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More "Jerk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... told her, looking out over the crap tables. "It's new, and different. But I'm not anybody's darling." A jerk of my head ...
— Vigorish • Gordon Randall Garrett
... but I pushed her away, not too gently I am afraid, and clambered forward to the bow, where the anchor lay upon its coil of line. I threw it overboard. The line ran out to its very end and I waited expectantly for the jerk which would tell me that the anchor had caught and was holding. But no jerk came. Reaching over the bow I tried the line. It was taut and heavy. Then I knew approximately how far we had drifted. We were beyond the shoal making ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... with a jerk before a house which was certainly not our house. A stream of light from the open door flooded the pavement. On the steps stood Percival, the man I had that row with about the Square garden. On the pavement, his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... on one side, and gently lifted the pirate's head with one hand while with the other he held the bundle of flags to shove under it as Alphonse gently pulled away the case. All depended on the movement being regular. A sudden jerk would have awakened the man, who was a fierce-looking ruffian. One of his hands lay over the hilt of his dagger, which he seemed capable of using with effect at a moment's notice. The manoeuvre required great nerve and courage, scarcely to be expected in such young lads. It was not found wanting ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... me that, Father," he said, almost humbly. "There isn't a feller back there in the camp," he added with a jerk of his head, "that would have hesitated like me when you handed him your dope. Thanks. Say, that darn stuff's ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... a year after in the form of a Pig, I met with the Rogue, and he look'd very big; I catch'd at his leg, laid him down on a log, Ere a man could fart twice, I had made him a Hog. Owgh, quoth the Devil, and forth gave a Jerk, That a Jew was converted, ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... water rose over the topmost letter and a moist silence prevailed till a sudden jerk fished up the bag, and before the dolls could recover their wits they were spread out on the floor of a mail car to dry, while several busy men sorted and saved such papers and letters ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... me, with the horror that the place inspires, when Goblin clutches me by the wrist, and lays, not her skinny finger, but the handle of a key, upon her lip. She invites me, with a jerk, to follow her. I do so. She leads me out into a room adjoining—a rugged room, with a funnel- shaped, contracting roof, open at the top, to the bright day, I ask her what it is. She folds her arms,, leers hideously, and stares. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... Brook, derricking is a safer procedure. Indeed, I have sat dejectedly on the far end of a log, after fishing the hole under it in vain, and seen the mighty R. wade downstream close behind me, adjust that comical extra butt, and jerk a couple of half-pound trout from under the very log on which I was sitting. His device on this occasion, as I well remember, was to pass his hook but once through the middle of a big worm, let the worm sink to the bottom, and crawl along it ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... way ahead, a crowd had collected on the sidewalk before a doorway, and Carruthers pointed with a jerk of his hand. ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... try, Miss Stevens,' and before I could speak he turned his horses into the narrow part of the road! I looked down the side of the mountain, and it made me feel so sick and giddy that I put out my hands and caught the lines; this gave them a sudden jerk, the near horse started, and began to back—Abby screamed, and that frightened him more—I felt the wheel going over the edge—the bushes were close on the other side of the wagon—there was no place to jump—Ned dropped the lines and sprang out at the back—I remember seeing something break ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... my fists, but I presume my purpose showed suddenly in my face, for he moved quickly backwards with a queer, nervous jerk of the head that was the precise counterpart of the parrot-like twist his mother had given at the luncheon table. It was an odd movement, at once timid and vicious, and in an instant I saw the spirit of Frank Jervaise ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... Then, with a jerk, she remembered there was a story. Nonsense! An unhappy love affair, no doubt, which had happened in her first youth, and in Canada. Well, such things, in the case of a girl with the temperament of Rachel, are only ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... port rail gone, a great dent in the steel deck-house forward, began to climb over the water hills with much of her usual precision—down on her side, clear to the bottom of a hollow, then settling on an even keel with a jerk, climbing the slaty incline, stiff as a church, then down, down, half on her side ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... had been near him five minutes ago was now at the other side of the circumference. Even then he scarcely understood what this indicated, until he heard a muffled grating sound and saw the black mark jerk forward an inch or so. Then the thing came upon him in a flash. The cylinder was artificial—hollow—with an end that screwed out! Something within the cylinder was unscrewing ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... was this ghostly Jack-in-the-box obtruded on the stage before his time; twice removed again; and yet he showed so little hurry when he was really wanted, that, after an awkward pause, Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to empty air. The arrival of the belated spectre in the middle, with a jerk that made him nod all over, was the last accident in the chapter, and worthily topped the whole. It may be imagined how lamely matters went throughout these ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ascertained that this Captain Sarrasin is a married man, and that he has a house where he and his wife live down Clapham way,' and Paulo made a jerk with his hand as if to designate to his daughter the precise geographical situation of Captain Sarrasin's abode. 'But he sleeps here many nights, and he is here most of the day, and he gets his letters here, and all sorts of people come to see ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Hi Strong!" bawled the other, when he found he could not easily jerk away. "It'll be the worse for you if ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... the pressure of the brakes and then, with a mighty jerk that shakes everybody up, the train comes to a stand-still. Down from the cars! Fighting Dick in the lead, revolver in hand, and the others right on his heels. They entered the station only to find every Jap dead—the men of Tacoma ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... blood in my body seemed to be pounding and surging in my head, and the green grass and the sky to be flying past me, all mixed up together, and behind, and on all sides, came the pit-pat of horses' feet, and then someone seized my pony's rein, and brought him up with a jerk, and my father and I were sitting in the midst of two hundred armed riders, whose leader, a tall man, with a thin cunning face, regarded us with a ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... the queer jerk which it had given once before, and which seemed suddenly to slam a door between himself and the outer world; but this break of continuity must have been of the briefest, for he presently heard Medora answering a question he had apparently found ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... the rushing horses with a jerk that set them back on their haunches. There were cries of alarm from the interior of the wagon, and from the front and rear ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... gunner squinted his eye along the sight, signalled the man at the training lever to ease off a little, took the range from the officer in charge of the division, then gave the firing lanyard a quick jerk. When the smoke lifted, the eager watchers saw a great yawning hole in the port bow of the Almirante Oquendo. A cheer came from the men in the turret, and the veteran glanced triumphantly toward the ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes
... those of the rhubarb, with its stems so close together as to be almost touching. Standing among the thistles in the growing season one could in a sense hear them growing, as the huge leaves freed themselves with a jerk from a cramped position, producing a crackling sound. It was like the crackling sound of the furze seed-vessels which one hears in June in England, only ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... Anne, smiling from sheer habit. "Mind you come." She got her face straight again with a jerk and turned to the solemn old ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... replied Robert, "they seemed very much in earnest. Let me tell you something more. I saw young women jiggle and jerk all over until their hair was all thrown down, and their clothing disarranged. Two or three men were running about on the platform as if they were mad, others danced more gracefully. One or two were bellowing. ...
— Around Old Bethany • Robert Lee Berry
... member of the party, who might by any chance fall through a hole, is dying from bumps, and we have a good hold on her. If you could see through the hay you would behold the human chain in action," and she gave Nita such a jerk that the latter declared the bumps were lovely, and begged to be allowed to do ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... the elbow, on the exact spot where the musculo-spiral nerve turns round the bone. The effect was most interesting. The sudden nerve stimulus produced an equally sudden contraction of the extensors. The forearm straightened with a jerk, the fingers shot out straight and the released revolver flew clattering ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... the turned-back wrist. A crack answered the jerk, and the glove split away in her hand. "There! Not my fault. Next time, perhaps, you will buy gloves sufficiently large. Oh, my poor ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... state of the tree, not what is the effect of a sudden blast.' In short, he interpreted the expression as referring to condition, not to position. The common notion, therefore, seems to be erroneous; and Shenstone's witty remark on Divines trying to give the tree a jerk upon a death-bed, to make it lie favourably, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... shouted in their joy of the promise of blood, of loot, of feasting— shouted and bounded forward. As they were in their stride once more, a wild yell rang out of the defile—a yell of fear and warning, that reached them, and that brought them up with a jerk. They faced round impatiently towards the defile again, and, behold, the mouth was held by a party of the enemy! But only a small party, less than half their number. With a yell they charged, and then they halted, and then they broke, and in a twinkling they had lost their cunning and ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... windows had been raised and much gratuitous advice was being given. The three occupants of the cab's seat who had previously clamoured for Mr. Peters' removal, now inconsistently resisted it; suddenly he came out with a jerk, and we had him fairly upright on the pavement minus a collar and tie and the buttons of his evening waistcoat. Those who remained in the cab engaged in a riotous game of hunt the slipper, while Tom peered into the dark interior, observing gravely the progress of the sport. First flew out ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... grey head with a jerk he fixed an angry eye on Dora. Dora had grown paler, but she said nothing; her fingers went steadily on with her work; from early morning now till late night neither they nor she were ever at rest. After a minute's silence Lomax walked to the door, flung a good-night ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the charm of our historical continuity, where the immemorial past blends indistinguishably with the present, to the remotest recesses of his imagination. But then the Yankee nature within him must put in a sharp word or two; he has to jerk the bridle for fear that his enthusiasm should fairly run away with him. 'The trees and other objects of an English landscape,' he remarks, or, perhaps we should say, he complains, 'take hold of one ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... at full speed and neither trip nor fall, but you must be cautious with the horses of the Moslems, and treat them with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems are proud, and they like not being slaves. When they are young and first mounted, jerk not their mouths with your bit, for be sure if you do they will kill you; sooner or later, you will perish beneath their feet. Good are our horses; and good our riders, yea, very good are the Moslems at mounting the horse; who are like them? I once saw a Frank rider compete with a Moslem on ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... ten yards before the other. Upon both sides of the river the people now advanced, dragging the rope on the surface of the water until they reached the ambatch float that was swimming to and fro, according to the movements of the hippopotamus below. By a dexterous jerk of the main line, the float was now placed between the two ropes, and it was immediately secured in the acute angle by bringing together the ends of these ropes on ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... space-gassing jerk!" snarled Charley Brett. "Depend on you to get things messed up! That Barnard guy is all set to ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... shepherd's back is turned, when the animal is quickly captured. Placing his foot on the back of the neck near the head, and seizing it under the chin with his right hand, the thief breaks the animal's neck by a sudden jerk; he then throws the body into a bush or in some dip in the ground to hide it, and walks away, watching from a distance. The shepherd, ignorant of the loss of one of his animals, goes on leisurely driving his flock before him, and when ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... pointing forward; then the hand, extended open and drawn to the breast, and lastly the sign for bringing, as follows: The hand half shut, with the thumb pressing against the forefinger, being first moderately extended either to the right or left, is brought with a moderate jerk to the opposite side, as if something was pulled along by the ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... had hurried across from New York for the purpose, blew her hat off, but she recked not, and only tautened her hair ribbon with an involuntary jerk just in time ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... their saddles at the unexpected bucking of their frightened ponies, and the whole band of horsemen was soon scattered in every direction, while the men who were carrying the hearse, following the example of the ponies, gave such a jerk at the sudden explosion, as to nearly drop their burden on the ground. By-and-by, the commotion subsided; the procession got into marching order, and all went well until the seaport was reached. The better class Japanese, I may mention, were dressed ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... He made mental reservations about the word friend, but did not care to express them. His somber eyes watched the big man jerk the spade bit cruelly and rowel the bronco when it went into the air. It was a pleasure to West to torture an animal when no human was handy, though he preferred women and ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... amazement they sat there stupidly looking down at him. Cautiously he raised the pole among the lower branches of the tree, and at length managed to slip the noose fairly about the neck of the nearest bird, when he gave it a jerk and brought it down fluttering. Passing from one side of the tree to the other, he repeated this, and soon had four of the fat, young birds in his possession—a feat which interested John in more ways than one, for, as has been indicated, he was very ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... of me," he said again, throwing the end of his cigar into the bushes with an irritated jerk of his arm,—"for the life of me, I cannot see what you have to complain of; and I shall certainly not give up any bird in the hand for two such birds in the bush as you promise me." He rose as he spoke, and shook out first one leg and then the other to straighten his trousers. "I'm ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... window and asked something—I guess it was whether it was raining. Anyway, she came right across and looked out. Just then the moon came out from behind the clouds. I was scared the woman would catch sight of me, for I was full in the moonlight. I tried to move back a bit. The jerk I gave was too much for that rotten old branch. With an almighty crash, down it came, and Julius P. Hersheimmer ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... vestibule I met the negro; I seized him by the collar and demanded my room. The demon showed his white and awful teeth, which were filed into a saw-like shape, and extricating himself from my grasp with a sudden jerk, fled down the passage with a gibbering laugh. Nothing but echo answered to my despairing shrieks. The lonely garden resounded with my cries as I strode madly through the dark walls, and the tall funereal cypresses seemed to bury ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... them into a gallop, and the protector was suddenly precipitated from his seat. At first, he lay suspended by the pole with his leg entangled in the harness; and the explosion of a loaded pistol in one of his pockets added to the fright and the rapidity of the horses; but a fortunate jerk extricated his foot from his shoe, and he fell under the body of the carriage without meeting with injury from the wheels. He was immediately taken up by his guards, who followed at full speed, and conveyed ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... and the discretion of using it, but we find that they make such prodigal use of it when they hapen to have a tolerable stock on hand that we have determined to adapt a different system with our present stock of seven Elk; this is to jerk it & issue it ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... any fuss the great revolution was made; so quickly, so completely, that even Miss Gascoigne was dumb-foundered. She set down her teacup with a jerk; her handsome face grew red with anger, but still she did not venture a word, she had not lived three years with Dr. Grey without finding out that when the master of the house did choose to exercise authority, he must be obeyed. He very seldom interfered, especially ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... evening, as I was saying, I sat upon the fluke of the anchor, waiting for a chance boat to put me aboard. It was past sunset, the tide was ebbing, and the old craft was surging to the fast current that ran by with a short, impatient jerk, as though she were well weary, and wished to be at rest; her loose stays creaked mournfully, and as she yawed over, the sea ran from many a breach in her worn sides, like blood trickling from a wound. 'Ay, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... genial as a July dawn in my own less ardent clime; but the memory of two round, tender arms, and two little dimpled hands, that so lately had made themselves loving fetters round my neck, in the vain hope of holding mamma fast, blinded my outlook; and as, with a nervous tremor and a rude jerk, we came to anchor there, so with a shock and a tremor I came to ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... not jerk her from the gate, though he tried hard; eight years old can effect a much firmer lodgment than four years. He ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... locked. So chains were removed, and while Finn stood with his nose against the glass of one window, Kathleen, facing the other way, had her nose against the opposite window. When the train started, with a jerk, Finn had his first abrupt sensation of travel, and he did not like it at all. It seemed to him that the ground was suddenly snatched from under him, and then he saw trees and posts and houses flying bodily past him. ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... arms, which she had thrown round her mother; and Miss Strictland, after breaking her netting silk with a jerk of indignation, observed, that, for her part, she wondered young ladies should go to consult their brother's tutor, instead of more suitable, and, perhaps, as competent advisers. Lady Julia, now indignant, turned away, and was withdrawing from before the triumvirate, when ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... in Kitty Fagan's heart gave a leap. The stout muscles gave an involuntary jerk. The substantial frame felt the thrill all through, and the rickety stool on which she was standing creaked sharply ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... final spurt; the coil of cord flies from the hunter's arm, as his quick fling sends it straight in air; the noose settles over the broad antlers of the buck; the youth draws back with a sudden but steady jerk, and the defeated deer drops to earth, ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... a jerk, and found himself staring straight into a pair of brilliant eyes, half green, half black. Smoke's face lay level with his own; and the cat had climbed up with its front paws upon ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... was flung open with a violent jerk, and the prisoner entered, or rather precipitated himself into the room. Goguet turned pale behind his table, and Lecoq advanced a step forward, ready to spring upon the prisoner and pinion him should ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... sufficient to save him, But, when beat on his knees, That confounded De Guise Came behind with the "fogle" that caused all this breeze, Whipp'd it tight round his neck, and, when backward he'd jerk'd him, The rest of the rascals jump'd on him and Burked him. The poor little page, too, himself got no quarter, but Was served the same way, And was found the next day With his heels in the air, and his head in ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... instead of pushing it out. When he thought he had sufficiently excited her, and made her suppose he was going to continue regularly fucking her, he suddenly withdrew the two fingers he had in her bum-hole, by a jerk substituted his prick, and before Mary was aware, had sheathed it more than halfway into her bottom. She gave a half scream, but his hold of her hips, and my close embrace of her waist, for I all along knew what he was at, prevented her from flinching and throwing him ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... unloosed his grass rope from about his neck, and as Numa stood above the body of the boar, challenging head erect, he dropped the sinuous noose about the maned neck, drawing the stout strands taut with a sudden jerk. At the same time he called shrilly to Sheeta, as he drew the struggling lion upward until only his hind ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... indiscriminately among his brushes and his razors on the dressing-table, and then at the pillow beside her where his head rested every night. She stooped and kissed it with a little quivering breath. "Ahmed. Oh, Monseigneur!" she murmured longingly. Then, with an impatient jerk of the head, she sprang up and dragged on her boots. She pulled a soft felt hat down over her eyes and picked up the revolver the Sheik had given her. She paused a moment, looking at it with an odd smile before buckling it round her slim waist. Gaston's face lit ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... minutes, I used to try and get the machine to open, but it would not budge; and then I used to stand and struggle with the wretched thing, and shake it, and swear at it, while the rain poured down in torrents. Then the moment the rain ceased the absurd thing would go up suddenly with a jerk and would not come down again; and I had to walk about under a bright blue sky, with an umbrella over my head, wishing that it would come on to rain again, so that it might not seem that I ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... highways deep, dangerous bogs form in every depression, containing either liquid mud where the horse is almost forced to swim, or soft tough clay, where the horse's feet are imprisoned and the animal in its desperate efforts to jerk itself free indulges in contortions anything but pleasant for the rider. The horses and cargo animals ever treading in each other's footsteps, cause the earth to wear away in furrows across the road, which ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... Dick, but you know you wouldn't miss that manatee hunt for a farm. We will have to put it off a day or two, though, until we kill a deer and jerk the venison. We've just eaten the last scrap of meat in camp. There's a trail running back into the bushes that must lead to a meadow where we can walk ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... ner never could git ahead, so overly much O' this world's goods at a time.— 'Fore now I've saw him, more'n one't, lend a dollar, and haf to, more'n like, Turn round and borry a dime! Mebby laugh and joke about it hisse'f fer a while—then jerk his coat. And kindo' square his chin, Tie on his apern, and squat hisse'f on his old shoe-bench, And ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... pain, then of a violent agony in the arches of feet and calves. And, delayed to the last endurable moment, that final terrible anguish when the drop of my full weight pulled shoulder and wrist and elbow joints with that bone-shattering jerk. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... boy," she exclaimed, "back that horse!" As the youngster obeyed her peremptory request Olive gave a quick jerk to a rope and brought down the toll-gate bar so that it stretched itself across the road, barely missing in its downward sweep the nose of the unoffending horse. "Now," said Olive, "if you are ready to pay your toll you can go through this gate, and if you ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... search among the bushes, the turkey-hunter had found bottom, and was standing with his head out of water. But the bottom was soft and muddy, and he flopped about dolefully when he attempted to walk to the bank. Harry reached his gun out toward him, but Tony, with a quick jerk of ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... figure of the Priest, the Boss unhooked his snowshoes from the wall. He seemed to have forgotten Crossman's presence, but as he turned, his smouldering eyes lighted on him. He straightened with a jerk. "What did he mean when he say, she have bewitch you?" As always, when excited, his somewhat precise English slipped back into the idiom of the habitant. "By Gar! Boss or no Boss, I pack you out if I catch you. We make no jealousies for any one, not where I am. You come here for your health—hein? ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... admitted he was, but that thoughtless cruelty and not indulgence had done the harm, therefore kindness was the cure. The first sign of regeneration was the implicit faith that Lauzanne began to place in his young mistress. At first when she put up a hand to pet him he would jerk his head away in affright; now he snuggled her shoulder, or nibbled at her glove in full spirit of comradarie. Then one day in a gallop came a stronger manifestation, a brief minute of exhilaration, ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... of response, variableness among individuals, and modifiability. They range from movements such as the action of the blood vessels to those concerned in hunting and collecting; from the simple, definite, uniform knee-jerk, which is very similar in all people and open to very little modification, to the capacity for scholarship, which is extremely complex, vague as to definition, variable both as to manifestation in one individual and amounts amongst people in general, and is open to almost endless ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... have heard thee up above in heaven; it was thy father who did that." Quickly and deftly he tied the cord to the end of the knotted rope; then he gave an answering jerk upon the string. The next moment the rope was drawn up to the window and down the outside by those below. Otto lay watching the rope as it crawled up to the window and out into the night like a great snake, while One-eyed Hans held ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... began to sob and to tremble again, and this time did scream outright. But the steam was screaming itself so loudly that no one, had there been any one nigh, would have heard him; and in another minute or so the train stopped with a jar and a jerk, and he in his cage could hear men ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... Whigs at our downfall should mock, "Meet planets and suns in one general hustle! "While happy in vengeance we welcome the shock "That shall jerk from their ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... with a touch of nervousness, after the injured ankle. This induced Mrs MacArthur to embark on a disquisition concerning the ease with which ankles are twisted, from which she drifted easily into a discussion of Rugby football, its merits and demerits. The Head, after several vain attempts to jerk the conversation into other grooves, gave it up, and listened for some ten minutes to a series of anecdotes about various friends and acquaintances of Mrs MacArthur's who had either twisted their own ankles ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... to drift astern. This was another precaution against sharks, as it is well known that their malevolent impulses are more likely to be excited and their attacks directed against white objects than any other. His idea was that a shark attacking the white handkerchief would jerk the cord and thus give warning of its presence in the rear, in time for him to be ready ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... be stemmed. Of the comfort of others he was solicitous to the point of oppressiveness. A Mess waiter's idea of efficiency as a rule is to stand woodenly at attention in an obscure corner of the room. When called upon, he starts forward with a jerk, and usually trips over something—probably his own ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... girl, roused from semi-somnolence, would pull herself together with a little jerk, would straighten her shoulders and lift her chin, whilst a quickly smothered sigh of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... agony that was soon over. Its fatal cause was soon exhibited, when Roland, awakened by the sound from the trance, which, during the brief moment of his passage through the abyss, had chained his faculties, turned, by a violent jerk, the head of his charger up the stream, in the instinctive effort to render assistance to his less fortunate followers. A fainter flash than before played upon the waters, and he beheld two or three dark masses, like the bodies of horses, hurried by ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... success had arrived. He stood almost directly below me. The noose was shot down—I had the gratification to see it settle around his neck; and with a quick jerk I tightened it. The rope ran beautifully through the eye, until both eye and loop were buried beneath the shaggy hair of the animal's neck. It embraced his throat in the right place, and I felt confident it ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... with a depth of comprehension that terrified me; and the motor pulled up with a jerk at a spot where hardly a post served to mark where the woods commenced and the wayside grass stopped. We took one of the dim paths which the rabbits had made and forced our way through the undergrowth into the peaceful twilight of ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... individuals being all worker-minors. Each one places itself on the surface of a leaf, and cuts, with its sharp scissor-like jaws, a nearly semicircular incision on the upper side; it then takes the edge between its jaws, and by a sharp jerk detaches the piece. Sometimes they let the leaf drop to the ground, where a little heap accumulates, until carried off by another relay of workers; but, generally, each marches off with the piece it has operated upon, and as all take the same road to their colony, the path they ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... land; and then at the eddying heaps of dry crisp leaves now blown by a strong November wind under the horses' feet, and now whirling in crazy circles like witches on Walpurgis's night, until after a shivering remonstrance from his little wife he put up the window with a jerk, and threw himself back with a discontented air ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... is for this that I have poured over such works as Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Moses in the bulrushes, Anaxagoras, Lucretius and Hoyle. It is for the purpose of advancing the cause of common humanity and to jerk the rising generation out of barbarism into the dazzling effulgence of clashing intellects and fermenting brains that I have sought the works of Pythagoras, Democritus and Epluribus. Whenever I could find any book ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... touched the bridle, she felt the pony's quick jerk, strained every muscle to hold on, and found she had conquered. He was in her hands. For how long was a question, for he was strong enough to walk away and drag her by the bridle perhaps, and she knew little about tricks of management. Moreover her muscles were ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... whole nature seemed to be awaking and blooming with a new grace and meaning. Her soft eyes, which glanced at him in the glowing dusk, swam with tenderness and unconscious passion, and once she let her head rest upon his shoulder, when a violent jerk threw her toward him, and at last he encircled her with his arm and there they sat trembling together, she with she knew not what, and he very well knowing, and fighting ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... perhaps, pitifully, that not much pleasure or warmth would ever go down so low, within her reach. Now that she stood on the ground, she scarcely came up to the level of the wheel; some deformity of her legs made her walk with a curious rolling jerk, very comical to see. She laughed at it, when other people did; if it vexed her at all, she never showed it. She had turned back her calico sun-bonnet, and stood looking up at Mrs. Howth and Joel, laughing as they talked—with her. The face would have startled you on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... back in the rich, gentle voice of the Altrurian. I lifted my head with a jerk from the pillow, and saw him standing against the closed door, with my shoes in his hand. "Oh, I am sorry I ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells
... as well as the rapidly increasing crowd on the wharf, who watched the little bundle as it traveled toward the head of the mast, did not wait for the agent to "set them going"! When it reached the top, and a slight jerk from one of the halliards loosened the flag to the breeze, they yelled vociferously, and patted one another on the back and shook hands as though they considered ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... the small boy standing in the garden and followed the other missioners into the house. Willy looked about him, half frightened, half defiant, and giving his cap a jerk down over his curly yellow hair muttered, as he glanced at the shining cross: "I will climb up there, and he can punish me if he likes. ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... make you tend baby once, and see how you'd like it!"—and Mandy rose with an impatient jerk of her bonnet-strings and slowly climbed the steep path to the house. Her mother, standing in the door-way with baby on one arm, shaded her eyes from the sun as she watched the cloudy face under the pink bonnet. It was always cloudy on Mondays ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... for the start, Ung Jerry climbed slowly to his perch on the cart's edge, gave a jerk to the rope bridle, and Rachel moved off, closely followed by Drive, who, conscious of egg-sucking and fearful of its consequences, had prudently ensconced himself beneath the cart, from whence he ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... FOREIGN ASTRONOMER. M. de Lalande advanced to meet me—-I will not be quite positive it was on tiptoe, but certainly with a mixture of jerk and strut that could not be quite flat-footed. He kissed my hand with the air of a petit-matre, and then broke forth into such an harangue of loges, so solemn with regard to its own weight and importance, and so fade(291) with ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... into the ink-pools—I will faithfully guard the jewels! Oh, my Father and my Mother, send him away!' He indicated Kim with a backward jerk of his bare heel. ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... called 'bon soir, bonne nuit,' just as though Rogers had never gone away at all. Michaud, the carpenter, shouted his welcome as he strolled towards the Post Office farther down to post a letter, and then the motor stopped with a jerk outside the courtyard where the fountain sang and gurgled in its big stone basin. Minks saw the plane tree. He glanced up at the ridged backbone of the building. What a portentous looking erection it was. It seemed to have no ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... tips of middle fingers touching, thumb touching chest, elbows level with shoulders (fig. 5); jerk elbows back keeping them up even with shoulders (fig. 6). Two counts,—jerk 1—back ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... sand-heap and joined the waiting man below. Both stood intent and ready, revolvers drawn, listening. The heavy wheels grated in the sand, the driver whistling to while away the dreary pull and the horses breathing heavily. Moore pulled them up with a jerk, as two figures leaped into view, his whistle coming to an ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... so lost itself among the trees, that the driver seemed to find his way by instinct. We had the comfort of knowing, at least, that there was no danger of his falling asleep, for every now and then a wheel would strike against an unseen stump with such a jerk, that he was fain to hold on pretty tight and pretty quick, to keep himself upon the box. Nor was there any reason to dread the least danger from furious driving, inasmuch as over that broken ground the horses had enough to do to walk; as to shying, ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... cabin) and my dressing-gown, and walked upstairs tying on the lifebelt. As I came out of my cabin, I remember seeing the purser's assistant, with his foot on the stairs about to climb them, whisper to a steward and jerk his head significantly behind him; not that I thought anything of it at the time, but I have no doubt he was telling him what had happened up in the bows, and was giving him ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... him the man at the table pulled out a drawer with a sharp jerk. His hand sought something within it, but his eyes never left the curtain of darkness ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... imperceptible jerk of his head. He drew his bail receipt from his pocket and tossed it on the table as Murphy had done. Holding the slip of paper in both hands "Slim" examined it closely, looked up inquiringly at John, and then reached into his pocket, bringing forth a thick roll of bills. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... dipper hanging on a nail beside the kitchen door. Hetty dipped out a small quantity of the milk, sipped, straightened up with a jerk and spewed the milk out into the yard. "Yaawwwk," she spluttered, "that tastes worse ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... most peculiar walk, with a swinging motion from the hip at each step, in which the shoulder sympathises. I never saw anything at all like it. It has neither the delicate shuffle of the Frenchwoman, the robust, decided jerk of the Englishwoman, the stately glide of the Spaniard, or the stealthiness of the squaw; and I should know a Hawaiian woman by it in any part of the world. A majestic wahine with small, bare feet, a grand, swinging, deliberate ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... custody. As I passed, not knowing I was so near the spot, the little dog gave a low whimper of greeting, sufficient to attract my attention and guide me to where he was keeping his faithful watch and ward. I felt for my flax-stick and moved it ever so gently. A sudden jerk and splash startled me horribly, and warned me that I had disturbed an eel who was in the act of supping off my bait. In the momentary surprise I suppose I let go, for certain it is that the next instant my flax-stick was rapidly towed ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... those people there are talking about?" he said with a jerk of the head towards a chattering group of three gorgeous lorettes and two middle-aged men at ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... Uncle Zack's was rotten, or the sail would have been too much for my pull.' One of the ropes stretching the lower side of the blanket had snapped under the sudden pressure of Sam Holt's vigorous jerk round, and ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... position and allows of their rising or falling with the height of the water. An unlucky day for Silly. In the first place he was sea-sick. The use of the broad paddle in a small boat caused a good deal of shaking, and every stroke is attended with a sharp jerk forwards—secondly, he mistook a collection of weeds for dry land and jumped out into the water. This puzzled him immensely, and after he was recovered he sat for a long time gazing with a bewildered air upon the ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... for me, I suppose," he replied. "I'm sick of the whole thing," he went on, and opened the gate with a jerk. They began to cross the next field walking ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... "Keep hold of the stick-end, or tie that end to the boat. If you lose that you can't pull in your crab. Each one of you keep watch of his or her string. When you see it beginning to be pulled, or when you feel a little tug or jerk on it, as if a fish were nibbling, then pull up very slowly and carefully. And look as you pull. Don't pull it all the way to the top, or the crab, if there is one on it, will see you, let ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... not to have a keen apprehension of a state of hostility in one whom he loved. If I had inclined to melt, however, his next remark would have been enough to harden me: 'I have fought as many battles, and gained as startling victories as Napoleon Buonaparte; he was an upstart.' The word gave me a jerk. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... were they ever at school, but if they ever traveled in a railroad car, or whether they suppose their hearers to be so ignorant of the most common facts as to believe that there is no way of bringing a carriage to a stand but by a sudden jerk, or that God is more stupid than the brakeman of an express train. We will do them the justice, however, to say, that they did not invent it, but merely shut their eyes, and opened their mouths, and swallowed it for philosophy, because ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... rowels down the plank sidewalks of whatever little town they may choose to visit. A town dweller will not quarrel with one of them. He will treat him politely, straightway seek some acquaintance whom he wishes to impress, and jerk a thumb toward the departing Black Rim man, and say importantly: "See that feller I was talking with just now? That's one of them boys from the Black Rim. Man, he'd kill yuh quick as look at yuh! He's bad. Yep. You want to walk 'way round them birds from the Rim country. They're a hard-boiled ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... of his thoughts was brought to a close and with a sudden jerk by some memory of his maybe dying friend; and in his grief he found no better solace than to gaze at the stars, now thickly sown in the sky, and to attempt to decipher their conjunctions and oppositions, trying to pick out ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... the pictures of this kind of torment found in the dreadful narratives of the calumniators of the Holy Office, pale into insignificance in comparison with the atrocious details of the tortures here recited; at each violent jerk the unhappy victim feeling that his limbs were being torn asunder would cry out 'My God! My God!' This terrifying cry reverberating through the jail would freeze the very blood of ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... and it was amusing to see his efforts to eat currants from the hand. He would run out his tongue and try to stick it to the currant; failing in that, he would bend his tongue around it like a hook and try to raise it by a sudden jerk. But he never succeeded, the round fruit would roll and slip away every time. He never seemed to think of taking it in his beak. His tongue was in constant use to find out the nature of everything he saw; a nail-hole in a board or any similar ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... paper with a stone in the end of the cloth, and lowered it again. Then I sat down, tied the rope round my waist, got my feet against two projections, and waited. There was a jerk, and then I felt someone was coming up the rope ladder. The strain was far less than I expected, but the native policeman who came up first did not weigh half so much as an average Englishman. There were now two of us to hold. The officer in command of the police came up next, ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... A jerk, and Quijada had stripped the ruff from his neck, and, as this did not suffice, he cut with his sword blade and his teeth a piece of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of him Dicky straightened himself with a little jerk, and his tongue clicked with satisfaction. "Isn't he, though—isn't he?" he said, after a moment. His lips, pressed together, curled in with a trick they had when he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... So it had come already. She stopped for a moment in the hall to gather her forces. Her feeling of penitence vanished. She threw up her head with a defiant jerk and walked boldly into the little office where Grace sat making up ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... behold these waters so smooth and placid while the surf foamed and thundered beyond the reef. I now baited my hooks with fat of the goat and betook me to my angling; nor had I long to wait ere I felt a jerk on my line, and tingling with the joy of it I whipped my rod so furiously that my fish whirled glittering through the air, and flying from my barbless hook lay floundering on the sands behind me; and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... in another moment Hudson was dragged from his steps, and Lord Francis Douglas immediately after him. All this was the work of a moment. Immediately we heard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would permit; the rope was taut between us, and the jerk came on us both as one man. We held, but the rope broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our unfortunate companions sliding downward on their backs, and spreading out ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... some others untied a boat lying at Hannemann's Clapper and rowed it into the space between the ships to fish him out. The moment that the saving punt-pole arrived some man unknown to me reached down from the ladder, seized me by the collar, and with a vigorous jerk hoisted me ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... even more effective weapons by what is called a spring dagger, which consists of a short, strong knife or dirk let into the handle, and is readily brought into play by a sudden jerk, or by touching a spring. This may be all very well for travellers in the out-of-the-way regions of Spain, Sicily, or Italy, but I don't like these dangerous accessories for English use, as they may be unfortunately liable to abuse ...
— Broad-Sword and Single-Stick • R. G. Allanson-Winn
... handcuffs as well as a sufficient supply of Somnol. My own deed of violence was the one entirely unforeseen effect, and Raffles vowed it had been a help. But when I inquired whether he had ever been over this empty house before, an irritable jerk of his ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... that which controlled the wilful canvas needed another pull. But if the yard itself had not been laid right, it was too late to mend it. To start a brace with the men on the spar might cause a jerk that would spill from it some one whose both hands were in the work, contrary to the sound tradition, "One hand for yourself and one for the owners." I believe the old English phrase ran, "One for yourself and one for the king." Then, when all was over and snug once more, the men ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... onto his belly. We gathered round him. With a jerk he turned on to his back, his arms slackened, and his gaze drowned in his eyes. His blood began to spread around him, and we drew our great boots away, that we should not ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... began, the dog reared himself patiently upon his hind feet and stepped about so slowly that the organ-man growled at him and struck the organ again. Then the dancer moved faster; but the ears did not fly and every motion was a jerk. Nevertheless, the princess's heart had now begun to suffocate her. She recalled Gabriel's story of washing off the brown color from the dingy fur in the brook, and her eyes swam with tears at the mere possibility that this might be the object of her search. ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... dottel of his pipe on the back of the hairy fist. "They say 'Ell's 'otter than that," said he, as Mulvaney swore aloud. "You be warned so. Look yonder!"—he pointed across the river to a ruined temple—"Me an' you an' 'im"-he indicated me by a jerk of his head—"was there one day when Hi made a bloomin' show o' myself. You an' 'im stopped me doin' such—an' Hi was on'y wishful for to desert. You are makin' a bigger ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... to crank it up. He was so long over the operation that she began to be alarmed. However, he was not drunk, only senile. Of the two, his taxi was far worse—rickety, spavined, with every evidence of decrepitude. It started with a jerk which threw its occupant ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... would be one of cowardice. And now a soldier seizes them, and drawing them behind my back, fastens heavy iron manacles to my wrists. Another attempts a similar operation upon Nadine, who, frightened, struggles and screams. Making an effort to calm her, I try to approach, but a sudden jerk on the chain attached to my manacles causes intense pain in my arms, and a rough voice cries "Back." Back? Why? I do not want to abandon Nadine, and instinctively I grasp the bed behind me. Another and a stronger jerk, I stumble, and a piece of broken glass pierces my thin shoe, and cuts my foot, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... world without Billy. Occasionally, she would forget and think he was out in the field or down in the mine; more rarely still, she would slip even further backward and wonder what he was about in his play. During these moments she would feel normal, but some object catching her eye would jerk her back to the present and the cruel truth. She and Martin had less than ever to say to each other, though in his own grim way he was more thoughtful, giving her to understand that there were no longer any restrictions laid upon her purchasing, and even suggesting that they ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... of fact,' said Welch, changing the conversation with a jerk, 'I don't much care if the cups are stolen. One doesn't only run for the sake of ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... unexpected that it almost startled the man from Georgia. He pulled out one hand slowly, that a sudden jerk might not lacerate his wrist. Then he pulled out the other, resumed his shirt and hat, picked up the imaginary weight, and shuffled ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... brought him up with a jerk beside the sorrel which snorted and reared back, snapping the reins with which he had been tied, and stood with distended nostrils sniffing inquiringly at Ace of Spades as the cowpuncher swung to ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... heart, and he hurried on, more for the need of movement than with any definite object. And just beyond a bed of geraniums that had hidden his view she was seated on a chair, and stopping with a jerk absolutely in front of her, he said, ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... wheel jerk then, miss? That tug to sta'bo'd is the only fault I find with this here schooner. She's a right tidy craft, and Cap'n Tunis is a good judge of sailing ships, as ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... there," said the barkeeper, with a jerk of the thumb toward the crowd surrounding the pugilist. "He's going ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... a broad stream in front of him, and a hill just on its other side. No one had ever tried to take this at a jump. It was considered more of a swim than anything else, and the hunters always crossed it by the bridge, towards the left. Travers saw the bridge and tried to jerk Satan's head in that direction; but Satan kept right on as straight as an express train over the prairie. Fences and trees and furrows passed by and under Travers like a panorama run by electricity, and he only breathed by accident. They went ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... reaches the old man could tell little save that their currents ran moderately— "nothing out of the way." The M'Lauchlins sent all their timber down to sea by the more northerly stream. "Our river 'd be the better by far, three-fourths of its way, but—" with a jerk of his thumb—"the Gap, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the steering wheel a vicious jerk. We sheered dangerously. She uttered a little, frightened cry, and her gloved fingers closed upon my wrist. I was absolutely certain I had short-circuited a battery wire when, her hand still resting on my arm, she pleaded: "Forgive ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... the man whom General Vincente had selected from a brigade of tried soldiers, and gave a little upward jerk of ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... the coach in that narrow place, the haunt of rufflers and vagrants of every kind, might be part of a concerted plan—I fell back into my place. The coach, as it happened, moved on at that moment with a jerk; and before I had digested the matter, or had time to mark the demeanour of the crowd, we were clear of the bridge, ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... was helpless to turn or to advance. Perhaps if he did not move, it would not. A moment he stood there, tense with terror, then—straight from the altar the thing flew at his throat. But quick as it was: the involuntary jerk of his arm upward was quicker, and it received the blow. Snarling, the thing fell to the floor, and leaped back into the darkness. It was ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... hung about his mind, coloring the abiding sense of loneliness. His last triumph in the delicate art of his profession had given him no exhilarating sense of power. He saw the woman's face, miserable and submissive, and he wondered. But he brought himself up with a jerk: this was the danger of permitting any personal feeling or speculation ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... my head aside, put my hand in through the opening, felt about, and taking a firm hold on one arm of the skeleton, I loosened it from the body with a quick jerk. The movement loosened the head as well, and it rolled out through the opening right to my very feet. I took up the skull to lay it in the coffin again—and then I saw a greenish phosphorescent glimmer in its empty eye sockets, a glimmer which came and went. Mad terror shook me at the sight. I looked ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... board-pile. At length she leaned a bit to one side, reached into a pocket and, taking out a snuff-stick and a parcel of its attendant compound, began to take a dip of snuff, after the habit of certain of the population of that region. This done, she turned with a swift jerk of the head, bringing to bear the tube of her bonnet in full force ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... with his teeth at my knots and in a quarter of an hour had loosened them; then I undone his. We unbound our thongs and then fastened 'em up again so that to the eye they looked jest the same as before but really with a jerk they'd fall off. ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... wasn't for all this here luggage," said Jehu in a confidential whisper, with a backward jerk of his head towards the moving pyramid behind us; "we might go through the park. The Duke gives permission to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... another precaution against sharks, as it is well known that their malevolent impulses are more likely to be excited and their attacks directed against white objects than any other. His idea was that a shark attacking the white handkerchief would jerk the cord and thus give warning of its presence in the rear, in time for him to be ready ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... up with a jerk, and a commissionaire threw open the apron. Douglas handed his companion out, and they entered the restaurant together. In a distant corner they found a table to themselves, and ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... revolution, bouleversement, subversion, break up; destruction &c. 162; sudden change, radical change, sweeping organic change; change of state, phase change; quantum leap, quantum jump; clean sweep, coup d'etat[Fr], counter revolution. jump, leap, plunge, jerk, start, transilience|; explosion; spasm, convulsion, throe, revulsion; storm, earthquake, cataclysm. legerdemain &c. (trick) 545. V. revolutionize; new model, remodel, recast; strike out something new, break with the past; change the face ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... were split, and a great part of our standing rigging broken. About eight in the evening, an overgrown mountainous wave took us upon our star-board quarter, and gave us so prodigious a shock that several of our shrouds broke with the jerk, to the great danger of our masts giving way, and our ballast and stores were so strangely shifted, that the ship heeled afterwards two streaks to port. This was a most tremendous blow, and we were thrown into the utmost consternation, having the dismal apprehension of instantly foundering. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... almost imperceptible jerk of his head toward our boat, "we didn't want to come too quick up the water; there is so much to see for those who have not been up ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... behind his back, by the wrists to one end of a rope passed round a pulley bolted into the vaulted ceiling, the other end being attached to a windlass, by turning which he could be hoisted into the air, and dropped again, either slowly or with a jerk, as ordered by the judge. The suspension generally lasted during the recital of a Pater Noster, an Ave Maria, or a Miserere; if the accused persisted in his denial, it was doubled. This second degree, ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have apologized further, but the funicular gave a mighty jerk at that moment, and the carriage started. Up—up went the little train, working on wire ropes like a bucket coming out of a well. Higher and higher and higher it rose up the terrific incline, over masses of cinders, ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Brigade have their H.Q. here, and this morning there were about 2000 Gurkhas and Sikhs about. I was toiling up the "bloody cliff" when some Gurkhas passed me, thinking nothing of the steep ascent; while I straightened my knees slowly at each step, I noticed they brought their legs straight with a jerk. ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... horses, and I would rather have them in charge with him than with half the young fellows I know of in laced hats and liveries; and whoever wants a character of James Howard," said John, with a decided jerk of his head, "let ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... the onlookers as the vile epithet was applied. Calumet's right hand went swiftly forward and his fingers closed around the butt of the weapon at Denver Ed's hip. The gun came out with a jerk and lay in Calumet's hand. Calumet began to pull the trigger. The dull, metallic impact of the hammer against empty chambers was ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... seeing the risk they ran of their plan being found out, came to where Master Nicholas was lying, and with one jerk clapped it on again, muttering as he did so some Latin words, which he said were a charm ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... a quick jerk of the head as he went on climbing the ratlines as quickly as he could, forgetting all about the heat and the silvery glare ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... modesty, and she allows me to abate a little of the true. I like to be liked, but I don't care about being respected. I don't respect myself. But, as I was saying, I thought he would have let me down just as we got to Lieutenant Barker's Coal-shed (or emporium) but by a cunning jerk I eased myself, and righted my posture. I protest, I thought myself in a palanquin, and never felt myself so grandly carried. It was a slave under me. There was I, all but my reason. And what is reason? and what is the loss of it? and how often in a day do we do without it, just as well? Reason ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the way, and let the carriage traverse. In the morning when he sobered, he had quite forgotten where the leg was, and how he broke it; he therefore got Kelson to splice the stump with the butt-end of a mop; but in the hurry it had been left three inches too long, so that he had to jerk himself up to the top of his peg at every step. The doctor, glad to breathe the fresh air after the horrible work he had gone through, was leaning over the side, speaking to Kelson. When I fell, he turned round and drew Cookee's fire ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... with the cat in it went on and on, until it came to a far-off place where there were no houses and no gamekeepers, and no fear of traps. Then it stopped with such a jerk that the front door flew open, and a woolly dog, with a red morocco collar and very stiff legs, came in, ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... going to have a doctor for you today," she announced, and Allen sat up in bed with a jerk. ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... with a tremendous jerk. Jinnie gave a frightened little cry, but the woman did not heed her. The motor sped along at a terrific rate, and there just ahead Jinnie spied a lean barn-cat, crossing the road. She screamed again in terror. Still Molly sped on, driving the car straight over the ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... where the condemned archers stood and seizing the first by the shoulders he thrust him over the wall. A cry burst from the man's lips and a deep groan from those of his comrades below as he fell with a jerk which sent him half-way up to the parapet again, and then after dancing like a child's toy swung slowly backward and forward with limp limbs and ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... walked away, amusing himself with the notion that he had sown the dragon's teeth; Caroline was very sorry to have caused such painful blushes, yet was proud to hear of Marian's being admired; and Mrs. Lyddell said not a word, but worked on with a jerk at her thread, trying to persuade herself that she was not vexed that, as Elliot said, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... And with that, he darted in again with one jerk and clapped the little door to, like a figure in a Dutch ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... a reed four or five feet long; cut it in the middle, and let two men hold the points towards each other for insertion. While this is doing repeat these words: In Alio S. F. Motas vaeta, Daries Dardaries Astataries Dissunapitur. Now jerk a piece of iron upon the reeds at their juncture, and cut right and left. Bind them to the dislocation or fracture, and it ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... will wash him out of hand." Arrived at the well, they found that the rope was still there, but the bucket had been removed; so they determined to attach him to the rope, and lower him into the well, there to wash himself, which done, he was to jerk the rope, and they would draw him up. Lowered accordingly he was; but just as, now washen, he jerked the rope, it so happened that a company of patrols, being thirsty because 'twas a hot night and some rogue had led them ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... she did not speak; nor did she appeal to him any more. Alienation was commencing. But what was worse than speaking her mind, she was for ever at the window now, looking up and down the street; and walking with her he felt her arm often tremble, and sometimes jerk. The secret was agitating her nerves, and destroying her tranquillity as much, or perhaps more, than if ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... citizen. We pass on to our neighbourhoods, and our habitual provincial connections. These are inns and resting-places. Such divisions of our country as have been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk of authority, were so many little images of the great country in which the heart found something which it could fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate partiality. Perhaps it is a sort of elemental training to those higher and more ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... respectful, a little mysterious and a little fearful in their attitude. Their eyes were upon the Friar, and from their expressions they might have expected some sort of apparition to cross the threshold. They made a curtesy to him, dipping their bodies in a little sudden jerk. Nobody else was in the kitchen, and, despite the almost oppressive formality of their attitude, they somehow conveyed a sense of the power of women in the household in time of crisis. They were in supreme command, the men all outside, when a life had to be battled for. The elder ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... said the husband, in an undertone of amiable chiding; and the buggy gave a jerk of thankful relief as its principal burden left it for the sidewalk, diffusing the sweet smell of ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... into the ditch, and, with a single powerful impulsion of his limbs, urge himself back to the foot of the rampart. Neither feet nor hands were of much service, in enabling him to scale the smooth and slanting logs that composed the exterior surface of the works; but a slight jerk of the well secured rope, serving as a signal to his friends, he was soon dragged once more to the summit of the rampart, without other injury than ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... reluctant to go farther. In fact for the last hour, Roger had been obliged to lead him. The way down was very precipitous and they had not covered a third of it when Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched forward after Roger. But Peter got his balance immediately and threw himself back on his shoulders, bracing his feet against the roots of a ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... hanged nevertheless," replied the Hollander, giving his collar an ugly jerk. "Mind, I, Rykhart Van Galgebrok predict it. And now let's go back to the Shovels, and finish our brandewyn ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... enough to reach the hornbill, which was still standing screaming defiantly on the upper round; and before it was aware of what the black was about, the latter slipped the noose over the bird's head and drew it tight, and then with a violent jerk pulling it off its perch, down it came, with its huge bill first and its wings fluttering, to the ground, where Dan quickly despatched it. Nub immediately descended for the bamboo; and mounting again, slipped the noose over the head of the hen ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... plunging his spoon therein—he flapped his right elbow. It wasn't exactly a flap; it was a pass between a hitch and a flap, and presented external evidence of a mental state. Orville Platt always gave that little preliminary jerk when he was contemplating a serious step, or when he was moved, or argumentative. It was a trick as innocent as ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... vessel came, the more Theseus wondered what this immense giant could be, and whether it actually had life or no. For, though it walked, and made other lifelike motions, there yet was a kind of jerk in its gait, which, together with its brazen aspect, caused the young prince to suspect that it was no true giant, but only a wonderful piece of machinery. The figure looked all the more terrible because it carried an enormous brass club ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to my father, and the queen followed. I have said that there was a little sea running, and this made the ships jerk and strain at the chain that held them together fiercely, now that it was so short. And even as the queen came to the top step, where there was no rail, for the steps were not amidships, but alongside the gunwale, one of these jerks came; and in a moment she was in the sea, and in a moment ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... them they must be slipped while a rein is in each hand, turning the two fore fingers towards you. You cannot pay too much attention to practising the cross from hand to hand on the balanced chair. There should be nothing approaching to a jerk or shake of either rein. Neither rein should be for an instant loosened, but an equal tension kept on both, and both should be of precisely equal length when crossed in one hand. Be assured, however childish it may appear to you, this practice will teach you the true principle ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... rush of the horses across the narrow flats between the cliff and the end of the dam. So violently did Flagg jerk them to a standstill in front of the shack, one horse fell and dragged down the other in a tangle of harness. Flagg left them to struggle to their feet as best they were able. He leaped off the jumper and thrust with the handle of his whip in the direction ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... captain gave a sharp order in his gruff voice, and, as if by magic, the watch on deck appeared from all sides. The chief officer emerged from his cabin beneath the wheel-house, and went forward into the fog, turning up his collar. Presently the jerk and clink of the steam-winch told that the anchor was being got home. The fog had been humoured for six hours, and the time had now come to move on through thick or thin. What should Berlin, Petersburg, Vienna, know ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... there was no standing on your toes nor keeping your mouth open or putting wadding in your ears. I took photographs most of the time, and they ought to be excellent—what happened was that you were thrown up off the deck just as you are when an elevator starts with a sharp jerk and there was an awful noise like the worst clap of thunder you ever heard close to your ears, then the smoke covered everything and you could hear the shot going through the air like a giant rocket— ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... the same. And thus, in this unenclosed country, where there were great woods, but where hedges were almost non-existent, the men of the land would look up and pass the remark to their mates, with a jerk of the head, "Ther's ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... week to think of your proposition. If I can jerk a lecture in time I will go with you. The Lord knows I would like to. —[Nasby's lecture, "Cussed Be Canaan," opened, "We are all descended from grandfathers!" He had a powerful voice, and always just on the stroke of eight he rose and vigorously delivered this sentence. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... when I was looking at two horses rolling in the snow near a farmhouse, I suddenly felt a great jerk and we were pitched out headlong! Our horse wanted to have some fun! So he fell on his side and was about to roll over and enjoy himself, taking the sleigh with him; but we did not see the joke. We succeeded in putting him on his legs. The driver gave the animal a good scolding: ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... hook one fellow, I think, for he gave a tremendous jerk at his line, and began to skip inshore as if he were but ten years old; but it was of no use. The ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... if I don't get shet of it right away, the people get shet of it for me. I had eighty head of chickens in the barn out there runnin' 'round. When I got sick and was in the bed and couldn't help myself, the chickens went. In the daytime, they would fix traps and jerk a string and pull a board down on them and then go out in the weeds and get them. I never reported nothin' to the police. I wasn't able to report nothing. I was just batching, and now and then people would come ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... up the hillside, his teeth chattering all the way, he drew near to Inyan, the sacred symbol. Seizing one corner of the half-worn blanket, Iktomi pulled it off with a jerk. ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... killing several horses and wounding a few men, but beyond this we met with no molestation. The torpedoes were loaded shells planted on each side of the road, and so connected by wires attached to friction-tubes in the shells, that when a horse's hoof struck a wire the shell was exploded by the jerk on the improvised lanyard. After the loss of several horses and the wounding of some of the men by these torpedoes, I gave directions to have them removed, if practicable, so about twenty-five of the prisoners were brought up and made to get down on their knees, feel for the wires in the darkness, ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... the open crossing a block beyond before his vague curiosity changed into an active instinctive presentiment that they were coming to the shop. He withdrew to a more becoming and dignified position behind the counter as the carriage drew up with a jerk before ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... of the punkah-towel and the soft whine of the rope through the wall-hole followed it. Then the punkah flagged, almost ceased. The sweat poured from Spurstow's brow. Should he go out and harangue the coolie? It started forward again with a savage jerk, and a pin came out of the towels. When this was replaced, a tomtom in the coolie-lines began to beat with the steady throb of a swollen artery inside some brain-fevered skull. Spurstow turned on his side and swore gently. There ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... down with a jerk, and for a second she stared her perplexity at the upturned, earnest little face. Then with quick understanding which revealed her real mother-spirit, she answered: "Why land, Honey-Girl, Reynolds makes pretty good money at times. I guess ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... it a good plan to let the bass have the bait from two to ten seconds, according to the way he takes it; then strike at once, giving him line freely, but keeping the thumb on the reel as a drag. Click reels are an abomination. I never jerk the rod, but hook with a twist of the wrist, remembering the golden rule that from the moment a bass takes the bait until he is landed the line must be kept tight, as one second of slack line will lose him. The point of the rod ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... a locomotive!" This was his ruling hallucination; and, for the space of two or three hours, he continued to pace to and fro with a measured stride, exhaling his breath in violent jets, and when he spoke, dividing his words into syllables, each of which he brought out with a jerk, at the same time turning his hands at his sides, as if they were the cranks of imaginary wheels, The Englishman, as soon as he felt the dose beginning to take effect, prudently retreated to his own room, and what the nature of his ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... palls. "Starved," he presently muttered. "We are kind o' starved that way I'll admit. More dollars than girls to the square mile. And to think of all of us nice, healthy, young—bet yu' I know who she is!" he triumphantly cried. He had sat up and levelled a finger at me with the throw-down jerk ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... the gardener, "take this gentleman's portmanteau to the lower room," and, as the gardener bestirred himself slowly and with an effort, Oscar seized the portmanteau and swung it, with a jerk, on to the shoulders of the poor fellow, whose ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... which the common poppy-head is an excellent example, the capsule opens by lateral pores at the top of a flat head—a further precaution which allows the seeds to get out only by a few at a time, after a distinct jerk, and so scatters them pretty evenly, with different winds, over a wide circular space around the mother plant. Experiment will show how this simple dodge works. Try to shake out the poppy-seed from a ripe poppy-head on the plant as it grows, without breaking the stem or bending it unnaturally, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... stripes and parti-coloured robes face you, suspended in the air with wings vibrating so swiftly as to be unseen; then suddenly jerk themselves a few yards to recommence hovering. A greenfinch rises with a yellow gleam and a sweet note from the grass, and is off with something for his brood, or a starling, solitary now, for his mate is in the nest, startled from his ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... cause of complaint against her spouse; as most wives have. For example: If, in coming down stairs, Mr. Calculation have made an occasional error but of a unit, and told her ladyship she had only one step more to descend when she had two, she, coming with an unexpected jerk in the increased ratio of a falling body, is very much alarmed; and when the tip of her rose-coloured tongue has happened, on such occasions, to project a little beyond the boundaries prescribed by those beautiful barriers of ivory called ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... scents stole in at the window,—the breath of the cinnamon rose, of growing, grass and good brown earth. Mrs. Pettis pondered, looking vacantly before her, and Old Lady Lamson knit hastily on. Her needles clicked together, and she turned her work with a jerk in beginning a row. But neither was oppressed by lack of speech. They understood each other, and no more thought of "making talk" than of pulling up a seed to learn whether it had germinated. It was Mrs. Pettis who, after, a natural interval; felt ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... inconclusive, however, Hull set more sail and ran down to argue it with broadsides, coolly biding his time, although Morris, his lieutenant, came running up again and again to beg him to begin firing. Men were being killed beside their guns as they stood ready to jerk the lock strings. The two ships were abreast of each other and no more than a few yards apart before the Constitution returned the cannonade that thundered from every gun ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... short, led me to set it down in unstable equilibrium on the edge of the desk. It tumbled-I heard the little chain rattle-it tumbled farther-then stopped short. The mischief was done. The sudden jerk, as it pulled up, had detached an enormous drop of ink from the point of the pen, and that drop—Ah! I can see him yet, as he rose from the shadow of the desk, that small, white-haired man, so ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... and, with two swift steps, he was at the man's side. Without a word, Harry caught the gentleman by the beard, which he gave a sharp jerk. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... box sat Phil. His head was thrust forward almost aggressively over his instrument, and his eyes glared at the dancing men with the old wolf-like gleam. As he played, he drew the bow across with a swift jerk, thrust it back with another, threw his shoulders from one side to the other in abrupt time to the music. And the music! Thorpe unconsciously shuddered; then sighed in pity. It was atrocious. It was not even in tune. Two out of three of the notes were either sharp or flat, not so flagrantly ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... her edification, and he drew down his left eyebrow with a jerk, so that it almost touched his cheek. His right eye, grey and piercing, returned her astonished gaze ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... interpreter, and explained this to him; but it was easy to see that he did not care a bit about that, and he once more took up his favourite attitude and his pipe. I left him in peace for five minutes, during which time he was able to imagine himself triumphant, and then with a sudden jerk of my elbow I broke the pane of glass. Stupefaction was depicted on the major's face, and he became livid. He got straight up, but the two young men rose at the same time, whilst the baron burst out laughing in the ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... subject to fits, one who walks among his fellow men inspiring fear because a fit may come upon him suddenly and blow him away into a strange uncanny physical state in which his eyes roll and his legs and arms jerk. He was like that, only that the visitation that descended upon Joe Welling was a mental and not a physical thing. He was beset by ideas and in the throes of one of his ideas was uncontrollable. Words ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... Want anything stronger?" he said, with a grin. "Plenty o' Right Nantes yonder," he added, with a jerk of his thumb ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... moved slowly under the side thrust of the diverted motor discharge. The temperature rose rapidly as we neared the wall of red light before us. Nearer we drew until the light was on both sides of us. Another few feet and the flyer shot forward with a jerk that threw me sprawling on the floor. Carpenter fell too, but he maintained his hold on the controls and tore at them ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... regular old tub of a boat; the cabins are profitably fitted with three beds in each, one above the other; the consequence is, that if you wish to sneeze at night, you must turn on your side, or you'll break your nose against the bed above you in the little jerk that usually accompanies the sternutatory process. The feeding on board is the worst I ever saw—tough, cold, and greasy, the whole unpleasantly accompanied ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... a fashion of catching at her skirts with his teeth, and giving them a jerk, which was very exasperating to her—all the more so, that Rosie evidently enjoyed seeing ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... I batted my eyes to keep them open. I tried looking at the crystal lights, but my leaden eyes could not face them. The constant drone of that old woman was putting me to sleep. I tried to say a few words now and then to wake myself. I felt myself slipping. Once my head dropped and came up with a jerk. I watched the great French clock. Its hands did not seem to move. I looked at Tom. He was absorbed in his game. I could not endure it another minute. I went over and said good night to my hostess who had spoken to me only once ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... to your manner, m' son," he chuckled, after he had watched Good Indian jerk the latigo loose and pull off the saddle, showing the wet imprint of it on Keno's hide. "I wish the weather was ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... foot and scratched the sole of her boot on the ice to level a roughness in the step, and at once she saw Chayne and the guide in front drive the picks of their axes hard into the slope at their side and stand tense as if expecting a jerk upon the rope. Afterward they both looked round at her, and seeing she was safe turned back again to their work, the guide cutting the steps, ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... into the earth. He had come upon one of the deep ravines that everywhere intersect these prairies. In an instant the rough head of his horse stretched upward from the edge and the rider and steed came scrambling out, and hounded up to us; a sudden jerk of the rein brought the wild panting horse to a full stop. Then followed the needful formality of shaking hands. I forget our visitor's name. He was a young fellow, of no note in his nation; yet in his person and equipments he was a good specimen of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... sand. Crouching, as if fascinated by the terrible scene, Carolyn June watched as the Ramblin' Kid, waiting his opportunity, at the instant the horse in the sand lifted his head deftly flung the rope over his neck. With a short jerk of the wrist he tightened the noose till it closed snugly about the throat of the broncho. Again turning Captain Jack away from the bank he urged him slowly forward. The rope stiffened. The little stallion bunched himself and desperately strained against the ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... shake, and, if it had been given in good temper, would not have struck Winnie as anything but a pleasant joke. But he knew, from Gypsy's face, it was no joke; and, feeling his dignity insulted, down he went flat upon the floor with a scream and a jerk that sent two fresh buttons ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... simple gentleman drew himself up with a mental jerk, remembering that he was there to curse rather than to ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... With a sudden jerk the German freed himself and aimed a heavy blow at Jack. This Jack dodged and sought to regain his hold on his foe. But the German wriggled away and struck out for ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... sternness, enhanced by a peculiar twitch of the muscles of the mouth and eye. He had a German face with all the Irish expressions. A wound received in a duel had shortened one leg and gave him a singular gait, something between a jerk and a roll. His voice was deep and guttural, and his utterance rapid, decided, abrupt, like that of a man who meant all that he said, and knew that it would produce an effect. No one could look him in the eye and fail to perceive that he was every inch ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... to close the door. I just tromped on the go-pedal and the car leaped forward with a jerk that slammed the door for me. I roared forward and left her just as she ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... dommerar thou couldst play, [17] Or rum-maunder in one day, And like an Abram-cove couldst pray, Yet pass with gybes well jerk'd away. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... he had lost through his astonishment at the discovery, he wheeled his horse about with so sharp a jerk that it almost brought the animal upon its haunches; then started in mad pursuit of the girl, shouting at the top of his voice to Bernardine to saw hard on both lines, and jerk ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... obediently enough—she was too young, and possibly too fat, to plan, as yet, the deliberate malice in which her brother and sister took their chief pleasure. Unfortunately, Wilfred arrived at the end of Africa at the wrong moment for her. He pushed the atlas away from him with a jerk that overturned the ink bottle, sending a stream of ink towards Avice—who, shoving her chair backwards to escape the deluge, cannoned into Queenie, and brought her headlong to the floor. Howls ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... dimensions, and therefore of about twenty-five pounds weight, is made fast with rattan to the top of a slender young tree, which lies in a sloping position in a fork, and at its opposite end is firmly fixed in the ground. The workman with a jerk forces the stone that serves for hammer down upon the auriferous rock, and allows it to be again carried upwards by the elasticity ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... my genius. And yet the state, which includes all the citizens of the state, believes that it can blot out this wisdom of mine in the final dark by means of a rope about my neck and the abruptive jerk of gravitation—this wisdom of mine that was incubated through the millenniums, and that was well-hatched ere the farmed fields of Troy were ever pastured by the flocks of ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... once, as the auto was rolling along quite fast, it came to a sudden stop, with a bump and a jerk. ...
— The Story of a Stuffed Elephant • Laura Lee Hope
... reports were as one. Both urged their horses nearer and fired again. This time Skinny's sombrero gave a sharp jerk and a hole appeared in the crown. The third shot of Skinny's sent the horse of the other to its knees and then over on its side. Shorty very promptly crawled behind it and, as he did so, Skinny began a wide circle, firing at intervals as ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... Archie, drawing himself up and glancing across at Minnie, and then giving himself an angry jerk as he ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... deep, then rose, and then the ship darted through the water across the river. Then suddenly the anchor was let go, and with the loud, sharp rattle of chains, rushed to the bed of the river. With a slight jerk the ship stopped. ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... round to the front, and in an excitement which Stubbs could not understand, pulled the bolt back with a jerk. ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... armpit. There is a deadly determination and deliberation in every movement that he makes. WILL jumps to his feet and looks at him. The revolver is uplifted in the air, as a Western man handles a gun, so that when it is snapped down with a jerk the deadly shot can be fired. LAURA is terror-stricken, but before the shot is fired she takes a step forward and extends one hand in a ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... half a day. Our gang laid out on the mizzen topsail yard, and after more than half an hour's hard work, furled the sail, though it bellied out over our heads, and again, by a slat of the wind, blew in under the yard with a fearful jerk, and almost threw us off ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Frankland and his officers. They seemed to take it all as a matter of course, and walked the deck as composedly as in a calm, only they had to hold on pretty tightly at times to the weather-railings, when the ship, with a sudden jerk, was sent over to port, and then back again almost as far on the other side. It was fine, however, to see the tall figure of Captain Frankland, as he balanced himself, leaning backward when the ship shot downwards into the trough of the sea; and I soon gained confidence from the perfect ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... Frieda!" Mrs. McMahon applauded. "When she does talk, sure she says something.... You heard her, Mike McMahon? Well, what she said, them's my sentiments. You know what she did now." A jerk of the head indicated the wretched hostess. "She pretended to ask us to join a club. She brought us here to insult us, to make fun of us. She made us the laughing-stock of Morton and Carrington's wives. Do you hear that? Morton and Carrington! Put the ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... manipulator seizes a bottle, holds it for a moment before the light to test the clearness of the wine and the subsidence of the deposit; brings it, still neck downwards, over a small tub at the bottom of the apparatus already mentioned; and with a jerk of the steel hook which he holds in his right hand loosens the agrafe securing the cork, Bang goes the latter, and with it flies out the sediment and a small glassful or so of wine, further flow being checked by the workman's finger, which also serves to remove any sediment yet ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... and plump—a right jolly old elf; And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings—then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... wonder such a tooth Had never killed him in his youth— One tooth he had with many fangs, That shot at once as many pangs, It had a universal sting; One touch of that ecstatic stump Could jerk his limbs and make him jump, Just like a puppet on a string; And what was worse than all, it had A way of making others bad. There is, as many know, a knack, With certain farming undertakers, And this same tooth pursued ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... at a way station with apparent unwillingness, and there was barely time for one elderly passenger to be hurried on board before a sudden jerk threw her almost off her unsteady old feet and we moved on. At my first glance I saw only a perturbed old countrywoman, laden with a large basket and a heavy bundle tied up in an old-fashioned bundle-handkerchief; then I discovered ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... it would be highly dangerous to touch it when the animal is jumping. The majority of riding men regard the standing martingale as dangerous—and rightly, for only men with good hands can safely use it. If any sudden snatch or jerk were made at the curb, and the horse in throwing up his head found himself caught by the standing martingale, a very serious accident might happen. The standing martingale in no way impedes a horse's jumping, for horses do not ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... the plains. As he passed Govardhan, where Bharat and Charat, the third and fourth brothers of Rama, then reigned, he was seen by them.[22] It was night; and, thinking him a strange sort of fish, Bharat let fly one of his arrows at him. It hit him in the leg, and the sudden jerk caused this small fragment of his huge burden to fall off. He called out in his agony, 'Ram, Ram', from which they learned that he belonged to the army of their brother, and let him pass on; but ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the street in front of Carl, who by means of another pole kept it elevated beyond all harm. Once over the street it was easily attached to a cord hanging from the star chamber, then slowly and cautiously Ikey pulled it up. Several times it caught in the trees, but a careful jerk sent it free, and at last it ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... if she had said too much, she pulled her bridle loose from my detaining hand with a quick jerk, and touched her horse, and we were on that hard ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... lack of skill on the part of either the laundress or the nurse who sewed them in, proved a constant source of discomfort to us. I have since seen full-grown men, under slighter provocation than we endured, jerk off a collar, tear it in two, and throw it to the winds, chased by the most soul-harrowing expletives. But we were sternly rebuked for complaining, and if we ventured to introduce our little fingers between the delicate skin and the irritating linen, our hands ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... destiny. Hitherto, beyond the weapons of nature's furnishing, they had been unarmed. The case was no longer so; for Dexter, having a momentary use of his hand, provided himself with a huge dirk-knife, guarded by a string which hung around his neck, and was usually worn in his bosom: a sudden jerk threw it wide, and fixed the blade with ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... on the same course until abreast of the perch, which was only a forked stick. The men came aft and hauled in the mizzen sheer. Chambers put up the helm. The mizzen came across with a jerk, and the sheet was again allowed to run out. The jib came over with a report like the shot of a cannon, and at the same moment split ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... he began to jerk off his clothes, "what can I do about it? Try to keep her from re-marrying, eh? And suppose I succeeded, how long would it last? She wouldn't stay here and I couldn't keep her. She'll be independent now—her looks will be her bank account. There'd ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... vessel, behind it, his lump of iron swung like a pebble in a sling. A cloud of smoke burst from the burned lining of the friction brake, in the reel. Then the wire was all out; there was a sudden jerk. ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... make me so miserable," she cried, with a jerk of her body as though to shake herself free of the constraint of his question. "Have you nearly done? What is the matter with you to-day? You seem to have made up your mind that I am to be forced to hate you, to curse ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... face was congested with murderous rage before he had finished, but Steve seemed hardly to have heard him at all. He had finally straightened out that sickeningly slack figure upon his own bunk. He was listening now to his heart, and at a jerk of his head Fat Joe joined him at the bedside. The latter's thick fingers were as delicate, as competent, as a skilled physician's might have been. He, too, listened and peeled back the unconscious man's eyelids. He shook his ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... shake and began to pant; and, thereupon, Jack took his turn at shaking, gently at first, but with maddening regularity and without at all loosening his hold. The big dog was too weak to resist soon and, when Jack began to jerk savagely, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... illuminated, her reticule describing the largest possible arc of a circle—just then, little Martha, or Puss, as she was called, found herself suddenly arrested, and the over-skirt of her silk dress raised with a sudden jerk. The reticule ceased to pendulate, the conversation stopped abruptly, the boy and girl stood ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... with possums—which should be bought alive, and fattened for several weeks in a clean cage, feeding them on bread, milk, apples, potatoes, cabbage leaves, and grass. This makes them tender and much more delicate in flavor. Kill by dislocating the neck with a quick, upward jerk, then cut the throat and hang to bleed. Roll after dampening fur well in very hot embers—then scrape the same as a pig, draw, and hang to cool. Divide the skin of rabbits and squirrels around the middle, and pull off each half, the same as a kid glove. Thus no hairs stick ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... of my acquaintance was in a mail which was behind time, and the driver was proceeding at such a furious pace that one jerk threw a lady to the top of the coach, and the teeth of her comb entering her head, she fainted with pain. The passengers called out to the driver to stop. "What for?" "That last jerk has struck the lady, and she has fainted." "Oh, that's all! Well, I reckon I'll give her another ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... and the best wine: they go together. Could ever an Anglo-Saxon have built that, think you?" demanded Brother Copas with a backward jerk of the head and glance up at the vaulted roof. "But to my moral.—All this talk of Anglo-Saxons, Celts, and the rest is rubbish. We are English by chemical action of a score of interfused bloods. That man is a fool who speaks as though, ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... are constrained to wonder, not merely were they ever at school, but if they ever traveled in a railroad car, or whether they suppose their hearers to be so ignorant of the most common facts as to believe that there is no way of bringing a carriage to a stand but by a sudden jerk, or that God is more stupid than the brakeman of an express train. We will do them the justice, however, to say, that they did not invent it, but merely shut their eyes, and opened their mouths, and swallowed it for philosophy, because they found it in the writings ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... already bending over the bed, but the police officer pushed him forcibly back and snatched up the cane which he had laid down. Then, cautiously seizing the top of the blanket and sheet near the pillow, he whisked them off with a sudden vigorous jerk. At the spot where the bulge had betrayed it a black cobra, one of the deadliest snakes in India, lifted its head and a foot of its length from its shining coils. The forked tongue darted and quivered incessantly, and the unwinking eyes glistened as with a loud hiss it raised itself higher and poised ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... right. At exactly one hundred and twenty seconds the Rhamda closed his watch. He spoke something. Again the young man laughed. He lit a cigarette; from the flicker and jerk of the flame he was trembling. But he was still emphatic. The other rose from the table, walked down the aisle and out of the building. The youth spread out both arms and dropped his ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... the frigid hardships of the journey. Furthermore, I was disgusted. The distance between Montreal and Ottawa is one hundred and twenty miles. I ought to know, for I had just come over it and it had taken me six days. By mistake I had missed the main line and come over a small "jerk" with only two locals a day on it. And during these six days I had lived on dry crusts, and not enough of them, ...
— The Road • Jack London
... The big head of bushy white hair, with its correlative of bushy white beard, swayed with a slow movement that ended in a jerk. It was obvious that the warnings and admonitions to which Thor had been leading up were not for that day. They were useless even when, a half-hour later, the movement of the runabout and the keen air of the high lands as they approached the village roused the big creature ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... began the narrative with many a jerk and start, Major Anthony was judge and jury, Mr. Lambert was a quiet spectator, but his wonderful eyes kept the witness on the right track, until he had almost completed his story and attempted to evade ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... have put a great many thousands of dollars into the search, and my collection of flint-locks is the best in the land, Don. But so far nothing but failures seem to have rewarded my search—no, I'm wrong, there is one man out west—out in the little jerk-water town of Grave Stone, who insists that there is a wild man living in a lonely, almost inaccessible valley in the mountains, who shoots a gun which looks like the one for which I am searching. For a number of ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... suddenly he was seized with the attack. I got the medicine as quick as I could and tried to get it down his throat, but he could not swallow, and in the hurry the glass was knocked by a jerk of his head right out of my hands. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... that followed the figure on the chair straightened itself with a jerk, and gibbered at him, twitching spasmodically. The woman turned ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... lovely idea!" said Anne, smiling from sheer habit. "Mind you come." She got her face straight again with a jerk and turned to the solemn old ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... not like it, for she gave an impatient shuffle to the papers, shut the drawer with a jerk, locked it, took up her candle, and went away ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the car sped away. He let her go full-speed down the hill, dashed through the awkward gateway, touching the post, and drove furiously to the bend where the road ran on to the marsh. Then there was a violent jerk as he put on the brakes, and the beam of the head-lamps touched and stopped upon a tilted car that lay with the wheels on one side in ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... and were again a boy—when did you say you start?" "Why, I don't know exactly," replied the Yorkshireman, "the weather's so fine that I'm half tempted to go round by Newmarket." "Newmarket!" exclaimed Jorrocks, throwing his arm in the air, while his paper cap fell from his head with the jerk—"by Newmarket! why, what in the name of all that's impure, have you to ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... inevitably crush them in their headlong career, but the vain birds, apparently taken up with admiration of their own tails, are blind to the impending danger, thereby reading a good lesson both to the passers-by and to the shopkeepers opposite. Now a sudden jerk prevents you from further moralizing, as you find that you are going round a corner so sharp that you must get bumped either before or behind. There are ugly women carrying brass water-vessels, rich merchants on ponies, sirwahs on horses, ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... wuz kneelin' in front of this idol. The priest held in one hand a rope and anon he would jerk out melancholy sounds from a big bronze bell over his head. In his other hand he held some little pieces of wood and paper with prayers printed on 'em. As he would read 'em off he would lay one down on the floor, and the widder would give him some money every time. I thought that ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... were uttered with a jerk and a look meant to imply to the cottages opposite that he was now simply one who liked shouting as a pleasant way of passing his time, without any reference to persons in gardens. The name died away, and the unconscious Miss Day continued ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... bar opened, and giving the "Lady Franklin" a jerk into the water beyond, the "Intrepid" and "Pioneer" rattled away with the ships in tow, as hard as steam could take them. Oh, for one run of ninety miles! There was open water ahead; but, alas! we ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... Migwan honestly. "It usually is in the morning before the sun has shone very long on it." Gladys decided she would not take a dip. Hinpoha slumbered calmly on. Sahwah pulled the pillow from under her head with a quick jerk and plucked the blankets off. Hinpoha ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... ground with a pick. An umpire made a speech to the lads. Then, at a word, a boy took up the lead jumping weights. He swung his hands back and forth, swaying his graceful body with them. Then a backward jerk! He threw his weights behind him and leaped. The judges quickly measured and called the distance. Then another boy leaped, and another, and another—twenty or more. Last Creon took the ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... violin. In general condition it happens to be very good, the one opening referred to being the time at which the modern bar had been attached in place of the very old and small-sized one. The fingerboard being old is easily removed by a sudden pull or jerk. After further cleaning with the aid of a hog-hair brush, this being adapted for getting more completely into the corners, both parts of the violin—they have both had a cleaning and looks more ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... now with you two little tots, and that 'ere dawg?" said the cabby, coming up to the cab door. "There ain't no Mrs. West yere. And that 'ere young party"—with a jerk of his thumb at the slatternly little individual who stood watching and grinning on the steps—"her says as Mrs. West have gone to 'Mericy. Ain't there no one else as I can ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... read how people who were bitten got swelled, and screamed with pain. I was listening hard, but as it fell out, I never took my eyes off the creature, though I could not ha' told I was watching it. Suddenly it seemed to give a jerk, and before I could speak it gave another, and in a minute it was as wild as it could be, running at me ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... track—the highroad that has cost our country over thirteen million dollars—the far-famed and much-talked-of Dawson road. It was some two feet higher than our rough track, and separated from it by a large mud puddle, in which, after a lurch to one side and a violent jerk from the horses, the waggon-wheels sank on the other. A volley of oaths was discharged by our half-breed, followed by a crack of his long whip, and a sharp struggle, and then the near horse fell back on his haunches and we ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... through with a sudden jerk, and then regained the deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in the world would I have again ventured, shaken as I was, upon the overhanging port shrouds, from which Israel had so ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her, and calls on the crew to hoist away. The boat heels over to one side as she vigorously pushes herself away from it, and souse the old dame goes up to her waist in the water; the good-natured sailors give an extra jerk, and up she comes, with baskets tied round her waist, and her feet acting as fenders against the side of the ship. Fortunately the Teutonic is bulky enough to resist heeling over under this extra weight on the starboard side. She is shipped like a bale of goods, and is immediately engaged in ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... he said, "that there is not much hope for those three," with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the forecastle. "Sullivan and Halpin have had their skulls cracked by blows inflicted with a war club, and their cases are very similar to that of the skipper, but worse; while poor Glenn has no less than eleven spear wounds in his body, and though none of ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... the topmost letter and a moist silence prevailed till a sudden jerk fished up the bag, and before the dolls could recover their wits they were spread out on the floor of a mail car to dry, while several busy men sorted and saved such papers and letters as still ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... gave a sudden jerk of his body that might have been intended for a bow. Before Keep could interrupt him, like a parrot reciting its lesson, ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... count was evidently very much surprised, for he suddenly straightened himself in his saddle, with a sort of jerk, and glared savagely at Nino; his wooden features appearing to lose colour, and his long moustache standing out and bristling. He also reined in his horse, and the pair sat on their beasts, not five yards apart, eying each other like a pair of duelists. ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... peppered the blackguards intrinsically like" (Pathfinder occasionally caught a fine word from his associates, and used it a little vaguely), "that only one ever got back to his village, and he came into his wigwam limping. Luckily, as it turned out, the great Delaware had only halted to jerk some venison, and was following on my trail; and when he got up he had five of the scoundrels' scalps hanging where they ought to be; so, you see, nothing was lost by doing right, either in the way of honor ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... a dozen seats, to land behind him, to seize his outstretched leg, to jerk him in again, was but the work of a moment. It was Buttons who did this, and who banged down ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... not the upper one typify Cyril?—the lower one Hypatia?—and the dead fish between, himself?.... But at last the deadlock was suddenly ended—the fish parted in the middle; and the typical Hypatia and Cyril, losing hold of their respective seaweeds by the jerk, tumbled down, each with its half-fish, and vanished head over heels into the blue depths in so undignified a manner, that Philammon burst ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... one, either present or absent. The name of the lady or gentleman to whom reference is made should be repeated if necessary, but under no circumstances should the words "she" or "he," accompanied by a nod or jerk of the thumb, in the direction of the person spoken of, be employed. Never talk of any one with whom you may have held intercourse as "that party," or "a party" ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... horse and rider hung for a moment in the balance—a horse on two legs, standing erect with a white boy clinging to its back. They swayed for a moment; for two; for three. Then over they came. With a violent jerk of its head, ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... spot, the little dog gave a low whimper of greeting, sufficient to attract my attention and guide me to where he was keeping his faithful watch and ward. I felt for my flax-stick and moved it ever so gently. A sudden jerk and splash startled me horribly, and warned me that I had disturbed an eel who was in the act of supping off my bait. In the momentary surprise I suppose I let go, for certain it is that the next instant my flax-stick was rapidly towed down ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... free with a violent jerk, and pushed him from her. She did not storm. She did not even rise. She sat very quietly, breathing fast. When she turned at last to look at the boy beside her it seemed that her white profile cut the darkness. The man shrank a little, and ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... plan, as yet, the deliberate malice in which her brother and sister took their chief pleasure. Unfortunately, Wilfred arrived at the end of Africa at the wrong moment for her. He pushed the atlas away from him with a jerk that overturned the ink bottle, sending a stream of ink towards Avice—who, shoving her chair backwards to escape the deluge, cannoned into Queenie, and brought her headlong to the floor. Howls broke out anew, mingled ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... anatomy, physiology and geology of evolution. It is for this that I have poured over such works as Huxley, Herbert Spencer, Moses in the bulrushes, Anaxagoras, Lucretius and Hoyle. It is for the purpose of advancing the cause of common humanity and to jerk the rising generation out of barbarism into the dazzling effulgence of clashing intellects and fermenting brains that I have sought the works of Pythagoras, Democritus and Epluribus. Whenever I could find any book that bore upon the subject of evolution, and could ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... to send me something," was the prompt reply, which made Miss Betsey's shoulders jerk ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... suddenly throws himself on his back, and, bringing over his hind legs towards his head, depresses them till his feet touch the ground. In this strange posture he scratches up the earth with great rapidity, raising a little cloud of dust, then rights himself with a jerk, and, after an interval, repeats the dusting. Usually they scratch a hole in the ground to deposit their excrements in. Whilst opening one of the outside burrows that had no communication with the others, I ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... traveled in a railroad car, or whether they suppose their hearers to be so ignorant of the most common facts as to believe that there is no way of bringing a carriage to a stand but by a sudden jerk, or that God is more stupid than the brakeman of an express train. We will do them the justice, however, to say, that they did not invent it, but merely shut their eyes, and opened their mouths, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... me a week to think of your proposition. If I can jerk a lecture in time I will go with you. The Lord knows I would like to. —[Nasby's lecture, "Cussed Be Canaan," opened, "We are all descended from grandfathers!" He had a powerful voice, and always just on the stroke of eight ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... again through a funnel, or siphon. Now the Octopus can make good use of this siphon. Sometimes he is attacked, and wishes to "make himself scarce." So he sends the water rapidly through the siphon; the force is enough to jerk him quickly backwards, his ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... he to the gardener, "take this gentleman's portmanteau to the lower room," and, as the gardener bestirred himself slowly and with an effort, Oscar seized the portmanteau and swung it, with a jerk, on to the shoulders of the poor fellow, whose ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... mountains at full speed and neither trip nor fall; but you must be cautious with the horses of the Moslems, and treat them with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems are proud, and they like not being slaves. When they are young and first mounted, jerk not their mouths with your bit, for be sure if you do they will kill you—sooner or later you will perish beneath their feet. Good are our horses, and good our riders—yea, very good are the Moslems at mounting the horse; ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... chubby and plump—a right jolly old elf; And I laughed, when I saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle; But I heard him ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... fearful in their attitude. Their eyes were upon the Friar, and from their expressions they might have expected some sort of apparition to cross the threshold. They made a curtesy to him, dipping their bodies in a little sudden jerk. Nobody else was in the kitchen, and, despite the almost oppressive formality of their attitude, they somehow conveyed a sense of the power of women in the household in time of crisis. They were in supreme command, the men all outside, when a life had to be battled for. The elder of the ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... shrill whistle from the engine, followed by a warning shout of "Stand back there, please; stand back, sir!" I had a last glimpse of Savaroff's unpleasant face, as he hurriedly withdrew his head, and then with a slight jerk the train began to move slowly ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... There were two great big men in front cheering them on. We turned and gave them a volley, but it did not stop them. They rushed over everything, firing as they came, not wildly, but as men who know the use of a rifle, with the quick, sharp, upward jerk to the shoulder, the rapid sight, and then the shot. They knocked over a lot of our men, but we had a splendid position. They had to expose themselves to get to us, and we shot them as they came at us. They were rushing to the rescue of the English. It was splendid, but it was madness. ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... Cristoforo, raising his long forefinger, and emphasising every fresh point with a convincing jerk, "because you have come to San Stefano. You would never have come here unless you wanted to find out the truth. Because you have changed your name. You would have had no reason to abandon the name of Luttrell unless you were not sure of your right to bear it. Because you spoke of Vincenza ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... again." He became silent as he said this, and no man cared to break in upon his thoughts, seeing the choking movement in his throat, the fierce clenching of hand and foot, the stiffening of the muscles all over him; but soon, with an upward jerk of his head, he threw back the long elf locks that had fallen over his eyes while his head was bent down, ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... she pushed back the shutters until the guest-chamber was all alight with the glow of the sunset. Then she clutched the handles of the bureau drawer with fingers that twitched guiltily, and gave a jerk. It was locked. For a moment her disappointment was so great that she was ready to cry, but her face soon cleared and she began a search for the keys. Under the rug, in the vases on the mantel, behind photograph frames, into every crack where ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... half remembering some resolution, Plover's hand stole towards the little old silver watch that he carried in the left-hand pocket of his waistcoat. But just at that critical moment Grayson uttered the magical name, Wall Street, and Plover's hand fell back to his side with a jerk. Then Grayson rose to his best, and ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... little oil on one linchpin, and slipped it out so softly, the first thing they knew about it was the wheel of that side was down. T'other fellow's at work now; but he makes more noise about it. When the linchpin comes out on his side, there'll be a jerk, I tell you! Some think it will spoil the old cart, and they pretend to say that there are valuable things in it which may get hurt. Hope not,—hope not. But this is the great ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... afraid, but because he feels skittishly inclined to turn back, or to make trouble between his enemies - the boatmen, his task-master, and the cycler, an intruder on his exclusive domain, the Erie tow-path. A span of mules will pretend to scare, whirl around, and jerk loose from the driver, and go "scooting" back down the tow-path in a manner indicating that nothing less than a stone wall would stop them; but, exactly in the nick of time to prevent the tow-line jerking them sidewise into the canal, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... these speculations, as it is now one o'clock, I get into the cage of the elevator and drop down whirring as the floors toss upwards beyond me—"Down twenty-eight," and we pull up with a jerk, and a pale-faced man gets in. "Down twelve," and two tired-looking women and a small boy get on board; and then the floor on which is a newspaper office, and a crowd is waiting to descend. The paper is just going to press, ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... once, for a seam in the carpet held it, and Jill feared to tear or crumple it if she was not very careful. The hook was rather heavy and long for her to manage, and Jack usually did the fishing, so she was not very skilful; and just as she was giving a particularly quick jerk, she lost her balance, fell off the sofa, and dropped the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... a blank stare for a little while, holding the one key erect on the ring; then with an agitated jerk he began to work with his bony left hand at emptying the tin box ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... put it to him, as man to man, "she stands there and says a thing like that, and she expects a fellow not to jerk her into his arms and squeeze the life out of her! I daren't do it, and I'm not going to try; but—well, you said her mother was like her, and I guess you know what ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... as a knife, and pork is hung on each of the sides. When this is thrown in the wake of the ship, the bird settles on the water to feed. The upper part of its beak is hooked like that of a bird of prey, and as the albatross opens its beak and bites at the pork, you give a jerk, so that the triangle catches the upper part of the beak by two small notches, and the bird is left hanging. If the line should break, the whole thing simply falls off and the bird is unharmed. In hauling in, therefore, you have to be very careful to hold the line quite tight, even ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... you," her voice was a mere guttural growl. "A little more sass from you, you double-j'inted jumpin'-jack dancer, and I'll jerk you to the edge of that cliff yonder and throw you down. I'm feelin' particularly good right now," rolling up her sleeves and showing the great knots of swelling muscles on her arms. "Get out of ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... impudence!" growled King, under his breath, as he threw himself back with a jerk on the oars that nearly sent Irene over the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... ago." Walt Irvine drew himself away with a jerk from the metaphysics and poetry of the organic miracle of blossom, and surveyed the landscape. "He was running a rabbit the last ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... made a dash at the King's son, thinking to catch him and throw him into the caldron. There were about a hundred gallons of oil in this caldron, and the fire was burning beneath it. Then the King's son, lifting the Fakir, gave him a jerk and threw him into the caldron, and he was burnt, and became roast meat. He then saw a key of the Fakir's lying there; he took this key and opened the door of the Fakir's house. Now many men were locked up in this house; two horses were standing there in a hut of the Fakir's; ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... at the gloomy sky, glanced down at the dingy pavement, and finally beckoned Spike aside with a quick back-jerk of the head, and, stooping close, whispered something in his ear—something that caused the boy to start away with clenched hands and face of horror, something that seemed to trouble him beyond speech, for he stood a moment dumb and staring, then ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... With a little jerk Betty hung up the receiver, and sat staring out of the window with the tears streaming down her cheeks. She brushed them away impatiently and felt feverishly ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... all on fire," over the burning words of some Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last thrilling work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not? Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming, floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid soupcon of curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite distress, Adolphus ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sat near the wooden steps, his legs dangling as before, his small countenance as noncommittal as ever. As the stranger neared him, he raised his pale little eyes, blinked them, indulged in a slight jerk of the head, and uttered a single ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... on Sam, and gave the tie a jerk, first one way and another. Then he began to tie it, shoving Aleck again as he ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... not wanted, so I can well be spared,' was the reply, with a disagreeable laugh and a jerk of the head in the direction of ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... lazy, grandma?" said Cricket, disdainfully. "But I can show you, grandma, how we do it. Put your arm around me this way, and take hold of my hand. Now then, see. I try to get my foot around your ankle, quickly, and give a little jerk, and pull ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... asked Picard, with a jerk of his head toward Breitmann, who was being carefully lifted on to the ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... it, but not until she had shaken her bill in his face and said, "Licke-e-dar, a dollar! All mine—he done gin it to me, an' I'se gwine to buy a gown, an' a han'kercher, an' some shoes, an' some candy, an' some—" the rest of her intended purchases were cut short by a jerk of the plank, which sent her sprawling on her hands and knees, with a jeer from Ted sounding in her ears. The "Hatty" was off, and with a feeling of relief the stranger kept his seat on the rear deck, or staid ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... reminiscences jerk along from incident to incident, but now there come the order and sequence of an eventful period, perfectly recollected. The date is fixed by a change of residence. Her father, who was a commander in the coastguard, was transferred on promotion from the north of ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... jerk after the manner of Capitola, Clara signified that she did not wish to converse. Wool dropped obediently behind, mounted his horse and followed at a respectful distance until Clara turned her horse's head and took the bridle-path toward ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the lid of the larger suitcase with a jerk. A pause. They look, almost afraid. DORA moves to the back of ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... you like—only get on now!" said Varillo, pulling his head in with a jerk. And sinking back in his seat again he wiped his hot face and cursed his miserable destiny. It would have been all right if he had only remembered that sheath! No one would have got on such a track of suspicion as that he, the lover and affianced husband of Angela, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... She tried to find comfort in the help she would take to Jim. Truly, she was not nearly so cold now and she was very weary and a wee bit sleepy. A tendency to droop in the saddle was overcoming her. She roused herself quickly, and with a jerk at the reins plunged forward at ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... the till and slipped some money into his pocket. Then he put on a ragged overcoat, and a hat which he drew down over his eyes with a furtive jerk of his yellow fingers. Then he went behind the bar and swallowed something; it was not whisky, but it brought a faint tinge of colour into his cheek, and seemed to ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... boat grounded, and he stood up to leap ashore, he wriggled his wrists in the cuffs, making sure he could free himself with a jerk. He might die, but he vowed he would take some of these yellow devils with him ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... steam tram, and ran away on the footpath at a furious rate, dashing the carriage against the trees and lamp-posts until he slipped and fell at full length on the asphalt. My husband had been able to jump out, but a sudden jerk had prevented me from following him at the moment, and then there was danger of being hurt between the side of the carriage and the banging door. Gilbert had been running, hatless, after the carriage to hold the door and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... heroes.... Might not they be emblematic? Might not the upper one typify Cyril?—the lower one Hypatia?—and the dead fish between, himself?.... But at last the deadlock was suddenly ended—the fish parted in the middle; and the typical Hypatia and Cyril, losing hold of their respective seaweeds by the jerk, tumbled down, each with its half-fish, and vanished head over heels into the blue depths in so undignified a manner, that Philammon burst into ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... other—namely, foremost the voluntary beggar, then Zarathustra, and thirdly, and hindmost, his shadow. But not long had they run thus when Zarathustra became conscious of his folly, and shook off with one jerk ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... rabble waylaid us to insult us?" asked Bigot. "But it can hardly be that they knew of our return to the city to-day." The Intendant began to jerk his horse ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... with the street lamp, or the plugs in the water trough; nor change the pins, tubs or tube at the well; nor roughly jerk the pump handles ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... beside Madame Nathalie, much to the animosity of Paddy Burns. Then Mr. Mouse convoying mademoiselle, to the infinite disgust of the commander of the "Rosalie," one-gun schooner, formerly the "Perdita." But what made that old negro in spotless white, standing at the door, jerk his head back and open his great eyes till there was no black left in them? And why did he blunder about the table afterward, and pour wine over the colonel's richly-laced coat, while staring like an ogre at the young blue-jacket ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... the husband, in an undertone of amiable chiding; and the buggy gave a jerk of thankful relief as its principal burden left it for the sidewalk, diffusing the sweet smell ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... head rose out of his collar with a jerk, and the forelegs of Yancey's chair struck the floor with a thump. Both sprang to their feet. The judge and I remained quiet. "Not insultin', suh, to call a gemman a—a—Colonel, what ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... swayed round the corners, keeping close to the shore, and pulled up with a jerk at New Brighton. Across the narrow belt of water I could see the sterns of ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... the larger man, and his wrath had been long demanding expression. They closed with a jar that rocked the electric lamp on the desk. There was a second of straining and uncertainty. Then with a jerk Gard lifted his adversary clear off his feet, and shook him, shook him with the fury of a bulldog, and as relentlessly. Then, as if the temptation to murder was more than he could longer resist, he flung him ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... judges was softening the ground with a pick. An umpire made a speech to the lads. Then, at a word, a boy took up the lead jumping weights. He swung his hands back and forth, swaying his graceful body with them. Then a backward jerk! He threw his weights behind him and leaped. The judges quickly measured and called the distance. Then another boy leaped, and another, and another—twenty or more. Last Creon took the weights and ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... She is chewing her cud. Her nose is well up and forward, and her eyes are shut. She lets her lower jaw fall a little, moves it to one side, lifts it again, and brings it back into position with a springing kind of jerk that has almost a visible recoil. Then her jaws stay perfectly still for a moment, and you would think she had stopped chewing. But she hasn't. Now and again a soft, easy, smooth-going swallow passes visibly along her ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... shriek, and then almost instantly I saw his legs thrown into the air. The lioness had seized him by the neck, and with a sudden jerk thrown his body over her back so that his legs hung down upon the further side.[*] Then, without the slightest hesitation, and apparently without any difficulty, she cleared the skerm face at a single bound, and bearing poor Jim-Jim with her vanished into the darkness beyond, in the ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... against sharks, as it is well known that their malevolent impulses are more likely to be excited and their attacks directed against white objects than any other. His idea was that a shark attacking the white handkerchief would jerk the cord and thus give warning of its presence in the rear, in time for him to be ready with ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... gave himself a little jerk—a throw back of the shoulders which was habitual—which might have been a tribute either to Millicent behind, or ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... insertion of a small sharp hook with a short curve, just below the cricoid cartilage, and this should be confided to an assistant. The surgeon should then, with the forefinger of his left hand, fix the trachea, and open it by a straight sharp-pointed scalpel, boldly thrusting it through the rings with a jerk or stab, the back of the knife being below, and divide two or three of the rings from below upwards. Any attempt to enter the trachea slowly with a blunt knife or trocar will probably be unsuccessful, as the rings, especially in children, ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... that, Father," he said, almost humbly. "There isn't a feller back there in the camp," he added with a jerk of his head, "that would have hesitated like me when you handed him your dope. Thanks. Say, that darn ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... gear and let the clutch out with such a jerk that the car leaped forward. Elliott waved his stick again. Mr. Twist responded by the briefest touch of his cap, and whirred down ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... some mischief—then made a quick motion to the right and a dance to the left—then made a very graceful courtesy deep down, as though she was very politely saluting the wind, but suddenly rose up with a sharp jerk, as though she had spitefully altered her mind—and the next moment made a dart first to the right and then to the left, and continued to do this till James White said he was sure ...
— Adventure of a Kite • Harriet Myrtle
... favorite occupation is smoking, but in the lower picture three men together are managing to operate one spade. One man rams it into the ground, and the other two (by means of ropes attached) jerk ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... There came a jerk. The bow of the canoe swung inward and the stern whirled so quickly that Rod, half kneeling, nearly lost his balance. In that instant he turned his face and saw the old warrior standing, as Wabigoon had done before him, and as Mukoki leaped there ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... melodies. The last strain melted along the deep, And Ned, the old fisherman, sank to sleep. Just then a huge drum, sent hither by fate, Caught a passing glimpse of the tempting bait. . . . . . . . One terrible jerk of wrath and dread From the wounded fish as away he sped With a strength by rage made double— And into the water went old Ned. No time for any 'last words' to be said, For the waves settled placidly over his head, And his ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... a walk one afternoon, to see if I couldn't cheer her up a bit, but it wasn't much good. She hardly spoke a word till we were on our way home. Then she said with a sort of jerk: "I'm going back to ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Slim that morning. He snatched up a shining bit of quartz and hurled it—straight at El Sangre! There was no warning—just a jerk of the arm and ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... saddle is fastened by pliant ropes, or broad belts of leather, called in the West "cinches," to fasten which securely requires some skill, as they pass through a circular ring and are secured by a hitch or peculiar knot that holds well and can be unfastened with a quick jerk. ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... on each side, just above it. Their sucker being inserted in the tender bark, is without intermission employed in absorbing the sap, which, after it has passed through their system, they keep continually discharging by these organs. When no ants attend them, by a certain jerk of the body, which takes place at regular intervals, they ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... expected!" exclaimed Willy Wagtail, with a jerk of his tail which nearly sent him headlong off the rail. "I should know you anywhere, little Human, though you do look a bit different. You ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... her cup and saucer with an uncontrollably nervous jerk of her slender body. For some moments she had awaited a chance to get the general's attention. "Spare us, father," she said brusquely. "Will you have another ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... sight it is, to see the blood and yellow fat oozing out in the broiling sun from these great punctures! Our elephant was an excellent one, when he did not take obstinate fits, and so docile as to pick up pieces of stone when desired, and with a jerk of the trunk throw them over his head for the rider to catch, thus saving the trouble ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... cried the captain. The mainmast fell into the seething water, the seamen hurrying with axes to sever the ropes which kept it still attached to the ship. With a sudden jerk the ship in another instant rose to an even keel; but so violent was the motion that the foremast, deprived of its accustomed support, went by the board, and the "Crusader" lay a helpless wreck on ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... Who first sung Arthur, then sung Alfred; Praised great Eliza in God's anger, Till all true Englishmen cried, 'Hang her!'— Maul'd human wit in one thick satire; Next in three books spoil'd human nature: Undid Creation at a jerk, And of Redemption made damn'd work. Then took his Muse at once, and dipt her Full in the middle of the Scripture. What wonders there the man, grown old, did? Sternhold himself he out Sternholded. Made David seem ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... not able to hold a match in our fingers. Very naturally we became alarmed, but we persevered as long as possible. I remember that, taking one of the matches between my teeth and holding up an axe before me, I tried to jerk my head quick enough to light it in that way, but the experiment ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... March" at the double. The clarionet (or clarinet) wipes the tears from his eyes and puts a sob in his rendering; the cornet unswallows his mouthpiece and, getting his under-jaw well jutted out, decides to put a jerk in it; the piccolo pickles with furious enthusiasm; the 'cello puts his instrument in top-gear with his left hand and saws away violently with the other; the triangle, who has fallen perhaps into a Euclidian dream, sits ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various
... a toreador, who was always foremost in everything, attempting to drag a bull by the horns, when the animal tossed his head, and with the jerk of one horn, tore all the flesh off his finger to the very bone. The man coolly tore a piece off a handkerchief, shook the blood off his finger with a slight grimace, bound it up in a moment, and dashed away upon a new venture. One Mexican, extraordinarily handsome, with ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Goldencalf," he commenced, with a sort of jerk, that I afterwards learned was meant for a diplomatic salutation; "you have not met with the very best treatment to-day, and I have been waiting for a good opportunity to make my condolences, and to offer ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Dickenson in a tone full of satisfaction; "got you!" For his efforts in the darkness had been at last rewarded by his fingers coming in contact with the barrel of the little weapon, which he clasped tightly and held on to, in spite of jerk and snatch, feeling the barrel heat as it was fired again, and again, and again, but with the muzzle forced upward so that the bullets ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... for our own safety, and that of the brigantine, my men;" said the Skimmer, springing into his boat and seizing the tiller—"A quick stroke, and a strong!—here is no time for holiday feathering, or your man-of-war jerk! Give way, boys; give way, with a will, ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... windlass obeyed. The irresistible steam-winch caused the huge chain to grind and jerk in its iron pulley, and the enormous globular iron buoy came quietly over the side, black here and brown there, and red-rusted elsewhere; its green beard of sea-weed dripping with brine, and its sides grizzled with a six-months' ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... judging from the succession of news items which poured in upon him from the clipping bureau. Several days were exhausted by false clues. Then one morning there arrived, among other data, an article from the Bridgeport Morning Delineator which caused the Ad-Visor to sit up with a jerk. It detailed the poisoning of several dogs under peculiar circumstances. Three hours later he was in the bustling Connecticut city. There he took carriage for the house of Mr. Curtis Fleming, whose valuable Great Dane dog had ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... two," she said. "It isn't a question of whether it's proper or not; it is simple human kindness, and as soon as I can, Hope McAlister, I intend to get acquainted with him. You've got to go over there, Hu, and take me with you, just as soon as papa comes home." She tied her ribbon with a defiant jerk. ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... bacon, through the tongue. Well, dar I hang like de bacon, and de grease kept droppin' down, and would blaze up all 'round me. I jes stay dar and burn; and after while de debil come 'round wid his gun, and say, 'Zack, I gwine to shoot you,' and jes as he raise de gun, I jes jerk loose from dat wire, and I jes ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... deliberately varied his diet, but that didn't make any difference. And he'd had his usual monthly checkup not more than ten days ago, only to be assured there was nothing wrong with him. Still, the headaches persisted. Every morning, when he'd sit down and jerk his head to the ...
— This Crowded Earth • Robert Bloch
... plenty of food." So say the Sogerians. I was sitting on the ladder of the house, the crowd sitting round. Rua was in the bush with his gun; he fired at a bird, and it was amusing to see the simultaneous jerk of the crowd when ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... Furman Hatch, sure as you're a foot high," confided Mr. Pollock, with a significant jerk of his head in the ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... retreat by stopping up the burrow. I seldom failed in my attempt, especially in soil that was not stony. In these critical circumstances, either the Tarantula took fright and deserted her lair for the open, or else she stubbornly remained with her back to the blade. I would then give a sudden jerk to the knife, which flung both the earth and the Lycosa to a distance, enabling me to capture her. By employing this hunting-method, I sometimes caught as many as fifteen Tarantulae within the space ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... and rifle in the one belt. The belt should not be buckled tight about your waist, but should hang well down on the hip. This is for two reasons. In the first place, it does not drag so heavily at your anatomy, and falls naturally into position when you are mounted. In the second place, you can jerk your gun out more easily from a loose-hanging holster. Let your knife-sheath be so deep as almost to cover the handle, and the knife of the very best steel procurable. I like a thin blade. If you are a student of animal anatomy, you can skin and quarter a deer with nothing ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... be liked, but I don't care about being respected. I don't respect myself. But, as I was saying, I thought he would have let me down just as we got to Lieutenant Barker's Coal-shed (or emporium) but by a cunning jerk I eased myself, and righted my posture. I protest, I thought myself in a palanquin, and never felt myself so grandly carried. It was a slave under me. There was I, all but my reason. And what is reason? and what is the loss of it? ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... tightening the loop just enough to leave an easy passage through it for the needle. The end of the thread must be held by the thumb and forefinger. The next stitches are made by taking up the thread with the needle and drawing it through the loop. The throwing of the thread round the needle by a jerk of the wrist is called ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... also the occasional and judicious manipulation of the regulating cord, when a sudden puff of wind should tend to send the kite soaring upwards with six or eight horse-power into the sky. To Ivitchuk was assigned the easy task of gathering in the "slack" and holding on to Alf if a sudden jerk should threaten to pull him overboard. ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... the 27th, which was very dark, as we were standing to the westward under our courses, and a close-reefed top-sail, the wind, in a hard squall, suddenly shifted, and took the vessel right a-head; the violent jerk with which the sails were instantly thrown a-back, was very near carrying the masts away by the board, and oversetting the ship; the sails being at this time extremely wet, and the gale in the highest degree ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... watch. At the same instant that the letter was deposited in the gipsy's pocket, Paco thrust both his hands through the grass, seized the naked ankles of the esquilador in a vicelike grip, and by a sudden jerk throwing him upon his back, proceeded to drag him through the aperture, behind which he himself was stationed. His strength and adroitness, and the suddenness of the attack, ensured its success; and in spite of the gipsy's struggles, Paco speedily pulled him completely into the dungeon, upon the ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... and upward into the seat. Once there, he kicked the animal in the flanks with both heels, clutching with his knees and reaching for the bridle rein in the same motion. The horse plunged obediently, but came to a stop with a jerk that almost unseated the rider; the sapling swayed; the good ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... dwelling also with pleasure upon her grievances against her mother, would gradually arrive at a state of dull-glowing resentment. She could, if she chose, easily free her brain from the obsession either by reading or by a sharp jerk of volition; but often she preferred not to do so, saying to herself voluptuously: "No, I will nurse my grievance; I'll nurse it and nurse it and nurse it! It is mine, and it is just, and anybody with any sense at all would ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... at each bird in succession; making close study of every member of the family; noticing the sounds of the street, including the sparrow broils on the porch-roof; in fact, extremely wide-awake and observing. To the goldfinch's song he gave attention, standing motionless except for a slight nervous jerk of one wing, looking and listening as intently as though studying the notes for future use. The freedom of the birds in the room surprised him, as he showed plainly by the eager glances with which he followed every movement ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... find that they make such prodigal use of it when they hapen to have a tolerable stock on hand that we have determined to adapt a different system with our present stock of seven Elk; this is to jerk it & issue it to them ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... face, wet with anxiety and sweat. With a jerk his daughter tore away the feather-bed, and, taking the old man round the middle, she pulled him furiously half out of the bed, so that only his head and shoulders were resting on it; he lay motionless like a piece ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... of iron fell right where I was standing," muttered Trent. "Darrin, I wondered why on earth you should jerk me back and lay me out in that unceremonious fashion. If you hadn't done it the cookstove would have ...
— Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz • H. Irving Hancock
... growing slower and slower still until there ensued a long pause, during which I heard the mate encouraging the crew to a special effort by shouting: "Heave, boys! heave and raise the dead! break him out! another pawl! heave!" and so on; then there occurred a sudden wrenching jerk, followed by a shout of triumph from the crew, the windlass pawls resumed their clanking at a rapid rate for a few minutes longer when they finally ceased, and I knew that our anchor was a-trip and that we had ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... Blatherbrook Castle before the rest of the party, we took a short cut across the country, so as to get into another high road, which would lead us directly to our destination. Phil lashed on our steeds, when, with a pull and a jerk, our horses, not being accustomed to work together, dashed forward at a rapid pace over the stones, in a way calculated not only to dislocate our limbs, but to shake the vehicle to pieces, but we held on to the ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... pull the great, heavy, swaying yard slid a few inches up the short, thick mast, as though reluctantly, while away on our weather quarter we heard the fierce shouts of the men in the approaching boat as they encouraged each other, punctuated by the quick jerk of the oars in the rowlocks, and the swish of the water as the oar-blades clipped into it. With the passage of every second those menacing sounds drew appreciably nearer, dominating even the thunderous rustle and slatting of the sail that slowly climbed into the air over our heads, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... alas! a permanent sadness also. All these things the gods gave them in the day when the decision was taken upon Olympus that these two men should not profit by any great good except Friendship, and that all their lives through Necessity should jerk her bit between their teeth, and even ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... after him. He had nearly gained the top, was within twenty feet, perhaps, of the end of the climb, when Jasper began to pull back. They were breaking through some brush, Scott being nearly through when Jasper began pulling. Scott gave the bridle an irritated jerk and spoke sharply to the horse. As he did so, he looked up and saw Angel Gonzales and his band coming down the trail. For a second, Scott lost his wits. He took a quick step forward, giving the bridle another jerk as ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... soothe her, and at last the weary, overstrung girl relapsed into something between a sleep and a faint, hanging limp over her pommel, and only kept from falling by the friends who clustered round her. The baggage-camels were as weary as their riders, and again and again they had to jerk at their nose-ropes to prevent them from lying down. From horizon to horizon stretched that one huge arch of speckless blue, and up its monstrous concavity crept the inexorable sun, like some splendid but barbarous deity, who claimed a tribute of human ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Viny gave one violent jerk that brought her up to her feet, and with eyes distended in terror, started in wild despair across the street. A pair of handsome bays were coming in their best step down from the Square, drawing a carriage full of people who seemed in the very best ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... of comradeship and hope to any fellow-man surviving. It cheered our own hearts, that strong, metallic call, and we turned the more earnestly to our work, dragged two feet off the earth with each upward jerk of the rope, but all straining together on the downward heave, Challenger the lowest of all, bending all his great strength to the task and flopping up and down like a monstrous bull-frog, croaking with every pull. It was at that moment that an artist might have taken ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Charlie, grasping the reins, and giving them a jerk, which startled the spirited creatures into ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... chap," the old fellow speculated. "Bjoernsen—I b'lieve he called 'im. Now that story sounds to me kind of—" He feathered his oars with a suspicious jerk and peered at me. "This McCord a friend of yourn?" ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... gave him up in despair. The third cast dropped both flies with the lightness of a feather in the running waters of the other side of the pool; and the next second there was a slight wave along the surface, a dexterous jerk with the butt, and presently the line was whirled out into the middle of the pool, running rapidly off the reel from the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... room, and now she spoke angrily to the three dazed men. "Git the lanterns lit, for goodness' sake," said she, "and hunt and do something. I'm goin' to git her supper, and I'll keep her pacified." Emma gave a jerk with a sharp elbow toward Mrs. Ewing's room. "For goodness' sake, if you don't know yet where she has went, why don't you do somethin'?" she demanded. The men went before her sharp command like dust before her broom. "Keep as still as you can," ordered ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... the gauge of the pressure creep slowly toward the eight-hundred mark. In all his experience he had never seen it above seven hundred. Shinny, too, his merry eyes shining bright, watched the needle jerk back and forth and finally reach ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... a vigorous jerk, and to Gianbattista's surprise the arm fell back in a natural position; but the injured priest's features expressed no pain. He was evidently quite unconscious. A further examination led the surgeon to believe that ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... whose quick bright eye and somewhat humorous curl of the corner of the mouth indicated his character pretty accurately, and left no doubt that he was one of those who would laugh their laugh out, if the ould boy stood at the door. The reply to Tim's proposal was a jerk of Felix's great-coat on his left shoulder, and a sly glance at the earthen mug which he held, as he gradually bent it from its upright position, until it was evident that the process of absorption had been rapidly acting on its contents. Tim, who understood ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 4, 1841 • Various
... legs nor (to all appearance) easy in his mind. The pair had reached the middle of the bridge when (as I conceive the scene) the poor tippler started in some baseless fear and looked behind him; the child, already shaken by the minister's strange behaviour, started also; in so doing she would jerk the lantern; and for the space of a moment the lights and the shadows would be all confounded. Then it was that to the unhinged toper and the twittering child, a huge bulk of blackness seemed to sweep down, to pass them close by as they stood upon the bridge, and to vanish on the farther ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... strike it right," went on the car conductor, "it's worse here than anywhere in the world!" Von Barwig nodded. "There's no room in America for the man who fails," he added, ringing up a fare with an angry jerk and then ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... lies down flat and refuses to do his duty, the fowler is able to stimulate him without stirring from his hut. A long string sets in motion a little lever working on a pivot. Raised from the ground by this diabolical contrivance, the bird flies, falls down and flies up again at each jerk ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... first. Julian was told to follow. The sailors and Markham then descended. A sharp jerk shook the rope off the bar, and the boat then rowed out to the smuggler, which was lying half a mile from shore. As soon as they were on board the sails were sheeted home, and the craft began to steal quietly through the water, towing the boat behind it. ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... and Indian Psychology, he asks the very pertinent question, "What does loyalty mean to the Indian, whether Moslem or Hindu?" The answer which he gives to this question is that when the idea of loyalty is brought before the native of India, "it comes in most cases with a jerk, and quickly disappears." The reason for its disappearance is that no bond of fellowship has been established between the rulers and the ruled, that the native of India is not made to feel that "he has any real part in England's greatness," ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... she tries to get her head, give 'em her. Yes, by George, give 'em her." And Captain Boodle, in his energy, twisted himself in his chair, and brought his heel round, so that it could be seen by Archie. Then he produced a sharp click with his tongue, and made the peculiar jerk with the muscle of his legs, whereby he was accustomed to evoke the agility of his horses. After that, he looked triumphantly at his friend. "Give 'em her, Clavvy, and she'll like you the better for it. She'll know, then, ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... will soon be in," he observed, as soon as he had taken his seat, "and we shall shortly have the doctor here. That young Gar'ner does what he has to do, always, with a jerk! There was no such haste, but he seems to be ever ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of all these visitations of calf-love, and their vibrations among undefined sensations, I was pulled back with a jerk, as it were, to my earlier and deepest impression, that of the loveliness and exalted person of the young Spaniard. Letters from Paris furrowed my mind like steamers the waters of a lake, made it foam, and the waves run high, left long ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... and relating to the assembled tribe what had happened, he demanded that the murderer be given up to him. His demand was readily granted, whereupon the white man advanced on the cowering wretch, who had confidently expected the protection of his people, and with the quick fling and jerk of a raw-hide rope bound his arms to his side. Then casting a noose about his neck and tying the end of it to his saddle-bow, he set off for the Hudson. All that night he rode, the Indian walking and running at the ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... and finger went to work To move the stubborn lid, And presently a mighty jerk The mighty mischief did; For all at once, ah! woeful case, The snuff ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... I kept one some years ago, and had ample opportunity of studying his mode of defence. When a dog or any other foe comes to close quarters, the porcupine wheels round and rapidly charges back. They also have a side-way jerk which is effective. ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... added to the driver of the leading wagon. Jimmy responded with vigorous language at the expense of his lead mules. The quartermaster and engineer silently scrambled in; the ambulance started with a jerk and away went the party off to the right of the trail, the wagons jolting a bit now over the ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... sat up with a jerk which threw his book on to his boots, and his hat after it, and looked at Bill. Now Bill and the gardener had both been grinning, as they always did at Master Arthur's funny speeches, but when Bill found the clever gentleman looking at him, he straightened ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... positions?" asked Tonio politely. "Yes, that's fine, but as for Don Carlos, it is beyond all comprehension. There are passages in it, you'll see, that are so beautiful that it gives you a jerk, as ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... driving the boat's nose straight for the nearest island, shipped the sculls with a jerk, stumbled forward and caught at an alder stump. She flung the chain round it and made fast. The boat's stern swung round—it was thrust in under the bank and held there close; the chain clicked loudly as it ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... stretched flat before the fire, Saw chestnuts roassting. "Ah! Could we conspire To jerk them out," said Jocko, "from the coals, We'd smash the shells and have ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... darted one over the other, the slack seeming endless as I heard a low rushing sound mingled with the splashing of falling stones. Then there was a sharp jerk at my wrists, and the rope began to glide through my hands till I let one leg drop from where my foot rested against the edge of the shaft-mouth, and quick as thought flung it round the rope so that my foot and ankle formed a check; with the result that I was nearly ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... of a miracle, as Sir Patrick acknowledged. He had followed Allen at first as the grieve had thought, but his mind was full of the parting he had just gone through and of the misty future before him, and when his thoughts came back with a jerk to the actualities of the present, he heard the rush of a winter river and found that he was close by the side of the Tweed. It was some time before he could exactly find his bearings, but he did so ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... air was a blur, through which she saw a moving shape that looked the shadow of a human figure. All this in an instant. The swoon passed, the trees reappeared, the shadow took the form of Aaron Burr, tugging at a chain which fastened a skiff to a timber of the scow. A violent jerk wrenched out the strong staple that held the chain padlocked to the ferryboat, and the mother saw the colonel leap into the skiff, seize the oars, and launch out into midstream. This natural act, heroic in her esteem, she saw and her heart grew big with gratitude. She beheld ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... folks. They didn't bother we all much. That was after the surrender. They go 'round here and there and git after white folks what they thought had some money and jerk them 'round. They were ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... of the lifeboat gave his head a brief, upward jerk without looking at him. "That curly-topped chap staying at The Ship," he said, "he came messing round after me this morning, wanted to know would I take him out with the nets one day. I told him maybe ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... see the like!" exclaimed the widow, as, with a jerk of the petulant Prudence, a few stitches now gave way. "Why, minx, thou art as much flustrated as if thou wert ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... uneasily calling in this fashion for her mother's hand, Miss Fortune softly laid her own upon the child's brow; but the quick sudden jerk of the head from under it told her how well Ellen knew the one from the other; and, little as she cared for Ellen, it was ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Doctor, "from which some of them are supposed to have taken the name of Thrasher, but that is doubtful. The Mockingbird thrashes about in his cage; the Brown Thrasher on the ground under the bushes; the House Wren does the same, and the tiny Winter Wren gives his tail a jerk instead, for it is not long enough ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... McCutcheon has it. Not at all! Michael, the Hottentot, turned the buckboard off the road, headed toward the distant quarry, and charged at full speed! Over stones we went that sent us feet into the air, down and out of shallow gullies that seemed as though they would jerk the pole from the vehicle with a grand rattlety-bang, every one hanging on for his life. I was entirely occupied with the state of my spinal column and the retention of my teeth, but McMillan must have been keeping his eye on the game. One peculiarity of the wildebeeste ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... dread intention, he rapidly ties the rope about his throat, and is in the act of throwing forward his whole weight upon it, when there is a sharp jerk of the rope, he is drawn up about three feet in the air, and, before he can collect his thoughts, is as abruptly let down upon his feet again. Simultaneously, a sound almost like suppressed swearing comes very clearly ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... billeted that would weigh from 1,600 to 2,000 pounds. These horses are clean-limbed, close-coupled and wonderfully docile and obedient. They answer to the word "Gee," which seems to be an international phrase. A "jerk-line" on the collar does the rest. Most of the best horses are brought from Belgium. A thoroughbred three-year-old mare will cost ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... Lestrade and Mycroft were fidgeting in their seats and looking twice a minute at their watches. Holmes sat silent and composed, his eyelids half shut, but every sense on the alert. He raised his head with a sudden jerk. ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as well as his horses in these wild regions of the west. The explorer indeed should be possessed of a good few accomplishments—amongst these I may enumerate that he should be able to make a pie, shoe himself or his horse, jerk a doggerel verse or two, not for himself, but simply for the benefit or annoyance of others, and not necessarily for publication, nor as a guarantee of good faith; he must be able to take, and make, an observation now and again, mend a watch, kill or cure ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... master ascended the seat from which he taught, and began to speak regarding the great truth. Sun Wu Kung understood the hidden meaning of his words, and commenced to jerk about and dance in his joy. The master reproved him: "Sun Wu Kung, you have still not laid aside your wild nature! What do you mean by carrying on in such an unfitting manner?" Sun Wu Kung bowed and answered: "I was listening attentively to you when ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... the school, for little that went on there escaped the master's alert eye. Even when he drowsed at his desk, as he sometimes did on warm afternoons, the work was not delayed, for he was known to have a trick of awakening with a jerk, and smartly nailing a culprit ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... I had decided in favour of the last-named, he gave a more than usually vigorous jerk, sat up in bed and, ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... at what the committee had done and demanded that another meeting be held. Such a meeting, to accommodate Mr. Mott, was held - held in the office of Speaker Phil Stanton; held behind closed doors; held with Jerk Burke, Southern Pacific lobbyist, safely entrenched across the hall from Speaker Stanton's office in the ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... maybe I don't," retorted the captain, opening the door with a jerk; "anyhow, I don't hunt for that corpse without ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... of the balloon'—'But we are still descending. We are lost! Everything not indispensable must be thrown overboard!' Their provisions, oars and helm were thrown out into the sea. They were now only 100 metres in height. 'We are remounting,' said the Doctor.—' No, it is the jerk caused by the diminution of weight. There is not a ship in sight! Not a bark on the horizon! To the sea with our garments!' And the unfortunate men stripped, but the balloon continued to descend. 'Blanchard,' said ...
— A Voyage in a Balloon (1852) • Jules Verne
... car are signaling to the raiders!" flashed through Jack's mind, and, simultaneously with the thought, he gave the bell cord a quick jerk. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... their mercy, and the horn of one or t'other continually within an inch of my eye, my mouth, or my breast, and no retreat; and they might any moment stick me on the top of one of these horns, and toss me with one jerk into the sea! Mrs. O'Beirne kept telling me she was used to it, and that nothing ever happened; but by the time I reached Rostrevor I was as poor a worn-out ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... and with a jerk of her left hand she freed it and threw them after the rest. The necklace caught the handrail as it fell, and Markin made a vain spring to save it. He turned and stared at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... are not to look so sad, Jerry dear, because it isn't me that Freddy's marrying!" says Peggy softly, behind me, and I come back to the present, with a jerk. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... the ink-pools—I will faithfully guard the jewels! Oh, my Father and my Mother, send him away!' He indicated Kim with a backward jerk of his ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... a little tense jerk of outraged pride at this rather tactless speech. It sounded too much as if Francis might possibly tire of her—which it ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... themselves in a passenger compartment, the door of which was locked. So chains were removed, and while Finn stood with his nose against the glass of one window, Kathleen, facing the other way, had her nose against the opposite window. When the train started, with a jerk, Finn had his first abrupt sensation of travel, and he did not like it at all. It seemed to him that the ground was suddenly snatched from under him, and then he saw trees and posts and houses flying bodily past him. He barked loudly at one little ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... deliberate in her movements, she was the most active and energetic woman in the town. She went through the physical exercises of a prayer-meeting with astonishing vigor. It was exhilarating to see her wash a shirt, and a study to watch her do it up. A quick jerk shook out the dampened garment; one pass of her ample palm spread it over the ironing-board, and a few well-directed strokes with the iron accomplished what would have occupied the ordinary laundress for ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... up smartly enough," Barrow explained patiently. "Try it again. No; don't bring it up with a jerk. Do it like this—-smartly, without jerk. No; that's not right, either. Hold your hand horizontally when it touches your hat-brim. Hold it the way I am doing. Don't be in a hurry to let hand fall, either. When saluting an officer, keep the hand at the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... Woodley cuts the Gordian knot by stepping straight to where Harkness lies, grasping the collar of his coat, and rudely arousing him out of his slumber, by a jerk that brings him erect upon his feet. Then, without waiting word of remonstrance from the astonished man, Sime ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the paper with a stone in the end of the cloth, and lowered it again. Then I sat down, tied the rope round my waist, got my feet against two projections, and waited. There was a jerk, and then I felt someone was coming up the rope ladder. The strain was far less than I expected, but the native policeman who came up first did not weigh half so much as an average Englishman. There were ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... made Roy thrill as he lifted down one of the kegs, getting his fingers tightly fitted to the ends, and then stood there in the black darkness, afraid to stir for fear he should strike his elbow against anything and jerk the keg ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... straying toward the figure and face of the beautiful girl whom he had scarcely noticed while she worked in the court house. But this may be said for the groom, that when his eyes did wander, he pulled them back with an almost irritated jerk, and seemed determined to keep them upon the ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... hand. A moment later Gygi lifted his peaked hat and called 'bon soir, bonne nuit,' just as though Rogers had never gone away at all. Michaud, the carpenter, shouted his welcome as he strolled towards the Post Office farther down to post a letter, and then the motor stopped with a jerk outside the courtyard where the fountain sang and gurgled in its big stone basin. Minks saw the plane tree. He glanced up at the ridged backbone of the building. What a portentous looking erection it was. It seemed to have no windows. He wondered where ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... Wright face to face with Mr. Jeekes gave the kaleidoscope another jerk that night. As Bruce Wright entered the Tube Station at Dover Street to go home to South Kensington, it occurred to him that he would ring up Robin Greve at his chambers in the Temple and give him an outline of his (Bruce's) talk with Jeekes. Bruce went to the public ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... He is constantly stopping or turning his horses to the sidewalk, right or left. You wonder what is the matter. You begin to think the whole town is striving to get a ride down with you in that particular "'bus." At every street-corner we linger or stop. Suddenly the door is pulled open with a jerk and our enemy leaps in. He sees the seats are filled, but he does not hesitate. There is always room for him. Indeed, his "spirit rises with the occasion." He becomes pertinacious as he is offensive. He tramples upon more than one pair of feet in his struggle to reach the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 7, 1870 • Various
... Japan (polish) laki. Japan Japanujo. Japanese Japano. Jar botelego. Jasmine jasmeno. Jaundice flavmalsano. Javelin jxetponardo. Jaw makzelo. Jawbone makzelosto. Jay garolo. Jealousy jxaluzo. Jeer mokadi. Jelly gxelateno. Jeopardy dangxero. Jerk ekskuo. Jersey (garment) trikoto. Jessamine jasmeno. Jest sxerci. Jest sxerco. Jesuit Jezuito. Jesus Jesuo. Jetsam fuko. Jetty digo. Jew Hebreo. Jewel juvelo. Jewel-box juvelujo. Jeweller juvelisto. Jewess Hebreino. Jilt koketulino. Jingle ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... their house and fried some bacon and a steak and made snow water and a pot of tea. The steak and bacon were eaten on slices of bread without knife or fork. Their repast over, Solomon made a rack and began jerking the meat with a slow fire of green hardwood smoldering some three feet below it. The "jerk" under way, they reclined on their blankets in the snow house secure from the touch of a cold wind that swept down the hillside, looking out at the dying firelight while Solomon told of his ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... agony in the arches of feet and calves. And, delayed to the last endurable moment, that final terrible anguish when the drop of my full weight pulled shoulder and wrist and elbow joints with that bone-shattering jerk. ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... seated about the room with every conceivable type and combination of apparatus. Kendall wanted to see what this was doing. "Tubes," he called. "Circuits A and D. Tie-ins." He stopped, the preliminary switches in. "Main circuit coming." With a jerk he threw over the last contact. A heavy relay thudded solidly. The hum ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... parallel with the middle line or raphe and a little to one side is made through the skin and the coverings of the testicle, and the testicle pressed out through the incision. The testicle and cords are then pulled well out and the cord broken off with a quick jerk and twist, or scraped off with a knife. The latter method is to be preferred in large lambs if the operator does not have an emasculator. The incision in the scrotum should be extended from its base to the lowest part, in order ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... When Mike comes to the end of that there rope with a jerk, th' rope breaks, an' Mike goes cavortin' down that swift stream, at th' rate of 'bout thirty miles an hour, bumpin' against th' rocks an' everythin'. An' he sure must 'a' disliked ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... my glasses to the man at wheel. He was crouching down over the spokes in a helpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked the vessel veered again, abruptly as before. I saw the helmsman straighten up and bring the wheel about with a vicious jerk. ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... duration, and maintained roughly the same amount of violence from the beginning to the end. It produced a very distinct sensation of sea-sickness.... The feeling was as if the ground was being violently jerked backwards and forwards very rapidly, every third or fourth jerk being of greater scope than the intermediate ones. The surface of the ground vibrated visibly in every direction, as if it was made of soft jelly; and long cracks appeared at once along the road.... The road is bounded here and there by low banks of earth, ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... the half hour, and as the sound died away they heard quick footsteps approaching them. Murphy looked cautiously around the corner of the brick wall and brought himself back with a jerk. ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... back with a kind of jerk. It was as though he realized abruptly that he had said too much—had overdone it. He took his companion by the arm and led him ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... Tom could not repress a sudden jerk, and Ethel silenced her sister by a hint that such references were not nice when ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... (which he would learn from a book the professor had to sell for five shillings) he would be able to drive his van without horses or any thing, save the pole sticking straight out in front. These weren't the professor's exact words—But, anyway, Mae came to himself with a sudden jerk, left with a great Scottish snort of disgust and the sound of heavy boots along the floor; and after a resentful whisky at the Royal, where they laughed at his scrooging bushy eyebrows, fierce black eyes and his deadly-in-earnest denunciation of all ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... dangerous accidents. 2. Take care that the rope does not become jammed in a cleft, or you will be helplessly suspended in mid-air. Keep the rope pretty tight when you are clambering about the ledges: else, if you slip, the jerk may break the rope, or cause an overpowering strain upon the men ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... cheerily, "take hold of the rope, but be gentle about it. Remember, a sharp jolt might be a serious thing for Tommy. It might jerk Miss Elting over, too, so be very careful. Now, Tommy, we are going to pull you up. Don't reach for the rock. It won't help you any to do so. Just hang limp. Try to imagine that you are a bag of meal and we are pulling you up for the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... flounder forward. The water rose high enough to cover the floor of the Invigorator, causing the Captain to speculate on whether Redmond had packed in the shells properly. Then the bow rose with a mighty jerk and we scrambled out ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... wagon drew up with a jerk at the gate of the farm, and the man descended, with difficulty, his limbs being ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to jerk on that rope and I'll show you whether or not I am afraid to die. But let me tell you this, you damned murderer! If any harm comes to that girl—to Miss Marcum—may the curse of God follow every last one of you till you are damned ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... he was once on the bottom, and just about to pick up a beautiful white sponge, when he saw a great monster with huge claws and arms and enormous eyes coming towards him, and he barely escaped being devoured. At another time, the men in the boat felt a sudden jerk on the rope and pulled in, when they found only the man's head, arms and chest on it, the rest of his body having been devoured by some great fish or sea animal. The sponges grow on rocks, pebbles or shells, and some of them are ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... "That jerk I made class president? Of course, Billy. We will be glad to save him for you alone." The instructor's smile ...
— Be It Ever Thus • Robert Moore Williams
... the cause she advocated, Miss Priscilla gestured the putting forth of an abjuring hand, with the recommendation to him, so to put aside temptation that instant; and she signified in a very ugly jerk of her features, the vilely filthy stuff Morality thought it, however pleasing it might be to a palate corrupted by indulgence ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the pony's head, and it is probable that he would have come off the victor in this controversy, had not Diana's dignified action given to the reins which she held a jerk. The brown pony, deeming this full permission to go on, went off with a bound that overturned the boy, and caused the fore-wheel to strike him on ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... cricoid cartilage, and this should be confided to an assistant. The surgeon should then, with the forefinger of his left hand, fix the trachea, and open it by a straight sharp-pointed scalpel, boldly thrusting it through the rings with a jerk or stab, the back of the knife being below, and divide two or three of the rings from below upwards. Any attempt to enter the trachea slowly with a blunt knife or trocar will probably be unsuccessful, as the rings, especially in children, give way before the knife, which ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... loud to be heard. As we were gliding along quite swiftly, I set my pole on the bottom and gave the boat a sudden push to avoid a boulder, when the pole stuck in the crevice between two rocks, and instead of losing the pole by the sudden jerk I gave, I was the one who was very suddenly yanked from the boat by the spring of the pole, and landed in the middle of the river. I struck pretty squarely on my back, and so got thoroughly wet, but swam for shore amid the shouts of the boys, who ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... reprimanding us for eating so many of the luscious blackberries that grew near the falls. Seeing that his attempts to make us move were of no avail, he scampered down the tree, coming quite near us and giving vent to his outraged feelings, punctuating each remark with a sudden jerk of his bushy red tail, scolding and gesticulating like an Irish cop. He seemed to be by far the most important personage of the forest, not excepting the inquisitive bluejay who rightfully cried "thief! thief!" at us from a maple near by. Both the red squirrel and bluejay ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... to-day get on their bicycle wheels before leaving the ground. As Le Bris had no motor this method of propulsion was denied him, so he loaded the apparatus in a cart, and fastened it to the rail by a rope knotted in a slip knot which a jerk from him would release. As they started men walked beside the cart holding the wings, which extended for twenty-five feet on either side. As the horses speeded up these assistants released their hold. Feeling the car try to rise under his feet Le Bris cast off the rope, tilted the front end ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... "patronized home industries"—a phrase I had just discovered with pride in our local paper. The bass was nodding and letting his hymn book slip toward a fall. I hoped slily that it would fall, and braced my nerves for the crash. But he woke with a funny jerk, like my jack-in-the-box, just in time to catch it, and began listening intently to the sermon as if he had been awake all the while. The soprano smiled at someone in the congregation, whispered to the tenor, ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... his operations, he stopped with a jerk and sat up motionless, save for a tremulous quiver of his muzzle. There was certainly something moving close at hand. Long before the faint vibration had reached his ears, his whiskers had caught ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... statue of a certain Monsieur Valbonnans, a former deputy and celebrated glove manufacturer,—also the glory of the country,—Vaudrey heard the soldier murmur from morning till night, with a movement of his jaw that made his imperial jerk: "I love bronze! I love bronze!" with a ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... for the needle. The end of the thread must be held by the thumb and forefinger. The next stitches are made by taking up the thread with the needle and drawing it through the loop. The throwing of the thread round the needle by a jerk of the wrist is called ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... wearily over the eyes, The bow arm stopped and the melodies. The last strain melted along the deep, And Ned, the old fisherman, sank to sleep. Just then a huge drum, sent hither by fate, Caught a passing glimpse of the tempting bait. . . . . . . . One terrible jerk of wrath and dread From the wounded fish as away he sped With a strength by rage made double— And into the water went old Ned. No time for any 'last words' to be said, For the waves settled placidly over his head, And his last remark was ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... hillside, his teeth chattering all the way, he drew near to Inyan, the sacred symbol. Seizing one corner of the half-worn blanket, Iktomi pulled it off with a jerk. ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... which had hurried across from New York for the purpose, blew her hat off, but she recked not, and only tautened her hair ribbon with an involuntary jerk just in time ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... the opposite bank. Mark's voice was now heard in curses, as he snatched the whip from the driver and scourged the poor bewildered horses. Another splash: the driver was gone: the poor animals pulled nobly. Crash! Jerk! Bang! A trace had snapped: another jerk, a fearful dashing and struggling, the omnibus was drawn half out of the water, and lay partly over on its side: then all was still except the wails and the shrieks of the ladies. Happily a lamp had ...
— Nearly Lost but Dearly Won • Theodore P. Wilson
... a lie," flung out Kenny with a jerk, "a damnable, deliberate, indecent lie. Whitaker says he's gone for good." His look was wistful and indignant. "Garry, what's wrong?" he demanded. "What on earth is it? Why couldn't things have gone on as they were, without God knows how many people picking me for a target? As far as I can ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... shouting in the distance. I soon overtook him, and he led rapidly upon the track through thick bushes and high grass. In about a quarter of an hour we came up with the elephant; he was standing in bush, facing us at about fifty yards' distance, and immediately perceiving us, he gave a saucy jerk with his head, and charged most determinedly. It was exceedingly difficult to escape, owing to the bushes which impeded the horse, while the elephant crushed them like cobwebs: however, by turning my horse sharp round a tree, I ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... the crowd reached up and caught him by the ankles, and with a quick jerk pulled him off the box, and threw him on to the street. But he was up on his knees in a moment, and caught at ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... them opposite the gate to the Schofield cottage, and Bijonah, following their motions like a hawk, saw Nat jerk his thumb in the direction of the house as ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... He saw her reach for the coachman and by touch make him aware that she wished to stop. The horses were pulled up. Mrs. Hawthorne, from the seat into which the jerk had thrown her, made beckoning signs to him, laughing the while, and ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... when I come up. When they seen me they slunk back in the store and shut the door. I stood thar waitin' in the road; then I see Bailey come out. 'Hain't you got your satisfy?' he says, 'you—' and I see him jerk out a revolver. He was jest steppin' off the porch when my first ball hit him. He give a scream, tumbled in the road and started to git up on his hands and knees; the second ball broke his neck. Then I walked ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... what fish are feeding upon, open the first you catch, and then you will be able to judge correctly. Never strike a fish hard with the fly, either on gut or hair, if the latter, a breakage is almost sure to follow a violent jerk. Stormy, showery days in summer and sometimes in spring, are days on which you will generally take the best fish with the fly. After a flood, with a rising barometer, and not too much wind, expect good sport. ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... galvanic shock seemed to jerk the disreputable, loose-jointed frame of Larry the Bat suddenly erect—and a strained whiteness crept over the dirty, ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... was written all over his person and he wore the conventional clerical hat which, owing to his absurdly small face, had the unfortunate appearance of being several sizes too large for him. Miss Deetle was a gaunt and angular spinster who had an unhappy trick of talking with a jerk. She looked as if she were constantly under self-restraint and was liable at any moment to explode into a fit of rage and only repressed herself with considerable effort. As they came up the stoop, Eudoxia, already instructed by Mrs. Rossmore, was ready for them. With her instinctive ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... the Major gave the reins a sharp jerk; but Tim remained stationary, gazing at Sambo. To make matters worse, he was now standing right across the road, as this position enabled him to look at his new friend ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... the pressure creep slowly toward the eight-hundred mark. In all his experience he had never seen it above seven hundred. Shinny, too, his merry eyes shining bright, watched the needle jerk back and forth and finally reach the ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... Dick with a cruel jerk to the brink of the atrocious situation in which he had so unexpectedly found himself. To-morrow he would have to find money, and a great deal too. How he was going to do it he did not know, but money ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... one of the London coaches rattled at an amazing rate down the main street of a garrison town, and, with a sudden jerk which threw the smoking horses on their haunches, pulled up at the door of the Waterloo hotel. A beautiful sight it is—a fine, well appointed coach, of what we must now call the ancient fashion, with its smart driver, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... chain secured to its end. A small, notched peg is next driven into the ground and the top of the pole caught in it, and thus held in a bent position. When the animal is caught, its struggles release the pole, and the latter, flying up with a jerk, [Page 145] lifts the trap and its occupant high in the air, out of the reach of marauders, and beyond the power of escape by self-amputation. Even in the capture of large game the spring pole often serves to good purpose. The struggles of a heavy animal are ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... was a pause, a scuffle, during which the General placed me and my bird in a seat, while Lilly, Charlie, Miriam, mother, five children, and two servants, with all the baggage, were thrown aboard some way, when with a shriek and a jerk we were off again, without a chance of saying ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... new-fangled sort of British gun-boat, bent upon interfering with his little game; and he wants to disable us. He is one of those pestilently persistent fellows who won't take a hint and sheer off; he is as full of obstinacy as was the mammoth that chased me over yonder,"—with a jerk of his thumb toward the north—"on our first trip, and must be treated as we treated that mammoth. For if we don't kill him, he will kill us—if he can. You see? ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... these rogues, stretched flat before the fire, Saw chestnuts roassting. "Ah! Could we conspire To jerk them out," said Jocko, "from the coals, We'd smash the shells and ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... birds and even about the pony at Braemarnie, she began now and then to break into a little hop herself and presently into sudden ripples of laughter like a bird's brief bubble of song. The tall lady's hand was not like Andrews, or the hand of Andrews' sister. It did not pull or jerk and it had a lovely feeling. The sensation she did not know was happiness again welled up within her. Just one walk round the Garden and then the tall lady sat down on a seat to watch them play. It was wonderful. She did not read or work. She sat and watched them ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... around the forking angle of the road; and having passed the little coppices of evergreen oaks, came within sight of the house. With a mechanical jerk he drew his horse upon his haunches, and sat in the saddle with open jaw and eyes ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... swiftly over the great head and tightened suddenly around the hairy neck, just at the moment the bear came to the decision to charge Thure and sprang toward him, with the result that the sudden unexpectedness of the jerk of Bud's rope yanked him off his feet and ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... nutritious, wholesome, and palatable dish, when well cooked. It is in high estimation with the Arabs, Moors, Brebers, Shelluhs, and Negroes. When they sit down to eat, each person puts his fingers into the dish before him; and in respectable society, it is remarkable how dextrously they jerk the food into their mouths, which never come into contact with their hands; so that this mode of eating is scarcely objectionable, certainly not obnoxious, as some travellers have represented it; but who probably had associated with the lower ranks of society, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... And now a soldier seizes them, and drawing them behind my back, fastens heavy iron manacles to my wrists. Another attempts a similar operation upon Nadine, who, frightened, struggles and screams. Making an effort to calm her, I try to approach, but a sudden jerk on the chain attached to my manacles causes intense pain in my arms, and a rough voice cries "Back." Back? Why? I do not want to abandon Nadine, and instinctively I grasp the bed behind me. Another and a stronger jerk, I stumble, and a piece ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... suppose, have experienced in a momentary and partial degree a sudden stoppage of the apparatus of memory. You are asked, let us say, to spell "parallelogram." In an ordinary way you could do it on your head or in your sleep; but the sudden demand gives you a mental jerk that makes the wretched word a hopeless chaos of r's and l's, and the more you try to sort them out the less convincing do they seem. Or walking with a friend you meet at a turn in the street that excellent woman, Mrs. Orpington-Smith. You know her as well as you know ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... interested me, as he stood upon a stone just awash, and ever and anon picked up a crab. A blue heron flapped down beside him, and the curlew skipped off to another rock. In a minute the heron straightened his neck, poised its long beak for striking, and brought up a wriggling fish, which with a jerk of its head it turned end for end and swallowed. Another actor came within the field of the glass—the mate of the heron, alighting on the stone beside her lord and master. He was in a peckish humour, and instantly ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... roused from semi-somnolence, would pull herself together with a little jerk, would straighten her shoulders and lift her chin, whilst a quickly smothered sigh of weariness would escape ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... persons, was driven into the stable yard, where it was unloaded of "drops" and "wings," representing a street, a forest, a prison, and so on, while the stage coach, with a rattle and a jerk, and a final flourish of the driver's whip, stopped at the front door. Springing to the ground, the driver opened the door of the vehicle, and at the same time two other men, with their heads muffled against the wind and rain, leisurely descended from ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... said Welch, changing the conversation with a jerk, 'I don't much care if the cups are stolen. One doesn't only run for ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... and they used her, careless of her terror, her beauty, her pain. Then he freed from her waist the long cord which ran beneath the curtain to Adele Rossignol's foot. Celia's first thought was one of relief. He would jerk the cord unwittingly. They would come into the recess and see him. And then the real truth flashed in upon her blindingly. He had jerked the cord, but he had jerked it deliberately. He was already winding it up in a coil ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... silence that the watchful mud turtles barely turned their snaky heads as they passed. So, a full hour before the time, they came slipping around the mouth of the slough and made for a natural ambuscade which the mixed breed had left within a stone's jerk of his ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... I was looking at two horses rolling in the snow near a farmhouse, I suddenly felt a great jerk and we were pitched out headlong! Our horse wanted to have some fun! So he fell on his side and was about to roll over and enjoy himself, taking the sleigh with him; but we did not see the joke. We succeeded in putting him on his legs. The driver gave the ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... reasoning he waited, hoping that the two sentinels who were nodding so suggestively would fall asleep. Even as he looked their nods began to increase in violence. Their heads would fall over on their shoulders, hang there for a few moments and then their owners would bring them back with a jerk. ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... your hand just under the surface of the water in a bathtub," said the geophysics man harassedly, "and jerk it downward, you get a hollow that spreads out with a wave behind it. It's the exact opposite of dropping a pebble into water, which makes a wave that spreads out with a hollow—a trough—behind it. But except for that one way of making it, all waves—absolutely all wave-systems—start ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... by the way, cries aloud for a new and better English translation.] was not only a learned critic but a great one: and this mass of him—cast with seeming carelessness, just here, into the scales—does give the reader, as with a jerk, the sensation that Hazlitt has, of his rashness, invited that which suddenly throws him up in the air to kick the beam: that he has provoked a comparison which exhibits his own performance as clever ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... straight road beyond, its impetus carried it almost over the edge, but not quite. With a splendid effort, the great black wheeler drew it over to the left. The front wheels kept the track, and although the hind wheels struck the side rail of the bridge with a crash and a jerk that well-nigh hurled Bert out upon the horses' backs, and the big coach leaned far over to the right, it shot back into the road again, and went thundering ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... far apart from their father and from each other as was possible, and for a few moments not a word was spoken. Then, suddenly remembering himself, the squire dismissed the paper from his hand with an irritable jerk, and, with the words, "I suppose that means dinner," gave his arm to his sister, and conducted her in silence to ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... his glance jerk to it, then froze. His eyes caught the sight of a hand pointing behind him, and he knew it was too crude a trick to bother with. But he paused, shocked to see the girl he'd seen on Mother Corey's stairs gazing at him in well-feigned warning. In spite of his better judgment, she caught his eyes and ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... was passing. As the attempt was evidently without a chance, old Doubleyear managed to get down into the water behind him, and holding him by one hand, the boy was thus enabled to make a plunge forward as the body was floating by. He succeeded in reaching it; but the jerk was too much for the weakness of his aged companion, who was pulled forward into the canal. A loud cry burst from both of them, which was yet more loudly echoed by Peggy on the bank. Doubleyear and the boy were now struggling almost in the middle of the canal with the body of the man swirling about ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the next Lesson, thus learnt: Presently upon your making him stop, give him a good brisk jerk near his Flank, which will make him soon understand you. When he does it, cherish him; and see he does it comely, for to yerk out his hinder Legs, till his Forelegs be above ground, is not graceful; or one Leg yerk't further out ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... to his lips tightly, and, with a heart that was almost in pain, dropped to the line, and sat on the pipe, bent, and utterly dejected. He sat there for some minutes, and then a sound caused him to straighten himself with a jerk. The black horse was thundering down the hill as he had seen it on those other mornings when, looking ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... right," went on the car conductor, "it's worse here than anywhere in the world!" Von Barwig nodded. "There's no room in America for the man who fails," he added, ringing up a fare with an angry jerk and then relapsing into ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... budge, and, by this time, when he had made up his mind, the decision was final, as far as any one man was concerned. Mr. D——'s temper went by the board; it was an embarrassing situation. "Come out of that!" he cried, with a sharp jerk at ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... but a minute to jerk a string from his pocket, bridle the beast, and mount him for ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... mortal man. For a moment it took away his senses. His sight failed; his ears tinkled; his frightened horse turned about to fly; and he was falling from the saddle, when the very action of falling jerked his head upwards, and with the jerk he regained ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... gestures. His voice, never pleasant, rose to a shrill treble in moments of excitement. After the familiar manner of Western speakers of that day, he was wont to bend his knees and then rise to his full height with a jerk, to enforce some point.[714] Yet with all his ungraceful mannerisms, Lincoln held his hearers, impressing most men with a sense of the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Sam," called back Tavia, "the only thin member of the party, who might by any chance fall through a hole, is dying from bumps, and we have a good hold on her. If you could see through the hay you would behold the human chain in action," and she gave Nita such a jerk that the latter declared the bumps were lovely, and begged to be allowed to do ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... coquettish manner imaginable; elbowing along, zig-zag; one corner retreating as the other advances; making a thousand difficulties and objections at every move; until the old gentleman, out of all patience, gives a sudden jerk, and brings drawer and contents into the middle of the floor. His hostility to this unlucky piece of furniture increases every day, as if incensed that it does not grow better. He is like the fretful invalid who cursed his bed, that the ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... the same afternoon that Charlie Rankin rode up to the River Farm and greeted Rube, who was hard at work upon the stockade. He was a large, cheery Britisher, with a florid face and ready laugh. He drew up with a jerk, sprang to the ground, and began talking with the perfect freedom of ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... put my hand in through the opening, felt about, and taking a firm hold on one arm of the skeleton, I loosened it from the body with a quick jerk. The movement loosened the head as well, and it rolled out through the opening right to my very feet. I took up the skull to lay it in the coffin again—and then I saw a greenish phosphorescent glimmer in its empty eye sockets, a glimmer which came and went. Mad terror shook me at the sight. I ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... for days and then suddenly spouts fire. No, he wasn't like that—he was like a man who is subject to fits, one who walks among his fellow men inspiring fear because a fit may come upon him suddenly and blow him away into a strange uncanny physical state in which his eyes roll and his legs and arms jerk. He was like that, only that the visitation that descended upon Joe Welling was a mental and not a physical thing. He was beset by ideas and in the throes of one of his ideas was uncontrollable. Words rolled and tumbled from his mouth. ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... face, too, my beauty," he muttered, "never came to you but by gift of blood." Aloud he said, "That's brave. But take care when your senses clear and the strain comes back on you. Speak to me when you feel it coming; I don't want it to tauten you up with a jerk. You understand?" ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... sent to cut away the shrouds, and clear the wreck of the mast as it fell. Once more Captain Poynder raised his trumpet to his lips. It was to give the dire orders to cut, when, at that moment, the ship with a violent jerk righted herself, and, speedily answering to the helm, away she flew before the wind. As such a course would very quickly have brought us up, sail was taken off her; and then, merely under her spanker and fore-staysail, she was brought to the wind, ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... was obdurate. She hadn't the change about her, she affirmed, with a jerk of her thumb towards the interior of the tent. Their takings to-day hadn't amounted to five shillings, as she ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of comprehension that terrified me; and the motor pulled up with a jerk at a spot where hardly a post served to mark where the woods commenced and the wayside grass stopped. We took one of the dim paths which the rabbits had made and forced our way through the undergrowth into the peaceful twilight of ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... support a man. Consequently, at each step we went in over our knees in the soft wet snow. Sometimes a man would step into a hole in the ice which was hidden by the covering of snow, and be pulled up with a jerk by his harness. The sun was very hot and many were ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... so materially to his escape. It still hung by a shred and hindered the free use of his hand. Without any hesitation he seized the offending nail in his teeth and completed the surgical operation by a rapid jerk. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... amid the rattling of the gravel and the clatter of the horses, my words were unheard; and thinking I was addressing a request to go faster, the villains cracked their whips, and breaking into a full gallop, before five minutes flew over, they drew up with a jerk at the foot of a long portico to a large and spacious cut-stone mansion. When I rallied from the sudden check, which had nearly thrown me through the window, I gave myself up for lost: here I was vis a vis ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... could recover his self-possession, Semifonte gave another hoarse cry and leapt at me with a dagger. I caught him under the arm-pit, closed with him and threw him easily. His back gave at the first jerk—there was no strength in him—and when he was on the ground I disarmed him with ease and bade him lie still. I put my foot upon his neck, and drew my sword. "If you stir, assassin, I shall run you through," I said. "Now, Count Giraldi, I ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... whistled loudly; and suddenly without hearing anything, he felt something take hold of his legs and give him a jerk which hoisted him on to its back, where he sat astride. It was a large white bird, and presently he found that they were rising up through the trees and out into the moonlight, with Jack on the bird's back and all the fairies in ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... all over. Mrs. Macy says she ain't none too over-pleased 't the way he spoke, for, to her order o' thinkin', you had a pretty serious kick 'n' you'd ought to realize it. She wanted me to ask you 'f he had you hang to the head-board while he give your leg a good hard jerk, 'cause she says 't that's the only real safe way to make all the bones come back into place; she says 'f you ain't shattered you're bound to come straight pervided the doctor jerks hard enough. She says they did her lame leg that way over thirty ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... usually very fond of babies, but now she could think of nothing but her disappointment, and only an impatient jerk of her ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... Trew, emptying his cup by giving it a jerk over his shoulder, "that, after all, she isn't nearly so bad as she's painted. She certainly did look to me somewhat made-up; it's a custom amongst her set, I believe. Often wonder whether it takes ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... knows of heroines from history. I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation—but steady every-day goodness is beyond me. I must ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of Coming to an End but has about it something of an effort and a jerk, as though Nature abhorred it, and though it be true that some achieve a quiet and a perfect end to one thing or another (as, for instance, to Life), yet this achievement is not arrived at save through the utmost toil, and consequent upon the most persevering ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... Hallowell cried out, "I'm hit again, Cap!" and Booth, in turning around to go to his relief, felt something pulling at him; and glancing over his left shoulder he discovered an arrow sticking into him and out through the wagon-sheet. With a jerk of his body, he tore himself loose, and going to Hallowell, asked him where he was hit. "In the back," was the reply; where Booth saw an arrow extending under the "lazy-back" of the seat. Taking hold of it, Booth gave a pull, but ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... youth who limped slightly and wore an extremely anxious expression. He went forward and commenced a series of experiments with levers and brake, in which process incidentally he liberated a quantity of sand onto the rails. A moment later the car lurched forward, and then stopped with a jerk. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... he whistle up a helicopter or a jet?" Then, apparently deciding that further invective would get him nowhere, he settled back in his seat, said, "Aah, forget it," and started the car with a small but perceptible jerk. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... well known that their malevolent impulses are more likely to be excited and their attacks directed against white objects than any other. His idea was that a shark attacking the white handkerchief would jerk the cord and thus give warning of its presence in the rear, in time for him to be ready ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... the automobile with a jerk which almost threw Jess, who was unprepared for the shock, out of ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... passing, it is the last that is always the object of his attack. When he has made choice of his victim, he springs upon the neck, and placing one paw upon the back of the head, while he seizes the muzzle with the other twists the head round with a sudden jerk which dislocates the spine, and deprives it instantaneously of life: sometimes, especially when satiated with food, he is indolent and cowardly, skulking in the gloomiest depths of the forest, and scared by the most trifling causes, ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... This sudden jerk in the conversation snapped it off, and for a moment there was quiet. I knew not how to get conversation started again. Our usual way is to talk about the weather; but that subject ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... strained silence. Dundee saw Polly Scale's hand tighten convulsively on Clive Hammond's, saw Janet Raymond flush scarlet, watched a muscle jerk in ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... several horses and wounding a few men, but beyond this we met with no molestation. The torpedoes were loaded shells planted on each side of the road, and so connected by wires attached to friction-tubes in the shells, that when a horse's hoof struck a wire the shell was exploded by the jerk on the improvised lanyard. After the loss of several horses and the wounding of some of the men by these torpedoes, I gave directions to have them removed, if practicable, so about twenty-five of the prisoners were brought up and made to get down on their knees, feel for the wires in the darkness, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... phrases as "the great flying saucer scare," "rich, full-blown screwiness," "fearsome freaks," and so forth. By the time the reader gets to the meat of the article he feels like a rich, full-blown jerk for ever even thinking ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... her with his sinister smile and a little upward jerk of the head. He extended his open hand, palm upward, ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... to the stable yard and swore at the boy for being slow. And he tightened the surcingle himself with such a jerk that the mare plunged and he struck her. He is usually pretty cranky about the way horses is treated, ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... bodily up the steps of the railway carriage, slamming the door behind her, the guard's whistle shrieked, and an instant later the train started with a jerk that sent Diana staggering against the seat of the compartment, upon which she finally ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... further, but the funicular gave a mighty jerk at that moment, and the carriage started. Up—up went the little train, working on wire ropes like a bucket coming out of a well. Higher and higher and higher it rose up the terrific incline, over masses of cinders, towards the thick cloud of smoke that loomed above. It stopped ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... tossing this way and that on the heated pillow, she heard with cruel awareness the minutiae, all the faint but clarified noises that can make a night seem so long. The distant click of the elevator depositing a nighthawk. A plong of the bedspring. Somebody's cough. A train's shriek. The jerk of plumbing. A window being raised. That creak which lies hidden in every darkness, like a mysterious knee joint. By three o'clock she was a quivering victim to these petty concepts, and her pillow so explored that not a spot but was rumpled to the ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... obeyed. The irresistible steam-winch caused the huge chain to grind and jerk in its iron pulley, and the enormous globular iron buoy came quietly over the side, black here and brown there, and red-rusted elsewhere; its green beard of sea-weed dripping with brine, and its sides grizzled with a six-months' growth of ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... he reared and plunged about, until he was bristled all over like a porcupine. When they perceived in him signs of exhaustion, and he could no longer be provoked to make battle, they would dismount from their horses, approach him in the rear, and seizing him by the tail, jerk him from side to side, and drag him backward; until the frantic animal, gathering fresh strength from fury, would break from them, and rush, with flashing eyes and a hoarse bellowing, upon any enemy in sight; but in a little while, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... wish I'd understood the case before. I'm bound to say Captain Devers misled me entirely. She's the doctor he needed," said he, with a jerk of his head towards the grave, beautiful girl bending over the soldier's pillow, one hand still slowly, tenderly stroking back the dark hair about ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... That jerk was powerful enough to cut through the skin of his hand, but the professor chuckled like one delighted, as he sucked away the few drops ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... of opposite walls; walls still glowing, semi-molten. The girl piled a stool upon the table and stood upon it, reached upward, and seized the mailed hands extended downward toward her. Costigan heaved her up into the vessel with a powerful jerk, slammed the door shut, leaped to the controls, ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... placed his foot on the rest than Baldy, who was now close at hand, caught him by the ankle and gave a sudden jerk, which brought Matt down on his chest and face, scratching his left cheek in two places, and giving him ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... irritating acid that will sting for an hour after coming in contact with the skin, but does no permanent injury. On a few there are what seem to be small pockets of acid that can be ejected with a jerk, and on some a sort of filament that is supposed to distil a disagreeable odour. As the caterpillar only uses these when disturbed, it is safe to presume that they are placed for defence, but as in the case of ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... mother'd make you tend baby once, and see how you'd like it!"—and Mandy rose with an impatient jerk of her bonnet-strings and slowly climbed the steep path to the house. Her mother, standing in the door-way with baby on one arm, shaded her eyes from the sun as she watched the cloudy face under the pink bonnet. It was always cloudy ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... the hillside, his teeth chattering all the way, he drew near to Inyan, the sacred symbol. Seizing one corner of the half-worn blanket, Iktomi pulled it off with a jerk. ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... said to him. He drew his sword, and I unsheathed mine. The old woman caught hold of my arm, and the lieutenant gave me a wound on the forehead, of which I still bear the scar. I made a step backward, and with one jerk of my elbow I threw old Dorotea down. Then, as the lieutenant still pressed me, I turned the point of my sword against his body and he ran upon it. Then Carmen put out the lamp and told Dorotea, in her own language, to take to flight. I fled into the street myself, and ...
— Carmen • Prosper Merimee
... gin her cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... and his fingers were numb; he dimly wondered at his own perseverance that he still continued to ply his paddle. As the cold spread through him, his senses took to sleeping. He was aroused by a sudden jerk and a shout from Spurling, "Curse you. Back water. Turn her head ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... ready behind a line. One of the judges was softening the ground with a pick. An umpire made a speech to the lads. Then, at a word, a boy took up the lead jumping weights. He swung his hands back and forth, swaying his graceful body with them. Then a backward jerk! He threw his weights behind him and leaped. The judges quickly measured and called the distance. Then another boy leaped, and another, and another—twenty or more. Last Creon took the ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... one end of a rope passed round a pulley bolted into the vaulted ceiling, the other end being attached to a windlass, by turning which he could be hoisted into the air, and dropped again, either slowly or with a jerk, as ordered by the judge. The suspension generally lasted during the recital of a Pater Noster, an Ave Maria, or a Miserere; if the accused persisted in his denial, it was doubled. This second degree, the last of the ordinary torture, was put in practice ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... followed the figure on the chair straightened itself with a jerk, and gibbered at him, twitching spasmodically. The woman turned ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... steps brought them opposite the gate to the Schofield cottage, and Bijonah, following their motions like a hawk, saw Nat jerk his thumb in the direction of the house as ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... my position rather perilous. It was high time for me to take my departure, before the conspirators became aware of my whereabouts. It would not trouble either of the men a jot to ram a knife into my ribs and to jerk me overboard ere the life was out of me. And then what would become of my dear ones, and of all the honest folk on board, with no one to ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... fashion of catching at her skirts with his teeth, and giving them a jerk, which was very exasperating to her—all the more so, that Rosie evidently enjoyed seeing ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... N. agitation, stir, tremor, shake, ripple, jog, jolt, jar, jerk, shock, succussion^, trepidation, quiver, quaver, dance; jactitation^, quassation^; shuffling &c v.; twitter, flicker, flutter. turbulence, perturbation; commotion, turmoil, disquiet; tumult, tumultuation^; hubbub, rout, bustle, fuss, racket, subsultus^, staggers, megrims, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... broke out at him, wrathfully. "God! I've a mind to toss you into that fire." He turned his attention once more to Rosa, and with a jerk that shook her into fuller consciousness repeated: "Where are they? ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... danger of their cutting her throat, she quickly got over the idea of it. The mailed hand of the State hovered over them. The taking of a single drink of liquor would provoke that hand to close down and jerk them back to prison-cells. Nor had they freedom of movement. When old Gow Yum needed to go to San Francisco to sign certain papers before the Chinese Consul, permission had first to be obtained from San Quentin. Then, too, neither man was nasty tempered. Saxon had been apprehensive of the task ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... was talking in this manner Bob was releasing the band; and, with a sudden jerk, he threw the saddle to ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... battered hero from the Mexican battle-fields, the herb-doctor had sympathetically accosted him as above, and received the above rather dubious reply. As, with a half moody, half surly sort of air that reply was given, the cripple, by a voluntary jerk, nervously increased his swing (his custom when seized by emotion), so that one would have thought some squall had suddenly rolled the boat ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... the culprit, savagely, "as I walk I can plan newer and newer things. I'll go into the Army, and you, Prescott, may become a freight clerk on a jerk-water railroad." ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... Amongst the adults (both sexes) they knock out the four front teeth of the upper jaw; but there are others both male and female that are quite perfect, more here than noticed anywhere else on the journey. Killed a sheep on arrival here today to jerk for our coming journey to the east, but was so fat that the small flock had to be examined for a poorer one for that purpose. That does not speak badly of the part of the ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... mind snapped sharply to attention. His startled jerk threw the ship widely from her course. A voice was speaking—Chet's voice! It was shouting in ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... verse one must use a simple stanza form built so that each thought ends with the last word of the last line. But when the movement is languid the meter and stanza form may be more intricate and it is sometimes best to let the thought flow from one stanza to another without even the jerk of the period. The effect to be produced is everything and should determine not only the stanza to be used but the details of the treatment as well. The great poet can bend any meter or stanza form to his ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... the word, the horse started violently, as if the hand that held the reins had given them a sharp jerk. ...
— Pollyanna • Eleanor H. Porter
... you find such? They will descend rocky mountains at full speed and neither trip nor fall, but you must be cautious with the horses of the Moslems, and treat them with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems are proud, and they like not being slaves. When they are young and first mounted, jerk not their mouths with your bit, for be sure if you do they will kill you; sooner or later, you will perish beneath their feet. Good are our horses; and good our riders, yea, very good are the Moslems at mounting the horse; who are like ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the commandant, taking off his eye-glasses with a jerk, as he always did when he was about to say something emphatic, "there are the names of seven men who deserted last night. I want you to take command of a squad and follow ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... It was an abrasion such as would be made if the ring she usually wore there had been drawn off with a jerk. That was the impression I received from its appearance. I do not state that ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... of water here, sir," sang out Johnson from the bows. As he spoke there was a sudden soft jar and jerk, then the schooner was still. They were aground. "Push her off to the lee there! Let go your sheets!" roared the boatswain from the wheel. "Push her off to the lee." He spun the wheel around as he spoke. A half a dozen men sprang up, seized the sweeps, and plunged ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... far around," went on Sam, and gave the tie a jerk, first one way and another. Then he began to tie it, shoving Aleck again ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... question of whether it's proper or not; it is simple human kindness, and as soon as I can, Hope McAlister, I intend to get acquainted with him. You've got to go over there, Hu, and take me with you, just as soon as papa comes home." She tied her ribbon with a defiant jerk. ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... the scene of the fire, do all you can to convert it into a scene of destruction. Tear down all the fences in the vicinity. If it be a chimney on fire, throw salt down it; or if you can't do that, perhaps the best plan would be to jerk off the pump-handle and pound it down. Don't forget to yell, all the while, as it will have a prodigious effect in frightening off the fire. The louder the better, of course; and the more ladies ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... that when things are going at the very rapidest rate possible, they seem to be standing perfectly still? That's the way with icicles. They have tremendous speed in them. They go so fast you can't realize it, and then when they are slowing up they don't do it with a clumsy jerk as bicycles do; they just gradually melt out ...
— Dreamland • Julie M. Lippmann
... round his waist to the guide and a Frenchman, the guide's foot slipped, and he commenced going down. The Frenchman was just going to cut the rope and let the guide play it alone; but he knocked the knife out of his hand with his long-handled axe, and when the jerk came he was on the other side of the comb, where he could brace himself, and brought them both up standing. Well, he's got muscles like bunches of steel wire. Did n't he ever tell ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... bow as if it would engulf us; our three men were obviously too few. The boat danced in the rapid. My men on board shrieked excitedly that the towrope was fouling—it had caught in a rock—but their voices could not be heard; our trackers were brought to with a jerk; the hindmost saw the foul and ran back to free it, but he was too late, for the boat had come beam on to the current. Our captain frantically waved to let go, and the next moment we were tossed bodily into the cataract. The boat heeled gunwale under, and suddenly, but ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... precipitated from his seat. At first, he lay suspended by the pole with his leg entangled in the harness; and the explosion of a loaded pistol in one of his pockets added to the fright and the rapidity of the horses; but a fortunate jerk extricated his foot from his shoe, and he fell under the body of the carriage without meeting with injury from the wheels. He was immediately taken up by his guards, who followed at full speed, and conveyed to Whitehall; ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... his palms upon the outermost cheek of each "end boy," and brought the heads of the entire line together with a shock that made them ring again. Then, without a word, he caught each urchin in turn by the collar of his coat, and with one vigorous jerk swung him into the middle of the floor and in his sternest tones bade him stand there ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... her mouth to say "I won't," when with a sudden jerk Brownie tore the leather line from her hand and dashed into ...
— Brother and Sister • Josephine Lawrence
... moved her foot and scratched the sole of her boot on the ice to level a roughness in the step, and at once she saw Chayne and the guide in front drive the picks of their axes hard into the slope at their side and stand tense as if expecting a jerk upon the rope. Afterward they both looked round at her, and seeing she was safe turned back again to their work, the guide cutting the steps, Chayne ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... left hand, is still as firm as at the beginning. As the club head is swung back again towards the ball, the palm of the right hand and the thumb of the left gradually come together again. Both the relaxing and the re-tightening are done with the most perfect graduation, so that there shall be no jerk to take the club off the straight line. The easing begins when the hands are about shoulder high and the club shaft is perpendicular, because it is at this time that the club begins to pull, and if it were not let out ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... what was wanted,—I could not have said from where: whether from the inn yard, or the street, or where not,—and as Drummle leaned down from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his head towards the coffee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged hair of this man whose back was towards me reminded me ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... highest scientific terms, was my genius, and is my genius. And yet the state, which includes all the citizens of the state, believes that it can blot out this wisdom of mine in the final dark by means of a rope about my neck and the abruptive jerk of gravitation—this wisdom of mine that was incubated through the millenniums, and that was well-hatched ere the farmed fields of Troy were ever pastured by the flocks ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the sweater was off. Red hair flashed into view, tousled and disordered: and, as she saw it, Sally uttered an involuntary gasp of astonishment which caused many eyes to turn towards her. And the red-headed young man, who had been stooping to pick up his gloves, straightened himself with a jerk and stood staring at her blankly and incredulously, his ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... storm; and so, presently, in a minute or two, came upon a ruined archway spanning the lonely road, held together by great masses of black-fingered creepers, gaunt and ghostly in the shadows, an extraordinary and unexpected vision; and as I stopped with a jerk under that forbidding gateway and glared at its tumbled masonry and great portals hanging rotten at their hinges, suddenly the truth flashed upon me. I had taken the forbidden road after all. I was in the ancient, ghost-haunted city ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... was quiet and sober; and when Tip raised his arm with such a sudden jerk that he knocked his arithmetic to the floor, Bob leaned over and quietly picked it up and laid it back in its place; which was a wonderful thing for Bob ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... Rosalie gave such a jerk that she snatched her hands away from her mistress and ran off as ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... all over his person and he wore the conventional clerical hat which, owing to his absurdly small face, had the unfortunate appearance of being several sizes too large for him. Miss Deetle was a gaunt and angular spinster who had an unhappy trick of talking with a jerk. She looked as if she were constantly under self-restraint and was liable at any moment to explode into a fit of rage and only repressed herself with considerable effort. As they came up the stoop, Eudoxia, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... say much. He was about six feet in height, but scarcely looked so tall, as he stooped a good deal; in later days he yielded to the stoop; but I can remember seeing him long ago swinging his arms back to open out his chest, and holding himself upright with a jerk. He gave one the idea that he had been active rather than strong; his shoulders were not broad for his height, though certainly not narrow. As a young man he must have had much endurance, for on one of the shore excursions ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... dinged thing up!" she panted. "Always sticks when you 're in a hurry. That's it! Jerk it. Thanks! Here!" She reached forward and a small, sun-tanned hand grasped a greasy jack, "Slide under the back axle and put this jack in place, will you? And rush it! I 've got to change a tire in ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... dwarf spun round violently, then he felt himself dragged in great jerks along the rocky floor, which, happily for him, was smooth. A fourth jerk, and once more he was in the waters of the pool, ay, and being carried to ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... imperceptibly, then more and more rapidly. The logs in the centre thrust forward, those on the wings hung back. Near the head of the jam the men worked like demons. Wherever the timbers caught or hesitated for a moment in their slow crushing forward, there a dozen men leaped savagely, to jerk, heave and pry with their heavy peavies. Continually under them the footing shifted; sullen logs menaced them with crushing or complete engulfment in their grinding mill. Seemingly they paid no attention to this, but gave all their energies to the ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... been not so much duplicity as a reflection from his turgid current of thought of the last two days. It imposed on Sally, who decided in her own mind on changing the topic as soon as she could do it without a jerk. Meanwhile, a stepping-stone was available—extravagant treatment of the subject with a ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... hand a jerk. He drew himself up, cleared his throat, and stalked to the door, regarding with lofty patronage the signs of poverty about him. At the door he took off ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... man, whom his companion called Jensen, overheard Nan's startled reference to Mrs. Bragley's papers, he put a hand upon the fat man's arm and nodded once with a sort of jerk ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... dancing for joy, her curls illuminated, her reticule describing the largest possible arc of a circle—just then, little Martha, or Puss, as she was called, found herself suddenly arrested, and the over-skirt of her silk dress raised with a sudden jerk. The reticule ceased to pendulate, the conversation stopped abruptly, the boy and girl stood ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... is it?" he asked, with a jerk of his thumb toward a cloud of blue-and-yellow butterflies drifting over a shining puddle—"five miles as the crow flies, ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... pirate, with a gesture toward the other pistol. Manewaring's hand appeared over the edge of the table and gave a trembling jerk toward the pistol-butt. Then it fell back into his lap. He gasped. A drop of sweat ran down his temple into his gray beard. Again the only sounds were the tick of the cabin clock, the wash of the seas outside and the hoarse breathing of the ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... the mealman turned, pulled his clothes about him with a jerk, and, pale and bewildered, started away at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... feeling a decided preference for the simple name of Briest, if for no other reason, because it was so beautifully short. "And then as for the children," he said—at which word he had to give himself a jerk as he exchanged gazes with Innstetten, who was only about a dozen years his junior—"well, let Effi just remain Effi, and Geert, Geert. Geert, if I am not mistaken, signifies a tall and slender trunk, and so ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... preserved his temper and again shook his head negatively. The chief then seized the bridle, gave it a jerk that scared the horse, and nearly brought Mr. Stuart to the ground. Mr. Stuart immediately drew his pistol and presented it at the head of the impudent savage. Instantly his bullying ended, and he dodged behind the ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... wonder was it to behold these waters so smooth and placid while the surf foamed and thundered beyond the reef. I now baited my hooks with fat of the goat and betook me to my angling; nor had I long to wait ere I felt a jerk on my line, and tingling with the joy of it I whipped my rod so furiously that my fish whirled glittering through the air, and flying from my barbless hook lay floundering on the sands behind me; and though of no great size yet a very ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... bacon, and de grease kept droppin' down, and would blaze up all 'round me. I jes stay dar and burn; and after while de debil come 'round wid his gun, and say, 'Zack, I gwine to shoot you,' and jes as he raise de gun, I jes jerk loose from dat wire, and I jes ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... that it was apoplexy, and not her charms, which was undoing me. But the apoplexy, the bulging veins and the reddening eyes were forgotten when I sought relief by inserting the first two fingers of each hand on either side of my collar, and with a short, outward jerk, would open the starchy shears that were fastening like a constrictor around my air valves. This would startle the young creature into diffidence, and I always hated to do it, but it was the only way I could assume my self-control. Following the ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... impertinence, and the guard was in no mood to stand it. He blew his whistle. The engine shrieked excitedly, and the train started with a violent jerk. ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... hang like de bacon, and de grease kept droppin' down, and would blaze up all 'round me. I jes stay dar and burn; and after while de debil come 'round wid his gun, and say, 'Zack, I gwine to shoot you,' and jes as he raise de gun, I jes jerk loose from dat wire, and ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... to the space on the moon. Of course none of them could come back to tell how it was there, or draw back once he got started through Grandpaw's spring-closing, one-way door. One long, thin rabbit called Snoop, who was always trying to see everything in advance, tried to jerk back after he got his head through, but Grandpaw's door caught him just back of the ears, and he decided to go on in. I don't know what my eighty-second great-grandfather saw when he took that first look. He didn't say. Grandpaw didn't join the sky procession ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... tighter, and gave a jerk. Camille turning round, perceived the terrifying face of his friend, violently agitated. He failed to understand. He was seized with vague terror. He wanted to shout, and felt a rough hand seize him by the throat. With the instinct of an animal on the defensive, he rose to his knees, clutching ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... wanted to be hurt and got in its way, I rather guess he'd succeed purty well. It's powerful. Why, if a man was to ketch hold of the tail of a locomotive, and hang on, it would jerk the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... his belly. We gathered round him. With a jerk he turned on to his back, his arms slackened, and his gaze drowned in his eyes. His blood began to spread around him, and we drew our great boots away, that we should not ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... Zmudzian raised his hands to his neck and with the right hand made a gesture like the up-jerk ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Andy, straightening up with a jerk. "Hi, you, what do you take me for, an ice-box?" And he commenced to squirm as the cold snow ran down his backbone. Then he made a dive for Pepper and chased The Imp around the dormitory. Over two of the beds they flew, and ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... so as to bring the closed end of the hogshead between me and the prize, crept up breathlessly, and with a quick jerk hove the old tub up on end, trapping the creature inside. There was a thump, a startled scratching and rustling, a violent rocking of the hogshead, which I tried to hold down; then all was silent in the trap. "I've got him!" I thought, forgetting all about the old she-bear, and shouted for ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... down—oh, wait a minute." He gave a jerk at the knot of his neckerchief, flipped out the folds, spread it carefully over her head, and tied it under her chin, patting it into place and tucking stray locks under as if he rather enjoyed doing it. "Better wear it till you're out of the brush," he advised, "if ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... few moments, having paused to wipe the perspiration from his brow, Omar, again grasping the slippery ring, gave it a sudden jerk and by that means lifted the covering from a circular hole descending into an impenetrable darkness, but bricked round like a cottage well in England, and having projecting ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... across for an interne, who came over in a bathrobe over his pajamas and shot a hypodermic into Billy Grant's left arm. Billy Grant hardly noticed. He was seeing Mrs. Lindley Grant when his surprise was sprung on her. The interne summoned the Nurse into the hall with a jerk of ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... semi-somnolence, would pull herself together with a little jerk, would straighten her shoulders and lift her chin, whilst a quickly smothered sigh of weariness ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... district, where only an occasional log house relieves the monotony of the scene,—log huts which look as if they have strayed away from the far South and dropped down in this wilderness. At intervals, with a convulsive jerk which brings to their feet some new travelers on this peculiar line, the train halts to take on lumber; and one of our tourists remarks, "This old thing starts like an earthquake, and stops as if colliding with a stone wall;" and continues: "Do ...
— Over the Border: Acadia • Eliza Chase
... whenever he was in error. Spitz was the leader, likewise experienced, and while he could not always get at Buck, he growled sharp reproof now and again, or cunningly threw his weight in the traces to jerk Buck into the way he should go. Buck learned easily, and under the combined tuition of his two mates and Francois made remarkable progress. Ere they returned to camp he knew enough to stop at "ho," to go ahead at "mush," to swing wide on the bends, ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... boy, who had come up behind Pinky, gave her dress so violent a jerk that she fell over backward on the pavement, striking her head on a stone and cutting it badly. She lay there, unable to rise, the crowd laughing with as much enjoyment ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... might close over the brittle wood, crushing it to splinters. The small, bleary eyes seemed to devour Piang as they tortured him with suspense, but he patiently waited for his chance, knowing that he would only have one. The banco gave a jerk as it bumped into an obstruction, and the impact forced it outward a few feet. The moment had come. As the crocodile plunged forward, Piang thrust his spear into its breast. There was a gurgling sound, a swishing of the water, and the Ugly thing ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... start she gave effectually carried out her purpose as regards the honeysuckle, which snapped in two under the strain of her backward jerk, and she turned round upon him panting with fear and exertion, the flowery ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... even a chuckling that escaped him now and again made more sound than the steel. Soon he dropped his tools, and wrapping either hand around a window bar, he braced both feet together against the wall, and pulled. The two bars scraped slowly toward him across the stone. Then, with a sharp, downward jerk he tore them out. Quickly he climbed inside and cut the ropes of a man who lay bound on the floor. Both men emerged noiselessly through ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... some inattentiveness, some want of care, my ill-luck, in short, led me to set it down in unstable equilibrium on the edge of the desk. It tumbled-I heard the little chain rattle-it tumbled farther-then stopped short. The mischief was done. The sudden jerk, as it pulled up, had detached an enormous drop of ink from the point of the pen, and that drop—Ah! I can see him yet, as he rose from the shadow of the desk, that small, white-haired man, so ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... cart was slanting and slippery. Polly was continually sliding forward, now by inches, now with a great jerk. At last Mahony noticed it. "You are not sitting very comfortably, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... larger man, and his wrath had been long demanding expression. They closed with a jar that rocked the electric lamp on the desk. There was a second of straining and uncertainty. Then with a jerk Gard lifted his adversary clear off his feet, and shook him, shook him with the fury of a bulldog, and as relentlessly. Then, as if the temptation to murder was more than he could longer resist, he ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... you all again. Home?" He glanced swiftly round at the scene about them. "This is home, I guess." Then he laughed. "The other," he went on, with a backward jerk of the head to indicate Leaping Horse, whence he had just come, "why, the other's just a sort of dumping ground for the waste left over—after home's finished with things. Bill, here, don't feel that way. He guesses we're on an unholy vacation ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... disengages the hold. If you want to discover what fish are feeding upon, open the first you catch, and then you will be able to judge correctly. Never strike a fish hard with the fly, either on gut or hair, if the latter, a breakage is almost sure to follow a violent jerk. Stormy, showery days in summer and sometimes in spring, are days on which you will generally take the best fish with the fly. After a flood, with a rising barometer, and not too much wind, expect good sport. If the fish do not like the worm after you have ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland
... hit the awful young an' the awful old," she shrilled at him, "but, 'twon't do ye no good. Curls'll bring yer to yer knees, hair'll make yer heart bleed blood redder'n the sun, an' the leetle man'll jerk 'em tight 'bout yer throat till ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... which he had forgotten. A man in a dust-colored dress appeared with what was wanted,—I could not have said from where: whether from the inn yard, or the street, or where not,—and as Drummle leaned down from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his head towards the coffee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged hair of this man whose back was towards me reminded ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... which his tumble had sent flying. The Prefect was smiling as he asked anxiously whether any bones were broken. Angelot trembled with hardly restrained laughter. It had seized him with an overpowering force, when he saw the General's fat figure rise in the air with a most undignified jerk, then being deposited in the thicket with a fine pair of riding boots and shining spurs uppermost. This was so exactly the accident that suited the man's swaggering airs of superiority, Angelot felt that he could almost forgive him his insolent words and looks, could ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... his life seemed to be broken up. Now he slipped down a subterranean crevasse and was like to disappear; now he bounded up again with a violent jerk. The chain of his days was snapped. In the midst of the even plain of the hours great gaping holes would open to engulf his soul. Christophe looked on at the spectacle as though it did not concern him. Everything, everybody,—and himself—were strange to him. He went about ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... darken. The sun slid down to the horizon, and seemed, as it were, to disappear from my sight, almost with a jerk. Through the greyness of the swift evening, I saw the silver crescent of the moon, falling out of the Southern sky, toward the West. The evening seemed to merge into an almost instant night. Above ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... of her boot on the ice to level a roughness in the step, and at once she saw Chayne and the guide in front drive the picks of their axes hard into the slope at their side and stand tense as if expecting a jerk upon the rope. Afterward they both looked round at her, and seeing she was safe turned back again to their work, the guide cutting the steps, Chayne polishing ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... hand, and with a violent jerk pulled him into the street. Then he pushed open the door, and, slipping into the passage, passed hastily into the front room, closely followed ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... the katydids. Dr. Morgan riding to a child-birth over Tilbury way; riding to deliver a woman of her first-born son. One o'clock from Wayfleet bell tower, what a shower of shooting stars! And a breeze all of a sudden, jarring the big leaves and making them jerk up and down. Dr. Morgan's hat is blown from his head, the horse swerves, and curves away from the sign-post. An oath—spurs—a blurring of grey mist. A quick left twist, and the gelding is snorting and ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... all!" cried Jimmie, recognizing his voice. He sank his teeth in the hand which was stretched forth to help him. Burke swung his left hand, still numb from the black-jack blow on his shoulder, and caught the ruffian's nose and forehead. A vigorous pull drew the fellow's teeth loose with a jerk. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... first shrapnel-shell blinded all three actors in the scene on the crest of the knoll with its ear-splitting crack and the force of its concussion threw Stransky down beside the sergeant. Dellarme, as his vision cleared, had just time to see Stransky jerk his hand up to his temple, where there was a red spot, before another shell burst, a little to the rear. This was harmless, as a shrapnel's shower of fragments and bullets carry forward from the point of explosion. But the next burst in front of the line. The doctor's period of idleness was over. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... reflex act, the "knee-jerk," a nervous mechanism controlled by a center at the lower level of the spinal cord, was markedly depressed, the time of response being increased 10 per cent. and the thickening of the muscles concerned in the act decreased ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... but it was of no use; still the little vehicle rushed on with the quickness of the wind. He then cried as loud as he could, but no one heard him; the snow drifted and the sledge flew on, and sometimes it gave a jerk as though they were driving over hedges and ditches. He was quite frightened, and he tried to repeat the Lord's Prayer; but all he could do, he was only able ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... 'hooked,' and, fast as she flies ahead, the galley punt falls astern, this time, thank God, clear of the 'fan,' into the boiling wake of the steamer, and at last she feels the tremendous jerk—such a jerk as would tear an oak tree from its roots—of ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... the last might see the torture of the first, the victims were noosed by the heel (one heel)—thrown with a jerk—hauled heel-first to the overhanging branch—and flogged into unconsciousness with slow blows, the lieutenant standing by to reprove the askaris if they struck too fast, for that would have been merciful. Not ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... saw, stooped much, with a low, hacking cough; his coarse clothes were curiously clean: that was to please Lois, of course. She put the ham on the table, and some bubbling coffee, and then, from a hickory board in front of the fire, took off, with a jerk, brown, flaky ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... then he told me all the scientific talk about time an' astronomy thet I've told you, an' then he tuck me into the thing. Fust thing I knew he give a yank to a lever in the machinery an' there was a big jerk thet near threw me on the back o' my head. I looked out, an' there we was a-flyin' over the country through the air fer the ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... with fear. He allowed the sheriff to jerk him to his feet, and walked passively between the three men across the street ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... ever at school, but if they ever traveled in a railroad car, or whether they suppose their hearers to be so ignorant of the most common facts as to believe that there is no way of bringing a carriage to a stand but by a sudden jerk, or that God is more stupid than the brakeman of an express train. We will do them the justice, however, to say, that they did not invent it, but merely shut their eyes, and opened their mouths, and swallowed it for philosophy, because they found it in the writings of an Infidel scoffer, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... nearer to his noble prey. There is a final spurt; the coil of cord flies from the hunter's arm, as his quick fling sends it straight in air; the noose settles over the broad antlers of the buck; the youth draws back with a sudden but steady jerk, and the defeated deer drops to earth, a ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... so miserable," she cried, with a jerk of her body as though to shake herself free of the constraint of his question. "Have you nearly done? What is the matter with you to-day? You seem to have made up your mind that I am to be forced to hate you, to curse you! Look, I was anxious ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... long blade in between the imbedded thorns, and with a powerful jerk literally tore the choya out of Ladd's quivering flesh. Then, where the ranger's face was not red and raw, it ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... with a kind of jerk. It was as though he realized abruptly that he had said too much—had overdone it. He took his companion by the arm and led him down ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... nervous jerk in the direction of the door. She had heard a footstep coming upstairs, which was ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... back, amidst tropical scenery, an endless procession of remarkably undeceptive rabbits of painted tin are running rapidly up and down an inclined plane. Birds jerk painfully through the air above, and tin rats, boars, tigers, lions, and ducks, all of the same size, glide swiftly along grooves in the middle distance. In front, Commissionnaires are busy loading rifles for keen sportsmen, who keep up a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... bound and he was over into the road, just as the horse of Emily, all foaming and perspiring, came up. He rushed before the horse, and with a giant grasp seized the bridle and stopped his furious career. The jerk threw Emily backward. She fell into Melville's ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... Rabbit gave her bonnet strings a jerk. She always did this when she was angry, and the sight of that disagreeable bird reminded her of the time she had told tales on ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... struck him in the head. The crazed horse shook Waddles off but as he fell the other man fell with him, dragged from the saddle by the jerk of one mighty hand. They rolled apart and Morrow leaped to his feet but Waddles had wrenched the leg already numbed by the striking horse and it buckled under him and let him back to the ground as he put his weight on it. He reached ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... did. As we come to anchor in the little ports, the men from the shore lash their punts fast to the bottom of the ship's ladder, and clamber with gazelle-like agility over our side. If you happen to be leaning curiously over the rail near by, they jerk their heads and remark, "Good morning," or, "Good evening," according as it is before or after midday. This is an afternoon-less country. The day is divided into morning, evening, and night. Their caps seem to have been born on their heads ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... the Chancellor, throwing himself half way round on his chair with a jerk — "you may go on, and I'll ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... Ivan was getting tired, too, and his hands were cold. This fun of going twenty miles an hour had filled him with glee; but Olga lost her bashlyk, and he found it hard to guide his sled. Suddenly he made a swerve to the left, and, with a fearful jerk, over they went. It was a dreadful blow, and had it not been for the kindness of the people in charge, both might have been badly injured; but they were picked up and carried to the pavilion, rubbed with snow on their noses and ears, and finally packed in a sledge and driven home. ...
— Harper's Young People, December 9, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... seldom free from impressions of his fingers in black and blue colours. Mr Swiveller, who was not in the secret, was a little surprised to hear a suppressed scream, and, looking round, to see Mrs Quilp following him with a sudden jerk; but he did not remark on these appearances, and soon ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... would break. I did not fear for the line, for that, I knew, was strong. I would have played the fish until he was tired, and I could pull him out without risk to the pole, but I did not know exactly how the process of "playing" was conducted. I was very much excited. Sometimes I gave a jerk and a pull, and then the fish would give ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... stitches them together into one continuous all-including Case, the farewell service of his awl! Stitch away, thou noble Fox: every prick of that little instrument is pricking into the heart of Slavery, and World-worship, and the Mammon-god. Thy elbows jerk, and in strong swimmer-strokes, and every stroke is bearing thee across the Prison-ditch, within which Vanity holds her Workhouse and Ragfair, into lands of true Liberty; were the work done, there is in broad Europe one Free ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... reckoned it on his fingers—"I take in a dollar or two, and some days... nothing.... There's my sody fountain," he said with a jerk of a thumb toward it: "got that fixed up a little while ago, and it's bringing in a little. Not much. You see, I need more syrups. ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nettles with the wheels, and drew up at the steps. The white-headed man, who seemed very alert, was already standing on the bottom step, his legs bent and wide apart, he unfastened the apron of the carriage, holding back the strap with a jerk and aiding his master to alight; ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... when speaking of any one, either present or absent. The name of the lady or gentleman to whom reference is made should be repeated if necessary, but under no circumstances should the words "she" or "he," accompanied by a nod or jerk of the thumb, in the direction of the person spoken of, be employed. Never talk of any one with whom you may have held intercourse as "that party," or "a party" of ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... the Major and his welcome guest were spinning along in the cool of the evening, toward the deserted ruins of the old city of Delhi! As they passed through the Lahore gate, Hardwicke's pith helmet was doffed with a jerk, as a superb carriage passed them, proceeding in a stately swing. Major Alan Hawke bowed low as he caught the cold eye of ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... sorry when it's finished. I give you my word I couldn't sleep a wink last night because of the quiet. I was just dropping off when a beast of a bird outside the window gave a chirrup, and it brought me up with a jerk as though somebody had fired a gun. There's a damned cat somewhere near my room that mews. I lie in bed waiting for the next ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... What I raise if I don't get shet of it right away, the people get shet of it for me. I had eighty head of chickens in the barn out there runnin' 'round. When I got sick and was in the bed and couldn't help myself, the chickens went. In the daytime, they would fix traps and jerk a string and pull a board down on them and then go out in the weeds and get them. I never reported nothin' to the police. I wasn't able to report nothing. I was just batching, and now and then people would come in and report ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration
... with a final jerk. Jim broke into a suppressed shout of laughter. For Wally's catch was nothing less than ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... in this reasoning, because Bob need not be left to himself. She would, so to speak, stand over him and see he did his work. Well, it looked as if she must let her ambitions go, and she got up, straightening her body with a little resolute jerk. ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... with the crowd importantly, thinking the while what an unalloyed paragon of amiability he is. Presently the time-bell strikes its warning; the crowd of passengers rush for the cars; the whistle shrieks; the exhaust gives forth its gruff snorts, the connections clank, a jerk is felt, and onward bounds-mighty in power, but controlled by a finger's slightest touch-the iron steed, dragging its curious train ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... more than once threatened life and limb. They pounded up the last slope which hid the villa from view, spent horse and exhausted man, and gained the rise. And Nicanor flung the roan back upon its haunches with a jerk which all but ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... forget all about it, and devote himself to his vocation, whatever it was—keep a shop and grow fat. All this flashed through my mind in an instant and while I was still dazzled by those comforting images, the voice of Dona Rita pulled me up with a jerk. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... moment, the ranger, who held picket on that side of the village, sprang forth from his hiding-place, and challenged the horseman to halt. The challenge was unheeded. Another jerk of the rein spun the mustang round, as upon a pivot; and the next instant, impelled by the spur, the animal resumed his gallop. He did not return by the road, but shot off in a new direction, nearly at right ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... said .007, as he yelled aloud, and slid like a sleigh. For the moment he fancied that he would jerk bodily from off ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... people now advanced, dragging the rope on the surface of the water until they reached the ambatch float that was swimming to and fro, according to the movements of the hippopotamus below. By a dexterous jerk of the main line, the float was now placed between the two ropes, and it was immediately secured in the acute angle by bringing together the ends of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... scientific terms, was my genius, and is my genius. And yet the state, which includes all the citizens of the state, believes that it can blot out this wisdom of mine in the final dark by means of a rope about my neck and the abruptive jerk of gravitation—this wisdom of mine that was incubated through the millenniums, and that was well-hatched ere the farmed fields of Troy were ever pastured by ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... clutched wildly at the ladder, which turned completely round and slid about six feet along the parapet into the angle of the wall, with Harlow hanging beneath by his hands. The paint pot was hanging by a hook from one of the rungs, and the jerk scattered the brown paint it contained all over Harlow and all over the brickwork of the front of the house. He managed to descend safely by clasping his legs round the sides of the ladder and sliding down. When Misery came there was a row about what he called ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... With a jerk and a rattle they were off, and there ensued an exciting ten minutes as the taxicab scooted through the traffic, shooting across streets, and missing collisions by the narrowest of margins a dozen times in the course ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... around his waist and said to his friends, "Take hold of the other end, boys. When I jerk it, then pull me out as quickly as you can." He got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the cave. He crawled ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin
... groups of horse, in threes and fours, are clustered behind bushes. There is a whispered consultation round our large gun and his nose slowly rises. The jerk of the lanyard is followed by a frightful explosion and then comes the soaring noise of the flying shell and the red spark and column of dust on the kopje. The range has been well judged, for the first shot falls with beautiful accuracy just on the hill where ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... rattled her cup and saucer with an uncontrollably nervous jerk of her slender body. For some moments she had awaited a chance to get the general's attention. "Spare us, father," she said brusquely. "Will you have another cup ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... being the sailors were separated one from another, each being put in charge of a casco, the shallow rowboats being joined together in strings of four to six each, and pulled along with many a jerk and twist by the puffing little launches, which at times ...
— The Campaign of the Jungle - or, Under Lawton through Luzon • Edward Stratemeyer
... Robin's neck, left the surefooted animal to pursue his course unguided, while he himself, leaning back, chatted with Roger Nowell. At the entrance of the gloomy gorge above described, Robin came to a stand, and refusing to move at a jerk from his master, the latter raised himself, and looked forward to see what could be the cause of the stoppage. No impediment was visible, but the animal obstinately refused to go on, though urged both by word and spur. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... this thought came to her, and brought terror with it. She could delay no longer. Down the narrow stairway she hurried through the darkness, and reached the door. In her panic she forgot her usual caution. With a jerk she drew the bolt back, and a harsh grating sound arose. She flung open the door, which also creaked on its unused hinges. Then leaping out, she hastily banged the door after her, ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... saw him, in spite of myself. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And, laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle; But I heard him exclaim, ere ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... providentially and so patriotically held in anticipation of the hour of need. Dutch beer, both light and dark, so that inveterate drinkers of Munich and Pilsener were enabled to face Armageddon almost without a jerk. They had other things ready too—Danish pate de fois gras, Swiss liver sausages, Belgian pastries and the rest. It was in that dark hour, I suppose, that the Vienna steak set its face towards the steppes. But this was in 1914, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... accepted the offer, and, after sitting down in a chair, began to devour the food. The monkey took hold of a leg of the chair, gave a jerk, and sent his guest tumbling into the pit. He then filled the pit with earth, so that the Bungisngis was buried with ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... to my feet. He lay for a moment, baleful, and slowly scrambled up. On a sudden, as he faced me, his hand shot downward—I heard the surge and shout of men and women, to the stunning report of his revolver ducked aside, felt my left arm jerk and sting—felt my own gun explode in my hand (and how it came there I did not know)—beheld him spin around ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... all evening, and Oo-koo-hoo certainly had a store of information upon that subject. In expressing surprise that a wolf had strength enough to jerk about a big drag-log, as though it were merely a small stick, he replied that once when he had killed a full-grown bull-moose and dressed and hung up the meat, he had left for camp with part of his prize, but on returning ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... pistol and sword was sufficient to save him, But, when beat on his knees, That confounded De Guise Came behind with the "fogle" that caused all this breeze, Whipp'd it tight round his neck, and, when backward he'd jerk'd him, The rest of the rascals jump'd on him and Burked him. The poor little page, too, himself got no quarter, but Was served the same way, And was found the next day With his heels in the air, and his head in ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... tensely until Mac had sped the car across the gleaming tracks, just escaping the descending gates. Then she bent forward and seized the emergency brake. The car came to a halt with a terrific jerk, plunging them all forward, and under cover of the confusion Nance leapt out and, darting under the lowered gate, dashed across the tracks. The next moment a long freight train passed between her and the automobile, and when it was done with its noisy ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... hesitated, and then, releasing my grasp upon the supporting ornament, I swung out into space at the end of the strap. Far below me lay the brilliantly lighted streets, the hard pavements, and death. There was a little jerk at the top of the supporting eaves, and a nasty slipping, grating sound which turned me cold with apprehension; then the hook caught and I ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... quite forgotten where the leg was, and how he broke it; he therefore got Kelson to splice the stump with the butt-end of a mop; but in the hurry it had been left three inches too long, so that he had to jerk himself up to the top of his peg at every step. The doctor, glad to breathe the fresh air after the horrible work he had gone through, was leaning over the side, speaking to Kelson. When I fell, he turned round and drew Cookee's fire on himself. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... rest. Why, she's hardly ever in her room before two in the morning. It's almost a form of madness with her, this ceaseless round. I can't prevent it. I'm a busy man myself." He suddenly got to his feet with a jerk and stood looking down at her with sombre eyes. "I'm a busy man," he repeated. "I have my ambitions, and I work for them. I work hard. But the one thing I want more than anything else on earth is a son to succeed ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... of toying, when she had no knitting or needlework. In the course of playing with it (we suggest) she tried to pull the knife out of its sheath; failed; held it up, so, point upward; pulled again; pulled harder—with a jerk, at last the sheath came off; the dagger sprang up; it wounded Clara fatally. Hugo, knowing that they had disagreed, knowing that the servants had heard, and seeing her fall suddenly dead before him, was seized with horror—the Le Geyt impulsiveness!—lost ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... to the right, ending the movement in a plunge that took up the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty pounds. The load quivered, and from under the runners arose ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... The jerk caused her head to oscillate to and fro. She suddenly stopped crying, and removed her hands from her tear-stained face, looking up at him in childish fear. A crazy thought flashed through her mind that anybody might strike her now. But Sarudine's manner again ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... instantaneously darting forward his head, strike and bite whatever comes in his way. I then presented my hat, which the animal violently seized with his fangs; when, instantly snatching it away, I seldom failed to extract them by the sudden jerk; for, being curved, they cannot be readily withdrawn, and sitting but loosely in the gums, are easily disengaged. Being thus rendered in a great degree harmless, I pinned their heads down, and tied them up. Great care, however, is required, not to suffer yourself to be lacerated by their ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... said Shoni, with a jerk of his thumb towards Valmai, "to put on her best frock, but no!" and he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "there's odd things woman ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... With a single jerk, the officer released the first torpedo, even as both lads, unable to endure the suspense and inaction any longer, leaped upon him. There was a short, metallic click, the noise of water rushing into the empty tube, and it was over. The first torpedo had ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... big and fat, but Johnnie was rather drunk, and George was tough and exceedingly strong. In almost less time that it takes to write it he grasped the abominable Johnnie by the scruff of the neck and had with a mighty jerk hauled him over the sofa so that he lay face downwards thereon. By the door quite convenient to his hand stood George's ground ash stick, a peculiarly good and well-grown one which he had cut himself in Honham wood. He seized it. "Now, boar," he said, "I'll teach you ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... gentlemen and young ladies, dressed in their silks, jewelry, and prunella, from top to toe, take the jerks, would often excite my risibilities. The first jerk or so you would see their fine bonnets, caps, and combs fly, and so sudden would be the jerking of the head that their long, loose hair would crack almost as ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... cut down into the pumpkin with a ferocity quite startling, and split the two halves apart with a jerk that made the horn-comb reel among her fiery tresses, and sent uncle Nat quite aghast through the ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... people attempt to suspend, by refusing to pay; what then? The collectors would just jerk up their horses and cows, and the like, and sell them to the highest bidder for silver in hand, without valuation or redemption. Why, Shields didn't believe that story himself; it was never meant for the truth. If it was true, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... out by the usual jerk, the bag no longer presents its mouth to the water, but is easily drawn in by the line attached to ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... nothin' but right to diagnose you all over. Mrs. Macy says she ain't none too over-pleased 't the way he spoke, for, to her order o' thinkin', you had a pretty serious kick 'n' you'd ought to realize it. She wanted me to ask you 'f he had you hang to the head-board while he give your leg a good hard jerk, 'cause she says 't that's the only real safe way to make all the bones come back into place; she says 'f you ain't shattered you're bound to come straight pervided the doctor jerks hard enough. She says they did her lame leg that way over thirty years ago, 'n' she says 't, ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... was being dragged forward; other Indians had sprung at him—his eight comrades were wrestling and reeling—with a twist and a jerk he had flung his captors sprawling—his comrades had done likewise with theirs and while muskets bellowed and rifles spat they ran headlong for the gates; got safely in, too, with only Squire Boone wounded; the ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... way. Ross staggered forward, half-blind with sleep, wading knee-deep, sometimes waist-deep, in the water. The rain had stopped, but the sky was heavy and the clouds hung low. Twice Anton had to jerk on the tow-rope to jolt Ross awake, for, unnoticing, he was heading for deep water. Even near the shore the torrent was full of floating debris. The bodies of horses and cattle drifting down the stream told of many ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... say no more. Say no more.' Here the sound of the wheeled chair was heard upon the floor, and Affery's bell rang with a hasty jerk. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... violently, then he felt himself dragged in great jerks along the rocky floor, which, happily for him, was smooth. A fourth jerk, and once more he was in the waters of the pool, ay, and being carried to ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
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