"Ledge" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of light ahead of us widened as we approached, and presently we stood at the end of the tunnel. A spread of open distance was outside. We were on a ledge of a steep rocky wall some fifty feet above a wide level landscape. Vegetation! I saw trees—a forest off to the left. A range of naked hills lay behind it. A mile away, in front and to the right, a little town nestled on the shore of shining water. There was starlight on the water! And ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... ditch, I was concerned principally with the problem of a stone in our path upon which we had been working. I wanted to get back to it. We had worked upon it for an hour without fully uncovering it and I was as eager as the foreman to learn whether it was a ledge rock or just a fragment. This interest was not associated with the elevated road for whom the work was being done, nor the contractor who had undertaken the job, nor the foreman who was supervising it. It was a question which concerned only me and Mother Earth who ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... Denbies, nearly facing the most prominent point of Box Hill. This elegant seat is the abode of Mr. Denison, one of the county members, and brother of the Marchioness of Conyngham. The second range or ledge, beneath Denbies, is the celebrated Dorking lime-works. The transition to the Norbury Hills, already mentioned, is now very short, which completes the outline of the view. It should, however, be remarked that the scenery within ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... to Sir Lyon. It was wide and very long, made of the finest knitted silk. When firmly tied to the handle of the walking stick, the floating end of the scarf was within reach of Donnington. With its help he even managed to secure a foothold on the narrow one-brick ledge which terminated the deep underwater ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... hand on the dresser-ledge, And scanned far Egdon-side; And stood; and you heard the wind-swept sedge And the rippling ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... courses on the side of the brick away from the key. It is necessary that the keying course be a true fit from top to bottom, and after it has been dipped and driven it should not extend below the surface of the arch, but preferably should have its lower ledge one-quarter inch above this surface. After fitting, the keys should be dipped, replaced loosely, and the whole course driven uniformly into place by means of a heavy hammer and a piece of wood extending the full length of the keying course. Such a driving in of this course should raise ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... all sense of petty annoyance dropped from me. I walked forwards with a grateful sense of relief and took my seat on a projecting ledge of one of the roofs and let my eyes wander over the maze of dim outlines and ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... the road was sown thick with peril. No frowning ledge of rock, with pine-roots in its clefts, but might serve as the barricade behind which some foe lurked; no knot of cypress-shrubs, black even on that black sheet of shadow, but might be pierced with the steel tubes of leveled, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... It had been carefully placed on a broad ledge of the mountain, a few feet above the desert level, yet the few feet were enough to give a complete view of the valley that swept forty miles to the west into the range that held the Colorado within bounds. The sandy levels of the desert swept to the very foot of the mountain, and ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... The fact that there are more children than young girls, more young girls than women, proves the simplicity of this task. The cotton comes from the spinning-room to the spool-room, and as the girl stands before her "side," as it is called, she sees on a raised ledge, whirling in rapid vibration, some one hundred huge spools full of yarn; whilst below her, each in its little case, lies a second bobbin of yarn ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... nice suitable piece of stone for Josh to use in polishing his nose, so he contented himself with a rub of the back of his hand before squeezing himself through the narrow passage between the masses of rock, and following his companion to the ledge where the old adventurers had spent their capital in sinking the shaft, and had given up at last, perhaps on ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun, admiring his beautiful new coat, for he had been in retirement for the last ten days changing his skin, and now he was very splendid—darting his big blunt-nosed head along the ground, and twisting the thirty feet of his body ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... silvery gauze over its rich depth of verdure. It floated round the edge of the horizon, subduing its outline of dazzling blue, and rolled off among the hills in soft, yet darkening convolutions. And high above me, serene and holy, the moon leaned over a ledge of slate-colored clouds, whose margin was plated with her beams, and looked pensively and solemnly on the pale and sad young face uplifted to her own. The stilly dews slept at my feet. They hung tremulously on the branches ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... immense beech-forest.... The trees were almost all great gnarled veterans who had borne the snows of many winters: now they stood basking above their blackened shadows in the blazing sunshine. The little stream tumbled from ledge to ledge of splintered rock, sometimes creeping into a hazel thicket, green with long ferns and soft moss, and then leaping once more merrily into the sunlight. Presently it split into numerous little rills. We followed the longest of these. It led us to a carpet ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... Its hills are huge and battlemented. They leap up sheer above the train, menacing it; they drop down starkly, leaving the line clinging to a ledge above a white, angry stream on a white rock bed. They crowd the line into gorges, from which the sun is banished, and where the moveless firs look like lost souls chained in the gloom of Eblis. They expand ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... in this dangerous traffic, and perform acts of daring, which are quite startling. It is told of one, a young girl of Eshiarce, that, being hard pressed by a party of excise, she ran along a steep ledge of rocks, and, at a fearful height, cast herself into the Nive: no one dared to follow down the ravine; and they saw her swimming for her life, battling with the roaring torrent; she reached the opposite shore, turned with an exulting gesture, although ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... and clown like a huge rhinoceros, greatly pleasing the children by its clumsy cavortings. Some conflict of opposing forces kept it ever in motion, yet never set it free. Below the bridge were always the real battle-grounds, the scenes of the first and the fiercest conflicts. A ragged ledge of rock, standing well above the yeasty torrent, marked the middle of the river. Stephen had been stranded there once, just at dusk, on a stormy afternoon in spring. A jam had broken under the men, and Stephen, having taken too great risks, had ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to dismount, and, scrambling up as they could, to lead their horses by the bridle. In many places too, where some huge crag or eminence overhung the road, this was driven to the very verge of the precipice; and the traveller was compelled to wind along the narrow ledge of rock, scarcely wide enough for his single steed, where a misstep would precipitate him hundreds, nay, thousands, of feet into the dreadful abyss! The wild passes of the sierra, practicable for the half-naked Indian, and even for the sure and circumspect mule, - an animal that seems to have ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... indeed a little bigger! From the dizzy ledge on which they stood a scene of the wildest sublimity met their gaze, and, for a few minutes, the travellers regarded it in profound silence. Mountains, crags, gorges, snowy peaks, dark ravines, surrounded them, ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... three slender metamorphosed ferns were growing, three exquisite forms, the fragile heralds of the great forest of vegetation, which probably in coming years will clothe this pit with beauty. Truly they seemed to speak of the love of God. On our right there was a precipitous ledge, and a recent flow of lava had poured over it, cooling as it fell into columnar shapes as symmetrical as those of Staffa. It took us a full hour to cross this deep depression, and as long to master a steep hot ascent of about 400 ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... a half smile, then as an expression of weariness stole into her face she restored the glasses and sighed, as with her elbow supported on a ledge of rock she rested her chin in her palm and looked down on the swift running water. She was extremely slender, and it was easy to guess she was also tall, and that, seen at her best, she was a person of grace and elegance rather ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... flames sweeping down upon the right of them, he caught the low thunder of Dead Man's Whirlpool and the cataract that had made the portage necessary. From the heated earth their feet came to a narrow ledge of rock, worn smooth by the furred and moccasined tread of centuries, with the chasm on one side of them and a wall of rock on the other. Along the crest of that wall, a hundred feet above them, the fire swept in a tornado of flame and smoke. A tree crashed behind them, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... catch it now, the Popish villain!" said Lucy Passmore, aloud. "You lie still there, dear life, and settle your sperrits; you'm so safe as ever was rabbit to burrow. I'll see what happens, if I die for it!" And so saying, she squeezed herself up through a cleft to a higher ledge, from whence she could see what passed ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... that face. He swung himself up by the nooks and crannies of the rock, and joined the man on his ledge. ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... and the stretch below her, that was within range of her eyes, was almost level. The wall of the cut on which she stood was ragged and uneven, with some scraggly brush thrusting out between the crevices of rocks, and about ten feet down was a flat rock, like a ledge, that projected several feet ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... after peril pass'd in haste, We saw, from our rock-shelter'd vantage ledge, In the white fervent ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... overflowed in a waterfall, the purling music of which filled the glade. Overhead the great trees were arched together and interlaced, their lower branches set with flowering orchids like hothouse plants upon a window-ledge. The dense foliage allowed only a random beam of sunlight to pass through and pierce the pool, like a brilliant, quivering javelin. Long vines depended from the limbs above, falling sheer and straight as plumb-lines; a giant liana the size of a man's body ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... Asas sought the solitude of the forest, and as huntsmen wandered long among the hills and over the wooded heights of Hunaland. Late one afternoon they came to a mountain stream at a place where it poured over a ledge of rocks and fell in clouds of spray into a rocky gorge below. As they stood, and with pleased eyes gazed upon the waterfall, they saw near the bank an otter lazily making ready to eat a salmon which he ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... frantic state it was impossible. Her eyes dilated with terror, a convulsive trembling seized her. Must we go back to the cave, and be drowned like rats in a hole? The idea was horrible, and yet it went far back. Perhaps there was some corner or ledge of rock where we might be safe; but to spend the night in such a place! the idea made me almost as frantic as Flurry. Still, it was our only chance, and we retraced our steps but still so slowly and painfully that the ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... done forgot that. I seems tuh heah it whispered by every leetle wind thet blows. Wenever I waked up in the night it kim a-stealin' along past the ledge o' rock, an' makin' me shiver, I tell yuh. He was a ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... we went to the Pulpit Stone—a huge gray boulder, as high as a man's head, in the southeastern corner. It was straight and smooth in front, but sloped down in natural steps behind, with a ledge midway on which one could stand. It had played an important part in the games of our uncles and aunts, being fortified castle, Indian ambush, throne, pulpit, or concert platform, as occasion required. Uncle Edward had preached his first sermon at the age of eight from that old gray ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fasten the shortest rope under your arms, Monsieur, and I will let you down to the base of the tower. When you have reached it, I will pass you the longer rope and the crowbar. Do not miss them. If we find ourselves without them, on that narrow ledge of rock, we shall either be compelled to deliver ourselves up, or throw ourselves down the precipice. I shall not be long in joining you. Are ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... under the cloak of his present gentle humour, Charles Verity sat down on the faded red cushion beside Damaris, and laid one arm along the window-ledge behind her. He did not touch her; being careful in the matter of caresses, reverent of her person, chary of ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... perhaps a hundred feet or so, the ground became percolated with steam, jets of it poured from holes among the rocks, and the cinders upon which they stood felt warm to their boots. The guides brought the party to a halt upon a ledge of volcanic rock, from below which ran a sheer slide of hot cinders into the ravine. From here there was a splendid near view of the cone, its top yellow with sulphur, and at its base a lake of molten lava. One of the guides, a venturesome fellow, climbed ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... watching it blot out one detail of the prospect after another, while the fog-horn lowed through it, and the bell-buoy, far out beyond the light-house ledge, tolled mournfully. The milk-white mass moved landward, and soon the air was blind with the mist which hid the grass twenty yards away. There was an awfulness in the silence, which nothing broke but the lowing of the horn, and ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... breath of reassurance and stepped out into the river. For a dozen paces she found no difficulty in following the ford. It was broad and straight; but toward the center of the river, as she felt her way along a step at a time, she came to a place where directly before her the ledge upon which she crossed shelved off into deep water. She turned upward, trying to locate the direction of the new turn; but here too there was no footing. Down river she felt solid rock beneath her feet. Ah! this was the way, and boldly she stepped out, the water already above her knees. ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... waterfall that fell all round her like a veil—a very pretty ornament to the grounds—and at one side of it was a little arbour, where I used often to sit and see the sun make rainbows out of the spray that rose round the head of the nymph. To get to it, it was necessary to walk on the ledge of the wall that rose a little above the water in the basin, and this I was induced to do; for, as I was searching for Martha, I thought I heard a voice in the arbour, and I hurried on to tell her what I had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... dawn the giant rose and went out, and immediately the queen ran up to the Bonnach stone, and tugged and pushed at it till it was quite steady on its ledge, and could not fall over. And so it was in the evening when the giant came home; and when they saw his shadow, the king crept down in front of ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... in a low tone, "Ollie was a settin' like this, all still; just a smokin' and a watchin' the moonlight things that was dancin' over the tops of the trees down there." Then leaping to his feet the boy ran a short way along the ledge, to come stealing back, crouching low, as he whispered, "It come a creepin' and a creepin' towards Ollie, and he never knowed nothin' about it. But Matt he knowed, and God he knowed too." Wonderingly, the ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... tacked about and resolved to stand for the southward, to find some place about Hudson river for their habitation." (Ib., p. 117.) "After sailing southward half a day, they found themselves suddenly among shoals and breakers" (a ledge of rocks and shoals which are a terror to navigators to this day); and the wind shifting against them, they scud back to Cape Cod, and, as Bradford says, "thought themselves happy to get out of those dangers before night overtook them, and the next day they got into the Cape ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... hung, and were all but on the point of severing it. Then he looked down to the bottom of the pit and espied below a dragon, breathing fire, fearful for eye to see, exceeding fierce and grim, with terrible wide jaws, all agape to swallow him. Again looking closely at the ledge whereon his feet rested, he discerned four heads of asps projecting from the wall whereon he was perched. Then he lift up his eyes and saw that from the branches of the tree there dropped a little honey. ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... they climbed another jutting ledge and pulled themselves to the top. None too soon, for as they turned to look, the big lion sprang into the air and landed with a roar of baffled ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... even as she struggled to regain her breath. It seemed to her there was no way of descending into the chaos of rock between the gloomy walls of the kloof, and she gave a little cry when Alan caught her by her hands and lowered her over the face of a ledge to a table-like escarpment below. He laughed at her fear when he dropped down beside her, and held her close as they crept back under the shelving face of the cliff to a hidden path that led downward, with a yawning chasm at their side. The trail widened as ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... dark yellowish or orange-coloured rings, and the eyes themselves were large, bright, and staring. It displayed no alarm at my presence, but presently swam slowly to the side of the pool and disappeared under the coral ledge. I determined to catch and examine the creature, and in a few minutes I discovered it resting in such a position that I could grasp it with my hand. I did so, and seizing it firmly by the back and belly, whipped it up out of the water, but not before I felt several sharp pricks from ...
— John Corwell, Sailor And Miner; and, Poisonous Fish - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Mayne glideth Where my Love abideth. Sleep's no softer: it proceeds On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate'er befall, Meandering and musical, Though the niggard pasturage Bears not on its shaven ledge Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there a scanty patch Of primroses too faint to catch A weary bee. And scarce it pushes Its gentle way through strangling rushes Where the glossy kingfisher Flutters when noon-heats are near, Glad the shelving banks ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... the boat's painter carefully round a spike of coral and landed on the reef, and with a shellful of rum and cocoa-nut lemonade mixed half and half, he took his perch on a high ledge of coral from whence a view of the sea and the coral ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... sides of the rock basin and the feet of the statue was placed an altar, or sacrificial stone. Here on this ledge, which covered an area no greater than that of a small room, and in front of the altar, stood a man bound, in whom Leonard recognised Olfan, the king, while on either side of him were priests, naked to the waist, and armed with knives. Behind them again stood the little band of Settlement ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... the swinging of the schooner over the centre of the group, and long after Wilbur could remember the grisly scene—the punk-sticks, the bread-pan full of hunks of meat, the horrid close and oily smell, and the circle of silent, preoccupied Chinese, each sitting on his bunk-ledge, devouring stewed pork and holding his pannikin of Black Jack between his feet against the rolling of ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... and wallflower and sweetbriar, and the aromatic smells of the larch and pine. She leaned her white arms upon the grey stone window-sill, and drank the freshness and fragrance. And it seemed to her that this ancient grange, perched on the cliff-ledge in the tremendous shadow of Herion Castle, looking across the restless grey-blue waters of Nantmadoc Bay to St. Tirlan's Roads, was an ideal place to spend a honeymoon in, supposing you loved the man you had married, and ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... coast, Mr. Oxley came suddenly upon the spot where a river, (the Apsley,) leaves the gently-rising and fine country through which it had been passing, and falls into a deep glen. At this spot the country seems cleft in twain, and divided to its very foundation, a ledge of rocks separates the waters, which, falling over a perpendicular rock, 235 feet in height, form a grand cascade. At a distance of 300 yards, and an elevation of as many feet, the travellers were wetted with the spray. ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... window-sill in the moonlight a long, very thin, very dark figure bending over the Bible, and apparently earnestly scanning the page. As if my movement disturbed the figure, it suddenly darted up, jumped off the window-ledge on to the washstand, then to the ground, and flitted quietly across the room to the table where my jewellery was." That was the last she saw of it. She thought it was some one trying to steal her jewellery, ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... 1660, he appeared to be about seven-and-thirty years of age, tall, shapely, well-knit in his limbs, which captivity had rather tended to make full of flesh than to waste away; for there were no yards, nor spacious outlying walls to this Castle; and but for a narrow ledge that ran along the surrounding border, and where he was but rarely suffered to walk, there was no means for him to take any exercise whatever. He wore his own hair in full dark locks, which Time and Sorrow had alike agreed to grizzle. Strong lines marked his face, but age had ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... great delight was to lean out of the window as far as she could, and look at the people in the street, with her head upside down. It was very dangerous, for a fall would have killed her; but the danger was the fun, and Poppy hung out till her hands touched the ledge below, and her face was as red as ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... imprisoned, for a time, in the cellar of the farm-house, but mischievously contrived to set all the taps of the cider-barrels running, before he was released. These excursions led us often to the Devil's Den, an excavation in an abandoned ledge of limestone, in a solitary situation at some distance from the town, and guarded, now as then, by three rather spectral-looking Lombardy poplars, which to us boys had a sort of mystic and undefined significance. Here we procured bits of serpentine, interspersed ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... is the second most difficult to take care of. The worst would be ledge. We have to contend with, however, hard, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... pipe over it that night, his feet on the open window ledge, his eyes on the far-spreading flat roofs, the distant domes and minarets darkly silhouetted against the sky of softest, deepest blue. The stars were silver bright. They spangled the heaven with the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... slippery as if it were hair, and the sheep have fed it too close for a grip of the hand. Under the furze (still far from the summit) they have worn a path—a narrow ledge, cut by their cloven feet—through the sward. It is time to rest; and already, looking back, the sea has extended to an indefinite horizon. This climb of a few hundred feet opens a view of so many miles more. But ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... Greg and ran after Jerry, and I'd been sitting so long humped up on the rocks that my knees gave way and I barked my shins against a sharp ledge. I didn't even know it until ever so long afterwards, when I found a bruise as big as a saucer and remembered then. Jerry didn't need to point so wildly out across the water; I saw the boat before he could say a word. It was a ...
— Us and the Bottleman • Edith Ballinger Price
... them, the three men made their way to the reverse side of the knoll. A short search revealed an overhanging ledge under which they crouched in comparative safety from anything but a direct hit ...
— The Solar Magnet • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... having the rudder in its present useless state; the only assistance was that of a boat employed in towing which had been placed in the water between the ship and the shore at the imminent risk of its being crushed. The ship again struck in passing over a ledge of rocks and happily the blow replaced the rudder, which enabled us to take advantage of a light breeze and to direct the ship's head without the projecting cliff. But the breeze was only momentary and the ship was a third time driven on shore on the rocky termination of the cliff. ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... Uart. We soon entered the mouth of the pass, which was girt on either side by magnificent precipices; the road was narrow and slippery—of course without even an apology for a parapet—running along a natural ledge on the verge of a perpendicular cliff, and so sheer was the side, that from a horse's back you might sometimes have dropped a stone into the apparently bottomless ravine—bottomless, for the rays of a noon-day sun have never broken the eternal darkness of the awful chasm beneath. Had ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... and tables. The whole place is yet so new to men that this haunt has not acquired that air of repulsive custom which the egg shells and broken bottles and sardine boxes of many seasons give. Or perhaps the winter tempests heap the tides of the bay over the ledge, and wash it clean of these vulgar traces of human resort, and enable it to offer as fresh a welcome to the picnics of each successive summer as if there had never been a picnic in that ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... you mus' follow. I show the ways," said Rita; and, saying this, she stepped down from the opening upon a ledge of rock. Then turning to the right, she went on for a pace or two and turned for Russell. Seeing her walk thus far with ease and in safety, he ventured after her. The ledge was wide enough to walk ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... led him eastward to Nevada; his fortunes there steadily improved, until he became one of the leading men in the settlement, and in 1872, he made one of the most famous and romantic discoveries in mining history, that of the famous Comstock lode, on a ledge of rock high in the Sierras, under which Virginia City now nestles. So rich in silver was this great ledge of rock and its enormous production added so greatly to the world's supply of silver that the market price fell to a point where such countries ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... obvious that a catastrophe was imminent. Now there were two things which might be done; one was to stay in his place and help to bear the strain of the swinging body, for almost immediately the fainting man slipped from the ledge, and hung above the gulf. The other was to trust to number two to hold his weight, and go to his assistance in the hope of being able to support him until the guide could return to the first party. As by a flash-like ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... colony in the Wady Kelt used burrows excavated by themselves, and many a hole did they relinquish, owing to the difficulty of working it. So cunningly were the nests placed under a crumbling, treacherous ledge, overhanging a chasm of perhaps one or two hundred feet, that we were completely foiled in our siege. We obtained a nest of six eggs, quite fresh, in a hollow tree in Bashan, near Gadara, on the 6th ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... you do when the high waters come?' asked the phoebe bird. 'For my part,' continued she, 'I like a rock ledge for a foundation with another one above for a roof. The rock never caves in on you. A little hair and grass, nicely laid down, with a little moss on the outside, and you are comfortable and safe. You'll never be ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... was—there sprang up a sympathy for it as for something that was human and a brother. And now he was on the trail of it at last. From every point that morning it had seemed almost to nod down to him as he climbed and, when he reached the ledge that gave him sight of it from base to crown, the winds murmured among its needles like a welcoming voice. At once, he saw the secret of its life. On each side rose a cliff that had sheltered it from storms until its trunk had ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... too worn-out and antiquated for present use. A strong scent of musk greeted me at my entrance, which I found came from a box of it that had been broken upon the hall-floor. I had stowed it away (it was a favorite perfume with me, because it was so associated with my Arabian Nights' stories) upon a ledge over the door, where it had rested undisturbed while the house was tenanted, and had been now probably dislodged by rats. But I half fancied that this odor which impregnated the air of the whole house was the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... pleasant glimpses of beauty, pretty pictures on't, every little while as we wended our way on up the mountains. Anon we would go round a curve, a ledge of rocks mebby, and lo! far off a openin' through the woods would show us a lovely picture of hill and dell, blue water and blue mountains in the distance. And then a green wood picture, shut in and lonely, with tall ferns, and wild flowers, and thick green grasses under ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... narrow way she might get over safely. Without a moments hesitation the brave animal tried the pass. Carefully and steadily she went along, selecting a place before putting down a foot, and when she came to the narrow ledge leaned gently on the rope, never making a sudden start or jump, but cautiously as a cat moved slowly along. There was now no turning back for her. She must cross this narrow place over which I had to creep on hands and knees, or be dashed down fifty feet to a certain death. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... of his hand on the ledge outside the wicket. "It isn't an elephant this time, Mac Tavish. It's a United States Senator. Act on my orders, or into the mill I ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Indian boy Waukewa was hunting along the mountain-side, he found a young eagle with a broken wing, lying at the base of a cliff. The bird had fallen from an aerie on a ledge high above, and being too young to fly, had fluttered down the cliff and injured itself so severely that it was likely to die. When Waukewa saw it he was about to drive one of his sharp arrows through ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... boulder. "Sit down on that ledge. You have not quite recovered," she said; and I was glad to obey, for my limbs were shaky, and the power of command was born in her. Then with a sigh she added very slowly: "I fear you are premature. ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... and saw, stretched out on the ground, hanging half way over a deep and rock-filled gully, a man about twenty-seven years of age. Dave guessed this much though he could see only a part of the man's body, for his head and shoulders were hanging down over the ledge, ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... and higher than the others, and bare, being mostly a stony outcrop. Here he sat down in the shadow of a ledge and took long breaths. He felt that the pursuit was then fully a mile behind, and he could afford to stop for a little while. From the lofty summit he saw a great distance. Toward the southwest was where the swamp lay, but, ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... by day, if he will, To a feast on the broad window-ledge, And fly, when he's eaten his fill, To his home ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various
... warm niche and was sleeping in it with only one blanket over him, though by now the thermometer was well down toward zero. The affair had been simple. He had built a long, hot fire in the L of an upright ledge and the ground. When ready to sleep he had raked the fire three feet out from the angle, and had lain down on the heated ground between the fire and the ledge. His rifle and revolver lay where he could seize them ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... pirates, from which it derived its name. The total absence of vegetation, and the dusky hue of the soil, combined with the obvious appearance of constant decay, the dismembered fragments, and the streamlet to which it owes its origin, falling perpendicularly over a ledge of hard rock from above seventy feet high, producing a wild echo in the cavity beneath, all conspire to render it the most striking and astonishing of Nature's wildest works. The view off the Sand Rock presents the tasteful marine villas of Sir Willoughby Gordon and Mrs. Arnold, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... shutters were up, so Deborah found that she was sealed in the house. Almost in a state of distraction, for by this time her nerve had given way, she unlocked the door to the stairs and ran up three steps at a time to the sitting-room. Here she opened the window and scrambled out on to the ledge among Sylvia's flower-pots. Just as she was wondering how she could get down, the measured tread of a policeman was heard, and by craning her neck Deborah saw him coming leisurely along the street, swinging his dark lantern on the windows and doors. It was a moonlight night and ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... much wind at West: we had a ledge of rocks in the wind of vs, but the road was reasonable good for all Southerly and Westerly winds. We had the maine land in the winde of vs: this ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... of resigning himself to his fate, he bent down and grasped the stone which held him to his watery grave, picked it up in his arms, and walked calmly along the bottom towards the shore. With a supreme effort he next got the stone edged on to a half-submerged ledge; but now that it was half out of the water it was once more too heavy to lift, and Tricky lay in great perplexity in the shallow water, wondering how ever he was to get out of this fresh dilemma. ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... window-shutter slowly widen, and then a cautious hand appear on the ledge. She watched the shutter swing in, further and further, and then the stealthy figure, with its padded feet, emerge out of the darkness into the half-lighted room. She could even see the pallor of the intruder's face, and his quick movement of warning that reminded ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... rear. Kalvar Dard holstered his pistol and picked up his axe, and the column moved forward again. They were following a ledge, now; on the left, there was a sheer drop of several hundred feet, and on the right a cliff rose above them, growing higher and steeper as the trail slanted upward. Dard was worried about the ledge; if it came to an end, they would all be trapped. No one would escape. He suddenly felt ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... left, Noll. Below us is a deep gully, with a swift stream flowing. Beyond it is that wooded ledge. Any number of Moros could conceal themselves there and fire at us, and we couldn't reach 'em with the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... singing in the large elm-tree which nearly touched the windows; she knew well how the world looked at this moment, for often and often in her old light-hearted days she had risen before the maid came to call her, and, kneeling by the deep window-ledge, had looked out at the bright, fresh, sparkling day. A new day, with all its hours before it, its light vivid but not too glaring, its dress all manner of tender shades and harmonious colorings! Annie had a poetical nature, and she gloried in these glimpses which she got all by herself ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... was built on a ledge far up on the mountain side. From the back wall sloped for a hundred feet an ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... cooking in my furnace," added a practical worker. "Potatoes bake nicely when laid on the ledge, and beans, stews, roasts, bread—in fact the whole food list—may be cooked there. But one must be careful not to have too hot a fire. I burned several things before I learned that even a few red coals in the fire-pot will be sufficient ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... the top of a high bluff which descended almost perpendicularly for a hundred feet to a roadway, which was a welcome sight. Just below him, looking over the edge, he saw that there was a broad ledge about ten feet down and that, below this again, the cliff sloped at an acute angle to another narrow ledge, but below this again there was seemingly nothing but the ...
— The Boy Scouts Patrol • Ralph Victor
... the cliff is almost perpendicular, and the caves at points inaccessible, entrance to the majority of them can be effected by mounting the heaps of small stones forming the debris, which has fallen even to the bed of the river at various places, and by following a ledge which connects the line of entrances. The easiest approach mounts a steep decline, not far from the promontory at the lower level of the line, which conducts to a ledge running along in front of the caves about 150 feet above the bed of the stream. Roughly speaking, ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes
... extended, seems to direct their course, utters a wild scream of laughter, while a raven, speeding on broad black wing before them, croaks hoarsely. Now the torrent rages below, and they see its white waters tumbling over a ledge of rock; now they pass over the brow of a hill; now skim over a dreary waste and dangerous morass. Fearful it is to behold those two flying figures, as the lightning shows them, bestriding their fantastical ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... as a romantic heart could desire. There was something sinister and ironical even in the sunshine that lighted up these bleak hills. The silver waters of a spring—whose source was hidden somewhere high up among the mossy boulders—dripping silently from ledge to ledge, had the pathos of tears. The deathly stillness was broken only by the dismal caw of a crow taking abrupt flight from a blasted pine. Here and there a birch with its white satin skin glimmered spectrally among the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' seein' I wuz innercent, They jest oncorked an' le' me run, an' in my stid the sinner sent To see how he liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin', An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel chaplin. When I come out, the folks behaved mos' gen'manly an' harnsome; They 'lowed it wouldn't be more 'n right, ef I should cuss 'n' darn some: The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, "I'll du wut 's right, I'll give ye settisfection now by shootin' ye at sight, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... morning growing hot, and some new hands already pulling eagerly at the canteens, despite their older comrades' warning. And still the advance went relentlessly on. They were climbing a rugged, stony ravine now, with bare shoulders of bluff overhanging in places, and presently, from a projecting ledge, Stannard was able to look back over the rude landscape of the lowlands. There to the west, stretching north and south, was the long, pine-crested bulwark of the Mazatzal, the deep, ragged rift of Dead Man's Canon toward the upper end. Winding away southward, in the midst of ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... earnestly claimed his attention was a deep ledge, directly over the mouth of the cave, but some forty feet from the ground. Behind it the wall of rock sloped darkly inwards, suggesting a recess extending by haphazard computation at least a couple of yards. It occurred to him that perhaps the fault in the interior of the tunnel had its outcrop ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... a quarter from the time of getting up the anchor the Bessy was off the point. As soon as the ugly ledge of rocks running far out under water was weathered, ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... which his persecutors could command. But, like the Russian engineers at Sebastopol, East and his chum had an answer for every move of the adversary, and the next day had mounted a gun in the shape of a pea-shooter upon the ledge of their window, trained so as to bear exactly upon the spot which Martin had to occupy while tending his nurslings. The moment he began to feed they began to shoot. In vain did the enemy himself invest in a pea-shooter, and endeavour ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... of the tree revealed only the very patent fact that none of the branches was of sufficient diameter to conceal the ledger. No silk threads came from the window. He looked and looked and looked at that window; then his eye fell a little, halted less than three feet below the window-ledge, ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... espied a rough ledge just above her. With the strength born of despair she caught up her nephew and tossed him to safety. Frantically she herself tried to climb the bluff. . . . She thought she heard a man's voice shouting to her. . . . There was a moment when Loll's ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... and that the good snow might arrive at any time. After waiting a few days, I gladly hailed a broad-browed cloud coming grandly on from the west in big promising blackness, very unlike the white sailors of the summer skies. Under the lee of a rim-ledge, with another snow-lover, I watched its movements as it took possession of the canyon and all the adjacent region in sight. Trailing its gray fringes over the spiry tops of the great temples and towers, it gradually settled lower, embracing them all with ineffable kindness and gentleness ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir |
