"Lurch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and seems to still the very heart. With a cry that was awful to hear, he fired his pistol, and I heard the report of it as thunder in my ear, the while the powder burned my face as the touch of red-hot iron. But a second shot he never fired. A sudden lurch, as I let go the wheel, sent the car bounding on to the grass at the road-side, threw the murderer off his balance and hurled him backwards. There was a tremendous crash, I found myself beneath the tonneau, and then, as it seemed, on the ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton
... a lurch, desperate, heedless in its risks, he was in his mother's lap. Then he crowed. He crowed for all the world to hear because now, at last, he had ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... did not dare to disobey. The boat was again brought along-side of the sinking vessel. The prince stood up, and held out his arms for his sister. At that moment the ship gave a great lurch forward into the waves. One shriek of terror was heard, and then all was still save the sound ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... all about it. Secret no longer. Dr. MORTIMER GRANVILLE has told the Times how it's done. Consider it great shame. Takes the bread, so t' speak, out of one's mouth." Here the Sage gave a lurch and seated himself accidentally on a stuffed alligator. Seeing that his host was about to indulge in an untimely nap, PETER thought the moment had arrived to urge him to reveal his wonderful secret. "I implore you to tell me how you have managed to live for so many years when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various
... student, Ivan Mihailovitch. I thought him most uncleanly in his habits, and I was compelled to sleep in the same room with him. Certainly it was true that washing was not one of the most important things in the world to him. In the morning he would lurch out of bed, put on a soiled shirt and trousers, dab his face with a decrepit sponge, take a tiny piece of soap from an old tin box, look at it, rub it on his fingers and put it hurriedly away again as though he were ashamed of it. Sometimes, getting out ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... off his pony, came to the edge of the cliff, and gave the perspiring tout his hand. With a heave and a lurch Joses ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... she found herself left in the lurch for that little actress—and she took a rod out of pickle for her, I can tell you; my word, but she gave her a dressing!—and when she had lost poor old Thoul, who worshiped her, she would have nothing more to say to the men. 'Wever, Monsieur Grenouville, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... There's time for a cigarette. Terry——" Sir Tobias made a short-winded attempt to push a second arm-chair into place beside the fire; Tabs achieved the desired end with one lurch of his body. "Terry brought some one in to tea; he's not gone yet. They never know when to go, these New Army fellows. Good at their job, they tell me, but no polish. I suppose I oughtn't to say that—ungrateful of me! But I'm sick of it all, the invasion of the classes, the women ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... well as the others in his sleeping car, was suddenly awakened by a crash. The train swayed from side to side and rolled along unevenly with many a lurch and bump. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... Now's the time when I should infinitely prefer to be underground than on it! Hope, resources, help—all deserting, all leaving me in the lurch now! My day has come: I can never hope to get out of this alive. Done for, and nothing to be done for it! There's no prospect of staving off the danger, either, and not a thing to drape my ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... and pleasant voiced, young gentleman, who took his arm kindly and walked with him several blocks. As they walked he told "Dodd" that he was on his way to attend a revival meeting, and asked him to go along. Just then "Dodd" "took a bicker," and in the lurch, he knocked a book out from under the arm of his companion. It was ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... of the other ladies. Are Aunt Gwen and Lady Ruth among those whose clamor arises from the cabin with each lurch ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... her seventh-grade class in home-nursing, and was standing in the hospital porch drinking in the unspeakable autumnal glory of the mountains, when a wagon, rumbling and groaning along the road and filled with people, stopped with a lurch at the gate. Advancing, the nurse was at first puzzled as to the identity of the people; then she recognized the faces of John and Marthy Holt and of little Evy. But for several seconds she gazed without recognition at the striking figure on the front seat beside John. This figure wore a remarkable ...
— Sight to the Blind • Lucy Furman
... in the very mouth of the gateway, a front fender of the incoming car ripped through the rear fender above which Sofia was sitting. Thrown heavily against Victor, then instantly back to her place, she felt the car, with brakes set fast, turn broadside to the road, skid crabwise, and lurch sickeningly into the ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... could, if he would, abjure his errors quite as well as on the Rhine. If, on the other hand, the emperor wished him to come to Worms in order that he might be put to death, he was quite ready to go, "for, with Christ's help, I will not flee and leave the Word in the lurch. My revocation will be in this wise: 'Earlier I said that the pope was God's vicar; now I revoke and say, the pope is Christ's enemy and an envoy of ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... peace of mind, And most maliciously employed his skill To work them woe—defiant of God's will. Their worldly property he did not touch, For loss of this would not be felt so much As trouble with their brethren in the church, Severed from whom they might be left in lurch. His plan succeeded, as I know too well, For some deemed wise were held as by a spell In hands of strongest preconceived opinion, While Ignorance held them in his dominion. WILLIAM had seen this long, and mourned in soul, With ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... Lynes. "Is it, by George? Well, the siege won't last much longer now. The Sirkar don't leave its servants in the lurch. That's what these hill-tribes never seem to understand. How is Travers?" he ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... having missed his youth, his thin cheeks pallid as linen, his eyes burning with a somber light—alone in the world, desolate, apart—walking with an uncertain step and a tremor of the whole frame, which seemed to lurch for poise and balance, yet swinging his arms with the sweep of the melody, and smiling a forced smile through his hard and ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... become of the grumblers," Marion said as they rested in various stages of dishabille, and talked the exciting scenes over. "They have been shamefully left in the lurch; they were going to have this affair a demoralizing dissipation from first to last, unworthy of the spirit of Chautauqua. And if more solemn, or more searching, or more effective preaching could be crowded into ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... a lurch to the right, as it turned the corner; it rattled down the hill, raising a cloud of white dust. As it passed the Mitouards' house, a young girl, in a large straw hat, came down the garden, too late to discover ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... 'what about him? I didn't get at much that night. It was all so sudden. The only thing I could have sworn to from the first was that he had purposely left me in the lurch that day. I pieced out the rest in the next few days, which I'll just finish with as shortly as I can. Bartels came aboard next morning, and though it was blowing hard still we managed to shift the Dulcibella to a place where she dried safely ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... washed over their very feet, and now and then the schooner gave a fearful lurch, that caused all hands to stand fast and believe her going down. Gradually the water crept higher and higher, and the plunging schooner seemed at every fall of her bows to be going down. Even the gentle Komel and Zillah could understand the fearful momentary danger that must ensue when the ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... the help of straining and tugging there came a little lurch, and then it was that as the Mary Anne slipped over on her side one of the workers slipped with her, slipped half underneath her with a cry, and lay on the sand, held down by the weight that rested ...
— One Day At Arle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... felt a sudden sympathy towards him with his thin hair, his large spectacles and his shabby clothes. But her look at him was the last thing of which she was properly conscious. The wall beyond the fireplace, that had seemed before to her dim and dark, now suddenly appeared to lurch forward, to bulge before her eyes; the floor with its old, rather shabby carpet rose on a slant as though it was rocked by an unsteady sea; worst of all, the large black cat swelled like a balloon, its whiskers distended ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... down a tree starn foremost. He is a cunning critter; he knows 'tain't safe to carry a heavy load over his head, and his rump is so heavy, he don't like to trust it over his'n, for fear it might take a lurch, and carry him heels over head, to the ground; so he lets his starn down first, and his head arter. I wish the Bluenoses would find as good an excuse in their rumps for running backwards as he has. But the bear 'ciphers;' he knows how many pounds his hams weigh, and he 'calculates' if he carried ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... light, swift pressure of cold lips on his mouth.... While the train pulled out, she stood on the rear platform, looking, looking. She was very still. All motion, all expression seemed centered in the steady gaze which dwindled away from him, became vague ... featureless ... vanished in a lurch of ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... I know, the odds were in our favour and success seemed assured. Our opponents then presented their case, and still we felt no doubt; but Fortune is a fickle jade and at the last she left us in the lurch. On the eighth day of the proceedings the Chairman announced: "The Committee are of opinion that it is not expedient to proceed with the Bill." This was the coup de grace. No reasons are ever given by a Committee for their decision and the contending parties are left to imagine ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... infantry should come up. By this time Stanley, back at his old post, was whirling round on his seat for more racks of bombs. He had already used his own machine gun with deadly effect. Blaine was reaching for another drum of ammunition for his Lewis when he saw Stanley lurch forward. He was hit. Not a word though; ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... accident, to put things to rights again. The success of the English is largely built up on such accidents—on the mistakes of other people. Provi dence has favoured them so far, on the whole; but one day it may leave them in the lurch, as it did the anti-scientific Russians in their war with the Japanese. One day other people will forget ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... course," said the professor sadly; "but I don't like going. It is leaving poor old Ibrahim in the lurch." ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... had been accomplished all hands seized capstan bars. To the tune of a Dutch sailors' "chanty" the links of the cable slowly clanked inboard. With a lurch the Lena Knobloch swung as the anchor broke ground. Like a storm driven bird she was off in the wings of a northwester, lying far over even under the greatly ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Lady Ogram was little inclined to follow where Robb had led. She hoped to find a yet better site, and, by undertaking at once both purchase of land and construction of the building, with a liberal endowment added, to leave in the lurch all philanthropic rivals. For years she had possessed plans and pictures of "The Lady Ogram Hospital." She cared for no enterprise, however laudable, in which she could only be a sharer; the initiative must be hers, and ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... was upon his feet, drawing his revolver. He fired at the men in ambush, but a lurch of the car on the rough ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... muscle taut and striving, to feel your self straining against the opposing football line that held like a stone-wall—or as firmly as the headboard of your bed? Or voluntarily recall the movement of the boat when you cried inwardly, "It's all up with me!" The perilous lurch of a train, the sudden sinking of an elevator, or the unexpected toppling of a rocking-chair may serve ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... made him lurch backward. At an angle in almost equal distance from him and Shon, upon a small peninsula of rock, a strange thing was happening. Old Pourcette was kneeling, engaged with his moccasin. Behind him was the sun, against which he was abruptly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... looked very grave. Ulrich said nothing; but her Grace replied, "You will make the girl vain, dear uncle." And Ulrich added, "Yes, and the image has such an expression, that if the real Eve looked so, I think she would have left her husband in the lurch and run with the devil himself to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... been solitary. The French, everybody thought, had left us in the lurch at Mons and again at Le Cateau, when the cavalry we knew to be there refused to help us. For all we knew the French Army had been swept off the face of the earth. We were just retiring, and retiring before three or four times our own numbers. We were not even supported by the 1st Corps ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... volumes go cheap, and to distribute them afterwards among themselves. Thus an amateur can have a good deal of sport by bidding for a book till it reaches its proper value, and by then leaving in the lurch the professionals who combine to "run him up." The amusement has its obvious perils, but the presence of gentlemen in an auction-room is a relief to the auctioneer and to the owner of the books. A bidder must be able to command ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... a lurch, and nearly fell. To save her the man put his arm round her waist. She clasped him round the neck, and together they spun round two or three times; while at the very moment a piano-organ at the opposite corner struck ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Liverpool, as being decidedly the most advisable course under the circumstances of the case; and it may be mentioned for the satisfaction of any party who may have considered that he was in some measure left in the lurch, that Mr. Moss, the Deputy Chairman, had left Mrs. Moss and several of his family to come with the trains which had been so left behind. Three engines having to draw a load calculated for six, their progress was of course much retarded, besides a considerable delay ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... downstairs, "we must keep plenty of good liquor going in the house these next few days. I know his nature, and if he once gets into that fearfully low state that he does get into sometimes, he'll never do the honourable thing by me in this world, and I shall be left in the lurch. He must be kept cheerful. He has a little money in the savings bank, and he has given me his purse to pay for anything necessary. Well, that will be the licence; for I must have that ready at hand, to catch him the moment he's in the humour. You must pay for the liquor. A few friends, ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... Townsend, the Winwoods' new secretary. Had not his Princess, for the most delicious reasons in the world, been made President? He scorned Ursula Winwood's suggestion that for this year he would allow Townsend to manage affairs. "What!" cried he, "leave my Princess in the lurch on her first appearance? Never!" By telephone he arranged an hour for the next day, when they could all consult together ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Without knowing what the matter was, Mahony felt it politic not to be over-exacting—even mildly to conciliate his assistant. It would put him in an awkward fix, now that he was on the verge of winding up affairs, should Hempel take it in his head to leave him in the lurch. ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Alas, what signifies that! You know, Gentlemen, that I have such a strange and natural Agility in turning—I shall whip about yet, and leave 'em all in the Lurch. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... now turn back and ascertain what has become of our young adventurers and their rugged old companion. We left them sitting on the bow—or rather perched there in positions none too secure in case of a sudden lurch of the ship. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... sudden lurch, settled deeper in the water, and began to heel slowly over. The Captain, clinging to the bridge rail to maintain his balance, raised the megaphone ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... the moon failed us; and when Carey lit a lantern to help, it showed us that the carriers had no stomach left in them. One, though the froth froze on him, was sweating like a resty colt. The other two, if we slacked hold on their halter-ropes, would lurch together, halt, and slue neck to neck like a couple of timid dowagers hesitating ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... the Demon of the sea, giving the ship a little lurch to starboard, which cut short the merchant's remarks abruptly; "you think so, do you? Ho! We ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... it was to the regular heave and lurch of a sailing vessel in motion, and Jeremy, looking out the port, beheld the crisp, sparkling ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... man's anxious questions, the sailor told him that when Scott's boat came along-side the ship a rope was thrown to them as usual to be made fast, and, unfortunately, both Scott and his brother sprang forward to catch it; the boat gave a violent lurch, and in a moment they were plunged into the sea, Morley Scott's head striking the ship's side as he fell. His brother was never seen again; they supposed he must have come up underneath the ship, ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... grows, it leaves its mother's embrace, but swims close beside, following with automatic precision every twist and lurch of her body, its own helplessness and its implicit faith in the wisdom and protective influence of its parent being ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... A lurch, splash, and the party with shrill cries sprang to their feet; the low cart was filling with water. They had left the canon and were crossing a slough; no one had remembered that it would be high tide. The girls, without an instant's hesitation, whipped their gowns up round their ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Tiglath-pileser the Syro-Palestinian kingdoms rebelled en masse, Samaria also was seized with the delirium of patriotic fanaticism (Isaiah xxviii.). Relying upon the help of Seve, king of Ethiopia and Egypt, Hosea ventured on a revolt from Assyria. But the Egyptians left him in the lurch as soon as Shalmaneser IV., Tiglath-pileser's successor, invaded his territory. Before his capital had fallen, Hosea himself fell into the hands of the Assyrians. Samaria offered a desperate resistance, and succumbed only ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... little quick, forward lurch of his shoulders in the chair sent the girl scuttling to her feet again, one overshoe still in ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... young child, did not contribute to our enjoyment, or make the ride any more pleasant, for the latter poor unfortunate screamed nearly the whole night through. Occasionally it would settle down into a low whine, when a sudden lurch of the waggon or a severe jolt would set it off again with full force. The night was very dark, and continued so throughout, with dashes of rain. The roads were very bad, and two or three times we had to get out and walk, a thing we did not relish, as it was almost impossible for us to pick ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... eyes; then, grunting disdainfully, he waddled to the edge of the stream to see what prize could be worth so great an exertion. As they fought, the raccoons drew nearer and nearer to the porcupine, who did not offer to move. Another lurch would undoubtedly have brought them into contact with his bristling quills had they not in the nick of time discovered their danger. Instantly they separated and leaped back. The leap brought them to the slippery mud at the edge of the stream and the next ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... wheel, whirl, revolve, rotate, turn, gyrate, spin, trundle, circumgyrate; inwrap, infold, convolve; wallow, welter; rock, sway, lurch, titubate, fluctuate. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the Aurora was a very good officer in many respects, but, as a midshipman, he had contracted the habit of putting his hands in his pockets, and could never keep them out, even when the ship was in a gale of wind; and hands are of some use in a heavy lurch. He had more than once received serious injury from falling on these occasions, but habit was too powerful; and, although he had once broken his leg by falling down the hatchway, and had moreover a large scar on his forehead, received from being thrown to leeward ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... but it was empty. "I think I'll return when the rest of them are together.", And Reggie, stumbling against the door-jamb on his way out, wandered away, choosing the right-hand passage because his body had happened to lurch in that direction. ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... There came a lurch, a straining of ropes and a creaking of masts, and the good ship Saint Laurent swam out to sea. Suddenly the waters trembled and the air shook: the king's man-of-war had fired the admiral's salute. So the voyage began. Priests, soldiers, merchants, seamen, peasants and nobles, all stood ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... our hot coffee and our pork and beans, and flapjacks when the cooks were in the humor; to hook the teams to the wagons and break corral, and amidst cracking of lashes stretch out into column, then to lurch and groan onward, at snail's pace, through the constantly increasing day until soon we also were wrung and parched by a relentless heat ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... squalls. While Lady Montefiore was sitting on deck, a lurch of the vessel threw her backwards with great force. Both she and Sir Moses were much alarmed. The weather ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... got to help me with my gown. O that was a good- for-nothing baggage, leaving us in the lurch! ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... most graceless hussy imaginable," I cried. "There was he grinding his heart out for her, and just because a more brazen-throated scoundrel came upon the scene she must needs leave our poor friend in the lurch. She has no more heart than my boot, and she will come ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... intellect; and she says in one of these letters: "Say what you may, it was my phenomena on which the Theosophical Society was founded. It is my phenomena by which that Society has been built up." It was a natural feeling of half resentment against the policy of the time, that had left her in the lurch, and put the Society upon a different footing. It was in connection with that terrible time, in the turmoil and whirl of conflicting opinions, that those words recorded of her Master, spoken to herself, in one of the records ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... could not make out what was said, but he understood, and riding up close to the hurt buffalo, he let the animal have a bullet directly in the head. It was a fair shot, and with a lurch the beast staggered a few feet and then fell with a heavy thud on ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... looked; here and there a young zouave turned deathly pale, reeled out of the ranks, leaned against a tree, nauseated, only to lurch forward again at the summons of the provost guard; here and there a soldier disengaged his white turban from his fez and dropped it to form a sort of Havelock; for the vertical sun was turning the men dizzy, and the sights they saw were rapidly ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... wasted face concentrated in the terrible black eyes, which gazed past the two figures within their immediate range into a vacancy peopled with horror. Then a film came over them, the grip relaxed, and she fell back with a lurch of the rocking-chair in a ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... left the rightful ruler in the lurch. He had been promised that he should be restored to his throne on condition of helping the Americans, and he had given the most valuable sort of aid, but the treaty declared that no assistance should be given ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... another man, a worthy priest, strove to place the women and children, of whom we had several on board. But this was no easy task, for the drunken sailors pushed them aside and tried to spring into the boats, the first of which overturned, so that all were lost. Just then the carak gave a lurch before she sank, and, seeing that everything was over, I called to the priest to follow me, and springing into the sea I swam for the second boat, which, laden with some shrieking women, had drifted loose in the confusion. As it chanced I reached it safely, being a strong swimmer, and was ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... he was making off first of anybody, leaving his friends in the lurch; but Grumpy-growly saw him, and catching him by the ear, made him confess all the mischief he had been about that morning; and as soon as he had finished, Grumpy-growly gave him one good hug, which killed him as ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks, Part First - Being the First Book • Sarah L Barrow
... replied in a sour tone, "Ay! the heat of the blood! You don't seem to realize yet what country we're in, you don't know your countrymen. The friars are rich and united, while we are divided and poor. Yes, try to defend yourself and you'll see how the people will leave you in the lurch." ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... to be off, for to leave me and Gearge in the lurch there, with that ther' young woman, in that ther' pickle!' returned ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... so tightly that the bit would slip back into the horse's mouth.... He moved from the middle of the road, and was conscious that Sheila had moved, too. His breath was coming quickly, and he felt again that sense of shrinking, that curious desire to run away. He saw a wheel of the cart lurch up as it passed over a stone in the road, and instantly panic seized him. "My God," he thought, "if that had been me!... He saw himself flung to the ground by the maddened horse and the wheel passing over his body, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... afternoon that we stood on the deck of a ship bound for France. The voyage had been full of dangers. Submarines had harassed us for days. One night such a lurch came to the ship as threw everybody about in their staterooms. We thought it was a storm until the morning came, and we were informed that it was a sudden lurch to avoid a submarine. The voyage had been full of uneasiness, and now we were coming to the most dangerous ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... and the word jerked out of her, and my arms jerked nearly out of me. In the dark the wagon had hit something that felt like nothing but a boulder in the middle of my decent road. The wagon stopped dead, with an up-ending lurch, and nothing holding it to the horses but the reins. Why on earth they held I don't know. For with one almighty bound my two young horses tried to get away from me,—and they would have, if the reins ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... and when standing sentinel, if apprehending danger, he makes a noise not unlike the crowing of a young cock, oe-eek. The drake does not assist in sitting on the eggs, and the female is left in the lurch in the ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... the street car, swaying, swinging, clutching; hemmed in by frantic, home-going New York, nose to nose, eye to eye, tooth to tooth. Round Sara Juke's slim waist lay Charley Chubb's saving arm, and with each lurch they laughed ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the field-path on the other side of the water, with a magenta parasol studiously lowered in our direction throughout her slow progress, as if that were the magnetic needle and we the fixed pole. Seaton at once lost all nerve in his riding. At the next lurch of the old mare's heels he toppled over into the grass, and I slid off the sleek broad back to join him where he stood, rubbing his shoulder and sourly watching the rather pompous figure till it ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... and the yards came over with a bang. The Wellington gave a lurch, and there was a strange creaking and cracking far below the deck. The Canadian pumped more madly than ever, and shouted to his ...
— The Rover Boys on the Great Lakes • Arthur M. Winfield
... longer, and, if not supplied, I shall be obliged to abandon the work. I have not money enough to pay my sailors, joiners, carpenters, and other mechanics, from week to week, and they will all leave me in the lurch, if I leave them unpaid. I have no resource but to rely on your Majesty. Otherwise the enterprise ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... at it by saying that its length was to enable one end of it to remain at home while the other end went with me, so that neither of us should get lost. This is an allusion to a habit which I and my property have of finding ourselves individually and collectively left in the lurch. After this initial shot, everybody considered himself at liberty to let off his rusty old blunderbuss, and there was a constant peppering. But my veil never lowered its colors nor curtailed its resources. Alas! what ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... Well, Dauphine, you have lurch'd your friends of the better half of the garland, by concealing this part of the plot: but much good do it thee, thou deserv'st it, lad. And, Clerimont, for thy unexpected bringing these two to confession, wear my part of it freely. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... a Jew, To whom the Christian faith is new, Nor is it strange, indeed, If used to wear his hat in church, His manners leave him in the lurch Upon a ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... new Vrom top ta bottom; I tell ye true! Tha Acltar piece wi' Peter war now naw libel Upon tha church, Which booAth athin an, tower an all, athout Look'd like a well-dressed maid in pride about; Tha walls rejAcic'd wi' texts took vrom tha Bible. Bit vor all that, thAc left en in tha lurch; I bag your pardon. I mean, of Acll tha expense thAc ood'n ...
— The Dialect of the West of England Particularly Somersetshire • James Jennings
... play so abruptly, master," said Segrave, whose eyes shone with an unnatural glitter, and whose cheeks were covered with a hectic flush, "ye cannot leave us all in the lurch." ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... A lurch, and he was dangling at arms' length. His toes could find no foothold. To drop even an inch or two was certain death: for he would land on a slope almost sheer; and the impetus must ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... their duty, that only one of them lay down from sea- sickness during the whole voyage. They took in and set sail very cleverly in a short time, and would climb out along a boom, reeve a rope through the block, and come back with the rope in their teeth, though at each lurch the performer was dipped in the sea. The sailor and carpenter, though anxious to do their utmost, had a week's severe illness each, and ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the race. White Fell swirled about and leapt to the right, and Christian, unprepared for so prompt a lurch, found close at his feet a deep pit yawning, and his own impetus past control. But he snatched at her as he bore past, clasping her right arm with his one whole hand, and the two swung together upon ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... at the man on the ground who was trying to rise, and a lurch at the man on the sidewalk who was coming toward him that sent him spinning again, Courtland dived under the clutching hands of the two in the gutter who couldn't quite make it to get upon the curb again. Snatching up the girl like a baby, he fled up the street and around the first corner, and ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... so near the rocks that hands were already stretched to grasp her, when there came one of the great surging waves that sometimes filled the basin. It gave a terrible lurch to the stranded vessel hitherto so erect; the larger rope snapped instantly; the guiding rope was twitched from the hands that held it; and the canvas that held Emilia was caught and swept away like a shred of foam, and lost amid the whiteness ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... wrack, as plainly, ay, as plainly as you may see the stump of that mast; and, I will own it, for it's as natural to love the craft you sail in as it is to love one's self, I will own that my manhood fetched a heavy lee-lurch ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the rat who foresees the sinking of the ship, and tries to escape from it? The baron laughed so as to make Lenore shudder; why, he was not the man to fall resistless into the hands of his adversary; the next day would bring help. Ehrenthal could never leave him in the lurch. ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... abreast and I was standing up to make my spring a shell hit her plump and burst in one of her coal bunkers, sending up a big cloud of mixed smoke and black coal dust. The Commander was beside himself. He waved us off furiously; cracked on full steam and again left us in the lurch. We laughed till the tears ran down our cheeks. Soon, we had reason to be more serious, not to say pensive. The Savage showed a pair of clean heels this time and ran right away to Helles. So there we were, marooned, half a mile out to sea, in a tiny dinghy on ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... for some little time on the bounty of his undoers, who intended to make him one of them; but, not having sufficient address for the profession, he was dismissed and "left in the lurch;" and most of his friends discarding him, he embarked with his last guinea for England. Here he has encountered many difficulties, often been in gaol for debt, and passed through various scenes of life, as valet, footman, thief-taker, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... to a large swell caused by the volcanic disturbances. The roll was extraordinarily severe, heaving the vessel down to her covering-board; and the great hill of water running silent and in darkness through the sea, so that it could neither be viewed nor heard, made the sickening lurch a ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... his joining the leading lady. (This has been done before, but seldom with such a lurch ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... to Tappingham, caught the second rung with his left hand, and, once more hanging head downward, seized the nozzle; then, with his knee hooked tight, as the gushing water described a huge semicircle upon the smoke and hot vapor, he made a mad lurch through the air, while women shrieked; but he landed upright, half-sitting on the lowest rung. He climbed the grappling-ladder swiftly, in spite of the weight and contortions of the unmanageable ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... You can't fool me. Somebody warned that girl against me. The whole thing seems funny to me." (By funny he meant strange.) "You go away from my house for a dinner against my will—leave me in the lurch—and come home at one o'clock in the morning with faces that would sour milk, and now here you are all avoiding me this morning. It just convinces me that if we're going to carry on this work together we've got to have a definite understanding. You've got to stop ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... nothing to say, at least to the successful one. He bent over the dead panther, and examined it with curiosity. Will was loudly lamenting the fact that once again he had found himself left in the lurch. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... moment the wagon began to roll slowly backward. Every one made a dash for it; but it was too late, and in an instant it was careening madly down the hill,—then a wheel struck another stone, the tongue turned, and with a great lurch the whole thing went over, scattering potatoes, turnips, and other vegetables in every direction, and sending barrels and boxes rolling and tumbling down the ...
— By the Roadside • Katherine M. Yates
... its way into the country; and as it is impossible for such an irrational way of conversation to last long, among a people that make any profession of religion or show of modesty, if the country gentlemen get into it they will certainly be left in the lurch. Their good-breeding will come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel of lewd clowns, while they fancy themselves talking together like men of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... at Norfolk Island, who was brought up for a treat, was thrown completely across the cabin by one lurch, when she seemed almost settling down. It was dark. The water in the cabin, which had come through the dead-light, showed a little phosphoric glimmer. "Brother," he said to Bice, "are we dying?" ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... glorious unbelievable thing upon which she had set her heart was hers. She gave a sudden spring from her seat to throw herself in an abandon of gratitude upon her brother. But the leap had an entirely different result. The unsteady fence rail upon which she sat gave a lurch, turned over and Christina and it together went crashing into the raspberry and gooseberry bushes and thistles and stones ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... would discard their loads at most inconvenient places. They were awkward creatures to meet in a sap. One might attempt to pass them on the side where there appeared to be the more room, only to find that, when nearly through, the mule would lurch over and pin you to the wall of the trench with the corner of an ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... strange animal on the other log; but the face behind the tree had not moved nor changed; the eyes looked steadily into his. With a startled movement he plunged off into the underbrush, and but for a swift grip on a branch the sudden lurch would have sent me off backward among the rocks. As he jumped I heard a swift flutter of wings. I followed it timidly, not knowing where the bear was, and in a moment I had the second partridge stowed away comfortably with his ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... lurch the train came to a dead stop and Margaret Earle, hastily gathering up her belongings, hurried down the aisle and got ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... I had been drinking!" finished Diana cheerfully. "Yes, it's a little awkward, but perhaps if I don't lurch or look foolish ..." Then she encountered the astonished eyes of a young footman, who had come in with some small paraphernalia from the motor, and unable to keep her face, turned ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... painted window-panes. If one looks from the square into the church, Dusk and dimness are his gains— Sir Philistine is left in the lurch. The sight, so seen, may well enrage him, Nor any ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... had waited by the car followed him. The door closed, and Bell was in a padded silence that was acutely uncomfortable for a moment. A dome light glowed brightly, however, and he lighted nearly the last of the cigarettes from Asuncion with every appearance of composure as the car started off with a lurch. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... A sudden lurch of the boat almost pitched the old man forward, and the children's screams redoubled, while Mrs. Coomber hastily scrambled out of bed and lighted the lantern that ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... the little pink image lying on the bricks, and with a lurch forward bent to examine it. Miss Terry flattened her nose against the pane eagerly. She expected to see him fall upon the Angel bodily. But no; he righted himself with a whoop ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the upper story of the house, with a roar that shook the whole remaining fabric of the building, crashed to earth in an avalanche of stone and brick and flying slates, whilst the stairway upon which he had been standing gave a sickening lurch, rocked, and fell out sideways into the hall in a smother of dust ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... alongside the lugger, rose, balanced skilfully, seized his moment, and stepped safely across her gunwale. A slight lurch caused him to throw his arms out to regain his poise; the line by which he still held the canoe straightened out its length and slipped from his grasp. In an instant the pirogue was gone. A glimmer of lightning showed her driving off sidewise before the wind. But it revealed another ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... a laugh; As by degrees The poor bells cease, and the Night is exempt, And the stars can chaff The ironic moon at their ease, while the dim old church Is peopled with shadows and sounds and ghosts that lurch In ...
— Amores - Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... the Bawd tempts all she can to Sin, And leaves them in the Lurch, when once they're in: To heap up Gold, which she so much adores, She makes Men Atheists, and makes Women Whores, She lives by Sin; and if she can but gain, She has her End, let those ...
— The London-Bawd: With Her Character and Life - Discovering the Various and Subtle Intrigues of Lewd Women • Anonymous
... where he had left her. "It's no use," he said to himself; "I'm in for it, by Jove. I simply can't leave her in the lurch." ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... evident from the way that a kind of heated physical ill-breeding seemed to fall on everybody in the carriage, and the way they began to lurch against each other and pull packages off the rack and from under the seat with disregard for each other's comfort, that they were approaching the end of the journey; and she began to think of Marion with terror and vindictiveness, and this abstinence ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... very way we did, you and I. They would never have seen me from the opposite corner of the square, or dreamt of going in after me if they hadn't spotted your getting in before them to put me on my guard. The place would have been left exactly as I found it, and those two numskulls as much in the lurch as I left them last week ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... is very different from the inland New England manner; as different as the gentle, slow speech of the shore from the clipped nasals of the hill-country. The lounging native walk is not the heavy plod taught by the furrow, but has the lurch and the sway of the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... top together with a train of wine-sledges, and passed them in the midst of the wild descent. Looking back, I saw two of their horses stumble in the plunge and roll headlong over. Unluckily in one of these somersaults a man was injured. Flung ahead into the snow by the first lurch, the sledge and wine-cask crossed him like a garden-roller. Had his bed not been of snow, he must have been crushed to death; and as it was, he presented a woeful appearance when he afterwards arrived ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... exercise," panted Aunt Nancy, as she reclined for an instant in my lap, where a lurch of the ship had deposited her; "so I'm takin' a little walk." She was still walking when Jessica and I retreated ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... he left his deputy in the lurch, easily made a few acquaintances, and attempted a political career, in which path he had obtained a certain success in Guadaloupe; but he had not taken into account his horrible colonial accent, of which, notwithstanding every effort, he was never able to rid himself. The first time ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Turtle of the Miamis, thought all further resistance useless. No doubt many of them entertained the views that Brant long afterwards openly expressed to Sir John Johnson. "In the first place," said the great Mohawk, "the Indians were engaged in a war to assist the English—then left in the lurch at the peace, to fight alone until they could make peace for themselves. After repeatedly defeating the armies of the United States, so that they sent Commissioners to endeavor to get peace, the Indians were so advised as prevented them from listening to any terms, and hopes ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... after several weeks of happiness in his moving laboratory, he was 'dead to the world' in an experiment. Suddenly the car gave a lurch and jolted the bottle of phosphorus off its shelf. It broke, flamed up, set fire to the floor and endangered the whole train. While the boy was frantically fighting the fire, the Scotch conductor, red-headed and wrathy, rushed in and helped ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... thing, but it was more of a lurch and Colley gasped in surprise. Both jockeys were straining to the utmost but had not drawn their whips. Bradley was the first to raise his arm; Colley saw it and immediately followed suit. The whips came down simultaneously, the result was equal and the horses kept their positions. Again the whips ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... Flemish church, And at a Popish altar kneel? O do not leave me in the lurch,— I'll cry ye ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... uneven sea with a gentle and cradling movement. The ponderous, organic labours of the engine in her bowels occupied the mind, and prepared it for slumber. From time to time a heavier lurch would disturb me as I lay, and recall me to the obscure borders of consciousness; or I heard, as it were through a veil, the clear note of the clapper on the brass and the beautiful sea-cry, 'All's well!' I know nothing, whether for poetry ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was a postscript about the disgraceful conduct of the woman, Mrs. Parsons, who, after receiving the shelter of his house for many years, had made a scene and departed, leaving him in the lurch. His injunction was that under no circumstances should he, Godfrey, have anything more to do with this violent and treacherous female who had made him a pretext of quarrel, and, having learned that he had money, doubtless wished to get something out ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... Metchnikoff in the lurch!" the light skirmisher reproached him. "You don't believe in the instinct of death! And I was just going to begin living to a hundred and fifty and dying voluntarily by leaving off cheese. Now I will take some of ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... shuffling steps in the passage outside, a lurch as of some drunken and unsteady figure, some whispered words, and then a burst of ribald laughter just outside the door, decided him. No: her wedding night should not be here. Keen in his sympathy with women, Hamilton knew how often that night recurs to a woman's thoughts, ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... put the idea into my head, I should be uneasy about my money; but I swear to you that he has it in his own hands, and that he had meant to keep it. He is just the man to abscond with all the money and leave us in the lurch, the scoundrel! He knows quite well that I will not dishonor the name I bear by bringing him into a court of law. His position is strong and weak at the same time. If we drive him to despair, I ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... letters on the green walls. Whenever one of the omnibuses lumbered away on its journey, she followed it with her eyes, as a government clerk at Cayenne or Noumea gazes after the steamer about to return to France; she made the trip with it, knew just where it would stop, at what point it would lurch around a corner, grazing the ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... water was up to the thwarts, the boat gave a lurch, and then rolled over. Frank threw his arm round Bertha, and as the boat capsized clung to it with his ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... men that lie in lurch, See a dire bridge, a little church, Seven ashes and one oak; Three houses standing, and ten down; They say the rector hath a gown, But I saw ne'er ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... upon your honour!—Why, thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise. I, I, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge, and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour! You will not ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... to-day, in French this time. Frau Doktor Dunker is always frightfully excited by his visits, and at the beginning of the lesson she said: "Girls, the Inspector is coming to-day; pull yourselves together; please don't leave me in the lurch." So it must be true what Oswald always says that the inspectors come to inspect the teachers and not the pupils. "At the inspection," Oswald often says, "every pupil has the professor in his hands." Being first, of course I was called upon, and I simply could not ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... Apostle call riches deceitfull riches, and they may truely be compared to deceitfull friends who speake faire, and promise much, but perform nothing, and so leave those in the lurch that most relyed on them: so is it with the wealth, honours, and pleasures of this world, which miserably delude men, and make them put great confidence in them, but when death threatens, and distresse ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... The lurch of the engine as they swung around a curve drew her attention to the track which was sweeping in upon them with dizzy continuity. Out there, ahead of the big black body of the locomotive, the funneled path of the headlight streamed away into the unknown. Far up the track the white ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... the lurch! my dear fellow, do forgive me. To tell the truth I forgot all about you until Valmai went indoors to find her uncle. I waited to see if she would come out again, but she never did. I believe she was waiting until I had gone; ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... simple. He squeezed his eyelids together as if wishing to gather into his eyes and crush to powder the flaming gold of the afternoon light. How was that?—he was trying to recall a verse in Homer. His memory left him in the lurch, too: how does it go where Hector's soul is wailing aloud because it must give up its beloved life? He could not recall it. Poor devil, by the way, right out of the midst of his intoxication. One of the great flies now came flying past Count Hamilcar with softly buzzing wings. He went "brrr" with ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... forces circled at the same altitude, pouring broadside after broadside into each other. Presently a great hole was torn in the hull of one of the immense battle craft from the Zodangan camp; with a lurch she turned completely over, the little figures of her crew plunging, turning and twisting toward the ground a thousand feet below; then with sickening velocity she tore after them, almost completely burying herself in the soft loam of the ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... snow. The ship rose to it as though she had soared on wings, and for a moment rested poised upon the foaming crest as if she had been a great sea-bird. Before we could draw breath a heavy gust struck her, another roller took her unfairly under the weather bow, she gave a toppling lurch, and filled her decks. Captain Allistoun leaped up, and fell; Archie rolled over ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... seem to be concerned with verification in the sense in which the word has usually been employed heretofore. The tendency to take as true what is useful or serviceable has not been abandoned. That Professor James does not really leave his Turk in the lurch becomes clear to any one who will read his book attentively and note his reasons for taking the various pragmatic attitudes which he does take. See, for example, his pragmatic argument for "free-will." The doctrine is simply assumed as a doctrine of ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... said Grushenka, and went forward to dance. The chorus broke into "Ah, my porch, my new porch!" Grushenka flung back her head, half opened her lips, smiled, waved her handkerchief, and suddenly, with a violent lurch, stood still in the middle of ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Wherrys, and I wish they were dead. Why does my father leave us in the lurch like this, making us be poor and insignificant? Why is he not more? If we had a father as he ought to be, he would be Earl William Brangwen, and I should be the Lady Ursula? What right have I to be poor? crawling along the lane like vermin? If I had my rights ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... and on the following Sunday Harold Beecham reappeared at Caddagat and remained from three in the afternoon until nine at night. Uncle Julius and Frank Hawden were absent. The weather had taken a sudden backward lurch into winter again, so we had a fire. Harold sat beside it all the time, and interposed yes and no at the proper intervals in grannie's brisk business conversation, but he never addressed one word to me beyond "Good afternoon, Miss ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... 'There's our last lurch, glory to the breakwater!' exclaimed Father Boyle, as the boat pitched finally outside the harbour fence, where a soft calm swell received them with the greeting of civilised sea-nymphs. 'The captain'll have a quieter passage across. You may spy him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thick head and a sense of repentance? I guess I look a pretty mucky spectacle when I'm drunk. I see myself afterwards, and can imagine the rest. Well, a man in the throes of a woman orgy is just as undignified—even if he doesn't lurch—oh and slobber! I've never heard that your Professor drinks. That doesn't happen to be his hunger, you see. But if he drank to the same extent as he has love-affairs he'd be in an asylum now; and if he were a woman he'd be on the streets! No woman—even ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles |
