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More "Jerk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... though still bellying and lifting as the ship rolled, or headed up or off; whether this rope or 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 down ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... 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 ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... 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 ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... the office yet, and I don't think you will get there very soon. If you were well acquainted with me, you would know that you can not drive me one inch. You're a coward, Pierre," he added, as he released one of his hands by a sudden jerk, and made a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to seize the ruffian by the hair. "You don't give a fellow a fair chance. I wish my dog ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... and said, 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... Nothing wanted in. He knew, then, that Horne and Silverman had not been insane. It wanted in and someday it would get in. When it did it would explode him and jerk out his guts and lungs. Not until that happened, not until the Nothing filled the bubble and enclosed his hideous, turned-inside-out body would ...
— The Nothing Equation • Tom Godwin
... were assembled over it, he drew it up by a very gentle and even motion, so that the fish rose with it, scarcely sensible that they were lifted, till they came very near the surface of the water, and then were brought out in the net by a sudden jerk. By this simple method, he had caught abundance of fish, and indeed they are so plenty in this bay, that the catching them requires neither much ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... aluminum legs Ronald had given him. Two metal arms also hung at the sides of the cabinet. One of these rose stiffly, as though for balance. Corinne's mouth opened as she watched the creature jerk awkwardly across the ...
— Weak on Square Roots • Russell Burton
... determined to "board" us, he was on the point of stepping forward. As soon as the sails of our craft caught the breeze, she darted off again, straightening the painter, and giving the principal's boat such a fierce jerk, that it not only upset Mr. Parasyte, but heeled his boat over so that ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... this dagger and toyed with it. You know her habit 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 ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... He made his usual jerk of the thumb—this time in the direction of the landlord, who just then came back with a well-filled tray. And presently, first removing his cap and saying his grace in a devout fashion, he sat down and began to eat with an evidently ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... she first stood up before the doctor had been quaking with fear lest he discover some deadly disease in her, she was very much hurt indeed when, after thumping her and looking at her lower eyelid inside out, and listening to her breathing, he pushed her away with a little jerk and said: "There's nothing in the world the matter with that child. She's as sound as a nut! What she needs is ..."—he looked for a moment at Aunt Frances's thin, anxious face, with the eyebrows drawn together in a knot of conscientiousness, and then he looked at Aunt Harriet's ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... 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 ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... shoulders together with a slight determined jerk, threw himself back upon the grass, and turning to me, with that tremulous, haggard smile upon his lips which I knew so well, but which had never before struck me with such infinite pathos, "Luckily," he said, "there are other things ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the feathers. Its use is twofold: First, it, has totally prevented all tendency to putrefaction, and thus a sound skin has attached itself to the roots of the feathers. You may take hold of a single one, and from it suspend five times the weight of the bird; you may jerk it, it will still adhere to the akin, and, after repeated trials, often break short. Secondly, as no part of the skin has escaped receiving particles of sublimate contained in the alcohol, there is not a spot exposed to the depredation of insects; for they will never venture ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... 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
... along behind him, and had time to note the box of studs, German shaving tackle and rolls of twist which lay untidily in the window ere Smith kicked the door open, clattered down three wooden steps, and pulled himself up with a jerk, ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... front of her, an ungraceful heap of poufs and frills, tottering painfully on high heels, in tight boots, her figure distorted into the shape of a Japanese sake bottle, every movement a struggle or a jerk, the clothing utterly unsuited to this or any climate, impeding motion, and affecting health, comfort, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... a time, that 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. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... 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 "arms" ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... "The local from Europe appears to have arrived." He gathered in his reins with an almost vicious jerk which brought the bay's head up with a snort ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... strength for the blow, wrought so lustily on the head of Sir Lancelot that he began to reel; which Tarquin observing, by a side blow struck the sword from out his hand, with so sharp and dexterous a jerk that it shivered into a ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... jerk and trip which sometimes would do with an opponent not much skilled; but this primer work got results for neither. Banion evaded and swung into a hip lock, so swift that Woodhull left the ground. But his instinct gave him hold with one hand at his enemy's collar. He spread wide his ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... electricity, etc., yet it is supposed that they may move in response to inward impulses. The sensitive stamens of the barberry, when touched at their base on the inner side, resent the intrusion, by making a sudden jerk forward. Venus's fly-trap, a plant found in North Carolina, is remarkable for the sensitiveness of its leaves; which close suddenly and capture insects which chance to alight upon them. The muscles of the articulates are situated within the solid framework, unlike the vertebrates, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... rose up suddenly before him—a creature, bent, vapid of face, deaf and dumb, frowsy of dress, and a world removed from the thought of a morning bath. It might be picturesque in a way—but it wasn't a way Madison liked. Somehow, he'd have to jerk the old chap out of his rut and get him rigged up a little more becomingly, before the trusting public, simple as they were, were invited down to see the exhibit. Madison's dramatic instinct, which was ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... asked Picard, with a jerk of his head toward Breitmann, who was being carefully lifted ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... a jerk that seemed to my eyes as much an expression of disappointment as anger, and took a reluctant step or two ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... hand—with the olive around his brow. He has applied arithmetic to war, and finds it expensive. He would therefore induce France to disarm, that by reductions at home he may not be compelled to risk what would certainly jerk him out of the premiership—the imposition of new taxes. He may then keep his Corn Laws—he may then securely enjoy his sliding scale. Such are the hopes that dictate the intimation to disarm. It is sweet to prevent war; and, oh! far sweeter still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... Bob Rogeen had gone out of the door before Reedy Jenkins stirred in his chair. Then he gave his head a vicious jerk and swiped the angling wisp of hair back from ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... stated the purpose for which he conceived it was possible that I might prove useful. And all the time that he was speaking, two pairs of eyes contemplated him in silence; until, on the completion of his recital, one of the old women gave a jerk to a thin, dark neck, and the other old dame invited me to take a seat ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... stepped out of the elevator, I behind the others, Kite caught my attention with a low whistle, and in response to a furtive, beckoning, backward jerk of his head, I moved over to the desk. The reading gentlemen in the easy chairs, most consciously unconscious of us, sent blue smoke circles above their papers. Kite leaned far over to get his mustache ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... cracker 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 as to ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... are a bundle of faults together—Jodolet, another Priest, is call'd holy Cormorant [Footnote: Ibid.], only because he eats a Turkey, and drinks a Bottle or two of Malaga for his Breakfast; and the Poet is jerk'd because a gormandizing Romish Priest is call'd a Pimp agen; and the Duke's Steward, Manuel, is no witty pleasant fellow, because he calls the Chaplain, whom I mentioned in the beginning of my Preface, and who is, no doubt, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... one side to the other, and finding her health so steady besides, Turner encouraged her in making gentle and frequent use of her strength, impressing it upon her, however, that everything depended on avoiding everything like a jerk or twist of any sort. I was with them when he said this. She looked up at him with ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... right, for fortune was after all favouring them, more than they dared to have hoped. All at once, as they were watching the glowing light, whose power rose and fell, those on board the gig were conscious of a slight jerk, accompanied by a grating sound. This was followed by a faint rustle from the fore part of the boat. What caused this, for a few moments no one in ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... Still an old crooked sixpence the Conjurer gave him, From 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
... 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 in his stateroom until Palatka ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... of the needed element of surprise? But for the thousands of metres behind us, we know that in black battery pits anxious crews are standing beside their loaded pieces waiting to greet the tick of 2:30 with the jerk of the lanyard. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... psychologically conditioning the reader by using such 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
... On the contrary, he was as red in the face as a crawfish, and resisting struck me. I held his arms fast, but he disengaged himself with so violent a jerk that the yellow facings of his right sleeve ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... 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 ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... for all hands for 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 from ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... With a swift jerk he sculled the flickering boat-head on to a foamless sea that lifted her twenty full feet, only to slide her into a glassy pit beyond. But this mountain-climbing did not interrupt blue-jersey's talk. "Fine good job, I say, that I catch you. Eh, wha-at? ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... to rise rapidly. Just how rapidly, he was unable to tell. There were no indicators at all on the elevator, and the opaque doors made it impossible to see floors flit by. But his ears rang with the speed, and when the car finally stopped, it did so with a slight jerk that threw Forrester, stiff and worried, off balance. He almost fell out of the car as the door opened, and clutched ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... 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 of ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... me home after the slaughter, orders me a diet of chicken breast, peche Melba and champagne, or warns my family that I am on no account to be disturbed until lunch. No, they jerk your jaw off its hinges and dump your remains on the doorstep for the L.C.C. rubbish ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... 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 ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... already put his foot down hard on something that, whatever it might be, was never meant to be walked on, but he made no mention of the fact. The car leaped forward, swung to the right, stopped with a jerk six inches from a lamp-post, backed, straightened out and careened along to the fire house. All was excitement there. Men were rushing into the building and rushing out again, agitatedly donning rubber coats and hats. ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... 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 legs bent ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... want her," 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
... 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 ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... down below, more than you'm tawld," said the old man with a significant wink and a jerk of his head, "but Jerrem he let me into it this ebenin' when he rinned up to see me for a bit. Seems one o' they sodger-chaps is carr'in' on with Eve, and Jerrem's settin' her on to rig un up so that her'll get un not to see what 'tain't maned for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... turnkey tie a thief's hands With a cordial tug and jerk; Nimbly, quoth he, a man's fingers move When his heart is in ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... percussion caps; and still beyond them, he saw the bright and determined eye that was taking sight along the barrels. All this he took in at a glance, and, without word or comment, he made a quick dodge of his head, jumped to one side, made a dash for his horse, and, untying the bridle with a jerk, he mounted and galloped out of the open gate, turning as he did so to find himself still covered by the muzzles of that gun. When he had nearly reached the outer gate and felt himself out of range, he turned in his saddle, and looking back at ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... and General Harney, they took a turn together, and that was the prettiest contest of the day. First the judge'd beat the general, and then the general'd put in a big effort and give it to the judge, and the two'd be about even for a while, and all of a sudden the general would give a kinder jerk or two and leave the judge just nowhere, and by the time the general passed the third quarter the judge keeled over against the fence and gave in. They say he broke his leg, but I don't know if that's so or not. Anyway he was used ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... gentleman, standing behind Haward, gave an impatient jerk of his body and said something beneath his breath. Haward looked over his shoulder. "Ha, Mr. Le Neve! I did not know you were there. I had the pleasure of hearing you read at Williamsburgh last Sunday afternoon,—though this is your ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... masterpiece. He feels 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 by numberless minute tendrils as it were, which, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... more for this," he stated as she tried to jerk loose and failed, "but that yelping windmill is your fond guardian, and he probably thinks I am trying to ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... interfere, the fellow had unbuckled Mary's doublet at the throat, and with a jerk, had torn it half off, carrying away the sleeve and exposing Mary's shoulder, almost throwing her ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... the greatest gentleness, till the wet bucket appeared about two yards below them, like a dead friend come to earth again. Three or four hands were stretched out, then jerk went the rope, whizz went the wheel, the two foremost haulers fell backward, the beating of a falling body was heard, receding down the sides of the well, and a thunderous uproar arose at the bottom. The ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... village in Michigan. His companion gave another glance at the picture, and laid it upon the arm of the chair. The young man rescued it from her indifference with a little irritable jerk. She was gazing unconsciously ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... jelly. He was 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 exclaim, ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... the hook, with a jerk that sent Charlie backwards; it had been entangled in a large piece of seaweed, that gave way suddenly just as he got it to the surface. "It's very strange," he said, as he examined the hook minutely, longing to ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... 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 ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... chub rose from the water and landed on the bank beside her. She gave a subdued squeal of joy, but the boy's face was calm as a star. Minnows like that were all right for a girl to catch and even for him to eat, but he was after game for a man. A moment later he heard another jerk and another fish was flopping on the bank, and this time she made no sound, but only flashed her triumphant eyes upon him. At the third fish, she turned her eyes for approval—and got none; and at the fourth, she did not look up at all, for he was ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... glad indeed, went immediately to his bench to get the piece of wood which had frightened him so much. But as he was about to give it to his friend, with a violent jerk it slipped out of his hands and hit against ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... 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 horse's heels, and next day he reached ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... very fond of babies, but now she could think of nothing but her disappointment, and only an impatient jerk of her shoulders showed that ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... part of the West Point "setting up" drill, it may be regarded as considered on good authority to be efficacious in producing an erect carriage. Stand as upright as you can, your arms against your side, the forearm at right angles, as before, and jerk your elbows ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... had not yet been withdrawn. Harvey gave it a jerk, followed by a spiteful push that threw the door wide open. Disappointment awaited him. Neither Hugh nor Tom was there, but Jack, looking like a twin brother of Tom, was in the act of lighting the pipe that his relative had probably left for his use. He was alone, ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... miss'd it, as I intended they should; but I flung both arms out and caught it, bringing myself up with a jerk. While yet I hung clawing, I heard a footstep coming through the ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... coming into a station does not draw up with a jerk, but gradually slows down. So with us; we cannot come out of our rushing lives all in a moment into the quiet of God's presence; we ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... took it? No, indeed! He gave it one sniff from his smooth, brown nostrils. Then he turned his head away with a jerk so sudden that he knocked the glass, beer and all, upon the pavement. He looked at his master as if to say, "Don't insult me ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... no paths, but the way was quite open and clear, and they were drawing near to the dwelling when Woot the Wanderer, who was then in the lead of the little party, halted with such an abrupt jerk that he stumbled over backward and lay flat on his back in the meadow. The Scarecrow stopped to ...
— The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... and infirm, on this came out. I took it for granted, however, that he who appeared to have hardly sufficient strength to support himself could not help me. This poor looking, feeble old man, however, took hold of me with one arm, and lifted me with a single jerk upon the horse so quick and so alertly that it ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... to unreel the rope and let him down. Down, down, he went expecting every moment to feel the fierce heat about him. He seemed to be half way down when the reel ceased to work and he hung there suspended in mid air awaiting an awful death. He gave a despairing jerk when down he went within three feet of the pavement with a sudden stop that took his breath away. A crowd of people began to ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... Enna seized the ribbon with a jerk that threw Elsie also into the water, and they were struggling there together, both in imminent ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... target, and was peppering away at it with a revolver; apparently quite satisfied if he succeeded in hitting the same panel twice running, at twelve paces. Guessing at the nonsense that was in his head, I sauntered up to him and watched his practice for a while. He pulled the trigger with a jerk that threw the muzzle up half an inch every time he fired, else I don't believe he would have hit the board at all. But he held his breath before-hand, till he was red in the face, because he had heard that, in firing at a mark, pistol-shooters did not even breathe, to avoid the influence ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald
... you're right," Boyd said. He yawned, which Malone thought was overacting a trifle. Brubitsch saw the yawn, and one hand came up to jerk at ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... complicated thoughts, that her father wished to speak to her. He made her take a chair by him; he stirred the fire, snuffed the candles, and sighed once or twice before he could make up his mind to say—and it came out with a jerk after all—'Margaret! I am going ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... hired a man to drive me to the railway station. I was afraid to trust the trunk out of my sight, but I had to let the baggage man take it, but I charged him to be particular with it, telling him that it was full of iron ore. He gave it a jerk and declared that it must be full of lead. When I had come into that community I fancied that the train was on wings, but now it appeared to be crawling. Night came and I was afraid that robbers might assail the ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... a game of jerk-straws, and Mr. Whittier has other and better claims on us than as a stylist. There is true fire in the heart of the man, and his eye is the eye of a poet. A more juicy soil might have made him a Burns or a Beranger ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... white to his lips. He stood perfectly motionless till the anguished sobbing goaded him beyond endurance. Then he flung round with a jerk. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... back nor forwards, nor so much as put down his head to browse. There he stood, poor rogue, part puzzled, part angry, part, I believe, amused. He had not given up hope, and dully revolved the problem in his head, giving ever and again another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still remained unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature took hold upon me. I went up, and, not without some trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the part of Neddy, got him forced backward ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... gave Michel my hand for a moment, and, purposely avoiding meeting his eyes, spoke a last kind word to the old man. After acknowledging the farewells of the other servants, who stood in line trying to look joyous, I started my horse with a little jerk of the rein, and was borne swiftly through the porte, over the bridge, and out into the world. Behind me was the home of my fathers and my childhood; before me was Paris. It was a fine, bracing winter morning, and I was twenty-one. A good horse was under me, a sword was at my side, ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and with a jerk of his head called Pierre's attention to Duthil, who, feverish, but nevertheless smiling, stood in a group which had just collected around the two ministers. "There! do you see that young man yonder, that dark handsome fellow ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... thought the way I do, I am sure," persisted Adnah. The remark brought Aunt Matilda out of the past with a jerk. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... detect that the vapor was a kind of luminous "cheese cloth." He did not desire to expose this "priest," but he desired to have the "priest" know that some one had discovered him. My friend accordingly took hold of the gauze and gave it a very slight downward jerk. He then immediately returned quietly ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... Anne, smiling from sheer habit. "Mind you come." She got her face straight again with a jerk and turned to the solemn old gentleman on her ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... that. I had been sitting there all the afternoon and had caught literally nothing - except a few dozen dace and a score of jack; and I was just about giving it up as a bad job when I suddenly felt a rather smart pull at the line. I thought it was another little one, and I went to jerk it up. Hang me, if I could move the rod! It took me half-an-hour - half-an-hour, sir! - to land that fish; and every moment I thought the line was going to snap! I reached him at last, and what do you think it was? A sturgeon! a forty pound sturgeon! taken on a line, sir! Yes, ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... faddly-duds." And Azalea whisked off a little lace stand-cover, swept up an armful of lace pillows, and was about to jerk off the lace bedspread, ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... lapped over, and belted with a leathern girdle, held together with a buckle. The cape is large, and usually fringed with different colored cloth from that of the body. The bosom of this dress sometimes serves as a wallet for a "chunk" of bread, jerk or smoke-dried venison, and other articles. It is made either of dressed deer skins, linsey, coarse linen, or cotton. The shirt, waistcoat and pantaloons are of similar articles and of the customary form. Wrappers of cloth ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... obligations with a better grace than my father.—And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest welcome, which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to fling down money: but as soon as ever he enter'd upon the odd fifty—he generally gave a loud Hem! rubb'd the side of his nose leisurely with the flat part of his fore finger—inserted his hand cautiously betwixt ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... 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. ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... ran out of the gate and up the street to the one fine house of which the street boasted. She stole up to the door and fastened the string of the balloon to the door bell, gave the bell a jerk and fled. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the brakes went on with a jerk, and a tall crane loomed up vaguely in front. All four men sprang to the ground, and while the chauffeur busied himself with the big lamps Curtis and Devar ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... 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 ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... old Battle began to prick up his ears. Two mischievous urchins now tied a small air balloon to old Battle's tail, while another would every few minutes switch his gambrels with a twig of thorn, and so make him jerk his hinder legs as nearly to throw the indomitable major over his head. Duncan, the pig, was led by a boy at some distance, and performed his part in the comical programme by keeping up a medley of discordant squeals. And what with ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... could sleep now—" he spoke dreamily; "right in that fence corner. Doesn't it look soft and white?—like a feather bed with lovely clean sheets. The fence rails make it look like my old crib at home—" He pulled himself together with a jerk. "You take care of yourself, Richard! I'm all right. Mr. Rat and I were soldiers before the war broke out!" He was gone, stumbling stiffly across to the road, running stiffly to overtake his company. His brother looked after him with troubled eyes, then with a sigh picked up the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... 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 ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... 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
... back, and while feeling my way through the gloom the earth seemed to vanish under my feet, and I plunged headlong into a viewless gulf—not through empty space, however, but a wet, tangled mass which beat against my face, until at last there was a jerk which shook me ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for him, and when he opened it for himself, he found a slender, middle-aged man with a pleasant face and brilliant eyes confronting him. His supercilious manner vanished instantly, and the military cap he had already donned came off with a jerk. ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... tugged away at it all day, but was finally obliged to content herself with a few detached portions. The fluttering stings were an eyesore to her ever after, and, passing and repassing, she would give them a spiteful jerk, as much to say, "There is that confounded yarn that gave me ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... a second time the man gave a jerk of it, conveying an idea of assent, but it was the assent of contempt far more ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... caught hold of a silver chain, and pulling it out with a jerk, he saw a silver key attached to it. "Oh, what is that?" he asked eagerly. "What does that ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Field Service Note-books. There was a pause of several seconds. The Major seemed to be at a loss quite how to begin. "There's a lot that I needn't mention, but this is what concerns this Company," he said with a jerk. "When we reach" (here he mentioned a name which the Subaltern has long since forgotten) "we have to deploy to the left, and search the village of Harmigne to drive the enemy from it, and ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... referring 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 ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... lowered lashes, and judged that it was time for her to remove herself. She had known Beatrix from their childhood, and this was the first time she had seen her jarred from her self-possession. She fastened the last hook with a jerk. Then she rose and went to ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... stood a small man with a very high head, a bristle of red hair all round the fringe of it, and a bald, shining scalp which shot out from among it like a mountain-peak from fir-trees. He writhed his hands together as he stood, and his features were in a perpetual jerk, now smiling, now scowling, but never for an instant in repose. Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and a too visible line of yellow and irregular teeth, which he strove feebly to conceal by constantly passing his hand over the lower part of his face. In spite ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... . The Blue Domino turned her head with a jerk; and instantly I felt a shiver run through her body. For a moment she lost step. I was filled with wonder. In what manner could the ten of hearts disturb her? I made up my mind to seek out the noble Roman and learn just how much he knew ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... the pony was far from idle. He was plunging like a ship in a gale, cracking the whip with Phil Forrest until it seemed as if every bone in the lad's body would be broken. He could hear his own neck snap with every jerk. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... reasoned as a townsman, and Rudolf Rassendyll had the quick ear of a man bred in the country and trained to the woodland. All at once there was a jerk of his head; I know so well the motion which marked awakened attention in him. He did not pause nor break his stride: to do either would have been to betray his suspicions to his follower; but he crossed the road to the opposite side to that where No. 19 was ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... low and lower, till his lips almost rested upon hers. But at this point something checked his despicable impulse—perhaps the purity of her face, or merely its unresisting stillness. Perhaps he chose to defer the pleasure till a more acceptable moment. He straightened himself with a jerk; and hastening into the hall, ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... flew open and there stood Rosalie, crying, struggling, and refusing to move, while the baron tried to push her in. At last he gave her a sudden shake, and threw her into the room with a jerk, and she stood in the middle of the floor, with her face in her hands, sobbing violently. Jeanne started up as white as a sheet, and her heart could be seen beating under her thin nightdress. It was some time before she could speak, but at last ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... By a jerk of the head, the non-com passed the buck to a commissioned officer, who relayed it up the line to Sawtelle, who said, "Hilton, nobody can run a Mayfield without months of training. They'll wreck it and it'll cost you ... but I'm getting curious myself. Enough so ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... a short time before she felt a jerk at the line. Her arms straightened out, and she pressed her lips tightly together. ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... Cavaillon; and, believing the moment favorable, he suddenly attempted to jerk his arm from under Fanferlot's, ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... see if he's willin' to say anyting to-night.' And down he set into a chair. Well, you'd have died! In a bit his head and legs begun to jerk like he had St. Vitus dance, and then he straightened out, stiff as a broomstick. It was the silliest thing ever I seen. I felt real sorry for Doc, he was so dead ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... at the bosses. But f'r Gawd's sake, look at what it means to me! Anny minute I'm on the job I'd be lookin' to see some bull with a star on 'im holdin' a gun on me; and after that, it's this f'r mine"—with a jerk of the head and a pantomimic gesture simulating the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... marquise herself showed Madame Brunei what method to take: the operating lady was to sit on the bed, and while the others helped to hold up the marquise, was to seize the blade with both hands, and pressing her—knees against the patient's back, to pull violently and with a great jerk. This plan at last succeeded, and the marquise was able to get to bed; it was nine in the evening, and this horrible tragedy had been going on for nearly ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the 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
... who always did the most unexpected things in the world, locked her oars across the boat and sat up in her seat with a jerk that ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... of them lying right against one, having crept under the blankets to keep warm, I suppose, as the nights were quite cool. Upon getting up in the morning we would take our blankets by one end and give a jerk, and the lizards would roll out like so ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... the edge of the world. Then the noises returned, for a moment the fog lifted showing houses, rising like rocks from the sea sheer about them on every side, then darkness again and the cab stopped with a jerk. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... himself, his snore rumbled on through the church, his head drooped lower, until with a jerk, he awakened himself. He sighed religiously, patted his foot upon the floor, rubbed his hands together, and looked complacently over the aggrieved congregation. Old ladies moaned and old men shivered, but the pastor did ...
— The Strength of Gideon and Other Stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... 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 round impatiently, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... Modern Time, so motherly of monstrous litters of "Gorgon and Hydra and Chimaeras dire"; you will understand what I mean when you consider the quite recent date of, say, the introduction of anaesthetics or antiseptics, the discovery of the knee-jerk, bacteriology, or even of such a doctrine as the circulation of the blood. We are at this very time, if I mistake not, on the verge of new insights which will enable man to laugh at disease—laugh at it in the sense of over-ruling its natural tendency to produce death, ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... any extent. To lengthen 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 ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... speak. He raised himself on his elbow, and with a jerk of the wrist threw something towards Kosmaroff. It was an ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... came out with a jerk, after a little pause which proved what it cost Warburton to speak them. To save his countenance, he assumed an unnatural grimness of feature, staring Franks resolutely in the face. And the result was the artist's utter subjugation; ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... 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, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... 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
... before I woke Owen up. Oh, it was a sure enough jerk, all right! What'll we do about ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... to sit up with me until he arrived. One o'clock came, but no Baby. Two o'clock, three o'clock, passed. It was almost four when there was a wild clatter of horses' hoofs outside, and with a jerk a wagon stopped at the door. In an instant I had opened it, and confronted a stranger. Almost at the same moment, the horses attempted to run away with ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... allowing the handkerchief 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 with his ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... trick!' said Cuningham, coming out jauntily, his hands in his trousers pockets; then, with a jerk of the head towards the studio, and a lowered voice, 'He's ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... water, the movement may be easily examined. Lightly breathing upon them will cause the elaters to contract, but in a moment, as soon as the moisture of the breath has evaporated, they will uncoil with a quick jerk, causing the spores to ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... he felt a jerk. There was a lively struggle for fully a minute, and then Jerry landed his catch—a rock bass, all of a pound ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... hospital wagon reached the procession the band struck up and the horse was frightened and jumped. It gave the wagon just enough of a jerk to throw Otto out. He was tossed into the little space between the ponies and the buffalo. The beast's great ...
— Sonny Boy • Sophie Swett
... In the event of a cross compound beginning to jerk badly and cylinder head pops in low-pressure cylinder popping, where would you look ...
— The Traveling Engineers' Association - To Improve The Locomotive Engine Service of American Railroads • Anonymous
... seen the inner readings of that lady yonder," Kelson replied, indicating with a jerk of his finger a fashionably dressed woman walking towards them on the other side of the road. "The deuce knows how it all comes to me, but I know everything about her, just the same as I did with the girl in the dive—though I've never seen her ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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 of the brief journey. The boys held on tight to prevent being thrown from ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... 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 ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... waiting man aside by a sudden jerk of her brawnie arm, she proceeded calmly forward to a door, which she intended to open; but the servant was at her heels, and, laying hold of her plaid, was in the act of hauling her back, when the Warden himself came out, and asked the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... and at the same time felt about with his legs until he had them well braced against a lower tentacle. He pushed gently, and came a few inches nearer the glass; a little more. Then, with a quick, strong jerk of his body he crashed the steel frame of his helmet square against the cuttlefish's sheathing ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... crosses the room to the courtiers, and is received with marked deference, each courtier making him a profound bow or curtsey before withdrawing through the central doors. He returns each obeisance with a nervous jerk, and turns away from it, only to find another courtier bowing at the other side. The process finally reduced him to distraction, as he bumps into one in the act of bowing to another and then has to bow his apologies. But at last they are all ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... 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 from the "Beagle", when all were suffering from ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... 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 humbugs and imposters, he ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... to do 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 take ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... 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 to ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... they mos' 'bout to die an' ain't nobody in the fiel' fer to pick the cotton an' he can't git no doctor an' he ain't got but jest that one pill; so he tie that pill to a string an' let the bigges' chile swaller it an' draw it back up an' let the nex' chile swaller it an' jerk it back up an' let the nex, Chile swaller it an' jerk it back up an' let the nex' Chile swaller it an' jerk it back up an' let ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... galloping through the gate, pulled the bridle with a sudden jerk, and the next moment was on the paving; then with one bound he reached the terrace, and had me in his strong arms. With wild eagerness he showed me into the castle and at the same time kept talking and questioning me without ceasing. Then he thrust me into my room and declared that he gave ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... a "Yo! heave ho!" and a jerk, until the "belay" sung out by the mate signifies that the work is done. Then, there is the scrambling on the deck when the wind changes quarter, and the yards want squaring as the wind blows more aft. Such are among the interesting ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... hands joyfully, exclaiming so loudly that Chrysilla's head sprang up with a jerk. "It could not help being so! O Hermon! how anxious I have been! Now, I thought, when this horrible woman represented the transformation into the spider with such repulsive accuracy, Hermon will believe that this is the true, and therefore the right, ideal; ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Christmas Angel and looked earnestly at it. Could it be that tears were glistening in her eyes? Certainly not! With a sudden sniff and jerk of the shoulders she leaned forward, holding the Angel towards the fire. This should follow the other useless toys. But something seemed to stay her hand. She drew back, hesitated, then rose to ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown
... a fish!" repeated Preston, as a jerk of Daisy's line threw it out high and dry on the shore "and what's more, it's a splendid one. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Under the quick jerk of his knees the big box of letters and papers and things brimmed over in rustling froth across the whole surface of the table. Just for a second the muscles in his throat tightened a trifle. Then, suddenly he burst out laughing—wildly, ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... with a curious whistling crackling noise, tightening against the fisherman's foot; and the knot would have jumped off but for his precaution. Then it stopped with a jerk, and ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... of the tumult. When the afflicted "grandfather" was being led away from the scene, Savanukah loitered to ask, with well-couched phrase and the show of deep reverence, what had been the tenor of the discourse, and it was with a galvanic jerk that the old man appeared ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... just 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 ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... wholesome influence, by the way, is doing as much perhaps for music in America as American music is, amusingly says: "If indeed the land of Lincoln and Emerson has degenerated until nothing remains of it but a 'jerk and rattle,' then we, at least, are free to repudiate this false patriotism of 'my Country right or wrong,' to insist that better than bad music is no music, and to let our beloved art subside finally under the clangor of the subway gongs and automobile horns, dead, but not dishonored." And ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... that her right arm gave a jerk in order to make the sign of the cross; but she corrected herself, loudly smacked the extended hand, and stepped aside. Following her Zoe, Henrietta, Vanda and others stepped up also. Tamara alone continued to stand near the wall with her back to the mirror; ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... of the gate and up the street to the one fine house of which the street boasted. She stole up to the door and fastened the string of the balloon to the door bell, gave the bell a jerk and fled. ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... angular shoulders with a jerk. "Yesterday!" she almost screamed. "Well! I can tell you that Philura Rice told me that she was engaged to be married ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... minutes she wasn't going to like it—the stairs were so very high up with holes in each step to see down to the ground; and the train dashed to the platform with such a roar and bustle and people crowded on and jerk! the train rushed off. But when she settled down in the seat, comfortingly near her mother, and looked out over the roofs of houses and stores, and down long streets, one after another, she found she wasn't a bit afraid and that she liked it very much. She liked watching for ...
— Mary Jane's City Home • Clara Ingram Judson
... in places deep-rutted; the grinding and crunching of the wheels, the only sound breaking the stillness of the evening, grew monotonous; and the constant heavy jolting was trying. Suddenly there was a cry from the post-boys, and the coach came to a standstill with a jerk. ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... only upon his transportation to a foreign battlefield, suddenly brought the war from three thousand miles away to his very door. But his next feeling was one of self-contempt, and squaring his shoulders with a jerk he said: ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... said, with a backward jerk of his head, "but they are. I'm told it's a delicious kind of madness worth all your sanity. Do not let us disturb them. Come and sit down beside me until the time is up," he glanced at his watch; "they have ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... metrical cheek it is in this way: To the English ear the heroic line is the unit of metre, and when two lines of various length undesignedly add together to form a heroic line, they have to be separated with something of a jerk. And this adding—as, for instance, of a line of four syllables preceding or following one of six—occurs now and then, and even in such a masterly measure of music as A Farewell. It is as when a sail suddenly flaps windless in the fetching about of a boat. In The Angel in the House, and ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... little jerk within her. She stood motionless for a space. Then, with a little quivering smile, she very, very slowly gave ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... too wide or sweeping, but sharp, short motions, finished with a jerk or quick catch. The hands should, as far as possible, be kept in the line of attack. Parries against BUTT STRIKE are made by quickly moving the guard so as to cover the ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... trot, like an animal disillusioned with life. Soon they cleared the churchtown and entered the darkness of the moors. A long and tiring day disposed Barrant to slumber. He had begun to nod sleepily when the wagonette stopped with a jerk which shook him into wakefulness. He was able to make out that they had reached the highest elevation of the moors—the cross-roads from where Inspector Dawfield had shown him Flint House in the distance that afternoon. He could just discern the outlines of the wayside cross and ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... a significant wink accompanied by an upward jerk of a pudgy thumb, "the castle, messieurs, is but two miles further along this road. Perhaps, if milords have friends there, they ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... car forward, temper in every crisp movement, his gaze travelling over the empty tiers of seats, to fall at last upon Gerard and there rest. With a jerk he jammed down the brake and leaned from the machine. Thick fair hair lay across his boyish forehead above level dark brows, his candid dark-blue eyes went direct to their goal: the metal badge fastened to Gerard's lapel and just visible under the ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 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 ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... answer. He was finding that motherly face, that pleasant voice, curiously vivid still. This annoyed him, and he forced himself back with a jerk to the oddity of events. "A queer business, my Benjamin," he said. "Who ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... up with a jerk. He knew Sedleigh by name—one of those schools with about a hundred fellows which you never hear of except when they send up their gymnasium pair to Aldershot, or their Eight to Bisley. Mike's outlook on life was that of a cricketer, ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... and clumsily to his feet, yawned wearily and stretched his arms above his head. Then with one quick jerk he burst the rope and went into "Red" like a thunderbolt. Before that crashing impact of bone and muscle that had triumphed on many a football field, the startled outlaw hit the floor with a tremendous thump, while Bert's sinewy hands tightened ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... navigator had lost control; 500 feet below were the roofs of the Trocadero Hotels; he had to decide which was the least dangerous; there was but a moment to think. Santos-Dumont, death staring him in the face, chose the roofs. A swift jerk of a cord, and a big slit was made in the balloon. Instantly man, motor, gas-bag, and keel went tumbling down straight into the court of the hotels. The great balloon burst with a noise like an explosion, and the man was lost in a confusion of yellow-silk ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... fade away when I got mine, and they'd jump at th' chance to get back at the bosses. But f'r Gawd's sake, look at what it means to me! Anny minute I'm on the job I'd be lookin' to see some bull with a star on 'im holdin' a gun on me; and after that, it's this f'r mine"—with a jerk of the head and a pantomimic gesture simulating the hangman's ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... my lads, to make a swift run and a strong jerk, at your first pull," said Winchester, in a low voice, as he passed down the line. "Rapidity is ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the point of their index fingers on the table within the loop. The one holding the stick, as a fish pole says, "Your house" or "My house". If he says "My house", he jerks the stick endeavoring to capture the forefinger of any of the players. He does not jerk the stick when he says "Your house". He endeavors to fool the others by saying abruptly, "Your house", several times before saying "My house" and pulling the string. The player avoiding being caught ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... were for an instant lifted into the air. Immediately all the joyful shrieking and screaming which had gone on before, became as essential silence compared to the delighted uproar which now rose from the sleigh. The jerk had thrown most of the young people over backward into each other's arms and laps, where, in a writhing, promiscuous mass, they roared and squealed out their joy in the joke, and made ineffectual and not very determined efforts to extricate ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... his tender infancy, and how hard it was crammed with legends, hymns, and allegories, with so many scruples bound down on his poor little conscience, that no wonder, when the time of expansion came, the whole concern should give way with a jerk.' ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... on one leg, and he stopped rocking—if you can call throwing yourself back on the hind-legs of a common wooden chair, and then coming down on the fore-legs with a bounce and a bang, rocking—the youngest Van Johnson with such a jerk that her eyes and mouth flew open, and out of the latter came a tremendous yell. "Dar now," said Christopher Columbus, "yo's done gone an' woked dis yere Primrose Ann, an' I's bin hours an' hours an' hours an' hours gittin her asleep. ...
— Harper's Young People, December 30, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the brake on the line tightened, the boat began to tear through the water, still requiring the paying out of the rope. For an instant it slackened and the winch reeled in a little line. There was a sudden jerk and then the line fell slack. Working like demons, the men made the winch handles fairly fly as the line came in, and within another minute the whale spouted, blowing strongly and sounding again. He ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... evenings since, as a gentleman was walking up Broadway, and just as he was crossing the side-walk at the junction of White-street, his feet suddenly slipped from under him, his hat flew forward with the involuntary jerk, and he measured his length on the side-walk, striking his bare head on the hard ice, till all rang again. At the instant it chanced that a lady and gentleman were just emerging from White-street into ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... thoroughly rural in his taste for sensation, the baggage-master leaped to the bottom step of the nearest car and spoke to a brakeman. The brakeman glanced at the first citizen with respect. There was a hissing noise and a jerk. When the train rumbled to a stop again under the startled eyes of Lindon, Abner Sawyer was already striding up the aisle. With the intelligent eyes of the young minister upon him, he snatched Jimsy roughly from the seat, carried him down the aisle—down ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... later another car, with a soft purring engine came up to the Crossroads from Economy, slowed just a fraction as it crossed the Highway, the driver looking keenly at the barricade, then stopping his car with a sudden jerk and swinging out. He turned a pocket flash on the big card board Billy had erected, its daubed letters still wet and blurring into the pasteboard. He looked a bit quizzical over the statement, "RODE FLOODED, BRIGE ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... off here long enough to deliver several orders—all wrong. Desire waited quietly and presently he finished with a jerk. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... and excited perception, saw the captain of the steamer in the water, a few feet away, and swam to him. He found him conscious but unable to swim, the jerk from the breeches-buoy having twisted a ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... time the cab had driven up the sharp incline, and under the high pointed archway of St. Pancras terminus, and now drew up with a jerk against the steps ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... destruction. In this hurricane almost all our sails were split, and great part of our standing rigging broken; and, about eight in the evening, a mountainous overgrown sea took us upon our starboard quarter, and gave us so prodigious a shock that several of our shrouds broke with the jerk, by which our masts were greatly endangered. Our ballast and stores, too, were so strangely shifted that the ship heeled afterwards two streaks to port. Indeed, it was a most tremendous blow, and we were thrown into the utmost ...
— Anson's Voyage Round the World - The Text Reduced • Richard Walter
... When near the Custom House I saw a two-decker car just leaving. A lady was mounting the steps to gain a seat on the top. I ran and caught the car, following the lady up the steps. At the turn of the road the driver gave the horses the whip, they jumped forward, the sudden jerk caused the lady to lose her balance and her grip of the hand-rail. She sat on the hat on my head. The article, a hard felt, was pressed down with her weight. The sides opened up, and the rim fell down and became fast ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... 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 her expense ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... of this gloomy retrospect the coupe stopped with a jerk before his own house. The door was quickly opened by a servant, who appeared to ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... to come here on business and shan't be 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
... his muscles stiffened and relaxed—he was no longer conscious. A few more convulsive quivers, as a serpent might writhe and jerk, then he hung, a limp dead thing, in my hands. My outstretched arms seemed made as a gibbet, feeling no fatigue, so lightly did they sustain him. Cords of brass could be no more tense than mine; his weight was as ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Strong!" bawled the other, when he found he could not easily jerk away. "It'll be the worse for you ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... strange here!" said John Splendid, "let's out and see." He put round his rapier more on the groin, and gave a jerk at the narrow belt creasing his fair-day crimson vest For me I had only the dirk to speak of, for the sgian dubh at my leg was a silver toy, and Tearlach, being a burgh man, had no arm at all. He lay ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... were borne to His nostrils? Their vague admiration of Pinchas changed into definite distrust. "Epikouros, Epikouros, Meshumad" resounded from all sides. The poet looked wonderingly about him, failing to grasp the situation. Simon Wolf saw his opportunity. With an angry jerk he knocked the glowing cigar from between the poet's teeth. There was a yell of ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... dwellings of shopkeepers on the outskirts of the town flashed past them, little dwellings with shabby wooden roofs, from which faint patches of light could be seen through crooked little windows; the wheels soon rattled over the town bridge, paved with cobble stones; the carriage gave a jerk, rocked from side to side, and swaying with every jolt, rolled past the stupid two-storied stone houses, with imposing frontals, inhabited by merchants, past the church, ornamented with pillars, past the shops.... It was Saturday night and the streets were already ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... months had been passed at Mon Reve, Lady Susan's villa at Montricheux, and with a jerk Ann emerged from her train of retrospective thought to the realisation that her lines had really fallen in very pleasant ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... foot. Fittie-lan', the near horse of the hind-most pair in the plough. Flae, a flea. Flaffin, flapping. Flainin, flannen, flannel. Flang, flung. Flee, to fly. Fleech, wheedle. Fleesh, fleece. Fleg, scare, blow, jerk. Fleth'rin, flattering. Flewit, a sharp lash. Fley, to scare. Flichterin, fluttering. Flinders, shreds, broken pieces. Flinging, kicking out in dancing; capering. Flingin-tree, a piece of timber hung by way ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... almost breathless, but he managed to jerk out: "You must go back; she's ... crying dreadful. You must go back. Go quick; don't wait ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... a man tilt a heavy box over on its side by placing a crowbar under it, then lifting up the crowbar. Well, the tiger acts somewhat like that. While still holding the prey by its throat in his jaws, he gives a sudden jerk upward with his head. In that way the prey loses its balance and topples over on its side, just ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... the chief let go of the rail with one hand and seized the staff of the implement. One powerful jerk, and he wrenched the boathook from the white man's grasp. The latter fell sprawling into the bottom of the boat. With a display of muscle-power at which Ruth could not but marvel, Totantora raised himself over the gunwale of the boat and ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... a day of misfortunes. The weather was thick and lowering; the wind rapidly increasing; to half a gale, and the little vessel straining heavily at her anchor. In heaving up, a sudden jerk broke it short off at the shank, the metal about the broken part proving to have been very indifferent. She now ran very cautiously and anxiously towards the light, and into the bay, no pilot being in sight. For some ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... Bullerton and General Harney, they took a turn together, and that was the prettiest contest of the day. First the judge'd beat the general, and then the general'd put in a big effort and give it to the judge, and the two'd be about even for a while, and all of a sudden the general would give a kinder jerk or two and leave the judge just nowhere, and by the time the general passed the third quarter the judge keeled over against the fence and gave in. They say he broke his leg, but I don't know if that's so or not. Anyway he was ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... and Dick pounced upon it, for its under sides showed gleams of silver in the faint light, and he could see it bounding. Chippy took it from him, unhooked it, slipped his forefinger into the trout's mouth, and broke its neck with a dexterous jerk of finger and thumb. Then he weighed it in his hand. 'Not a big un,' he whispered; 'about half a pound. There ought to be more on 'em ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... battle-lanterns were lighted fore and aft. The tops were crowded with sailors, armed with short carbines, to pick off the men on the enemy's decks. Along the gun-deck stood the men at the guns; and an officer, describing the scene, says they took hold of the ropes as if they were about to jerk the guns through the ship's sides. All were enthusiastic over the prospect ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... part of the horse which was strange. There was a small mesquite bush near the water-hole which lay directly in the horse's course, and Janet, seeing he was almost upon it, and not wishing him to leap it, as a running cow-pony will often do, gave the reins a jerk to make him dodge it, the which he did, and that with a suddenness which only a cow-pony would be capable of. A cowboy's horse is so used to outdodging wild cattle that such a sudden turn is nothing to him. But now, instead of going to ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... 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 ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... for your dutiful daughter, as I used; but, alas! you cannot know my distress, though I am sure I have your prayers: And I will write on as things happen, that if a way should open, my scribble may be ready to be sent: For what I do, must be at a jerk, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... aloofness was all very well, but this conversation was developing into a vulgar brawl. The ghosts of dead and gone Marlowes, all noted for their courtesy to the sex, seemed to stand beside his chair, eyeing him reprovingly. His work, they seemed to whisper, was becoming raw. It was time to jerk the interchange of thought back into the realm of ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... fly. Yet to his 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 ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... 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 black coffin. Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... was 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 exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, "Happy ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... soul if it were not so—if I could but fall asleep or faint. The sound of the hoofs is very much nearer now, so near indeed that I may see the man—Heaven grant it may be only a man after all—any moment. Ah! my heart gives a great sickly jerk. Something has shot into view. There, not fifty yards from me, where the road curves, and the break in the foliage overhead admits a great flood of moonlight. I recognize the "thing" at once; it's not a man, it's nothing human, it's the picture I know so well and dread so much, the portrait ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... at the talkers in the streets of Florence, and see how, being essentially unable to talk, they try to make lips of their fingers! How they poke, wave, flourish, point, jerk, shake finger and fist at their antagonists—dumb essentially, all the while, if they knew it; unpersuasive and ineffectual, as the shaking of tree ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... 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 of ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... engine gives two preliminary snorts, which, with a yell from the official of "all aboard," warn the passengers to hold on; for they are closely followed by a tremendous jerk, which sets the ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... and seeing neither his friend nor his enemy, saw the light with the bicycle behind it go over with a crash. That was when Varney's hands let go of the handle-bars. The next instant they fell upon Hammerton's withdrawing figure and brought it up with a sharp jerk. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... The sudden jerk of the engine sent Tom spinning against the side of the cab. Andrews, who was mounting the wood-pile in the tender to see what was happening behind them, was thrown flat. He scrambled to his feet, his hands bleeding from the splinters, and climbed up the pile. Then he waved his arms and yelled ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... the street, especially from behind, his eyes came to the speaker with a jerk, and sometimes his hand went to his heart. Seeing him so one bright day, and hearing two old men talking behind me, I learned for the first time that the Blake boys' father had died of heart-disease. It is odd that it should ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... again till he had turned something in the machine to make it back and jerk, and, once free from the upset hay, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... equipage—arrived at the Kings palace. Turning the horses' heads with a sharp jerk so that the mettlesome creatures almost sprang erect on their haunches, Sah-luma drove them swiftly into a spacious courtyard, lined with soldiers in full armor, and brilliantly illuminated, where two gigantic stone ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... on the point of stepping out into the road again when a horseman rode into sight between the two rocks. In the same instant of his appearance she heard the unmistakable crack of a gun, saw the rider jerk backward in the saddle, throw up one hand—and then the darkness ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the 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
... handle with both hands, holding it at arm's length, with the face turned towards him, and then stuck it into the ground with a swing of his arms, never pressing it with his foot. He used the handle as a lever to shovel out the loose earth, all being done with a jerk, and yet he managed to dig into the hard ground with extraordinary rapidity. When Crawford, taking a spade, wished to show him his mode of digging, the Kaffir shook his head, saying, "No good," and went on ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... 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 fish changed ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... raised his hands to his neck and with the right hand made a gesture like the up-jerk of ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... her knife and fork in her amazement. Mr. Matson sat up with a jerk, and Clara's eyes opened ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... and swarmed along the trunk to the farthest extremity. It was a tall tree, of a kind I did not know, and my weight upon its tapering top must have exerted a considerable force upon its loosened lower end. Catching a branch that seemed strong enough to bear me, I dropped with a jerk. There was a movement of the trunk, and I heard a wrenching sound below, but the roots still held fast. I climbed up again with the quickness I had learned at sea, and again threw ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... tell 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 made ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... on all roads and impossible on many. On the unimproved 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 fill with water and with mud ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... slope on the right. Then they 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 were themselves ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... off to the inn," she said, with a jerk of her head. "A London fellow insulted us just now, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... strokes, 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 ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... something lurking near the surface all the time—that she was conscious she would much prefer to have enlisted on her behalf than against her. The strong, firm chin bore this out. He was not handsome, but—with a sort of mental jerk, she forced her mind back to the stark realities of her surroundings. She could not thank him for what he had done last night. She could not tell him that she was the White Moll. She could only play out the role of Gypsy Nan until—until—Her hand tightened with a fierce, involuntary pressure ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... smile at him; but his own soul was sick within his body. He felt the cord tighten again about his throat, but even as the world reeled black, Robin heard dully the sound of a horn. In familiar tones it came in upon his fainting brain. Next instant came a jerk at the rope, futile, if infuriated; then, suddenly, contact with a body falling heavily against ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... a violent jerk and Lincoln looked hastily down before replying. As usual Tad was close beside his father, and had taken the only means of attracting ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... come with her early morning croak to call Miss Juliana; she had dumped down the hot-water can in the basin with a clash, pulled up the blind with a jerk, and drawn back the curtains with a clatter, before she noticed that Miss Juliana was up all the time. Up and dressed, and sitting in her chair by the hearth, warming her feet at an ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... hurt you," said the old savage, again placing his hand on Joe's head; but instead of gently patting it, he wound a lock of hair round one of his fingers, and with a sudden jerk tore it out ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... had then recourse to his watch, his never-failing friend in need, which he always pulled out with a particular jerk ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... scramble on 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
... order prevailed in 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 or ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... open Tom's overcoat, almost tearing the buttons off. Another masterful jerk and his victim's jacket was likewise parted widely. He did not lower the club for an instant. He thrust his left hand into the V-shaped parting of the ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... his craft with strange skill through the turmoil of waters, and the boy, supple-limbed, yet weather-worn already, and with steady eyes that look through the blast, you see him understanding commandments from the jerk of his father’s white eyebrow, now belaying and now letting go, now scrunching himself down into mere ballast, or baling out death with a pipkin. Stale enough is the sight, and yet when I see it I always stare anew, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... my companion silent, I glanced up to behold her watching a man who was approaching astride of a shaggy, bare-backed pony, a dark-complexioned, impudent-looking fellow with bright eyes and a wide mouth. At sight of us, he checked his steed with a jerk of the halter, smote his boot with the stout ash stick he carried, and burst into a shout of laughter. Here again I became extremely conscious of Diana's pretty, naked feet; but the fellow never even so much ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... strong wind be blowing, the grapnel will sometimes trail for miles over the ground at the rate of ten or twenty miles an hour, catching now and then in hedges, ditches, roots of trees, &c.; and, after giving the balloon a terrible jerk, breaking loose again, till at length some obstruction, such as the wooded bank of a stream, affords a firm hold. This danger, however, has been much reduced by the use of the "ripping-cord,'' which enables a panel to be ripped open and the balloon to be completely deflated in a ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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
... rounded up and brought back again. They'll be scattered clean down to the Yellowstone, and every Northern outfit has got to go down and help work the range from there back. I tell yuh, Bud, yuh want to lay in a car-load uh films and throw away all them little, jerk-water snap-shots yuh got. There's going to be roundups like these old Panhandle rannies tell about, when the green grass comes." Gene, thinking blissfully of the tented life, sprawled his long legs toward the snapping blaze and crooned dreamily, while without ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... that her lover had disappeared and that she should then and there see him. She was farther instructed how to act. The conjuror warned her from going into the ring, but told her to seize her lover by the arm as he danced round, and to jerk him out of the enchanted circle. Twelve months and a day passed away, and the faithful girl was on the spot where she lost her lover. At the very moment that they had in the first instance appeared the Fairies again came to view, and everything that she had ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... of The Mountains, the wind blew a hurricane. Powerful gusts came tearing through the trees, whirling the snow upon us in great smothering heaps. The chaise was full. My hands grew numb, and I began slapping them upon my knees. Margaret threw off the blanket with a jerk, and seized the reins. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... 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 ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... balalaika and every now and then some church bell in the town rang clearly and sharply above the tumult. The thin films of dust, yellow in the evening sun, hovered like golden smoke under the station roof. At last with a reluctant jerk and shiver the train was slowly persuaded to totter into the evening air; the evening scents were again around us, the balalaika, now upon the train, hummed behind us, as we pushed out ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... own carriage brought up with a jerk, and Eddring, dragging madame by the arm, hurried across the stage plank almost as it was on ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... a short striking motion with the thing, similar to that which one would employ who had designed to jerk something out of the bowl. And at the very spot on the floor where any object contained in the bowl would have fallen, came a reprise of the bell note! Clearly, from almost at my feet, it sounded, a high, ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... javelins, it led the way in the attacks on the wall with mighty blows, and with its terrible point it dug into the joints of the stones till it overthrew the tower. The tower fell with a mighty crash, and those in it were thrown down with a sudden jerk, and breaking their limbs, or being buried beneath the ruins, perished by various and unexpected kinds of death; then, a safer entrance having been thus found, the multitude of the enemy ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... that door we halted with a jerk. Ward was lounging in a big chair with a pillow behind his shoulder, and over by the open window where the sun danced along the casement was Cynthia Carper setting a sheaf of ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... a chuckling laugh. Then, with a movement quick as lightning, he pushed his head under the shell of the turtle and gave it a sudden jerk. The huge turtle was tossed up on edge and then turned flat upon its back, where its short legs struggled vainly to right ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... side of the rudder we lowered ourselves into the water, pressing the net down with our feet, till, with a jerk, it went clear, Then it was up and in, Paul at the main-sheet and I at the tiller, the Mist plunging ahead with freedom in her motion, and the little white light ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... slow, firm, drawing motion, but very satisfactory when it comes; the evasive clover requiring that all its sprawling runners shall be gathered up in one gentle, tactful pull; the tender shepherd's purse coming easily on a straight twitch; the tough ragweed that yields to almost any kind of jerk. Even witch-grass, the bane of the farmer, has its rewarding side, when one really does get out its handful of wicked-looking, ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... Billy had hardly enunciated the words when another big military car appeared, dashing up to headquarters at high speed and stopping with a jerk. Great was the curiosity as to whom the last comer might be, and greater still the surprise when the soldiers recognized the well known features of the commander-in- chief of all the Allied armies, Marshal ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... said Terry, as the minute-hand made a slight onward jerk, "but she has gone slow just the very morning ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... and had fixed his astonished eyes on the newcomer. He was an artillery non-commissioned officer; his face was crimson, his hair unkempt, his cap had come off his head and was dangling behind by the chin-strap. With a violent jerk he pulled up his foaming horse for a second: "Where is the Colonel—the Colonel?" With one voice the whole squadron replied: "There, on the ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... every direction to see the bird appear. For a long time I did not suspect the sly dame so quietly resting on the branch, and when I did it was only by the closest inspection that I discovered the slight jerk of the tail, the almost imperceptible movement of ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... will 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 them? I once saw a Frank rider compete with a Moslem ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... his saddle, and rewarded the slim youth with half-a-crown,—a largess four times more ample than his father would have deemed sufficient. A jerk of the reins and a touch of the heel, off bounded the fiery horse and the gay young rider. Randal mused, and as the rain had now ceased, the passengers under shelter dispersed and went their way. Only Randal, Leonard, and Helen remained behind. Then, as Randal, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Arthur, then sang Alfred; Praised great Eliza in God's anger, Till all true Englishmen cried, Hang her; Mauled human wit in one thick satire, Next in three books spoiled human nature; Undid Creation at a jerk, And of Redemption made —— 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 ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Wilfred gave a jerk at his bridle. "Who's talking about Annabel?" he cried rather sharply. He had forgotten that there ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... air, saying, as he did so, 'O fairy, my misfortunes are greater than your power. I am grateful for your goodwill, but take back your gift!' The fairy had pity on his youth and want of faith, and took care that one end of the thread remained in his hand. He suddenly felt a jerk, and saw that the thread must have caught on something, and this thought filled him with the daring that is born of despair. 'Better,' he said to himself, 'trust to a thread than to the mercies of a king;' and, gliding down, he found himself safe on the ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... 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 want ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... come into the 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 ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... gave me such a violent jerk that I nearly rolled over. I looked round. At the edge of the wood a hare had just come into view, with one ear bent down and the other one sharply pricked, The blood rushed to my head, and I forgot everything else as I shouted, slipped the dog, and rushed ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... he got at the foot of the tree, brought him to his senses with a jerk. Right among the yelping, snarling pack he had fallen, and in sheer desperation he struck out right ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... corner of the chamber I saw a frame of pulleys set in the ceiling. But it came not presently to my mind wherefore they were there. 'They set those short sticks under my arms,' the Queen said, speaking heavily as it were with sleep. 'Then they jerk up the pulleys, and I have to go up with them. It hurts very much. I think I scream sometimes, and then he beats me for disturbing people. They alway do it at night. They say I need it, and I am mad. I marvel if they cure mad people so in England. And I think if they did it sometimes ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... just made up his mind that he stood very little chance of seeing Abbie or his daughters again, when he felt the onward rush suddenly modified. There were a pawing and snorting, an irregular jerk or two, and then a dead stop. The old gentleman picked himself up and descended to the ground uninjured beyond ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... been sitting in a boxcar with his legs sticking through the door when the train started with a jerk. Wham, the door closed. Everybody laughed at Blackie for being that dumb in the first place, and ...
— The Altar at Midnight • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... back and seek refuge again between the two tubs, with the children. Virginie had just flown at Gervaise's throat. She squeezed her round the neck, trying to strangle her. The latter freed herself with a violent jerk, and in her turn hung on to the other's hair, as though she was trying to pull her head off. The battle was silently resumed, without a cry, without an insult. They did not seize each other round the body, they attacked each other's faces with open hands and clawing fingers, pinching, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... must have thought the way I do, I am sure," persisted Adnah. The remark brought Aunt Matilda out of the past with a jerk. ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... Celtic blood 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 ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... 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 ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... saw caused him to pull Streak up with a jerk. The head of the herd had burst through the entrance to the Hole, and, opening fanlike, had ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... bled a little. 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
... one fall of earth be in the pail before using. "The earth must be dry and sifted. "Sand must not be used. "No 'slops' must be thrown down. "The handle must be pulled up with a jerk, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... in the further corner of the chamber I saw a frame of pulleys set in the ceiling. But it came not presently to my mind wherefore they were there. 'They set those short sticks under my arms,' the Queen said, speaking heavily as it were with sleep. 'Then they jerk up the pulleys, and I have to go up with them. It hurts very much. I think I scream sometimes, and then he beats me for disturbing people. They alway do it at night. They say I need it, and I am mad. ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... first cut, the brutal wretch plied his instrument of torture first on one side of the boy's back, and then on the other, and only stopped at the end of two or three minutes from very weariness. But still Tim show'd no signs of motion; and as Lugare, provoked at his torpidity, jerk'd away one of the child's arms, on which he had been leaning over the desk, his head dropp'd down on the board with a dull sound, and his face lay turn'd up and exposed to view. When Lugare saw it, he stood like ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a word. He permitted Sam to jerk loose and back into a corner, and he watched the swift crimsoning of his ears with a keen interest. Since Sam's face had the pasty pallor of the badly scared, the ears appeared much redder by contrast than they really were. Next, Ford turned his attention to the man beside ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... the revolver down, and with a rapid motion, for which his adversary was fully unprepared, caught the arm of the Indian which was raised to strike. Being much more than his match in physical strength, he wrested the sabre with a quick jerk from his grasp. The man, now defenceless, gave up the struggle and like his companion, who had already in silent, cat-like bounds made his escape, hurried off as fast as his legs ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... technically called "the taking in" of a certain blue jacket, which was about to pass from Matthew, the eldest born, to David, the second, and looked up at her husband affectionately. Her husband, however, spoke not; he only made a sign, partly with his eyebrow, partly with a jerk of his thumb over his right shoulder, in the direction of the young lady we have described, and then completed the pantomime with a melancholy shake of the head. The wife turned round and looked hard, the scissors horizontally raised in one hand, while the other reposed on the cuff of the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... minute or two at the station. I can speak to her then," he thought. "I won't tell her that I am going, but I can say something." Then the station appeared in view, and the mare was pulled up with a jerk; Ogilvie jumped to his feet, and ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... 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 ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... 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. ...
— Black Bass - Where to catch them in quantity within an hour's ride from New York • Charles Barker Bradford
... Chadwick began; but at that moment the driver stopped the car with a jerk, in obedience to a waving umbrella. The conductor, who had not yet got what would have been his sea-legs if he had been captain of an Atlantic liner, lurched forward, and then went out on to the platform to greet a new fare, and ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... at the side of the bed with her bum towards me; then she would gradually twist herself round, and cocking one leg over my head, get herself with her back on the bed without uncunting my prick. This had to be done very gradually, for a jerk, and my prick used to slip out. I used to bet with her about this, and she generally managed to twist round and win. "Now push,—keep it well in,—hold on, I am going to lift my leg," she would cry at the difficult point, which was when she had got her ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... glance. "Wouldn't you think so? For an old man, a very rickety old party? The ladders are steep, you know, and rusty." He approached the window again and put it up softly. In a moment he drew his head back with a jerk. He caught Eastman's arm and shoved him toward the window. "Hurry, please. Look! Down there." He pointed to the little patch of paved ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... with a violent jerk, the cord was wrested from the boatswain's hands; firmly attached, however, as it was to the raft, it was not lost. The bait had been seized by a shark, and the iron had made good its hold ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... his 'Wusshup' must contrive to postpone till he has caught me," answered Freddy, as with a sudden jerk he succeeded in freeing himself from his captor's grasp, while, almost at the same moment, he dealt him a cuff on the side of the head which sent him reeling back to the door of the bell-tower, where encountering ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... certainly was happening; so he got up and went across the empty compartment to the further window. Again came the crying of voices, again the signals, and once more a car whirled past, followed almost immediately by another. There was a jerk—a smooth movement. Percy staggered and fell into a seat, as the carriage in which he was seated itself began to ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... 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 adventures in ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... gave the reins a savage jerk, as he turned up the short road that led to the Pettengill house. "What could make you ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... the handkerchief 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
... 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
... not at all in a dishonest or unmanful manner. In fact, he is quite recognizably a Hohenzollern,—with his back half broken. Readers recollect that sad accident: how the Nurse, in one of those headlong journeys which his Father and Mother were always making, let the poor child fall or jerk backward; and spoiled him much, and indeed was thought to have killed him, by that piece of inattention. He was not yet Hereditary Prince, he was only second son: but the elder died; and he became Elector, King; and had to ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... up on the three-legged stool and began to take them down. The nails were crooked and jammed in the wall, and the last came out with an unexpected jerk. Losing his balance, Nick caught at the table-board which leaned against the wall; but the stool capsized, and he came down on the floor with such a flap of tapestry that the ashes flew out ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 giant cactus ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... creature, bent, vapid of face, deaf and dumb, frowsy of dress, and a world removed from the thought of a morning bath. It might be picturesque in a way—but it wasn't a way Madison liked. Somehow, he'd have to jerk the old chap out of his rut and get him rigged up a little more becomingly, before the trusting public, simple as they were, were invited down to see the exhibit. Madison's dramatic instinct, which was developed to a keen sense of what the public craved for, ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... she soon managed to break, and once having performed the operation, she did not fail to attempt it again. To do this, she would first draw herself back as far as she could get, and then suddenly dart forward, in the hope of snapping it by the jerk; and though she was thus sent reeling on the floor, she would again pick herself up, panting as if her little heart would break, shake out her disarranged coat, and try once more. When observed, however, ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... anybody 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
... not execute the imaginative exercise I prescribed; so he strapped my hold-all with an extra jerk. ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... boy scout," explained the other, kindly. "Like my troop there"—with a jerk of the head toward the khaki-clad column, now halted a block away on the edge ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... bishop and the judge were holding an earnest conversation with the grandfather Courteney, and his eye tried to call the mate. But Ramsey, holding to Hugh by his sleeve, gave the old gentleman a toss of her chin, a jerk of her curls, and took the mate by a coat button. Her slim, silken figure intercepting him, and his rude bulk smiling down into her upturned face with a commanding yet amiable restiveness, made a picture to the players and to the distant pilot, but much more than a picture ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... person of the monk, who passed quickly beneath the canopy, and he turned to cast a hasty glance at the features of the fisherman. The rubbing of a rope was audible, and the anchor of Antonio was lifted by a sudden jerk. A heavy plashing of the water followed, and the two boats shot away together, obedient to a violent effort of the crew. The gondola of the state exhibited its usual number of gondoliers, bending to their toil, with its dark and hearse-like canopy, but that ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of the brake on the line tightened, the boat began to tear through the water, still requiring the paying out of the rope. For an instant it slackened and the winch reeled in a little line. There was a sudden jerk and then the line fell slack. Working like demons, the men made the winch handles fairly fly as the line came in, and within another minute the whale spouted, blowing strongly and sounding again. He sulked at the bottom for over twenty minutes, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... an overpowering desire to grab Eyer, jerk him back to the plane, and take off at top speed. But they couldn't do that, not when the world depended upon them. Had Kress encountered this thing? Perhaps. How must he have felt? He had been alone. These two were moral support for each other. But both were acutely remembering how Kress ...
— Lords of the Stratosphere • Arthur J. Burks
... the trainer ran up. He gave Luke a violent jerk backwards, throwing him prostrate in the sawdust. With a frightful roar Sultan sprang at the bars of the cage, glaring apparently not at Luke, but at ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... consequence of my cynicism, dreadfully damaged and depraved daughter." She took in for an instant the slight bewilderment against which, as a result of her speech, even so expert an intelligence as Mr. Mitchett's had not been proof; then with a small jerk of her head at the other side of the room made the quickest of transitions. "What IS there ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... Hans, "they 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 ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... his eyes on Miss Meredith, Fownes nodded his head, with a short, quick jerk, far ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... a strike. I was gripping my chair now, and for the next pitch I prophesied the Rube's wonderful jump ball, which he had not yet used. He swung long, and at the end of his swing seemed to jerk tensely. I scarcely saw the ball. It had marvelous speed. Lane did not offer to hit it, and it was a strike. He looked at the Rube, then at Cogswell. That veteran appeared amused. The bleachers, happy and surprised to be able to ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... sufferer, stripped naked, and his hands tied 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 last of the ordinary torture, was put in practice when the crime ...
— The Cenci - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... did not speak again till he had turned something in the machine to make it back and jerk, and, once free from the upset hay, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... make? Can you figure what would happen to a football if "Butter Fingers" ever laid his grapplers on it? And can you picture a runner trying to get away from a tackle by a bird like "Rus"? A fly might as well try to pull its feet off a sheet of sticky fly paper as a runner to jerk loose from "Butter Fingers" once he's ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... his wife in the house hastened to commit their offspring to bed. The traces had dropped, and each horse marched forward for further unbuckling, when James heard himself called. Indeed, there was that in his wife's voice which made him jerk out his pistol as he ran. But it was no bear or Indian—only two strange children on the bed. His wife ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... to tell 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
... to jerk its way up his forehead, and with a purely mechanical instinct he reached up drolly and pulled it down again. "So—as the initial test of your mutual congeniality this afternoon," he resumed, "I would therefore respectfully ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... wild shouting in the boat, of the rapid beating of oars which made the water fly up in fountains; then, as he swam with all his might, of a violent blow on the shoulder followed by a jerk, and then half insensible from the shock he was being ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... which well displayed her athletic person. She was a tall, strongly built girl of six-and-twenty, with a face of hard comeliness and magnificent tawny hair. All her movements suggested vigour; she shook hands with a downward jerk, moved about the room with something of a stride and, in sitting down, ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... platform. Like a man dazed he gathered up his ulster. He would tell them about the cablegram when they were all on board the train. Then he ran out upon the platform just as the engine whistled twice in the final warning that precedes the first rumbling jerk of coupling pins. The others were on board, leaning out from the platform of a Pullman, crying to him to hurry. Quite five minutes elapsed before they were settled in their seats, nor was it until then that Clayton discovered that Tarzan was not ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... does, General," said Clarence, still smiling. The General turned from him to the table with a kind of jerk and clapped his hand ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gave a jerk of the head. There was somewhere in his fierce old heart a cord that vibrated to the touch of these rude mountain customs; for the man was a Corsican of long descent and pure blood. Of such the fighting nations have made good soldiers in the past, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... of a twig in the underbrush brought his mind back with a jerk to their present plight. He wished they had brought the rifles from the plane. Some animal was lurking there in the shadows. Wolves, grizzlies, some unknown ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... their gold-headed canes at him, and the people danced round the tree in a rage. Then they began to climb. But they soon found that to be impossible. As fast as they touched a hand or foot to a tree, back it flew with a jerk exactly as if the tree pushed it. They tried a ladder, but the ladder fell back the moment it touched the tree, and lay sprawling upon the ground. Finally, they brought axes and thought they could chop the tree down, Costumer and all; but the ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... pulled away the cushion with gentle force, and saw the green shade all crushed and stained with the few hot tears that told how bitter the disappointment had been. Mac felt her sympathy, but, being a boy, did not thank her for it; only sat up with a jerk, saying, as he tried to rub away the tell-tale drops with the sleeve of his jacket, "Don't bother; weak eyes always ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... not kill you. You are too young and pretty. Some one of them will take you, and I will get a big party of our people and rescue you." But the woman cried "No, no, I will die here with you." "Crazy person," cried the man, and with a quick jerk he threw the woman off and escaped. Having reached the lodge safely, he painted himself black and "walked all through the camp crying." Poor fellow! How he loved his wife! The Indian, as Catlin truly remarked, "is not in the least behind us in conjugal ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... 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 hurled him on ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... a cry—half of rapture, half of pain—from a very small person in the lumbering old trap. The horse was drawn up with a jerk, and a girl, with very little of the woman about her, for she was still all curls, and curves, and child-like roundness, sprung lightly out of the trap, and put her arms ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... looking at it a moment pronounced "All right! Move on!" elucidating the remark by a jerk at the coat-collar of the unsuspecting Sam, which sent him whirling up the road at a fine but uncomfortable ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the corpse by a jerk of his head) tell about that job. G-d, how he used to laugh when he showed us how he fetched him ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... going on with them, and they were still following up the wire. The message ceased, and the telephonist, leaning his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands, was almost asleep before he realized it. He wakened with a jerk, lit another cigarette, and stamped up and down the room trying ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... backward jerk of his head, "but they are. I'm told it's a delicious kind of madness worth all your sanity. Do not let us disturb them. Come and sit down beside me until the time is up," he glanced at his watch; "they have still ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... hurried return from Cairo—from Cairo where I had left behind me many a fondly cherished hope. I addressed myself again to the task of unpacking my steamer-trunk and was so engaged when again a sound in the corridor outside brought me upright with a jerk. ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... of," replied Dave. "If there was a tree near, a fellow might tie a kedge rope to it, and then throw the kedge over one of the arms. But that would tear the machinery all to pieces, I suppose, it would stop it with such a jerk." ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... 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. I ask again. She glances round, to see that ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... a jolt and a jerk. The two men got out. The trunk was lifted down to the pavement. The driver was paid. ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... he 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
... swept with terrific violence across the defile. When the first streaks of daybreak appeared the tarantass had reached the telga, which was still conscientiously imbedded as far as the center of the wheel. Such being the case, it can be easily understood how a sudden jerk would separate the front from the hinder part. One of the horses was now harnessed by means of cords to the remains of the telga, the reporters took their place on the singular equipage, and the two carriages started off. They had now only to descend the Ural slopes, ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... 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 stiffen ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... speak with you, sir!" said a voice, and turning with a quick jerk, Steele saw the familiar features of Gillett, the former police ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... which was strange. There was a small mesquite bush near the water-hole which lay directly in the horse's course, and Janet, seeing he was almost upon it, and not wishing him to leap it, as a running cow-pony will often do, gave the reins a jerk to make him dodge it, the which he did, and that with a suddenness which only a cow-pony would be capable of. A cowboy's horse is so used to outdodging wild cattle that such a sudden turn is nothing to him. But now, instead of going to drink, he gave a leap and broke into a mad race, splashing ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... pink, one blue, from the midst of which shoot up two long feathers, one green and one red, while behind hangs down a greasy, floury mass gathered at the end into a club-like handle, which has some fitness for its place, in suggesting that it should be used to jerk the heap of hair, grease, and feathers from the head of the unfortunate who sustains it. Just think of it! that sweet creature must have given up at least two hours of every day to this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... with a forcible jerk, and a stranger entered unceremoniously. She was a damsel of perhaps fifteen, slim, and very pretty, with twinkling brown eyes and curly hair and coral cheeks. She wore an artistic dress of myrtle-green Liberty serge, with a picturesque muslin collar, and had a ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... is shot than can be eaten before the party travel onwards, it is usual to jerk a part of it. It is cut in long strips, and festooned about the bushes, under the full sun, in order to dry it. After it has been sun-dried it will keep for long, before it becomes wholly putrid. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... from Gopher Prairie the track mounts a curving low ridge, and she could see the town as a whole. With a passionate jerk she pushed up the window, looked out, the arched fingers of her left hand trembling on the sill, her ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... could get a hawser to her. I could do no good after having made a chart of the soundings round the ship, and went at last on to the bridge to sketch the scene. But at that moment the strain from the winch and a jerk from the Turkish steamer got off the boat, after we had been some hours aground. The carpenter reported that she had made only two inches of water in one compartment; the cable was still uninjured astern, and our spirits rose; when, ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... down went her head and up went her heels, and, had he been less on the alert, he must have gone to earth; but, with his knees dug into her sides as if they were the opposite jaws of a vice, for every jerk of her head down he gave one with the reins up, and at each jerk the hoe-handle gave her a rap over the ears, so that she began to find the fun less agreeable than usual. Changing her tactics, with a bound she proceeded ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... visible. In the matter of boots the traveller must be able to shoe himself 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, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... 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 flying house, which seemed almost to brush ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... he said, aloud. "You're a bum reporter, my boy." An instant later he forced himself to jerk open the first ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... journeys were short, and the head we made against the stream but trifling. The men lost the proper and muscular jerk with which they once made the waters foam and the oars bend. Their whole bodies swung with an awkward and laboured motion. Their arms appeared to be nerveless; their faces became haggard, their persons emaciated, their spirits wholly sunk; nature was so completely ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... herself together with a jerk and instantly became all attention. "How? How could my mentioning General Braithwaite ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... narrative Dick furrowed his brows in perplexity. When, however, John came to tell of his second year's sojourn with the Ojibways, he sat up with a jerk and stared at his cousin in ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... askance when they burr their spur 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 ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... don't 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
... 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 fish changed ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... be thankful for to the uttermost. You would think, 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... 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 ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... the breach of his rifle with a sharp jerk, and drew a long breath. For the life of him he could not have told whether his aim had been good or bad, but this much he knew, that he had fired his ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... instinctive shame of his passion and a dread of vulgar ridicule put him upon talking in dark riddles and enigmas: hence the confused, broken, and disjointed style, an odd jumble of dialogue and soliloquy, in which he tries to jerk out his thoughts, as if he would have them known, and yet not have them known. I believe men generally credit themselves with peculiar penetration when they are in the act of being deluded, whether by themselves or by others. Hence, again, the strange ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... coatless, into Farquaharson's room and grinned as he tossed a magazine down on the table. "Sic fama est" was his comment, and Stuart picked up the sheet which his visitor indicated with a jerk of the thumb. The magazine was a weekly devoted ostensibly to the doings of smart society, but its real distinction lay in its innuendo and its genius for sailing so close to the wind of libel that those who moved ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... quick-glancing eyes, and vehement gestures. The chief characteristic of the man seemed intensity. It manifested itself in his eager movements, in his emphasis and tones of voice, in his swiftly changing expression, in his wild hair, in his neckerchief, which seemed to have been tied with a jerk, and in his dress throughout, which was evidently that of a man who had things of vaster importance to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... ever sees me home after the slaughter, orders me a diet of chicken breast, peche Melba and champagne, or warns my family that I am on no account to be disturbed until lunch. No, they jerk your jaw off its hinges and dump your remains on the doorstep for the L.C.C. rubbish cart ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... could to soothe her, and at last the weary, over-strung 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 hugh 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 ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... lower muscular processes, the voluntary and the involuntary, are stimulated by music. Darlington and Talbot, in Titchener's laboratory at Cornell University, found that the estimation of relative weights was aided by music.[99] Lombard found, when investigating the normal variations in the knee-jerk, that involuntary reflex processes are always reinforced by music; a military band playing a lively march caused the knee-jerk to increase at the loud passages and to diminish at the soft passages, while remaining always above ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... that the captain of the vessel was coming. The halyards dropped from each one's hand, and a general scramble resembling a panic ensued. Down came the main topsail yard with a run, and broke in halves as soon as the sudden jerk came on the lifts. In almost as little time as it takes to write it, there was none of the revellers to ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... Laurie watched Mr. Vincent step up into the cabinet, jerk the curtains this way and that, and at last sit easily back, in such a way that his face could be seen in a kind of twilight, and the rest of his body ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... furiously, was nothing more than the thousands of bull-headed forwards who had come upon him like thunder-bolts in the days of old. With the ease begotten by practice he circled his assailant with his long muscular arms, and gave a quick convulsive jerk in which every sinew of his body participated. The red-bearded man's stumpy legs described a half-circle in the air, and he came down on the stone pavement with a sounding crash which shook every particle of breath ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said, in a voice almost inaudible, and as she spoke, the rider leaped from the shadow of the trees. He drew his horse up before the porch with a jerk and threw himself from the saddle. As he came up the steps, I saw that his face was strangely flushed and his eyes gleaming in a way that made me shiver. I felt my mother's arm about me trembling as she drew me ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... abreast now, and hurriedly Miss Prue turned her head. At once she gave the reins an angry jerk; in the other light carriage sat Rupert Joyce, the young man who for weeks had been unsuccessfully trying to find favor in her eyes because he had already found it in the eyes of her ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... speaking through the saucer. The soul had already said, "They will recognize each other," which was duly entered on a sheet of paper. When the servant entered, the saucer, stopping first on the letter p, then on the letter o, reached the letter s and began to jerk one way and another. That was because, as the general thought, the next letter was to be l, that is to say, Jeanne D'Arc, according to his idea, intended to say that souls would recognize each other ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... 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 to the very hall-door of the man whose daughter I was about to elope with, whether so ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... pack-laden horses fell out exhausted; and we found them, heads hanging, quivering and panting beside the reeking trail; one by one their gaunt cattle, mired in bog and swamp, entangled in windfalls, greeted us, bellowing piteously as we passed. The forest itself fought for us, reaching out to jerk wheels from axle, bringing wagon and team down crashing. Their dead lay everywhere uncared for, even unscalped and unrobbed in the bruised and trampled path of flight; clothing, arms, provisions were scattered pell-mell on every side; and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... to be quite good-tempered now, and giving me a nod and a jerk of his head, which meant—"This way," he went down a path, cut a great rhubarb leaf, and ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... remembered the immense stores of Dutch lager beer which they had so 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, and a good deal had happened ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... get on the back platform. Keep your hand on the brake wheel every second of the time. Keep your ears open. When I jerk once sharply on the bell rope set the brakes tight. If I jerk it twice, just apply them a ...
— The Circus Boys on the Plains • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... and was poising himself for another attempt when Shirley seized his arm. As he drew back a fold of his cloak still lay in Shirley's grasp, and she gave a sharp little cry as the figure, with a quick jerk, released the cloak and slipped away into the shadows. A moment later the lights were restored, and she saw Armitage regarding ruefully a long slit in the left arm of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... 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. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... threw out his breath with a jerk of contempt. It seemed to him that neither Frances nor Anthony was listening to him. They were not looking at him. They didn't want to listen; they didn't want to look at him. He couldn't touch ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... the crash and rattle of chain and a resounding splash. The roar of cable followed, amid a volley of thumping deep-sea oaths from Rolfe directed at the devoted head of Little; and the Barang snubbed up with a jerk, her stern swinging ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... through a big hole under the head, passes over the gills, and out 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, ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... false 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 ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... these times I'll lure him down for a Saturday to Monday and let him find out what the country really is—let him hear it. He is becoming too much of a dreamer: it will do him good, wake him up a bit. The corncrake after awhile stopped quite suddenly with a jerk, and for quite five minutes there ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... in that low voice he raised his hunting rifle quickly, bringing the butt to his shoulder with a jerk. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... however, had in no way been picked; there were little horses and big horses, fat horses and thin horses. They looked the result of a wild conscription. Coleman noted the faces of the troopers, and they were calm enough save when a man betrayed himself by perhaps a disproportionate angry jerk at the bridle of ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... The mother shut tight her sunken mouth, and regarded her daughter with playful challenge. 'Because,' she continued, 'I didn't known when you were coming.' She gave a jerk with her arm, like an orator who utters the incontrovertible. 'But,' she added, after a tedious dramatic pause, 'I can soon have it ready. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... name either as part of a text or otherwise, a fervent "Amun" was certain to resound through the building, either because long custom had led him to regard the appendage as indispensable to it, or because like an old soldier suddenly roused to "attention," he awoke from a stolen slumber to jerk himself into the mental attitude most familiar to him. This last supposition, however, is a libel upon his fair character. I cannot believe that Wren ever slept on duty. He kept near to him a long hazel stick, ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... lifting as the ship rolled, or headed up or off; whether this rope or 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 down from aloft, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... made drowsily. 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 Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... 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 Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... they reached the village, and as they entered, he experienced that curious feeling of apprehensive expectancy with which one approaches the spot where one is to live and work for some time to come. The car slowed up to pass some carts on the road, and started forward with such a jerk that Talbot was precipitated from the back of the machine into the road. He picked himself up, covered with mud. The solemn face of the driver did not lessen his discomfiture. Here was a strange village, strange men, and he was covered ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... his victim tax Jack's strength more than the living fight; but his hands are still locked in their fatal clutch when at last, with one fearful and spasmodic jerk, Rupert Landale falls motionless. Then exhaustion enwraps the conqueror also, like a mantle. He, too, lies motionless with his cheek on the floor, face to face with the corpse, dimly conscious of the voluptuousness of victory. But ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... and 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 ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... 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
... clutched his end firmly, steadying himself as best he might by bestriding the ridge of the roof. The strain becomes greater, he feels her weight, she is slipping down, down. Her hands strike a knot; the jerk almost throws him off his balance. He utters a word of caution, lost in the growing roar of the flames whose hungry tongues have begun to leap above the gutter. She looks down, sees the approaching peril, and hastens her descent. He is all astrain, with heart and hand nerved for the awful ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... the train started with a great jerk, and crept slowly out of the town. The motion was very disagreeable; the seats were hard; the air was stuffy, and became after a while almost unbearable from the accumulated breaths and the dry heat of the stove, into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... cuffed the Mexican to his knees. Then he leaped upon him, as a dog might pounce upon a rabbit, rolled him to his face, and twisted the fellow's arms into the small of his back. Anto cursed, he struggled, but he was like a child in the Ranger's grasp. Law knelt upon him, and with a jerk of his riata secured the fellow's wrists; rising, he set the knot with another heave that dragged the prisoner to his knees. Next he booted Anto to ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... The pole is then bent down, and the trap 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 often ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... confined space was stunning. He stepped back a pace. He saw the man jerk his head up, fling his arms forward, and drop the kriss. He ascertained afterwards that he had shot him through the mouth, a little upwards, the bullet coming out high at the back of the skull. With the impetus of his rush the man drove straight on, his face suddenly ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... from the end his nose was at Lady Mary's shoulder and Marianne saw the head of the mare jerk up. She was through but the stallion was through also. He had staggered in his stride, drunkenly. She saw him shake his head, saw him fling forward again, and the snaky head crept once more to the neck of the mare, to her ears, and ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... with his outlaw, and liking an audience. "You don't want a bridle, but a rope hackamore like this—Spanish style. Then let them run as hard as they want, and on a sudden reach down your arm and catch the hackamore short, close up by the mouth, and jerk them round quick and heavy at full speed. They quit their fooling after one or two ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... word the others turned their horses and rode away in different directions. As they went farther from him in the wash of the late light the uncertain hand came down with a jerk. Fear was in his eyes, the deep, quaking fear of the man poor in courage, but he ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... closefitting breeches on the arm of the seat, leaning against the back, and laughed. As soon as she recognised him she knocked at the carriage window with her benumbed hand, but at that moment the last bell rang, and the train first gave a backward jerk, and then gradually the carriages began to move forward. One of the players rose with the cards in his hand, and looked out. She knocked again, and pressed her face to the window, but the carriage moved on, and she went alongside looking in. The ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... his pocket with a jerk. He still had it bandaged, but he managed to grip hard with it nevertheless. But he ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Charley's sharp jerk to tighten the lasso almost pulled the bear from her perch. She grasped the trunk of the tree with her paws to avoid falling, and that gave Charley an opportunity to tighten and secure his rope. To keep from falling, the bear had to maintain her hold on ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... I had decided in favour of the last-named, he gave a more than usually vigorous jerk, sat up in bed and, opening his ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... prevent me, 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. ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... barns that afternoon, the admission price being ten pins. Bobaday learned how to make a slip-knot with the horse-hair and hold it in silent suspense just where the minnows moved: the moment a fish glided into the open snare a dexterous jerk whipped him out of the water, held firmly about the middle by the hair noose. It required skill and nice handling, and the split-sleeved boy was the ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... 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
... it may, Police Constable Farrow's serenity was not disturbed until a doctor's motor car panted along the avenue from Easton and pulled up with a jerk in front of him. The doctor, frowning with anxiety, looked out, ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... the door leading to the Tower, carefully closing it after him. Hooper's hand went up to his forehead in the ghost of a military salute, but a sneering smile persisted on his lips. The only notice Mr. Saffron took of him was a jerk of the head towards the passage, an abrupt and ungracious dismissal, which, however, the Sergeant silently accepted and stumped out. The greeting reserved for Beaumaroy was vastly different. Beaumaroy's own cordiality ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... wolves prevailed 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 again to the cache, he had found a wolf moving ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... 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 started on our ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... would permit. Seating himself upon his box, he gathered up his reins and shouted a good-natured farewell to the crowd. A quick and vigorous application of the whip awakened the dozing horses so suddenly that they started up with a spasmodic jerk which nearly threw the old fellow from his perch. By a desperate effort, however, he maintained his seat, but his broad-brimmed hat went flying from his bald head and rolled to the ground, scattering ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... these webs slowly, and at the same time pours upon them a liquid, and still further to obtain the effect of launching a liquid cylinder in space he, or rather she, pulls it out like the string of a bow, and lets it go with a jerk. The liquid cylinder cannot exist, and the result is what you now see upon the screen (Fig. 8). A more perfect illustration of the regular breaking up of a liquid cylinder it would be impossible to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... sudden twist, which sent a thrill through both vessels; a crash; a backward jerk; the snapping of a chain; and in a moment the great rudder, with half of the rudder-post attached, was torn from the vessel, and as the forceps opened it dropped to leeward and hung dangling ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... instances, of 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 ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... said Anne, smiling from sheer habit. "Mind you come." She got her face straight again with a jerk and turned to the solemn old gentleman ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... Mr. Bingle hazily, and then brought himself up with a jerk. Heirs? What in the world was the man talking about? "I—I beg pardon, sir. I didn't quite ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... behind is 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 farther out than the other; or one Leg out while the other is on the Ground; ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... his startled head, as the cars come thundering along, and bounds away as if he were on the rugged hills that his ancestors climbed, ages ago, in wild freedom. O that cruel rope! how it stops him in his career with a sudden jerk that pulls him to the ground! See where it has worn away the hair round his neck, in his constant struggles to escape. See how he has browsed the scanty grass of that dry pasture, in the little circle to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... 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
... said Warrington, speaking to Craig. "If you hear of me in America, in Europe, anywhere, keep away from the places I'm likely to go. Tell him," with an indifferent jerk of his head toward the insensible Mallow, "tell him that I give him that fifty pounds with the greatest good pleasure. ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... back to the things of the moment with a jerk. By Jove! Honey was going to that reception and she'd set her heart on his going with her. She'd been making over a dress for it. It seemed to Skinner she was always making something over. He had made up his mind that she'd buy something ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... to his feet, his unsteadiness helped not at all by the fact that the train chose that moment to start with a jerk. He grabbed at the wall as a meteor flashed through the dark of the ...
— Reel Life Films • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... off. He heard the woman's last cry, and came threshing through the bushes on foot. He saw Sylvestre, unconscious of any approach, spring forward, jerk away the hands that had drawn the thong over the branch, let the strangling woman down and loosen the noose. Her eyes, starting out with horror, turned to him; she fell on her knees and clasped her hands. The tears were rolling ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the street after a stage which had just left the ferry house on its down trip. Bog saw him seat himself on the step, with his head well hid from the driver, and sent a parting whistle after him, to which Bill Fish responded with an enormous grin and a jerk of thumb over shoulder at his natural enemy ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... was a huge, raw-boned boatswain's mate that flogged left handed, and had also a peculiar jerk in his manner of laying on the cat-o'-nine-tails, and that always brought away with it little knobs of flesh wherever the knots fell, and so neatly, that blood would, at every blow, spout from the wounds, as ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... the sharp crack of a single rifle was heard, and Somers observed a slight jerk in the brim of ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... the meat-end of it over the side," said Cousin Tom. "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 go, and ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope
... unpleasant driver, and in went the clutch. The man in the road jumped hastily to one side as the car shot backward with a jerk, curved sharply, stopped for the fraction of a second, and then bounded forward ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... will not renounce the creed of my forefathers!" answered Isaachar in a tone of bitter agony, as he writhed upon the rack, while every fresh shock and jerk of the infernal engine seemed as if it would tear the very life out of him. But the old man remained firm in the declaration of his innocence of the dreadful crime imputed to him: stanch also to his creed ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... Isoult suddenly sat up and looked at Prosper. He could not read her face, but knew by her stiff-poised head that she was quivering. He said nothing, but made a motion, a swift jerk with his head, to wave her out of the way. Galors responded by first tightening, finally relaxing, his hold upon her waist. She slipt down from the saddle, and stood hesitating what to do. She had ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... out a handful of gold and silver. Francis looked at it with covetous eyes for a minute or two, then thrust his brother's hand aside with a jerk which almost sent the coins into ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... by the popular breeze in favor of the soldiers, that he came into the hospital with a roll of bank-bills in his hand, and passing from cot to cot gave each wounded man a five-dollar bill, repeating, with a spasmodic jerk of his head and a forced smile, "Make yourself comfortable; make yourself comfortable, my good fellow." I am afraid he, poor fellow, did not feel very comfortable, as his money was screwed out of him by ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... reached the track, the cars came shrieking along. There 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 ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... third attempt the engine remembered its manners and started up with a jerk. A few moments to get her running smoothly, a rapid test to see that she was 'giving her revs.' and the chocks, were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... frightened for fear he should talk Greek; on the other side he was relieved by Sir John Merton,—very civil, very pompous, and talking, at strictured intervals, about county matters, in a measured intonation, savouring of the House-of-Commons jerk at the ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book V • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... did sleep—the sleep of the just, who have earned their right to it; the sleep of the horny-handed son of the soil, whose muscles relax with a jerk that awakens the sleeper to a realizing sense that he has been sleeping and is going to sleep again at his earliest convenience: the sweet, intense, and gracious sleep of innocence—out of which we were awakened just before breakfast time by the most considerate of hostesses and her ladies ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... apron came 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. ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... pony Nort Shannon was riding toward the bunch of cattle gathered at Diamond X ranch for the big, spring round-up, leaped forward at the sound of his master's voice, and in response to the little jerk of the reins and the clap of heels against his sides. Into the herd of milling, turning and twisting cattle the intelligent animal made his way, needing hardly any guidance from Nort. The lad, by a mere touch, corrected the course ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... to get him out of 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 but—end of a mop; but in the hurry it had been left three inches too long, so 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. "Doctor, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... 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 the top of the hill now," observed Cedric presently, with a jerk of the reins to remind Brown Becky that she must not go to sleep, and then they bowled swiftly down a wide-open road. They had just passed a cross-road, which, as Cedric informed Malcolm, led to Rotherwood, ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... stealth. The steps were not those of any hunter, white man or Indian, of that she presently assured herself. With this assurance, her anxiety diminished and her anger increased. Her tail, long and thick, doubled in thickness and began to jerk sharply from side to side. Crouching to the belly, she crept all the way out upon the ledge and peered cautiously around a jutting ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... cheer a jerk Ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work Ez ef ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... 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, who, indeed, are ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... knock up, and found he had then a sure Game on't. He went on leisurely after them, till both Parties came into a narrow Lane, where there was no Possibility of an Escape, when he gave his Horses a sudden Jerk, and came with such Violence upon the People, that he pull'd their Machine quite over. He said, the Cries of the Women were so loud that the B—ches might be heard to his Master's Yard in Piccadilly; that there ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... the trip, and it seems hard for pilots and captains always to be on their guard against a decoy. At this landing the signal was given, all as it should be, and we were just rounding to, when, with a sudden jerk, the boat swung round into the stream again. The mistake was discovered in time, by a government officer on board, and we escaped an ambush. Just think! we might have been prisoners in Mississippi now, but God meant better things for us ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... found a wire evidently designed for that purpose. But it had become so rusty and stiff that it would not move. Somehow the closed eyes troubled her, and before she realized what she was doing, she gave the wire such a vigorous jerk that the eyes opened—bright, blue, glad eyes, that seemed ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... their horses and coaches; and, in fact, they are rather to be held responsible for such increased watchfulness and solicitous care, skill, and attention, as the crowded condition of the vehicle requires. If, under such circumstances, a passenger is thrown out of or off the coach by its violent jerk at starting or stopping, or in any other way through the negligence of the proprietors or their agents, he may hold them liable for his injuries.[53] A passenger must pay his fare in advance, if demanded, otherwise he may have to pay a fine for evading fare; and if he is ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... seemed drawn together. We took a shoot. The Orion took a shoot. "Damned if she didn't get away from him!" I remember hearing one of our fellows jerk out, but I remember also I was left wondering whether he meant ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... quick backward jerk of his head he saved himself—just barely saved himself—and the big foot shot harmlessly up into the air, Pelle almost losing his balance in the ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... red streak in the night we flew up that avenue, turned into Fourteenth Street on two wheels, and at last were on Sixth Avenue. With a jerk and a skid we stopped. There were the engines, the hose-carts, the hook-and-ladders, the salvage corps, the police establishing fire lines-everything. ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... a perplexity into which there slipped an involuntary shiver. Suddenly he became aware of a woman by the fire, a decent, strong-looking body in gray, who rose as his look turned to her. Their eyes met; her expression and the little jerk of her head towards Mrs. Darcy, who was now standing by the cage coaxing the mice with the weirdest gestures, were enough. Robert turned, and went out sick at heart. The careful exquisite beauty of the great hall struck him as ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The delegate tried to jerk away, but he could not shake off that grip. He looked toward the committeemen, but they were silent. He looked everywhere but up into the eyes that were blazing down at him. And finally Bannon felt the muscles within ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... began to insult us and to order us away. We did not notice them, but went further from the mosque, and stopped to examine some old marble pillars. Soon, however, we found a rabble about us, who began to jerk our garments. I then turned and spoke to them, and they instantly rushed upon us like tigers. They seized Dr. Lobdell's hat, threw it into the air, and began to beat him. One ruffian seized me by the throat. By main strength I loosed his grasp, and was moving off, when ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... that 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 until the victims ceased to struggle were they lowered and thrown on the ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... about five minutes when our neighbor's line began to jerk twice, thrice; and then he pulled out a chub as thick as my thigh; rather less, perhaps, but nearly as big! My heart beat, the perspiration stood on my forehead and Melie said to me: 'Well, you sot, did you ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the luminous form, until he could detect that the vapor was a kind of luminous "cheese cloth." He did not desire to expose this "priest," but he desired to have the "priest" know that some one had discovered him. My friend accordingly took hold of the gauze and gave it a very slight downward jerk. He then immediately ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... and room enough' to show off all her perfections. Her most peculiar merit consisted, perhaps, in her power of stopping herself suddenly, while going on at the rate of a hunt one way, and without any pause or apparent difficulty going just as fast the other way. This was done by a jerk which must, one would be inclined to think, have dislocated all her bones and entirely upset her internal arrangements. But no; it was done without injury, or any disagreeable result either to her brain or elsewhere. We all know how a steamer is ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... glimpse of a scrawny old horse, harnessed with bits of strap and string, to a rickety wagon, that seemed about to fall to pieces at every turn of the wheel. Upon the board, used for a seat, sat an old negro, urging his steed through the patches of light and shadow with many a jerk of the rope lines, accompanied by an occasional whack from the long slender pole. Behind the negro was a long object wrapped in blankets ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... stand, as he did, for a moment indecisive; that would have been fatal to you. As, you see, I leap forward, changing my advanced foot as I do so, catch your wrist, and pull your arm with a sudden jerk towards me, and at the same moment strike you under the arm with my ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... only way to do it," I answered. "You could not hitch a bear behind a wagon—the horse would run away and jerk his head off. The only way to take a bear about the country is to lead him, and I do not mind it in the least. As I have got to go without my bicycle I would like to have some sort of company. Anyway, the bear must go, and as I ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... through and fell down on the river bottom, and being mules, not only refused to get up, but insisted upon keeping their noses under the water. The wheelers broke through, too, but had the good sense to stand on their feet, but they gave the ambulance such a hard jerk that the front wheels broke off more ice and went down to the river bottom, also. By the time all this had occurred, I was the only one left inside, and found myself very busy trying to keep myself ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... a tuft of cotton fibers tightly between the fingers and thumb of each hand and pull apart with a jerk. What is your judgment of the strength ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... seemed to him as if the trees and flowers had all turned drab. A terror gnawed at his 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
... no case 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
... which time he seemed to be groping and rooting around with his left hand. Then tentacle after tentacle, myriad-suckered and wildly waving, emerged. Laying hold of his arm, they writhed and coiled about his flesh like so many snakes. With a heave and a jerk appeared the entire squid, a proper devil-fish ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... 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 ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... pencil aside, and close his tired eyes in sleep. He hated the thought of ceasing to live, even for so short a time, and his sole consolation was that the alarm clock was set five hours ahead. He would lose only five hours anyway, and then the jangling bell would jerk him out of unconsciousness and he would have before him another ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... 1. Left heel jerk feeble. 2. Caries in five molars. 3. Slight acne rosacea. 4. Slight inequality of curvature in meridians of right cornea. 5. Nicotine stain on right forefinger, extending to middle ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... as well as a slacker. Never mind. She won't have to put up with him long. If I have any influence in this community that youth will be drafted and sent to a mud hole in France. Mark my words," she went on, settling her hat with a jerk, "that boy will be registered as a single man before this day's over. Go and start the engine, Lizzie. I daresay you remember ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... spiritless as a wet hen, when I heard the sound of voices. It took me only ten seconds to make sure whose they were. Dinky-Dunk had come back with Olie! I made a high dive for a book from the nearest shelf, swung the armchair about with a jerk, and sank luxuriously into it, with my feet up on the warm damper and my eyes leisurely and contentedly perusing George Moore's Confessions of a Young Man (although I hate the libidinous stuff like poison!) Then Dinky-Dunk came in. I could see him stare at me a little awkwardly and contritely ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... silent, I glanced up to behold her watching a man who was approaching astride of a shaggy, bare-backed pony, a dark-complexioned, impudent-looking fellow with bright eyes and a wide mouth. At sight of us, he checked his steed with a jerk of the halter, smote his boot with the stout ash stick he carried, and burst into a shout of laughter. Here again I became extremely conscious of Diana's pretty, naked feet; but the fellow never even so much ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... 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 weights and ...
— Buried Cities: Pompeii, Olympia, Mycenae • Jennie Hall
... language that to me was as unintelligibly mysterious as the cuneiform characters on Mr. Layard's Nineveh sculptures. It was a hard, harsh, guttural dialect, which even those who were to the manner born seemed to jerk out painfully and spasmodically from their lingual organs. This was especially obvious during a bargain, where an excited market-man was endeavoring to pass off a tough old gander as a tender young ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... another car, with a soft purring engine came up to the Crossroads from Economy, slowed just a fraction as it crossed the Highway, the driver looking keenly at the barricade, then stopping his car with a sudden jerk and swinging out. He turned a pocket flash on the big card board Billy had erected, its daubed letters still wet and blurring into the pasteboard. He looked a bit quizzical over the statement, "RODE FLOODED, BRIGE DOWN," because he happened ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... said Aunt Emmeline, "you are not in your first bloom. That we can't expect. Your colour is a little harder and more fixed" (the figure in the glass gave a spasmodic jerk. The sulky expression was pierced by a gleam of fear. "Fixed!" Good gracious! She might be talking of those old people who have little red lines over their cheek-bones in the place of "bloom". It's ridiculous to say I am "fixed". It is a matter of indifference ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... cow. They have been talking about her for three hours. 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 clean, white throat and disappears. She chews again, and by and by ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... 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 ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... hole till we were swimming, I guess. And it's well this cord of 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 thereby lessened the ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... 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 his father was ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... and they'd jump at th' chance to get back at the bosses. But f'r Gawd's sake, look at what it means to me! Anny minute I'm on the job I'd be lookin' to see some bull with a star on 'im holdin' a gun on me; and after that, it's this f'r mine"—with a jerk of the head and a pantomimic gesture simulating the hangman's ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... road winding through stubble 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
... it in the darkness for his tobacco pouch. Then, jumping with a shock to the conclusion that even the unsympathetic Mr. Gunning shared most men's views about not wasting an opportunity, she removed her hand with a jerk. ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... "I'm engaged myself, or I'd be only too pleased, but you just speak to that other gentleman there,"—with an encouraging jerk of his sleek head towards the next vehicle. "He'll take you anywhere you ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... us that the great clapper was ringing out its music. Far over dead London resounded our message 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 ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... The gun recoiled from the previous shot; swiftly it was swabbed out. A new shell was handed up; I looked it over tenderly. That was my shell! I watched the men as they placed it and saw it disappear with a jerk. Then came the swift sighting of the gun, the almost inperceptible corrections of elevation ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... little call, and sent a thrill of such wild joy through his heart that he drew back the mule with a sharp cruel jerk, and held his breath to listen. Was he going loco from lack of sleep,—lack ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... many highbred and highstrung collies, he did not fancy having his collar seized by a stranger. He did not resent the act with snarls and a show of teeth, as in the case of the beach comber. But he stiffened to offended dignity, and, with a sudden jerk, freed himself from the little ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... indolence, carelessness, and a temper which (usually sweet and angelic) is goaded to madness by the laws of matter and of gravitation. For example: when another man is caught up in a branch he disengages his fly; I jerk at it till something breaks. As for carelessness, in boyhood I fished, by preference, with doubtful gut and knots ill-tied; it made the risk greater, and increased the excitement if one did hook a trout. I can't keep a fly-book. I stuff the flies into my pockets ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... sudden jerk Rock Cod obtained his freedom, though not without additional agony. He faced his partner, with revenge in his wild eyes and curses on his tongue. But just at this moment, a stoutly-built, red-faced sailor pushed his way through the Pilot's crew, and, snatching ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... sled and walked back with the two boys. They found the sleds on the sidewalk, exactly where a sudden jerk of the sled she was on had made Ruth drop the ropes. Even Nelson could not scold his sister when the sleds were so easily found, and as they went back toward the hill he and Ruth and Sunny Boy ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... misfortune, thus cheering one another. Lucien had an idea of hanging on to Gringalet's tail, who was the only one that could avoid these mishaps. This plan answered very well at first; but the dog soon after broke away by a sudden jerk, and the boy rolled backward like a ball, losing all the ground he had gained, but he at once got up again, quite in a pet with the dog, for whom he predicted a fall as a ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... with her early morning croak to call Miss Juliana; she had dumped down the hot-water can in the basin with a clash, pulled up the blind with a jerk, and drawn back the curtains with a clatter, before she noticed that Miss Juliana was up all the time. Up and dressed, and sitting in her chair by the hearth, warming her ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... two strong strokes, 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 ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... possible 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 ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... clench 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 revealed to me. He ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... of but a minute to jerk a string from his pocket, bridle the beast, and mount him ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... 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 impoverished ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... speak of. I've looped a cord about his throat, and got the other end round a cleat. If he tries to jerk away he'll strangle. Put on more power, man! Can't you see they've dragged the Archies out and are stuffing in ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... 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 black coffin. Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... laughed. I had been seized from behind, a rope was round me, binding my arms to my side, a sudden jerk had me on my back. In that instant Sir Michael was upon me, and I was gagged and trussed almost before I realized what had happened. Never did the veriest tyro walk more innocently into ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... 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 opened her ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... cascade of applause, and a bundle of old clothes, twitching nerves, liquid perspiration and grease paint hopped off the stage into the centre of the group. An electric bell trilled, the limelights shut off, with a jerk that made the eyes ache, a back-cloth soared aloft and another glided down into its place, the comedian took two, three, four calls, then vanished into a horde of dim figures ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... red-bearded rough, who charged him so furiously, was nothing more than the thousands of bull-headed forwards who had come upon him like thunder-bolts in the days of old. With the ease begotten by practice he circled his assailant with his long muscular arms, and gave a quick convulsive jerk in which every sinew of his body participated. The red-bearded man's stumpy legs described a half-circle in the air, and he came down on the stone pavement with a sounding crash which shook every particle of breath from ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... much confidence as his betting on the horse races, and when Morris climbed into the tonneau he paid little attention to Abe's instructions, so busy was he glancing around him for prying credit men. At length, with a final jar and jerk the machine sprang forward, and for the rest of the journey Morris' mind was emptied of every other apprehension save that engendered of passing trucks or street cars. Finally, the machine drew up in front of the Prince William and Morris ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... suddenly from behind a rock, and presented a rifle. He was so close to Aiken that the rifle almost struck him in the face. Aiken threw up his hands, and fell back with such a jerk that he lost his balance, and would have fallen had he not pitched forward and clasped the mule around the neck. I pulled my mule to a halt, and held my hands as high as I could raise them. The man moved his rifle from side to side so as to cover each of us in turn, and ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... Mrs. Potter," said Annie, and with a spiteful jerk she pulled down the shade. "We will shut ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... 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 ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... remained on deck. He placed his hand on the shrouds of the main mast. One moment they hung loosely; and then, as the vessel rolled over, tightened themselves, with a sudden jerk, till they were as stiff as iron ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... along with the tide, which suddenly shifted and carried us rapidly towards a reef of rocks, which was invisible till the strong rippling of the water shewed us our danger: we let go the anchor immediately, but the jerk was so great, as to break the Lyra's cable. A second anchor, however, brought her up at a ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... of a certain blue jacket, which was about to pass from Matthew, the eldest born, to David, the second, and looked up at her husband affectionately. Her husband, however, spoke not; he only made a sign, partly with his eyebrow, partly with a jerk of his thumb over his right shoulder, in the direction of the young lady we have described, and then completed the pantomime with a melancholy shake of the head. The wife turned round and looked hard, the scissors horizontally raised in one hand, while the other ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... necessary to 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 from the "Beagle", when all were suffering from want ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... Lincoln was again elected a member of the lower house of the legislature, and many are the amusing stories told of the canvass. It was in this year that he made sudden onslaught on the demagogue Dick Taylor, and opening with a sudden jerk the artful colonel's waistcoat, displayed a glittering wealth of jewelry hidden temporarily beneath it. There is also the tale of his friend Baker haranguing a crowd in the store beneath Lincoln's office. The audience differed ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... boat lay. I had left it close under the last of the high ground, and had drawn it well up out of reach of the tide, as I believed. But there was no boat there. The beach lay shining in the sun, bare and white, and my heart gave a jerk of dismay. ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... which I closed the harangue seemed to touch the right string of the Spanish guitar, and in an instant I saw the dogged heads spring up with a jerk of mortified pride, while the steward and cabin-boy poured in a fresh supply of wine, and a shout of union went up from both divisions. I lost no time in confirming my converts; and, ramming down my eloquence with a wad of doubloons, ordered every man ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... is!" cried Bobby as soon as Bucephalus had approached within hearing distance. "You got to practise until your forefinger works all by itself—entirely separate from the rest of your arm. Then the rifle won't jerk ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... held 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 ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... lash, beat, thrash, flog, drub, punish, chastise, trounce, flagellate, castigate, scourge, switch, spank, maul, fustigate; (Slang) conquer, defeat; jerk, snatch, whisk. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... and still beyond them, he saw the bright and determined eye that was taking sight along the barrels. All this he took in at a glance, and, without word or comment, he made a quick dodge of his head, jumped to one side, made a dash for his horse, and, untying the bridle with a jerk, he mounted and galloped out of the open gate, turning as he did so to find himself still covered by the muzzles of that gun. When he had nearly reached the outer gate and felt himself out of range, he turned in his saddle, and looking back at Lawrence, who was still standing ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... that patient waiting, and rebaiting of his hook, the persistence of the fisherman with the crooked rod was rewarded. He was seen to give a quick jerk, and then with a mighty effort throw a fairly large, shining fish ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... are good to women, even strangers. You can save my life, if you will—or more than my life. But there's only one way." Her words came fast, on panting breaths, as though she had been running. The girl had stood at first, her hand on the door-knob, but losing her balance with a jerk of the train, she let herself fall into the seat. There she sat with her head thrown wearily back, her eyes appealing to the eyes that looked down ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... if I can't pull you down!" cried I, springing forward: indignation giving me strength, I seized, and with one jerk pulled the Colossus forward and ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the hill, before Caney, a man with a lanyard gave a quick jerk. There was a cap explosion at the butt of the gun and a bulging white cloud from the muzzle; the trail bounced from its shallow trench, the wheels whirled back twice on the rebound, and the shell was hissing ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... lucky hackle something darted, seized it, and whirled to fly, with the unwholesome bit in its mouth, up the peaceful Ayboljockameegus. But the lucky man, and he happened to be the novice, forgot, while giving the capturing jerk of his hook, that his fulcrum was not solid rock. The slight shell tilted, turned—over not quite, over enough to give everybody a start. One lesson teaches the docile. Caution thereafter presided over our fishing. She told us to sit low, keep cool, cast gently, strike ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... 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, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... 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 legs bent under ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... grew along the river banks. The meat, cut in small strips, or ribbons, was dried quickly in the hot sun. This was called "jirked" meat. Later on the word was corrupted into "jerked," and "jerked beef" is not unknown at the present day. The verb "jerk" is corrupted from the Chilian word, charqui, meaning sun-dried meat; but it is not easy to explain how the Chilian word got into ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... creeping edge of dawn I woke from a dream with a jerk as I slid down an endless black abyss. The abyss was my bed's edge and I found myself on the floor. When I went to rise again, I had to clutch things to stand up. I was so weak I sat on the bed breathing heavily. I tumbled backward into bed again and lay in a daze during which dream-objects mixed ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... pryingly, not significantly, but as a man generally does look in the face the other man whom he accosts seriously. The change in the face he regarded was slight, but it was unmistakable. It was the sudden meeting of the eyebrows, accompanied with the sudden jerk of the shoulder and bend of the neck, which betoken a man taken by surprise, and who pauses to reflect before he replies. His pause was ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... brought up to the pirate and slipped over his neck; Cavendish then gave the signal, the gun was fired, the men holding the end of the whip ran aft, the seamen holding the man sprang aside, and the pirate's body, still struggling and writhing, went flying aloft, to stop presently with a jerk as it reached the jewel-block, and dangle at the end of the fore yard-arm, still plunging and struggling with such violence that the yard itself fairly shook. It was some considerable time before the struggles ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... half 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, and eat ...
— Beggars Bush - From the Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... 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 often so violent as to break a ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... flat and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, the drivers all swearing like demons in bad hats, and the chief actor's circulation decidedly quickened by every variety of kick, cuff, jerk and haul. When the last breath seemed to have left his body, and "doctors were in vain," a sudden resurrection took place; and if ever a mule laughed with scornful triumph, that was the beast, as he leisurely rose, gave a comfortable shake, and, calmly regarding the excited crowd, seemed to ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... fingers Hiawatha Felt the loose line jerk and tighten; As he drew it in, it tugged so That the birch canoe stood endwise, Like a birch log in the water, With the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Perched and ...
— The Children's Own Longfellow • Henry W. Longfellow
... I received something like a jerk from the elbow of the gentleman at my right. It was an accidental jog, as ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... long, discordant cry could be heard somewhere in the distance, ending in a spasmodic jerk. It was like nothing human. Yet strangely it suggested something human. As if some unearthly ghoul were trying to simulate the wailing of human anguish.... Then again it was quite grotesque, bearing no resemblance to the cry of a ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... face kept quiet it looked dead beside the ruddy faces of the three old men; dead and very quietly, very softly decomposing into bleached purple and sallow white. Then her gaiety would come popping up again and jerk it back into life. ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... confused, lost in the buzz and hum of voices, the shuffle of feet. The air grew warmer and more and more foul. Myra felt drowsy. She longed to put her head on Joe's shoulder and fall asleep—sink into peace and stillness. But time and again she came to with a jerk, started forward and eagerly scanned the faces for Rhona. What had happened to the girl? Would she be kept in jail overnight? Or had something worse happened? An increasing fear took possession of her. She felt in the presence of enemies. Joe was asleep. ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... no fool like a young fool." The little captain started his motor with a jerk, and its comfortable chugging was at once changed to ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... 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
... by two lean and weary horses, toiled its way slowly up the long steep incline for six miles to the Cross Foxes, and then rattled down the opposite slope, steaming and groaning, till it drew up at last with a sudden jerk and a general collapse in front of the old Red Lion Inn in the middle of the High Street. There Ernest put up for the present, having seen by the shutters at the grocer's shop on his way down that the Oswalds had already heard of Harry's accident. He had dinner by himself, with ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... destruction, doctors might do the same to purposes of life and salvation. Think of the difference between being jolted for hours in a bullock-cart in the dust and heat and being borne through the air without jerk or jar. Think of the hundreds of men who, in the course of one campaign, would be saved from the ghastly fate of lying unfound, unseen by the stretcher-bearers, to starve to death, to lie weltering in their blood, to ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... trees, bearing the queerly bundled 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, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... 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 on ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of a hundred perils, a ten-foot section of her 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 again, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... But while he was heaving with all his little strength, the pony's back suddenly sank before him, and Elsie cried out that Stonecrop (for that was the pony's name) was going to lie down. Like a wise little woman she gave the rein a jerk, which brought Stonecrop's head up and kept him on his legs; but Stonecrop was so much annoyed that he whisked round and tugged so hard at the rein that he drew it over his head; and Dick had only just time to catch hold of it before Elsie was obliged ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue
... handkerchief being tied in a knot stood up from her head like two enormous ears. She was bolstered up by pillows, as she declared she could not breathe in any other position, and at every breath she drew she opened and shut her mouth with a sudden jerk. Effie had looked up from her reading suddenly, and caught the reflection of cousin Betty's profile, thrown by the light, greatly magnified upon the wall, and stuffing her handkerchief in her mouth to prevent a sudden explosion of laughter, by which ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... briskly on for a few minutes, past the end of Red Lane, though Stephen cast a wistful glance up it, and gave an impatient jerk to the load upon his shoulders. Tim had been walking beside him in silent reflection; but at last he ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... the movement may be easily examined. Lightly breathing upon them will cause the elaters to contract, but in a moment, as soon as the moisture of the breath has evaporated, they will uncoil with a quick jerk, causing the spores to ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... up and gave me such a violent jerk that I nearly rolled over. I looked round. At the edge of the wood a hare had just come into view, with one ear bent down and the other one sharply pricked, The blood rushed to my head, and I forgot everything else as I shouted, slipped the dog, and rushed towards ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... my professional position. During my morning office-hour an old woman came in, and putting down a large basket, wiped her face with a yellow-cotton handkerchief, and afterwards with the corner of her apron. Then she looked around uneasily, got up, settled her basket on her arm with a jerk which may have decided the future of an egg or two, and remarked briskly: "Don't see no little bottles about; got the wrong stall, I guess. You ain't no ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... 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
... limb, and swallows him. Then he creeps to the couch of Beowulf and stretches out a claw, only to find it clutched in a grip of steel. A sudden terror strikes the monster's heart. He roars, struggles, tries to jerk his arm free; but Beowulf leaps to his feet and grapples his enemy bare handed. To and fro they surge. Tables are overturned; golden benches ripped from their fastenings; the whole building quakes, and only its iron bands keep it from falling to ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... into it the rope which had been coiled about my body, and giving it a jerk as a signal the whole was drawn up out of sight. Then, binding my feet again, they laid me on the hard rock near the mouth of the cave, and climbed nimbly back as they had come. The rope ladder was drawn up, and I ...
— Anting-Anting Stories - And other Strange Tales of the Filipinos • Sargent Kayme
... that the more straightforward and open-eyed, the less subtle, temperamental, and neurotic are women, the more are they baffling. I had wondered for some time whither the catechism tended, and now, with a sudden jerk, it stopped short at this most unexpected terminus. It was startling. I rose and mechanically placed my empty tea-cup on ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... that a black mark that 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
... shoutin' off your sea-lawyer mouth," Mr. Pike continued, "I'll jerk you out of that and show ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... Johnny felt the jerk, heard the Rector's cry of warning, and in two seconds (he never knew how) had leapt over the stern oar, across the thwarts, past the kicking and terrified Bounce—with whom the Rector was struggling as she threatened to leap overboard—and reached the bows in time to snatch ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is well designed, the happy result of thought, or product of imagination. But to proceed from wit, in the general notion of it, to the proper wit of an heroic or historical poem; I judge it chiefly to consist in the delightful imaging of persons, actions, passions, or things. It is not the jerk or sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis (the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme) nor the jingle of a more poor Paronomasia; neither is it so much the morality ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... him, when suddenly he vanished, sinking, as it were, 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 a Dakota ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... 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 that ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... 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 me for ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... but at night there would be a whole family of them lying right against one, having crept under the blankets to keep warm, I suppose, as the nights were quite cool. Upon getting up in the morning we would take our blankets by one end and give a jerk, and the lizards would roll out like so many ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... quite good-tempered now, and giving me a nod and a jerk of his head, which meant—"This way," he went down a path, cut a great rhubarb leaf, and turned ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... understand that both these phases were owing to his increasing habit of drinking more than he ought to have done. She set them down as the direct effects of a sorely burdened conscience; and strove more and more to plan for his daily life at home, how it should go on with oiled wheels, neither a jerk nor a jar. It was no wonder she looked wistful, and careworn, and old. Miss Monro was her great comfort; the total unconsciousness on that lady's part of anything below the surface, and yet her full and delicate recognition of all the little daily ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the middle of 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 it and flashed their danger-signal ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... pleasure his 'Wusshup' must contrive to postpone till he has caught me," answered Freddy, as with a sudden jerk he succeeded in freeing himself from his captor's grasp, while, almost at the same moment, he dealt him a cuff on the side of the head which sent him reeling back to the door of the bell-tower, where encountering the mayor, who had just made his appearance, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... suddenly overcome with fear. He allowed the sheriff to jerk him to his feet, and walked passively between the three men across the street to ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... 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, with after-hours ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... the parasol out of your hands and puts it up with a jerk; you take it, heaving a very loud sigh, upon which your mother seizes it again ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... another 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
... moment another 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 as ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... baited the hook and threw out the line, And watched the cork disappear with a rapture divine! And felt just as proud as a prince or a king When we landed high up, with a jerk and a swing, A fish that would measure two inches or more, Then anchored him fast with the string to the shore! But unnumbered now are the silver strands spun With the hair of the head since we ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... show in one of their barns that afternoon, the admission price being ten pins. Bobaday learned how to make a slip-knot with the horse-hair and hold it in silent suspense just where the minnows moved: the moment a fish glided into the open snare a dexterous jerk whipped him out of the water, held firmly about the middle by the hair noose. It required skill and nice handling, and the split-sleeved boy was the most ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... not answer. He was finding that motherly face, that pleasant voice, curiously vivid still. This annoyed him, and he forced himself back with a jerk to the oddity of events. "A queer business, my Benjamin," he said. "Who was ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... 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, ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... the wind at slack chains, was swept off broadside like a straw. Then her chains brought her up, bow on to the wind, with an astonishing jerk. Schooner after schooner, the Malahini with them, was now sweeping away with the first gust and fetching up on taut chains. Mulhall and several of the Kanakas were taken off their feet when the Malahini jerked to ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... line. This must be looked into, thought Percy: something certainly was happening; so he got up and went across the empty compartment to the further window. Again came the crying of voices, again the signals, and once more a car whirled past, followed almost immediately by another. There was a jerk—a smooth movement. Percy staggered and fell into a seat, as the carriage in which he was seated itself ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... beside him, 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 ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... 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
... remarked Mr. 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 ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... he made some jocular remark in the patois which provoked a guffaw from the rest, and reddened Nance's face, and caused Bernel to glance up at Gard and jerk round ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... assault on the part of his master made the preacher feel as though his Satanic majesty had possession of him. In such a crisis he evidently felt that preaching would do no good; he was, however, constrained to make an effort. To use his own words, he said: "I gave a sudden jerk and started off on a trot, leaving my master calling, 'stop! stop!' but I kept on running, and was soon ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... 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
... the farmer in a peremptory voice, giving the rein a quick jerk as he spoke. But Dick moved not a step. "Dick! you vagabond! get up." And the farmer's whip cracked ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... at last, met her eyes fixed full upon him with that in their expression which no man could ignore. She had not expected him to turn. The movement disconcerted her. With a sharp jerk She averted her face, seeking to cover that momentary slip, to persuade him even then, if it were possible, into the belief that ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... And then he robbed me of her on my wedding day, and has slain my father and young brother to keep her. He has given her a child: enough of this. Dastard! I will follow and follow until I dare to strike. Then I will kill him. Let me alone.' Gilles, red and gloomy, had to jerk the words out: he was no speaker. The Marquess had ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... had rendered him such good service during the fight in the court. At first Frank entertained the bold idea of riding over the Ranchero. Roderick was as quick as a flash in his movements, and one touch of the spurs, if his rider could take Pierre off his guard, would cause the horse to jerk the bridle from his grasp, and before the robber could recover himself, Frank would be out of danger. But Pierre had anticipated this movement, and he was too well acquainted with his prisoner to relax his vigilance for an instant. More than that, he held both the reins under Roderick's ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... has sometimes very just 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 ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the fodder-bag at the back, placed herself at their feet, for company. Lars took up the reins, pulled them tightly, and loosened them again; having done this several times, the old nag started with a jerk, which almost upset their balance, and off they went into ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... to see what the devil he was looking at. 'We may take that, may we, Doctor?' He was watching Sabre with a sort of half smile. The doctor said he might take it. The chap snapped up his face with a jerk and turned round. 'Thank you, Doctor. That will do.' And he sat down. If ever I saw a chap playing a fish and suddenly strike and hook it, I saw it then, when he smiled towards Sabre and then snapped ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... whom it is natural to heave half a brick, but against their own old neighbours. They tore each other to pieces, they were perfect cannibals with the tongue, perfect Lestrigonians. They never said 'good morning' to an equal, or lifted their hats to a lady; a jerk of the head, say about half an inch from the perpendicular, was their utmost greeting; their manners were about as pleasant as those of cattle might be could they be dressed like human beings. True, Bethel was of modern date, but they had had resident vicars for centuries; and where had they been, ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... cardboard down," said Bert. "That's easy enough," and the older brother, coming to the rescue, put his fingers under the choking neck, gave the paper box a jerk, and ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... to come out now," he said, at last. "I've got other things to tend to. Can't stay here no longer, nohow." He unlocked the door and threw it open with a jerk. "Time's up!" he shouted, and Dorothy came out directly, almost as if she were running away. Alvin Mead clapped to the door with a great jar and locked it. Madelon, had she tried, could not have got ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... sufficient steam to crawl up river, the tide had turned and the Maggie could not buck the ebb. McGuffey declared a few new tubes in the boiler would do the trick, but on the other hand, Mr. Gibney pointed out that the old craft was practically punk aft and a stiff tow would jerk the tail off the old girl. In despair, therefore, Captain Scraggs had abandoned bay and river towing and was prepared to jump overboard and end all, when an opportunity offered for the freighting of garden truck and dairy produce from ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... kind-hearted men—and these deserve all praise. But, if accounts speak true, there are others who are more deserving the lash of correction than many whom they so brutally arrest. Need they be told that they have no right to kick, or jerk, or otherwise abuse an unresisting victim? Are they aware of the fact that the fallen are still human, and that, as guardians of the peace, they are bound to yet be merciful while discharging their duties? I have heard of more than one instance where men, and even women, ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... voice was interjected, another disputant stepped quickly forward, and Toomey checked himself in the first breath of an impassioned outburst; his black hand suddenly shot half-way up to the cap-visor, then came down with a jerk; his heels had clicked together and his knees straightened out, then as suddenly went limp. The new-comer had sprung up the steps. The form was slender and sinewy. Hands, face, and dress were black with soot, but the young voice was deep and the ring of accustomed command ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... 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 hole was carefully explored. If he ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... 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
... not the jerk of the starting train that half awoke me, but the consciousness that some one had flung himself into the compartment when the train was already in motion. I saw a small man putting something in the rack—a large black hand-bag. Through the haze of my sleep I saw him, vaguely resented ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... shaped pieces as well as straight. You cannot break these directly the cut is made, but, holding the glass as in fig. 12, and pressing it firmly with the left thumb, jerk the tool up by little, sharp jerks of the fingers only, so as to tap along the underside of your cut. You will see a little silver line spring along the cut, showing that the glass is dividing; and when that silver line has sprung from end ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... had been foreseen for some time by Elizabeth, as the box passenger foresees the approaching jerk from some channel ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... to you!" and her ladyship opened her jewelled fan and spread it before her eyes to completely screen the objectionable Doctor from view. "Don't you know your theories are quite out of date? Nobody is old,—we all utterly refuse to be old! Why," and she shut her fan with a sudden jerk, "I shall have you calling ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... lagoon great 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 ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... got over that great outburst of singing yet," he said, with a little jerk of the head towards the stage, where, for the moment, minor characters were in possession, preparing the path for the last rush of song by which Al'mah, the new prima donna, would bring her first night to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... than useless now. Not only does the devil's advocate lack his own halfpenny; but with a swirl of the hand and a cunning jerk at the side, a stone whizzes after this regardless railer upon honest giants. Wails and agony follow. It is a dangerous thing to sit in the scorner's chair, specially when the divinity has the popular acclaim, with store of sweetmeats and ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... 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 ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... his hand in the air as if in solemn adjuration, and then brought it down on his knee, doubling up in a fit of uncontrollable but perfectly noiseless laughter. "Oh, Lord!" he gasped, "hol' me afore I bust right open! Hush," he went on, with a jerk of his fingers towards the next room, "not a word o' this to any one! It's too much to keep, I know; it's nearly killing me! but we must swaller it ourselves! Oh, Jerusalem the Golden! Oh, Brice! Think o' that face ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... length sinuous a certain amount of support is given, it cannot strike. On this theory a mounted cow boy first puts a rattler to flight, then pushes his pony in pursuit, stoops from the saddle, seizes it by the tail, gives a quick upward jerk, and, swinging it so rapidly around his head that it is impossible for it to strike, sets off in pursuit of whoever has exhibited most terror at the sight of the reptile. When within fair distance he hurls the snake at the unfortunate victim, in the full assurance that even should it strike him ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... it, as I intended they should; but I flung both arms out and caught it, bringing myself up with a jerk. While yet I hung clawing, I heard a footstep coming through the gateway between ...
— The Splendid Spur • Arthur T. Quiller Couch
... not move, and remained motionless under that mad caress; then she turned her head with a jerk, and either by accident or design her little lips met his, under their wealth of light hair, and a moment afterwards, either from confusion or remorse, she struck her horse with her riding-whip, and went off at full gallop, and they rode on like that for some time, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... 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, ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... force that even the sea didn't stop her; but while I hung on to the wheel for dear life, down went her masts perpendicularly, and up she came on the other side, and to my infinite satisfaction righted herself with a jerk, which sent everything into its place again. So rapid was the movement that nothing was washed away, nor were any of the people awakened. Indeed, they would not believe what had happened even when I ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... supreme coquette. She allured and mocked, appealed and commanded; adapted herself with the suppleness of bronze to mould, with enchanting flashes of egotism; discarded all perception of man's existence in the abstract, when she had surrendered her attention to one, to jerk him out of his heaven by ordering him to go and send her his rival; possessed a quickness of intuition which finished a man's sentences with her eyes, an exquisite sympathy which made a man feel that here at last he was understood (as he would wish himself understood, rather than ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... nothing, although the look he gave the forward man was blasting and not without effect. The fellow fell back; something which looked like a roll of bills passed from Boyle's hand to Axel Peterson's, and with a jerk of the shoulder, which might have been intended as a defiance to his rival or as an expression of resignation, Boyle moved back a little into the crowd, where he stood whispering with his friends. Peterson's face lit up again; ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... the bar, the horses had to pull hard, and with a jerk it cleared the invisible hindrance. There was a cry from the inside of the threshing-barn, and the sound of many voices shouting "Stop!" The horses stopped dead, and Pelle had to seize the bar to prevent it swinging forward against their legs. It was some time ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... arm grip him in a bear hug, and, a second after, his breast bone seemed to cave in, as a sudden jerk and strain came on the strap by which he was bound to ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... 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
... bells of fifty churches tolled the hour. It was one o'clock in the morning. The traveler had traveled backwards, it would seem, into the middle ages. As he heard the church bells he gave an angry upward jerk of the head, as if the sound confirmed a thought that was already in his mind. The bells seemed to be all around him; the towers of the churches seemed to dominate the sleeping city on every side. There was a distinct smell of incense in the air of these narrow streets, ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... sounding very low, and saying something about infernal impudence and not presuming to come near me. The policeman touched the dark man's elbow. He started, half-turned on the man, made a movement with his hands; but then he felt the jerk of the chain. The blood rushed to his face. With the policeman holding his arm he walked away across the room, and I wondered what sort of place he was being taken to. It wasn't until the door had closed upon him that I realized how angry father was. Mr. Dingley was saying that ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... crest of the mesa upon which the village was situated, they came suddenly upon a woman riding at full gallop. The soft, sandy formation of the soil was such that neither heard the approach of the other, and all three reined in their horses with a jerk; the woman throwing hers well back upon its haunches; a high-strung, black, wiry animal whose foam-flecked mouth and breast told that she ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... was that Isoult suddenly sat up and looked at Prosper. He could not read her face, but knew by her stiff-poised head that she was quivering. He said nothing, but made a motion, a swift jerk with his head, to wave her out of the way. Galors responded by first tightening, finally relaxing, his hold upon her waist. She slipt down from the saddle, and stood hesitating what to do. She had waited for this moment so long, that the natural thing ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... delight of a mosquito is to arrive just at the moment when you are falling off to sleep, properly fatigued with your day's work. You hear a long, threatening boom, which finally ends with a sharp jerk, like buzz-z-z-z-z-z-zup. Then you wait in anxious expectancy for what you well know will come next. It does come, a sharp prick on some part where you least expected it. You slap angrily at the place, and hurt yourself, but not the ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the hills it took to cure them; but when their shootings, that had followed over heights where the pines grew and down through the open swales between, dropped off, and died finally away among the willows along the south fork of the Malheur, Drake reined in his horse with a jerk. ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... 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 they ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... look at me. I was not there to him. He gave an impatient jerk to his head. "Ready to go? Of course I'm ready to go! Of course. Why ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... face with its half-tamed expression, the eager scrutiny in the eyes, which were almost too bold in their brightness, startled Beatrice and gave her a sense of uneasiness. The face came like a flash to the window and then disappeared, and at that same moment Davis started the cab forward with a jerk. It was to the credit of both Davis and his sorry-looking steed that they should make a good show in the avenue. For this they had been reserving themselves, and they went along now in such a heedless and almost ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... on the part of the victim could loosen that terrible grip; but the horses, responding to the first jerk of the reins following the attack, stood still, while a human soul was being wrenched out of the world ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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
... 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, "Happy Christmas to all, ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... gallop would suit you best," answered my father; "try him with a touch of your whip behind, and give a gentle jerk with your left rein. Now, away we go!" and both steeds broke into a canter, exchanging it in a short time for ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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
... To move the great big mountain Will take a million men. So come on with your tooth picks And bring your fountain pen. Go easy, don't jerk; We gotta make work. It'll take more moons If we use small spoons To ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... fact that the girl had lost her life during the disaster had anything to do with the act he clenched his hands and with an angry jerk of his head almost shouted his ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... were impossible. A jerk from the tow-rope of a steamer at full speed would tear us asunder. Have you observed these two strong ropes running all round our gunwale, and the bridles across ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... "can you stand a bit of a jerk? Catch hold of him behind, Eustace. Sit down on the floor, Charles, and hold the legs of the chair. Now then!" And taking up the foot, he pulled. There was a click, a little noise of teeth ground together; and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sound, and, with a crunch and a jerk which almost threw them from their seats, the machine came to a standstill. Brockton and his chauffeur were out in an instant, the one peering beneath, the other examining more closely. He emerged in a moment, and there was ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... the bit in his teeth, but with a sharp jerk as he drove the spurs in, Vincent had defeated his intention. He now did not attempt to check or guide him, but keeping a light hand on the reins let him go his own course. Vincent knew that so long as the horse was going full speed it could attempt ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... impudence! . . . The Blue Domino turned her head with a jerk; and instantly I felt a shiver run through her body. For a moment she lost step. I was filled with wonder. In what manner could the ten of hearts disturb her? I made up my mind to seek out the noble Roman and learn just how much he knew about ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath
... matter 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 Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... Drop your clam down to the bottom, and it won't be half a minute before you feel something pull on it. Then you draw it up gently,—steady as you know how. You mustn't jerk the crab loose. You'll get the knack of it in five minutes. It's all knack. There isn't any thing else ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... begins: two ones are two; three ones are three-and then he thinks of three coins in his pocket, which will purchase so much candy, in the store down the street, next to the toy-shop, where are base-balls, marbles and so on, -and then he comes back with a jerk, to four ones are four. So with us also. We are seeking the meaning of our task, but the mind takes advantage of a moment of slackened attention, and flits off from one frivolous detail to another, till ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... act as if they 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 ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... gets the ball in his cross he sets off towards the goal with the utmost speed and is followed by the rest who endeavour to jostle him and shake it out; but, if hard pressed, he discharges it with a jerk, to be forwarded by his own party or bandied back by their opponents until the victory is decided by ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... admitted the block upon which they stood. Up and up they went, and now the creaking sound grew louder, and the motion grew perceptibly slower. They were no longer in a narrow shaft; a black space opened before their eyes. The motion ceased altogether with a grinding sensation and a jerk, and out of the darkness of a wider space, pitchy dark to their eyes, came the sound ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... seeing them after the funeral because, he said, he wished to thank them for all they had done for "'er!" He made a jerk over his shoulder with his thumb when he said "'er," and they gathered that he was indicating the direction of Kensal Green cemetery. He was very maudlin and drunk, and Ninian thought that he ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... the elevator boy to greater speed. They were speeding up the shaft as rapidly as possible, but it was not fast enough. When they at last reached the height at which the excitement seemed to be centered, the car was stopped with a jerk and Arthur dashed ...
— The Runaway Skyscraper • Murray Leinster
... were ready to go at last and the drivers climbed back into them and disappeared, leaving the steel monsters looking as though theyd swallowed the men. Like bubbles of air in a narrow glass tube they began to jerk backward and forward, until at some signal—I presume given by radio—they jumped ahead, their exhausts bellowing defiance of the grass mauled and torn ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... one; primarily, he must consider himself; he must not forget his own desperate situation and danger. The train, beginning to slacken, brought the sense of it once more poignantly to mind. His companion hadn't reached the station yet but he suddenly rose. The car stopped with a jerk; Mr. Heatherbloom murmured something hurriedly ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... 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 he rose and vigorously delivered ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the next moment, and Paul believed that he heard him utter a little sigh. Long Jim's limbs contracted and straightened out again with a jerk. Then he turned slowly over on his side and lay still, a moment or two, after which he began to writhe violently. At the same time he clapped his hand to his head ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... for 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 New York ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... which they cause, in proportion, not to their importance in our present life, but to the point at which they appeared in our evolutionary past. We are quite unable to resist the impulse of mere vascular and nervous reaction, the watering of the mouth, the jerk of the limb, the closing of the eye which we share with some of the simplest vertebrates. We can only with difficulty resist the instincts of sex and food, of anger and fear, which we share with the higher animals. It is, on the other hand, difficult for us to obey consistently the impulses which ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... of the seductive cocktails you fee the man who brings it; you fee the chambermaid who attends to your room. Infinite are the resources of these servants who do not receive a fee. You fee the elevator or lift boy, or he will take the opportunity to jerk you up as though shot out of a gun. You fee the porter for taking up your trunk, and give a special fee for unstrapping it. You fee the head waiter, and when you fee the table waiter he whispers in your ear that a slight fee will be acceptable to the cook, who will see that ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... enough for the steam-swiler Royal Bloodhound t' jerk that yelpin' tramp, had she lost her propeller—as well she might, poor helpless lady o' fashion! in that slob-ice—'twould be easy enough t' rip her through a league o' the floe t' open water, with a charge or two o' ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... left us. Thinking from the direction we were in that water was not far distant I took one of my men with me to whom I gave my fowling-piece to carry...We saw another native a little way before us to whom I signified what I wanted." As Grant approached, this native, by a sudden jerk of the foot, raised and caught up in his hand a spear; the weapon rose within six inches of the Lieutenant's face and caused him to turn and grasp his gun from his attendant. The native, however, merely put the spear on his shoulder and ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... said Psmith graciously. 'You have our ear. You would seem to have something on your chest in addition to that Neapolitan ice garment which, I regret to see, you still flaunt. If it is one tithe as painful as that, you have my sympathy. Jerk it ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... 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 again to the cache, he had found ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... 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 of the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... Granger," he answered, recovering himself with a jerk; "you did not say anything dreadful, only that you were glad to see me. What ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... as a second the vision of the awful occurrence that had unbalanced his mind. With his chin on his chest he sat without a smile, while she murmured words of endearment; and whenever she tried to touch his poor twitching hands with the tips of her fingers, full of infinite love, he would jerk away as if seized by a ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... stuffy bunk, he knew that a very merry party of passengers were enjoying themselves in the saloon. He was still in his bunk when the ship came to her moorings at Algiers, and he got up with a sudden jerk, under the impression that the Zouave was sinking. Seizing his many weapons, he rushed on deck, to find it was not foundering, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Jimmy had known that Dallas Brown had come in and was listening. I am sure I had not. Hearing his chuckle at the doorway brought us up with a jerk. ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... 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 ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... this apparent tubercle is found to have a leathery attachment like a flexible neck, and by a sudden jerk the little creature is enabled to project it forward into its normal position, when it is discovered to be furnished with a mouth, antennae, and four ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... bottom, and being mules, not only refused to get up, but insisted upon keeping their noses under the water. The wheelers broke through, too, but had the good sense to stand on their feet, but they gave the ambulance such a hard jerk that the front wheels broke off more ice and went down to the river bottom, also. By the time all this had occurred, I was the only one left inside, and found myself very busy trying to keep myself from slipping down under the front seat, where ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... following through with an up-thrust of the ax-blade as one rushed in on one's opponent, and then a down-thrust of the butt-spike, developing into a down-slice of the bayonet, and a final upward jerk of the bayonet at the throat and chin with a shortened grip on the barrel, which had been allowed to slide through the hands at the ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... of the hill now," observed Cedric presently, with a jerk of the reins to remind Brown Becky that she must not go to sleep, and then they bowled swiftly down a wide-open road. They had just passed a cross-road, which, as Cedric informed Malcolm, led to Rotherwood, where the nearest ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... 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, ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... 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 on ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... 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 to his ear, and he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... was riding toward the bunch of cattle gathered at Diamond X ranch for the big, spring round-up, leaped forward at the sound of his master's voice, and in response to the little jerk of the reins and the clap of heels against his sides. Into the herd of milling, turning and twisting cattle the intelligent animal made his way, needing hardly any guidance from Nort. The lad, by a mere touch, corrected the course of Blaze slightly, and ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... 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
... she sat up with a sudden jerk, realizing that the parlor door had opened and closed, and tried to wipe away the tears before any one saw them; then a hot blush of embarrassment and shame flooded her wet cheeks, as she realized that the intruder was not one of her ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... maintain, how truly or wrongly I know not, that bears sometimes throw themselves into this position to avoid being seen. Another reason for this attitude they affirm to be, a power possessed by bears of flinging themselves suddenly forward, by a violent jerk, whilst extended on their backs, so as to bring themselves at once into a boat; but this is a feat of which I do not believe them capable. Whilst speaking of bears, I may mention here, that the mate of the Dundee nearly lost his life this summer, from the fury of a she brownie, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... eyes fixed on Armitage, saw his head half turn in her direction, then with the automatic movement of a machine, he reached for the port engine room telegraph and with a jerk threw the port engine full speed astern. The bridge quivered as though it were being torn from its place; throughout the hull sounded a great metallic clanking. There came a new motion. The destroyer was spinning like a top, the bow almost at ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... of the ruins he saw the prow of the aeropile come gliding and stop with a jerk. In a moment Graham understood that the thing had grounded in order that Ostrog might escape by it. He saw a blue haze climbing out of the gulf, perceived that the people below him were now firing ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... one hand on his arm, and Wayne found that he had neither the strength nor the inclination to jerk away. ...
— High Dragon Bump • Don Thompson
... her bed, through which she could see a blaze of red, gold, and purple; and laughing in the vacant manner of the delirious, or those but half-awake, tried to collect her thoughts sufficiently to explain the strangeness of her surroundings, sitting up with a jerk as the doings of the last twenty-four hours suddenly stirred in her ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... Ella, which made her eyes sparkle until they were almost black. The night before, in looking over the articles of dress which she would need, she discovered that there was not a decent pair of stockings in her wardrobe. Mrs. Grundy, to whom she mentioned the fact, replied with a violent shoulder jerk, "For the land's sake! ain't you big enough to go to meetin' barefoot, or did you think we kept silk stockin's for our ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... she asked, quickly, and my beautiful essence bottle was demolished by some sudden jerk which brought it in contact with the marble table. "The brittle thing!" she exclaimed, tossing the fragments on the carpet, at the risk of cutting our slippers and wounding our feet. "I would not thank Ernest for such baby ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... actions and impending treachery. Sometimes it was the quick shot from his rifle, knocking a nigger over, that was the first warning I received. And in my rush to the boat his hand was always there to jerk me flying aboard. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... lady of perfect manners and impeccable breeding, travelling without a chaperon, ought to behave under such trying circumstances, after having allowed herself to be drawn unawares into familiar conversation with a most attractive young artist, when all of a sudden a rapid jerk of the carriage succeeded in extricating her perforce, and against her will, from this awkward dilemma. Something sharp pulled up their train unexpectedly. She was aware of a loud noise and a crash in front, almost instantaneously followed by a thrilling ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... 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 visions was, we ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... with a jerk under the superintendent's hand. There was a snow-choked drumming of the exhaust, and the driving-wheels spun wildly in the flurry beneath. But there was no inch of forward motion, and Ford gave ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... a game like this at Ortega's. Men packed closer and closer, pushing and crowding. The Mexican slowly rattled the single die in the cup. Then, with a quick jerk of the wrist, he turned it out on the table. It rolled, poised, settled. The result amply satisfied Rios and to the line of the lips under his small black mustache came the hint of a smile; he ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... 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 ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... and gentle, and doting despots, and the chain may be satin-smooth and golden-strong; but if it be of rusty iron, parting every now and then and letting the poor prisoner violently loose, and again suddenly caught hold of, bringing him up with a jerk, galling his tender limbs and irretrievably ruining his temper,—it is all the same; there is no help for it. And really, to look around the world and see the people that are its fathers and mothers is appalling,—the narrow-minded, prejudiced, ignorant, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... sort of hazy notion hovering around in my brain, that I ought to learn more about him," the other smiled back. "This thing of being made a target by any fool who happens to own a rifle is something that ought to be stopped with a jerk. Yes, I do expect to try ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... make use of very singular and, permit me to say, inappropriate language. After detailing, in a manner that nearly made me cry and laugh with distress for you and disapprobation of you, all your unnecessary agonies of anxiety about me, you suddenly rein yourself up with an extra-reasonable jerk, and say that "the foolish importance you attach to trifles is as ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... 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 impoverished farms and the flotsam was eloquent ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... is that last crash which is the great taskmaster. Nobody can do anything with it. I have seen Copley Fielding come very close to the jerk and nod of the lifted threatening edge, curl it very successfully, and without any look of its having been in papers, down nearly to the beach, but the final fall has no thunder in it. Turner has tried hard for it once or twice, but it will not do. The moment is ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... wooden "dummy" which had worked so like a charm, and instructed how to manage it, so that it would take the place of a man's lower extremities. Steve did so well that he, too, by a little jerk displaced the delicately arranged "trigger" as Obed called the stake, and caused the barrel to pitch furiously ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... against a mob; but the suddenness of the attack, the loneliness of his surroundings, and the dejection due to his recent dose of fever, for the first instant almost unnerved him, and on the first alarm he sang out lustily for the missionary's help. There was no answer. With a jerk he turned his head, and saw that the other bed was empty. The man had left ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... 52R.—Remained at Camp 52 R all day, to cut up and jerk the meat of the horse Billy, who was so reduced and knocked up for want of food that there appeared little chance of his reaching the other side of the desert; and as we were running short of food of every description ourselves, we thought it best to ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... I had 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
... in mind of the industrious beaver; but they are idle little fellows, evidently liking play better than work. Their heads are not unlike those of young terrier-pups, and their bodies are of a light brown colour. They have little stumpy tails, which, when excited, they constantly jerk up and twist about in a curious fashion. Their habitations are regular cones raised two or three feet above the ground, with a hole in the apex, which is vertical for the depth of two or three feet, and then descends obliquely ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... children would be starved. This is just, quoth Panurge, like those who, as Galen tells us, cannot erect the cavernous nerve towards the equinoctial circle unless they are soundly flogged. By St. Patrick's slipper, whoever should jerk me so, would soon, instead of setting me right, throw me off the ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... cried Walter, 'a thousand thanks! Don't throw them away, Captain Cuttle!' for the Captain was about to jerk them overboard. 'They'll be of much more use to you than me. Give me your stick. I have often thought I should like to have it. There! Good-bye, Captain Cuttle! Take care of my Uncle! Uncle ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... heavy fabric was crammed over his head and tied in place so tightly that he was completely blindfolded and half-suffocated. A noose was knotted around his neck. A suggestive jerk of this noose brought Powell lurching to his feet; there was another commanding jerk, and he obediently ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells
... stupor with a jerk, and did as he was told. Mrs. Wilson, the agent's timid wife, who was not at all aware that she had asked for her carriage, rose obediently. Then the mistress of the house turned to ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 as still ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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 ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... with a sudden jerk to this morning's surprising, almost incredible news. Since her two ladies had gone out, she had opened the newspapers on her kitchen table and read the words for herself—"England Declares War on Germany." But how could England do such a thing, when England ...
— Good Old Anna • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... alarm yourself, Miss Granger," he answered, recovering himself with a jerk; "you did not say anything dreadful, only that you were glad to see me. What were ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... room to the courtiers, and is received with marked deference, each courtier making him a profound bow or curtsey before withdrawing through the central doors. He returns each obeisance with a nervous jerk, and turns away from it, only to find another courtier bowing at the other side. The process finally reduced him to distraction, as he bumps into one in the act of bowing to another and then has to bow his apologies. But at last they are all gone ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... of buffalo. For several days they kept along the banks of the river, ascending it about eighteen miles. It was a hunter's paradise; the buffaloes were in such abundance that they were enabled to kill as many as they pleased, and to jerk a sufficient supply of meat for several days' journeying. Here, then, they reveled and reposed after their hungry and weary travel, hunting and feasting, and reclining upon the grass. Their quiet, however, was ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... the nose. It made him wink, an' he reared an' struck at me with his front hoofs. I ducked to the left an' the minute his hoofs came down I slipped thumb an' forefinger into his nostrils, an' tried to jerk his head around to the right; but I'd thrown him once before that way an' he was too quick. He threw up his head before I could grip his mane with my left, an' a reachin' kick with his right hind ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... the rudder, giving it so violent a jerk that the boat, forced to change her course suddenly, seemed to rear and plunge like a horse struggling against the curb; finally she obeyed. A huge wave, raised by the giant bearing down on the pinnace, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... but only for a second or two, before with a couple of sharp jerks he was dragged under water, while another cry from the savage nearest to the shore gave warning that his was to be a similar fate, one jerk, however, sufficing to drag him under, just as his companions reached the ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... as the man before her moved. Once as she stood, she 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, ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... well have done, by a more circuitous route. I kept on the footpath, and just as I reached the little iron gate which led into the spinney, I felt a man's arm suddenly flung around my neck, and with a jerk I was thrown almost ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... causes with an imperative negative, was so overcome by the popular breeze in favor of the soldiers, that he came into the hospital with a roll of bank-bills in his hand, and passing from cot to cot gave each wounded man a five-dollar bill, repeating, with a spasmodic jerk of his head and a forced smile, "Make yourself comfortable; make yourself comfortable, my good fellow." I am afraid he, poor fellow, did not feel very comfortable, as his money was screwed out of him by the power of ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... whined; and each of them seized a boy by the arm. The boys tried to jerk their arms ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... animal, irritated by its pursuers, would often turn and attempt to gore them with its horns. These, however, the llaneros dexterously avoided; and throwing the lasso over the animal's head, brought it with a violent jerk to the ground, when a thrust of the lance quickly ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... attention to whether she likes it or not. Let her behave like a naughty child, let her kick and scream and cry. Pick her up, Morena, and carry her off. Do you hear? Don't let her make you change your plans." The doctor had seen his patient's convulsive jerk. "Pack her up. Make your reservations and go straight to 'Buck' Yarnall's ranch, Lazy-Y,—that's his brand, I believe,—Middle Fork, Wyoming. I'll send him a wire. He knows me. She needs all outdoors to run about in. She needs joggin' ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... 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 admit instantly that ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Archie, drawing himself up and glancing across at Minnie, and then giving himself an angry jerk as he saw that she ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... and was holding out his hand as if to greet the Arab in a friendly way. The latter also stretched out his hand, and we hoped that the interview would pass off peaceably, when, to our astonishment, we saw the Arab lean over from his saddle, and by a sudden jerk seize Boxall by the arm and place him by his side; then giving the animal a blow with his spear or goad, it set off at a gallop across ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... swung 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
... slacking the painter. As this was a favorable moment for Mr. Parasyte, who was determined to "board" us, he was on the point of stepping forward. As soon as the sails of our craft caught the breeze, she darted off again, straightening the painter, and giving the principal's boat such a fierce jerk, that it not only upset Mr. Parasyte, but heeled his boat over so that she half filled ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... boots the traveller must be able to shoe himself 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 a horse as the times may ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... he said, with a significant wink accompanied by an upward jerk of a pudgy thumb, "the castle, messieurs, is but two miles further along this road. Perhaps, if milords have friends there, they can ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... his kayak to the side of his companion's and, leaning forward, with a quick movement, threw a lasso over the animal's nose and under one tusk. With a terrific jerk of the body, he gave a backward pull—the walrus rose on the water, the kayak was freed of the tusk and slipped away. With a roar the animal sank into the sea. A number now rose angrily about Ootah's kayak. They were bent ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... hatred, and malice,' I s'pose," she said thoughtfully, and Betty's head came up with a jerk to turn upon her a glance ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... an acquired condition in which movement of a finger or thumb, either in flexion or extension, is arrested, and is only completed with the assistance of the other hand. The obstacle to movement is usually overcome with a jerk or snap suggesting a resemblance to the trigger of a gun or the blade of a clasp-knife. The commonest cause is a disproportion between the size of the tendon and its sheath, such as may result from a localised thickening of the tendon. Recovery ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... satyrs o' th' stage, To jerk the failures of a sliding age, Have lavishly expos'd to public view, For a discharge to all from envy due, Here in as lively colours naked lie, With equal wit, and more of modesty, Those poets, with ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... 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 ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... of bushes I could see an eager look on the unlovely face of Moses. He stood leaning toward the water and jiggling his hook along the bottom. Suddenly I saw Mose jerk and felt the cord move. I gave it a double twitch and began to pull. He held hard for a jiffy and then stumbled and let go yelling like mad. The pole hit the water with a splash and went out of sight like a diving frog. I brought it well under the foam and driftwood. Deep Hole resumed its ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... words, spoken in Arabic, but the jerk of the thumb toward him showed that he was the subject of conversation. The Arab addressed by The Sheik bowed to his master and beckoned Baynes to follow him. The Englishman looked toward The Sheik for confirmation. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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
... drawing-room there stepped out a white-capped maid. And one may just as well say at once—and have done with it—that this is the point where the quiet, peaceful scene in domestic life terminates with a jerk, and pity and terror resume work at the ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... her," 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 are! ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... gazing round 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. I ask again. ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... 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 ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... her chin. As I threw down the window and knelt on the cushioned seat, leaning far out to get a better view, a long whistle screamed through the station, followed by a quick series of dull, clanking sounds; then there was a slight jerk, and my train moved on. Luckily the window was narrow, being the one over the seat, beside the door, or I believe I would have jumped out of it then and there. In an instant the speed increased, and I was being carried swiftly away in the ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... out now," he said, at last. "I've got other things to tend to. Can't stay here no longer, nohow." He unlocked the door and threw it open with a jerk. "Time's up!" he shouted, and Dorothy came out directly, almost as if she were running away. Alvin Mead clapped to the door with a great jar and locked it. Madelon, had she tried, could not have got a glimpse of Burr; but she did not try. She sprang at Dorothy Fair, and took her by the shoulders, ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... into Farquaharson's room and grinned as he tossed a magazine down on the table. "Sic fama est" was his comment, and Stuart picked up the sheet which his visitor indicated with a jerk of the thumb. The magazine was a weekly devoted ostensibly to the doings of smart society, but its real distinction lay in its innuendo and its genius for sailing so close to the wind of libel that those who moved in the rarified air ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... rapidity. Duncan 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • 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 with his ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... stared me in the face. Nine out of every ten of the people I met or passed spoke in a language that to me was as unintelligibly mysterious as the cuneiform characters on Mr. Layard's Nineveh sculptures. It was a hard, harsh, guttural dialect, which even those who were to the manner born seemed to jerk out painfully and spasmodically from their lingual organs. This was especially obvious during a bargain, where an excited market-man was endeavoring to pass off a tough old gander as a tender young goose, to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... and toyed with it. You know her habit 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 his head; rushed out; fancied the ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... water. The stern sank 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
... first few go-arounds, will it? and if we switch it now, somebody'll start getting suspicious of this magneto-ionic effect. The effect that's doing all this. A sudden reversal might not be in its character, if it had a character. And anyhow, we don't want to give another jerk on Hot Rod. We might jerk something loose this time. We've already wiped out Thule Base—and there's no use adding scalps to an already ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... time the pony was far from idle. He was plunging like a ship in a gale, cracking the whip with Phil Forrest until it seemed as if every bone in the lad's body would be broken. He could hear his own neck snap with every jerk. ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... to the circle of metal on the floor and the machines around the room. 'Those are what we used to jerk you from your own time to this one,' ...
— The Man Who Saw the Future • Edmond Hamilton
... that Toby did not know about bringing the bootjack. He looked as if he would have preferred to jerk the chair from beneath the sprawling Lysander, and ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... the midst of this consternation, 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 living ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Emmeline, "you are not in your first bloom. That we can't expect. Your colour is a little harder and more fixed" (the figure in the glass gave a spasmodic jerk. The sulky expression was pierced by a gleam of fear. "Fixed!" Good gracious! She might be talking of those old people who have little red lines over their cheek-bones in the place of "bloom". It's ridiculous to say ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... whistle. Buster wheeled and came back to his first position, where he stood trembling. On came Sioux, his hoofs rocking the echoes, and with every apparent intention of goring his mistress. But ten feet from Judith he pulled up with a jerk and with stiffened fore legs slid to her side, and rubbed his great head against her shoulder. Judith threw her arm about his neck and hugged him, white teeth flashed at the grandstand, which rose to its feet ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... fell with a curious whistling crackling noise, tightening against the fisherman's foot; and the knot would have jumped off but for his precaution. Then it stopped with a jerk, and Josh shouted again: ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... That very steel bow, owing to that very position, could not escape Gerard's hands, one of which grasped it, and the other went between the bow and the cord, which was as good. The next moment, Denys, by means of his crossbow, was hoisted with so eager a jerk that half his body bobbed up out ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... 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
... packsaddles, to the latter part of which was fastened a pair of hobbles made of hickory withes,—a bell and collar ornamented their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the salt were filled with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a provision for the drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses, whether put in pasture or turned out into the woods, were hobbled and the bells were opened. The barter for salt ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... connected by a jackstay to which the nets were attached. Each steel boom weighed 5 cwt., or less than half the weight of the ordinary boom, and whereas the latter is fixed to the ship's side by a hook which is liable to be disconnected or broken by the jerk of an exploding torpedo, Mr. Bullivant's boom works in a universal or socket joint, which cannot get out of gear except by fracture, and which permits the boom to be moved in any direction, whether vertically or fore and aft, close ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... stopped his resistance, and at the same time felt about with his legs until he had them well braced against a lower tentacle. He pushed gently, and came a few inches nearer the glass; a little more. Then, with a quick, strong jerk of his body he crashed the steel frame of his helmet square against ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... pebble struck that part of the burro's anatomy at which it was aimed; the dog barked; and Croesus—with an indignant jerk of his head, and a flirt of his tail—started forward. At the fork of the trail, he paused. The two men waited with breathless interest. With an air of accepting the responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled and trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... her shoulder into the glass, he saw the expression on her face, faintly amused, faintly contemptuous, as much as to say: "Thanks! You will never learn!" No, thank God, he wasn't a Frenchman! He finished with a jerk, and the words: "It's too low here." And he went to the door, with the wish to get away from her and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... it. When she had left her home this afternoon, she had struggled hard to dress herself so that something of the charm of apparel might be left to her; but she had known of her own failure at every twist that she had given to her gown, and at every jerk with which she had settled her shawl. She had despaired at every push she had given to her old flowers, vainly striving to bring them back to their old forms; but still she had persevered. With long tedious care she had mended the old gloves which would hardly ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Somazzo left 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. Let him catch ...
— The Shipwreck - A Story for the Young • Joseph Spillman
... baked upon this. What would American housewives say to such a system as this? The viands being prepared, they were set out upon a small table, at which we were invited to seat ourselves. The meal consisted of tortillas, stewed jerk beef, with chile seasoning, milk, and quesadillas, or cheesecakes, green and tough as leather. However, our appetites were excellent, and we enjoyed the repast with ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... at a breathless pace. "If only you could dion the rain-cloud," he cried back. "I am praying that God may keep it back," was all Mary could jerk out. The way seemed endless, and the shadows of night fell swiftly about them, but at last they arrived near the spot and were joined by the mistress of the slave and an old naked woman. They found the mother lying on the ground surrounded by charms. "Ma" pushed ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... behind Tom; the boat received a violent jerk as Dick Bannock gave it a thrust right away from the schooner, and simultaneously the men were deluged with water by a tremendous splash close to their side. Then a big wave rose and lapped over into the boat, striking Mark just as his fingers touched ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... he didn't believe me, and he kept it out of my reach, turning it carefully about, and in response to a jerk of his chin two or three of his colleagues came up and glared, first, at me, and than at the suspicious object. However, he would not let them touch it, but, squaring his chin and taking a deep breath, he turned ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... own way. This he did for about eighty yards, when he suddenly stopped. This unexpected halt was a great calamity, for the reel overran itself, having no checkwheel, and the slack bends of the line caught the handle just as he again rushed forward, and with a jerk that nearly pulled the rod from my hands he was gone! I found one of my large hooks broken short off. ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... 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 ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... January Januaro. 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 tinti. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... together, and that was the prettiest contest of the day. First the judge'd beat the general, and then the general'd put in a big effort and give it to the judge, and the two'd be about even for a while, and all of a sudden the general would give a kinder jerk or two and leave the judge just nowhere, and by the time the general passed the third quarter the judge keeled over against the fence and gave in. They say he broke his leg, but I don't know if that's so or not. Anyway he was used up. If he'd passed ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk!—he was as erect, and carried his ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... across the hall, and opened the door with a jerk. The suddenness of the movement was apparently not anticipated by the person outside, who, with one arm stretched feebly towards the receding knocker, tilted gently forward, and rested both hands on the ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... 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
... enraged Benkei that he rushed to the rope waved the monks aside and seizing the rope strained every muscle to jerk the beam its entire length afield, and then let fly with force enough to crack the bell. For a moment the dense volume of sound filled the ears of all like a storm, but as the vibrations died away, the bell ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... 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 to be ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... 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 and to continue to ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... 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 ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... were white 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 jus' ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... the unpleasant driver, and in went the clutch. The man in the road jumped hastily to one side as the car shot backward with a jerk, curved sharply, stopped for the fraction of a second, and then bounded forward again, headed ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... bawled the other, when he found he could not easily jerk away. "It'll be the worse ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... brake on the line tightened, the boat began to tear through the water, still requiring the paying out of the rope. For an instant it slackened and the winch reeled in a little line. There was a sudden jerk and then the line fell slack. Working like demons, the men made the winch handles fairly fly as the line came in, and within another minute the whale spouted, blowing strongly and sounding again. He sulked at the bottom for over ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... of a wild shouting in the boat, of the rapid beating of oars which made the water fly up in fountains; then, as he swam with all his might, of a violent blow on the shoulder followed by a jerk, and then half insensible from the shock he was being dragged ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... short-sighted eyes, indolence, carelessness, and a temper which (usually sweet and angelic) is goaded to madness by the laws of matter and of gravitation. For example: when another man is caught up in a branch he disengages his fly; I jerk at it till something breaks. As for carelessness, in boyhood I fished, by preference, with doubtful gut and knots ill-tied; it made the risk greater, and increased the excitement if one did hook a trout. I can't keep a fly-book. I stuff the flies into ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... night and everything looked unreal and magical. Now and then the grass would bow down with a sudden jerk, as people do in their sleep, if they dream that they are falling, and then for a moment the lawyer would feel a warm breath, which vanished as suddenly as it came. A confused mass of gray and black clouds swept rapidly ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... disregarded, as the way business of freight and passengers was the chief profit often of the trip, and it seems hard for pilots and captains always to be on their guard against a decoy. At this landing the signal was given, all as it should be, and we were just rounding to, when, with a sudden jerk, the boat swung round into the stream again. The mistake was discovered in time, by a government officer on board, and we escaped an ambush. Just think! we might have been prisoners in Mississippi now, but God meant better things ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... the stairs to the main-deck and peered about in the smoking-quarters, running his eyes over the faces of the men gathered there. All at once he lifted his chin with a little jerk and climbed the stairs again. A big man tossed away a cigar and followed at a respectful distance. He pursued Mr. Fogg through the saloon and down a corridor and went into a stateroom on the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... lurking near the surface all the time—that she was conscious she would much prefer to have enlisted on her behalf than against her. The strong, firm chin bore this out. He was not handsome, but—with a sort of mental jerk, she forced her mind back to the stark realities of her surroundings. She could not thank him for what he had done last night. She could not tell him that she was the White Moll. She could only play out the role of Gypsy Nan until—until—Her hand tightened with a fierce, involuntary ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... he replied, with a jerk of his thumb over one shoulder, "that we should stay the night here, and he sent these things forward by a short cut over ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... fathom 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 ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... other in simplicity, definiteness, uniformity 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 ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... although, while pacing up and down the street, he vowed every turn should be the last, he had completed his nineteenth, and was on the eve of commencing his twentieth, when Mrs. Stanmore's carriage rolled up to the door, stopping with a jerk, to discharge itself of that lady and Maud, looking cool, fresh, and unrumpled as when they started. The revulsion of feeling was almost too much for Dick. By instinct, rather than with intention, he came forward to help them out, so confused in his ideas that he ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... the revolutionary idea of Americanization falls down. Are you going to prove to the immigrant in one lesson that he is all wrong? Are you going to undo with a single jerk what it has taken centuries to do? Are you going to take this man and by a sort of patronizing coercion, yank him out himself and leave him, high and dry—nowhere? Or are you going to give him a reasonable time to learn the things of the new world, time to be influenced ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... stirred in their seats, turning aside, with gestures almost of pain, of imprisonment. Only Alfredo, laying his hand on mine, was laughing, loosely, floridly. He would upset all the Government with a jerk of his well-built shoulder, and then he would have a spree—such a spree. He laughed ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... the platform gave a jerk and immediately moved out towards the open country, compartment doors swinging wide, trainmen and guards running alongside, followed by a mob of frenzied passengers, who leaped into empty compartments, flinging satchels ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... this rule are the fillet or under-cut in a sirloin of beef, and the slices along the bone in a saddle of mutton. In cutting a joint of meat, the strong fork is used to steady it; but in carving poultry it is the fork which is most useful in removing the wing and leg by a jerk, without leaving any ragged remains adhering to the body. All this must be accomplished by dexterity, not by strength, and any lady may acquire the art by ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... tragedies!" she was thinking. Then with a jerk she pulled herself up. "But I guess I can handle it," she declared finally, and when she succeeded in rousing Judith no one would have ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... 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
... to show off all her perfections. Her most peculiar merit consisted, perhaps, in her power of stopping herself suddenly, while going on at the rate of a hunt one way, and without any pause or apparent difficulty going just as fast the other way. This was done by a jerk which must, one would be inclined to think, have dislocated all her bones and entirely upset her internal arrangements. But no; it was done without injury, or any disagreeable result either to her brain or elsewhere. We all know how a steamer is manoeuvred ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... startled glance. "Wouldn't you think so? For an old man, a very rickety old party? The ladders are steep, you know, and rusty." He approached the window again and put it up softly. In a moment he drew his head back with a jerk. He caught Eastman's arm and shoved him toward the window. "Hurry, please. Look! Down there." He pointed to the little patch of paved court four ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... thus emphatically declared herself, resigned the right of speech to her husband, who began to jerk out in disconnected phrases a statement of his case. Seven days ago he had annoyed his wife by some incautious word; she had annoyed him by an incautious answer; he had made matters worse by an aggravating retort; and she had widened the breach by a bitter reply. ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... think it ought to be, and at the same instant my feet leave the ground. It is all in the toss. The next moment I may be rolling in the gravel with broken ribs, or arms, or head. But my fingers grip the hand-hold, there is a jerk on my arms that slightly pivots my body, and my feet land on the steps with ...
— The Road • Jack London
... was thinking about, is none of our business; but whatever it was, her revery was suddenly disturbed, and the good nature that beamed from her face dispelled, by the noisy clattering of more than one pair of little boots on the stairs. In a moment, the door opened with a jerk and a push, and in bounded three boys, with as little display of manners or propriety as so many savages might exhibit. The oldest directed his steps to the closet, singing, as he ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... latest czar a breathing-spell. No new prize-fighter had arisen to wrest the championship of the world from John Sullivan, who had put all his old rivals 'to sleep.' 'Ole Man' Terrill proceeded to follow their example. He had been up late the night before at a poker game. His head fell forward with a jerk. Aroused by the shock, he glanced drowsily about him. Heat-waves danced before the open window. Deep silence hung over his little world. Again his eyelids closed; his head dropped, and slowly he slipped ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... 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 is that he cannot ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... 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 ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... you, Kit!" exclaimed Marjorie. "I'd snatch the papers off so fast you couldn't see me jerk." ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... laughed with a careless jovial note. "Oh, you belong to the old towns back there," with a jerk of his head toward the rear. "In the wilderness we don't have ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... such thing, but she desired that Pauncefort would make no more observations on the subject, either to her or to any one else. And then Pauncefort bade her ladyship good night in a huff, catching up her candle with a rather impertinent jerk, and gently slamming the door, as if she had meant to close it quietly, only it had escaped ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... 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
... stopped with a jerk at his station and Howard rode down in the elevator to the street Crossing Eighth Avenue, he was going straight home when suddenly he halted. The glitter and tempting array of bottles in a corner saloon window tempted him. ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... secret follower John Fairmeadow was not aware. Near the Cafe of Egyptian Delights he stumbled. The pursuing Shadow gasped; and John Fairmeadow was so mightily exercised for his pack that he ejaculated in a fashion most unministerial, but recovered his footing with a jerk, and doubtless near turned pale with apprehension. But the pack was safe—the delicate contents, whatever they were, quite undisturbed. John Fairmeadow gently adjusted the pack, stamped the snow from his soles, as a ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... his position. He now 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 ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wildly started by a conceited driver, who sets out with a plunge, and continues his course with a prolonged crash, as though the fate of empires reposed in his mail-bags. You come to a ditch; you go in with a plunge, and come out with a jerk. Your head hits the back of the hood when you go in, your nose hits the back of the driver when you come out. A rut in the road causes one wheel to descend suddenly about eighteen inches; or an unavoidable lump of that height produces the same effect; ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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 could only get three miles an hour out of our vessel—alone, we could have gone five; making ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... these sounds; the shrill whistle, betokening all was ready; the converting of all the employes into animated sign-posts, that waved their arms wildly; the grunt and wheeze from the engine, as if from a giant in pain; the sharp jerk, and then the steady pull at the carriage in which I was sitting; the "pant, pant! puff, puff!" of the iron horse, as he buckled to his work with a will; and then, finally, the preliminary oscillation of the ponderous train, the trembling and rumbling ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... dogs sit and bark and jerk, ready to dodge into their hole in a moment. They all looked fat and clumsy. Their color is reddish-brown. Owls and rattlesnakes are often found living with them; but Annie did not ...
— The Nursery, August 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 2 • Various
... the testator did not know and approve its contents, and an amended answer pleading that the said alleged will, if executed, was obtained by the undue influence of Augusta Smithers"—and once more his nervousness overcame him, and he pulled up with a jerk. ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... behind him, and had time to note the box of studs, German shaving tackle and rolls of twist which lay untidily in the window ere Smith kicked the door open, clattered down three wooden steps, and pulled himself up with a jerk, seizing ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... his Colt revolver from the holster under his 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 gesture ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
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