"Pell-mell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over the stone wall and straight across the bed of tiger-lilies sped Pee-wee, using his own particular mode of scout pace, patent not applied for. Across the side porch and into the kitchen he went, pell-mell, shouting in a voice to ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the post of honour and danger, were fearfully reduced in numbers, faint with famine, and exhausted by their long march. Driven to and fro by the incessant charges of the Syracusan cavalry, they could make no effective resistance, and at last they huddled pell-mell into a walled enclosure, planted with olive-trees, and skirted on either side by a road. They were now at the mercy of the Syracusans. who surrounded the enclosure, and plied them with javelins, stones, and arrows. ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... allow relaxation—the growing fear, the silent, desperate hunt through the night; the realization that their numbers were increasing; his frantic search for a hiding place in the New City; and finally his panic-stricken, pell-mell flight down into the alleys and cobbled streets and crumbling frame buildings of the Old City.... Even more horrible, the friends who had turned on him, who turned out to ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... custom. Few as were the troopers who had followed him—a mere handful—they fell without hesitation on the foremost of the crowd, who were already in confusion, stumbling and falling over their leader's body; and hurled them back pell-mell along the gallery. The throng below had no firearms, and could give no aid at the moment; the stage was narrow; in two minutes the Vidame's people had swept it clear of the crowd and were in possession of it. A tall fellow ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... us that the arts have a common matrix, that they are emotionally akin. "Her slow smile" in fiction has had marked success with young people, but a "slow landscape" is still regarded suspiciously. The bravest critic of art was Huysmans. He pitched pell-mell into the hell-broth of his criticism any image that assaulted his fecund brain. He forced one to see his picture—for he was primarily concerned not with ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... no reply, but started off at his fullest speed; and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his head, and a clasp-knife at ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... buttercups; and as the breeze plays upon it these frolicsome flowers, which have known no human tending, seem to chase each other in endless races over the whole expanse. I have seen them run breathlessly up the long slope, and then suddenly turn and rush pell-mell down again. If the wind had only stopped for a moment its endless gossip with the leaves, I am sure I should have heard the gleeful shouts, the sportive cries, of these vagrant flowers whose spell is rewoven over every generation of children, ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... listening to his guide who points out the objects and places of interest. And thus, through the alleys and by-ways, through the nooks and labyrinths of these underground temple-ruins, we get to the rear, where the ramparts and mounds crumble to a mighty heap, rising pell-mell to the ceiling. Here, one is likely to get a glimpse into such enchanted worlds as the name of a Dickens or a Balzac might suggest. Here, too, is Shakespeare in lamentable state; there is Carlyle in rags, still crying, as it were, against the filth and beastliness ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... and surrounded by a cloud, seemed to look longingly out of Latour's pastel at an Indian chibook, while she tried to guess the purpose of the spiral curves that wound towards her. Instruments of death, poniards, curious pistols, and disguised weapons had been flung down pell-mell among the paraphernalia of daily life; porcelain tureens, Dresden plates, translucent cups from china, old salt-cellars, comfit-boxes belonging to feudal times. A carved ivory ship sped full sail on the back ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... the laws enforced now against gambling, betting, swearing or any other form of innocent amusement.... Why! two wenches were whipped at the post by the public hangman only last week, because forsooth they were betting on the winner amongst themselves, whilst watching a bout of pell-mell.... And you know that John Howthill stood in the pillory for two hours and had both his hands bored through with a hot iron for allowing gambling inside his coffeehouse. ... And so, mistress, you will perceive that I am speaking ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... Had the tunnel entrance of the hut been long and strong, suffocation to many must have been the result, for they went into it pell-mell, rolling rather than running. Fortunately, it was short and weak. Ujarak and Simek, sticking in it, burst it up, and swept it away, thus clearing the passage for the rest. The last to disappear was Kunelik, whose tail flapped ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... Tilden as the "old humbug of Cipher Alley" and to Robinson as having "sore eyes" when signing bills, kept his hearers expectant and his enemies disturbed. The World followed him, reporting his speeches as "failures" and his audiences as "rushing pell-mell ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... three-and-twenty of our fellows jumped after me. By the Pope of Rome, friend Tummas, that was a day!—Had you seen how the Mounseers looked when four-and-twenty rampaging he-devils, sword and pistol, cut and thrust, pell-mell came tumbling into the redoubt! Why, sir, we left in three minutes as many artillerymen's heads as there were cannon-balls. It was, "Ah sacre!" "D——- you, take that!" "O mon Dieu!" "Run him through!" "Ventrebleu!" and it WAS ventrebleu with him, I warrant you; ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... another half hour to get moving, and there you are. Hark! The engineer has started to whistle. That is to tell the passengers a start is intended; and here they come, rushing pell-mell, fearful of getting left." And Frank laughed at the energy displayed by some of ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... then! a scene ensued that it may be just as well not to describe too graphically. Our marines and blue-jackets boarded pell-mell and together, and amid the roar of cannon from other ships, the incessant rattle of musketry from the tops, the hand-to-hand fight raged on, with shouts and groans and shrieks of execration. Hitherto ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... abject Paternians, men, women, and children, pell-mell, on a heap of filth, lift up their ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... the might the rowers can command. We lie to, the proas come nearer. Hurrah! the clothes, some wholly washed, some half-washed, and some not washed at all. Piles of fair white linen are bundled up the gangway pell-mell, Malay washerwomen bundled out ditto, and for payment, the revolving screws settle that in a highly ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... and one hundred under Inspector Folk, of Brooklyn, who had been early ordered over, and been doing good service in the city, he marched down Broadway, and was just entering the Park, when the frightened crowd came rushing pell-mell across it. Immediately forming "company front," he swept the Park like a storm, clearing everything before him. Order being restored, Folk returned with his force to Brooklyn, where things began to wear a threatening aspect, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... running confusedly toward the summit. Without a word the brigade commander struck spurs into his horse and dashed up the long slope at a run, closely followed by his enemy and aid. What they saw when they overtook the straggling, running, panting, screaming pell-mell of the Fourteenth ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... a single fishing smack, In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack 130 All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell. Go to Paris: rank on rank Search the heroes flung pell-mell On the Louvre, face and flank! You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Riel. 135 So, for better and for worse, Herve Riel, accept my verse! In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more Save the squadron, honor France, love thy ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... Swamp, the hunting hounds set up their thrilling, deep-mouthed belling. They were closing in on their quarry and the nearness of it excited them. A few minutes later, and here they were, a posse of some thirty or forty mounted men struggling pell-mell after them. One great hound leaped forward, stood rigid by that which lay in a heap in the cabin clearing, pointed his nose, and gave tongue. Other dogs bunched around him, sniffed, and ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... district, stretches a malodorous little street wholly given over to long-bearded, bird-beaked merchants of ready-made and second-hand clothing. The contents of the dingy shops seem to have revolted, and rushed pell-mell out of doors, and taken possession of the sidewalk. One could fancy that the rebellion had been quelled at this point, and that those ghastly rows of complete suits strung up on either side of the doorways were the bodies of the seditious ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Pell-mell went the rout over the hill and across the moorland to Strathavon, through which the Life Guards had marched but a few hours before in all their bravery. As their captain passed by the place where ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... butter's lost!' yelled Peter the Graybeard, as he rushed pell-mell up the steps, with the spigot in his hand. What a spectacle was there! the churn upset, the cream spilt all over the floor, and the huge sow fairly wallowing in the rich and ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... skirmishing; they, however, met with no opposition, and they finally reached the bridge, where five thousand troops of the Queen-mother were entrenched. These they attacked; and at the third charge the whole body fled in such confusion that the royal forces entered with them pell-mell into the city. The command of the fort had been given to the Duc de Retz, who, apprised by the Cardinal his uncle that the Queen-mother had been betrayed, hastily effected his escape, and the castle was surrendered ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... their fine-feathered officer (who was mumbling of his bruised hand as a down-trodden Hound would its paw, and cursing meanwhile, which Dogs use not to do), and driven to Mad Rage by the escape of Captain Night, had fired pell-mell into a Group of which Jowler made one, and so killed him. A bullet through his brain set him clean quit of all indictments under the Black Act, before our Sovereign Lord the King. Likewise was it a matter of rejoicing for our party that, after long seeking ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... keeping Mr. Malthus with many others in countenance. For at this point, Phaedrus, more than at any other almost, there is a sad confusion of lords and gentlemen that I could name thrown out of the saddle pell-mell upon their mother earth. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... ran out as it came in, without refreshing or doing him any good! How it could have happened was quite a mystery to me, till I returned with him to the town gate. There I saw that when I rushed in pell-mell with the flying enemy, they had dropped the portcullis (a heavy falling door, with sharp spikes at the bottom, let down suddenly to prevent the entrance of an enemy into a fortified town) unperceived by me, which had totally cut off his hind part, that still lay quivering ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... mistake for some other person. Robert, nineteenth earl of Oxford having died in 1632, and Aubrey de Vere, his successor, the twentieth Earl, living till 1703.] To the Park, where I saw how far they had proceeded in the Pell-mell, and in making a river through the Park, which I had never seen before since it was begun. Thence to White Hall garden, where I saw the King in ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... them down. This was no sooner said than done, by the attendants in a body shoving on and trampling them under, as an elephant would crush small trees to keep his course. So pushing, floundering through plaintain and shrub, pell-mell one upon the other, that the king's pace might not be checked, or any one come in for a royal kick or blow, they came upon the prostrate bird. "Woh, woh, woh!" cried the king again, "there he is, sure enough; come here, women—come ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... out from the wall, and Duroc, gaining new hope from my courage, helped me with all his strength. It was no light task, for many of them were large and heavy. On we went, working like maniacs, slinging barrels, cheeses, and boxes pell-mell into the middle of the room. At last there only remained one huge barrel of vodka, which stood in the corner. With our united strength we rolled it out, and there was a little low wooden door in the wainscot behind it. The key ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... time when thought and learning paused. Without music, without poetry, without beauty in their lives or impulses, a whole people, full of the native energy and strength of lives lived in a new land, rushed pell-mell into a new age. A man in Ohio, who had been a dealer in horses, made a million dollars out of a patent churn he had bought for the price of a farm horse, took his wife to visit Europe and in Paris bought a painting for fifty thousand dollars. In another State of the Middle West, a man ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... them, "it was always threats.... Always trembling, always afraid,—that is the way I passed eight months doing duty in that miserable place."—Finally, in medium-sized or large towns, the dead-lock produced by collective dismissals, the pell-mell of improvised appointments, and the sudden renewal of an entire set of officials, threw into the administration, willingly or not, a lot of pretended Jacobins who, at heart, are Girondists or Feuillantists, but who, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... be difficult to say who was first, for Henri, Adolphe, and nearly a dozen others, galloped across the bridge together, and the whole troop followed them pell-mell into the town. The two cannons were soon taken; the irresolute blues, who, with only half a heart, had attempted to defend themselves, were driven from their positions, and Henri at once found himself master ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... agents, and stevedores with trollies drawn by little Corsican ponies. There were shops selling strange sweetmeats. Smoke enshrouded huts where seamen were cooking. There were merchants selling monkeys, parrots, rope, sailcloth and fantastic collections of bric-a-brac where, heaped up pell-mell, were old culverins, great gilded lanterns, old blocks and tackle, old rusting anchors, old rigging, old megaphones, old telescopes, dating from ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... human beings of this period? Or are you one of your robust English brotherhood worthy of a Caligula in his prime, lions in gymnastics—for a time; sheep always in the dominions of mind; and all of one pattern, all in a rut! Favour me with an outline of your ideas. Pour them out pell-mell, intelligibly or not, no matter. I undertake to catch you somewhere. I mean to know you, hark you, rather with ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... came out in these hunts, which you must notice whether you watch wolves or coyotes or a den of fox cubs. Though no sound came from the watchful old mother, the cubs seemed at every instant under absolute control. One would rush away pell-mell after a hopper, miss him and tumble away again, till he was some distance from the busy group on the edge of the big lonely barren. In the midst of his chase the mother would raise her head and watch the cub intently. No sound was uttered that human ears could ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... spheres, and when he had regained our camp limits, the General was seen clambering up again to clutch the valve-rope. This time he was successful, and the balloon fell like a stone, so that all hearts once more leaped up, and the cheers were hushed. Cavalry rode pell-mell from several directions, to reach the place of descent, and the General's personal staff galloped past me like the wind, to be the first at his debarkation. I followed the throng of soldiery with due haste, and came up to the horsemen in a few minutes. The balloon had struck ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... been through the fighting, this girl, she had drunk her fill from staved-in wine-casks and slept on the bare ground, pell-mell with the men, out in the public square reddened with the glare of conflagration. They were killing all round her, and nobody had been killed yet for her. She was resolved they should shoot her someone, before ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... papers; and in returning to Gunnersbury he felt hardly more sense of vital connection with this suburb than with the murky and roaring street in which he sat at business. By force of habit he continued to read, but only books from the circulating library, thrown upon his table pell-mell—novels, popular science, travels, biographies; each as it came to hand. The intellectual disease of the time took hold upon him: he lost the power of mental concentration, yielded to the indolent pleasure ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... the form of a python, rolls out his rings towards the abyss. Doesp[oe]na, through vertigo, flings herself in there of her own accord. Britomartis, shrieking with fear, clasps the folds of her fillet. The Centaurs arrive with a great galloping, and dash, pell-mell, into ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... had written them down! Pell-mell they came down the sequestered avenues of my mind, this merry throng. With bacchanal song and shout they came, and eye hath not since beheld ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... dear JOHNNY! As to missionaries, well, They are troublesome—and useful; but to put things all pell-mell On account of priests and parsons, and of quite an alien creed, That's scarce "diplomatic," JOHNNY; it is not, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... place was intolerable. All this office practice got on his nerves. It was too "intensive." He could not keep his head and enter thoroughly into the complications of a dozen cases, when they were shoved at him pell-mell. He realized that he was falling into a routine, was giving conventional directions, relying upon the printed prescriptions and mechanical devices. All these devices were ingenious,—they would do no harm,—and they might do good, ought to do good,—if the cursed human ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... grass. Eventually he permitted a nearer approach, and slowly stooping I was just on the point of stroking his back when, suddenly becoming alarmed, he swung himself into the air and flapped laboriously off to a low hawthorn, twenty or thirty yards away, into which he tumbled pell-mell like a ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... During the day, the old men, the infirm, and the children, remain near a large fire, while the others are engaged in hunting; when they have a sufficiency of food to last for some days, they remain round their fire, and sleep pell-mell among the cinders. ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... goat! She remembered the glimpse she had had the night before of green things growing in the garden and suddenly bolted down the steep path at a break-neck speed. All the rest of the flock followed pell-mell after her, and the children were obliged to cut short their prayers in order to save the carrot-tops from ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... the ship. Before I knew where I was—being awoke so suddenly—I heard the boatswain sing out, 'All hands on deck to the pumps.' I was not long in jumping into my boots I can tell yon, and all in the forecastle ran upstairs pell-mell. When we got there, we could not see much, for the night was dark, but there was light enough to see a half-dressed crowd come rushing madly up from the steerage passenger berths, and you didn't want any light to hear the shrieks of ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... seen upon a high ridge against the skyline; and when Scipio stood erect in all his gigantic proportions and waved both arms to welcome his beloved master, the Diehards turned with a yell and fled. Vainly their comrades of Troy called after them. Back and down the hill they streamed pell-mell, one on another's heels; down to the marshy bottom known as Trebant Water, nor paused to catch breath until they had placed a running brook between them and the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... demoralised our soldiers, who seeing all regular retreat of the army cut off, strove each man to effect one for himself. At each instant the road became more encumbered. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery, were pressing along pell-mell: jammed together like a solid mass. Figure to yourself 40,000 men struggling and thrusting themselves along a single causeway. We could not take that way without destruction; so the generals who had collected together near the Hougoumont hedge dispersed across the fields. ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... to another in wildest despair. He recalled the purchase price of each article, added up the figures, counted his losses, pell-mell, in confused words and unfinished phrases. He stamped with rage; he groaned with grief. He acted like a ruined man whose only ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... possible. It is the opinion of military judges who have studied the matter, that Friedrich's plan, could it have been perfectly executed, might have got not only victory from Daun, but was capable to fling his big Army and him pell-mell upon the Elbe Bridge, that is to say, in such circumstances, into Elbe River, and swallow him bodily at a frightful rate! That ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... others who have their hair arranged as in the time of Raphael, others as in the time of Christ. So the homes of the rich are cabinets of curiosities: the antique, the gothic, the style of the Renaissance, that of Louis XIII, all pell-mell. In short, we have every century except our own—a thing which has never been seen at any other epoch: eclecticism is our taste; we take everything we find, this for beauty, that for utility, another for antiquity, still another for its ugliness even, so that we live surrounded by debris, as ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... they are running down to the corral pell-mell to get on their horses for a gallop across the prairie, we will leave them and ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... of the hills on which our skirmishers were engaging the rebels, and then advanced to their support. Having taken up position, and thrown up a light line of works, the rebels in superior force charged on our skirmishers, driving them back pell-mell on the main line, which, after a desperate struggle, repulsed them with heavy loss. The enemy in this charge came near flanking the Eighty-sixth out of its position, the right giving back a short distance at first, but soon resumed it again. Despite the disadvantage in numbers, in this ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear
... last, so fast and fierce did the blows of King Arthur's men fall, and so stubbornly did they press on, that Sir Mordred's host gave way. Pouring forth by the upper gate, they ran pell-mell northwards, and the knights and fighting men of Arthur kept up with them for many miles, and there was a running fight and much wounding and slaying all through the fresh green countryside, where ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... they go pell-mell. Zadkiel is hemmed up in a corner of the cart-shed, and his brother and sister make pretence, to tear him limb from limb. Zadkiel defends himself gallantly, but has to succumb at last, for he is fairly rolled on his back, and in ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... those Russians argued that no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It must be the entire English army, and that the sly Russian game was detected and blocked; so they turned tail, and away they went, pell-mell, over the hill and down into the field, in wild confusion, and we after them; they themselves broke the solid Russia centre in the field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the allies ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pursuit, though some followed pell-mell: Through bramble and thicket they floundered and fell. On the backs of their coursers some dozed as before, And missed not the bride till they reached ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Moorish van-guard came galloping to the relief of their companions; the Christians turned and fled toward their ambush. De Vargas kept his men concealed until the fugitives and their pursuers came clattering pell-mell into the glen. At a signal trumpet his men sallied forth with great heat and in close array. The Moors almost rushed upon their weapons before they perceived them; forty of the infidels were overthrown, the rest turned their ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... that organized defense was the last thing they reckoned on, nine more Kurds came galloping down the track pell-mell toward the place where they had heard the solitary rifle-shot, doubtless supposing their own man had come upon the quarry. We fired too fast, for the Armenians were not drilled men, but we dropped two horses and five Kurds, and the ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... their horses, rushed pell-mell to take a hand in the conflict. Such a ruction appealed to them, and they proceeded to wade into Sam and Turkey foot. Frank and Blunt went on a hurried ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... and viceroys awaited with no small fear and trembling. They knew vaguely that we had just come off victorious from a long, fierce, and bloody struggle with powerful England, and while they consigned us pell-mell to the devil, as "malditos Americanos," they doubted whether we had the additional claim to go there upon the strength of being heretics. The captains of the guarda-costas redoubled their vigilance, and sailed in chase of not a few albatrosses ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... slaves among men, but the larger number of those who wear his most galling fetters are women. If he but crooks his little finger these bond-women rush pell-mell in the direction he points. They are thus keen to do his bidding, because each woman who is the first to carry out his rules in her own particular town or neighborhood acquires great distinction in the eyes of the ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... soldiers came running from all directions to see what the excitement was about. "'If we've been worsted here in the West, our friends in the East have made up for it by sweeping everything before them. Grant, the Yankee general, has been surprised at Shiloh, his army driven pell-mell through their camp and down under the bank of the river, where their gunboats saved them. Johnston lived long enough to see the Yankees in full flight and then he was killed; but Beauregard, who took his place, telegraphs ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... mob began to run for life, helter-skelter, pell-mell, trampling each other under foot, the soldiers actually shooting any one who ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 27, May 13, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... a great piece of luck that he had found that out. It made everything easy at once, and her words came out pell-mell. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... bathing the whole scene in light. In the notch, half-way up the slope, stood a momentarily paralyzed group of nearly a hundred painted warriors. Every rifle in the hands of the white men in the two buildings spoke, and instantly the notch emptied itself pell-mell of its living throng. Only a few prostrate bodies showed the Apaches had ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... not the intention of the hunters to leave things thus. They had planned a way by which the quaggas, at a certain moment, would be thrown into a complete panic, and thus forced pell-mell upon the pit. In this lay their hopes of securing a ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... like those would drive them pell-mell; For safety they'd Hazen, and think they did well To escape from the jury of women turned loose Who have drank to its ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... one great pell-mell rush. On, on, they fly, like giant grey-hounds from the leash, down the stretch of track, until they are but specks in the distance; then on they come, thundering past the grand stand at a maddening pace, with Robin Adair in the lead, General, Yellow Pete, and Black Daffy going like the wind ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... of April, we pass through what I call the "robin racket,"—trains of three or four birds rushing pell-mell over the lawn and fetching up in a tree or bush, or occasionally upon the ground, all piping and screaming at the top of their voices, but whether in mirth or anger it is hard to tell. The nucleus of the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... of the hotel. Upholsterers and florists crowded the vestibule, the stairway, and the antechambers with their flowers and carpets. The interior of the rooms on the ground floor presented a scene of a different kind of disorder. A pell-mell—a crowd of men and women were tacking down and sowing rich and sumptuous stuffs on the floors. The rooms of the lower floor of the hotel opened on one of the gardens surrounding the Champs-Elysees towards the Faubourg St. Honore. An immense ball-room was constructed ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... Catherine wheels danced on every shoulder, and crackers banged at every heel. Such a scene of confusion followed as is seldom witnessed. Knights in armour tumbled over their own steeds, donkeys ran snorting about, ladies shrieked, and fell over gentlemen, and gentlemen tumbled over ladies in pell-mell havoc and confusion, amid smoke and steam and hissing and ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... grinned retrospectively. "Must say he had a fine career while he was out. First thing he did was to break up a children's party at Page's. Then he went to Watermelon Alley. Whoo! He stampeded the whole outfit. Men, women, and children running pell-mell, and yelling. They say one old woman broke her leg, or something, shinning over a fence. Then he went right out on the main street, and an Irish girl threw a fit, and there was a sort of a riot. He began to run, and a big crowd chased him, firing rocks. But he gave them ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... till the thoroughfares were clear. The whole town was out after the sight; equestrians, pedestrians, carriages, all pell-mell; the noise and the gibbet-psalm sounded far and wide. Now, says the captain, light up, light up! We all flew like darts; they set fire to the city in three-and-thirty places at once; threw burning firebrands on the powder-magazine, and into the churches and granaries. Morbleu! in ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... at once out of the mob amid a volley of execrations, which were replied to by angry oaths and threats of the cavaliers as they galloped across the Place d'Armes and rode pell-mell into the gateway of the Chateau ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... of the month previous to our departure. We landed in a deluge of rain, and the only article in our possession that alarmed the officers of the Custom House was not the sewing-machine, which was hardly vouchsafed a look, but your cake-box. We were thankful to tumble pell-mell into a carriage, and soon to find ourselves in a comfortable room, before a blazing fire. We go round with a phrase-book and talk out of it, so if anybody ever asks you what sort of people the Prentiss family are and what are our conversational powers, you may safely and veraciously ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... left the Mission House as the last of the small crowd of copper-hued pappooses bundled pell-mell in the direction of the teepees and cabins of their ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... not stop for a look, for a second thought, to hesitate or to deliberate. He knew! He gave a howl and broke for the House, and behind him, pell-mell, shrieking and murderous, like a pack of hounds in full cry, came the vanquished, thirsting ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... Wrotham! Death of the Murderer! Appalling Tragedy at Blue Anchor!" And, for a few seconds, amid the confusion caused by the wind, and the wild clamour of the news-vendors, he felt as if every one were reeling pell-mell around him like persons on a ship at sea,—men with hats blown off,—women and children running aslant against the gale with hair streaming,—all eager to purchase the first papers which contained ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... yell, flung themselves, sword in hand, upon the whole battery; and the whole battery, bewildered by the suddenness and unexpectedness of the attack, thinking the entire battalion was upon them, gave way, and rushed pell-mell down the hill. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... my jewel, are you there?" exclaimed Dick, as he distinguished the Irishman. "Come, I have one friend among them whom I may welcome. So, they see me now. Off they come, pell-mell. Back, Bess, back!—slowly, wench, slowly—there—stand!" And Bess ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... mothers' sides, and at other times they all huddled together on the top of some flat rock or in a bare place, and seemed to be talking to each other with their heads close together. Suddenly one would jump down, and start for the bushes or the other side of the pasture. They would all follow pell-mell; then in a few minutes they would come rushing back again. It was pretty to see them playing together and having a good time before the sorrowful day ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... immediate foreground—at his feet, indeed—there was the river, the narrow Aco, peacock-green, a dark file of poplars on either bank, rushing pell-mell away from the quiet waters of the lake. Then, just across the river, at his left, stretched the smooth lawns of the park of Ventirose, with glimpses of the many-pinnacled castle through the trees; and, beyond, undulating country, flourishing, friendly, a perspective ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... and threatened to sweep the mules off their legs. The flashes of lightning now followed one another in rapid succession, and the thunder crashed incessantly through the gorges. It appeared as if the great cones and cromlechs were tumbling pell-mell from every direction ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... the Seine was not tenable: that it was even very hazardous, since the occupation of Aubervilliers, to remain on the right side: that if the line of the canal, that joins St. Denis to Lavillette, should be forced, the enemy might enter by the barrier of St. Denis pell-mell with ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... station there was a wild rush for seats. The excited Teutons grabbed at handles—in fact at anything protruding from the carriages—in a desperate endeavour to be first on the footboard. Many were carried struggling and kicking along the platform. Women were bowled over pell-mell and their shrieks and cries mingled with the hoarse, exuberant howls of the war-fever stricken maniacs already tasting the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... Shelley, impressed somehow or other with the belief that Stockdale was the poet's friend, rushed pell-mell into the publisher's Pall Mall shop, and besought him to do the friendly thing by him, and help him out of a scrape he had got into with his printer by ordering him to print fourteen hundred and eighty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... the wrong lane, and has been going that way pell-mell ever since. Yet so close is the wrong lane to the right that a single step will change lanes. Though many results of being in the wrong lane will not be changed by the change of lanes. It takes time to rest up the feet made sore ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... the time I turned my head in his direction, two hags were amusing themselves sticking sharp pointed sticks into his body; he bore it manfully, but I saw tears of agony streaming from under his eyelids. Presently the air was filled with yells and whoops; our tormentors rushed off pell-mell, the guards only remaining. I asked what was the meaning of this new outbreak; to which the trapper replied that he supposed it was caused by the arrival of a new lot of ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... army retired to their camp, when the Coonia force managed to cut off the water from the stream which supplied it, and then an alarm was raised that they were about to make an attack. On this the whole army, horse and foot, tumbled over each other pell-mell, trying who should get ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... through the desert thus it was, 25 As I came through the desert: Lo you, there, That hillock burning with a brazen glare; Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro; A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell 30 For Devil's roll-call and some fete of Hell: Yet I strode on austere; No hope ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... Creator, or made by some demiurgic potter out of clay. All these legends are told by savages, with no sense of their inconsistency. There is no single orthodoxy on the matter, and we shall see that all these theories coexist pell-mell among the mythological traditions of civilised races. In almost every mythology, too, the whole theory of the origin of man is crossed by the tradition of a Deluge, or some other great destruction, followed by revival or reconstruction of the species, a tale ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... good, white raiment; one of which humans with the other in his arms sat astride a camel, who made up by her muscular development whatever she might lack in goodness of heart and honesty of purpose; she too being wrapped in the silvery drapery which the moon throws pell-mell around pyramid and mud hut, humble fellah, descendant maybe of some long dead Pharaoh, and the jocular, jubilant millionaire, who with ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... humorously describes their fanciful panic, "when they sweated and were not a haire the worse." Thus were the three learned brothers beset by all the town-wits; Gabriel had the hardihood, with all undue gravity, to charge pell-mell among the whole knighthood of drollery; a circumstance probably alluded to by Spenser, in a ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... use, the rushing water had them in its grip and they were borne along pell-mell, with trees and broken limbs which had fallen down ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... directed, that one of the French boats sunk immediately; and the musket balls with which our other smaller guns were loaded, did great execution among their men. In one minute more, with three cheers from our sailors, we were all alongside together, English and French boats pell-mell, and a most determined close conflict took place. The French fought desperately, and as they were overpowered, they were reinforced by those from the privateer, who could not look on and behold their ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... yards had to be taken in the open. They did it under fire, on the run, with a dozen riflemen aiming at them from the fringe of blackberry bushes that bordered the mesa. Up the ridge they went pell-mell, Reeves limping the last fifty feet of the way. An almost spent bullet had struck him in the fleshy ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... the place were rushing through the main office toward the private office, in answer to Mr. Armstrong's summons. The call for them had been so furious that they rushed in pell-mell, without waiting ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... rustic. Still he thought he would get used to the new home which his son had chosen. But the strange journey with locomotive and steamship bewildered him dreadfully; and the clamor of the metropolis, into which he was flung pell-mell, altogether stupefied him. With a vacant air he regarded the Pandemonium, and a petrifaction of his inner being seemed to take place. He became "a barrel with a stave missing." No spark of animation visited his eye. Only one thought survived in his brain, and one desire ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... omnipotent Father in keen wrath Then with the sudden smite of thunderbolt Did hurl the mighty-minded hero off Those horses to the earth. And Sol, his sire, Meeting him as he fell, caught up in hand The ever-blazing lampion of the world, And drave together the pell-mell horses there And yoked them all a-tremble, and amain, Steering them over along their own old road, Restored the cosmos,—as forsooth we hear From songs of ancient poets of the Greeks— A tale too far away from truth, meseems. For fire can win when from the infinite Has risen a larger throng of ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... voice, and all eyes were turned to the gaudy swaying globe. Before anyone could speak, Elinor gave another hard tug, tearing out the bottom of the lantern, and down came the shower of gay little gauze bags with their cargoes of bonbons, pell-mell on the heads ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... run, while the Prince could scarcely restrain himself from dashing violently against its stony face. Then, while heated and breathless with the ascent of one of these, he would see her wave her staff downward, and plunge down a steep declivity, into the darkness of which he followed her pell-mell, not knowing whether he was going to descend a few yards or a mile. Very soon, however, he began to get his blood up, and, kicking out his legs like a wild goat of Cashmere, he prepared to show her that it would have ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... great babble of voices, some shrieks, and more confusion, and the guests ran pell-mell down the great stairs and out the castle door. To Peter's dismay, Aunt Jane was not among them. So into the castle he rushed again, calling at the top of his voice, "Aunt Jane! Aunt Jane!" He ran through the brilliantly ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston
... barrel, opposed at Inkermann to the antiquated Russian musket, tore through the dense columns which had forced their way to the brow of the plateau, driving the stolid Muscovites, "incapable of panic," back into the ravine pell-mell—how, at many periods of the siege of Sebastopol, the rifle-pits did more to cripple the defence than did the mortars and battering-guns—we need not recount. These pits, and the rope mantlets wherewith they obliged the Russians to cover their embrasures, were pronounced by Captain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... cuirassiers, Austrian admirals, policemen with coloured tufts like lamp-cleaners, German baronesses, bouncing bonnes with babies, garlic-scented workingmen, American schoolgirls, and kings in exile, are mixed pell-mell, all in perfect freedom and equality, and, though in the shadow of St. Mark's Church, quite Christian. And an Italian crowd is also Christian in its freedom from crush. It does not turn a fete into a fight and a concourse into a competition. Thus, as the Prince Consort was amused to find we English ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... made, and returned to announce this to M. de Joyeuse. Accordingly, on the 20th of July, the army put itself in movement. The march was made in the utmost confusion. Everything was in disorder; the infantry and cavalry were huddled together pell-mell; no commands could be acted upon, and indeed the whole army was so disorganised that it could have been easily beaten by a handful of men. In effect, the enemy at last tried to take advantage of our confusion, by sending a few troops ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... laughter as no living being had ever heard before. Poor old Joan thought her last hour had really come, and gave herself up for lost, for when she looked round she saw the fearful great creature she had been riding, disappearing in the distance in flames of fire, and tearing after it, helter-skelter, pell-mell, was a horrible crew of men and dogs and horses. Two or three hundred of them there must have been, and not one of the lot had a ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... before I have done you will find that I make as sad work of it as they do,—jumbling things together pell-mell, spoiling the whole point sometimes by inadequate expression; and you will end by damning the play instead of the actor. I could put up with my own share of the disgrace; but it would vex me indeed, that my subject should be involved in my downfall; I cannot ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... of active schoolboys all crowded into a room till they can scarcely move their arms and legs for the crush, and then suppose all at once a large door is opened. Will they not all come tumbling out pell-mell, one over the other, into the hall beyond, so that if you stood in their way you would most likely be knocked down? Well, just this happens to the air- atoms; when they find a space before them into ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley |
