"Narrow escape" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shouldn't there be horned bears? Anyway, I believe it was a bear, and I shall stick to it." And to this day Joe believes—or thinks he does—that he had a very narrow escape from a ferocious bear on ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... longer to win Lord Chetwynde by brilliancy of conversation, or by enthusiastic interest in the beautiful of nature and of art. These had failed once; why should she try them again? And since he had been unmoved by the spectacle of her lifeless form—the narrow escape from death of one who he well knew would die to save him—what was there left for her ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... 20th, were saved. It will take time and work to restore these pedigrees and the loss must cause some delay in the work of the office. It will be remembered that the records of the association had a narrow escape at the time ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... provisions, and ammunition, belonging to the Carolineans, fell also into their hands. Colonel Daniel, on his return, standing in for the harbour of Augustine, found to his surprise the siege raised, and made a narrow escape ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... just had a narrow escape of my life,' gasped the jackal, 'and I need some sleep. After that we must think of something to do to amuse ourselves.' And he lay down again and slept soundly ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... they may be plundered. It is as much out of common observation almost as the lair of a wild beast in some deep wilderness. I have heard it described by those who have been there under protection of the police, and shudder to think of the narrow escape you have made. I don't want you to go into that vile district again. It is no place for such ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... any excitement; yet, did his chums but know it, there was much of thanksgiving in his heart over the narrow escape. ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... great naturalist, had a very narrow escape from missing his proper vocation. He was sent to a grammar-school, but exhibited no taste for books; therefore his father decided to apprentice him to a shoemaker. Fortunately, however, a discriminating ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... at this present half-holiday dinner; yet even with such cheerfulness about him could not but shiver now and then, as he recalled his narrow escape of the afternoon. To have taken his meal alone, on that day, would have been to ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... the lady in question or contemplates giving her an opportunity of rejecting him. Your logic is right, Louis: I am in love—indeed I was from the first sight I had of Bertha, David's splendid sister; and I have even had a narrow escape of being rejected. Not that my beloved has not returned my affection; as soon as I could summon courage to propose to her, Bertha confessed, with that undisguised candour which is charming in her—more correctly, in all the women of Freeland—that on the very first evening ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... was perfectly empty and bare; and the weather being, at this time, that of December, and the night too very long, the northerly wind, with its biting gusts, was sufficient to penetrate the flesh and to cleave the bones, so that the whole night long he had a narrow escape from being frozen to death; and he was yearning, with intolerable anxiety for the break of day, when he espied an old matron go first and open the door on the East side, and then come in and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... narrow escape in coming home—the Hulans were at the village of , an hour after we passed through it, and treated the poor inhabitants, as they usually do, with great inhumanity.—Nothing has alienated the minds of the people so much ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... thing that Dorothy did was to draw a long breath over her narrow escape, and the next thing was to look up into the air to see what had become of the tree, and she saw the braided floor of the garden floating away, far above her head, with the flapping trunks of the trees dangling from it like a lot of one-legged trousers. This was ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... hint of the suspicion entertained by the owner and his elephant trainer had been breathed about the show. Nearly a week had passed since Phil's narrow escape from death; yet, despite all the efforts of Kennedy or the shrewd observation of his employer, they were no nearer a solution of the mystery than before. The days passed, and with them the anger ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... invitation. As I passed the dining-room door I could hear Miss Darrell's little tinkling laugh and Mr. Hamilton's deep voice answering her. The next moment Thornton came out of the room, and I had only time to whisk round the corner. I confess this narrow escape very much alarmed me, and my heart beat a little quickly as I tapped at Gladys's door; then, as I heard her weak ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... rapid George and Job were nearly wrecked. Job changed his mind about the course a little too late and they had a narrow escape. They were whirled round and banged up against a cliff with the bottom of the canoe tipped to the rock and held there for a while, but fortunately did not turn over till an unusually tempestuous rush ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... found its way into the interior of the sequoia in place of keeping to the outside, Godfrey and his companion would have been struck. Most decidedly they had had a narrow escape. ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... narrow escape," insisted Ethel, and then to divert their minds from what had happened she made them stretch themselves in a line and hunt for arrow heads all the way back ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... Guilsborough had an extremely narrow escape. Being warned on no account to practise flying in the house or garden, lest his grandchildren should see him and want to do the same, he retired to the seclusion of an old, disused and dilapidated coach house. Here, in the upper storey, he practised by the hour together. ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... little troubled, he said, about taking the carriage into the town. He reminded them of the recent uproar of the people, and their narrow escape, and warned them that if they were recognized they ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... fellows in the bushes would have taken us in the rear; between their two fires our chances would have been small indeed. No doubt they had a man on watch, and directly they saw us coming they got their carts across the road, and took up their positions. It was a well contrived scheme, and we have had a narrow escape." ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... from the opposite direction cut him off from turning with the car. So all that was left to do was to jam on both brakes, which he did, and then, as the racing car shot past, he released the wheels and went on, just ahead of the coach. But it was a narrow escape all around, and the girls and Roger leaped to their ...
— Dave Porter and the Runaways - Last Days at Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... light of it, even though her own heart was beating like a hammer at the thought of her narrow escape from possible death. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope
... his narrow escape from the grave by the pleurisy, wrote his own epitaph which has been greatly celebrated. It has generally been admired; but some of more sensitive minds perceive in it a tone which ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... a favour for you, and he informed her of the character of her protege. This brought forward your innocence, because it was discovered that, instead of asking for, you had declined the offer she had made you through the Empress. Write the Princess a letter of thanks. You have, indeed, had a narrow escape, but it has been so far useful to you, that Government is now aware of your having some secret enemy in power, who is not delicate about the means ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... us. Again we greeted them with bullets and knocked out several, whereon the rest threw a volley of their long spears at us. I was glad to see them do this although one of the Zulus got his death from it, while two more were wounded. I myself had a very narrow escape, for a spear passed between my neck and shoulder. Each of them carried but one of these weapons and I knew that if they used them up in throwing, only their big knives would remain to them ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... adventures in these Antarctic seas, among which was a narrow escape from shipwreck in a fierce gale off Cape Horn, and amidst hitherto unexplored Antarctic islands, the Beagle set a course northward in the open Pacific for Valparaiso, the chief seaport of Chile, which ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... his selections, the gloom deepened, it became almost as dark as night, the rain ceased for a moment, and there was silence; and then there shot in upon us a blast of fire and a bolt of thunder, so near and so overwhelming that I verily believe it was a narrow escape from death. ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... Our section has silenced a Boer gun in three shots, at 4200 yards, a good bit of work, and a credit to Lieutenant Bailey as a judge of range. The right section also cleared the kopje they fired at, but had a narrow escape afterwards, coming suddenly, when on the move, under the fire of Boer guns, of whose presence they were ignorant, the shells falling thick but not bursting. Bivouacked at four on the veldt. The Boers had ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... him, and was introduced to his wife, a lovely woman indeed! to whom, with great glee, he related the whole history of the chase, and his own narrow escape, and then laughed very heartily. But not so his gentle partner. For, as he told of the shrill whizzing of our swords close behind him, and of the groans of his dragoons as they fell, cut down from their horses, her face turned pale, and pensive; ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... the hospital yard. As to Thompson, there wasn't any reason why suspicion should fall upon him. Soon after I got back to my regiment I got ill again and was left in a hospital at Cuenca, and had a narrow escape of it ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... the arms of its new mother. "Thou hast had a narrow escape, poor thing," said he, and his countenance assumed a melancholy cast as the ideas floated in his mind. "Who knows how many more perils may await thee? Who can say whether thou art to be restored to the arms of thy relatives, or to be left an orphan to a sailor's care? ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... and that he had been surprised at two ladies undertaking such a risk alone. They gratefully accepted his offer, and proceeded to the Villafranca station without meeting a single human being—a fact which they noted with a shudder and a deep sense of thankfulness at their narrow escape. ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... tempted to do wrong, he remembered his narrow escape from drowning, and the importance of the little word "No." The oftener he said it, the easier it became; and in time he could say it, ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... of the imaginary rights of others. She had no patience with her husband when he declared to her that he could not accept the hospital unless he knew that Mr. Harding had refused it. Her husband had no right to be quixotic at the expense of fourteen children. The narrow escape of throwing away his good fortune which her lord had had, almost paralysed her. Now, indeed, they had received a full promise, not only from Mr. Slope, but also from Mrs. Proudie. Now, indeed, they might reckon with safety on their good fortune. But what if ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of a light-house was no very extraordinary conquest, in the course of the contests on the harbor which were connected with it Caesar had a very narrow escape from death. In all such struggles he was accustomed always to take personally his full share of the exposure and the danger. This resulted in part from the natural impetuosity and ardor of his character, which were always aroused to double intensity of action ...
— History of Julius Caesar • Jacob Abbott
... understood that the great fishing fleet had not launched forth upon its labours. Their narrow escape from the two French cruisers would last them a long time to think over, and to say the same thing to each other about it that each other had said to them every time they met. And they knew that they could not do this so well as to make a new credit of it every time, when once they were in the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... finding most hands against him, and bringing no good luck even to his friends. His latest exploit has been the slaying of certain brothers who were forcing their sister to wed against her will. The result has been the slaughter of the woman by her brothers' clansmen, and his own narrow escape ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... irritant nerves. Thus descended Nemesis upon Miss Kathleen Pierce. Not that Miss Pierce was of a misgiving temperament: she had too calm and superb a conviction of her own incontrovertible privilege in every department of life for that. But Esme Elliot had given her a hint of her narrow escape from the "Clarion," and she was angry. To the Pierce type of disposition, anger is a spur. Kathleen's large green car increased its accustomed twenty-miles-an-hour pace, from which the police of the business section thoughtfully averted their ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... glad to welcome you back to life agin; for I war beginning to fear your account with earthly matters had closed. By the Power that made me! but you've had a narrow escape on't; and ef Betsy (putting his hand on his rifle, which was lying by his side,) hadn't spoke out as she did, that thar red skin varmint (pointing to the dead Indian) would have been skulking now like a thief through yonder woods, with ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... cliffs. All along the edge of the ice-shelf were snow cornices, some weighing hundreds of tons; and these often broke away, collapsing with a thunderous sound. On July 31, Harrisson and Watson had a narrow escape. After finishing their day's work, they climbed down to the floe by a huge cornice and sloping ramp. A few seconds later, the cornice fell and an immense mass of hard snow crashed down, cracking the sea-ice for more ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... with Dr J. Jeffries, an American, crossed the channel between England and France in a balloon—starting from Dover, and descending in safety in the Forest of Guiennes. They had, however, a narrow escape, having been compelled to throw out all their ballast, and everything they could dispense with, to prevent their balloon from falling into ...
— Up in the Clouds - Balloon Voyages • R.M. Ballantyne
... the same effect, and their leader reluctantly abandoned his search and returned to the cabin. Had he gone another twenty feet he would inevitably have discovered Bob, who had been on the point of springing to his feet and giving battle. It was a narrow escape, and the radio boys heaved sighs of relief as the door of the cabin closed on the formidable figure of the leader. They knew that these men were desperate criminals, heavily armed, who would not hesitate at murder to ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... demolished by Joseph II; complaints against. Prussian soldiery. Napoleon: takes tribute of works of art from vanquished Governments, calumniated by the emigres; unjust aspersions on; narrow escape from capture; confident of success before Waterloo; constructs Chaussee of Mont Cenis. Naples: life of a man of fashion in; Etruscan vases and papyri in museum; theatres; Pulcinello; social advantages; lazzaroni; dialect; effect of general ignorance. ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... avoid such another view. But there is an Arctic fever as well as an Arctic chill, and, once in the blood, it drags its victim irresistibly to the frozen North, until perhaps he lays his bones among the icebergs, cured of all fevers forever. And so, a year or two after the narrow escape of Dr. Kane, the surgeon of his expedition, Dr. Isaac I. Hayes, was hard at work fitting out an expedition of which he was to be commander, to return to Baffin's Bay and Smith sound, and if possible, fight its way into that ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... gentlemen," he said evenly. "You have had a narrow escape. The South does not use such methods of warfare. Nor will I permit our Government to fall to such level by an act of retaliation. The prisoners we hold are soldiers of the enemy's army. Their business is ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... story of my life just to write a book. I tell it because it seems my plain duty to do so. A narrow escape from death and a seemingly miraculous return to health after an apparently fatal illness are enough to make a man ask himself: For what purpose was my life spared? That question I have asked myself, and this book ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... at my narrow escape, but my fellow-travellers were evidently one party. They looked at me coldly, as at an unwelcome intruder, and drew more closely together, discussing the day's doings; so I curled up in my corner and gave myself up to anticipations ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... not a little relieved at his narrow escape. He did not propose to be taken captive without making a strong resistance; but still, in a struggle with Mr. Fox and Joel, he felt that he would be considerably at ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... thought! We knew nothing till sunrise, when the motion of our aquatic cot awakened us. I looked up, and beheld Zeke wading toward the shore, and towing us after him by the bark cable. Pointing to the reef, he told us we had had a narrow escape. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... running east and west to the horizon, so that we could not say whether we had come to an island or to another southern continent. The anxieties through which we had passed, particularly our narrow escape from shipwreck upon the reefs, made it desirable we should seek some haven in which to recruit our strength and re-victual our ship before setting out upon our homeward voyage, for Hartog was anxious ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... another narrow escape, when it seemed as if the secret really must pop out. Polly, rushing along to the reading room opposite the big dining room, saw Mother Fisher in consultation with the head waiter, and he was saying "cake," and then he stopped suddenly, and Mrs. Fisher turned and ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... aware that their Kaiser had a narrow escape from the bombs of the Allies' airmen at Thielt, for the fact of the War Lord's recent invasion of Belgium has been kept as nearly a dead secret as possible. I learned from an especially well-informed source in Brussels that the object of the ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... about it as one relates the details of a narrow escape, and pointed out how lucky he was, she looked very grave. It was a very careless thing to do, she said. Casey admitted it was. A man who handled dynamite ought to shun liquor above all things, she went on; and Casey agreed restively. He had not felt ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... she find you out? Come, my young friend, trust to my experience, and to the interest this attempt to murder you, and your narrow escape, have inspired in me. When I have landed you in the Temple of Health, and just wasted a little advice on a pig-headed patient in the neighborhood (he is the squire of the place), I'll drive back to Hillsborough, and tell your mother some story or other: you and I will concoct that ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... dryly, though the ashen face of him showed how well he realized his narrow escape. "I reckon we understand each other now. I can see by the way you yanked out your gun just now and by the way you got the drop on Taggart yesterday, that you're some on the shoot. But I ain't none scared of you. An' now I'm tellin' you why I ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... question. "Anita again. I had a bad attack of family man's panic." And thus it came about that I went back to my own office feeling as if I had suffered a severe defeat, instead of jubilant over my narrow escape. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... narrow escape, Harry, and we must not stay long in London," said Gilbert, as they left the village, and saw the soldiers ride out towards Essex; and then he told his companion of his former ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie
... next describes their landing to clean their foul ships, their sufferings from scurvy, their treacherous welcome at Mozambic, their narrow escape at Quiloa and Mombaca, and ends his account with his joy at arriving at last ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Mr Coningham kindly. 'You have had a narrow escape. I lost myself once in the Cumberland hills, and hardly got off with my life. Here it is a chance you were ever seen again, alive or dead. I wonder you're not ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... of the heart that followed this narrow escape had subsided, he stood gazing down where the sunbeams slept so pleasantly at the roots of the tall old trees, with whose highest tops he was upon a level. Suddenly he seemed to hear voices—one well-remembered voice— ascending from beneath; and, approaching to the edge of the cliff, he saw ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... monster succeeded in dragging the body into the rushes, and the noise of the dispute, as they fought over their unfortunate mate, nauseated the boy. His arms were tired and stiff and his head was reeling, but he bravely worked at the paddle until he reached a bend of the river. It had been a narrow escape, and Piang had learned a lesson. Never again would he idly thump ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... described Seraphine's narrow escape and showed them the automatic writing, the message from Penelope's mother, not the evil message; whereupon Christopher, in amazement, gave the corroborative testimony of his battlefield ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... the lieutenant, "am a major of regulars, attached to the staff of General Luis Pando, and on an urgent mission to Jiguani. My horse was killed by insurgents this morning, and I had a narrow escape, leaving one of ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... with a governor at its head. Until then convicts had been sent to America and the West Indies. The account of this landing always interested me very much; but, on his second voyage to Australia, there happened to my father such a strange adventure, and such a narrow escape from a dreadful death that I never wearied of hearing about it, and it is now as fresh in my memory as if he had just told it to me. This is how it came to pass. It was in the spring of 1789, when he had been at home with us for a month, ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... but that was a narrow escape for you, Thure!" and, throwing himself out of his saddle, Bud rushed up to where Thure stood, white and trembling, now that the danger was over, not ten feet from where the bear ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... Peacock at 185, instead of 166; of the Nautilus at 106 instead of 95, etc., etc., it is safe to presume that he has overestimated it by at least 20, which brings the number pretty near to the American accounts. The Pelican lost but two men killed and five wounded. Captain Maples had a narrow escape, a spent grape-shot striking him in the chest with some force, and then falling on the deck. One shot had passed through the boatswain's and one through the carpenter's cabin; her sides were filled with grape-shot, and her rigging and sails much injured; her foremast, main-top-mast, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... rare confession of weakness. But three weeks before his purblind nag Mettle had stumbled, flung him, trailed him a few yards on the ground with one foot in the stirrup, and come to a standstill with one hoof planted blunderingly on his other foot. It had been a narrow escape, had caused him excruciating pain, and he limped still. To walk, even with a stick, was impossible. But the money must be paid at Froddingham and he would trust no messenger. So he mounted the mare, Bounce, and set forth at a foot-pace, ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... very narrow escape. I dread to think what would have happened had that automobile top been up. We should give thanks for our deliverance. But I don't understand how we came to get in there, or what it is that we did get into," ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... of explorations or in the records of energy, courage, and perseverance under the most discouraging circumstances—might have acted as a warning to future explorers against endeavouring to follow in his track. The fearful privations he endured, his narrow escape from the most terrible of all forms of death, were certainly not encouraging; but his experience might often be of service to others, pointing out dangers to be avoided, and suggesting methods of overcoming difficulties. At any rate, I was not ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... them when they left it on the bank. Then he climbed a tree and cried out to the frogs, "The army is frightened and is running away." "Oh, thank you, thank you," said the frogs, "we'll never forget your goodness to us." Then they sat down in the marsh and told each other what a narrow escape they all had. ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... is what I can't tell—no, not I; but I knows this, that the child has had a narrow escape of his precious life, and I'd never trust him again with that there Sedley—no, not for ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... piece; the shot be still sticking in her wales, and her sails be like so many clap-nets: we have run all the way home under jury topmasts; and as for her decks, you may swab wi' hot water, and you may swab wi' cold, but there's the blood-stains, and there they'll bide. . . . The Cap'n had a narrow escape, like many o' the rest—a shot shaved his ankle like a razor. You should have seen that man's face in the het o' battle, his features were as if they'd ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... the son, then Colonel Goring, commanding a regiment in the Low Countries, was, at the siege of Breda, September, 1637, severely wounded in the leg, and had a narrow escape of losing it. Sir William Boswell, the English ambassador at the Hague, writes to Bramhall, then Bishop of Derry, and afterwards Archbishop ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... a narrow escape from the bloodhounds. He had trusted his secret to a colored man who, faithful like the rest, was directing him on his way when deep ominous sounds fell on their ears. The colored man knew that sound too well; he knew something of the ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... the street. We are just running an escape party. If you want to keep out of Hell, come and join us. Don't ask questions. There's no time for that. Hurry up, or you'll be left behind." And when the party turns the corner the clergy say, "Ah, that was a narrow escape. Some of you had a very close shave." And the next morning a collector calls for a subscription for the gentleman who saved ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... the masses and altered the fortunes of Rome.[302] But her gifts had not impaired her tenderness. Her sons were her "Jewels," and the successive loss of nine of the children which she had borne to Gracchus must have made the three that remained doubly dear. The two boys had a narrow escape from becoming Eastern princes: for the hand of the widow Cornelia was sought in marriage by the King of Egypt.[303] Such an alliance with the representative of the two houses of the Gracchi and the Scipios might easily seem desirable to a protected ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... bullocks, &c., in their huts at night. From this method of management a very great degree of comfort arises, of which Mr. Macqueen gives the following instance in a convict's feast, which he once witnessed. At Christmas, 1837, one of his assigned servants, (who had a narrow escape from capital conviction at home,) requested leave to draw the amount of some extra labour from the stores, since he wished to give an entertainment to a few of his colleagues, all of whom were named and were well conducted men. The party making this application had been industrious and well-behaved, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... that we had had a narrow escape. Of the three messengers we had sent forth to General Quincy, but one reached him; the others had been slain on the streets. And when the solitary man fought his way through to the armory he found the Mamelukes of the Air full of preparations ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... disorderly flight. Though Caesar met the fugitives and endeavoured to turn them, he had no success, and when he laid hold of the colours, those who were carrying them threw them down, so that the enemy took two and thirty, and Caesar himself had a narrow escape with his life. A tall, strong man was running away past by Caesar, who putting his hand upon him, ordered him to stand and face the enemy; but the man, who was completely confounded by the danger, raised his sword to strike him, on which Caesar's ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... a scarcely less narrow escape. He was invited with a party of officers to spend an afternoon with some young ladies in the neighbourhood, and they were on the way to keep their engagement, when Mr. Pellew stopped, and said to his companions, "We are doing a very foolish ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... at once. He began to preach his new Christianity at Damascus about the year 51, and found out that the world was not prepared for his ideas. He had a narrow escape at Damascus, where the governor and soldiers pursued him. Like the spies at Jericho, he was let down in a basket over the city walls and made his escape. So he narrates the story. The author of the Acts, true to his hostility to the Jews, of course brings them in as the persecutors. But ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Well, when she found I wasn't to be had, she picked up with a fellow from the Victualling Yard and married he, and came down to Dock to live. Man's name was Babbage, and they hadn't been married six months afore he tumbled into a brine-vat and was drowned. 'That's one narrow escape to me,' I said. Next news I had was a letter telling me she'd a boy born, and please would I stand godfather? I didn't like to say no, out of respect to her family. So I wrote home from Gibraltar that I was agreeable, only it must be done by proxy and ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... moaned the man of science, who seemed more grieved over his failure to collect the rare specimen than he did over his own narrow escape, "there is every other kind of flea around here, though, I found that out while I ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... old man solemnly, "if you're my lawful wife you've had a narrow escape this night of being left a widow woman, and you may be thankful you've ever ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... way my fate was sealed. It gives me a shudder of wonder to think what a narrow escape I had; I came so near not being born at all. If the beggarly cousin with the frowzy wig had prevailed upon her family and broken off the match, then my mother would not have married my father, and I should at this ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... happened as he performed his circus acts the remainder of that day and evening. He shuddered at the narrow escape he had had, and, when he had a chance, he carefully noted the conduct of Harry Loper. But that young fellow did not seem at all to act like one who had tried to do a dastardly trick. He was jolly and good-natured, as he always ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... most narrow escape from death was being shot at by a lot of fool emigrants, who, when I took them to task about it on my return trip, excused themselves by saying, “We thought ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... he quietly curled up his toes and held the scissors with his beak, so that it needed two people to circumvent his clever resistance. He had wonderfully acute vision, and would let me know directly a hawk was in sight, though it might be but the merest speck in the sky. He once had a narrow escape, for a sparrow-hawk made a swoop at him in his cage just outside the drawing-room window, and had no one been at hand would probably have dragged him through the bars. Whenever he saw a jay or magpie, ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... quest for her. After exchanging presents with the Redcross Knight, he bids farewell to Una and her companions. These pursue their journey and soon meet a young knight, Sir Trevisan, fleeing from Despair. Sir Trevisan tells of his narrow escape from this old man, and unwillingly conducts the Redcross Knight back to his cave. The Knight enters and is almost persuaded to take his own life. He is saved by the timely interposition of Una. This is the most powerful canto of ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... they were now so much divided both in affection and residence. Fortunately, however, for them, a negro woman, who was partial to them, ran twenty miles in three hours, and warning them of their danger, they were united and in arms to oppose the negroes before the latter had assembled. This narrow escape made them more cautious, and induced them to adopt the ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... mountain we visited an electric manufacturing plant, the products being aluminum, magnesium, sodium, peroxide, sodium, oxolyte, calcium, and hydrated calcium. In this factory one of the commissioners had a narrow escape from certain injury, if not death, by attempting to taste the chemicals. He was stopped just ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... arising perhaps from the treatment he had received at school. On one occasion in sudden anger, he threw a knife at the head of another boy, which providentially missed him and was left trembling in the wall; but it was a narrow escape, and might have proved fatal. Though not a Christian at this time, he was under two strong influences for good, one from his religious friend in college, the other from his sister in Cornwall, a Christian of a meek, heavenly and affectionate ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... could hardly realize what a fearfully narrow escape the fine old church had had. A very little delay in attacking the flames would have allowed them to get such headway that no effort on their part could have won out. And perhaps that would have dealt a crushing blow to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... not been drowned, although he had had an exceedingly narrow escape. It was not the rigging which so endangered his life. As he rose toward the surface his head struck the pole with which the negro was accustomed to push his boat around in the shallow water, and the blow was so stunning that he did no more than instinctively cling to the object which had injured ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... White River, sending a man with him. Mr. Cross's team went over safely, but mine, which Mr. Cross himself was driving, broke through and were drowned, in spite of every effort of the two men. Mr. Cross had a narrow escape. He managed to save the wagon, but the horses went down with harness on as they were driven. Mr. Cross took the loss so to heart, that together with the strain and agony of the moment, it quite prostrated him. He started for White River in a day or two after, though ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 5, May, 1889 • Various
... of Jackson. Jackson's Presence of Mind. Jackson's Narrow Escape. Jackson and the Acorns. Jackson as Judge. Jackson and the Indian Prisoners. The Battle of New Orleans. Jackson ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... I have had a narrow escape, dear mother," replied Amabel. "Pardon me. I do not deserve your forgiveness. But I will never ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... year's imprisonment with hard labour, and let me tell you, Rachel, you had a most narrow escape there! If that army doctor had not come in time to see the child alive, they could not have chosen but have an inquest, and no mortal can tell what might have been the decision about your homoeopathy. You might have ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reminded Jean of Mlle. Remy. She possessed the same kind of hair. It was this mental association that prompted him to carry the unknown to his own lodgings as described. This impulse of compassion and association was strengthened by his narrow escape from being her slayer. In fact, it was the best thing to have ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... more nervous than ever as he walked slowly along the road in the direction of the village, his hand still on the bloodhound's collar. He felt what a narrow escape Goddard had probably had, and the terrible sound of Stamboul's baying had brought back to him once again and very vividly the scene in the woods by the Bosphorus. He felt that for a few minutes at least he would rather not enter the ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... 18 inches long, having been found on one taken from them on a late occasion. In his last letter Frank Jardine mentions an encounter with a "friendly" native detected in the act of spearing cattle, in which he had a narrow escape of losing his life, and states that, despite their professions of friendship, they are always on the watch for mischief. It is evident therefore, that no terms can safely be held with a race who know no law but their own cowardly impulse of evil, and that an active and watchful force ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... addressed to the hearts ashore lying under a heavy sentence. And they come swiftly from the other side of the earth, over wires and cables, for your electric telegraph is a great alleviator of anxiety. Details, of course, shall follow. And they may unfold a tale of narrow escape, of steady ill-luck, of high winds and heavy weather, of ice, of interminable calms or endless head-gales; a tale of difficulties overcome, of adversity defied by a small knot of men upon the great loneliness of the sea; a tale of ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... placing upon foreign markets what are, as far as outward appearance goes, the exact counterparts of our own goods, for half the money, a genuine American revolver is a different weapon from its would-be imitators, and I hesitate not to pay the price for the genuine article. Remembering the narrow escape on several occasions of having the bull-dog confiscated by the Turkish gendarmerie, and having heard, moreover, in Constantinople, that the same class of officials in Turkey in Asia will most assuredly want to confiscate the Smith & Wesson as a matter of private speculation ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... unspeakable pleasure at its favourable termination, and they offered up internally to their merciful Creator, a prayer of thanksgiving and praise for his providential interference in their behalf. It was indeed a narrow escape, and it was happy for them that their white faces and calm behaviour produced the effect it did on these people; in another minute their bodies would have been as full of arrows as a porcupine's is ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... cast their eyes abroad over Spain, Belgium, or France, above all toward Rome, which was the centre of their religion, attachment to which was one of their chief crimes, where the Holy Father was ever ready to encourage and receive them with open arms, Thus history tells us of the narrow escape of young ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... they are—even some of the fellows working for the picture company. They are pretty rough themselves. I do not want murder done because of my narrow escape." ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... The ship immediately surrendered, and turned out to be a vessel the pirate had plundered only a few days previously. This infuriated Spriggs and his crew, who showed their disappointment by half murdering the captain. After a narrow escape from being captured by a French man-of-war near the Island of St. Kitts, Spriggs sailed north to the Summer Isles, or Bermudas. Taking a ship coming from Rhode Island, they found her cargo to consist of horses. Several of the ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... hesitation, as she considered how she could reply to such a question honestly with a yes. Then she stammered, "Y-yes, for a little while. That is, just for a few weeks." Then she drew a long breath. "My! That was a narrow escape. I've been wondering all the way up the street what would be the first thing you'd say to me, and for a second I was afraid you'd ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Queen Caroline's Illness and Death on the King. His Narrow Escape in the Royal Yacht. His Visit to Ireland. Entry into Dublin. Position of the King's Ministers. George IV. on the Field of Waterloo. The King's visit to his Hanoverian Dominions. Coalitions and Double Negotiation. Political Gossip. A New Club. Dismissal of Sir Robert Wilson ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... the good old lady was not. Perhaps you have already guessed that Farmer Green was blasting away the stumps with powder. Anyhow, the Woodchuck family had a narrow escape. ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey
... the time of reiteration;—and the second, and certainly the principal circumstance, is the frequency of their reiteration by the mind. In evidence of the first we see, that a fall, a fright, or a narrow escape from imminent danger, although it occurred but once, and perhaps in early infancy, will be remembered through life; and in proof of the second, we find, that the scenes and circumstances of childhood being frequently and daily reiterated by the mind, at a time when it has little else to reiterate, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... cord which held it to the bank. Once out in the current my raft flew swiftly under the gloomy archway, and I found myself in total darkness, carried smoothly forward by the rapid river. On I went as it seemed to me for many nights and days. Once the channel became so small that I had a narrow escape of being crushed against the rocky roof, and after that I took the precaution of lying flat upon my precious bales. Though I only ate what was absolutely necessary to keep myself alive, the inevitable moment came ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... the detail of our friend's narrow escape I have omitted to mention that when he was about to step into the water he put his foot on a dagger which cut him to the bone, but this misfortune could not stop him from attempting the execution ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... had been left by the murderous savages, and at once turned their horses' heads and fled. They were not a moment too soon; for the Indians, who had been lying in ambush, rose and fired at the boys. Matthews had a narrow escape; for a bullet cut off the wisp of hair (known as a queue) that hung dangling from the back of his head. The danger that he had passed through, and the sight of his murdered neighbors, roused young Matthews to action. He collected a party of men, put himself at the head of ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... fears, which the provoking narrative inspires only to defraud. How would some old inquisitive Froissart have dragged by frequent inquiry from contemporaneous lips, the particular fact, the whole adventure, step by step, item by item,—the close pursuit, the narrow escape,—and all the long train of little, but efficient circumstances, by which the story would have been made unique, with all its rich and numerous details! These, the reader must supply from his own resources of imagination. He must conjecture for himself the casual warning ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... the agitation was in Congress last winter, and what a narrow escape Kansas had from being admitted into the Union with a constitution that was detested by ninety-nine hundredths of her citizens. Did the angry debates which took place at Washington during the last season of Congress lead you to suppose that the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... feeling, was weeping, howling, and tearing her elf-locks, in a state little short of distraction. On raising up the smith, the first discovery was, that he was alive; and the next, that he was likely to live as long as if he had never heard the report of a pistol in his life. He had made a narrow escape, however; the bullet had grazed his head, and stunned him for a moment or two, which trance terror and confusion of spirit had prolonged, somewhat longer. He now arose to demand vengeance on the person of Waverley, and ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... wonder. But, in the meantime, I treasure up my lace very much. I daren't even trust the washing of it to my maid" (the little charity school-girl I have named before, but who sounded well as "my maid"). "I always wash it myself. And once it had a narrow escape. Of course, your ladyship knows that such lace must never be starched or ironed. Some people wash it in sugar and water, and some in coffee, to make it the right yellow colour; but I myself have a very good receipt for washing it in milk, which ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to announce you great news. We have had a narrow escape while we slept. A world passed all along us, and fell right across our vortex. [Footnote: Tourbillon. Compare act iii scene ii. Another reference to Cotin.] If in its way it had met with our earth, it would have dashed us to pieces like so ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... to secure the forces covering the siege works from lateral sorties and the efforts of a relieving army. The field works planned for this purpose were not of any great strength, and many of them "were only undertaken when a narrow escape from some imminent danger had demonstrated their necessity." The French line of defence consisted of eight pentagonal redoubts, connected by an infantry parapet. The English seemed to attach but little importance to field works for the ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... is the cheapest place he has struck, and he is going to stick it out there awhile; perhaps the group of chattering American school-girls; perhaps the little Jewish water-color painter who tells of his narrow escape from the mad dog, which having broken his chain at Bouveret, had bitten six persons on the way to Clarens, and been killed by the gendarmes near Vevay; perhaps two Englishwomen who talk for half an hour about their rooms at the hotel, and ...
— A Little Swiss Sojourn • W. D. Howells
... thickets, and others with those succulent plants, which luxuriate only where salt abounds. Bad as the country was, ostriches, deer, agoutis, and armadilloes, were abundant. My guide told me, that two months before he had a most narrow escape of his life: he was out hunting with two other men, at no great distance from this part of the country, when they were suddenly met by a party of Indians, who giving chase, soon overtook and killed his two friends. His own horse's legs were ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... may be quite sure, M'Allister, that we are equally as grateful as yourself for the mercy which has preserved us all from an awful death. My very first thought on realising our extremely narrow escape from destruction was to say 'Thank God!' but I did not say it aloud as you did. It is in matters like these that people differ according to their temperament and training; and it is not safe to judge another because, in any particular circumstances, he does ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... Tennessee. The party found game in abundance, especially great droves of buffalo, and spent some months in hunting and exploring. A roving war-party stumbled upon one of Boone's companions, and forthwith killed him; a second soon met the same fate, and Boone himself had more than one narrow escape. The danger grew so great, that the other members of the party returned over the mountains, and Boone was, for a time, left alone, as he himself put it, "without company of any fellow-creature, or even ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... Comanche the sun was down. Mrs. Reed hurried June indoors, all exclamations and shudders over what she believed to have been a very narrow escape. Vowing that she never would go exploring around in that wild land again, she whisked off without ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... exclaimed, and as the rattle sounded once more, he made a long leap for the doorway. "That was a narrow escape. S'pose I ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... fifty yards before reaching us. It had become harmless, but the foaming, scattered billows enveloped the ship in their thick spray. It was a narrow escape; but we were saved thus far! Then in the wake of the imaginary Hroenn rose another wave. I imagined Bylgja was coming. It advanced slowly and angrily towards us, ready to sweep our deck and to do the work the two others had tried to do and missed—demolish our ship. It broke ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... do at short range," said Tom. "Don't worry, Mr. Moker, you didn't have a narrow escape. You were in no danger at all, though I apologize for the fright I ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... the gilt off the delight of being an Indian? The old woman was as brave and resolute as a man, but in one day she sold a hundred and twenty beaver skins and many buffalo robes for rum. She always entertained all the neighbouring Indians as long as the rum lasted, and Tanner had a narrow escape of growing up a drunkard. He became such a savage that when an Indian girl carelessly allowed his wigwam to be burned, he stripped her of her blanket and turned her out for the night in ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... an hour later that he suddenly remembered what a narrow escape he had had from putting Morley on the track of Anne Denham. ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... the Rhine; seats the Palatine in Munich; retrospect of his career from Halle to Lutzen (all of Book III.); storms Marienburg; takes possession of Frankfort; besieges Mentz; carries Oppenheim by storm; exposed to the malice of the Jesuits; enters Nuremberg; besieges Ingoldstadt, narrow escape; enters Munich; receives congratulations from Wallenstein; hastens to the Upper Palatinate; seizes Nuremberg; attacks Wallenstein's camp; marches to Neustadt; enters Naumberg; death of, at the Battle of Lutzen; his body discovered; review ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... its existence would be traced along the promontory. Hann had with him Taylor as geologist, and Dr. Tate as botanist, the latter being a survivor of the melancholy Maria expedition to New Guinea. Apparently his ardour for exploration had not been cooled by the narrow escape he had then experienced. ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc
... narrow escape. It happened that Simeon was leading and holding Anna by the hand, for they had been steadily climbing upwards for some time. The footing of the cave was of smooth sand, very restful and pleasing to the feet. Simeon was holding up the candle and looking before him, when suddenly his foot ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... sine die; the clever artist was untied, treated to the best the market afforded, that night; his canoe, rifle, &c., restored next day, and John went on his way rejoicing in his narrow escape—finished his sketches, and the first great panorama "got up" in our country, and which he took to Europe, after making a ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... moments the engine was our sole stand-by: had it played one of its usual tricks, the Mukhbir, humanly speaking, was lost; that is, she would have been swamped and water-logged. As for setting sail, it was not till our narrow escape that I could get the canvas out of ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... a particularly narrow escape, "there are few fine accomplishments you haven't got except a spavin. Perhaps you've got that, concealed somewhere ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the country, Adooley, of whom Richard Lander retained a friendly remembrance, was in low spirits. His town had just been burnt, his generals and his best soldiers had perished in a battle with the people of Lagos, and he himself had had a narrow escape when his house and all his ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Division had a narrow escape after we left last night. The roof of his house was blown off, just at the time he would have been there, only he was a little late, but an officer was killed; six shells came into the garden, and the seventh burst at his feet and killed him as he was standing at the ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... to beare his aduerse party downe: wherein, whosoeuer ouerthroweth his mate in such sort, as that either his backe, or the one shoulder, and contrary heele do touch the ground, is accounted to giue the fall. If he be endangered, and make a narrow escape, it is called a foyle. This hath also his lawes, of taking hold onely aboue girdle, wearing a girdle to take hold by, playing three pulles, for tryall of the mastery, the fall-giuer to be exempted from playing again with the taker, and bound to answere ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... a long flamboyant-bladed knife from his bosom. "You have had a very narrow escape," he said; "had I seen you ten minutes ago, I should have driven this through your heart. As it is, if you touch me or interfere with me in any way you are ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... suspicious glance but did not make a reply. Perhaps he may have been wondering whether any of his mates already suspected that his recent narrow escape had not been such an accident ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... touched by the story of Ben's narrow escape, and was anxious to show his mother and sister every courtesy possible in part atonement for the wrong he felt had been done them. He was timid with girls, and yet he wished to give Margaret a cordial greeting for Elsie's ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... and his eyes shifted from mine as they had been wont to do formerly. "I have much to be grateful for," he added, "I might be lying yonder with a bullet in my back and a tomahawk in my skull. It was a narrow escape." ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... march of General Early to Washington; and there seems at present little reason to doubt that the Federal capital had a narrow escape from capture by the Confederates. What the result of so singular an event would have been, it is difficult to say; but it is certain that it would have put an end to General Grant's entire campaign at Petersburg. Then—but speculations of this character are simply loss of time. The city ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... escape, scape; avolation^, elopement, flight; evasion &c (avoidance) 623; retreat; narrow escape, hairbreadth escape; close call; come off, impunity. [Means of escape] loophole &c (opening) 260; path &c 627; refuse &c 666; vent, vent peg; safety valve; drawbridge, fire escape. reprieve &c (deliverance) 672; liberation ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... narrow escape. Suppose Araminta's cat had been sacrificed, and he had been obliged to tell Ralph? One more experiment was absolutely necessary. He was nearly satisfied, but not quite. It would be awkward to have Ralph make any unpleasant discoveries, and he could not very well keep him out ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... Jones's friendly conspiracy) awaiting me at Cairo. A rapid journey home via Brindisi might have rattled my brains back into the colloid state in which they were when I left England. Looking back through the past six months I begin to see that I have had a narrow escape from a bad breakdown, and I am full of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... from any real desire to oblige Underwood. She had long since become disgusted with him. The man's real character was now plainly revealed to her. He was an adventurer, little better than a common crook. She congratulated herself on her narrow escape. Suppose she had married him—the horror of it! Yet the next instant she was filled with consternation. She had allowed him to become so intimate that it was difficult to break off with him all at once. She realized that with a man of that ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... boys related their narrow escape to the others, and all agreed it would be well to keep a sharp lookout ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... and now understood why Thompson had cried out that West's "good news" had killed his father. He meant, of course, their narrow escape from being involved in West's supposed ruin, for at that time no one knew the report of the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... Seeing the great danger to which they would be exposed if they remained longer in Paris, they determined on a hasty flight; and after procuring the necessary passports, started on the 18th of the same month. They had a narrow escape on passing the barriers. A mob of the lowest order insisted on their carriage being stopped, and on their being conducted back to Paris, exclaiming that all the rich were flying away, taking their treasures with them, and leaving the poor behind in want and misery. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... that none of the wounded men would die, though the president had had a narrow escape. Posses had been out all night, and a fresh one was just starting from Noches. It was generally believed, however, that the bandits would be able to make good ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... shattering, and the Lancers caught the full force of the storm, Vicomte Vauvineux, a French cavalry officer who rode with the brigade as interpreter, was killed instantly. Captain Letourey, who was the French master of a school in Devon, was riding by the side of Vauvineux, and had a narrow escape, as his horse was shot from under him. Other officers ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... and I am sure that no hen with one chicken worries about it more than I did about Aunt Jane. I had spent the last three years, since Aunt Susan died and left Aunt Jane with all that money and no one to look after her but me, in snatching her from the brink of disaster. Her most recent and narrow escape was from a velvet-tongued person of half her years who turned out to be a convict on parole. She had her hand-bag packed for the elopement when I confronted her with this unpleasant fact. When she came to she was bitter instead of ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... vast consignments of "rum and axes," to open negotiations with the Mohawks; how in his letter to his nephew he sounded a note of true Irish blarney, in cautioning him not to find fault with the horses supplied by a certain man, "since he is a relation of my wife's!" I have not told of his narrow escape from the Indians on one dramatic occasion; nor of his trip to the West Indies as an envoy of peace; nor of his services in Barbadoes which caused the people thereof to present him with a gorgeous silver monteith, or punch-bowl; ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... the afternoon when a gas barrage started. I was driven out of my dugout. I had a narrow escape, while reaching the hospital corps dugout. Lieut. Roolan (since promoted), of the Fifth Field Artillery, was there for two hours and half. 480 shells, I was informed, came down, averaging up three and four per minute. All night, from 6 o'clock to 3 A.M., 3000 ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... "What a narrow escape!" said she, trembling, and covering her face with her hands; "it makes me shudder to ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... your present danger did not awaken her to some such feeling for you as she had once imagined she had; if they both only increased her despair and self-abhorrence, then the case was indeed hopeless. She was simply distracted. I had to tear her away almost by force. She has had a narrow escape from brain-fever. And now I have come to implore, to demand"—Mrs. Graham, with all her poise and calm, was rising to the hysterical key—"her release from a fate that would be worse than death for such a girl. I mean marrying without the love of her whole soul. She esteems you, she respects ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... Bucks as he stood dazed by his narrow escape. Stanley, above, shouted. And Bill Dancing, carrying his empty rifle, and with his face bleeding from the briers, made his way down the opposite side of the wash. Scuffy, mounting the body of his dead foe, ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... satisfied, and it was not until some time afterward that he learned what a narrow escape ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... the clue obtained by Fitzwilliam, and confessions twisted out of Story and other unwilling witnesses, the Ridolfi conspiracy was unravelled before it broke into act. Norfolk lost his head. The inferior miscreants were hanged. The Queen of Scots had a narrow escape, and the Parliament accentuated the Protestant character of the Church of England by embodying the Thirty-nine Articles in a statute. Alva, who distrusted Ridolfi from the first and disliked encouraging rebellion, ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude |
