though he was awakening ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... had or had not hurried the matter, under I certainly should have gone shortly—for the crack on my head and the loss of blood from it had taken most of my strength out of me, and even with my full strength I could not have kept afloat long—had not a break in the clouds let through a dash of moonlight that gave me another ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... farmer; but the moment he had earned as much as he deemed sufficient, the spade was thrown aside. Phelim knew all the fiddlers and pipers in the barony; was master of the ceremonies at every wake and dance that occurred within several miles of him. He was a crack dancer, and never attended a dance without performing a horn-pipe on a door or a table; no man could shuffle, or treble, or cut, or spring, or caper with him. Indeed it was said that he could dance "Moll Roe" upon the end of a five-gallon keg, and snuff a mould candle with his heels, ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... and watched him. Apparently he did not see her, for, swerving suddenly, he made for the crossing without slackening speed. He had almost reached the water's edge when there came a spurt of flame from the door of Doubler's cabin, followed by the sharp whip like crack of a rifle! ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... racing crew; and had written to Diogenes to call together the whole boating interest of the College, that they might set to work at once in good earnest. Tom, and the three or four other freshmen present, were duly presented to Miller as they came in, who looked them over as the colonel of a crack regiment might look over horses at Horncastle-fair, with a single eye to their bone and muscle, and how much work might be got out of them. They then gathered towards the lower end of the long table, ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... she's a-talkin' ter, I reckon," said Viny, stealing off on her tiptoes down the hall, and sticking her fingers in her ears that she might hear no more troublesome conscience calls; "I seen him on de rug when I peeked in de crack. ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... not come. One of them must have seen Lessard fall, for at the crack of MacRae's gun men and horses, already half-hidden by the thickening smoke, vanished into the brush. Piegan fired one ineffectual shot as they flicked out of sight. So far we had seen nothing of Lyn. I was satisfied she was not in the party, unaccountable ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... sing when they make bread; the Scotchman I told you of in a previous letter invariably trilled "Stop yer ticklin', Jock," and his bread was invariably below par. But this cook does not warble. He only releases the stopper with a crack like a gun-shot, flings the liquid "doughshifter" over the lake in a devastating shower, and commences to knead, swearing softly. Anon the exorcism changes to a noise like that affected by ostlers as they tend their charges, and the lake has become a parchment-coloured ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... by bursting the dry and contracted shell, in what is known as quarter or toe crack, and the miserable victim becomes practically useless at an age when his powers should ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... for a moment or two; then the wind bellowed suddenly in the chimney, the tall window gave a crack of sound, and the smoke eddied out into the room. ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... mother jumped up on the window-sill, But the window had no crack, She then looked into the looking-glass, But ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... writhed in our grasp, and I saw him stretch his arm upward. The crack of his revolver came, and he collapsed on to the floor, carrying ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... had she many a one, Which she perus'd, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood; Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone, Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud; Found yet mo letters sadly penn'd in blood, With sleided silk feat and affectedly Enswath'd, and ...
— A Lover's Complaint • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... and Wellesley and Bryn Mawr, and so helped to organize the procession. Their reminders are even beginning to take form as records of achievement; annals very far from meager, for achievement piles up faster since Democracy set the gate of opportunity on the crack, and we pack more into a half century than we used to. And women, more obviously than men, perhaps, have "speeded up" in response to the democratic stimulus; their accomplishment along social, political, industrial, and above all, educational lines, since the first woman's college ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... archaic story of the kind in the Thomas of Ercildoune and so many more fairy-tales, e.g., Kate Crack-a-Nuts, is certain. The "River of Blades" and "The Fighting Warriors" are known from the Eddic Poems. The angelica is like the green birk of that superb fragment, the ballad of the Wife of Usher's Well—a little more ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... narrow stairs that had grown so familiar to him the past week, watching anxiously the crack under the door to see if there was a light. But it was all dark! He tapped at the door lightly. But of course she would have gone to bed at once after the exertion of the journey! He tapped louder, and held his breath to listen. ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... cup of domestic happiness would be overflowing. Babcock's long ungratified yearning for the things of the spirit were fully met by these cosey evenings, which he would have been glad to continue to the crack of doom. To smoke and sprawl and read a little, and exchange chit-chat, was poetry enough for him. So contented was he that his joy was apt to find an outlet in ditties and whistling—he possessed a slightly tuneful, rollicking knack at both—a ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... crack showed, and by a second heavy blow the panel gave way sufficiently to allow him to insert his hand and draw the ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... and the sand under his feet seemed to crack; a woodpecker in an old tree tapped as if it was the tree's old heart quickened by something; the houses all around looked like live objects, with their windows fixed upon his walk, like married folks' eyes. As he came in sight ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... restaurants. I saw swings and merry-go-rounds, a circus, and a marionette theatre, and heard Punch and Judy discussing their domestic differences in Hungarian, and Toby barking in the same uncouth tongue. The joy with which the public greeted each crack on the head administered by Herr Punch's stick showed me how hopeless it was to write literary plays. For the primitive emotions will always be the most captivating. A fight must ever beat the most subtle psychology; and indeed those writers for whom the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... resounded through the forest. When these had done their work, and the bungler paused amid his wasteful debris to watch his toil's result, first was heard a rustle of leaves, as if a passing whirlwind had alighted there; next came the crack of bursting sinews; then the groan of a great riving spasm, and the tree, decapitated at its foot, crashed to earth, with a vain attempt to clutch for support at the stiff, unpitying arms ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... lobster by inserting a sharp knife in its back between the body and tail shells cutting the spinal cord. Split the shell the entire length of the back, remove the stomach and intestinal canal, crack the large claws and lay the fish as flat as possible. Brush the meat with melted butter, season with salt and pepper, place in a broiler, and with the flesh side down, cover and broil slowly until a delicate brown, about 20 minutes. Turn the broiler and broil ...
— 365 Luncheon Dishes - A Luncheon Dish for Every Day in the Year • Anonymous
... employed. They are filled with the peat pulp to the top. In a few days the water either filters away into the ground, or evaporates, so that a soft stratum of peat, about 3 inches in thickness, remains. Before it begins to crack from drying, it is divided into blocks, by pressing into it a light trellis-like framework, having thin partitions that serve to indent the peat in lines corresponding to the intended divisions. On further ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... talked so loud an' tull such purpose. There was no mustakun' ut. I stood there all tremblun' an' shakun'. Little Sammy was brayun'. I tell you, sir, he was brayun' like an ass—just like thot,—loud an' long an' cheerful tull ut seemed hus lungs ud crack. ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London
... has been made, by placing a stuffed bear near the house, probably in imitation of the Zoological Gardens; but the idea is rather a failure, and would appear more suitable over the door of a perfumer's shop, to intimate the presence of bear's grease. A little gim-crack model of a wooden house is also visible, by way of an ornament, stuck on the summit of a wooden pillar, but the effect is disproportioned to all surrounding objects, even more than the designs on Chinese paper; where men of six feet high are represented entering mansions ...
— The "Ladies of Llangollen" • John Hicklin
... said the old man, but he never did. The floor was too open. The toy soldier had fallen through a crack, and ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... and thereafter met but few outfits. The road was by no means empty, however. We met, from time to time, great blue or red wagons drawn by four or six horses, moving with pleasant jangle of bells and the crack of great whips. The drivers looked down at us curiously and somewhat haughtily from their high seats, as if to say, "We know where we are going—do you ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... with the heat, boy. What do you reckon I bought chips in this game for? I want a crack at the ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... but let me tell you a story. In a sea fight in the reign of Charles the Second, there was a very bloody engagement between the English and Dutch fleets, in the heat of which a Scotch sea-man was very severely bit by a louse on his neck, which he caught; and stooping down to crack it between his nails, many of the sailors near him had their heads taken off by a chain-shot from the enemy, which dashed their blood and brains about him; on which he had compassion upon the poor louse, returned him to his place and bid him ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... all were prominent men and all of them mental workers of high caliber. That didn't appear peculiar because it is the man of high mentality who is most apt to crack." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... she had forgotten to look across to the other side for some time, and was only reminded of it as she was wading back with her last armful of rails by something buzzing by her ear, and the second after the crack of a half-dozen guns followed from the edge of the wood the other side. She could not see them well for the burden in her arms, but she made out a number of horses dashing into the water on the little flat, and saw some puffs of smoke about their heads. She was bound ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... the waste To make the gloomy night more terrible Loud blows the northern blast—— He hears it hollow grumbling from afar, Then, gath'ring strength, roll on with doubl'd might, And break in dreadful bellowings o'er his head; Like pithless saplings bend the vexed trees, And their wide branches crack. He shuts the door, And, thankful for the roof that covers him, Hies him ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... to the west, around which the ravine curved in a semicircle, rose a frightful sound,—the Indian war-whoop from hundreds of savage throats. Hardly had it fallen on the startled ears of the patriots when the sharp crack of musketry followed, and leaden missiles were hurled into the crowded ranks. Arrows accompanied them, and spears and tomahawks came hurtling through the air hurled with ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... is all I have to ask at present. It is a very difficult nut we have to crack, Mr. Ferguson," he went on, when he and the first lieutenant were alone. "To attack six strongly armed prahus with the boats of this ship would be a serious enterprise indeed, and its success would be very doubtful, ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... maple sugar and all kinds of dried herbs and sweet flag; spinning wheels, a number of small white cotton bags filled with bundles, marked in ink, "silk," "cotton," "flannel," "calico," etc., as well as ancient masculine and feminine costumes. Here we would crack the nuts, nibble the sharp edges of the maple sugar, chew some favorite herb, play ball with the bags, whirl the old spinning wheels, dress up in our ancestors' clothes, and take a bird's-eye view of the surrounding country from an enticing scuttle ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... fearfully thinned, scant of food and pausing not to rest, the struggling men press on—ever on! Weary and faltering on the march, the first sharp crack of the rifle lights a new fire in every eye; and drinking the hot breath of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... Charley tell of several other visits they made that night; but, as I said before, even a Christmas yarn and a ghost story must not spin itself out, like Banquo's line, to the crack of doom. However true or authentic a story may be—and you can easily verify this by asking any member of the Christmas Club in Huckleberry Street—however true a yarn may be, it must not be so long that it ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... automobiles and will never be asked to pay a cent, an' I can live on dry land all me life if I choose, while you can't live under water, or over water, on land or on sea, and while all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't catch me if they were trying till the crack of doom, you could be caught be a few poor, harmless sailors, who wouldn't know a crow from a cormorant, and who'd sell your carcass to make oil for foolish wives to burn an' write letters to other people's husbands an' fill the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Head)—Glenaire—six miles' drive from S—, Perthshire. Scenery fine, but wild; accommodation limited; landlady refuses lady visitors, which fact is supposed to be one of the chief attractions; Elgood reported to be tough nut to crack; chief object of holiday, quiet and seclusion; probably dates two or three weeks from ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of Essex, standard-bearer of England, had high places and emoluments; had a haughty high soul, yet with various flaws, or rather with one many-branched flaw and crack, running through the texture of it. For example, did he not treat Gilbert de Cereville in the most shocking manner? He cast Gilbert into prison; and, with chains and slow torments, wore the life out of him there. And Gilbert's ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... first girl of her own age that Joan had ever seen. Joan went in terror of her and Maud knew this and enjoyed her ascendancy over an untamed creature twice her size. There was the crack of a lion-tamer's whip in the tone of her instructions. That was after a day or two. At first Maud had been horribly afraid of Joan. "A wild thing like her, livin' off there in the hills with that man, why, ma, there's no tellin' what she ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... sounded on the platform outside and a lank, good-looking countryman glanced cautiously in through the crack in the door. Observing Molly, he spat a wad of tobacco over the hitching rail by the steps, and stopped to smooth his straw-coloured hair with the palm of his hand before ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... the bosun's head—so hard a jolt for so smoothly delivered a blow! He gazed amazed. Again a deceptive swing or two, a fiddling with one hand and the other, a moment of rapid foot-work, a quick side-step, and biff! Kieran's left went into the ribs—crack! and Kieran's right caught him on the cheek-bone and laid it open as if ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... perlice, indeed!—You get out of this, ma'am, or I'll make you!—you and your cowardly man-pup there, as is afraid to look me in the face through the crack o' the door! Get out, I ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... suggested fruit, but at that time he was in some doubt about the canine teeth. At his request some of us gravely cracked nuts with him, and after the experiment we agreed that human beings more naturally crack nuts with the back teeth, where leverage is most powerful. A suspicion remained that our pointed fangs might have been ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... miss, to the tune of the Swaggerin' Jig, upon the kitchen table," she proceeded; "and, sorra be off me, but it would do your heart good to see the springs he would give—every one o' them a yard high—and to hear how he'd crack his fingers as loud as the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into a bulletin-board, and read off "notices" of meetings and societies and things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of doom—a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities, away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... M'riar commented as she took the brush and started to do Anna's painfully accomplished task all over, from the big crack by the door where she had started. "'Ow's 'e hever goin' to know w'ere we 'ave moved to?" she ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... sommes tous la, le dos courbee Crack! Encore un obus. Les shrapnels pour nous divetir, Au travail, nous font deguerpir. Mais, et qui nous ennuie le plus, Crack! se sont ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... fear gathered in his heart, he knew not of what. He began to think on trolls and goblins. It was dark in the store-room, except for a little line of light that crept through the crack of the shutter. At length he could bear the darkness and his thoughts no longer, but, rising, threw the shutter wide and let the bright moonlight pour into the chamber, whence he could see the hillside behind, and watch the shadows of the clouds as they floated across ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... very fine to look on and grin," rejoined Mrs. Poyser; "but there's times when the crockery seems alive an' flies out o' your hand like a bird. It's like the glass, sometimes, 'ull crack as it stands. What is to be broke WILL be broke, for I never dropped a thing i' my life for want o' holding it, else I should never ha' kept the crockery all these 'ears as I bought at my own wedding. And Hetty, are ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... objected; "something else again. What we contend is no man of ordinary common sense could get his own consent to crack a safe, or pick a pocket, or do second-story work, or pull any rough ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... began a vigorous assault upon the woodwork. It was old, but very tough, and yielded tardily to the blows of the instrument. Then a big crack appeared as the result of a stroke ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested: this broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... followed her feeling very sick, and promptly sat down. Then came Bickley with the air of the virtuous hero of a romance walking a pirate's plank, and also sat down. Only Bastin hesitated until the stone began to move away. Then with an ejaculation of "Here goes!" he jumped over the intervening crack of space and landed in the middle of us like a sack of coal. Had I not been seated really I think he would have knocked me off the rock. As it was, with one hand he gripped me by the beard and with the other grasped Yva's robe, of neither of which would he leave go for quite a long ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... and the next instant their two rifles rang out through the forest stillness in one sharp crack. Across the stream, ten yards behind the spot where Oscard had emerged from the bush, a leopard sprang into the air, five feet from the ground, with head thrown back, and paws clawing at the thinness of space with grand free sweeps. The beast fell ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... children, now rejoice,— Now—for the holidays of life are few; Nor let the rustic minstrel tune, in vain, The crack'd church-viol, resonant to-day, Of mirth, though humble! Let the fiddle scrape Its merriment, and let the joyous group Dance, in a round, for soon the ills of life Will come! Enough, if one day in the year, If one brief day, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... all sit down in a ring, the young fellow amongst them; a coko would then put a stick in Ursula's hand, who would then get up and go to the young fellow, and say, 'Did I play the . . . with you?' and were he to say 'Yes,' she would crack his head before the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... dragon-adorned roofs. Further towards the centre of the Fu is Prince Su's own palace and his retainers' quarters; to the south of this is an ornamental garden full of trees, a vast and mournful enclosure, standing in which the crack of outpost rifles can only be distantly heard. Moving across to the southern side—that is, the side near the French Legation and the protected Legation Street—the Christian refugees are found gathered here in huge droves. In one building there are alone four hundred ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... There was one crack in the walls of the Crickets' winter home which opened right into the fireplace, so the light from the fire always lit up the Crickets' living room. Papa Cricket could read the Bugville News while Johnny Cricket fiddled all the latest popular Bug ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... morning came, when Hugh and Colin and little Flora chased one another round and round in the door-yard, making many paths in the new-fallen snow. The house had been banked up with earth, and every crack and crevice in the roof and walls closed. The garden had been dug and smoothed as if the seeds were to be sown the next day. The barn and stable were in perfect order. The arrangements for tying up oxen and cows, which are always sure to get out of order in summer, had been made anew, and ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... savage. The Fire God pretends to be dreadfully frightened, and when the dwarf comes back to his own shape again he says: 'That was very good, but that does not seem so hard, after all. Now, the way for you to hide, it seems to me, would be to make yourself very small, so that you could slip into a crack in the rocks. You can puff yourself up like a dragon, of course, but can you make yourself small as easily? Oh, no, I ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... spaniels sleep, The spiders from their cobwebs peep: Last night the sun went pale to bed, The moon in halos hid her head; The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, For, see, a rainbow spans the sky: The walls are damp, the ditches smell, Closed is the pink-eyed pimpernel. Hark how the chairs and tables crack! Old Betty's joints are on the rack; Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, The distant hills are seeming nigh. How restless are the snorting swine; The busy flies disturb the kine; Low o'er the grass the swallow ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... congratulation in the fact that rain was not likely to be superadded to our miseries. Short-sighted rogues that we are! What a blessing is it, a knowledge of the evils to come is not permitted to cloud our enjoyments in possession! Crack went the whip. "Hold on with your claws and teeth!" cried the driver; the latter, we found, were only to be kept in the jaws by compression: for the former, we had immediate occasion; our first movement unshipped a trunk and carpetbag, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... the pony," he answered. "You come and look, Sue. The crack's big enough for both ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue and Their Shetland Pony • Laura Lee Hope
... which had taken it into her head to be weak in the legs; another time, the 'old gray' had entangled his hoof in the cords of the team. One night, he dreamed that he had just put an entirely new thong to his old whip, but that, notwithstanding, it obstinately refused to crack. This remarkable vision impressed him so deeply, that, on awaking, he seized the whip, which he was accustomed to place every night by his side; and in order thoroughly to assure himself that he was not stricken powerless, and deprived of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... you may take the trimmings, put them all together, roll them out, and having cut them in slips the breadth of the rim of the plate, lay them all round to make the paste thicker at the edges, joining them nicely and evenly, as every patch or crack will appear distinctly when baked. Notch the rim handsomely with a very sharp knife. Fill the dish with the mixture of the pudding, and bake it in a moderate oven. The paste should be of a light ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... first uncertain whether to advance or retreat, now resolved to enter for the moment into the whim of the scene, though internally fretting at Mac-Morlan for sending him to consult with a crack-brained humorist. He therefore advanced with three profound congees, and craved permission to lay his credentials at the feet of the Scottish monarch, in order to be perused at his best leisure. The gravity with which he accommodated himself to the humour of the moment, and the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... a Dog, and perhaps you will crack my—neck, you were going to say. Are you leading the Bull to your ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... voyages, if they really love each other, never grow weary of the little frills on connubial bliss usually worn shabby by other people before the honeymoon is past. "I know you don't mean to. But when you sneeze I think it's the crack o' doom." ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... Indians had been in the time of Governor Printz as one body and one heart; that they would henceforward be as one head, like the calabash, which has neither rent nor seam, but one piece without a crack; and that in case of danger to the Swedes they would ever serve and defend them. It was at the same time further arranged and agreed that if any trespasses were committed by any of their people upon the property of the Swedes, the matter should ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... darky rested his gun on his saddle and took careful aim. The crack of his rifle was followed by a hoarse squawk and the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... lost the ivory—and those are green. It has also five pedals, disposed as a harp underneath; but none of them make any impression on the sound, except the middle one, which rings a bell. The sound-board has a crack in it somewhere, Nino says, and two of the notes are dumb since the great German maestro came home with my boy one night, and insisted on playing an accompaniment after supper. We had stewed chickens and a flask of Cesanese, I remember, and I knew something would happen ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... had happened to look steadily at the back window of the bar-room, they might have detected, in the dusk, the face of Dougherty, the Irish ostler of the Unicorn Tavern. It disappeared instantly, but there was a crack nearly half an inch wide between the bottom of the back-door and the sill under it, and to that crack a large, flat ear ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... managed by Sergeant Prince Rivers, our color-sergeant, who is provost-sergeant also, and has entire charge of the prisoners and of the daily policing of the camp. He is a man of distinguished appearance, and in old times was the crack coachman of Beaufort, in which capacity he once drove Beauregard from this plantation to Charleston, I believe. They tell me that he was once allowed to present a petition to the Governor of South Carolina in behalf of slaves, for the redress of certain grievances; and that a placard, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... distant whistle sounded, and there was a shuffling of feet on the platform. A number of lanky boys, of all ages, appeared as, suddenly and slimily as eels wakened by the crack of thunder; some came from the waiting-room, where they had been warming themselves by the red stove, or half asleep on the slat benches; others uncoiled themselves from baggage trucks or slid out of express wagons. Two clambered down ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... Winsford, but most of the salt is extracted from brine both here and at Lawton, Wheelock and Middlewich. At Northwich and other places in the locality curious accidents frequently occur owing to the sinking of the soil after the brine is pumped out; walls crack and collapse, and houses are seen leaning far out of the perpendicular. A little copper and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... of a swarming metropolis stand idle, or the rumble of machinery in vast manufactories dies away to silence. There is alarm and panic. Arson and homicide stalk forth. There is a cry in the night, and quick anger and sudden death. Peaceful cities are affrighted by the crack of rifles and the snarl of machine-guns, and the hearts of the shuddering are shaken by the roar of dynamite. There is hurrying and skurrying. The wires are kept hot between the centre of government and the seat of trouble. The ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... intended to do. Apparently his purpose was unchanged. He wound steadily up the hill trail, keeping the animals at a steady pull, except for breathing spells. The miner had been a mule skinner in his time, just as he had tried his hand at a dozen other occupations. In the still night the crack of his whip sounded clear as a shot when it hissed above the flanks of the ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... may understand one of the simplest, and yet most terrible, cases of want of ventilation—death by the fumes of charcoal. A human being shut up in a room, of which every crack is closed, with a pan of burning charcoal, falls asleep, never to wake again. His inward fire is competing with the fire of charcoal for the oxygen of the room; both are making carbonic acid out of it: but the charcoal, being the stronger of the two, gets all the oxygen to itself, and leaves ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Pond heard the crack of his rifle and in less than half an hour the young man was back, with the fat saddle of a young antelope on ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... fellowship together; which has really been the case: for in the same season that his Most Excellent Majesty, as he was very properly styled in the proclamations for the general fasts and thanksgivings, was set by as a precious vessel which had received a crack or a flaw, and could only be serviceable in the way of an ornament, I was obliged, by reason of age and the growing infirmities of my recollection, to consent to the earnest entreaties of the Session, and to accept of Mr Amos to be my helper. I was long ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... long as it does not go beyond the bounds of moderation, but who is ready to resent any wilful insult: but I think you would be very wise to do as you say. Half an hour in a pistol-gallery every day is likely to be of vastly more use to you than any amount of Russian. The reputation that a man is a crack shot with a pistol will do more than anything in the world to keep him out of quarrels. Here at the depot at any rate, where the fellows are for the most part young, it would certainly save you a good deal of annoyance ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... saw her lover to the door; when the sound of his steps had died away on the stairs she ran out on to the balcony to see him get into the tilbury, to see him gather up the reins, to catch a parting look, hear the crack of his whip and the sound of his wheels on the stones, watch the handsome horse, the master's hat, the tiger's gold lace, and at last to stand gazing long after the dark corner of the street had eclipsed ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... looked at his clock, which was out of order, and oiled it with some "hen's grease," for want of sweet oil, for he scarcely could believe that we were not tinkers or peddlers; meanwhile he told a story about visions, which had reference to a crack in the clock-case made by frost one night. He was curious to know to what religious sect we belonged. He said that he had been to hear thirteen kinds of preaching in one month, when he was young, but he did not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... impossible. In vain the men tugged and strained at their oars while the gunner worked like a maniac to relight his linstock and to replace his priming. The boat had lost its weigh, while the brigantine was flying along now with every sail bulging and swelling to bursting-point. Crack! went the carronade at last, and five little slits in the mainsail showed that her charge of grape had flown high. Her second shot left no trace behind it, and at the third she was at the limit of her range. Half an hour afterwards a little dark dot upon the horizon with a golden speck at one ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... another pleasure. Get the baskets and follow me." Soon they came to a beautiful walnut tree, whose branches, spreading far out on all sides, were laden with nuts. David was overjoyed at this sight, as he had never seen the tree before. He at once filled his pockets with nuts and tried to crack one with his teeth and get at the kernel. "Father," said he, "why did God put the sweet nut between two shells, a ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... not like to kill. We started out together, climbing the trail in single file, but the enthusiasm of the chase soon led my companions into the deeper brush where the little doves lured them, and only the sharp crack of an occasional shot wakening the echoes of the cliffs ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... lower door of the tower opened a crack. An old, old woman, and not at all a pleasant looking ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... recognizing the new rgime in France. This bit of diplomacy was so cheap and successful that Louis Philippe tried it again, this time on Russia. His government favored a plot, hatched in Paris, for the freeing of Poland. Espronceda, who had not yet had his fill of crack-brained adventures, enlisted in this cause also, desiring to do for Poland what Byron had done for Greece; but the czar, wilier than Ferdinand, immediately recognized Louis Philippe. The plot was then quietly rendered innocuous. Espronceda must have felt ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... saw him hunt up a proper place to hide them. The place he chose was between the leaves of a book. He would push a pin far in out of sight, and then go after another. A match he always tried to put in a crack, under the baseboard, between the breadths of matting, or under my rockers. He first placed it, and then tried to hammer it out of sight. He could seldom get it in far enough to suit him, and this worried him. Then he would take it out and try ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... I cried; 'that fellow Looey the Fifteenth has been doing a lot of work around here hasn't he?' but the waiter was so busy watching the finish of the change he handed me that he didn't crack a smile. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... with complete scorn and will cast them aside if not put under stern injunctions. "I never found that it kept out the cold any better than a good new piece," snorted one disgustedly when we suggested that he putty a fine "bull's eye" pane with a slight crack. ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... soon fell to the ground convulsed with rage and pain. "Now you see you are where you ought to be," repeated the ruffian, brandishing the horsewhip over him, "and now take the advice of a friend, and make no more noise. The lads are ready for you with the darbies, and they'll clink them on in the crack of this whip, unless you prefer another touch of it first." They then were advancing into the room as he spoke, with fetters in their hands (strait waistcoats being then little known or used), and showed, by their frightful ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... fired—three shots—each, as the little weapon uttered its sharp ringing crack, sending a rifled bullet whizzing at the Malays. One ball struck the water before them, and went over their heads; the second passed before them, and the third struck one of the rowers, who leaped up with ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... Bruyere's writing is crisp and parched, but it is easy by careful reading to crack it, and to discover the coolness, the softness, the salutary humidity which lie beneath the satirical crust of his irony. He is primarily a satirist, dealing as he says with the vices of the human mind and the subterfuges of human self-deception. He lays ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... of any particular ceremony conjunctive with the marriage of "a male and a female." Even with the advent of Neolithic man, a wedding seems to have been consummated by the rather simple process of having the bridegroom crack the bride over the head with a plain, unornamented stone ax. There were no ushers—no bridesmaids. But shortly after that (c- 10,329—30 B.C. to be exact) two young Neoliths named Haig, living in what is now supposed ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... resembled Chevalier Daddi, Una's music-teacher in Lisbon. He put it upon the grate to bake, and then lay down on the rug, with his head on a footstool, to watch the process. But before it was finished I sent him to bed. It is after ten now, and the Chevalier has become thoroughly baked, with a crack across his left cheek. In all sorts of athletic exercises, in which a young Titan is required, Julian is eminent. Monsieur Huguenin, the gymnast, said that in all his years of teaching athletics, he had never met ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... trembling damsel pounce, And bottle her up in a close corked JAR, Or whirl her away in a flaming car; Then her knight, the brave Sir FRANCIS, Upon his noble steed advances, All his armour off he LEAVES, Preserves alone his polished greaves, His defence is a buff JACKET, Nor sword nor axe nor lance can crack it, It was made at HARROGATE, By a tailor whose shop had a narrow gate; The elves attack with spears of BARLEY, But he drives them off, oh! rarely, Then they shoot him with an ARROW, From bow-strings greased with ear-wigs' marrow, The feathers, ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the old man, as he reached over and lifted the sugar bowl and pitcher from his window. "Ach! them is a great bargain. I let you have them cheap. And see, not a chip or a crack on 'em. Good china, too! Very valuable, but they is all I have left. I ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope
... said Major Hunt-Goring, his eyes boldly passing her to rest upon Violet. "Managed to crack my thumb tinkering at my old motor. Dr. Wyndham tells me that you have been kind enough to ask me to lunch. How do you do, Miss Campion? Charmed to meet you! Someone told me you were yachting ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... remembering what it was That brought him to that creaking room was age. He stood with barrels round him—at a loss. And having scared the cellar under him In clomping there, he scared it once again In clomping off;—and scared the outer night, Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar Of trees and crack of branches, common things, But nothing so like beating on a box. A light he was to no one but himself Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what, A quiet light, and then not even that. He consigned to the moon, such as she was, So late-arising, to the broken moon As better than the sun in ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... occupy positions that you must attack and from which they can escape. If I could have had my own way on arrival I should have pushed through Bethulie to Bloemfontein, but the fat was in the fire before I got out. Kimberley I believe will be saved. Ladysmith is a terrible nut to crack, but I hope it will (? be relieved). Then I would propose to attack Bloemfontein from Kimberley, and I think an army holding Bloemfontein based on Kimberley will be better off than one which holds ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... drill as was possible; and then, having tested them in as many competitive contests as were within reach, he challenged the militia companies of the United States, and set forth in the summer of 1860 on a tour of the country which was one unbroken succession of triumphs. He defeated the crack companies in all the principal Eastern cities, and went back to Chicago one of the most talked-of men in the country. Hundreds of Zouave companies started up in his wake, and a very considerable awakening of interest in military matters was the substantial result ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various |
